A Friar's Bloodfeud: (Knights Templar 20)

by Michael Jecks

  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.

  It was not in his nature to lie. He knew that an oath sworn here in the court was as binding in God’s eyes as an oath in church with his hand resting on the gospels. Yet he had felt it might be best not to mention the reason why he had gone up there. He was sure now that Walter and Ailward had been there together. When Perkin stumbled upon them, Walter grabbed the ball to turn all the camp ball players away from Ailward. And the reason was obvious to Perkin now: they were concealing a body.

  He had kept it to himself in the coroner’s court because he had no proof, and he daren’t accuse Walter. What, he should say that Walter and Ailward were carrying another dead body? He’d be laughed out of the court – and then be accused of villeiny-saying, spreading malicious lies about other men. That would cost him at least a huge fine in these litigious times. He hadn’t even told Beorn or Guy. Yet he was sure that Walter and Ailward were hiding someone, and he had a suspicion he knew who it was, too. Lady Lucy had been missing for some little while.

  Perkin grew aware of the well-dressed stranger sidling towards the knight. As the coroner patted the clerk on the back and made as though to leave, the stranger reached him and spoke urgently. The knight looked him up and down, glanced round the jury and witnesses, and then nodded.

  Watching them walk away, Perkin frowned. There was something strange here, he could see, but he wasn’t sure what it was. All he knew was that he was delighted he hadn’t told the coroner anything of his doubts.

  It was only later that afternoon, when he heard of the deaths at the little house at Iddesleigh the day before, that he began to wonder who it was who had arrived to take the coroner away with him.

  Late on Tuesday morning Baldwin was aching again when he drew up at the manor at Liddinstone and slowly eased himself from the saddle. He stood a while, slowly swinging his arm, feeling the pain in his upper breast and wincing as the muscles stretched and contracted.

  ‘My love – I was growing worried lest you had fallen,’ Jeanne said.

  ‘I did not see you there,’ Baldwin said. He passed the reins to the waiting stable boy and only with an effort of will did he avoid reaching up to his shoulder. If he did that, Jeanne would stop him riding and make his life hell.

  ‘I came to watch for you,’ she said.

  He eyed her suspiciously. There was a lightness to her tone which seemed to belie her words. ‘That is all?’

  ‘Of course, husband. The air in the hall is a little stale.’

  ‘I see,’ he said, nodding but unconvinced.

  ‘And …’

  To his secret delight, he saw that she was colouring. If there was something to embarrass her, he would be safe from condemnation for riding too far. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Oh … nothing.’

  And it was nothing, Jeanne told herself. Merely the foolish words of a maid who should know better. Nothing more than that.

  It was Emma again.

  Baldwin had never liked Jeanne’s companion, and, to be fair, Jeanne could easily have found a more congenial maid. Yet there was something about Emma’s bovine loyalty which comforted her. Emma was stolid and ugly, heavy, slow, dull-witted and moody, and yet she plainly adored Jeanne, and for that reason alone it was hard to conceive of sending her away. Unfortunately, Emma had been very fond of Jeanne’s first husband, and no replacement would ever be able to live up to him in her eyes.

  This morning, while Baldwin was off riding, Emma had told Jeanne that Sir Baldwin was looking very ‘done in’, and that Jeanne should demand that he give up all exercise and betake himself to his bed to rest. Emma had very pronounced views on the efficacy of rest for all ills, and she felt certain that Jeanne’s husband was in desperate need of it. However, she could not make any comment without comparing Baldwin to Sir Ralph, and this morning she had spoken unfavourably about Baldwin’s reluctance to support either of the factions in the country’s politics.

  Other men were bold and sought to promote the interests of their lords: some the Lord de Courtenay, some the Lords Despenser and the king. ‘Because it will come to war, lady, make no mistake!’ Emma had declared, jowls wobbling.

  It was hard, when Emma was in such a state, not to study her closely. She was short, but with a large frame, and her breast was carried like a weapon, projecting far before her. Her eyes were a soft brown, but Baldwin had once said that they held the bile and spite of a dozen Moors whenever they latched on to him. Jeanne knew what he meant, because Emma’s eyes were shrewd and calculating. W
hen she fixed a man with her gaze, he would quail. The jut of her warty chin was enough to make a lion whimper. Jeanne had seen strong market stall holders blench when she fixed them with her sternest look.

  When Emma compared Baldwin with her first husband, Jeanne would try to defend him, but in Emma’s eyes it was irrelevant what the man said or did. She adored Jeanne, and in the usual way anything that would make Jeanne happy was Emma’s delight, but that did not extend to Baldwin.

  When Emma and he had first met, she had been entirely unimpressed with his home, his lands and his choice of companions in his hall. Most despised of all, as Jeanne and Baldwin knew only too well, was his mastiff, Uther. Emma detested the old monster, and although even Baldwin could, on occasion, admit that Uther was a little overwhelming at times, he would never admit that in front of Emma, and especially not since Uther had died. If anything, his loyalty to the brute had increased rather than diminished now that Uther was dead.

  In like fashion, Emma would not give up her oft-stated opinion that the animal was a vicious monster that should have been killed when still a pup, before he could upset anybody else. The only thing Baldwin had ever done, or rather not done, that had elevated him in her opinion was to decide not to replace Uther when the dog died.

  However, his reluctance to speak for either side in the present political climate struck Emma as dishonourable.

  ‘That’s what it seems like to me, and I speak as I find. Can’t abide people who won’t stand by their lords. Look at him! He should declare his loyalties, either to the king or to the Lord de Courtenay. Where’s the difficulty in that?’

  ‘Enough, Emma! It is not your place to decide where his duty lies!’ Jeanne snapped at last.

  ‘No, my lady, but it’ll be his soon enough, when there is a fight down here, on our manor, or perhaps on his own up at Furnshill,’ Emma retorted. ‘He should state where his allegiance lies, that’s all I’m saying. Hoi! You! Where are you going with that?’ and she was off after a hapless peasant before Jeanne could reprimand her again.