29 - The Oath (5 page)

‘What do you think, Sir Ralph?’ Bernard said.

Bernard was a younger man, of some five-and-twenty years, with long, flaxen hair and blue eyes. He always said that his family were knights from some strange country to the east of the Holy Roman Empire, but that they had lived in England since the days of King John, and from his looks it was easy to believe. He was looking at the older man now with exasperation.

‘Think about what?’ Sir Ralph asked.

‘How far must we keep running?’

‘You shouldn’t speak of such things,’ the knight reprimanded him.

‘Everyone else in the camp is,’ Bernard said reasonably. ‘The ones who don’t are leaving in the night. Look about you!’

‘They are false, then.’

‘Sir Ralph, I don’t care whether they’re false or honourable, I just want them to remain here so that it’s not you, me, Alex and Pagan who have to defend the King on our own.’

‘There’re bound to be more men who come to our aid,’ Sir Ralph said stoutly.

‘In truth? Well, that’s good to hear at least,’ Bernard said. ‘Sir Ralph, you know me well enough. I am not the man to moan and bleat at every twist of a sour fate. But even now, I can sense the men around us leaching into the woods. There are very few who’ll stay for honour’s sake.’

‘Go and help the pages,’ Sir Ralph said shortly.

He watched his squire stride off, bellowing at the two as they tried to take down the tent, and sighed.

There was little he would prefer more than to disappear into the woods himself, but the oath he had given the King had been made before God and was binding. A man was defined by how he behaved: whether he stood by his word or broke it. There might be cowards who were prepared to forswear themselves, but he was not one of them. He had never broken a vow in his life, and if it now cost him even that much, at least he would have lived honourably.

To distract himself, he urged his rounsey into a slow walk across from their tent so that he could look out over the men in the camp.

In the past he had ridden with the King’s host from Leeds in Kent up to Scotland, and over all the lands between. He had seen enthusiastic forces gathered; he had seen the shattered remnants of all-but-destroyed ones. The cheery, the furious, he had seen them all. But never before, not even when he had ridden back with his men from the north, when they had been roundly defeated by The Bruce, had he seen their mood so sombre.

Here the men moved about the remains of this village like lost souls. Such a small number . . . When they left London there had been hundreds. Now, perhaps one hundred remained. No more. They stumbled as they walked, exhausted. Cold and wet, they had taken every item of wood from this vill, even down to the cottage doors, in order to feed their fires, but the flames would not give them any cheer. This force was defeated before a single sword had been drawn.

Second Saturday after the Feast of St Michael
⁸

Near Marshfield

Paul yawned as he came out of his little cottage. He had run out of bread and had to walk down to the vill, as the Abbot was most insistent on maintaining his rights here.

It was the Abbot of Tewkesbury who owned the benefice of this vill, the manor, and the mill; all those who lived here must take their grain to his mill down near Marshfield. The miller, generally a hated individual and viewed by all with suspicion, would take his tenth of the flour after milling, and from his efforts each year, a due was given to the Abbot.

Paul had only a small sack with a few pounds of grain in it, but he hoped it would be enough for two or three loaves. With fortune, he would be able to acquire some more flour before long, but there was no doubt that this would be a very thin winter. Not so bad as when he was a youth and the great famine had struck at the kingdom, but still not good.

It was almost noon when he set off on the short walk to Marshfield. It was only some three miles to the mill, and he was in no hurry, but the act of walking did at least keep him warmer. He had to loosen his neckcloth after the first mile or so.

The lands here to the north of Marshfield were uniformly flat and tedious, he always felt. His little church was in the midst of them, and while there were excellent pastures, there was no protection from the wind that came from the north and east. He had already grown to hate that wind. It cared nothing for obstacles, whether flesh, clothing, or even wattle and daub. Whatever it struck, it chilled.

South from the vill, the land was more pleasing to his eyes. It was rolling farmland, leading to good woods, and hills undulating into the distance. This scene never failed to please him as he took it in.

On his way, he had to pass a cottage with a blackthorn bush tied into a bundle and bound to a pole above the front door – the universal sign of a home with ale to sell. Paul went to the door and knocked.

‘Yes? Oh, Father, do you want a drop?’Anna asked.

She was a short, plump woman with a cheery face and thick, powerful hands. Paul smiled as Anna fetched him a large earthenware jug, and he drained a cupful in a moment standing by her fire.

‘Come, Father, you can sit. You’re an honoured guest for us here, you are. Please, take the stool.’

‘Anna, I spend my life sitting and kneeling. Do you want me to grow as fat as the Abbot?’

Speaking of the Abbot in such a derogatory way was not seemly, but he knew the peasants here detested the man for his taxes. There was nothing so mean that the Abbot wouldn’t take it. Whether it was the
leyrwite
, the tax for adultery, or the
heriot
when a peasant died, the local people were fleeced like sheep. It was cruel to take so much from those who had the least.

There was a sudden crash at the door, and it rasped open slowly, Anna’s little husband entering with a small sack upon his back. He carried a couple of faggots of twigs in one hand, both balanced on a billhook’s blade.

‘Father,’ he nodded, letting the sack fall to the ground. It contained three cabbages which had been badly mangled by slugs, and two little turnips. ‘You staying for some pottage? Anna makes the best in Marshfield, I’ll vow, and with weather like this, you’ll need something hot for your belly.’

‘I thank you, but the ale and the fire are all I need,’ Paul said untruthfully, for the odours from the little pot by the fire had made his belly groan.

‘Really?’ Anna said mischievously. She lifted the lid and sniffed with appreciation. ‘Marrow bones, some meat from a chicken, with all the garbage, and the last of the peas went into that. Sure you don’t want any?’

