The Mad Monk of Gidleigh (23 page)

Towards the rear of the line he found what he sought. He wheeled and glanced back. As he had ordered, his men were strung out behind him, and when he pointed, they all rode down, using their momentum to panic the men and their animals still more.

It worked. The packhorses whinnied and tried to bolt. Their owners were stuck for a choice: protect their property by drawing a knife and see their packhorses disappear into the distance, or fight to control their mounts and hope to see to their attackers later. In the event, some saw fit to draw steel, and their horses were herded away by the three men Esmon had ordered to catch them. The others were soon forced back, swords from the back of a horse being more effective weapons than knives in the hands of merchants and tranters. The carts were forced to halt.

Only one man stood his ground against the raiders. He was walking beside a pair of heavily laden ponies, their broad backs weighted down with leather satchels bound securely to strong cross frames. As soon as the men burst from their cover, Esmon saw him pull his ponies swiftly down towards the stone wall. There he tried to scramble up and over, but the wall was mossy and slick with rainwater, and he couldn’t manage it while holding onto his ponies’ reins. In the end, he slithered to the ground and drew a long-bladed knife.

He was a sturdy fellow, was Wylkyn, thick-shouldered and with the wild hair of a moorman. His eyes flitted over the men of the ambush and at last rested on Esmon as though recognising he was the leader. ‘So, felon! You’re still in charge of this rabble, are you?’

‘Hold your tongue, Wylkyn!’ Esmon shouted. ‘Get back up here and sheath that knife, little man or, by Christ, I’ll take your hand off. Bring your ponies.’

‘You have the look of a knight, but the behaviour of an outlaw. I’ll not bring my ponies to a robber! You want them, you’ll have to take them from me. But it’s not them you’re after, is it? It’s me, you shite!’

The man glanced over his shoulder at the wall as though guessing whether he could leap it in a bound, but then he stepped in front of his ponies, set his shoulders and gripped his knife more firmly. ‘
No
. You want me, you’ll have to take me.’

‘You miserable bastard son of a poxed whore!’ Esmon screamed. His blood was still up, his anger easily ignited after the recollection of his father’s treatment of him, and he was in front of his men, too. He had to show them that he wasn’t fearful of a peasant, no matter how grim his features with those narrowed eyes and thin line of a mouth, all but hidden behind the pepper and salt beard.

He spurred his horse and aimed at the man, intending to run him down, but the fellow darted aside at the last minute. Esmon wheeled his horse and Wylkyn sprang out of the way again, but Esmon laughed and rode on past him, scaring his ponies. They whinnied and bolted, running up the hill. Esmon saw Brian leaving the main body of travellers and haring after them, whooping with excitement.

Esmon shot a look up the hill to make sure that they were caught, and then smiled coldly at the miner. ‘So much for your defiance, peasant!’

‘At least I behave like a man of honour, better that and penniless than a mere thief who sports the outer livery of a man of chivalry while his soul is blacker than night in a mine!’ Wylkyn spat. ‘You are dishonoured and a coward! I name you felon and outlaw! Come, fight me fairly, if you dare. You’ve already killed my brother.’

‘It should have been
you
!’

‘I know. You thought it
was
me, didn’t you? Just because I was in town.’

‘And now he’s gone to Hell in your place, Wylkyn.’

‘He won’t be there when you arrive,
murderer
! He’ll be in Heaven,’ Wylkyn cried hoarsely.

Esmon looked at the sun. There was no time to prolong this. Luckily Wylkyn was inexperienced as a fighter, for all his bluster. Dispassionately Esmon watched to make sure that the travellers were being led away, and once they and his men were out of sight, he ran his horse once more at the man. This time, although the miner slipped to one side, Esmon didn’t give him the opportunity of escape. He swept his sword around in a great arc and Wylkyn coughed and stared down as though in disbelief at his knife. It lay on the ground a short distance from his arm, still gripped in his hand, the fingers twitching, while the blood pumped brightly from his wrist where it had been severed.

He looked up at Esmon with cold contempt. ‘You fucking coward!’

