Squire Throwleigh's Heir

by Michael Jecks

  Chapter Thirteen

  Alan saw another pigeon, a tempting, plump target. It swooped over the tree high above him, flew across the field and on, but even as he held his breath, it made a wide circle, and returned in a leisurely manner. At last it dropped down towards the field.

  His decoy, a live pigeon tethered by the leg to a stick, which kept flapping and cooing, showing that there was food here, was working well. Alan pursed his lips as the new bird came down, beating its wings wildly as it landed, and as it ruffled its feathers and tucked its wings away, Alan was already whirling his long-stringed sling over his head, behind the cover of his hedge. Still spinning, he let go of the cord.

  The bullet was released. It slipped from the leather patch and flew true. The boy stood, eyes glued to the bird, motionless, and saw the pebble strike the wing, feathers flying. Instantly he was up and over his hedge, haring towards the pigeon, which hopped and tried to escape, but to no avail. The boy grabbed its head between finger and thumb. One flick, up and down, and the weight of the body cracked the neck.

  While it shivered and fluttered in its death throes, Alan hummed quietly to himself and broke up a small stick. It was forked, and he snapped the two twigs away before thrusting the long stem into the ground. The pigeon was still now, and he laid it down with its neck resting in the fork to make it appear to be standing, before wandering back to his hiding-place. He enjoyed luring pigeons like this. One bird flapping on the ground was guaranteed to attract the attention of others flying past, which would be certain to investigate, thinking there must be food. And as each was shot and killed, then laid out as if pecking at the ground, still more would be tempted to join those enjoying such apparently rich pickings.

  It was a good day. He’d seen seven birds so far, and this was the third he’d hit. If he carried on like this, he and his mother would be able to have a decent meal - and profit from the ones he would sell. He only wished he was more accurate with his sling.

  When Jordan found him, Alan had increased his total by one, and he was crouched low waiting for another to come and land. It gently glided down, and Alan cautiously rose. He released the bullet, but his aim was poor, and the bird took off at speed. Alan grimaced, twirling the cords of his sling around his forefinger.

  ‘How did you catch the lure?’ Jordan asked.

  ‘Birdlime,’ answered Alan shortly. ‘Made from the holm tree in the churchyard. I spread it on the elm one evening, and the next morning there was this pretty pigeon!’

  ‘Will you keep it?’

  ‘No, she’s trapped enough others,’ Alan said, and quickly wrung her neck, gathering up the other bodies happily. ‘A good morning.’

  Jordan nodded, staring at the birds hungrily. Each one was more meat than he and his family would usually eat in a fortnight. The rabbit his father had brought back the day that Herbert died had been unique, and delicious for that very reason, although there was some pleasure in knowing that he himself had shot it. He was going to take it home, and it was simply luck that Edmund had happened along the road at that moment.

  That thought reminded him of the reason for his visit.

  ‘Alan, do you think we ought to go to the manor and tell them about…’

  ‘We’ve told them all we can.’ His eyes were not on Jordan, but staring out across the field as his fingers deftly looped cords over the necks of the dead birds. The younger boy could feel his tension, but didn’t know how to help him. It was Alan who had been caught by the priest, not Jordan, and the cruel lash-marks still hadn’t faded.

  ‘I hate him,’ Jordan said aloud, and the virulence of his hatred surprised even himself. The priest had beaten them all -oh, many times - and yet he was the one who taught them to love their fellow man.

  Alan glanced at him with a worried frown. ‘We can’t do anything, though. He’s a priest. Who’d believe anything we said against him?’

  ‘My dad would believe me - he’s always said the priest is a bastard.’

  ‘Your dad? Jordan, he’s useless! Look at him, he’s a drunk who can’t hold his place in the vill, and who’s become a villein again.’

  Jordan felt stung into defending his father. ‘That wasn’t his fault! It was the mistress, and—’

  ‘You can’t mean you think he’s all right? After the way he’s treated you?’

