‘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 usuaclass="underline" 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.’
Chapter Seven
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.