The Mad Monk of Gidleigh (11 page)

For a long while after that date he had not believed that his friends and comrades would be sent to the stakes. All through the hideous testing of the men, while they were tortured, many to death, threatened, and some summarily executed, Baldwin had believed that the Pope must rescue them. The Pope had to recognise their innocence and proclaim that their arrest was all a hideous mistake. When it didn’t happen, he wondered whether there was some vestige of truth in the allegations, and it was only when his Grand Master, Jacques de Molay, denounced his executioners and declared his innocence and the innocence of the Order, that Baldwin realised the truth: the whole matter had been staged in order that the French King and the Pope could grasp the wealth of the Knights Templar for their own advantage. The most noble Order of Knights had been destroyed, the most devout Christians murdered, in order that two implacably avaricious men should satisfy their lust for wealth.

It was that, so Simon had once said, which had forged Baldwin’s suitability for the task of weighing men’s innocence or guilt. Baldwin had seen how Justice could fail. He had lost faith in the Pope and secular rulers, for if the greatest Christian King and the Pope himself could be corrupt, how could a man trust those who worked beneath them?

The injustice and horror of it all had left Baldwin a cynical and caustic man in the years immediately following the destruction of his Order, but that aspect of his character had mellowed; indeed, these days it was all but gone. He still bore the same wrinkles and marks of pain which had grown to decorate his features during that lengthy period of rough living when his life was in perpetual danger, but now they simply looked like the honourable marks of a man who was older than middle age. Since he had been fortunate enough to find and marry Lady Jeanne de Liddinstone, his figure had filled out, and the expression in his eyes had lost some of the introspection of 1315. Today he was as likely to smile and laugh as to snarl.

Not that Sir Baldwin himself would admit that he had changed. If asked, he would have declared that he was the same man who had set sail in 1290 to join the defenders of Acre against the hordes of pagan Saracens. Yet he secretly knew it wasn’t the case. He felt the same, held some of the same opinions and beliefs, but in the same way that his body would occasionally let him down with sharp aches and pains or grumbling muscles when he had taken too much exercise, his attitude to life had changed. He was cooler, calmer, and more fiercely protective of this land of his.

It was probably the effect of the parlous state of the realm itself, the mutterings of dissatisfaction with the King, the open contempt for Edward’s two most trusted advisers, the Despensers, and of course the terrible disaster of the campaign against the Scots. There were certainly enough matters to cause an informed, intelligent man to pause and consider. Men muttered that it would be better to have open war and destroy the Despensers. That avaricious and murderous family ignored the law and robbed and imprisoned people without trial, purely to ransom them for whatever the Despensers wanted.

One man had even suggested, in Baldwin’s hearing, that an assassin should be hired to kill the Despensers. There Baldwin drew the line. When he had lived in Acre, and afterwards on Cyprus, he had heard of the dreaded
Hashishim
of the Old Man of the Mountain. He was a terrifying mercenary who would point his drugged adherents at any man if he was paid enough, and his crazed killers invariably succeeded in their murders. To Baldwin, a Templar, the idea of a clandestine murderer of that sort was uniquely repellent. A man should stand and fight in the open, calling on his enemy to defend himself. How different from the single madman hiding beneath a bed or behind a tapestry, stabbing or poisoning. That was the act of a coward, an act which must lead to terror among all right-thinking men.

Following the roadway as it curved around the last hill, Crediton was at last laid before him. Over the last few years the Canons of the great church had built many new houses for themselves, their servants and novices, and now the view that met Baldwin’s eye was one of bustle and confusion all the way out to the water meadow at the easternmost point of the town, especially near the church itself. There people milled about some more construction work. Craftsmen bawled orders to apprentices, smiths hammered, hawkers and tranters wandered shouting their wares. Over it all was the warm, light haze of the smoke from the fires.

He had little enthusiasm for business today, and he idled up the road. The shops and houses on either side gleamed, damp from the night’s rain, while the ground beneath him was foul, spatted with excrement from the herd of cattle which he could still see being taken through the town and out to the pastures near the river.

