Free The Mad Monk of Gidleigh by Michael Jecks

made him bolt. He had hit her, yes, but not hard. Not hard enough to kill. Not hard enough to make her miscarry! He had slapped at her, the blow glancing off her shoulder and then, as she stared at him with her love turning to loathing, he had felt his life shatter like a window struck by a stone. He was supposed to be celibate, yet he had lain with this maid; he was supposed to be kindly, yet he had struck at her in rage. And then, when he went back later, he saw that she was dead, and he was sure that it was he who had killed her. Overwhelmed with horror, he fled the sight and that cursed vill.
    He knew what he had done, knew that he was wrong to have lain with her, not once, but at every opportunity during the last summer and autumn, no matter how many times he had prayed to God. It was no use. Every time she had come to him again, drawn to him by some power that neither could understand, he had allowed himself to submit to his natural instincts. They had once tried to pray together, when he had insisted, hoping that if he were to ask help from God while she was there at his side, perhaps God could give him a sign, or merely eradicate every vestige of whoring from Mark’s soul, but even that had failed. It was as though He had turned his back on Mark.
    The young priest wiped his mouth on his sleeve, went to a tree-stump and slumped against it. Until today his whole life had been marked out: he would go on his journey, and when he returned, he would go to the university. From there, he would take up a senior position with Bishop Walter at Exeter, or perhaps, if the good Bishop was still Treasurer, then maybe Mark might be able to find a position with him in the King’s Exchequer in London. His future had seemed bright and ripe for promotion; now all was lost, and all because he couldn’t keep his tarse in his hose.
    It felt as though the entire world had rejected him. Until today his life had been untroubled except by loneliness, but now his future had been snatched from him. His past friends would be his companions no longer; the teachers and choir at Exeter Cathedral would not stop to talk as had been their wont. All the delights he had anticipated, all the pleasures, all the duties, had been cruelly snatched away. His life was ruined purely because of one error – the girl, and a thoughtless fist.
    He could see the pain in her eyes as soon as he struck her. She had fallen and he had hesitated, sickened, before bolting. Later, when he came to his senses and returned, there she was, lying on the ground, her legs parted and blood, blood
everywhere
! He’d nearly thrown up on the spot, revolted by the sight of his lover, exposed like a slab of pork on the butcher’s table.
    Standing there, his mind seemed to work with an immediate clarity. Everyone would think he had intentionally killed her. He hadn’t, he’d only lashed out at her, but that wouldn’t be enough for the locals here, Christ’s blood, no! They would appeal him. He was an outsider who had got one of their women pregnant and wanted to avoid the shame and expense of an illegitimate child.
    If he was found, if he was caught, he could claim Benefit of Clergy, demand to be tried in the ecclesiastical court, but he knew he’d be dead long before he could get there. No one in the village would try to protect him. He knew how the place worked: it was Sir Ralph’s manor against the world. They looked upon a man who came from South Tawton as a foreigner, and that was a town only some four miles away. If the Hue was raised against him and he were captured, his life would be worth nothing. What was the value of a foreigner’s life compared to the hurt and sorrow felt by a father for his murdered daughter?
Nothing!
They would castrate him and hang him from the nearest tree, rather than wait for the Law to take its measured time to consider his case and release him into the Bishop’s hands for trial.
    The Bishop’s court. He had been there several times