Free The Mad Monk of Gidleigh by Michael Jecks Page A

listening to cases; once he had helped make a note of the transcripts of a case. Sitting there before the Bishop’s steward and the clerics who would try the matter, he had felt as though their importance and glory was reflected upon him, just as light from a candle could illuminate the faces of three or four, although it was intended to assist only one man to read.
    Once or twice, while the judges were deliberating, he had studied the man who stood so patiently before them. Pale, thin, worn down with work, he had been accused of stealing a sheep from the Cathedral. If he was found guilty, he would be hanged immediately. In his eyes, Mark saw resignation. No shame, no guilt, just a weary acceptance. He didn’t expect sympathy. That was some seven years ago, 1316, and famine was killing people up and down the country: men, women and children lay starving, weakened by malnutrition, their souls weighed down with the grim weather. Oh, what weather! Mark could recall it only with horror. It rained all through the winter, and then on into the summer in those famine years. Harvests failed. Animals collapsed and died. It was as though God Himself had decided to punish the world. First the loss of the Crusader kingdoms, then the announcement of the crimes of the Templars, and now famine, pestilence – and the war in Scotland. No one would consider a man who stole to fill his belly to be deserving of kindness. If he were treated leniently, others would try the same. So he had been hanged.
    Never, during that trial, had it occurred to Mark that he might one day stand there himself, pleading his own case. At least he wouldn’t be hanged by the Bishop. Priests could anticipate a less rough form of justice. The penance might be severe, but it would not entail death.
    That was the spur that had set his legs running originally. He couldn’t simply wait there to be taken and executed without trying to save himself. He had pelted up Deave Lane, hardly knowing where he was going, through Throwleigh and out towards the mill east of the vill. There was a stream there that flowed from the moors. The Baron would seek him with dogs, he knew. He must escape by evading their noses.
    The stream was cold enough to take the breath away, but Mark didn’t care. He splashed on through the water, desperate to put as many miles between him and pursuit as possible. The way was hard, with trees and bushes snagging at his clothes. He had to duck beneath straggling branches, soaking his tunic with water so cold he felt his flesh creep. His chest was constricted, his breath ragged with exertion, and his toes and shins were bruised and barked from falls against rocks and tree trunks. A blackthorn branch was before him now, a sharp spike almost piercing his eye, and his breath sobbed in his throat as he took hold of it, moving it away from his face. His hands were already scratched from a thousand wild roses and brambles, and as he moved on, a spine slid into his palm. In his pain, he let the branch go, and it scraped along his tonsure, two splinters breaking off in his scalp. He wailed with the pain, but he had to continue, driving himself onwards, sploshing through shallows, wading noisily through the deeper waters, until at last he reached a tributary.
    It was much smaller, approaching from the north, but it held the merit that the Baron and his posse would surely assume he would continue on the broader reaches of the river if they thought of coming this way. And no matter where this led, he must be out of the jurisdiction of Sir Ralph’s court soon.
    He took the turn, but first he spread water over some dry rocks further up, to make it look as though he had continued within the main stream and hadn’t turned away. A little farther still, he grabbed a pair of stout tree limbs near the banks, hoping that a hound would notice it, and the hunters would carry on without turning off.
    The tributary was much smaller, and he had to walk carefully to prevent his