For the Love of Old Bones - and other stories (Templar Series) (10 page)

That it was a man was obvious from the boots and the outline of the strong shoulders under the black woollen cloak. His tippet was thrown up over his head concealing his features, and it had soaked up water from the little brook into which the man had fallen. At his side a scruffy mastiff stared down at the man forlornly. The brute looked familiar, but John couldn’t remember where he’d seen it before; so many people had dogs for their protection, and right now it was the long-legged hunting raches of his Abbot which demanded his attention.
 

He had broken the law. If he weren’t on the moors illegally, he could have ridden back to town, raised the hue and cry, and told the Abbot, but the rolling, grassy and rock-scattered moors were legally
forest
, hunting grounds owned by the King, and bringing hounds here was a serious offence that could cost the abbey dearly. The Sheriff would not be impressed, nor would the Coroner. And Abbot Champeaux had not given permission for John to bring the dogs. Whichever way he looked at it, John was in trouble.

What should he do? He tentatively reached down to the body, curling his lip as he felt the soggy shoulder of the woollen cloak, tugging it away, and then gasped with shock, for he knew the man: Ralph atte Moor, one of the King’s own Foresters.

‘Oh! Dear God!’ he moaned. ‘Why me?’

His journey back to the abbey was a great deal swifter than his casual ride out, and his mind was churning with near panic as he clattered in through the water gate to the court behind, hurling himself from the saddle and landing on the forepaw of one of the bitches, making her yelp with hurt surprise.

‘Hey, there, boy! Ware the beasts!’ roared a voice, and John looked up to see the grim features of Peter the almoner staring down at him.

Peter was a fearsome looking man. His face was badly scarred by a hideous axe wound that stretched along the line of his jaw from the point of his chin to below his ear. Novices whispered that he had gained it during one of the raids by the Scots, when their false King Robert Bruce had attacked as far as Carlisle, slaughtering and burning as he went. Peter had been a brother in one of the priories put to the torch, and the murderous villains had tried to kill him along with his brethren, but the blow intended to decapitate him had merely shattered his jaw and stunned him. Later he had come to, and a physician in Carlisle had somehow saved his life.
 

His pate never needed shaving. Although he had the bushiest eyebrows John had ever seen, and his reddish hair showed little sign of greying, there was little left of it, only a fringe that began at one temple and reached around the back of his skull to the other. When the barber came, he only ever asked for a few ounces of blood to be taken, and swore that the cause of his long life was that simple precaution.
 

Now the fifty-year-old monk was gazing down at him with exasperation in his grey eyes. ‘Well? What on God’s good, green earth, is so important that you should leap on to the Lord Abbot’s raches?’

‘He’s dead! I found him out on the moor, and . . .’

‘Quietly boy! Calm yourself!’ Peter scowled at him thoughtfully, then took him by the elbow and led him into the gatehouse. There was a great earthenware jug resting by the fire, and he filled a mazer and handed it to John. ‘Drink this.’

The strong, heavily spiced wine warmed his belly and sent shoots of fire to his toes. ‘Ralph atte Moor, sir. I found him in the stream by the quarries near Dennithorne. He’s dead.’

‘What were you doing up there?’

John flushed. ‘Exercising the Abbot’s horse and hounds.’

‘The raches don’t need to go on the moors for their exercise,’ Peter observed drily. ‘No matter. The body is more important. Let me answer for the dogs.’

He sat staring at the fire while John finished his drink, and John knew what was uppermost in his mind. Ralph was unpopular with everyone. Harsh in language, brutal with those who infringed Forest Law, he was a bully with the power to gaol people. He would strike a man down for any supposed misdemeanour. John knew of Ralph, although Peter knew him better. Peter had the duty of distributing charity to the people at the Abbey’s gates and supplying the lepers at the Maudlin, so he could often visit the town’s taverns. It made Peter a useful source of local gossip for other monks.
 

‘His dog was there?’ Peter asked.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘He is a big bugger, that mastiff,’ Peter mused. ‘Was there any sign who could have killed Ralph?’
 

‘Nothing I could see, sir.’

‘Probably because like all youngsters, you don’t have eyes in your head for anything other than women and the nearest wine flagon, eh? Fortunately, I am more observant. Well, I suppose we should tell the Abbot and get up there. Come along, boy!’

