Antonio tugged his horse’s head free and swore under his breath. “My life is not sinful. I earn my money, and it’s people like me who give alms to you and your brothers so that you can preach at us. Here…” he pulled a few coins from his purse and threw them down “… take the money, if you don’t think it will taint your flesh! Now, leave me in peace!”
Spurring his horse, he rode on, and the others followed. Luke heard Arthur say consolingly, “These friars are a nuisance, but don’t let him upset you. He can’t understand business.”
“I’m just glad he didn’t know I issue loans as well,” Antonio chuckled. “Can you imagine what he would have said if he had heard I was a… a damned usurer!”
Friar Hugo stared after the little group riding down the slope. There were times when he felt that the struggle to save souls was too much for him. People were uninterested in the life to come; they were too tightly bound to their narrow, secular lives and couldn’t, or wouldn’t, raise their eyes to heaven.
Much of it, he knew, was the fault of corrupt churchmen. Since the Pope had moved to Avignon his sole interest was finance. Appointments were sold, no matter where in the church. Simony was rife, with bishops paying a year’s income for their benefices and then passing the cost down through the hierarchy, affecting – or infecting – all, from abbots to priests and friars.
And that was not the worst of it. Friars themselves were not living as St. Francis wanted. He, Hugo knew, had forseen the problems; when a novice had asked him for a psalter, St. Francis had refused him, saying that first he would want a psalter, and then he would want a breviary, and then he would sit in a chair like a great prelate and ask another brother to fetch it for him. To St. Francis, the possession of a single item could lead to avarice and the desire for authority over others.
Now friars were living in halls, their food and shelter guaranteed. They had immense buildings, and some didn’t even wear their habits but dressed as burgesses, ignoring the tonsure, letting their hair grow long and sporting beards. Many were known to father children. They would take small dogs with them when they went abroad, in order to tempt women into conversation, and then ravish them.
But Hugo took his vocation seriously. He rejected the world of money, of influence, of worldly goods. It was his duty – a solemn, holy duty – to save the souls of the sinners he saw each day.
“Brother?”
Hugo turned. It was the man who had stood by him as he preached. The friar gave a faint smile. If only one was prepared to listen, that was at least something. “Yes?”
“Is it right that a man should take money from another when he doesn’t need it?”
“Christ taught us that money is evil. It’s right that a man who creates a barrel should be rewarded for his labor, the same as a man who makes a tapestry, or a millwheel, but making money from money is a sin. If a man takes money he has not himself earned from his own labor, he is guilty of avarice, and that is a sin.”
Some of the crowd had returned, hoping that the friar was to be the target of ridicule. A little boy with a stick poked Hugo’s side, and he gently ruffled the lad’s head. “There’s too much hankering after riches in this world. Look at this boy – he doesn’t care for money. He doesn’t need bells of jewels or gold. He is content. If there was no greed for money, the world would be freed of much of its discord.”
At the sound of steps he faced the road through the woods again. “My friends, repent of your sins. Do you realize your peril? St. Jerome said…”
“Shut up, priest. We don’t need your sort to preach at us.” The speaker was a tall, swarthy character, with skin burned from wind and sun. He traipsed along at the head of a group of four, all dressed in cheap tunics and hose, and all armed with clubs and swords like men-at-arms. “We know how religious you and your brethren are, eating meat every day and taking whichever woman takes your fancy.”
“My son, I eat little meat, only some fish. Does my belly look as if I live on meat and wine? But your soul, if you come to the fair to fill your pockets, will be eating the devil’s food. If you come to make profits from other men’s labor, I will…”
“Shut up, old fool.” The man shoved Hugo out of the way. “We haven’t time to listen to your prating.”
“Come on, leave him alone, he’s doing no harm.” Hugo was gripped by the elbows and lifted from the roadway. The man who had questioned him now stood between him and the four. “He’s only trying to help people.”
“We don’t need his kind of help,” said the spokesman. “We’re watchmen – from Denbury – here to keep the peace, and if you get in our way you’ll not see the fair except through the clink’s bars.”
“Well, in case you don’t find me, my name is Roger Torre. I’d be happy for you to try to take me to the jail now, but…” he jerked a thumb toward the town “… you might find it hard to carry me so far. I’m heavy.”
Hugo could hear the light tone of Torre’s voice, but his stance betrayed his readiness. The watchman curled his lip, but was in no mood for a fight after walking over ten miles already that day. He shouldered his club. “I’m Long Jack. If you cross me, I’ll make sure you regret it.”
“I doubt it,” Torre said cheerily, and stood back to let them pass.
On they trudged, and Hugo watched them disappear down the slope. “Thank you, my friend, for speaking for me, but don’t put yourself in danger to protect me.”
“I reckon you need someone to look after you, brother. But enough! Come with me, and I’ll buy you some beer. I want to talk to you about money.”
2
Of all the roads he’d travelled since the murders, this one, with the unwanted memories insinuating themselves into his mind, felt the most ominous.
The trees met overhead, their branches intermingling to shut out the light and creating a cavern of twilight beneath. Here in the gloom lay the road. In the oppressive, muggy heat of late August, the horses’ hooves and harnesses sounded dull. Soft grass underfoot deadened the tramping feet. The rumble of the wagon wheels, the squeaking of the axles and chains, the hollow rattle of pans knocking together, all sounded dead to him, as if he was riding on in a dream in which the pictures were distinct but all noise had been killed. Many years ago this environment had given him peace. Now it represented only danger.
As the track began to rise, he could remember that last journey as distinctly as if it had been last week, not years ago. It felt as if the road was taking him back to his past, and it was with a mixture of fear and hope that he jolted along. Both struggled to overcome him, but he kept his face expressionless. His fellow travellers could not guess at his emotions.
It was nearly twenty years ago, he recalled. Yet after so long, the smells and sounds were still familiar. This was the place of his birth. These were the smells of his childhood: herbs, peat fires, the tang of cattle in their yards, the musky stench of humans. Even the reek from the midden was oddly poignant.
Now, over the creaking and thundering of the wagons, he could hear other noises. There was hammering and shouting, the rasp of saws through wood, and echoing thuds as axes sliced into boughs. They were the noises of his youth, the cacophony of business as could be heard in any thriving borough, but in these surroundings they gave him a feeling of release, as if he was at last being freed from his isolation.
He came into the sun and stared down along the valley. The view was one he had held fixed in his mind over all the hundreds of miles since he had managed to escape. His nose caught a faint peatiness in the air, and he snuffed the breeze with a quick pleasure, like a spaniel scenting game, before the other memories flashed back into his mind and his face took on its customary blank hardness.
The wind was welcome. It was almost the feast of St. Rumon, at the end of a hot summer, and the soft gusts were pleasant, cooling the sweat on the traveller’s body as he glanced at his companions. Few among them could know how vicious and deadly those same winds would be in the dead of winter. He did; he had seen how the chill winter blast could kill men out on the moors.