When he arrived at the church’s buildings, he made for the timber-framed hall in which he held his court. It was owned by the church, and there were stables behind where visitors could leave their mounts. Baldwin swung himself from his saddle and bellowed for the groom. The lad should look after horses for a few copper coins, but he was routinely late to observe a new client.

‘Jack?
Jack!
Get out here now, you lazy son of a–’

The youth appeared in the alley that led behind the town’s hall, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. ‘Oh, Sir Baldwin, I didn’t hear you. I was… er, filling the…’

‘Do not lie to me, Jack. I can recognise a lie two miles distant.’

‘I wouldn’t think of lying to you, Sir Baldwin,’ Jack said in a hurt tone.

‘You should leave cheap wine alone, boy. Save your money until you can afford a decent drink. Maybe then you would not fall asleep.’

‘Sir Baldwin, I haven’t been drinking. Not much, anyway.’

‘I can smell it from seven paces, Jack,’ Baldwin said grumpily and passed him the reins.

‘You are my favourite customer, sir. Out of all them who come here, it’s you I serve first and keenest.’

‘That says little for your treatment of other clients, since you are always asleep whenever I arrive! Now give my horse a good rubdown and rest. He has come far enough to warrant at least as much rest as you seem to think you deserve yourself.’

‘Sir Knight, that’s not fair.’

‘I often think I should take my custom to the inn’s ostlers. At least the men there seem interested to have my business,’ Baldwin grumbled.

‘Don’t do that, please, Sir Baldwin!’ Jack’s face had paled, and he hung his head, looking up at Baldwin with sorrowful eyes. ‘You know my wife and–’

‘And three children would suffer,’ Baldwin said testily. ‘Yes, I know. You tell me every time I come here. But I
will
go to them if you do not stay awake and listen for my arrival.’

‘Yes, Sir Baldwin.’

‘So – see to my mount!’

The youth nodded, ducked his head submissively, and led the horse away towards his stable.

Baldwin watched him go with a glower fixed to his face. The trouble was, he knew that the lad was desperate for the money. If Baldwin stopped bringing his horse here, Jack probably wouldn’t have enough income to keep his wife and children. That wasn’t something Baldwin wanted on his conscience. He had seen enough suffering in the last few years.

It wasn’t the fault of the groom that he was so sharp-tempered today. No, it was all to do with Roger Scut.

This morning’s work was not difficult, but it involved much reading and agreeing of documents with one of Bishop Walter’s clerks. There was to be a court of Gaol Delivery in Exeter in a matter of days, and Baldwin must go through all his cases in which a man had been sent to Exeter Gaol from his court to make sure that none had been forgotten and that the relevant material was all there. Then, when each case came before the men nominated to try it, at least Baldwin himself should escape a fine. He would hope so, for he was to be one of the Gaol Delivery Justices, and setting a fine upon himself would be embarrassing.

Never Baldwin’s favourite task, today he looked forward to reading through the records with less than his usual good-humoured tolerance. All because of Roger Scut, who was in the hall as Baldwin entered.

The odious little man! Chubby and ingratiating, almost half a head shorter than Baldwin, Scut’s hands fluttered as he spoke, as though emphasising his every point. What Baldwin found most annoying was Scut’s habit, or perhaps it was a deliberate affectation, of tilting back his head and squinting along the length of his nose, as though it gave gravitas to his pronouncements. Not that his nose itself was particularly deserving of such attention, to Baldwin’s mind. It was a short, bloated appendage with red and purple blood vessels spread liberally over it. A cider drinker’s nose if Baldwin had ever seen one, which probably explained why the clerk’s voice was so nasal as well. But his habits and his nose were not his only unattractive features. He possessed many others. His eyes, for example.

His eyes were like a ferret’s, always looking about for something, as though he believed that there was a secret to be teased out of the woodwork if he could only but find it. That was another thing that Baldwin disliked about Scut. The way he would not meet Baldwin’s eyes when they spoke. The knight had no doubt that the clerk was honest enough. Yet a man who would not or could not speak to you and meet your eyes was all too commonly concealing something. Baldwin did not trust Roger Scut, the oleaginous little shit.