It was later, when Paul was sitting replete, that the peasant looked at his wife and remarked, ‘Old Puddock was in the vill this morning. He had news of Bristol.’

Paul smiled to hear that. He was still unused to the broad local pronunciation, and the word ‘Brizzle’ made him feel alien, but strangely comfortable too.

‘Puddock is the Abbey’s steward,’Anna said. ‘He often comes on tour to see we’re not living like lords on the money we manage to save from them.’

‘Little enough,’ her husband grunted. He picked up a stick and prodded at the fire.

‘I really should get off to the miller,’ Paul said unenthusiastically.

‘Puddock,’ the other man said solemnly, ‘he was telling of a terrible murder in the big city. An ’ole fam’ly killed.’

‘Terrible!’Anna said, while Paul crossed himself sorrowfully.

‘There are many evil men in the world,’ he opined.

‘Because of that silly maid of theirs, the Capons have all been killed. Even the daughter’s pup.’

Paul felt the blood drain from his face and throat, just before he heard a roaring in his ears, and the ground came up to strike him.

Second Sunday after the Feast of St Michael
⁹

Chapel near Marshfield

The floor’s little ridges and gravel were agony to his knees as Paul knelt, head bent, hands clasped tightly near his nose, but that physical pain was nothing compared with the agony of his spirit.

‘Could You not have let me suffer for them? Why did You let that evil man kill them? There was no need for them to die. And my child was blameless, surely, in all this! Why should You punish him?’

He knew the answer already, of course. The child he and Petronilla had conceived was born out of an adulterous relationship. That ‘petit treason’ was itself an abomination. If another man had committed such an offence, it would be cause for an enraged husband to seek him out, and if he were to slay the offender, he was sure to be released. No man could be expected to endure such shame. Paul was fortunate that he was a priest. Holy Orders protected him.

The child had been born in sin, and was taken to prove to all that such evil behaviour was as obnoxious to God as to all right-thinking men.

He sobbed, his head falling forward until his elbows were on the ground, his brow on the chilly, clay soil. His heart felt as though it had been twisted and torn at the loss of his lovely Petronilla, the gorgeous, winsome maid with whom he had fallen utterly in love. There was no other emotion that had filled him so entirely. Even when he had felt the hands of the Bishop on his head at his service of ordainment, the thrill had lasted but fleetingly, and by the time they had left the great church, his excitement was more or less dissipated.

That was not the case with Petronilla. He had met her one day when she and her husband arrived at his chapel near Hanham, and it had been just as though a dart from Cupid’s bow had stabbed his heart. Instantly he was aware of no one else. Her face radiated perfection: it was like seeing the Blessed Virgin come down from Heaven to his little chapel, filling the place with light and warmth and love.

Of course, then he had had no idea that she might possibly feel the same for him, but there was a sparkle of something reciprocal in her eyes. He was sure of it.

She was wife to Squire William de Bar. That was the harsh truth. She was seventeen on that fateful day when Paul met her, an acknowledged beauty, but still barren. Not for want of trying, the Squire would say gruffly, ignoring, or perhaps not seeing, the pain in her eyes.

Paul could not marry anyway, since he was sworn to celibacy, but that served only to heighten his arousal at the sight of her. She was unattainable, a vision of total perfection: like Guinevere to Launcelot. An angel come to earth.

All would have been well, had Paul not seen her thrashed that day. That was the day he swore to himself that he would not let her suffer in that brutal man’s company. He would rescue her.

It was that resolution which had led to her murder.

And his child’s.

Second Monday after the Feast of St Michael
¹⁰

Ten leagues from Bristol

The rain fell but they scarcely noticed it any more. On all sides men trudged on through the wet and mud, wretched in the cold. Some were wearing tattered sacking about their heads and backs; others, more fortunate, had leather jerkins, but all shivered as the dampness was flung in their faces by the capricious wind.

These were the men of southern Oxford. Summoned by a King who had lost all support among his barons, briefly arrayed with their unfamiliar weapons, they had been ordered to hurry to his defence – while all others in the land hurried to the King’s enemy: his wife, the Queen.

If it had not been for Otho, most would not have struggled this far.

The Sergeant was a kindly man to those from his village. Thick-necked, with a pepper-and-salt beard and a clump of sandy hair, Otho had two boys back at his home, and Robert knew he would be as worried about them and his wife as he was about his own wife, Susan. But Otho would not allow the men under him to rest and slacken off. He inspired them by his own iron determination, forcing himself on, hour after hour.

A cart hauled by a wretched old nag rumbled past. The beast’s head hung low as it plodded on, beyond despair. The rain began to fall again. Few among the men would spare a thought for its suffering, and when it stopped, shivering, the man at the leading rein stared uncomprehendingly as though he had forgotten he had the animal with him. A spasm passed through the pony’s frame, and its head drooped so low, it almost touched the mud of the roadway. The driver and two others tried to beat it into movement, but it would not budge, whether they hauled on the reins or whipped it until its rump was red with blood.

Robert Vyke heard the low, moaning whinny, and his eyes were drawn to the pony.

‘He can’t pull any more,’ he said.

The driver snarled, ‘So, you want to carry his load on your back?’

Vyke glanced at the light cart with the boxes set over the axle. ‘You can pull all you want, the beast’s done.’

‘Yeah, well unless we get some more like you to pull, we’ll have to rely on this God-damned pony,’ the man said, and tugged again. ‘Come on, in Christ’s name! God’s body, but you’d test the patience of a saint!’