A Friar's Bloodfeud: (Knights Templar 20) (8 page)

He turned to face the altar and stood a few moments studying the paintings on the walls. All were vivid – if lacking some
artistic skill on occasion – and ideally suited to stirring the spirits of a peasant from an out of the way place like this.

That was half the battle. A man must always bear in mind the status and abilities of the folk to whom he was preaching. There
was no earthly good in putting forward arguments that had been disputed in Oxford if the audience was a group of shepherds,
carters, ploughmen and charcoal-burners.
They wouldn’t understand the niceties. Now, if John spoke to them, he’d pitch the story at a lower level, curse a bit, give
them more of what they heard each day in the tavern. And from that perspective, this little church was ideal. It made the
uneducated look at the walls. They couldn’t retreat from them.

He knelt and bent his head, praying now for aid. Since finding the man last night, he had much to think through. There was
his own mission, which must necessarily be suspended for a little while, and then there was much to learn. Such as, why should
a man have been attacked like that in a quiet vill like this? What could have justified such a ferocious assault and murder?

This was a good place. It smelled right, not damp or musty, but earthy, with the tang of incense. A soft, mellow odour that
reminded him always of his very first memories of a church.

‘Master? May I help you? My name is Father Matthew.’

There was a tall, spare priest behind him, and John turned and smiled, grunting as he levered himself upwards. ‘Father, I
am glad to see you. I am Brother John, and while wandering these lands I wondered whether you would object to my preaching
a little?’

The man’s expression hardened. At John’s words it looked as though his face was transformed into firm, unyielding
cuir bouilli
– leather boiled until it became almost as hard as metal. Then, just as John was expecting a firm rebuff, the man’s features
relaxed.

‘I am sorry, Brother. The last preacher who came here listened to a man’s confession and gave him such a light penance that
the fellow went off and committed another crime. Since then, I have been wary of allowing friars to
become involved with my flock. But it is silly to think that all friars are the same, just as it would be to say that all
flowers are the same colour. Of course you may preach here, and if you wish to make use of my pulpit, you may. I do beg, though,
that before offering to hear any confessions from my people you tell me first. There are some here who would be keen to speak
to you rather than me. After all, if they talk to me, they will have to face me every day for the rest of their lives. Surely
that is a part of their penance, just as much as a series of Pater Nosters.’

‘I assure you I could not agree more,’ John said. ‘In these troubled times, a good priest must see to it that as many of his
flock as possible see the errors of their ways. There is so much cruelty and evil in the world.’

‘You can have no idea how correct you are,’ Matthew said heavily. ‘It sometimes seems that the whole world is at war to no
purpose.’

‘So many petty arguments,’ John said. And then he added with truth, ‘Feuds and disagreements are rife all over the country.
Even in a place so seemingly quiet as this, I suppose?’

‘This little vill is the property of one lord, and another craves it. Everywhere is in a ferment. Why, even last night there
was an attack on a little holding …’

He shook his head, and then glanced behind him at a low doorway that gave into a small storage room. ‘Brother, could I offer
you some refreshment? I have spent all the morning so far at my glebe, and my hands are frozen even as are my insides. I feel
the need for wine. Would you care for some?’

‘I should be delighted,’ John said enthusiastically.

They went into the storage area, where John sat on a low chest, while Matthew took his rest on a small, rough box
which he unceremoniously emptied that he might perch on it up-ended.

‘You have much land?’

‘Yes, enough. And it is fruitful, God be praised! But the effort at this time of year – breaking up the soil is such cruel
work. My hands are not so young as once they were.’

John nodded sympathetically. Matthew’s hands were rough, dark-stained by the soil, and each finger had its own callus from
the inevitable effort of working his private strips in the vill’s fields. One had cracked so badly in the cold that a thin,
weeping blood was oozing, but when Matthew saw that John had noticed it, he merely waved his hand and sucked it until the
blood stopped flowing.

‘Do you have many problems here?’ John asked.

‘Only the usual: recalcitrant folk who prefer to hold their tongues rather than confess in a mood of penitence, determined
never to repeat their mistakes.’

‘There would be little work for men of God if all were angels,’ John said with a gentle smile.

‘True,’ Matthew said, but he frowned, peering into his cup as though the wine had turned to vinegar. ‘Yet here matters seem
to be growing worse.’ He was a trusting man, and soon he was telling John all about the attack on the family a short way along
the road. ‘All dead, and the house burned.’

‘You think that it was no common outlaw?’

Matthew shook his head. ‘There are too many here who would have been glad to see that family gone.’

