The Leper's Return

by Michael Jecks

  He jolted along for some moments lost in thought. Appearances, he thought, could be deceptive.

  Inevitably his thoughts turned to Coffyn. The man had thought his wife was enjoying an affair with the Irishman, and all because the evidence appeared to support that view. Yet in reality the culprit was his neighbor, an unscrupulous character who was prepared not only to cuckold him, but was also quite possibly willing to spread the rumor that it was John who was guilty, which had at last led to John’s brutal beating at the hands of the jealous husband.

  And suddenly Simon had a strange idea.

  In the leper camp, Ralph saw to the wounded Quivil. The man was shaken, but his injuries from the stoning were mending nicely, and Ralph was confident that he would be up and about, perfectly well, within a few days. Getting up from the leper’s bedside, he forced his fists into the small of his back and stretched. He was finding that seeing to the needs of his inmates was becoming painful. It was easy to see why those of his colleagues who spent their days tending to the sick were prone to aches and pains in their backs, he felt. It came from constantly bending over their charges.

  Edmund Quivil was snoring peacefully enough, and Ralph could hear the church bells tolling from the other side of the town. He moved to the door and wrapped his robe about him more tightly as he saw how cold it was. Shivering, he threw more logs on the fire before pulling the thick curtain over the doorway and walking quickly to the chapel.

  Inside he found a couple of the more devout lepers waiting, and with them he went through the mass. There was always so much to be done, but this was the office he most enjoyed. The candles flickered as they cast their soft light, glinting on metal and paintwork, reminding him of his duties: to tend to those souls whom most had already assumed to be consigned to damnation.

  It was with a light heart that he left the little chapel. He was always more contented leaving than going in; the small chamber was filled with the love of God. Its pictures of Christ and His mother seemed almost to glow with adoration. The very walls were constructed of kindness and generosity. Its atmosphere of incense and dirty clothing was to Ralph the very essence of worship, for the two smells demonstrated the love of man for God, and Christ’s love of the sick and the dying. There couldn’t be a better place to worship God, he felt, than from inside the chapel of a lazar house.

  The ground crunched underfoot. Since he had walked inside the chapel, the frost had dusted the grass, and he inhaled the crisp air with satisfaction. It tasted clean in his mouth, like a fresh mountain spring. Outside his own door, he snuffed the air happily and sighed with pleasure.

  He knew many of his friends and fellow-brothers thought he was insane to want to look after the lepers; that was partly why he was here, because at the election for the post there was no one else who wanted the job. But Ralph was convinced it was the best way for him to serve God. This was surely the best way too to save souls, and that was the sacred duty of all who wore the tonsure. They were God’s own army, whose only task was to save mankind in the eternal battle.

  Something caught his attention, but he was only aware of it as a niggling irritation at first, something which interrupted the flow of his thoughts. It was like a piece of carpentry where the workman has been forced to leave off his task when he has all but finished. The last little unfinished part is an annoyance. This was similar; it was a tiny part of his normal scenery that was wrong. He looked over the whole encampment, but nothing appeared out of place. Toward the town he could see nothing wrong—until he realized that there was a glow, just over the brow of the hill, where he had never seen one before. It appeared to waver in the night air, and the sight made him frown.

  He walked toward the gate. From here he had a good view of the road, and he stared eastward, trying to pierce the gloom, but it wasn’t possible. In the end he was about to return to his room and seek a good night’s sleep, when he saw them.

  From the town came what looked like a solid mass of men. They approached inexorably, some carrying burning torches, clad in a malevolent silence that was more intimidating than if they had been chanting slogans or shouting.

  He fell back from the gate, his guts churning. The signs were all too easy to recognize; this was an attack. He had heard of the murders in France from a traveller when he lived in Houndeslow. There, he had heard, a whole number of lepers had been captured and burned alive, on the pretext that they had been involved in poisoning wells. It was nonsensical, of course. The lepers depended on the alms of the healthy—if they killed their neighbors, they would be killing themselves—but that hadn’t persuaded the peasants who wanted to extirpate the “sinners.”

