Michael JECKS - The Mad Monk of Gidleigh

The first carter sat hunched on the boards, his head jolting with the cart’s motion. Gradually more carts and men came into view, trailing behind the first, spread over the grass so as not to follow the tracks of previous wheels and break the surface too badly. That could mean a cart getting mired, perhaps damaging a wheel or axle.

They were so close Esmon could all but feel the breath of the leading horse. Nearly time, nearly… When the first two carters had passed, that would be the perfect time to spring the trap, he thought – and then he saw the carter snort, hawk, throw back his head to spit, and suddenly catch sight of the men watching him from the still darkness of the trees. The carter choked, the phlegm catching in his throat, and Esmon knew that he had only a moment to retain the benefit of surprise. ‘ Now! ’ he roared, and spurred his charger on, waving his sword about his head.

The horse exploded into life. Esmon felt the cantle of his saddle pound into the small of his back and then he was flying forward at a tremendous pace, and he was shrieking, and his men were howling and bellowing, while the carters grabbed reins, trying to move from their path and escape. One was stuck when his horse reared and the traces snapped, another tried to turn his mount up the hill, but that was a vain hope. The heather and furze there were thick enough to clog the wheels of a cart.

Further back were the packhorses. These were Esmon’s target. His plan had been simple: his men would ride out a little further up the hill than their quarry, and then they would drop down on the carters’ flank. Total surprise should work in their favour, for they had never attacked this far from Gidleigh. Usually they sprang their assaults nearer to Gidleigh or Chagford, and that was why so many merchants had changed their route to the market. An attack so far from help was a terrifying experience for travellers.

Towards the rear of the line he found what he sought. He wheeled and glanced back. As he had ordered, his men were strung out behind him, and when he pointed, they all rode down, using their momentum to panic the men and their animals still more.

It worked. The packhorses whinnied and tried to bolt. Their owners were stuck for a choice: protect their property by drawing a knife and see their packhorses disappear into the distance, or fight to control their mounts and hope to see to their attackers later. In the event, some saw fit to draw steel, and their horses were herded away by the three men Esmon had ordered to catch them. The others were soon forced back, swords from the back of a horse being more effective weapons than knives in the hands of merchants and tranters. The carts were forced to halt.

Only one man stood his ground against the raiders. He was walking beside a pair of heavily laden ponies, their broad backs weighted down with leather satchels bound securely to strong cross frames. As soon as the men burst from their cover, Esmon saw him pull his ponies swiftly down towards the stone wall. There he tried to scramble up and over, but the wall was mossy and slick with rainwater, and he couldn’t manage it while holding onto his ponies’ reins. In the end, he slithered to the ground and drew a long-bladed knife.

He was a sturdy fellow, was Wylkyn, thick-shouldered and with the wild hair of a moorman. His eyes flitted over the men of the ambush and at last rested on Esmon as though recognising he was the leader. ‘So, felon! You’re still in charge of this rabble, are you?’

‘Hold your tongue, Wylkyn!’ Esmon shouted. ‘Get back up here and sheath that knife, little man or, by Christ, I’ll take your hand off. Bring your ponies.’

‘You have the look of a knight, but the behaviour of an outlaw. I’ll not bring my ponies to a robber! You want them, you’ll have to take them from me. But it’s not them you’re after, is it? It’s me, you shite!’

The man glanced over his shoulder at the wall as though guessing whether he could leap it in a bound, but then he stepped in front of his ponies, set his shoulders and gripped his knife more firmly. ‘ No . You want me, you’ll have to take me.’

‘You miserable bastard son of a poxed whore!’ Esmon screamed. His blood was still up, his anger easily ignited after the recollection of his father’s treatment of him, and he was in front of his men, too. He had to show them that he wasn’t fearful of a peasant, no matter how grim his features with those narrowed eyes and thin line of a mouth, all but hidden behind the pepper and salt beard.

He spurred his horse and aimed at the man, intending to run him down, but the fellow darted aside at the last minute. Esmon wheeled his horse and Wylkyn sprang out of the way again, but Esmon laughed and rode on past him, scaring his ponies. They whinnied and bolted, running up the hill. Esmon saw Brian leaving the main body of travellers and haring after them, whooping with excitement.

Esmon shot a look up the hill to make sure that they were caught, and then smiled coldly at the miner. ‘So much for your defiance, peasant!’

‘At least I behave like a man of honour, better that and penniless than a mere thief who sports the outer livery of a man of chivalry while his soul is blacker than night in a mine!’ Wylkyn spat. ‘You are dishonoured and a coward! I name you felon and outlaw! Come, fight me fairly, if you dare. You’ve already killed my brother.’

‘It should have been you !’

‘I know. You thought it was me, didn’t you? Just because I was in town.’

‘And now he’s gone to Hell in your place, Wylkyn.’

‘He won’t be there when you arrive, murderer ! He’ll be in Heaven,’ Wylkyn cried hoarsely.

Esmon looked at the sun. There was no time to prolong this. Luckily Wylkyn was inexperienced as a fighter, for all his bluster. Dispassionately Esmon watched to make sure that the travellers were being led away, and once they and his men were out of sight, he ran his horse once more at the man. This time, although the miner slipped to one side, Esmon didn’t give him the opportunity of escape. He swept his sword around in a great arc and Wylkyn coughed and stared down as though in disbelief at his knife. It lay on the ground a short distance from his arm, still gripped in his hand, the fingers twitching, while the blood pumped brightly from his wrist where it had been severed.

He looked up at Esmon with cold contempt. ‘You fucking coward!’

That was enough. The bloodlust washed over him. ‘Die, you prickle!’ Esmon shrieked and urged his horse forward. He swung again, and his blade sank deeply into Wylkyn’s shoulder. He grunted, a deep, pained noise that snorted in his nose like a final snore, and Esmon had to kick at his horse and use the leverage of his mount’s movement to free his blade.

Later, when he was riding back to the castle at the head of the travellers, he felt a crust on his upper lip. Scraping at it with a tooth, he realised it was Wylkyn’s blood, and he smiled. It felt good to have killed again – and now, once he had dumped this lot at the castle, he could go and find the owner of those buttocks. He could do with a tumble on a woman now.

It was the next day, late in the forenoon, that Simon received his second messenger. He had suffered an interminably lengthy explanation of a dispute between two angry miners, neither of whom had bothered to mark their claims with the customary turves piled at the edges. They had simply started digging, and soon thereafter fighting. He fined them both when he grew bored with their whining and arguing.

As he reached his home, desperate for a bowl of thick stew to warm him after the draughts and cold of the castle, Simon saw his wife appear in the doorway. Tall, slim and elegant, with her long blonde hair coiled under her wimple, he adored her even after many years of marriage. When she smiled, he was unaware of the passage of time; it was as though he was seeing her, once more, as she had been when he first met her. As she drew nearer him, all he was aware of was the calmness which she radiated, and his first impression was that he could rest here.