Michael JECKS - The Mad Monk of Gidleigh

Baldwin asked, ‘How did he know you were brother to Sir Ralph? It was seemingly well enough hidden to others about here?’

Surval gazed at him with surprise. ‘We grew up here, and so did Sir Richard; even if he was younger than us, he knew us as close peers as well as neighbours. Our families hunted and dined together. But that meant nothing last year when that damned moneylender died in Exeter.’

He chewed his lip. ‘You remember what things were like. The whole country on tenterhooks, armies massing to fight the enemies of the King, the Despensers called back from their exile and pardoned… and the Despensers – damn them! – came back and once more had the ear of the King to the detriment of the realm. Well, my brother had thrown in his lot with the Despensers some little while before. But Sir Richard hadn’t.

‘Sir Richard had borrowed a sum from a moneylender, and when that man was murdered, Sir Richard found people demanding repayment. The debt was taken by the King, and because of Sir Ralph’s friendship with the Despensers, they persuaded the King to let my brother take over the castle. Sir Richard fought back in the only way he knew. He employed clerks to argue, he sought another moneylender, and then he tried to slander my brother through me.’

Surval grunted to himself. ‘It wasn’t the act of a kind or generous soul. He sought to ruin my brother’s reputation by first ruining mine. Perhaps once he had removed me, he thought he could slander Ralph and thereby gain a little time to find more money and keep his castle. That it would have destroyed my reputation meant nothing to him.

‘I have rebuilt my life here. The thought of leaving – especially in order to satisfy another man’s spite against a brother I detest – seemed terribly unfair. So I sought to protect myself.’

‘By killing again.’ Baldwin’s face was set like moorstone.

‘Yes. He was going to destroy me, so I sought to destroy him first,’ Surval said with a fierce defiance. ‘When Sir Richard was forced to take to his bed with his gout, I went to visit the castle. I offered him peace, and tried to reason with him, but he wouldn’t listen, and while I was there, I saw Wylkyn mix medicine for his master. When I asked what it was, he told me it was henbane. I knew where Wylkyn kept his stock of herbs, and I looked in there. I confess, I hadn’t realised henbane could be used to ease the gout, but when I heard Wylkyn say that, I added more and mixed it with Sir Richard’s wine. Within a day he was complaining about his sight and some giddiness. Soon he fell to lethargy, and within a day or two, he was in a delirium, and then he died.’ The hermit gave a long sigh.

‘You poisoned him over several days?’

‘The priest from the church only saw him on the first day or two. After that, the monk from the chapel and I remained with him. We prayed together for his soul.’

‘Even though you were killing him?’ Simon burst out.

‘Bailiff, a man’s soul is more important than any petty disputes on earth,’ the hermit said sententiously.

‘You killed him to keep your place here,’ Baldwin stated.

‘It is everything to me!’

‘What of the girl?’ Baldwin asked, a sadness gradually overtaking him on hearing this confession. Surval was clearly an intelligent man, and he had sought to protect himself as best he might, but in so doing he had caused the deaths of too many others: Sir Richard, Mary and Wylkyn at first, but now Mark, Esmon, Sir Ralph, Ben, Huward and all the others, because if he had not committed those first crimes, Sir Ralph’s affair might not have become known, his men might not have rebelled, and many would now be alive who had died.

Surval shook his head, staring down at the ground. ‘I knew of the affair between Mark and her. Who didn’t? In a vill, there are never any secrets. No matter what, lovers will be seen. And these two were. It was terrible. The appalling sin of incest in the first degree.’

‘But they had no idea that they were guilty of such a sin!’

‘They knew he was a monk, sworn to celibacy,’ Surval shot out. ‘He was supposed to have dedicated himself to God, but instead he enjoyed the girl’s body.’

‘She was pregnant,’ Simon said quietly.

‘I didn’t realise that at first, but then she began to moan and cry.’

‘In the road? You were there with her?’ Baldwin confirmed.

‘Yes. I went to speak to her after the others had passed by. She looked unhappy, troubled. Of course, she had just lost her child.’

‘The blow,’ Baldwin mused.

‘Yes, I think her shock and horror at Mark’s violence made her miscarry. I tried to soothe her, explained that it was for the best because it was her brother’s child, but she wouldn’t listen. She screamed at me, really loudly, and I… well, I saw that the anguish and morbid terror were gripping her, so I killed her. It was kinder. She was in terrible pain, and bleeding heavily.’

‘You murdered her just as you did your own woman.’

‘No, Sir Baldwin. I protected her from her shame. Imagine how she could have lived, knowing that her child was repellent to God Himself? It was better to spare her that. I was being kind.’

‘And you were willing to allow Mark to hang for your crime.’

‘Ach! There was no risk he’d hang. He was young. He could soon rebuild his life. Perhaps he’d be protected by the Bishop. But me, what could I do? If I was accused again, I’d die. This place is all I have. Without it, I am dead.’

A week later, Simon and Baldwin returned to Gidleigh with Coroner Roger’s body. Baldwin was in a filthy mood, because he had ridden all the way to Exeter with Thomas, delivering Surval to the Bishop, and all during that long journey, Thomas had done nothing but complain about Godwen’s behaviour, how he was insulting Thomas’s family and Thomas himself, making sneering jibes about Thomas’s brother-in-law and others.

‘In God’s name,’ Baldwin exploded after ten miles, ‘I begin to wish you had not bothered to save his damned life, if you loathe the man so much!’

Thomas had stared at him, quite appalled. ‘Sir Baldwin! You can’t choose who should live or die just because you like them or not!’

‘I believe you saved him because life without your feuding partner would be insufferable.’

‘That is a terrible accusation!’ Thomas said with hurt in his voice, and he was silent. Then he flashed a grin at Baldwin. ‘Mind, it does add spice to have an enemy!’

Baldwin had given a longsuffering grunt. Now, with Coroner Roger’s widow at his side, walking to the church in Gidleigh, he could not recall any humour. It felt as though in the midst of her grief, she had sucked all the levity from people about her. Not surprising, Baldwin told himself; not after the shock of loss which she had suffered.

‘He always adored this area,’ Roger’s widow said. She was a large woman, her face ravaged with tears, and she leaned heavily on her maidservant as she walked behind the sheeted body of her husband.

Simon nodded. ‘He was born here, wasn’t he?’

‘And now he has died here and can be buried here,’ she agreed. ‘Daft old fool that he was, he’d probably be glad to think that although he lived most of his life in Exeter, he still came back here in the end.’

‘I am so sorry,’ Baldwin said sincerely. ‘If I could have done anything to save him, I would.’

‘I know that,’ she said.

She moved on behind the body being carried by the four bearers, all of whom were servants from his home in Exeter. The weather was foul, which was nothing new, merely a return to normal conditions, Baldwin thought to himself. Grey skies hurled chilly gobbets of rain like slingshots at the people standing by the grave. It was an old-fashioned grave, like those of many in this area, so that Roger would be buried kneeling as though in prayer. He would have liked that, his wife had said. He had not been as religious as he should have been during life, so it was best that he had a head start in death. Surely a man praying would win God’s attention faster than a lazy fool lying on his back.