  His glance roved up and down the camp. He had no choice but to defend the place, but how?

  25

  Simon was a little in front of the other two when they arrived at the stableyard. It was already dark, and there were no torches lighted. Baldwin bellowed for his grooms as he passed through the gates.

  The bailiff was impatient to get to the fire. His horse pranced, hooves pounding at the packed earth, and Simon hunched his shoulders to keep his neck warm. Baldwin kicked his feet free of the stirrups, and leaped down, stumbling and almost falling. Seeing this, Simon gave a short laugh.

  “Very funny!” Baldwin growled.

  “This is how you do it,” said Simon, and swung his leg over his horse’s neck. As he did so, his mount lifted his head, catching the bailiff’s foot. Simon found his leg rising higher and higher. He had no reins to hold, his feet were free of the stirrups, and suddenly he found himself falling, eyes wide in surprise. He hit the ground with an unpleasant squelch, his ears filled with the delighted, mocking laughter of his friend.

  Margaret set aside her tapestry as the two men walked in. She smiled and welcomed Baldwin, but then froze at the sight of her husband. “Simon, what have you done?” she wailed.

  “He was showing off, Margaret!” was Baldwin’s unsympathetic contribution.

  “I just had an accident in the yard,” said Simon, and yawned.

  “You must go and change.”

  Baldwin could see her point. Simon was smothered in mud and straw. An old pile of rubbish and hay had broken his fall, but he was liberally bespattered with bright red mud.

  “Meg, I can’t. I’m exhausted. Maybe in a while, when I’ve had a chance to warm up a bit.”

  Hearing voices, Jeanne walked in and stood on the dais. She returned Baldwin’s smile. “I was wondering whether you were coming home again today. It is very late.”

  “We have had an interesting day,” Baldwin said, crossing the room and taking her hand courteously to lead her to the fire. Jeanne listened while he explained all that had happened to them.

  “We’re no nearer discovering Godfrey’s killer,” Simon added sourly as Baldwin finished.

  “Oh, I can’t be so negative, Simon. We may not have solved the murder, but at least we appear to have solved a theft without knowing it, and we have averted the victimization of the lepers!”

  At the gate once more, Ralph would have laughed to hear his words. He held a heavy staff of oak, one which he was sure would do good service if he was able to hit someone with it. The monk was untroubled with the concept of fighting to defend his inmates. It was the natural duty of a religious man to protect his flock, whether the man was a bishop leading the people of his city, his sword in his hand, against barbarians, or the master of a leper house defending his sufferers.

  “They don’t look as if they’re going to stop, Brother.”

  Ralph glanced to his side. Thomas Rodde stood there, his hat tilted forward as he peered forward through slitted eyes at the approaching horde. The leper wore his gloves, and his strong staff was in his hands, but he stood like an old man, bent at waist and shoulder.

  Rodde was no fool. He counted the men, and gave up when he reached twenty. That number of strong and healthy folk could overrun the camp in a matter of minutes. There were only the few lepers here, and of them he and Quivil, even after
their ordeal of the night before, were still the most healthy. The best thing for him to do, he knew, would be to run quickly. He had little strength, but this rabble of townspeople was here to evict the lepers. They wouldn’t, if he knew the English at all, be remotely bothered about chasing their prey. Their objective was to see the lepers away from Crediton. What happened after that would be someone else’s problem.

  “Brother, wouldn’t it be best for us all to leave?” he suggested.

  “Leave here? This is our home! It’s where we belong. How can we go? And where to?”

  Rodde met his look resolutely. He was not suggesting a coward’s route, but a sensible retreat in the face of overwhelming odds. “In that case, let me suggest that you should send for the constable, and also for the Precentor or Dean of the church. We’ll need all the help we can get.”

