Michael Jecks - The Tolls of Death

‘I was betrayed by a man,’ she said. ‘He said he loved me, and then he left me for months, and I had no idea what had become of him. I loved him, but he was gone without a message to tell me he was alive. What was I to do?’

‘Remain chaste and honourable. That was what you were supposed to do,’ he grated.

‘My father left me, Husband. He never came back. And when we heard that he was dead, my mother died too, and I was an orphan. I was thrown from my vill, because there was not enough food to fill even one useless mouth. All I could do was walk, and I was taken in by a man — to live the most demeaning life I could imagine. I swore, when I left that place, that I would rather die than return. And then,’ she stood, walking to him slowly, ‘I found a man who loved me as much as I loved him. I loved, adored, worshipped him, and when I thought he might be dead, it was as though my father had died again, and I was forced to imagine life without him. I began to have dreams of returning to that hell-hole, where any man could buy me. Can you imagine what that made me feel? A whore. Yes, I was a whore. My honour gone, my shame permanent. Do you condemn me for trying to escape that?’

‘You should have waited for news.’

‘There was no news. You sent no message in months!’

‘You should have kept faith, woman! You should have trusted me, trusted our master!’

‘I suppose he would have taken the time to write to a woman who was merely the wife of a captain in his host,’ she said with a sneer in her voice.

‘And then, when I came home, you dragged me to your bed as though to prove your desire for me, when all you intended was to hide the fatherhood of your baby!’

‘No! I swear that’s not true! Husband, please believe me when I say that I love you, and I was so delighted that you returned, I was overwhelmed. I had to take you to my bed immediately.’

‘To the bed where you lay with him.’

‘No. Believe me, I-’

‘I can’t believe you!’ he shouted. ‘All you say is false!’

‘I still love you. Please, for my sake, for our child’s sake …’

‘Damn you, and damn it!’ he blurted, and as she put out a hand to him, he first knocked it aside, and then clenched his fist and swung it at her belly.

‘Masters? I have a message for Father Adam. Do you know where I can find him?’

Simon was squatting and throwing stones at a twig when the fellow arrived.

The newcomer was a young man, short and slight of frame, with a sunbrowned, oval face, and Simon did not recognise him. Roger didn’t either apparently, for he looked enquiringly at the fellow. ‘You aren’t from round this vill, then?’

‘No, I come from Temple. Father John sent me.’

‘Ah. Well, Father Adam’s up there in the church,’ Roger said.

The two watched as the youth made his way up the bank to the porch of the church, and then entered.

‘Did you learn anything from Nicholas at the castle?’ Roger asked.

Simon shook his head. ‘Only that he is the father of Richer, and I see no reason why he should claim paternity unless it is true.’

Roger nodded, but just then the messenger came back from the church. As he passed them, Roger could see Adam peering out at them from the vantage point of the church’s porch, and the clerk had the impression that Adam wanted to talk to him. He asked Simon to wait a short while and walked to the open door.

‘Is that Bailiff outside still, Brother?’ Adam hissed from the shadows.

‘Yes,’ Roger said, and then he gasped as he saw the flash of a knife. He tried to leap back, stumbled on the step and fell, shouting, ‘Murder! Murder! He’s killing me!’

‘Not soon enough, you devil!’ Adam screamed, and rushed forward, the dagger gripped under his fist, ready to plunge it down into Roger’s breast.

Roger saw the silver-blue steel racing towards him and raised both hands to block it. As luck would have it, his wrists crossed, and the knife fell between his hands, caught in the scissor-like grip. Roger bleated, shoving his fists up over his head as Adam fell onto him, pushing the knife higher, the point scratching over his right eyebrow, and then Roger gripped his assailant’s wrist in both of his own and tried to wrest the knife from him. Adam responded by pounding Roger’s face and neck with his free hand, Roger shrieking at the top of his voice all the while. And then the clerk was sure that he must have fainted, because all became quiet, and the weight of Adam’s body grew lighter and lighter, as though Roger’s soul was passing away. He closed his eyes when he seemed to see Adam’s face receding into the darkness, and then he heard a chuckle and opened his eyes fully to see Simon standing over him studying Adam’s knife.

‘Don’t worry, clerk. He’s no threat to you now,’ he said offhandedly as he shoved the knife into his own belt and stood over the body of the priest.

‘Is he dead?’ Roger managed, climbing to his feet.

‘Nope. Not yet,’ Simon answered. ‘But I’d like to know why he sprang on you like that. Have you any idea?’

‘None,’ Roger said, his hand on his forehead at the scratch. If it had been an inch lower, it would have spiked his eyeball, he thought, and suddenly felt quite sick, leaning his back against the doorway.

‘Well, as soon as he comes round, we’ll ask him,’ Simon said.

‘Yes,’ Roger said, and then, quite elegantly, he fainted and sank slowly to the floor, a ridiculous smile fitted to his blanched face.

John finished the service and put away the vestments and sacramental vessels in his little ambry, then locked the door over the hole in the wall.

He was filled with a sense of looming disaster. There was little he could do to avoid it, bearing in mind Warin’s close questioning, but it was no help to be aware of the fact.

It had all started many years ago, when John’s grandfather had been a close ally of Sir Henry’s. The two men had been companions in the crusade of the last century, both going to the southern reaches of Christendom to fight the heretics known as Albigensians, and since then the two families had been close. John had known Sir Henry all his life, and counted him as a friend, although Sir Henry was much older. It was entirely due to Sir Henry that he had been granted this little post in the backwater that was Temple.

He had been given this position in early 1315 at the height of the famine. Yes, there had been hints of disputes even then, but the vitriol that later came to characterise the relationship between Earl Thomas of Lancaster and his cousin the King were less apparent in those famine years.

John remembered those times so clearly. Even to journey here had been difficult, with food for his pony rocketing in price as the rains fell. Harsh, terrible weather, it was.

And then life changed dramatically. Earl Thomas’s arguments with the King had grown more acrimonious, and the Earl himself had been captured and executed, along with his followers and supporters — many of them John’s friends. He felt sick again, just thinking of all those good men — comrades of his father, some of them. At least his father had himself died many years ago, at Bannockburn, when the Scottish made King Edward II turn and flee.

His father had been a loyal supporter of the Crown, but John’s uncle had gradually changed his allegiance. It was all to do with the situation on the Marches. When the Despensers began to increase in power and wealth, taking any pieces of land they wanted, one man to suffer was his uncle, and he resented it. As a result, seeing his holdings reduced to a few small farms, he took up his weapons and went to support the Earl of Lancaster. And he fought in the last Battle of Boroughbridge, dying at the side of the Earl of Hereford. The poor man had been stabbed in the vitals by a man under the bridge. The fellow thrust upwards with a lance, and the point found the gap between the Earl’s buttocks, entering his backside and tearing him apart. While he screamed, John’s uncle went to him, and as he reached out to comfort the man, a bolt slammed into his breast. He was dead in moments.