Michael Jecks - A Friar's bloodfeud

‘Don’t think so,’ Hugh said. He took his billhook from his belt and hefted it in his hand. ‘My wife is, though, and the lad.’

‘What are you doing? This is a church, man. You mustn’t threaten people in here!’ Matthew swallowed hard. Then a flare of resentment came over him, and he stepped forward between Hugh and Nicholas, who remained sitting at the altar, gripping the cloth with a despairing determination. ‘You won’t hurt him, man! He is safe here; he has claimed sanctuary.’

Hugh glanced at the man. ‘It’s not him I want. It’s you.’

Matthew felt as though the tiled floor had moved suddenly. ‘Me? Why?’

‘You were there. In the lane outside my house, weren’t you? Who were you with?’

‘I don’t know what you … in the lane?’

‘The day of the camp ball game. You were out there in the dusk, arguing with a man. Who was he? What were you arguing about?’

‘That night? That was just old Pagan, the steward to Lady Isabel and Madam Malkin. I remonstrated with him because he was drunk, that was all.’

‘He was drunk?’ Hugh scowled. He twitched the billhook in his hand and let his gaze fall away from the priest. When he came here, he had hoped to learn something that would make sense of Constance’s and Hugh’s deaths, but there was nothing to be learned from what Matthew said. Hugh had pinned all his hopes on being told that the man out there in the lane had some reason to harm Hugh or his wife, but it was just a drunk wandering in the night. Nothing.

Friar John wiped his face free from tears. There was important business here for him, and he must try to contain his grief. First he had to learn who might have been responsible for his sister’s death; second he must help Hugh — whether that meant protecting him or preventing him from killing another man. He sniffed, wiped his face briskly with a hand, and walked over to join the others.

‘So Pagan was drunk that night? What was he doing so far from his home? If he lives down with those women, shouldn’t he have been there with them instead of wandering the lanes in the dark?’

Matthew looked at him in surprise, not expecting a friar to take a part in this inquisition. ‘It is not my place to ask such things — but I think he sleeps away from them. He has his house up east of here.’

‘Near Guy the charcoal burner’s place?’ Hugh asked.

‘Yes. I assumed he was making his way home from there. He used to live with the family while Ailward was alive. After that, of course, Lady Isabel rightly considered it more fitting that he should sleep at his home again.’

‘That was the night Ailward died,’ Hugh muttered.

‘Yes. Bless his soul!’

‘My wife saw him earlier that day. Said so to me,’ Hugh muttered, straining with the effort of recollection. ‘She said he was there with … with a man-at-arms from Fishleigh. Together.’

‘That is preposterous,’ Matthew said easily. ‘No one from Monkleigh gets on with anyone from Fishleigh.’

Friar John smiled calmly. ‘Do you really believe that a man who was born here as a squire’s son would not be able to get on with men from the lowliest peasant to the lord of the manor next to his own?’

‘It’s different here,’ Matthew said. ‘If Sir Geoffrey knew that Ailward was fraternising with men from Fishleigh, he would be so furious he’d …’

‘Yes?’

‘He’d kill them,’ Matthew said slowly, with dawning shock. ‘But you can’t think that!’

‘Why on earth not?’ John said.

‘Sir Geoffrey is no low felon. He’s a knight!’

John said nothing, but glanced at Nicholas. ‘What are you doing here? Claiming sanctuary for what?’

‘Sir Geoffrey attacked me with a whip, and then he accused me of murdering that woman there.’

John’s eyes glittered, and he had to stop himself from stepping nearer. ‘And did you? On your oath, mind. Father Matthew, do you have the Gospels?’

Only when Nicholas had set a hand upon the holy book and sworn that he had not harmed Lucy did John feel his blood begin to cool.

‘That is good. So why should he seek to accuse you?’

‘He wants a scapegoat. I’m easiest for him because I am known to our master, and Lord Despenser could install me in his place. He sees me as a threat to his position, so he seeks to discredit me.’

‘Do you know who could have killed the girl?’

Nicholas shook his head with certainty. ‘No. It was nothing to do with me, that’s all I know.’

‘Were you involved in the attack on the sergeant of Fishleigh?’

Hugh looked at John when he asked that, then shrugged and turned back to Nicholas.

‘Yes. I was there.’

‘And later at this man’s house just east of here?’

‘No. There were no men from Sir Geoffrey’s hall involved in that.’

‘How can you know?’ Hugh grated.

‘I was one of the men first back from Fishleigh, and all the rest came back later in one group. If there’d been another attack, I’d have heard. I made sure I heard everything in the household.’

Emma was sitting in the bar with Richalda when the door opened. She threw a look behind her and saw Baldwin, Edgar and Simon walk in, grim-faced. They glanced at her, Baldwin with a glowering mien which softened as soon as he took in the sight of his daughter playing with Emma, and then they all went to a separate table and sat, Baldwin calling Jankin’s wife over and passing her a tiny bundle, asking that she keep it warm and feed it milk. No one told Emma what it was or why it should be cosseted, and she refused to demean herself by asking.

It was that sort of behaviour that Emma found so intolerable about these people. She was human, wasn’t she? Didn’t she have feelings too?

Yes, she did, and there was no reason for her to be ignored by these high-and-mighty men just because they seemed to think that they were so superior to her. They weren’t. As her old mother had told her, all men and women were the same: all had to crouch to defecate in the morning. ‘If there is any man who seems arrogant, my girl, just you imagine what he’d look like when he’s doing that,’ she had chuckled.

Not that her mother had said ‘defecate’. She was more … earthy than that.

Emma saw Deadly Dave walk up to the door. He glanced at the bar, then saw Baldwin, and his face stiffened. When he saw Emma he was red of face, like a man flushed with embarrassment. He licked his lips as she averted her face, and she heard his steps going to the bar, and his voice asking quietly for an ale.

Baldwin and Simon were talking in low tones, and she idly tried to overhear what they were saying, but she could make nothing of their words. In the end she gave up trying. Instead she concentrated on Richalda. A fresh ale appeared at her side, and she nodded and gruffly muttered her thanks, wondering where Jeanne was. Probably asleep again. She was always sleepy when she was pregnant.

As she had that thought, she heard the door open again, and she looked over her shoulder, expecting to see her lady.

‘ God’s tarse! ’ she shrieked, leaping up. Her bench went over, spilling her ale across the floor, and she grabbed Richalda to her enormous bosom, cuddling the child and backing away.

Baldwin sighed, ‘Woman, sit down. He’s no ghost. He never died.’

There was a sudden change in the weather after Humphrey left Hugh and John at the ford on the way to Iddesleigh. As he trudged up the hill westwards before turning east towards Meeth, a colder wind struck his face, stinging at his cheeks. Then he found that there were fine pinpricks of rain on the wind, making him blink and shiver. His eyes kept fogging as tiny drops caught on his eyelashes, and he pulled his robes closer about him in the vain hope that they might keep him warm.