Michael JECKS - The Mad Monk of Gidleigh

Sir Ralph shrugged.

‘It seems odd that he should bolt from the place as you take the castle, and then appear dead on the moors.’

‘Ah, well. People are superstitious on the moors. Perhaps there was an argument, and a passerby thought that murder had been done? I am sure you will find that there’s no body up there,’ Sir Ralph chuckled.

He glanced at Sir Baldwin, and the two men locked eyes for some moments. It didn’t matter. Sir Ralph knew he was speaking the truth.

Shivering, his teeth chattering, Mark spent a terrible evening in the cell. It was a dank, foul-smelling hole deep underneath a stable, with rock-lined walls that dripped steadily with water and with liquid excrement and urine from the horses above. Whether it was intended that the gutter should run into this little sewer, he couldn’t tell, nor did he care. He daren’t lie in the half-inch or so of moisture, so he must stand. That was all he knew.

The cold was deadly. He slapped his hands against his shoulders, trying to invigorate them, but it did no good. It was as though they were already turned to ice. Hitting them hurt his palms; it was like thumping slabs of wood.

There was no light. That was shut out by the solid trap door above his head. When he had been dropped in here, he had caught a fleeting glimpse of his cell: small, square and foul. Less than six feet wide and broad, and maybe seven deep. He huddled in a corner, listening to laughter and shouting above his head, and suddenly tears sprang forth. All he wanted was human contact, the companionship that a man needed, but he could hope for nothing. He wanted to pray as well, but couldn’t. The words wouldn’t come; the idea of offering a prayer to God from this hole was somehow disrespectful.

When he heard vague splashing at the far end of the cell he told himself that it was the dripping of water from above, perhaps a horse had defecated, and not the pattering of tiny paws. It was all too easy to imagine ranks of rats watching him, waiting for him to lie down and sleep so that they could attack him. If he could have found a stone or pebble, he would have hurled it, but there was nothing that he could feel with his feet in the filth, not that his feet would necessarily have detected anything, so cold were they.

A shudder ran through his frame and he had to control an urge to sob. He felt desolate, lonely and forlorn, and fear was making his bowels loosen. Terrible to think that he could beshit himself through terror. That was not something he’d have thought of when he was sent here, that he’d be in such fear of his life that he could soil himself.

He had hoped that the friendly cleric, Roger Scut, who had vowed to protect Mark from all enemies and persuaded that Keeper, Sir Baldwin, to come back with them, might have kept up a conversation with him on the ride back here, but of course it wasn’t fair to expect that. Roger was supposed to be preventing a miscarriage of justice, making sure that Mark was saved from the rigours of the local court and instead was appealed before the Bishop’s own, thus he had maintained a dignified silence.

God, but it was so cold. All the long hours of his escape, he had never once had the chance to warm himself, and since capture, he had been able to spend only a few moments in front of the fire in the inn at Crediton before they whisked him away on the long ride back here. Even when they had been forced to resort to an alehouse because the river was in spate after the rains, they had seated Mark near the door, far from the fireside. He was a suspected felon: he didn’t deserve comforts.

There was a rattling and when he looked up, a few stray pieces of damp stuff fell from the trap door and into his face. Coughing with revulsion, spitting bits of straw, he looked up in time to see that a ladder was being lowered and his heart suddenly felt as though it might burst with joy. Someone was going to let him out of here! Someone had taken pity on him! He was about to be saved and given food, drink, a place near a fire! Oh, my God! Flames, heat, warmth! He couldn’t stop the loud sobs that racked his breast, and he grabbed at the ladder, clambering up it as quickly as his frozen fingers and toes would permit.

At the top, he was already babbling his thanks when he was blinded by the light from a torch. Covering his face, he squinted about him. ‘My Lord, I am so thankful… That place… Might I beg a little warmed wine? My mouth… I am so famished…’

Without warning, a fist slammed into his kidneys, and he gasped as he went down, his head striking the cobbles with a hammer blow. A boot kicked at his back, then his neck, and he curled into a ball while feet pounded into his already frail body.

‘Think you’re going to escape, priest? No one wants that!’

He recognised that laughing voice: Esmon, the son of Sir Ralph. There was yet another kick at his arse, catching his cods and making him whimper.

‘You thought you were going to get away, didn’t you, priest? Thought you’d get to Exeter. Perhaps you thought you’d be safe if you brought your friends here, that you’d be allowed to get to the Bishop’s palace if they spoke for you in court? Well, we aren’t having that, little priest. You aren’t going anywhere. You will die right here, whether today or tomorrow, I don’t care, but you’re dying here.’

Only one glimpse did he catch of the men. There, at the front of them, watching while Esmon beat him, Mark saw Sir Ralph, his face twisted with hatred.

‘Father,’ Mark said, but no one listened, and no one cared as he screamed, cradling his head in his arms as the boots and fists hammered into his soft and unprotected body.

Least of all Sir Ralph.

Baldwin and Simon were up early the next morning, demanding that Piers come and take them to Wylkyn’s body. To Hugh’s disgust, he was ordered to leave his warm bench and follow his master as soon as Piers arrived, while Baldwin’s two watchmen were permitted to remain in the tavern’s cosy hall. They asked Piers to join them while they completed their breakfast, and he sat a short way from the table. Roger Scut was with them, eating quietly and watching them all suspiciously. He was still bitter that the chapel had been fired.

‘You want some meat or bread?’ Baldwin enquired.

‘No, thank you, Sir Baldwin,’ Piers said. ‘I’ve eaten already.’

‘Some of us eat even when we’ve already taken our meals,’ Simon observed, glancing sidelong at Roger Scut.

‘I have not!’ Roger said, flushing angrily. ‘I have only just woken!’

‘You had a meal here with us last night when you had dined earlier with Sir Ralph, didn’t you?’ Simon accused.

Roger Scut chose the safest approach of saying nothing.

Baldwin studied him thoughtfully. ‘Tell me, Scut – what was it like there in the castle?’

‘A sumptuous meal,’ Roger Scut said, ‘served by attentive and thoughtful servants. Any who were slapdash risked a thrashing, so all were careful. I didn’t like the Grace being said after eating, though. I prefer to hear it said beforehand.’

‘I don’t care when he says Grace, and I don’t care how attractive the food was, how careful the servants, nor how elegant the surroundings,’ Baldwin said irritably. ‘I meant, did you see any signs which showed why we weren’t allowed into the castle?’

‘Nothing. The place was neat and tidy, and his carts were all moved out of the way.’

‘So! You’re the Reeve?’ Simon asked. ‘Do you know why my friend was rudely refused permission to enter the castle?’

Piers shrugged good-naturedly. ‘Oh, Master, the ways of great knights are beyond me. I’m only a simple peasant.’

‘Really?’ Baldwin asked, one eyebrow lifted slightly.