Not for the first time, Baldwin reminded himself that a ‘scut’ was a common word for an arse on a rabbit or a woman. An old woman, he reckoned, glancing at Scut without amusement.

‘Good Sir Knight! Godspeed, my dear Sir Baldwin. It is a pleasure to see you again. Do I find you well?’

‘Well enough,’ Baldwin said shortly.

Roger Scut was already sitting at the great table in the hall, a pile of papers rolled neatly at his side on the floor, most held in strong, waxed leather tubes. Sheets of parchment were spread before him, held at each corner by large stones wrapped in leather to prevent marking the records. Most people Baldwin knew would not bother with such fripperies. Provided that the stones were clean and not too rough, they would do no damage – but this was just another of Scut’s little affectations. He hated dirt.

Roger Scut picked up a reed and studied the end. Taking up a small knife, he sharpened it and cut the end freshly. There were a number of reeds on the table, and an inkhorn was carefully propped against Roger’s purse.

Baldwin shouted for a pie and a jug of wine, before sitting with a grunt and glancing at the papers before him. Records of crimes committed, money amerced, property confiscated, and then lists of witnesses who would have to be told to travel to Exeter. Baldwin found it hard to suppress a groan. The thought of spending hours alone with this clerk was deeply unpleasant.

‘Please, Sir Knight, look at these first,’ Scut said, pointing to the gaol delivery records.

Baldwin glanced at the figures and tried to fit an expression of interest on his face.

While Sir Baldwin de Furnshill suffered the tortures of adding and subtracting the Latin figures, trying to reach agreement on the totals with Roger Scut, his friend Simon Puttock was returning to his own home after a lengthy meeting with his master, the Abbot of Tavistock.

Simon was a tall man, his dark hair sprinkled with silver now that he was nearing his middle thirties, but although his belly had grown in the last year, and he was the possessor of a second chin, he still rode across the moors often enough on Stannary business to keep his weight from exploding. His face was ruddy-complexioned from his hours abroad in all weathers, and the lines that marked his brow gave character to his features.

He looked relaxed enough today as he rode back from Tavistock to his home at Lydford, but that was only on the surface. As Bailiff, he was an official of Stannary Law, and all too often his expression must reflect the severity of the rough justice given at the Stannary Court. Outside the Court, he was contented enough, and judged by many to be a good companion, but when he was at his rest, his smile was often tempered with sadness in memory of his firstborn son, Peterkin, who had died some few years ago of a fever. The pain of losing him would never leave Simon, or so he felt. Death had marked both him and his wife; their grief was only moderated when their second son was born, named, like the first, Peterkin.

Now he had more to occupy his mind than memories of his dead child. Since the terrible events of the last year, life was becoming more complicated.

In 1318 Abbot Robert had paid three hundred pounds to buy the revenues from all the tin-mining in Dartmoor for three years. It had proved a worthwhile investment, and in 1321 he leased the revenues for one hundred pounds a year over ten years. It brought in a good sum annually, and his most important official was Simon, his Bailiff, the man charged with maintaining law and order on the moors. It was Simon who must negotiate with miners and landowners, who had to defuse arguments almost before they started, who had to soothe the ruffled feathers of knights and barons all around the King’s forest of Dartmoor when the tinners took it into their heads to divert streams or declare that another prime piece of pasture was perfect for mining. There were always rows between the miners and the other inhabitants of the Stannaries or their near neighbours. When those disputes came to blows, it was Simon who must perform his inquest and record the details so that the matter could be raised at the next Stannary Court and suitable fines or punishments imposed.

It was wearing on a man, but Simon had coped well so far. Nowadays, though, he was losing his temper more and more often. He wasn’t naturally irascible, but he had problems enough to distract him, and they made his brow darken now as he lurched on homeward.

The problems had begun with his daughter, Edith, about a year ago. Recently he had felt close to a form of peace with her, but things had flared up again. He knew why, but knowing the root cause of a problem was not the same as possessing a cure.