The Mad Monk of Gidleigh (33 page)

Simon and Baldwin exchanged a look. This was a serious felony. Osbert’s evidence, if corroborated, could lead to Esmon and his father being arrested. Not, Baldwin told himself, that it would mean they would be forced to suffer the full penalty of law, for they had friends in high places, but even so, it would lead to shame.

He nodded towards the road that led to the mill. ‘What of the girl Mary? We hear you loved her.’

Os reddened. ‘I did,’ he said stoutly, as though daring anyone to comment.

There was no laughter, but for a small snigger from Ben. Baldwin immediately turned his attention to the lad. ‘You were with Elias here when your sister was killed. Did you notice anything about her body?’

‘Yes. She was dead,’ Ben said sarcastically.

‘How could you tell?’ Baldwin didn’t like this boy. Ben was glib and disrespectful, which was not the attitude of someone trying to help find the murderer of his beloved sister. He stood insolently, as though scarcely listening to Baldwin’s questions, a small-framed lad clad in a good quality woollen tunic and soft linen hose.

Ben shrugged. ‘Elias told me.’

‘I tried to keep the sight from him,’ Elias explained sombrely. ‘I went to her and left Ben holding the oxen. When I saw what had happened, I sent him to fetch help and stayed with her body.’

‘You did well,’ Baldwin said and turned back to Ben. ‘Do you think Mark could have killed your sister?’

‘Him? I suppose so. She was all over him most of the time. Slobbering like a bitch on heat. Probably thought she could get him to throw in his place as a priest like old Surval the Hermit.’

‘He did what?’ Baldwin said.

Piers said, ‘He used to be a priest, but got thrown out of his church because he did something. Don’t know what, but he feels the guilt still.’

‘We shall ask him. Osbert, you were out there that day when Mary was killed. Do you think it could have been Mark?’

‘I was working at the hedge at the time. I didn’t hear anything apart from the noise of the oxen and Ben calling to them. And I couldn’t see anyone in the roadway. Only someone on horseback would have been visible to me.’

‘You had left before Elias and Ben?’

‘Yes. I had to go to the mill and help Huward.’

‘You did not see the body when you went to the mill?’ Baldwin said.

‘I didn’t go by the lane,’ Os said. ‘I went over the fields back to the vill, then took the lane from there down to the mill.’

‘Did you see Sir Ralph or his son?’

‘I saw Sir Ralph,’ Osbert agreed, frowning with the effort of recollection. ‘He was down at the bottom of the road on his horse when I saw him. That was where I reached the road myself.’

‘What of Esmon?’ Simon asked. ‘Did anyone see him?’

‘Yes,’ Ben said. ‘He was down near the castle when I got there. He had mud all over his legs, as if he’d been riding up on the moors.’

‘Why would he have gone up there?’ Simon wondered aloud. ‘Was he hunting?’

‘He had no dogs.’ Ben shrugged.

Baldwin was watching him closely. ‘Master Ben, you seem entirely unaffected by losing your sister.’

‘I have another one!’

His glib reply made Simon want to hit him, and he was seeking for a sharp response when he saw Osbert’s face. The strong peasant looked as though he could break into tears at any moment. Rather than upset Os further, Simon said, ‘Where were you on the day that this Wylkyn died?’

‘I was in a tavern. There were plenty of men there to vouch for me, too.’

‘Is there anything else you want to tell us?’ Baldwin said, looking from one to another of them, but all their long faces told him that there was nothing more to learn here. The only one who looked less than worried was Ben. He waved at the alewife to demand drink as Baldwin watched. His insouciance was insufferable, but there was nothing Baldwin could do about a man who was so uncaring about his own sister.

‘We should go,’ he muttered. ‘We have to find the body of this Wylkyn and ensure that Mark is released into our custody.’

‘I don’t understand what you keep asking about Mary’s death for anyway,’ Ben said. He had a large pot of cider now, which he drank steadily, spilling some down his chin and throat. Gasping, he signed for another pot. ‘The Coroner and everyone else are content that Mark was Mary’s murderer. What do you expect to find?’

