Michael JECKS - The Mad Monk of Gidleigh

Mary hated seeing Sampson so mistreated, and she banged on the priest’s door with an urgency born of anger at witnessing such mindless cruelty.

‘Who is it?’ snapped the priest’s voice before he opened the door.

Mary was in no mood to be spoken to like a child found tormenting a man’s cat, and was prepared to be as curt with Mark himself. ‘I often pray in your chapel, Father. Have you forgotten my name?’

Mark stood back from the door. Of course he hadn’t forgotten her name, or anything else about her. Mary had appeared in his more exciting dreams since he had first noticed her figure, and now he often found himself surreptitiously observing her well-filled bodice when he should have been concentrating on his offices. She was the most attractive woman for miles, in his view, and that was one very good reason for him to maintain a certain aloof distance. He daren’t risk compromising himself with her. As a priest he had to be constantly on guard against women and their wiles.

Mark threw a look over his shoulder at his milk. It was not overboiling yet, but he didn’t want to leave it too long. He needed that warming drink, just as he needed a rest before he celebrated the next service in the chapel. With his sore fingers and feet, he was not in the mood to be polite. Mary was very pretty, but Mark felt that it was more important that he should get that warm drink inside him than that he should stand here gossiping. ‘What do you want?’ he asked more politely.

Mary bit back her first sarcastic rejoinder. ‘It is cold out here, Father. Can’t we talk inside?’

‘Why, what do you want to discuss that shall take so long?’

‘Father, I am freezing . Won’t you let me in?’

With a bad grace, he reluctantly grunted assent and pulled the door a little wider. She slipped in past him, and as she did so, he felt her hip brush against his groin. It was fleeting, the merest touch, but it set his heart beating a little faster, especially when he caught a whiff of her fresh, sweet scent, as though she had rolled in new-cut grass infused with lavender.

‘What is the matter?’ he asked gruffly.

‘It is that poor dunderwhelp Sampson. He’s been beaten again. I saw three boys attack him just now, up on the high road.’

‘So what?’ he demanded. The sweetness of her smell was overpowering. It seemed to fill the room, and he took a pace away from her, but mere distance gave him no relief, and he could feel his blood coursing, being this close to a woman in his own room.

‘Can’t you stop them? Preach a sermon about how they should leave the feeble-minded alone?’ she said.

‘Who were they?’

‘Just boys,’ she said hurriedly, for she did not want to have to reveal that one was her brother Ben. ‘You don’t have to talk to them yourself, just make it plain that those who bully Sampson will have to answer to God in the future, and maybe even to the Lord of the Manor for breaking the King’s Peace.’

‘I shall try,’ he said. For some reason he found he was eager to agree to anything that might please her.

‘I thank you,’ she said.

Now she was so close, he could see that she was quite beautiful. Her calm demeanour reminded him of a statue of the Madonna in Exeter. Both had the same deep blue eyes, small, pointed chins, slender noses and broad brows. The statue also had delightful breasts which seemed scarcely decent on the religious figure, and which attracted the ribald attention of many of the younger choristers, but Mark was keen to avert his eyes from Mary’s own breasts. To look, he thought, would be to lose himself, to see the earthly pleasures he was missing. This girl, this young woman, appeared so soft, caring, gentle… He felt like a knight who, seeing a woman for the first time, wanted to go and slay a dragon to attract her attention.

Mary had noticed his confusion, and assumed that he was simply eager to be rid of her. She was preparing to flounce to the door, for she saw no reason for his being so dismissive, when she noticed the pot on the fire. A thick crust of creamy bubbles was swiftly rising to the brim, and she tutted to herself. Taking a thick fold of her skirt in her hand, she reached to the handle, to rescue the pot from the fire, but before she could take hold of it, Mark saw what she was doing.

Afterwards, he could only think that the devil put the idea into his mind, but so chilled was he from his day’s exertions, that he could only think that the girl was going to steal his hot milk. All thoughts of her attractiveness fled, and he leaped forward, reaching for the pot. Grabbing the handle, he lifted it, but then he realised how hot it was. His palm was seared by the heat, and it was all he could do not to hurl the thing from him. He cautiously set the pot down, before biting his lip in anguish and letting go of it, blowing on his hand, refraining, just, from the oaths that threatened to shower from his mouth.

‘Is your hand all right?’ she asked solicitously. ‘Let me see it.’

‘No. It is fine.’

‘It can’t be! The pot was boiling. Why didn’t you let me take it from the flames? Oh!’ Her face softened as she approached him. ‘You were trying to save me from burning myself, weren’t you?’

To deny it and confess his true motive would have reduced him to her ridicule, and he wasn’t going to have that. And then the pain seemed to subside as he felt her hand on his forearm. She took his hand gently in her own cool, slightly callused ones, studying the raw, painful mark. ‘Oh Father, it’s badly burned, isn’t it?’ She met his eyes. ‘Thank you for trying to protect me.’

As he opened his mouth to speak, he saw her own mouth drop to his hand, and as her lips touched the wound, as light as feather-down, he forgot the burn entirely. When she brought her face back up again, he couldn’t help himself leaning down a little, and in response she lifted herself to him, and their lips met briefly.

She left a short time afterwards, and he sat alone in the gloom of his home, but now he was less aware of his loneliness. In its place was a terrible certainty that although he hadn’t touched her body, in his mind he knew he had wanted to. If she had allowed him, he would have taken her.

He must reject any further advances from her. His difficulty was, he was certain that he would be unable to refuse, should she offer him her lips again. The idea that she might offer him more was too terrible to consider, and yet that was precisely what he did consider for the whole of that long, sleepless night. Especially after Sir Ralph’s visit.

On a whim, Sir Ralph took the lane from the ford up to the castle. It climbed up around a hillside smothered in trees, to join with the mud-filled track that led the short way down to the Castle of Gidleigh and the small church at its side. Usually he would have spurred his mount here past the castle gate, for he disliked Sir Richard, but today he ambled along the way and hesitated at the entrance before turning eastwards. It was that fleeting sight of Mary that had made him change his route. He would go to Huward’s mill.

Although he and all the villagers referred to it as ‘Huward’s’, in fact it was Ralph’s own. Every manor had at least one mill, and each of the villeins would pay the miller one tenth or a twelfth of their grain for the privilege of having it ground into usable flour. The miller must pay the lord to fleece the peasants, and all too often was tempted to take more than his agreed share, leading to disputes and fights, but Huward was too wise to try anything like that. He knew when he was on to a good thing and so far appeared to have been fair in his dealings. Either that, Sir Ralph told himself, or he was simply too clever to be caught. Sir Ralph liked to drop in occasionally, unannounced, to check on the place. It was the best way of seeing whether he should increase the miller’s rent, and it was always enjoyable to see his family.