‘Father? Is there something else troubling you? May I help?’

Matthew sat without speaking for a long time, as though holding a debate with himself about whether or not to speak,
but in the end his desire to unburden his soul of his concerns overwhelmed his natural caution. ‘There is one thing, my friend.
South of here lies a little manor called Monkleigh, where there is a small chapel. For many years past this place has been
served, and served well, in God’s name, by a holy fellow called Isaac. Isaac is now very old, and I fear his hearing and eyes
are failing him. So, some little while ago – it was last summer, I recall – a young priest was sent here to help him. This
fellow has been there with Father Isaac for months now.’

‘Surely that is good, though?’ John asked.

Matthew smiled with his mouth, but his eyes were hard and suspicious when he looked up at John again. ‘Aye, it should be.
But I have never seen signs that he was truly sent from Exeter, and Isaac told me that he had never complained. And I believe
that. He is not the sort of man to ask for help. So since the bishop has not held a visitation here in my memory, how did
he come to hear of Isaac’s infirmity?’

‘Perhaps a friar saw him, or the magnate who lives in the hall decided to ease his load a little?’ John hazarded.

‘That God-damned scoundrel would rather murder Isaac and steal all he could from the chapel than try to assist an old man.
No! The lad Humphrey was not sent here. I know it in my bones. I have seen him in the chapel, and while he is fluent enough
in Latin … well, he is
too
fluent! You know the sort. He should be at Stapeldon College, rather than in a small chapel in the middle of the waste like
this. And he speaks like a friar, too.’

‘Ah!’ John smiled as understanding broke upon him.

‘Yes. I think he must be a runaway. Perhaps even a renegade friar.’

Robert Crokers squatted on his haunches at the doorway to his home and stared about him with a feeling of shock.

When he’d been forced away from the place, he’d had to go at once. There was no possibility that they’d allow him to remain.
They wanted to make an example of him, that was plain enough: scare everyone into accepting that they had a new lord.

Looking about him now, he could see how well they had succeeded. All the peasants were standing about staring, their faces
glum. The house was a burned wreck, the roof collapsed and walls blackened. The pen where he had held his sheep a short way
down the hill had been pulled down, and although there were two corpses there, that was all. The others in the flock must
have been stolen.

Still worse, for him, was the loss of his bitch. She was ready to whelp soon, a bright little dog who was ideal for the sheep.
She never seemed to have to be told much; just a whistle and she’d go and do his bidding, rounding up the flock or directing
it through one gate and keeping it together while Robert took them off to new pasture. She had been the best dog he’d ever
owned, and he’d hoped that her pups would be as good. They could have been, since
they were fathered by a shepherd’s dog from the other side of Meeth. And now there was no sign of her. He was more distraught
at the idea that she could have been killed than at all the rest of the damage put together.

Behind him, his companion muttered, ‘Those murderous …’

Robert pulled a face. He felt close to tears to see how all the work he had put into this little holding had been destroyed
in a few moments. ‘It’s not just them, though, is it, Walter?’

‘No. It never is.’

Sir Odo was at Robert’s right hand, still on his horse, nodding to himself. His face was remarkable for the scars which ranged
down the left side, from his temple, over his cheek, and down to the line of his jaw. Many years before, so Robert had heard,
Sir Odo had taken a bad fall from a galloping stallion during a hunt, knocked down by a low branch. He had been pulled along,
one foot stuck in the stirrup, for many yards along a stony track, and much of the flesh had been torn from that side of his
face.

Many thought him a violent, cruel man. Here, where he was the steward of the manor for Sir John de Sully, he was feared and
respected in equal measure. Many were terrified of his mere appearance, and children all over the area would be silenced and
forced to behave by the threat that, ‘If you don’t do as I say, I’ll ask Sir Odo to visit you!’

To Robert, who worked for him as the manor’s bailiff, Sir Odo was a much more genial and kindly man than his reputation would
have implied. It was a shock when Robert first met him, because no one had warned him of Sir Odo’s looks. Ach, Robert knew
that plenty of men would think it good sport to leave a man in an embarrassing position like
that, springing upon him the fact of his master’s deformity, but Robert had been collected enough when first meeting the steward
not to flinch. He simply gave a small bow, then walked to Sir Odo and passed him his papers without speaking.

‘They didn’t warn you?’ Sir Odo grated. His voice was like slabs of stone sliding over each other.

‘No one, Sir Odo, no.’

‘They never do. Think it’s fun to bring men in here who don’t know, and then see how they respond, as though someone might
one day burst into insane giggling and bolt. Or maybe they think I could leap at someone for his disrespect.’ He paused, musing.

