Michael JECKS - The Abbot's Gibbet

Meanwhile Jeanne held up a heavy cloth. “Look at this. Don’t you think it would make a wonderful tunic?”

“Hmm?” He studied the bright red velvet. “It would suit you perfectly, my lady. The color would set off your complexion.”

“Then if my knight thinks so, I should buy it, shouldn’t I?” she said, dropping him a mocking curtsey.

Baldwin considered. “No, my lady. If I think so, I should buy it for you.”

“You can’t, Sir Baldwin. It’s far too expensive – I couldn’t allow it.”

“Then refuse it when I give it to you,” he said lightly, and pulled coins from his purse as he approached Jordan.

The stallholder took it from him. “The whole bolt?” he asked hopefully.

“Yes,” said Baldwin with reckless generosity.

“No,” said Jeanne with the determination of a woman who was used to counting her money. She instructed Jordan to cut off six yards, and watched as he began to unravel the material and measure it against his stick. When he had enough, he marked the cloth with a little piece of white chalk and called out to his boy.

“I sent him away to help my man with the other purchases,” Simon said.

“Ah, no matter,” Jordan said, hiding his annoyance that another should give orders to his assistant. He went to the trestle to fetch his scissors, but couldn’t see them. They weren’t on the table itself, nor under it, and he muttered angrily to himself. Scissors were expensive, and he was always going on at Hankin to look after them, but now once more they appeared to have disappeared. Returning to the waiting group, he gave an irritated shrug. “My lad seems to have taken my scissors with him.”

“Have you nothing else?” Baldwin said.

“Oh, yes, I have a knife.” Jordan pulled it from his belt, made a fold in the velvet where the chalkmark lay, and began to cut carefully along the line.

Baldwin counted out his coins with that faint shock that assails a man who after making a rash promise pays the reckoning. He had no idea that cloth could be so expensive. Jordan had separated the material from the bolt. He set the knife aside and folded up Jeanne’s piece, shaking out wrinkles and creases as he went. When he was finished, Baldwin took the bundle and passed him the coins.

While Jordan pushed them into his purse, Baldwin’s eyes dropped to the table. The knife lay on its left side, and the hilt was plainly visible to him. It was of wood, and there was a motif cunningly carved into it. “That looks a good blade,” he said.

“I’ve had it many years. I always carry it with me.”

“Oh? Is it English?”

“No, I bought it in a fair in Rennes from a Spaniard. I think it was made by a Moor.”

Baldwin picked it up. It had a good weight and feel to it, solid and balanced, and had a long blade, wide at the base and narrowing to a point.

It was hard to imagine it slicing through Torre’s neck, but Baldwin recognized the crest on the handle; it was the same as that on the sheath they had found with the body. “Edgar? Come here a moment,” he called, hefting the knife in his hand, holding Jordan’s gaze. “I have wanted to speak to you for some time,” he said quietly.

Peter shuffled through the long grass, head down as he contemplated the ground before him. After the last few days he couldn’t stay: he’d have to go. There was no choice involved: it was simply the inevitable consequence of his actions and the turn that events had taken. Although Avice had rejected him, he was too unsettled – and ashamed of his carnal weakness – to remain.

Out here, in the orchards beyond the perimeter wall of the Abbey, the sun dappled the ground through the apple, pear and cob trees. The grass would soon be cropped when the sheep were released back inside, but for now they had been removed so that the fruits could all be collected, the ones on the ground as well as those on the trees. The Abbey depended on the orchard to stock the undercrofts for the winter and fill the barrels with cider.

All round him was the crackling sussuration of the tiny, black and yellow pods of the vetch bursting. A cricket gave an experimental rasp, quickly accompanied by another, but both died as he came near.

This was one of the last days of summer, and Peter was reminded how gorgeous the world could be in the midst of his desolation. It felt as if God Himself was mocking him, sneering at his misery. The fault, Peter knew, was his own, and he cringed at the fact that his God was aware. He would have to leave the Abbey and the protection of the Abbot and find a way of earning a living somewhere else.

It was not easy to see how he could. Peter had been a student at the Abbey school for many years before he had taken the tonsure. Many boys from the town attended the school, although most went on eventually to become merchants or knights. Some even entered Parliament to help advise the King. For Peter, after seeing how the monks lived and served God, the decision to remain had seemed natural. Like the brothers, he wanted to dedicate his life to praying for the dead and ensuring that their souls were saved. That was the duty of the Abbey, to intercede for all Christians who had died; they were spiritual warriors, the saviors of the human race.

And now Peter had to accept that he wasn’t worthy. How often he had heard those words said of others, and felt the smugness that his own relative success gave him. Perhaps, he wondered, this was all God’s punishment for his sinful pride. He should never have considered himself better than the unfortunates who failed by discovering their own weaknesses. He was no better than them; he’d simply managed to cling to his belief in his own vocation… out of arrogance.

Kicking at a stone, he watched it bounce and spin away. It reminded him of himself: insignificant, meaningless. He was of no more note than a pebble in the eyes of the world.

As he approached the river, a loud metallic clattering made him stop and look up. A dragonfly, vivid blue in the body, darted hither and thither, patrolling its territory near the pond which lay in a bend. It was perfect in design and beauty, and Peter was overwhelmed with the magnificence of a God Who could create so wonderful a creature. The novice had always wanted to understand more about the world around him, and it was a source of shame to him that he could not continue his studies within the Abbey.

Slumping at the river bank, he hugged his legs, morosely gazing out over the pasture opposite, contemplating his future. It was bleak. He had no craft or trade. There were few enough apprenticeships in the town, and he was too old already for most of them. For a man of nearly nineteen, the only career he was capable of taking on was probably that of soldier. At least with that he would have a guaranteed portion of food and ale, and a bed at night.

He stood and continued his aimless wandering. The idea of soldiering was not one that attracted him, and not only because his sedentary lifestyle unsuited him for the rigors of fighting. He had an aversion to the principle of making an oath to obey the orders of an earthly baron now that he had enjoyed serving an Abbot.

Another sudden noise drew his attention. There was shouting and banging coming from near the market. His feet had brought him back to the road that led westward from the town, and he gazed one way and then the other, undecided. There was a temptation to leave Tavistock behind, to simply disappear and seek his fortune, whatever it might be.

But he couldn’t. He had nothing – no money, no job, no enthusiasm; he had truly lost everything. There was nothing for him to do, nowhere to go. He felt utterly alone. Whereas he would gladly have given up his vocation to wed Avice and would have been content to live with her in poverty, her rejection of him was so total and uncompromising he felt that there was little reason for him to carry on living.