  Jordan sulked. His thrashings were known all around Throwleigh, and his father’s drinking had also gained him notoriety. He brushed angrily at a tear and sniffed. He wasn’t going to let the older boy upset him again.

  It happened all too often. Alan had the abilities of an older boy. His skills with bow and sling were cursed by several people in the area, and he couldn’t help but look down upon Jordan sometimes, like a patronising elder brother. His tone could be quite scathing when he talked about Jordan’s father; Jordan had a child’s kindness and generosity of spirit, but he had more perspicacity than most adults, and he was sure that Alan’s disapproving tone when talking about Edmund had something to do with the disappearance of his own father. It was a form of jealousy.

  Alan shouldn’t have been so sharp, he knew, but it was so tempting sometimes when Jordan whined on about things. His father was a waster - useless. Couldn’t even fix the fence when it fell two years before, and that was why they had lost their pig and later most of their chickens: a fox had got in, and all the time Edmund was snoring, drunk, on his bed. His wife could do nothing, nor could the two children, both were too young. So because he was lazy, Edmund had squandered all his family’s assets.

  But it wasn’t Jordan’s fault, and Jordan was Alan’s only friend here. They were renegades - almost outlaws. They and young Herbert had wandered far over the surrounding countryside, playing at the bartons, hunting each other over the moors… That thought reminded him that now there were only the two of them, not three.

  It still seemed only a short while ago that there had been four of them, including Tom, his brother. But, because of Herbert, Tom was dead, or so Alan’s mother said. Alan wasn’t greatly exercised by questions of responsibility - he knew that people died, whatever their age. Even during his short life Alan had seen friends and acquaintances starve, many of them dying because of the famine.

  His mother blamed Herbert for Tom’s death. She was convinced that if only Herbert had called out, Tom could have been saved, but Alan couldn’t feel any resentment towards Herbert for that; Herbert was too young. And now he too was gone.

  ‘Alan, we could give them proof of what the priest’s like,’ Jordan said after a moment.

  ‘How can we do that?’ Alan wanted to know. ‘He’s a priest and everything - how can we show people what he’s really like?’

  ‘His shoe?’

  Alan paused and his mouth fell open. ‘You think we…’

  ‘Why don’t we go back and see if his sandal is still up there?

  If we can find it, people would have to believe us, wouldn’t they?‘

  Baldwin stared in amazement as the monk stormed from the chapel. Stephen’s contempt was all too plain, and it could only be because he had guessed that Baldwin had been a Knight Templar. It was the only explanation. Stephen had obviously heard the accusations - the ridiculous, trumped-up accusations pressed by government officials on behalf of the French King: allegations that Templar brothers underwent obscene initiation rituals, that they ate Christian babies, that they committed the heinous act of sodomy with each other, even that they spat on the Cross!

  The knight sat back weakly, his hands on his knees. If the monk were to spread this news, Baldwin’s position in the country would be hideously compromised. He had no protector, nor could he afford to buy off someone who threatened blackmail. If his career as a Templar monk should be bruited about, a priest or maybe even a bishop would hear, and they would be bound to try to have him arrested and put to the flames which he had escaped by so slight a margin before.

  Baldwin forced himself to breathe slowly, to think rationally. He felt as if he had been punched in
the guts, and there was a light dew of sweat on his brow as he feverishly recalled the monk’s expression. Then he stopped, and his frown gradually faded.

  It was impossible for the monk to have made the fabulous leap to the conclusion that Baldwin had been a member of the Poor Fellow Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon from the few words the knight had given. Yet the brother had drawn back as if repelled, and suddenly Baldwin recalled how he had put the question. In his nervousness and hesitation, he had phrased the query hypothetically, and the priest had obviously assumed the knight was accusing him of breaking his own vows.

  With the relief this cogitation gave him, Baldwin could have laughed aloud. When he heard footsteps outside the door again, so great was his revival, he smiled broadly. The monk walked in and Baldwin greeted him warmly.