The Abbot did not see John personally, but Peter made it clear that their lord was not pleased with him. John must exercise the hounds, but that didn’t mean he had permission to go on the moors, where even the Abbot was not permitted. The Abbot had himself been rebuked for chasing deer on the moors occasionally, but for a novice to take it into his head to do the same was a different matter.

Reeve Miria was informed, and he arrived on his horse through the court gate within the hour. Robert Miria was a squat, fair haired man with a face like a walnut, dark and wrinkled. His expression was sour. ‘What’s all this then? I hear Ralph’s dead. That right?’

‘Aye.’ Peter led the way through the water gate, over the bridge, through the deerpark, then up the hill to the moor. It took little time for him to explain what had happened. ‘Since there were no vicious marauders there, it seemed pointless to raise the shire’s militia.’

‘Don’t be sarcastic, old goat! I’ll decide whether to raise the Hue when I get back.’

Peter shrugged, loping along easily. His pace was clearly comfortable for him, although John found himself growing tired. He had suggested that they should have horses saddled and bridled, but Peter had looked at him from his bushy eyebrows and growled that God gave man legs to use, and horses were only for the vain.
 

‘Can’t you move faster?’ the Reeve demanded again as John lagged behind.
 

John had not enough energy to respond. It was all he could manage just to keep his legs moving.
 

At the quarry the two men waited for John, Robert Miria gulping from a wineskin while Peter refreshed himself with a few sips from the stream, drinking from a cupped hand.
 

Even over his exhaustion, after climbing for at least a mile and a half, John could see that the old monk was alert. He bent one knee at the side of the stream, one hand on the ground, the other in the water, then lifted it swiftly, his eyes ranging over the horizon ahead in case a gang of felons might attempt to attack. John had the impression of strength and power, like a man who could spring up in a moment to defend himself.
 

John sank down at the water’s side and thrust his face into the stream, drinking deeply.

‘How much farther, boy?’ Peter asked.

‘A half mile, perhaps.’

‘Come on, then,’ Reeve Miria said. ‘I have other matters to deal with at Tavistock.’

‘You always were a busy man,’ Peter said, scanning the land ahead.

‘A merchant needs to be busy. It’s people like me who keep the town alive. Without burgesses, there’s be nothing. And that would mean nothing to keep you lot in the abbey alive either!’

‘Oh, I think we could survive,’ Peter responded, checking his sandals. ‘Our manors would keep us going. It’s not as though the town shares all its profits with us.’

‘The abbey gets the rents,’ the Reeve snarled. ‘And extortionate they can be, too.’

‘But they are not usury,’ Peter said.
 

The Reeve stared at Peter as the monk carried on. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Nothing. I’d heard that someone was charging interest on money loaned, that’s all. Illegal, of course, but some folk will try to make money they don’t need. It’s as bad as a doctor charging money from a poor man: the doctor should value life more highly than money. God in his goodness gave the doctor the skills necessary to save life, so the doctor is charging for God’s gift of knowledge - it’s obscene! Therefore a merchant shouldn’t ask profit from lending money. If he has money to lend, he must have sufficient already; only a thief would demand profit from lending it.’

‘You’re talking crap!’

‘Christ’s teaching?’ Peter asked with apparent interest. His lisp, caused by the crushing of his jaw and the loss of almost all the teeth on one side of his mouth, sounded almost like a laugh, and John wondered what the point of the conversation was. He was convinced that Peter wouldn’t have raised the matter had there not been a reason.

‘Come on, I don’t have time for all this shit!’ the Reeve said dismissively.

‘Of course. Oh, I should warn you: I asked Ivo Colbrok and Eustace Joce to meet us up near the place.’

‘Why?’

‘Oh, I just have a feeling that they might be able to help,’ Peter said, setting off again.

He was right. At the entrance to Dennithorne a small group had gathered. The men John recognised: Eustace Joce, the tenant who farmed Dennithorne, and Ivo Colbrok, who looked after the Abbot’s warrens in Dolvin Wood. There was also a woman, whom John did not recognise, but whom he thought must be Eustace’s wife, from the familiarity with which he treated her.
 

