Love … yes, that is what he felt — and yet it was unreciprocated! That filled him with a yearning so intense, he would prefer death to this dreadful half-existence. What is more, the rural dean must soon hear of the affair. Oh, Christ in chains! That evil-minded old pig would be sure to come and haul Adam off to his court, and the priest would be lucky to escape a severe punishment.
That in itself was not the worst of it, though. Punishment was one thing: it lasted a short period, and then life should return to normal. However, the rural dean might well ensure that he was taken away permanently, perhaps installed in a convent and left there to wither until he was a terrible old man, like the ancients he had seen during his time at Buckfast Abbey. The thought of ending up like them was petrifying. Holy Mother, the idea was enough to make his eyes prickle with tears.
Damn them! Damn them all! He’d not be taken away again. Adam had been installed in that accursed monastery when he was little better than a child, and when he’d tried to escape, he’d been declared apostate and hunted down like a dog. Excommunicate, he had lived in perpetual terror, knowing that he might be found and returned some day.
And then they’d caught him and back he’d gone. There he’d been forced to endure the snide remarks of all the other monks, their bitter jibes and the corporal punishment, the humiliation of lying prostrate before the altar, the grim effort of speaking the psalters, the fasting … so many punishments, and all wrong; all wrong!
The Bishop had saved him. It was when he had visited the convent and the new Prior, God bless him, had spoken to him of the crimes committed by Adam and — so Adam shrewdly guessed — hinted that there was something not entirely right about his position here in the monastery. Later the Bishop had asked to meet Adam.
He had been exhausted at the time after yet another fast day spent on his knees in the Lady Chapel, but then he told his tale, how he had come here as a novice, but after his year’s probation, he had been taken through to the church and persuaded to make it his profession. And this when he was not yet fourteen years old! It was illegal for him to have been bullied into professing so young. It was wrong in any case for his novitiate to have begun before he was thirteen, and he was not old enough to make the vows. The whole matter was organised by his stepfather (his real father had died some while before), who wanted a potentially rebellious and expensive brat permanently removed from the family home.
The Bishop, Walter of Exeter, was enraged by this injustice. Seldom had Adam seen a man of God in full flow of righteous anger. The monks were bawled out for breaking the law, especially when one confessed that the motivation behind their actions was the promise of money for the priory.
So he had escaped the place. With the Bishop’s help, he had been trained as a rector, and now he had the cottage behind the church here. It was a spacious place, so that he might offer hospitality to those who needed it, even if it was far too large for him as a single man. Still, that meant he was able to look after poor Julia and her child, which was good. Protecting her was saving her, and her parish was saved embarrassment too. Mind, the extra money she brought was welcome. He was saving it against the day when he might have to leave this place and run again.
The day when he must again wear the wolf’s head.
Richer entered the church with Warin and stood surveying the congregation. He could see Serlo standing with his brother, and as the door slammed shut behind him, Richer smiled broadly to see how both men’s heads snapped around, as though they were expecting him to launch some sort of attack on them even here in the church. Serlo in particular had the look of one who was about to suffer a ferocious headache. Richer had suffered from them himself over the years and he knew what it was to have a migraine.
He sauntered towards the pillar on the right-hand side of the church with his companion, leaning against it negligently and avoiding the stares of the two brothers. He had many years of antipathy stored up against them, and his deep dislike for Serlo had been exacerbated on hearing of Athelina’s terror at the possibility of being thrown from her house. Serlo and Alex obviously thought they could run this vill as if it were their own private fiefdom, even to the extent of evicting poor Athelina and her children from their home. Well, it was time that their tyranny was ended, and today was as good a day as any to begin the process.
If Richer could, he would have given Athelina all the money he possessed, but he had none. God, but Serlo was a pathetic churl! If only he hadn’t depended all the time on his brother’s protection, perhaps he would have grown into a stronger fellow, a man in his own right. As it was, he was little more than Alex’s henchman.
Look at him! Peering back over his shoulder like some fishwife who suspected that the stall next-door had spoken of rotting herring in her barrels. Alexander was no better; his face was twisted with hatred, like a man who’d bitten into a lemon thinking it was a sweetmeat. Pathetic, the pair of them!
Serlo was a shortish man, florid-faced from too much strong ale, and with a belly to match his consumption. He and his brother, who was nearly as short, had strange, heavily jowled faces that were somehow broader than long, and both had the same pale shade of hair: not red, but not brown, as though their Celtic ancestry had been washed from them just as their blood had been watered by mixing with too many foreigners. The two brothers were very similar — until a man came close to them.
Yes, it was when you drew nearer that you saw the differences, Richer reckoned. Serlo was born some three years after Alexander, and he had been stamped from a seal which was already worn from over-use. Alexander was sharp, clear and bright. His eyes shone with intelligence, his face was calm, his language precise, like a man who measured every word he heard or spoke. He had the brains, and balls to go with them.
Not so Serlo. Hazy of intellect, all he understood was bullying, if what Richer had heard in the castle and vill was true. Serlo was harsh but cowardly, the sort who might beat his wife or children. He enjoyed power, and threatened anyone weaker than himself. He had little enough actual courage, yet stronger men would look to their safety, for Serlo would bottle up his bitterness and let it rush out in a torrent of rage when his enemy was least expecting it. He’d employ a chance ambush, taking a defenceless man by surprise and beating him — or worse. Oh yes, a weak man could often be the most dangerous, as Richer knew.
The brothers’ only saving grace was their loyalty to each other. Alexander had always taken immense pride in his younger sibling, and although Serlo was an evil brat, he could never see any wrong in him. All throughout their boyhood, Alex would forgive Serlo’s peevishness, his avariciousness and cruelty. Whenever another lad sought to put Serlo right, Alexander would protect him; even when Serlo had stolen from another child, Alexander denied his guilt. It had started when the two boys had lost their mother — not that her death was an excuse. They were bad, both of them. What they wanted, they would take.
He could remember the pair of them from when he was young, and the stories about them and their father — and the death of their mother.
Their father, Almeric, had crowed over his firstborn, apparently, and had been prompted by the rector to name him after some King of ancient times; then, after many miscarriages, Serlo had been born too, their mother dying during childbirth and leaving their father broken-hearted. At once Alexander had taken responsibility for his sibling. A friend of Richer’s mother had given birth not long before and was still in pap, so she wetnursed the new baby. When Serlo cried for milk, Alexander fetched her; Alexander changed his soiled clouts and washed them. It was Alexander who fed the child when he was weaned, and Alexander who taught him to walk, to play, and later to use a sling to bring down pigeons for the pot.