Michael Jecks - A Friar's bloodfeud

The setting sun painted the sky with pinks and purples, and he reflected how much his wife would have enjoyed the scene. Petronilla was always looking for beauty: she saw it in flowers, in water, in bird feathers, and here she’d have found it in the sky. It took little to make her happy. So long as he was behaving, anyway!

It was a sobering reflection that while he was here still, happy with his wife, poor Hugh’s family was gone. Edgar was at bottom a pragmatic man, and he knew that if someone tried to rape and kill his wife, they’d have to kill Edgar first. The idea of living knowing that someone had done that to her was so appalling that he could feel a shiver of revulsion travel down his spine at the mere thought. It would be unbearable.

He wanted to know who had done this to Hugh’s family so that he could look them in the eye and try to understand what sort of man could perform such a foul act. Oh, he had seen plenty of felons in his time, and all too often they were dim, gormless men who saw an opportunity and took it. That explained only too many sudden attacks and killings. But that wasn’t what had happened at Hugh’s place. There it hadn’t been a sudden, random assault. It had been premeditated, as far as Edgar could see.

There had been a party at the inn, which had concealed the attack — but everyone in the vills about here could have known about the party at the inn that night. There was nothing secret about it.

Simon and Baldwin were silent as they rode and Edgar did not see any reason to break the peace. They ambled along, the twilight darkening the country about them, hearing the screeching of a blackbird as they disturbed her from her perch, the sudden clatter of a pigeon overhead, the distant mournful call of a fox. There were so many noises. Even the wind seemed loud as it whistled in his ears.

And then he heard the other noises. With ears that had been attuned for almost all his adult life to the sound of potential danger, he heard a squeaking of leather, the high-pitched jingling of metalwork, and then, as he turned his head and frowned in concentration, the cries of men and the baying of hounds.

‘Sir Baldwin! Listen!’

Sir Geoffrey was annoyed with the delay. Trying to gather all the villeins together had taken an age, and then the miserable curs had tried to avoid their duty. They wouldn’t get away with that sort of shirking, not while he was master of the manor. No, they’d damned well learn to obey.

Nicholas le Poter was a fool. He might have thought he could evict Sir Geoffrey, but it was the last mistake he’d make. When this posse caught up with him, he’d be pulled apart. Literally.

‘Sir Geoffrey? There are men ahead.’

He swore quietly under his breath. Round the curve in the road, he suddenly saw three men on horseback. They stopped at sight of his little force, and one horse reared as the hounds reached them.

‘Sir Baldwin!’ he bellowed. ‘I am glad to see you, sir. I am chasing the man who killed Lady Lucy. Have you seen him going this way?’

Baldwin and Edgar exchanged a look. Simon was glowering down at a hound that kept darting under his mount, making the rounsey skittish.

It was Baldwin who responded. ‘We’ve seen no one on this road.’

Sir Geoffrey swore under his breath again. This was not turning out as he had planned. Surely the hounds weren’t mistaken …

‘Sir Geoffrey, they’re going down towards the chapel,’ his huntsman suddenly called.

‘After them! He’s trying to reach sanctuary!’ Sir Geoffrey shouted and set spurs to his horse.

He was aware of his posse springing into the chase behind him. Yes, as he passed by the angry-looking bailiff, whose beast was dancing like a tamed bear, he saw the main part of the pack turning off the road and taking the little lane that went down the hill to the chapel. That was where the fool had gone, thinking he’d be safe down there. Well, he was mistaken. Sir Geoffrey felt his lips pull into a snarl of satisfaction as he urged his horse down the incline towards the chapel.

It was quiet. The dogs were at the door, sniffing and protesting, although two or three had trotted off towards the fields nearby. He ignored them, but bellowed at the top of his voice. ‘Nicholas le Poter — come out and surrender or I shall have you pulled out.’

‘You will not!’

Sir Geoffrey turned to see the calm face of the Keeper at his side. ‘Sir Baldwin, this is a matter for my manor. It’s none of your concern.’

Baldwin was quiet for a moment. He glanced about Sir Geoffrey at the men with him. There were some few, he thought, who looked like ordinary peasants from the vill, but others … others were different. He recalled the widow’s words about men who would keep to the hall in daylight and only appear at night, and he told himself that the careers of some of these fellows would bear little scrutiny. He had not seen so many dangerous-looking characters together in many a year.

‘I think you are wrong,’ he said at last. ‘If there is a man in there who has committed murder, it is very much my concern. It is my duty to seek felons and murderers. And it is not your place to command a man to leave a place of sanctuary, either.’

‘It is not sanctuary. It’s a chapel, and it has never been declared sanctuary to my knowledge.’

‘Perhaps not. Nevertheless, it is a holy chapel and you will not desecrate it by entering with armed men and pulling a defenceless man from within.’

‘I can do what I like on my estates,’ Sir Geoffrey declared more quietly, his voice dropping.

‘Not while I am here, Sir Geoffrey,’ Baldwin said calmly.

‘Out of my way!’ Sir Geoffrey grated and reached for his sword’s hilt.

As he did so, he heard a swift rasp of steel from his right. Glancing down, he found himself staring at a naked blade held by Baldwin’s man.

‘You dare draw steel against me?’ he growled.

‘Against any who threaten my master, yes,’ Edgar said happily.

‘You will regret this!’

‘I doubt it,’ Baldwin said coolly. ‘Now, please, do you wait here while I go inside. Edgar, you stay with him.’

Jeanne was still at the inn, although she would have been happier to leave and go for a walk. Richalda had fallen asleep, and Jeanne had set her down on a bench nearby. From experience she knew that Richalda could sleep through a charge of cavalry. The noise in this bar would be nothing to her.

The racket was growing, too. First Emma declared that she needed more wine, then that she needed food, that she was starving, that her head ached; all of which were interspersed with comments on the local population, the quality of the staff, especially Jankin, and the general lack of amenities.

In the end, from sheer embarrassment, Jeanne left her to it. She slipped out of the inn and stood outside just as the sun was fading. As the door closed she distinctly heard her maid demanding a quart of wine, and ‘None of that pissy water you call wine round here. I want a good dark red. Quickly, man!’

Jeanne closed her eyes in shame. If there was ever a time when she could have cheerfully discarded her maid, it was now. Even when she had first been introduced to Baldwin, she had not been quite so appallingly rude. Not that Jeanne could remember, anyway. Admittedly the woman was atrocious in any company, but her behaviour today had been even worse than usual.

At a burst of raucous laughter, Jeanne shuddered, convinced that someone was gaining revenge for some of Emma’s foul comments, and she walked quickly away from the inn. The church was a short walk away, and she felt the need for a little spiritual comfort just now. She was almost at the small gate which barred the entrance to the vill’s pigs and dogs when she heard panting and rapid footfalls. Turning swiftly and frowning into the gloom, she saw a figure lurching up the lane.