Michael Jecks: A Friar's bloodfeud

There was a smell of burning pitch, and he had none here at the farm. He could smell the fumes as though they were very close, and it was a few moments before he realised that the odour came from a torch, and that the breeze was behind him.

A warning flashed in his mind, and he began to turn, but he was already too late. There was a shout, a command, he heard a whirling like a nearby flight of geese, and his head was slammed forward as something smashed against his skull.

He could feel sparks strike at his skull, and as his cheek crashed against the dirt of the yard he smelled the stench of burning hair, rank and disgusting. A second blow, then a third, and his head was a mass of pain. There were cries, but they seemed to come from afar, perhaps on the next hill? In front of him he could see the house, and he knew that if he could reach it, all would be well. He would be safe in there. Constance would come to him and make his head better. He knew that.

There was no strength in his arms or legs. It was only a short distance, made hazy by the smoke and the roaring in his ears. He lifted his head, and he heard a man cry out. A boot kicked his temple, and then his chest, and he lay wide-eyed and unblinking, utterly spent.

He could see the open doorway. At the threshold lay his woman. He saw a man drop to his knees in front of her. There was a muted cry, a sound of grief and terror, and he saw the man finish, rise, kick, spit, laugh, draw a dagger, reach down. All was a whirl. Hugh was sure he ought to do something, but his limbs were another man’s, not his. There was nothing his mind could do to command his body.

A boot thudded into his flank and he rolled to his belly, hiding from the blows. A foot rested on his back. He heard a shout, a scream, saw the babe, Hugh, held by the legs. Mercifully, his eyes closed, and he heard a roar of laughter, then no more screams from Hugh. A punch in his back, another, and this time he felt an odd sensation. It was as though the punch had gone through his back and scraped a rib.

Hugh could smell smoke, and he felt warmed. He had left the field to come home, and he must have fallen asleep as soon as he got here. The fire was lighted: he could feel the hot breath at his face. It glowed at his eyelids, and he snuggled further down into his bed. It was a lovely bed, soft and yielding, and surely Constance would soon be here with him, her soft body joining with his.

It was a dream. She was a dream to him, and he smiled in what he thought must be his sleep as he felt himself sliding away, as though he was slipping sideways into the darkness of the soil itself as unconsciousness enfolded him.

Friar John was footsore, irritable, and not in the mood for another night out in the cold. He’d already covered too many miles since he’d fallen out with the prior in Exeter, and here he was still wandering about the countryside wondering whether he had made the right decision in leaving Exeter when he had, let alone in coming this way. It had smacked a little of hypocrisy to fly from the city in such a hurry, without taking time to consider.

Still, he had caught his prior in a lie, and one which could lead to others being harmed, if not killed. No, he hadn’t had a choice at the time. It was a shame, though. He’d enjoyed a good reputation there in Exeter. All who met him reckoned that he was the best fund-raiser the Order had seen.

A shod friar, a Dominican, John was one of those who had given up all his worldly wealth … not that he had possessed much when he’d first walked to the friary and offered himself. Then he’d been a narrow-shouldered, skinny, rather feeble assistant to a cutler, who had hoped to earn a place as a man of importance in his adopted city of Winchester.

He had had so little good fortune in his life, he thought now. He was the third son of Sir George, a minor knight from the Welsh marches, and knowing he would make a dreadful priest he had early on chosen a life of trade and gone to Winchester. There, when he grew older, he had encountered some of the pitfalls which awaited so many young apprentices in life: a night’s debauchery, cross words with his master, an evening frolicking with a maid in a tavern of low reputation, more cross words with his master, and then a blazing row when the maid was discovered in his narrow cot a couple of days later.

Suddenly he was an outcast, adrift in the great city, taking a succession of little jobs that paid him swiftly so that he had something to take and spend in a tavern. The maid disappeared: he had heard that she had later eloped with his master’s own son.

During that lonely period he had learned all about the pleasures of life, and almost as speedily discarded them as worthless. Women he could enjoy, ale and wine would delight, but all were sour in the mouth the next morning. Especially the women who demanded money as he tried to leave their chambers. None seemed to remember that they’d wanted him the night before as much as he’d told himself he wanted them. Or, to be more truthful, and John tried always to be truthful, perhaps it was the ale and wine which told him that they seemed to desire him.

Whatever the truth of it, after a year of splendid excess, he had nothing. There was no job, all the women knew he had nothing to give them, and while he had a need for wine in the morning, there was no means to pay for it. And one morning, while resting his back against a merchant’s house, hoping for alms, he saw a friar. The man was dressed in a grubby robe like his own, without sandals on his feet, and held only a bowl, which he proffered optimistically whenever he caught someone’s eye.

‘Good day, master,’ he said to John. It was the first kindly greeting John had heard in many a long day. When the friar shuffled off, John found himself trailing in his wake.

It was in the priory that he discovered his true vocation: not to wander about the countryside begging for himself, but to earn alms for the good of all. And he was good, very good. In a city John could bring the money from every man’s purse, it seemed, almost with a whistle. In a world in which most friars were educated men, with serious expressions and the look of fellows who should have been rather above this position in life, but were prepared to suffer a little now for their advancement later, like a squire who is first taught how to clear out the stable in the hope that one day he’ll understand enough to be a knight.

John, though — he was different, and he knew it. Most Dominicans were keen to amass their alms as quickly as possible, then buy some bread and go and preach, find a place to rest the night, and prepare for the next day’s begging and preaching. Not John. He had always been a sharp lad, quick with a flattering word, and when he stood by and listened to some of his colleagues preach it made him want to wince. There was no passion, no fire. All they could manage was an injunction to remember the friars (among others) in their prayers, with maybe a hopeful wave of their bowls afterwards.

No good, Christ in Heaven, no! Christ wanted to save souls, and looking amiably foolish with a bowl in your hand might win a hunk of bread and some pottage of an evening, but it wasn’t going to maintain a single ecclesiastical establishment. So John had set out to win over richer men without issue: the lonely and sad, the bereaved and desperate, promising them preferential honours in the afterlife, provided that they gave over their wealth to the friary in the here and now.

Of course it had worked. It had been so successful that in Exeter, where he had ended up, he had caused a certain amount of friction between the friary and the cathedral. Still, that was all in his past now. He had left when he saw some of the corruption of the city, and he was well out of it.