Michael Jecks - A Friar's bloodfeud

‘He will give me a trial,’ Humphrey said bitterly.

‘It is possible with the support of a local magnate and other priests in the area that you may receive a happier hearing than you might expect,’ John said. ‘It is worth trying, I should think. Better than living as a felon for the rest of your days.’

‘Perhaps.’

John turned his attention back to Hugh. The morose figure was cross-legged on the floor near the fire. ‘Have you eaten yet?’

‘I’m not hungry.’

John crouched at his feet and fixed him with a firm eye. ‘If you want revenge and justice, my friend, you will need to keep your strength up. Now eat, while I tell you what I saw and heard in Iddesleigh this day!’

It was a long, scrubby plain, with furze bushes sticking up here and there, a stunted tree, and rocks all about as always. The soil was good, but here on the moor there was only pasture. ‘No plough would cut into this without breaking in the first yard,’ Baldwin muttered, looking about him.

Perkin had taken them along the track past Hugh’s house, and out the other side to the moor, and then led them across the rough ground to the top of the ridge from where they could look down into the stream.

‘This is the way I came, you see. They expected us all on the plain there, because then we could have rushed them in a solid mass. But if we’d done that, they could have encircled us and done us great damage. So instead we sent a number of our men up that way, while Beorn and I came up here. It was out of the way, but we thought that the change of direction would confuse them. It looked as if it was going to work, too.’

‘What happened?’

Perkin walked a little way along the ridge until he found a mess of mud. ‘That’s where we came up. Our feet churned the soil. Then I came over here, and I was running at my fastest to reach their goal over there.’ He pointed. ‘That’s when I saw Walter and Ailward. Both of them were down here. Walter jumped up and went for me, and that was that.’

‘So you were knocked to the ground where?’ Baldwin asked.

Perkin shrugged, but then he slowly grinned. ‘There, on that blasted rock. See this scrape on my arm?’ he asked, pulling up his sleeve. ‘That rock there gave me that. Christ, but it hurt! Felt as if a rat had nibbled all down my forearm.’

‘Where was Ailward?’

Perkin closed his eyes and turned his head a little, as though orientating his mind with the reality of the landscape. ‘Over here,’ he said. ‘And when I came back here, this was where he lay, too.’

‘It’s only a half mile from Hugh’s house, if that,’ Simon muttered.

‘Yes. And I think that this could be giving us a stronger clue about his death than we have had so far,’ Baldwin said. ‘What do you think the two men were doing up here, Perkin?’

He looked away, over the rolling lands to his home. It was there, over at Monkleigh, a low, thatched house like all the others. It was not much, but it was all that he had ever known, and suddenly he found himself wondering whether he would be able to remain there for much longer. The only witness to murder was not in a strong position.

‘I thought that there was a body here. Where Ailward stood. I only caught a glimpse, and that while I was in the air, but I could swear that there was colour at his feet, like a body wearing a tunic. And I thought that I saw redness, a deep redness, like blood.’

‘Did you not tell anyone?’ Baldwin asked disbelievingly.

‘What, at the time? No — my brain was partly addled, my arm was in great pain, and the only memory I have is of stumbling back down that hillside there to get to the tavern and try to forget the pain in my head. But all through that afternoon, my conviction grew that I was right, and there was a body at Ailward’s feet.’

‘You said you wouldn’t speak ill of the dead,’ Baldwin reminded him.

‘That’s right. Ailward tried to be a friend and companion, but his frustration and despair gnawed at him. He should have been a great knight with a destrier and all that, but instead he was a serf here. The best serf Sir Geoffrey could have hoped for, it’s true, but still a serf to his mind, and a serf is only a pale reminder of a real man, sir. Isn’t that what knights say?’

Baldwin flashed his teeth in a smile. ‘Perhaps some do. Since I cannot grow a stalk of wheat to feed myself, I find I appreciate those men who can.’

‘I wish you were my master, then,’ Perkin said sadly. ‘Here we are not respected.’

‘Ailward was a serf, and he let his jealous nature get the better of him on occasion?’

‘Too often.’

‘This man Walter,’ Simon said. ‘What was he doing with Ailward? Is he also from your manor?’

‘No. He is one of Sir Odo’s mercenaries.’

‘Yet the two were together up here? What did you think of that? Two enemies together?’

Perkin had the decency to be embarrassed. ‘I thought … well, I wondered, really, whether Ailward might have caught a woman and killed her in a rage when she turned down his advances.’

‘You mean Lady Lucy?’

‘She was in all our minds at that time, Sir Baldwin. There was a great deal of concern for her since she had disappeared. I don’t know exactly what I thought, but I reckoned that Ailward being up there meant he was up to no good. And then Walter hit me, and my thoughts went back to the game.’

‘And later you returned because you thought you’d seen something?’ Simon asked.

‘Well, yes. I just thought, if I could find some blood, then that’d prove that Ailward had killed someone.’

‘And as you say, everyone was thinking of this Lady Lucy.’ Baldwin nodded.

‘But when I got back, all there was was Ailward himself, and his gore smearing the furze.’

‘Was he in the vill after the camp ball match?’ Simon frowned, kicking at the soil.

‘No. He never appeared. We all thought he was gone home.’

‘So Walter and he were up here, and they had a body with them. Why? Where were they going to go with it?’ Baldwin said. He looked carefully all about them. ‘That, north, that is where Hugh’s house lies. What of those houses east of us?’

Perkin followed the direction of his pointing finger. ‘That’s where Pagan lives. It was his father’s old smithy. He was an armourer, you know.’

‘An armourer?’ Baldwin said. ‘And the house next door?’

‘That is Guy’s.’

‘Perkin, you have been most helpful, and I have one last task to ask of you. Could you tell us the way to the farm where Crokers lives?’

‘Of course. Now?’

‘No — in a moment.’ Baldwin paused and studied the land before them. ‘It looks as though Sir Geoffrey is off hunting. I wonder what quarry he’ll seek today? So long as he avoids the church at Iddesleigh, I’ll be content.’

He peered about in all directions, but there were three that kept attracting his eye: southwards to the hall of Sir Geoffrey, east to Pagan’s house, and north towards Hugh’s ruined cottage.

‘But what were they doing with a body on the day of the camp ball match?’ he said at last. ‘They must have known it was going to happen.’

‘Yes,’ Perkin said. ‘Everyone in all the vills knew about it. They came from two or three miles away to watch it.’

‘So they must have known that they would be seen up here,’ Baldwin said. ‘Why would they run the risk of discovery by carrying a corpse over here after executing the poor woman?’

Simon looked over at the houses east. ‘They had tortured her, hadn’t they?’

‘They wouldn’t do that in the open air,’ Baldwin agreed.

‘You say that the man Pagan’s father was an armourer?’ Simon said.