  Baldwin washed his hands and settled back in his chair. He had a delightful sense of warmth sitting here before his fire. The presence of guests had persuaded him to partake of some strong wine, and it flowed through his veins like fire. He had not drunk enough yet to feel the soporific effect, but it had certainly heightened other senses. To his mind, Jeanne appeared to be devastatingly beautiful.

  She glanced in his direction every now and again. Seeing him sitting there so calm and contented made her feel curiously relaxed. It was an odd sensation, this feeling of well-being—she refused to put it stronger than that—that she felt while near him. He exuded an air of stability and honor. It felt as if, when he walked into a room, that room suddenly took on a fresh splendor, and it was down to his self-effacing, gentle personality.

  Jeanne still had no idea of his past in the service of the Knights Templar. She had no idea of his involvement with the Order, but she was aware of the latent anger that lurked within him, constantly searching for injustice and oppression. This harder side to his character lent a subtle charm to his generally calm demeanor.

  Studying him now, as he stared at the fire, the contours of his face softened by the glow of the flames, she was taken by a sudden desire. She could see his confusion, that he was still mulling over the killing in the town, and it made her want to fold him into a strong embrace and shield him from the world outside. He was vulnerable. She knew his air of cold rationality was a mask to conceal his defenselessness against a world he only partly understood and mostly disliked. He was a man composed of opposites: he was the Keeper of the King’s Peace, yet he doubted any man’s absolute guilt; he was a knight, yet he felt sympathy for villeins; he was a landowner, yet he shared the profit of the land with the people who farmed it for him. All in all, he was a curious mixture.

  She felt the attraction to the man of action, which he undoubtedly was, as well as to the cautious, but generous and kind man who looked after his peasants. There was no denying the fact that he was good-looking. To Jeanne’s eye he was almost perfect. Even the scar, the wound of some old battle that marred his cheek, was attractive, a reminder that this was not some picture but a real flesh-and-blood man. She smiled, and found herself once more considering how well she would fit into this hall, with these servants, with this man. Baldwin would probably find it harder than her, she guessed. She had been married, had lived with a man; Baldwin had never married. He was a bachelor, and at over forty, must be set in his ways. But the thought didn’t frighten Jeanne. It wasn’t her wish to change him—if she changed him, he wouldn’t be the man she desired. No, she wanted him just as he was, and if living with him entailed her having to alter her lifestyle a little, then so be it.

  Yes, she thought. Her decision was already made for her. She would become a married woman again.

  Simon grunted and stretched out his legs. The fire was blazing merrily, and the cloak at his back prevented the draft from troubling him. He had already put events in Crediton from his mind, and was now only looking forward to a good meal and his bed. Casting a glance at his wife, he tried to catch her eye, tempted to suggest that they might go to their room early for some horizontal exercise to build up an appetite, but she was looking away, watching Baldwin.

  Suddenly she turned to Simon, and held out her hand. Silently, she led him from the room. Surprised, but by no means unwilling, he followed her.

  Jeanne felt her heart pound as she realized they were alone. It was obvious why Margaret had taken her husband out, and Jeanne realized that now, at any moment, Baldwin must ask her again for her hand. To her delight, not unmixed with fear, she saw the knight take in the empty seats, and face her. He smiled, she returned it; he rose to his feet, and she did likewise; he held out his hands to her, and she raised her own before moving to him.

  And there was a furious barking, a scream, a shout, and Edgar ran in.

  “God’s Teeth! What the hell’s the matter this time!” Baldwin roared.

  Jack stood a short distance in front, a torch burning in one hand, a long-bladed knife in the other. He was elated. It had taken no time to win Arthur’s support, and once they’d spoken to a few others at the inn, they’d soon gathered a following. The men they’d recruited were all horrified to hear that a second woman had been perverted by the lepers. How long would it be before all the young women were ensnared? Jack had asked rhetorically.

  “Out of the way, Brother. They’re none of them welcome here anymore, we want them all to go. You can’t stop us!”