  ‘Brother, my apologies! I fear I gave you entirely the wrong idea. I did not intend to imply that you had been guilty of anything. I am truly sorry if I alarmed you, but it was absolutely unintentional.’

  ‘I am glad to hear it,’ Stephen said coldly. Although Baldwin continued to offer fulsome apologies, the priest appeared only partly mollified, and it was only gradually that he allowed himself to be calmed. Eventually he sat down again, although not next to Baldwin this time, and closed his eyes as if exhausted. Opening them again, he gave Baldwin a keen look and settled himself. ‘Come, tell me what is troubling you.’

  This time Baldwin was careful to make himself understood. ‘Brother, I once swore an oath, but the man in whom I put my trust proved faithless. He pursued me, without reason, and proved his own dishonour. Have I been right to recant my own vow?’

  ‘I would have to know more, but if you are saying that you swore your honour and allegiance to a man, and that man subsequently betrayed your trust, I would think that his betrayal would be the defining issue. What I mean is, his lack of honour would release you from your vows to him. How did you recant?’

  ‘I swore an oath to chastity, but now I have married.’

  ‘Well, if you made an oath before God to marry a woman, God wouldn’t punish you. Your wedding vows were holy, for God has instructed us to marry. Your vows to Him would carry precedence over any taken previously to a mere man.’

  Baldwin thanked him, but frowned. The priest had said all he could to ease his mind, but it wasn’t enough. Baldwin had given his vows to God when he had joined the Templars. ‘Stephen, what would the position be with a monk who decided to give up his calling and take himself a wife? Would the oaths given at his wedding carry greater weight than that of chastity?’

  ‘Why should you wish to know such a thing?’ Stephen asked, and his voice had an angry edge to it once more. ‘Are you trying to spread rumours about my brethren who may have fallen from the high ideals they should have embraced?’

  ‘No, no, Brother. I am simply trying to clear the point in my mind.’

  ‘Well, clear your mind of the point. It doesn’t concern you.’

  Baldwin could see that he had unwittingly overstepped the mark once more, and again he offered profuse apologies. Eventually the priest relented, and the small spots of anger on his cheeks faded.

  Sitting quietly, Baldwin wasn’t fully convinced by Stephen’s argument. Absolute conviction could only come from explaining his difficulty in detail, ideally to a senior cleric, and that was impossible. The more important the man, the more likely he was to be ambitious, and the more likely he would be to inform the church hierarchy of a renegade Templar. That thought brought to mind other functionaries, and Baldwin found himself meditating once more on the steward of the house. ‘I must ask, Brother, are you aware of any reason why Daniel should hate the farmer in Throwleigh, the one called Edmund?’

  ‘Him? The tenant to be evicted?’ Stephen asked, but Baldwin was sure he saw a flicker in the priest’s eyes. ‘What could a steward have against a man like him?’

  ‘Nothing that I can understand,’ Baldwin said honestly. ‘Yet he appears to want to harry Edmund into an early grave. Was Daniel particularly fond of the young squire?’

  The priest pursed his thin lips, as if debating whether to answer. When he spoke, it was with a certain caution, as if he was measuring his words with care. ‘I doubt whether Daniel was any more fond of the child than I myself, and I was not. No doubt it is unkind to state the fact so badly on the day of the child’s burial, but I could not find it in me to like Master Herbert. He was wilful, disobedient, and often deceitful. I was regularly forced to chastise him. On the very day his father died, he… Well, perhaps I shouldn’t say more.’

  ‘Please tell me,’ Baldwin said. ‘I fail to understand what could have happened.’

  ‘Very well. That same morning, young Master Herbert was found by his father trespassing in the orchard with two friends. When seen, Herbert helped his accomplices to escape, and then, when he was asked by his father who the two were, he lied, saying he’d seen no one. He subsequently proceeded to plead for them, when it was plain to all that they must be punished. The last command Squire Roger gave to me was that I should whip the child, and so I did. Children, Sir Baldwin, have to be trained, the same as any other animal. They must be taught to respect their elders, to tell the truth, and to behave honourably. I fear Master Herbert was not able to do these things. Perhaps in Sir Reginald of Hatherleigh’s service the lad might have learned.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Baldwin agreed, but he was secretly shocked at the priest’s candid words. It was appalling, listening to the man who was to bury the child, talking about him like this.