‘Perhaps I don’t believe that Mark killed her,’ Baldwin said, rising. It was time to return to the castle. ‘Reeve, I suggest you organise a hunt for this missing miner’s body. We shall need to have something to show the Coroner, or you will be very heavily fined, won’t you?’

Piers grunted noncommittally, and turned away with Elias along towards the barton and his home. Soon Simon and Baldwin were alone. It was as Baldwin beckoned the two Constables to bring his mount that he saw Huward. The miller was walking from the castle, his face white as a winding-sheet, and his eyes filled with a terrible horror that grabbed at Baldwin’s breast and made him stand aside as Huward passed.

It was a momentary thing. Huward had been there, and now he was gone. A broken man, his life destroyed. It shocked Baldwin to see how Huward had changed since the night before. The miller had looked a large, hale fellow even after the horror of losing his daughter, but now he looked as though he was bent beneath a still more extreme misery. Baldwin wondered how he himself would have reacted if someone were to murder his own little daughter Richalda, if he was sure he knew who the killer was, and he had to witness the man’s escape on the technical issue that the murderer had once trained as a priest. It would appal him. Perhaps this was only the natural expression of a man who had lost his daughter to a murderer who must escape the usual penalty for his crime.

The sight of Huward made Baldwin still more determined to see that the murderer should pay. If it was Mark, he would see the priest in the Bishop’s court – but he found himself wondering anew whether Mark could have been the murderer. After seeing the lad’s expression and alarm in the court, Baldwin found it hard to imagine a less likely murderer.

The priest had confessed to hitting her, Baldwin reminded himself. Mark had also admitted to an affair with the girl, to getting her with child, to arguing and even to striking her… but he strenuously denied murder.

To break someone’s neck took considerable strength. Baldwin could remember seeing Elias in the field, his muscles bunching with the effort of ending a rabbit’s life; to pull the bones apart in a woman’s neck would take much more force. Mark was no peasant with corded muscles that could snap a human neck; he was a rather weakly-looking fellow. To strike a woman, yes, that was in his power, but breaking her neck was a different matter altogether.

‘Simon, I don’t think Mark would have had the strength to break her neck,’ he said.

‘I find it hard to believe,’ Simon agreed.

Try as he might, Baldwin could not get the picture of Elias from his mind, gently smoothing the fur of a rabbit before tugging at the head. ‘That boy Ben didn’t leave Elias, according to the old peasant.’

‘No. The two stayed together.’

Baldwin nodded. ‘Perhaps both took a break. Ben didn’t like his sister.’

‘Baldwin, disliking her is different from actively helping to kill her.’

‘Perhaps. Yet some boys can grow to hate their sisters. And we have heard that Ben might have been rejected by her. Shame alone could have made him want to kill her.’

‘Perhaps. What should we do?’

‘Simon, you go with Piers. Arrange for a messenger to Chagford to find Wylkyn’s companions. I shall take a moment to speak to Huward again.’

The mill was dark and grim. Since Mary’s death it had been silent but for the weeping of the women. The gears that operated the massive wheel had been still because Huward had closed off the leat that fed it. Somehow, in the absence of the grinding of the stones together, the void where before she had always known the clicking and graunching of the teeth of the mechanism, Flora felt as though the death of Mary had affected the machinery itself. It was just as if the whole building had died with her. No, it was worse than that: it was as if the family itself was gone, as though she’d lost her father and mother as well as her sister.

The burial over, Gilda had returned home and now sat in the darkest corner of the room near the grain store, like a woman whose life was ended. She scarcely responded when the family spoke to her, nor did she now, when Flora walked to her and rested a hand on her shoulder.

‘Mother, you have to eat. Do you want some pottage?’

Gilda groaned and clutched at her clothes, pinching at her upper arms, shaking her head and uttering a long, low moan. Startled, Flora withdrew at first, but her shock soon turned to sympathy and compassion. This was her mother, the woman who had protected and nurtured her through her childhood. It can’t have been easy. Even though Sir Ralph had always been kindly about their rent, nonetheless the famine had affected all in Devonshire, and Gilda had been forced to work hard for their money along with Huward. Flora went to her mother, throwing her arms about her and cradling her just as Gilda had cradled her when she was young.