‘I think there’s never any reflection intended on you, sir. Only on the poor fool who enters your hall.’

‘Perhaps you’re right. I won’t have them flogged, then, for their discourtesy … not to me, anyway.’

His bantering tone of voice had made Robert realise almost immediately that this man was in reality greatly hurt that some
should use his old scars as a means of upsetting new members of the household. It was natural, true, that newcomers should
be put in their place by the team which had been there longer, but to make sport of their master’s suffering struck him as
cruel in the extreme and he decided on the spot that he would never do so himself. Any men he brought here would be forewarned
of Sir Odo’s wounds.

‘You are sure it was that cur’s whelp, Sir Geoffrey?’ Sir Odo asked now.

‘Yes. He and his men were without disguise. They all wore the tunics of their master.’

Sir Odo grunted and turned his eye towards the house
again. He sat on his horse like a man who had been born in a saddle, Robert thought, but now the man’s head was sunk deep
into his shoulders as though he was exhausted by all this talk of their neighbour. ‘He didn’t think to leave a guard, then?’

‘No, Sir Odo. I suppose he knew we’d come in force if we didn’t come immediately,’ Robert said.

‘Of course. And there was no point in coming in the middle of the night. We had to wait for the day … So! This is just
more needling. He doesn’t expect us to give it up without a fight, of course, but he intends to keep on prodding and provoking,
and maybe later, he will choose to force us.’

‘He couldn’t do that!’ Robert declared hotly. ‘He must know that Sir John Sully has powerful friends.’

Sir Odo glanced at him, and the scarred side of his face seemed to colour a little, as though his angry thoughts were changing
his habitual phlegmatic temperament into a fresh, choleric one. ‘That prickle is a trouble-maker of the worst kind. He makes
no assessment of the risks of his actions, he just takes on any challenge like a bull. If his master told him to lay about
him round here with a heavy hand, that’s what he would do.’

‘You think his master ordered this?’ Robert faltered. He had not realised the depths of the mire into which he was falling.

‘Do you really think that a man as experienced as Sir Geoffrey would dream of attacking a lord’s lands like this without considering
the risks? The fact he went ahead shows that he must have been told to, or he had the idea himself and had it sanctioned.’

‘Surely a knight wouldn’t do something like this,’ Robert
said and waved a hand about the desolation that was his home. ‘Not even if his master told him to.’

Sir Odo looked at him for a long moment. ‘That man needs to be told whether or not he should lay a turd in the morning, is
what I think. He has a desire to please his master at all times, and no matter who or what stands in the way, he will destroy
them if it is his master’s choice. And his master is keen to acquire as much as he can.’

‘He is a man with a long reach,’ Robert said soberly.

‘My lords the Earl of Winchester and his son Hugh Despenser are keen to confirm their authority,’ Sir Odo said obliquely.

Robert nodded without noticing the knight’s quick look. It was only later that he remembered the conversation and understood
that Sir Odo wouldn’t abuse the Despensers in front of a man he hardly knew. For all he knew, Robert could be a spy for Earl
Hugh. ‘So what should we do?’

Sir Odo snorted and yanked his mount’s head about. ‘There’s nothing
to
do, apart from warn our master and, through him, Lord de Courtenay. And protect these lands. They are our master’s, and no
one will steal them from us, not without suffering a great deal of bloodshed!’

Perkin hadn’t felt remotely satisfied with the result of the inquest, but what else could be expected? The whole of the local
jury had been called to the manor’s court, and some smart knight from down Bude way had come up and listened to the evidence,
eyeing the body without much enthusiasm while holding a bag of sweet herbs under his nose. The fool looked as if he was staring
at a dog’s turd, rather than a man who’d been murdered.

Ailward was beginning to smell a bit by then, mind. It
wasn’t just the coroner who thought the odour was too strong. There was that slightly musty, sweet sickliness to it that spoke
of the time the body had been stored since its discovery. To protect it – well, no one ever knew how long it’d take for a
coroner to arrive in the middle of winter, and the vill had the responsibility of protecting the corpse from all animals,
wild and domestic, on pain of a large fine – they had built a stone wall round it, putting a roof of turves over to save the
body from the elements, and there was a man or a boy constantly there to watch over him, day and night, until this Sir Edward
de Launcelles turned up.

