Michael JECKS - The Mad Monk of Gidleigh

‘Typical!’ Baldwin said, thinking of his long journey homewards. He grimaced, then continued towelling himself dry.

‘I assume you, um, failed to find the man yesterday?’

‘We did not capture him, no. But I have men sweeping all around the town today,’ Baldwin said shortly.

‘The Dean has asked that you present the priest to him when you do catch him.’

‘You may tell the good Dean that I shall consider his request.’

‘It was not a request, I fear.’

Baldwin heard the slight intonation. He met Roger Scut’s bland expression with a keen look. ‘I fear it was exactly that, Roger. Dean Peter asked if I would present him with his murderous priest. I shall consider his request when I catch the fellow. First, of course, I have to catch the felon. Once I have done so, I shall think about whether I should release him to Peter or take him back to Gidleigh.’

‘He is a priest, you know.’

‘No, I do not. He is rumoured to have been living there as a priest, it is true – but that means naught. What if this was a felon who waylaid your priest on the way to his church? He might have slaughtered your cleric and buried the body, then thought to himself what fun he could have with a small congregation like Gidleigh’s.’

‘My God! You don’t mean that?’ Roger Scut said, blanching. He nervously felt for his rosary. ‘But how could a man hope to get away with such an imposture?’

‘Easily. I have known some outrageously bold felons in my time. Why,’ Baldwin said with a sudden sharpness, ‘how do I know that you are who you say you are? You could be another false man.’

‘I?’ Roger Scut spluttered, his face suddenly reddening like an apprentice caught with his buttocks bared with his master’s daughter. ‘But I have been here for years, I am known to–’

‘It was merely an example. I shall decide when I see the boy,’ Baldwin lied mildly; his mind was already made up. The lad’s crime was awful, and to Baldwin’s mind it was neither fair nor just that he should be allowed to escape to the Bishop’s court without having to face those whom he had wronged.

Gradually Roger Scut’s complexion returned to normal. ‘I am glad to hear it. So tell me,’ he said, his head tilting back again until he was drawing a sight on Baldwin once more, ‘why do you practise with your sword this morning? It is hardly the time of year to expect a war, is it?’

‘There is no time of year when one should not expect a war. Especially now, with the King’s army shattered again.’

‘Oh, that!’ Roger’s face fell. ‘We live in terrible times, Sir Baldwin. I sometimes wonder when we shall know peace again.’

‘So do I,’ Baldwin said with feeling. The Scottish had drawn the King northwards during the previous year at the completion of the latest truce, by swarming over the border and ravaging the lands of the north-west. King Edward II had gone with a massive, well-provisioned body of men. Yet the stories which were filtering back to the south were all of subterfuges and disasters.

The Scots had withdrawn before the might of the English host, refusing them battle, but also destroying all the food stores and animals in their path, with the result that the English were soon decimated by starvation and disease. The King had to pull back, but his orderly retreat was harried by Scottish forces, and one made its way even so far as the middle of Yorkshire. It was only with difficulty that King Edward II himself escaped capture in a skirmish near to Byland and Rievaulx. The whole of Yorkshire was struck with terror as their King fled and the upstart rebels from Scotland devastated their lands.

It was a disaster for everyone in the realm, with repercussions even down here in Devon. Simon, Baldwin’s friend, had helped a King’s Arrayer the previous year, organising men to be used in the King’s host, and some of these fellows had limped back, but all too few. The rest, they said, had been captured and slaughtered by the mad Scots, or they had died of pestilence or starvation. Many died because, after suffering the worst pangs of hunger, when they came across food, they gorged themselves and their poor bodies couldn’t cope. They died in terrible pain as their stomachs burst within them.

The cost was vast, too. Huge stocks of grain, meat and fish, all salted, had been taken to feed the men fighting for the King, but this was the food that the towns had expected for their own winter supplies, and without them, many households had gone hungry over the winter. Crediton itself was better stocked than many other towns, but Baldwin had several cases of families who must beg for food from Church stores.

‘We can only hope and pray that the Scottish rebels will accept their fate,’ Roger Scut said piously.

‘Yes,’ Baldwin agreed, although privately he wondered whether they ever would. It was all very well having the Pope’s approval for the King’s claim to the Scottish crown, but if all the people continued to refuse, point blank, and wouldn’t offer battle either, but instead ran away into the bleak, miserable far north of their lands, it was hard to see what the King could do about it.

He was considering this miserable fact and wondering what miracle of strategy could be used to defeat the Scottish, when there was a sudden shouting and laughter from the road. Baldwin paid it little heed at first, thinking it was only some folk playing the fool, but then the noise drew nearer and he realised that the source of the row was already in the cross passage. He stood, putting a hand near his sword, but did not draw it. In a few minutes a group of cheerful men entered.

Godwen was first to walk in. ‘Sir Baldwin, I think we have your man!’

‘ That is him?’ Baldwin asked with ill-concealed disbelief.

Sir Ralph eyed the sky as he climbed up the three steps of moorstone and mounted his horse. It had been blowing like a horn since before dawn, and the rain had come across like a grey mist, obscuring everything behind it. Now at least there was a brief period of calm and dryness, but the grey clouds above left him feeling dubious as to how long it would last. The wind had not abated.

He shivered. It felt as if there was an ague in his guts. Since the death of Mary, he’d been feeling like this. It was hard to swallow food or drink, and he must force himself. It was no comfort to observe that the energy which had at last failed him would appear to have been transferred entirely to his son.

While a groom led him a short distance away, Esmon leaped lightly into his own saddle and nonchalantly pulled on his gloves.

Esmon was quite a chip off the old block, Sir Ralph had to admit, but he wasn’t sure that it was pleasing. Certainly he had the fair-haired good looks and the appearance of hardness, but his mouth was all too often a thin line, displaying his petulance. Although his eyes were a clear, bright green like emeralds, they did not reflect mere jealousy but comprehensive and consuming avarice. He didn’t care what his neighbour possessed: what he wanted, he would take. In many ways, he would be the ideal knight, Sir Ralph thought. He was not prepared to allow any rudeness or cheek to his honour, he wouldn’t take any foolishness that might reflect upon him, and he had just enough sense to know when to hold his tongue when the odds were heavily laden against him.

That was the trouble with fellows today. Sir Ralph knew so many of them, men of strength and apparent intelligence, who would yet charge a thick line of Genoese crossbows and spears alone just because of an imagined slight. That was madness, in Sir Ralph’s opinion. To join in a charge was a glorious experience, but as a military force he felt that it was overrated. He wasn’t alone, either. Others too had witnessed the disaster of Bannockburn, when the mounted chivalry of the realm was shattered on the pikes and spears of the Scots like waves on the seashore. There was nothing that a knight could do to break into a solid, packed phalanx of men with good, long polearms. That was the job of footsoldiers.