  Ralph set his feet firmly and glared at the men. “How many of you are there? Such a lot of brave folk you are! All of you here to eject five or six ill people. And where would you have them go? Would you throw them out to die on the moors? How do you think God would react to that?”

  “God?” Jack sneered. “God has pointed them out with this disease—it’s our duty as God-fearing men to support Him in His punishment. They don’t deserve alms, they deserve death!”

  “That is blasphemy! You believe Christ would support victimizing these poor souls? Didn’t He save Lazarus? Didn’t He wash the feet of lepers? How dare you suggest you have God’s sanction!”

  “Enough of this! You twist my words, Brother. Stand aside, or we’ll move you ourselves.”

  “I will not move. Here I stand, to defend my poor inmates. They suffer to remind you of the purgatory to come, and you dare to threaten them, and me? I will not move.”

  “Then we’ll shift you ourselves, monk.”

  Jack thrust the knife in his belt and nodded to another man.

  Ralph was aware of the murmuring of the lepers behind him. One man was sobbing, and from the sound he was sure it was Quivil: he shouldn’t be up, the monk thought distractedly, but he had other things to concern him. The others were talking in a hushed, anxious tone that showed their terror. All had heard of the murders in France. Their worry lent strength to the monk. His fingers tightened on the stave, and he raised it like a pike. “Don’t try to come in. I will not let you pass!”

  “You, little priest?” cried Jack, laughing. “And how do you propose to stop us? Eh?”

  Suddenly Ralph was joined by two men. One, snivelling, he recognized as Quivil. The other was Rodde. Both carried their strong staffs, and both stood determinedly.

  Rodde pointed with his staff. “You, smith, are breaking the law. You have incited the people to mutiny, and you will be punished. Any man who passes the gate when the leper master has refused permission will be arrested and punished. If any one of you tries to kill or injure a leper, you will have to answer to the Keeper.”

  “You can’t accuse someone of killing a dead man.”

  “I breathe; I eat; I drink; I piss; I shit—just the same as you do. If any of you doubt I am alive, you can argue the matter with the Keeper of the King’s Peace and the Dean of the church. You’ll need to be very convincing to persuade them, though, I reckon!”

  His words and his easy manner made a few in the crowd laugh, and Jack was enraged to be thus thwarted. “You’re a leper,” he shouted. “You have no rights. If you think you have, go somewhere where they’ll support you. You’ll not stay here.”


  “I’m ill, you fool. I am dying—but so are you. With you, your death may come tomorrow, while mine will be in four or five years, if God spares me, but we’ll both end up in the ground. And what then? I wonder where God would send a man who rouses the town to murder.”

  “You’re not even a local man! Why should we starve ourselves to feed your useless belly, eh? Go on! Leave our town. You’re not welcome here.”

  “No one will cross this gate,” stated Ralph firmly. “These men are here under my protection, and under the protection of the Church. You have no rights here, smith. Go home.”

  “Yes, go home.”

  Jack turned to find himself face to face with the Dean and Bishop Stapledon.

  Peter Clifford was bristling with anger. “How dare you march out here to the Church’s land and threaten a brother in his holy work? How dare you rouse the mob to violence? This is outrageous behavior even for a fool like you. You are arrested, smith. Put down the knife!”

  Over the priest’s shoulder the smith could see that his small army was dwindling as people realized the consequences of being discovered could be dire—and expensive. “We have the right to see God’s will done,” he declared.

  “Not here, my son,” said Stapledon calmly. “I am your Bishop. You have no rights here. This is a hospital for the sick and dying. Every wound you see on these men is given to them by God Himself to serve as a sign to you. Your actions tonight are an insult to Him.”

  “I don’t believe you! They’re evil—they’ve managed to win over two of our women already, and they’ll not be happy till they’ve won all the others. They shouldn’t be allowed to stay on, they should be evicted!” Jack shouted, glaring from one to another. Suddenly he snatched the knife from his belt. Spinning, he rushed at the gate.

  “Jack, stop!” bellowed Clifford, but the running man leaped over the gate and pelted toward Quivil.