Michael JECKS - The Mad Monk of Gidleigh

She said, ‘A boy has just arrived. There’s a problem over at Gidleigh.’

Simon scowled and swore. ‘God’s belly! What do they want of me? I’ve already said that I won’t go there. Where’s the messenger?’

‘In the buttery. I sent him there to refresh himself. I wasn’t sure if you wanted him to take back a message.’

‘The only message I’m likely to send is one that tells them to stop wasting my time,’ Simon said bitterly. ‘I’ll speak to him later.’

‘Good, Husband.’

There was a jarring tone in her voice that rankled, but Simon swallowed his irritation and tried to sound conciliatory. ‘I am sorry to have spoken so grimly, my love, but I have had a sorely trying morning.’

‘I understand. Your work is important.’

‘Meg, please! It’s not as important to me as you are.’

She turned to face him. ‘It hardly feels like it, Husband.’

‘Why do you say that?’

She wouldn’t meet his eyes. ‘Simon, our daughter is very unhappy to be going away.’

‘I know, but what would you have me do – leave her here on her own? You know we can’t do that.’

‘I could stay here with her… Simon, don’t pull away like that! Please, we have to talk about this. I know you have no choice about the work…’

‘Do you? It sounds as though you blame me for accepting what was never mine to choose,’ he said bitterly.

‘No man is free of a master,’ she agreed sadly. ‘But we should still take account of Edith’s position. She is in love, she thinks.’

‘Thinks!’ Simon expostulated. ‘And how often have we heard that in the last few years?’

‘No matter. She is firm in her belief and…’

Simon gazed at her. There was a hesitancy about her that made him listen intently. ‘And?’

‘And she says she has given her word to marry him.’

‘Christ’s blood!’ Simon roared. ‘I’ll teach her to–’

‘Simon, please!’ Margaret said, putting a hand on his arm. ‘Be still for once and listen.’

‘I always listen,’ he glowered. ‘I am more patient than many.’

‘Then listen now, and stop shouting. She hasn’t given her pledge in terms of present intent.’

He felt his heart’s pounding slow a little at that. If she had given her words in present terms, she was legally married, and there was nothing Simon or even the Church could do about it. Well, not if she’d done it in front of witnesses, anyway. But if she’d sworn to marry in the future, that was different. It was a far less binding covenant. ‘Then what?’

‘She won’t marry, she says, without your approval.’

‘Who is this wastrel cutpurse who would filch my daughter, then?’ Simon asked uncharitably. He was already unhappy about his move to Dartmouth, and the effect it was having on his wife and his daughter. The thought that young Edith could have gone ahead and offered herself in marriage without speaking to him first rankled.

‘He is a good boy, Simon. A freeman.’

‘What sort of a freeman?’ Simon asked suspiciously.

‘Apprentice to a merchant,’ she said, but quietly, as though slightly reluctant to admit it.

‘Merchant?’ he repeated blankly. ‘But there’s only one merchant here. I… Oh, Christ’s cods, not him !’

‘Now don’t be like that, Husband,’ she entreated. ‘He is a perfectly well-meaning lad, and I don’t think he–’

‘He’s as gormless as a newborn mastiff,’ he said bluntly. ‘Dim and vapid. All he ever thinks about is the tightness of his hose! Spends as much time staring at his own ankles as at hers, I expect. Damned pansy! All these modern trends for fashion and high-living, furs and silks and other fripperies! Christ’s blood, what can she see in him?’

Margaret took a deep breath. ‘Simon, if you speak to Edith like that, she will run away with him tonight. She loves him and wants to be with him, but she won’t dishonour you by disobeying you unless you force her to.’

‘Me? I wouldn’t force her to disobey me!’

‘If you rant at her like that, you’ll make her run away with him,’ she said with calm, knowing serenity. She had moved to a turf bench, and was sitting on the grass with her hands crossed in her lap.

‘What do you recommend?’

She patted the grass at her side and remained silent until he accepted her invitation and sat. ‘Try to imagine how she feels. She thinks she is in love – in the same way that I was with you when we met.’

‘That’s completely different,’ he said hotly.

‘Perhaps. And perhaps she doesn’t feel so.’

‘And what then?’

‘Then you can suggest that she may continue to see her swain, but that you would wish her to join us when we go to Dartmouth,’ she said emotionlessly.

He put his hand on her thigh. ‘I know you don’t want to go, but I have to.’

‘I know that. We have to serve. I just don’t want to lose our daughter when we go.’

‘Would she be satisfied with being able to see him?’

‘If you tell her that you will allow him to visit us in our new home so that they can woo in comfort, she might.’

‘I shall consider it,’ he promised.

It was difficult, he told himself as he entered his hall. No sooner had a child been born than she was ready to leave home and begin to raise her own children. ‘She’s too damned young!’ he murmured.

‘Sir?’

Looking up, Simon noticed at last that there was a tired-looking young man standing near the fire. ‘Who are you?’

‘Sir, I’m Osbert. I’ve been sent from Gidleigh by Reeve Piers to speak to the Bailiff.’

‘Osbert, eh?’ Simon said musingly. ‘And you are here to tell me about this dead girl, are you? I’ve already told Sir Baldwin and the Dean of Crediton that I can’t come right now. Tell your Reeve that he’s already had the Coroner and that there’s nothing I can do to help now. I don’t understand why he wants me there anyway. It’s not my place to deal with a murder when it’s nothing to do with the Stannary.’

‘It’s not Mary, sir. It’s the murdered tinner.’

Simon blinked. ‘What?’

‘A man has been found dead, sir, and someone has suggested that he might be a tin miner. He was on his way to the market at Chagford, but never arrived. We thought you should know.’

‘Bugger!’ Simon spat, then roared, ‘Hugh!’ making the messenger quail. ‘Pack clothes and tell the grooms to saddle our horses. We’re going to Gidleigh.’

It was just typical, so far as Piers was concerned. He crouched down at the body’s side again, trying to ignore the stench, but it was impossible. It was pervasive, this odour of blood and decay. Cloying, it stuck in his nostrils and made him want to gag.

‘Who could have done this?’ he choked.

‘You serious?’

‘Elias, what do you want me to say? I didn’t expect this.’

‘Huh! I don’t know anything, and I’m not going to know anything. Don’t want to. What, start talking and end up like that?’

Piers winced as he glanced again at the corpse. Somehow the fear and bitterness of Flora came back to him. At the time he had said he would see what could be done about Esmon, but his words had been intended to calm her rather than indicating that he had a means of punishing their master’s son. Short of committing murder, he couldn’t see how to effect that.

‘There must be something,’ he muttered under his breath.

‘What?’

‘Nothing.’

Unless Esmon was found guilty of committing a crime which could be taken to a higher court, there was nothing anyone could do to bring justice to him. He would continue doing whatever he wanted. In theory, killing a miner, one of the King’s own villeins, would be enough to guarantee that he would be punished, but Piers knew that was a forlorn hope. The King’s officers could demand that Esmon be called to court, but they were all his peers. Who ever heard of a knight’s son being convicted and executed?