  ‘I think that was probably why the squire himself died.’

  Baldwin looked up. ‘Eh?’

  ‘I only meant that since the squire fell dead from some imbalance in his bodily humours, they must have been caused by something. He left here in a tearing hurry to go hunting, but was delayed because he had to ride off to demand that the friends of his son should be punished. Thus logically I feel fairly sure that Master Herbert, although unwittingly, was himself a parricide.’

  ‘You don’t truly mean to say you believe that the child was guilty of his father’s death?’ Baldwin cried.

  ‘Oh, it’s all very well, Sir Baldwin, to wish to think the best of all the dead,’ said Stephen huffily. ‘But hypocrisy is not one of my faults. In any case, I am only telling you what others also think. Even the boy’s mother blamed him.’

  ‘Lady Katharine?’ Baldwin burst out.

  The priest nodded calmly. ‘Yes, Sir Baldwin. I know you saw how she treated her son at her husband’s grave. It was perfectly obvious, was it not? After that, I don’t know if she felt anything more than loathing for her son. She had loved her husband, you see. And when her son caused him to die, I think she lost all feeling for him. Poor child.’ He stared thoughtfully through the window. ‘He was always unlucky.’

  ‘In what way?’

  Stephen threw him a surprised look, as if he had been musing to himself and had forgotten that Baldwin was present. ‘Hmm? Oh, I only mean that he often got himself into scrapes - and then again he was ever a hapless child. For example, he was present when another local boy died, a little chap called Tom -only a toddler. He fell into a well, and young Master Herbert didn’t fetch help. Usual sort of thing, often happens. But I don’t think the parent ever truly forgave him.’

  Baldwin kept the eagerness from his voice as he asked, ‘Whose child was it who died?’

  Stephen shrugged. ‘A maid from the village who works here for Lady Katharine - I think because my Lady took pity on her.’

  ‘Oh? Is she the wife of Edmund?’ asked Baldwin, recalling Christiana’s face and wondering whether she worked at the hall.

  ‘Him? Good God, no!’ For the first time Stephen gave a dry smile. ‘No, Anney’s husband was still more feckless than Edmund. Anney’s man left her shortly after the birth of her second son, Tom. It was found that he was already married.’

  Baldwin felt curiously deflated. He had hoped it might be Edmund. It could have explained much.

/>   ‘There was no reason to think Anney would have tried to harm the boy, Sir Baldwin,’ Stephen said sharply. ‘She blamed him, certainly, but that’s different from harbouring a lethal grudge. Her boy fell into the well - you know how dim these villein children can be. The only aspect of culpability was Master Herbert’s inability to call for help, but he was only three years and a half at the time, and not many boys so young would have been able to do anything. The Church shows us that children are like lunatics - they don’t act with free will because they can’t distinguish between right and wrong. That’s why children under fourteen aren’t legally responsible for their actions. Anney wouldn’t have hurt him, I am sure. No doubt she regretted he didn’t call for help - but regret is a different emotion from that which demands the wreaking of vengeance. She’s a good woman; she wouldn’t bear ill-feeling towards Master Herbert.’

  ‘What of her husband?’

  ‘Ah, well, he’s no longer here for us to ask him. I fear he shan’t be seen in these parts again.’ Stephen gave a thin smile. ‘I arrived in Throwleigh a little before the drowning of her child and he was gone by then; I heard he went shortly after the birth of the second boy. Tom, the boy who died, wouldn’t have known him. I understand Anney gave and received nuptial vows, but his promises weren’t valid: he was already wedded. The bastard left her to raise both boys fatherless.’