That was enough. The bloodlust washed over him. ‘Die, you prickle!’ Esmon shrieked and urged his horse forward. He swung again, and his blade sank deeply into Wylkyn’s shoulder. He grunted, a deep, pained noise that snorted in his nose like a final snore, and Esmon had to kick at his horse and use the leverage of his mount’s movement to free his blade.

Later, when he was riding back to the castle at the head of the travellers, he felt a crust on his upper lip. Scraping at it with a tooth, he realised it was Wylkyn’s blood, and he smiled. It felt good to have killed again – and now, once he had dumped this lot at the castle, he could go and find the owner of those buttocks. He could do with a tumble on a woman now.

It was the next day, late in the forenoon, that Simon received his second messenger. He had suffered an interminably lengthy explanation of a dispute between two angry miners, neither of whom had bothered to mark their claims with the customary turves piled at the edges. They had simply started digging, and soon thereafter fighting. He fined them both when he grew bored with their whining and arguing.

As he reached his home, desperate for a bowl of thick stew to warm him after the draughts and cold of the castle, Simon saw his wife appear in the doorway. Tall, slim and elegant, with her long blonde hair coiled under her wimple, he adored her even after many years of marriage. When she smiled, he was unaware of the passage of time; it was as though he was seeing her, once more, as she had been when he first met her. As she drew nearer him, all he was aware of was the calmness which she radiated, and his first impression was that he could rest here.

She said, ‘A boy has just arrived. There’s a problem over at Gidleigh.’

Simon scowled and swore. ‘God’s belly! What do they want of me? I’ve already said that I won’t go there. Where’s the messenger?’

‘In the buttery. I sent him there to refresh himself. I wasn’t sure if you wanted him to take back a message.’

‘The only message I’m likely to send is one that tells them to stop wasting my time,’ Simon said bitterly. ‘I’ll speak to him later.’

‘Good, Husband.’

There was a jarring tone in her voice that rankled, but Simon swallowed his irritation and tried to sound conciliatory. ‘I am sorry to have spoken so grimly, my love, but I have had a sorely trying morning.’

‘I understand. Your work is important.’

‘Meg, please! It’s not as important to me as you are.’

She turned to face him. ‘It hardly feels like it, Husband.’

‘Why do you say that?’

She wouldn’t meet his eyes. ‘Simon, our daughter is very unhappy to be going away.’

‘I know, but what would you have me do – leave her here on her own? You know we can’t do that.’

‘I could stay here with her… Simon, don’t pull away like that! Please, we have to talk about this. I know you have no choice about the work…’

‘Do you? It sounds as though you blame me for accepting what was never mine to choose,’ he said bitterly.

‘No man is free of a master,’ she agreed sadly. ‘But we should still take account of Edith’s position. She is in love, she thinks.’

‘Thinks!’ Simon expostulated. ‘And how often have we heard
that
in the last few years?’

‘No matter. She is firm in her belief and…’

Simon gazed at her. There was a hesitancy about her that made him listen intently. ‘And?’

‘And she says she has given her word to marry him.’

‘Christ’s blood!’ Simon roared. ‘I’ll teach her to–’

‘Simon, please!’ Margaret said, putting a hand on his arm. ‘Be still for once and listen.’

‘I always listen,’ he glowered. ‘I am more patient than many.’

‘Then listen now, and stop shouting. She hasn’t given her pledge in terms of present intent.’

He felt his heart’s pounding slow a little at that. If she had given her words in present terms, she was legally married, and there was nothing Simon or even the Church could do about it. Well, not if she’d done it in front of witnesses, anyway. But if she’d sworn to marry in the future, that was different. It was a far less binding covenant. ‘Then what?’

‘She won’t marry, she says, without your approval.’

‘Who is this wastrel cutpurse who would filch my daughter, then?’ Simon asked uncharitably. He was already unhappy about his move to Dartmouth, and the effect it was having on his wife and his daughter. The thought that young Edith could have gone ahead and offered herself in marriage without speaking to him first rankled.

‘He is a good boy, Simon. A freeman.’

‘What sort of a freeman?’ Simon asked suspiciously.

‘Apprentice to a merchant,’ she said, but quietly, as though slightly reluctant to admit it.

‘Merchant?’ he repeated blankly. ‘But there’s only one merchant here. I… Oh, Christ’s cods, not
him
!’