He seemed less pathetic than some, Perkin reckoned. Stood up there in front of all the jury without looking too embarrassed.
Some of them, they looked too young to be wearing the knight’s belt and golden spurs. This one at least, for all his apparent
smarminess and courtly mannerisms, seemed to have had some experience of life. His face wore two scars which looked like fighting
wounds, and he’d lost two fingers from his left hand. Perkin knew that men would often lose fingers there when they were fighting
with swords. All too often a man would grab an opponent’s blade for an instant while thrusting his own home, and sometimes
a finger or two would be severed.

A gust of wind wafted Ailward’s scent over the jury and Perkin saw a number blench and gag. It was a bloody foul odour, right
enough. He wondered what the other would smell like now. It was a week since Lady Lucy of Meeth had disappeared, and the poor
woman must surely be dead herself. Strange that no one had seen her. Her steward had been found on the same day that she had
been taken, his body left slumped at the side of the road, his sword out of the scabbard and in his hand as though he had
tried to
defend her, but unsuccessfully. She was gone, though. No man had seen her since. Perkin was sure she had been taken and killed.
There were many who could have desired her for her body, but many more about here would have wanted her lands. They were good
and fruitful, bringing in several pounds in cash a year.

Perkin felt sick at the thought, but he could not help but recall that his own master, Sir Geoffrey, had ridden out and attacked
Robert Crokers’s house on Saturday. Apparently that was because Sir Geoffrey wanted the land for his own master and was prepared
to take it at sword’s point … how much easier to take a woman recently widowed and hold a knife to her throat until she
agreed to hand over her properties.

If so, it would be this coroner, perhaps, who came to listen to the evidence. Perkin watched him more closely.

At first he thought Sir Edward de Launcelles appeared to be a fair enough man. ‘Where is the First Finder of this body?’

‘Here, sir. I am Perkin from Monkleigh.’

‘Who can vouch for him?’

As three men from the jury gave their names, Perkin found himself being scrutinised closely. The knight had pale eyes that
were the colour of the sky on a grim and rain-filled day: grey with a hint of angry amber. He had very prominent cheekbones,
which made him look gaunt, as all the men did after the famine, but his lips were very full and red, as though he was feverish,
not pale like those of the men and women who had starved. His chin, too, was pointed, with a cleft in it. The beard was obviously
hard to shave in that little gully, and there was a vertical band of black hair in it that looked entirely out of place on
such a fastidious-seeming man.

‘So you found him?’ The corner was curling his lip at the man’s body before him.

‘I tripped and then I saw the blood.’

So much, there had been. Ailward’s head was smashed like an egg, with loose bits and pieces of skull shifting under the ruined
scalp. Perkin felt sick just to remember it.

The inquest went much as Perkin had expected, with an amercement for him, more from all the witnesses, and the value of the
weapon being guessed at. The coroner’s job was to record all the relevant details of a suspicious death, so that when the
case was investigated later in court, all the men involved could be called to give their accounts. Amercements were taken
as sureties to make certain that all the witnesses turned up at the court.

When the stranger turned up, Perkin wondered who he was. He didn’t recognise the man, and he assumed, like the other men there,
that the fellow was a passing merchant who had heard about the inquest and decided to go and watch the proceedings. You sometimes
got that, when people were staying in an inn: if they heard that there was some form of local dispute or death which could
be diverting, they’d go along.

Except this man seemed rather odd. He looked young, well groomed, and nervous, which was curious in a man who was travelling.
Usually the sort of merchant who passed by Iddesleigh and Monkleigh was already stained and worn, especially at this time
of year, and they were invariably gregarious, often trying to foist their more rubbishy wares onto unsuspecting villagers.
It was hardly surprising, bearing in mind how far they would have travelled already and how much further they must go to reach
any decent towns.

The fellow stood quietly at the rear of the witnesses,
listening intently, a good-looking man in a newish green tunic with a heavy crimson cloak about him. He carried a solid staff,
and at his waist there was a dagger alongside his leather purse and horn.

It was very odd, and Perkin looked away only reluctantly, eyeing the coroner as he pronounced on the case. It was as Perkin
had expected: because the vill could not bring forward any suspects who might have killed Ailward, they were to pay the murdrum,
the tax levied for planned homicides.

Perkin knew that some believed that he could be the murderer, but for all those who believed he had motive enough there were
dozens more who thought it was likely to be Rannulf, or perhaps one of the men from Fishleigh. Fortunately Perkin had good
alibis for the afternoon and evening, and in any case he was known for his mild manner. Not enough men in the jury were prepared
to accuse him; many others had more reason to wish to kill Ailward. Plenty of others.

But such matters were not the business of the coroner. Perkin listened as the case was wound up, and watched thoughtfully
as the clerk started putting his rushes and inks away in his scrip. All Perkin could think of was the detail he had left out.