Michael Jecks - A Friar's bloodfeud

‘Why do you say that?’

‘He’s a knight from our Lord Despenser’s household. He will wish to come and ensure that there’s no embarrassment for his lord, no doubt.’

‘The poor child,’ Humphrey said as he squatted beside the body. She had plainly been in a lot of pain before she died. Her arm was broken, and her nails had been ripped out. Then he saw her face.

Humphrey had seen death in many forms in his life — who hadn’t? — yet this woman’s passing was remarkably poignant. To think that someone could have tortured her and flung her into the bog without the opportunity of a shriving was appalling. The man must have been a monster. He closed his eyes, clenched his hands together and began praying for her, muttering the viaticum and finishing with a Pater Noster for good measure.

‘Who could have done this?’ he demanded as he rose, his task over. His eyes flew angrily over the others. ‘Well? She didn’t fly here, and it would have taken some effort to throw her into the mire. Someone must have had help to do that, surely.’

‘None of us here,’ Perkin said. He sighed and looked up into Humphrey’s eyes. ‘Who do you think did it?’

That was not a question Humphrey intended to answer. They all knew who it must be: the steward of the manor, Sir Geoffrey. His master must have ordered the death of the woman who wouldn’t give up her lands, and Sir Geoffrey had captured her, then assassinated her and hidden her body here in the mire, thinking it would remain concealed for ever. Not alone, though. No one man could have carried her out to the middle of the bog and dropped her in. She might have been light, but with those stones tied to her to make her sink, she would be too much of a weight for one man wading up to his belly in the foul mire.

‘Who would dare walk into a bog?’ he wondered. ‘He must have been mad.’

‘There was a way. Men who lived here knew the path,’ Perkin said.

Humphrey shivered. The thought of wandering over this repellent mud, always expecting to be swallowed up … whoever it was, he must have been filthy afterwards, too.

Afterwards Humphrey was glad to return to the chapel, where he opened the door quietly and relocked it from the inside before crossing the floor to the small chamber on the southern side where the two men had lived their quiet lives.

He was still there, of course, sitting up in his chair; he hadn’t moved. The open, dull, white eyes still stared up at the ceiling, his jaw still hung slackly, the hands still dangled, and Humphrey returned to his previous occupation, sitting on the floor and staring at him, wondering what on earth he could do now. With his mentor and protector gone, there was far less security for him here. At any time he could be discovered. But where else could he go? That was the thought that exercised him as he squatted there on the floor.

Where could he go?

Baldwin thrust his sword home again with a feeling of bemusement. ‘Edgar? What in God’s good name are you doing here?’

‘Sir Baldwin,’ Edgar said, bowing to him and walking past him out of the chamber. ‘I knew you would be here soon, so I came on ahead.’

‘Why?’ Baldwin growled. ‘You ought to be at the manor.’

‘Hugh was a friend, sir. I was not of a mood to leave his death unavenged if by my presence I could help him.’

‘You knew I would be here with Simon, didn’t you?’

Edgar smiled in that lazy way he had. On occasion it could be utterly infuriating, but at other times, like today, it simply served to remind Baldwin why he had been so glad to retain Edgar as his steward after they had left the Knights Templar. The lean, dark man was confident and assured in all things, and now he was surveying Baldwin as though assessing his strength. ‘How is your breast, sir?’

‘Don’t change the …’

‘Until you are mended, I should be with you when you could be in danger.’

‘You are arrogant, Edgar, but it is a delight to see you.’ Baldwin chuckled. ‘It’s a lot better than it was, but I don’t think I’d be good in a fight just now.’

‘We are too old for new wounds,’ Edgar said.

‘What were you doing in there?’

‘I arrived here yesterday and saw how the place had already been robbed, so I thought I should remain here in case anyone else tried to get inside. A couple of men did yesterday. I spoke to them and no one’s been back since then.’

‘Have you learned anything?’ Baldwin asked as they made their way from the house and out into the fresher air.

‘Little — except that Hugh isn’t in there.’

‘As I thought,’ Baldwin agreed.

Simon and Jeanne heard their words, and Jeanne gaped, although Simon merely gave a tight smile to Edgar in welcome, and then looked to Baldwin to explain.

‘It is plain that Hugh wasn’t burned to death in there — or if he was, his body was removed afterwards.’

Jeanne looked from her husband to Edgar. ‘How can you be so sure?’

Baldwin said, ‘My dear, if you want to burn a living man, it takes at least two cartloads of faggots. Even then you’d have plenty of larger bones remaining, like the skull or the hips. Think how long it takes for a beef rib to burn in a fire, then think about all the bones in a man’s body. That house burned hot, I dare say, but not hot enough to entirely eradicate Hugh. He was skinny, but there was enough of him for a vestige to remain.’

‘But what, then? You think someone stole his body away from here?’

‘Yes,’ Baldwin said. ‘That is exactly what I think.’

But he would say no more as he led the way back along the track to the inn.

Sir Geoffrey was in a foul mood when Adcock entered his hall just before noon. ‘Have you enjoyed your splashing in the mud, boy?’

Adcock bridled. ‘I was doing my duty, Sir Geoffrey.’

‘Your duty could get you into trouble. Your duty could get your head taken off your shoulders,’ Sir Geoffrey rasped.

Adcock paled as he heard men behind him moving closer. He glanced round and saw that they were the same men he had seen holding the hapless Nick. In his belly a snake of fear began to squirm, and he felt a queasiness in his breast. ‘All I did was order the bog to be drained. It seemed the best thing to do at the time.’

‘And now we’re going to have to explain a dead wench’s body on our land, boy, aren’t we?’ Sir Geoffrey said snidely. ‘And that might mean a lot of trouble for our master. He won’t be pleased, Sergeant. No, he’ll likely be very unhappy, and when he’s unhappy, he takes it out on mother-swyving churls with no ballocks like you !’

He had approached to a matter of a few inches from Adcock, and now his spittle flew in Adcock’s face as he shouted.

‘You pathetic piece of turd ! You’re useless ! What is the point of you? You eat our food and drink our ale, but all you do is bring bad luck on us! What made you go to that bog?’

‘I just saw it. Beorn told me there was a bog there, and I wanted to see it, so I could decide whether to clear it or not,’ Adcock said. He was badly scared now, alone in the hall with no one else around to see what could happen. Men had died in similar rooms with stewards of the Despensers, he knew.

‘You don’t decide to clear any other mires without telling me first, yes?’ Sir Geoffrey said more coolly.

‘Yes, of course.’

‘Why did you want to clear that particular bog?’

‘I said: I just wanted to drain it to start to bring that piece of land into use.’

‘And I said: why that particular bog? Did someone suggest it to you?’

Adcock raised a hand in a gesture of submission.