Peter stood among the group, looking at them all. ‘Lordings, I am sorry to have asked you to meet us here, but we have a solemn duty. A man’s body has been found, and we must report on it for the Coroner when he arrives.’

‘D’you know who it is?’ Eustace asked. He was a large, leathery skinned man, dressed in a strong rather than fine linen shirt, with a leather jacket atop. His massive biceps were as thick as a maid’s waist, John thought.
 

‘Ralph atte Moor.’

Eustace Joce said nothing, but looked at the woman, who had given a startled cry and her hand went to her face on hearing the name. ‘Not poor Ralph?’

Peter’s voice became more gentle as he said, ‘I am afraid so, maid. He is a little way further up here.’

She shook her head and tears began to run slowly down her cheeks.
 

‘Typical of the fool. Dry your eyes, Anastasia! Anyone would think he was close to you, eh?’ Eustace watched his wife with small, suspicious eyes.

‘It’s only right that a man should be mourned,’ Peter said quietly.

‘I don’t see why. A fool like him doesn’t deserve sympathy. He was a shit when he lived, and I don’t give a fig what anyone else says.’

‘That is not a very compassionate attitude,’ Peter remonstrated.

‘He made one enemy too many,’ Eustace said harshly as he set his face to the hill.
 

‘Was he unpopular, would you say?’ Peter asked.

‘You know damn well he was!’

‘Ah!’ Peter said mildly, and Eustace shot him a questioning look, but Peter merely trudged on thoughtfully and didn’t speak again until they were at the body.
 

Ralph had a great swelling on his forehead when they pulled him out of the water in which he lay face-down.
 

‘Perhaps he simply drowned?’ Peter murmured, and asked John to help him roll the body over. When John saw Ralph’s face, although he had helped lay out two monks and one lay brother, he felt a deep sadness. It was the sympathetic instinct of one man upon seeing how another had died.
 

Against the pallor of his face, the ugly, blue mark stood out like mark of the devil, and all the gathering stood studying it in silence for some little time.
 

It was Peter who voiced their thoughts. ‘It, um, looks as though he was struck down.’

Nobody spoke. There was a curious atmosphere which John did not fully understand, as though all the men and the woman were waiting for someone else to say something. Peter was the only person who appeared unconcerned. He stood with his left hand cupping his hideously damaged jaw, his elbow supported by his right hand, a vague smile on his twisted face as he looked down at Ralph. ‘It would have been a heavy blow,’ he said.

‘To knock that bastard down, it’d have to be,’ Ivo Colbrok said.

Peter sighed to himself and walked to the mastiff. ‘Hello, Rumon, old fellow.’

The mastiff was apparently aware that his master was beyond help, and somewhere deep in his canine brain there was an understanding that these people were not here to harm his master, but to help if they may. Unlike most mastiffs, he did not threaten the folks about Ralph’s body, but sat back and watched with mournful brown eyes. When Peter went to him, the great head turned, but listlessly, as though the reason for his existence was ended.

‘Why did you ask us to come to this God-forsaken place?’ Ivo demanded, looking from Peter to the Reeve. ‘What good can we do here?’

Reeve Miria was watching Peter, who stood patting the dog’s head. ‘We have to record what is here for the Coroner.’

Eustace sniffed. ‘The Coroner won’t be pleased if we’ve messed the whole area about before he can come here.’

‘By the time Coroner Roger of Gidleigh can get here,’ Peter declared, ‘the body will have been eaten and rotted. I am happy to take responsibility for the corpse, but I must see how the land lay so that I can describe it to the Coroner. And then I and my novice here will mount guard until Coroner Roger arrives.’

John thought that his words made good sense. He watched as Peter walked to the stream and stood gazing down. The waters flowed swiftly here, in a steep-sided and moorstone-lined cleft some three feet deep. Above was a stone clapper bridge, formed of a single flat stone that traversed the stream. It was not broad enough for a cart, but few carts travelled up here. This bridge had been thrown over the stream by the miners, who regularly sent their ponies down to Tavistock to replenish their stores, and it was only some two feet wide. Peter stood on it, bouncing himself up and down a little. ‘It’s solid,’ he said. ‘It didn’t topple and knock him into the water.’