Baldwin gave a faint smile. ‘Yes – but I mean intentionally. Brother, if a man takes an oath and then is betrayed, does that mean the oath itself is null and void?’
Stephen looked at him, surprised. ‘What do you mean?’
Baldwin took a deep breath. He couldn’t confess to his membership of the Knights Templar, for since their destruction many priests would look askance on one of that fraternity -especially bearing in mind the nature of some of the accusations. ‘Well, suppose I were a man of the cloth, and had taken the vow of chastity, and yet was tempted into… um… into lust for…’
He stopped. The priest had gone as white as the plaster on the whitewashed wall, then as red as Baldwin’s crimson tunic. Standing, he stared down at the knight with an expression of sheer fury. ‘You dare to try and trick me into… You bastard! You try to accuse me – no, don’t! Don’t touch me!’
Chapter Thirteen
Alan saw another pigeon, a tempting, plump target. It swooped over the tree high above him, flew across the field and on, but even as he held his breath, it made a wide circle, and returned in a leisurely manner. At last it dropped down towards the field.
His decoy, a live pigeon tethered by the leg to a stick, which kept flapping and cooing, showing that there was food here, was working well. Alan pursed his lips as the new bird came down, beating its wings wildly as it landed, and as it ruffled its feathers and tucked its wings away, Alan was already whirling his long-stringed sling over his head, behind the cover of his hedge. Still spinning, he let go of the cord.
The bullet was released. It slipped from the leather patch and flew true. The boy stood, eyes glued to the bird, motionless, and saw the pebble strike the wing, feathers flying. Instantly he was up and over his hedge, haring towards the pigeon, which hopped and tried to escape, but to no avail. The boy grabbed its head between finger and thumb. One flick, up and down, and the weight of the body cracked the neck.
While it shivered and fluttered in its death throes, Alan hummed quietly to himself and broke up a small stick. It was forked, and he snapped the two twigs away before thrusting the long stem into the ground. The pigeon was still now, and he laid it down with its neck resting in the fork to make it appear to be standing, before wandering back to his hiding-place. He enjoyed luring pigeons like this. One bird flapping on the ground was guaranteed to attract the attention of others flying past, which would be certain to investigate, thinking there must be food. And as each was shot and killed, then laid out as if pecking at the ground, still more would be tempted to join those enjoying such apparently rich pickings.
It was a good day. He’d seen seven birds so far, and this was the third he’d hit. If he carried on like this, he and his mother would be able to have a decent meal – and profit from the ones he would sell. He only wished he was more accurate with his sling.
When Jordan found him, Alan had increased his total by one, and he was crouched low waiting for another to come and land. It gently glided down, and Alan cautiously rose. He released the bullet, but his aim was poor, and the bird took off at speed. Alan grimaced, twirling the cords of his sling around his forefinger.
‘How did you catch the lure?’ Jordan asked.
‘Birdlime,’ answered Alan shortly. ‘Made from the holm tree in the churchyard. I spread it on the elm one evening, and the next morning there was this pretty pigeon!’
‘Will you keep it?’
‘No, she’s trapped enough others,’ Alan said, and quickly wrung her neck, gathering up the other bodies happily. ‘A good morning.’
Jordan nodded, staring at the birds hungrily. Each one was more meat than he and his family would usually eat in a fortnight. The rabbit his father had brought back the day that Herbert died had been unique, and delicious for that very reason, although there was some pleasure in knowing that he himself had shot it. He was going to take it home, and it was simply luck that Edmund had happened along the road at that moment.
That thought reminded him of the reason for his visit.
‘Alan, do you think we ought to go to the manor and tell them about…’
‘We’ve told them all we can.’ His eyes were not on Jordan, but staring out across the field as his fingers deftly looped cords over the necks of the dead birds. The younger boy could feel his tension, but didn’t know how to help him. It was Alan who had been caught by the priest, not Jordan, and the cruel lash-marks still hadn’t faded.
‘I hate him,’ Jordan said aloud, and the virulence of his hatred surprised even himself. The priest had beaten them all -oh, many times – and yet he was the one who taught them to love their fellow man.
Alan glanced at him with a worried frown. ‘We can’t do anything, though. He’s a priest. Who’d believe anything we said against him?’
‘My dad would believe me – he’s always said the priest is a bastard.’
‘Your dad? Jordan, he’s useless! Look at him, he’s a drunk who can’t hold his place in the vill, and who’s become a villein again.’
Jordan felt stung into defending his father. ‘That wasn’t his fault! It was the mistress, and-’
‘You can’t mean you think he’s all right? After the way he’s treated you?’
Jordan sulked. His thrashings were known all around Throwleigh, and his father’s drinking had also gained him notoriety. He brushed angrily at a tear and sniffed. He wasn’t going to let the older boy upset him again.
It happened all too often. Alan had the abilities of an older boy. His skills with bow and sling were cursed by several people in the area, and he couldn’t help but look down upon Jordan sometimes, like a patronising elder brother. His tone could be quite scathing when he talked about Jordan’s father; Jordan had a child’s kindness and generosity of spirit, but he had more perspicacity than most adults, and he was sure that Alan’s disapproving tone when talking about Edmund had something to do with the disappearance of his own father. It was a form of jealousy.
Alan shouldn’t have been so sharp, he knew, but it was so tempting sometimes when Jordan whined on about things. His father was a waster – useless. Couldn’t even fix the fence when it fell two years before, and that was why they had lost their pig and later most of their chickens: a fox had got in, and all the time Edmund was snoring, drunk, on his bed. His wife could do nothing, nor could the two children, both were too young. So because he was lazy, Edmund had squandered all his family’s assets.
But it wasn’t Jordan’s fault, and Jordan was Alan’s only friend here. They were renegades – almost outlaws. They and young Herbert had wandered far over the surrounding countryside, playing at the bartons, hunting each other over the moors… That thought reminded him that now there were only the two of them, not three.
It still seemed only a short while ago that there had been four of them, including Tom, his brother. But, because of Herbert, Tom was dead, or so Alan’s mother said. Alan wasn’t greatly exercised by questions of responsibility – he knew that people died, whatever their age. Even during his short life Alan had seen friends and acquaintances starve, many of them dying because of the famine.
His mother blamed Herbert for Tom’s death. She was convinced that if only Herbert had called out, Tom could have been saved, but Alan couldn’t feel any resentment towards Herbert for that; Herbert was too young. And now he too was gone.
‘Alan, we could give them proof of what the priest’s like,’ Jordan said after a moment.
‘How can we do that?’ Alan wanted to know. ‘He’s a priest and everything – how can we show people what he’s really like?’
‘His shoe?’
Alan paused and his mouth fell open. ‘You think we…’
‘Why don’t we go back and see if his sandal is still up there?
If we can find it, people would have to believe us, wouldn’t they?‘
Baldwin stared in amazement as the monk stormed from the chapel. Stephen’s contempt was all too plain, and it could only be because he had guessed that Baldwin had been a Knight Templar. It was the only explanation. Stephen had obviously heard the accusations – the ridiculous, trumped-up accusations pressed by government officials on behalf of the French King: allegations that Templar brothers underwent obscene initiation rituals, that they ate Christian babies, that they committed the heinous act of sodomy with each other, even that they spat on
