Michael JECKS - Squire Throwleigh’s Heir

That thought reminded him of the reason for his visit.

‘Alan, do you think we ought to go to the manor and tell them about…’

‘We’ve told them all we can.’ His eyes were not on Jordan, but staring out across the field as his fingers deftly looped cords over the necks of the dead birds. The younger boy could feel his tension, but didn’t know how to help him. It was Alan who had been caught by the priest, not Jordan, and the cruel lash-marks still hadn’t faded.

‘I hate him,’ Jordan said aloud, and the virulence of his hatred surprised even himself. The priest had beaten them all – oh, many times – and yet he was the one who taught them to love their fellow man.

Alan glanced at him with a worried frown. ‘We can’t do anything, though. He’s a priest. Who’d believe anything we said against him?’

‘My dad would believe me – he’s always said the priest is a bastard.’

‘Your dad? Jordan, he’s useless! Look at him, he’s a drunk who can’t hold his place in the vill, and who’s become a villein again.’

Jordan felt stung into defending his father. ‘That wasn’t his fault! It was the mistress, and…’

‘You can’t mean you think he’s all right? After the way he’s treated you?’

Jordan sulked. His thrashings were known all around Throwleigh, and his father’s drinking had also gained him notoriety. He brushed angrily at a tear and sniffed. He wasn’t going to let the older boy upset him again.

It happened all too often. Alan had the abilities of an older boy. His skills with bow and sling were cursed by several people in the area, and he couldn’t help but look down upon Jordan sometimes, like a patronising elder brother. His tone could be quite scathing when he talked about Jordan’s father; Jordan had a child’s kindness and generosity of spirit, but he had more perspicacity than most adults, and he was sure that Alan’s disapproving tone when talking about Edmund had something to do with the disappearance of his own father. It was a form of jealousy.

Alan shouldn’t have been so sharp, he knew, but it was so tempting sometimes when Jordan whined on about things. His father was a waster – useless. Couldn’t even fix the fence when it fell two years before, and that was why they had lost their pig and later most of their chickens: a fox had got in, and all the time Edmund was snoring, drunk, on his bed. His wife could do nothing, nor could the two children, both were too young. So because he was lazy, Edmund had squandered all his family’s assets.

But it wasn’t Jordan’s fault, and Jordan was Alan’s only friend here. They were renegades – almost outlaws. They and young Herbert had wandered far over the surrounding countryside, playing at the bartons, hunting each other over the moors… That thought reminded him that now there were only the two of them, not three.

It still seemed only a short while ago that there had been four of them, including Tom, his brother. But, because of Herbert, Tom was dead, or so Alan’s mother said. Alan wasn’t greatly exercised by questions of responsibility – he knew that people died, whatever their age. Even during his short life Alan had seen friends and acquaintances starve, many of them dying because of the famine.

His mother blamed Herbert for Tom’s death. She was convinced that if only Herbert had called out, Tom could have been saved, but Alan couldn’t feel any resentment towards Herbert for that; Herbert was too young. And now he too was gone.

‘Alan, we could give them proof of what the priest’s like,’ Jordan said after a moment.

‘How can we do that?’ Alan wanted to know. ‘He’s a priest and everything – how can we show people what he’s really like?’

‘His shoe?’

Alan paused and his mouth fell open. ‘You think we…’

‘Why don’t we go back and see if his sandal is still up there? If we can find it, people would have to believe us, wouldn’t they?’

Baldwin stared in amazement as the monk stormed from the chapel. Stephen’s contempt was all too plain, and it could only be because he had guessed that Baldwin had been a Knight Templar. It was the only explanation. Stephen had obviously heard the accusations – the ridiculous, trumped-up accusations pressed by government officials on behalf of the French King: allegations that Templar brothers underwent obscene initiation rituals, that they ate Christian babies, that they committed the heinous act of sodomy with each other, even that they spat on the Cross!

The knight sat back weakly, his hands on his knees. If the monk were to spread this news, Baldwin’s position in the country would be hideously compromised. He had no protector, nor could he afford to buy off someone who threatened blackmail. If his career as a Templar monk should be bruited about, a priest or maybe even a bishop would hear, and they would be bound to try to have him arrested and put to the flames which he had escaped by so slight a margin before.

Baldwin forced himself to breathe slowly, to think rationally. He felt as if he had been punched in the guts, and there was a light dew of sweat on his brow as he feverishly recalled the monk’s expression. Then he stopped, and his frown gradually faded.

It was impossible for the monk to have made the fabulous leap to the conclusion that Baldwin had been a member of the Poor Fellow Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon from the few words the knight had given. Yet the brother had drawn back as if repelled, and suddenly Baldwin recalled how he had put the question. In his nervousness and hesitation, he had phrased the query hypothetically, and the priest had obviously assumed the knight was accusing him of breaking his own vows.

With the relief this cogitation gave him, Baldwin could have laughed aloud. When he heard footsteps outside the door again, so great was his revival, he smiled broadly. The monk walked in and Baldwin greeted him warmly.

‘Brother, my apologies! I fear I gave you entirely the wrong idea. I did not intend to imply that you had been guilty of anything. I am truly sorry if I alarmed you, but it was absolutely unintentional.’

‘I am glad to hear it,’ Stephen said coldly. Although Baldwin continued to offer fulsome apologies, the priest appeared only partly mollified, and it was only gradually that he allowed himself to be calmed. Eventually he sat down again, although not next to Baldwin this time, and closed his eyes as if exhausted. Opening them again, he gave Baldwin a keen look and settled himself. ‘Come, tell me what is troubling you.’

This time Baldwin was careful to make himself understood. ‘Brother, I once swore an oath, but the man in whom I put my trust proved faithless. He pursued me, without reason, and proved his own dishonour. Have I been right to recant my own vow?’

‘I would have to know more, but if you are saying that you swore your honour and allegiance to a man, and that man subsequently betrayed your trust, I would think that his betrayal would be the defining issue. What I mean is, his lack of honour would release you from your vows to him. How did you recant?’

‘I swore an oath to chastity, but now I have married.’

‘Well, if you made an oath before God to marry a woman, God wouldn’t punish you. Your wedding vows were holy, for God has instructed us to marry. Your vows to Him would carry precedence over any taken previously to a mere man.’

Baldwin thanked him, but frowned. The priest had said all he could to ease his mind, but it wasn’t enough. Baldwin had given his vows to God when he had joined the Templars. ‘Stephen, what would the position be with a monk who decided to give up his calling and take himself a wife? Would the oaths given at his wedding carry greater weight than that of chastity?’