He was a good man, Huward. Kind and loving, he had always insisted that he had no favourites, only four people to love equally, although Flora was certain in her own mind that Ben was less well-liked by their father. Huward had craved a son. All men did: a son was proof that their name would continue, that their family line was secure. A daughter, when all was said and done, was only a breeding dam, to be sold and served by the buck who attracted her father’s attention, but a son – a son could carry on the business, take responsibility for a mother and father too old and infirm to shift for themselves, and increase the family’s fortune, multiplying it for the future. Unfortunately Ben was in no sense an ideal heir.

Flora adored both her mother and her father, but her father was more warm and affectionate than her mother. With Gilda there was always a slight reserve, as though she couldn’t entirely give herself to anyone, not even her own daughter. Even now, with Flora’s arms about her, she averted her head, only slightly, but enough to remove her cheek from contact with Flora’s, and the girl felt tears stinging her eyes at the sensation of her mother withdrawing from her touch.

It was hurtful, but if Gilda didn’t want Flora to comfort her, Flora couldn’t force herself upon her. She gently pulled away, saying, ‘Mother, Mary wouldn’t want you to starve yourself! You have to eat something.’

‘Leave me! I don’t want food, I want peace, only peace.’

‘What do you mean?’ Flora asked. Was her mother’s mind becoming unhinged?

‘Just go, Flora!’

‘Not until I see you eating something. Will you take some bread?’

Gilda muttered angrily, but finally she agreed and picked at the coarse maslin that Flora placed before her. It was enough. Flora left her when she saw that Gilda had consumed a little, and walked outside.

She could weep. Her father wasn’t here yet – he and Ben would be at the court, and God knew how long that might take. If the priest decided to argue the toss, he might delay all the men there a good few hours. Perhaps they had held their meeting, and had gone to an ale-house to recover their humour after hearing the judge declare the priest safe because of Benefit of Clergy. Flora was not sanguine about the likelihood of even Sir Ralph deciding to thwart the power and influence of the Bishop of Exeter. He was one of the most powerful men in the country.

Osbert was there as well. She felt so alone right now, with even her mother rejecting her, that the thought of Osbert’s calming arms about her, just holding her, was so attractive, she couldn’t restrain a small gasp of longing. Her heart was his. Perhaps… with Mary out of the way, she could win his heart. There was no one else for him. Oh, she wanted his arms around her so much, right this minute!

‘Where is your father, girl?’

The strange voice made her heart leap. When she was able to recognise the man, Flora asked: ‘Hermit, what do you want here?’

‘Answer the question.’

‘He’s at the court, I think. All the men are.’

‘That’s good. Where is your mother?’

‘Inside – why, do you need alms? Leave my mother alone, I beg! Since my sister’s loss, she has been very sad. It is hard for a woman to lose her child.’

‘It is as hard for a sister to suffer loss,’ he observed gruffly, peering at her from under the old felt brim of his hat.

‘Perhaps less hard,’ Flora said uncertainly.

‘You sound like someone who shoulders a little of the blame.’

‘No! I had nothing to do with my beloved sister’s death,’ she burst out.

‘I never thought you did, child. Yet you feel responsible.’

‘A little. It’s just that…’

‘What?’

‘I don’t think I ever had quite so much of my mother’s affection as Mary did. Maybe I’ll never match up to her measure of me. I’ll be a disappointment for ever.’

‘If you are, it’s not your fault; it’s the fault of a foolish parent who didn’t think of you as a person but as a “thing” to be possessed. You are as good as your sister, child,’ he said with firm reassurance.

‘You sound like my father,’ she smiled.

‘Maybe he is an intelligent man,’ Surval said, peering over her shoulder into the mill. ‘Is she there?’

‘Yes, but please, won’t this wait?’

‘Because of the loss of your sister? No. And don’t blame yourself for your mother’s attitude towards you. She loves you greatly, but she is scared… and her suffering goes back long before your birth, child.’

‘You mean there was a problem with Mary?’ Flora asked, frowning with incomprehension.

‘Oh no. This goes back before
her
birth even,’ Surval said, and ducked inside.

‘Hello, Gilda,’ he said as he caught sight of her.

‘Surval. What do you want?’