‘Now don’t be like that, Husband,’ she entreated. ‘He is a perfectly well-meaning lad, and I don’t think he–’

‘He’s as gormless as a newborn mastiff,’ he said bluntly. ‘Dim and vapid. All he ever thinks about is the tightness of his hose! Spends as much time staring at his own ankles as at hers, I expect. Damned pansy! All these modern trends for fashion and high-living, furs and silks and other fripperies! Christ’s blood, what can she see in him?’

Margaret took a deep breath. ‘Simon, if you speak to Edith like that, she will run away with him tonight. She loves him and wants to be with him, but she won’t dishonour you by disobeying you unless you force her to.’

‘Me? I wouldn’t force her to disobey me!’

‘If you rant at her like that, you’ll make her run away with him,’ she said with calm, knowing serenity. She had moved to a turf bench, and was sitting on the grass with her hands crossed in her lap.

‘What do you recommend?’

She patted the grass at her side and remained silent until he accepted her invitation and sat. ‘Try to imagine how she feels. She thinks she is in love – in the same way that I was with you when we met.’

‘That’s completely different,’ he said hotly.

‘Perhaps. And perhaps she doesn’t feel so.’

‘And what then?’

‘Then you can suggest that she may continue to see her swain, but that you would wish her to join us when we go to Dartmouth,’ she said emotionlessly.

He put his hand on her thigh. ‘I know you don’t want to go, but I have to.’

‘I know that. We have to serve. I just don’t want to lose our daughter when we go.’

‘Would she be satisfied with being able to see him?’

‘If you tell her that you will allow him to visit us in our new home so that they can woo in comfort, she might.’

‘I shall consider it,’ he promised.

It was difficult, he told himself as he entered his hall. No sooner had a child been born than she was ready to leave home and begin to raise her own children. ‘She’s too damned young!’ he murmured.

‘Sir?’

Looking up, Simon noticed at last that there was a tired-looking young man standing near the fire. ‘Who are you?’

‘Sir, I’m Osbert. I’ve been sent from Gidleigh by Reeve Piers to speak to the Bailiff.’

‘Osbert, eh?’ Simon said musingly. ‘And you are here to tell me about this dead girl, are you? I’ve already told Sir Baldwin and the Dean of Crediton that I can’t come right now. Tell your Reeve that he’s already had the Coroner and that there’s nothing I can do to help now. I don’t understand why he wants me there anyway. It’s not my place to deal with a murder when it’s nothing to do with the Stannary.’

‘It’s not Mary, sir. It’s the murdered tinner.’

Simon blinked. ‘What?’

‘A man has been found dead, sir, and someone has suggested that he might be a tin miner. He was on his way to the market at Chagford, but never arrived. We thought you should know.’

‘Bugger!’ Simon spat, then roared, ‘Hugh!’ making the messenger quail. ‘Pack clothes and tell the grooms to saddle our horses. We’re going to Gidleigh.’

It was just typical, so far as Piers was concerned. He crouched down at the body’s side again, trying to ignore the stench, but it was impossible. It was pervasive, this odour of blood and decay. Cloying, it stuck in his nostrils and made him want to gag.

‘Who could have done this?’ he choked.

‘You serious?’

‘Elias, what do you want me to say? I didn’t expect this.’

‘Huh! I don’t know anything, and I’m not going to know anything. Don’t want to. What, start talking and end up like that?’

Piers winced as he glanced again at the corpse. Somehow the fear and bitterness of Flora came back to him. At the time he had said he would see what could be done about Esmon, but his words had been intended to calm her rather than indicating that he had a means of punishing their master’s son. Short of committing murder, he couldn’t see how to effect that.

‘There must be something,’ he muttered under his breath.

‘What?’

‘Nothing.’

Unless Esmon was found guilty of committing a crime which could be taken to a higher court, there was nothing anyone could do to bring justice to him. He would continue doing whatever he wanted. In theory, killing a miner, one of the King’s own villeins, would be enough to guarantee that he would be punished, but Piers knew that was a forlorn hope. The King’s officers could demand that Esmon be called to court, but they were all his peers. Who ever heard of a knight’s son being convicted and executed?