Michael JECKS - The Mad Monk of Gidleigh

At the thought, his eyes went to his pots and jars, lined up neatly on the shelves where he had left them. All bar one . With a slight frown, he stared at his second highest shelf, where the potions were out of alignment.

Wylkyn was careful, always, to obey the instructions of his tutor and keep all pots in their place, precisely positioned. A clean and tidy room showed a clean and tidy mind, his tutor always said, and Wylkyn believed he was correct. That one particular pot had been moved, he had no doubt, and now he understood why his master had suddenly failed and died.

Reaching up, he took down the jar. The lid was loose. Some apothecaries and physicians might be careless, but not Wylkyn. His tutor had explained that the vitality of many herbs lay in their freshness. All jars should be properly sealed after use. Someone had jammed this one on in a hurry.

Wylkyn had bought this herb only recently in order to prepare some salves and medicines for Sir Richard’s gout. Failing eyesight, giddiness, sleepiness and delirium, he reminded himself. The very same symptoms that this herb would produce in excess.

He went to the cup and jug he had brought from the gatehouse and sniffed. Now he could smell it – an unmistakable narcotic odour, sweet and heavy, slightly acrid. He tasted the wine gingerly. The bitterness seemed to almost bite through the flesh of his tongue. This wine had been adulterated with poison. And he knew which one: henbane.

Mark, priest of the nearby chapel of Gidleigh, remained kneeling in the death chamber, his head bowed, running the beads of his rosary through his fingers as he prayed. He felt a genuine sadness to be present at the passing of this soul. Others who had witnessed the death gradually slipped away, following Sir Ralph’s lead, leaving Mark to maintain the vigil on his own.

The cleric was a young man, scarcely twenty, with clear, large, dark eyes. His face was pleasingly proportioned, with high cheeks and a wide brow, and his chin bore a small dimple. Women liked his slim build and narrow, delicate hands, and if he had not worn the cloth, he would have been snatched up as a husband long ago.

Now, although he tried to keep his mind focused on Sir Richard, he found his concentration wandering. Even a monk could only keep his mind on one topic for so long, and he had been here for more than three days.

Sir Richard had never been a generous or particularly friendly man. Piers, one of the local peasants and the Reeve of the vill, had once joked to Mark that the knight was so mean, he’d sell the steam off his piss if he could, but that mattered little to the priest. All he knew was that the knight had shown him some grudging respect, and in any case, a man who died deserved prayers, even if he was a miserable devil most of the year. Not that Mark could criticise a man for that. He had often felt low in spirits himself, since he was moved here to this wet, miserable land, and he was hale and healthy. How much worse it would be if you were born here and tied to the land, or if you were crippled and in constant pain, like Sir Richard.

He looked up as Wylkyn returned to the room, grim-faced. He stood a moment, staring down at Sir Richard’s face, then bent forward and kissed his forehead gently, before walking from the room, leaving Mark alone with the body.

Mark was about to continue with his murmurings when he felt a gentle breeze sough against his cheek, as soft as a woman’s sigh. There, at the opposite side of the room was a figure, clad in tatters of some heavy grey cloth and surrounded by light from the bright sun outside. It was Surval the Hermit.

Mark felt a shiver run down his spine. The creature – he hardly deserved to be called a man – was unwholesome. Mark could smell him almost before he could see him. Last night, when the two were here praying for Sir Richard, the stench had been enough to guarantee that Mark would not fall asleep. There was an odour of filth and something else quite repellent – not at all the aura of sanctity which a religious man should have carried.

Surval appeared to be gazing about him, and Mark realised he could see scarcely anything in this gloom after the sunlight outside, not that he would have found it easy to see Mark in his corner, kneeling near the head of the bed. Something about the hermit made Mark’s tongue cleave to the roof of his mouth. He couldn’t have continued praying if he’d wanted.

The old hermit clumped his staff on the ground and shuffled through the thin scattering of rushes, slowly approaching the palliasse on which the dead knight lay. Mark could see the hermit’s eyes glittering as he bent down to Sir Richard’s dead face and studied it. Suddenly Mark was certain that the hermit knew he was there.

‘Rest easy, Sir Richard. You were weak, but that was no surprise. Your father was weaker. Fear not but that others will protect your folk. Boy – where’s your tongue? Pray for him! All we sinners need prayer.’

Mark cleared his throat, but before he could speak, the hermit spoke again, more softly. ‘And you more than many, eh?’

Mark knew what Surval meant. It was late in the year 1321, before the death of Sir Richard, when Mark first met her. Before that, he had only ever seen Mary as an occasional visitor to his chapel, and it was some months before he came to know the miller’s daughter not as a priest should know his flock, but as a man knows his wife.

Not that he had any premonition of disaster at the time. Until then, the young monk had lived a life of quiet desperation here on the moors, with little or no prospects. If he had spent any time considering his future, he would have hoped for a short period of service here in the chapel at Gidleigh, followed possibly by the gift of patronage from the knight. That dream was shattered when Sir Ralph had seen Mary at Mark’s home. Afterwards, there was nothing here for him but his prayers and work, and the struggle to avoid the devil’s temptations. In this desolate place, Satan’s efforts seemed to have redoubled.

Mark’s mind flew back to the past, and the first time he met her.

She was surely the devil’s best effort.

He had to keep working. That thought was uppermost in his mind when he slowly brought himself upright, his knee-bones grinding against each other as the weight made itself felt, the leather straps that bound the strong wicker basket to his shoulders squeaking in protest. Grunting with the effort, he began lurching up the short hill to the chapel, unaware that his every move was being closely watched.

His task wasn’t easy. Winter had set in weeks ago, and the water about his feet was near to freezing. He couldn’t feel his toes, and although there was no ice, every step he took fell upon the leaves that lay rotting thickly on the stream’s floor, making him slip and curse through gritted teeth, using words which he had heard often enough among the peasants, but which he knew he shouldn’t use himself.

The basket of stones was an unbearable weight, but he had set himself the task of enclosing the chapel in a wall, and he would go to the devil rather than fail. The only thing that made sense of his life in this foul backwater was the effort he spent each day, collecting rocks and bringing them up the incline to the chapel, tipping the basket on top of the heap. When he had a big enough pile, he would grade the stones, using the largest for the bottom of the wall, graduating them with smaller and smaller rocks until he reached the topmost layer. The tiniest would be used to fit the interstices, gravel and chips blocking the cracks so that no wind could pass through.

He toiled on. Sweat was prickling at his forehead now and along his spine, forming a chilly barrier between his flesh and the coarse linen shirt. Over that he wore a habit of strait , a thick mix of short wool, lamb’s wool and flocks, the usual stuff that the moors produced from their weak, suffering sheep. Nothing like the soft cloth produced in the warmer, drier land about Axminster, where Mark’s family lived. The material from his home would never itch and scratch like this. He fancied he could feel every hair, each one tickling or stabbing him through his shirt. It was all but intolerable.