The Sanctuary Seeker (34 page)

“I hated seeing that evil young man get away so easily, but sanctuary and abjuration have long been our custom,’ he said.

His wife failed to think that Gervaise had suffered too lightly. ‘He’s lost everything, hasn’t he? Pride, position, possessions and inheritance.’

All these losses would be worse than death to Matilda, thought her husband. ‘Abjurers have a strange way of coming back, lady,’ he forecast gloomily. ‘Even if God forbid - King Richard were to die, it’s not clear whether the exile only lasts for his reign. And many an abjurer has slipped back quietly into the country after all the fuss has died down.’

‘That’s no concern of yours, John. You did your duty well and that’s all that can be asked of you.’

As they walked slowly towards St Martin’s Lane, he still had a nagging concern about his responsibility to the ragged abjurer, now plodding to Plymouth to find a shipmaster willing to take him to France.

At least John was content that his contempt for the man had not allowed him to be vindictive in his choice of port. Yet the anger of the crowd, shortlived though it seemed, made him wonder if de Bonneville would see Plymouth alive.

He found that, during his reverie, they had arrived outside their house and his wife was speaking to him.

‘Are you going to eat now or this evening? Mary can make something if you’re hungry.’

Matilda’s concern for his well-being was a novelty and John was surprised at how he welcomed it. Not because he had discovered any new-found affection for her, but as a relief from the usual sparring and fighting. However, he had other things on his mind. He came to a sudden decision. ‘No, but I’ll come in to change my cloak and get my riding boots.’

As he pulled on his travelling outfit and hung his baldric across his shoulder to carry his sword, Matilda wanted to know where he was going. ‘To follow our abjurer - I want to see that he at least gets well away from the city alive.’

Leaving her on the doorstep, shaking her head in a resigned lack of understanding of the man who shared her life and her bed, the coroner hurried across to the stables and helped the farrier to saddle up Bran, his huge stallion.

He trotted away towards the West Gate, more than an hour after Gervaise had trudged off in a welter of abuse.

Eager to put as much distance between himself and Exeter as possible, still fresh and not yet footsore, de Bonneville had covered quite a distance in that hour.

He was already well into the trees towards Alphington when John, now walking his horse quietly, saw him in the distance.

The Plymouth road was moist after a shower during the night, but not too deeply rutted in mud. It was deserted apart from the bedraggled figure in brown sackcloth, who held the cross before his chest like some talisman to ward off evil, even though, as far as the coroner was concerned, he was the epitome of evil himself. John kept pace with him at a considerable distance, so that Gervaise remained unaware of his presence. Now that he was out of sight, as he thought, of the law officers who had ruined his life, the man from Peter Tavy was turning over in his mind all the options. Should he throw away his cross and step into the trees to become an outlaw? There seemed little point in doing that here, so the next option was to walk on until he came near Tavistock and his manor.

But what could he do there? By that time, the news of his disgrace would have reached his home.

He had seen no sign of Martyn, who must have forsaken him in loathing. He had not even come to see him in sanctuary and had been conspicuously absent at the abjuration ceremony that morning. Martyn had worshipped Gervaise and would never forgive him for what he had done. Return to Peter Tavy seemed pointless, as his only real ally, Baldwyn, was dead. The cousins were waiting like carrion crows to pick up what they could of the inheritance and this affair could be nothing but a delight to them. Now they had only the weak, malleable Martyn to deal with, the brother who should have taken holy orders, rather than the sword.

As he marched along with his crude cross, the clogs were starting to chafe his heels and toes and Gervaise realised that the fifty miles to Plymouth were not going to be the easy march he had first imagined, but he resigned himself to taking ship from there to France.

He had distant relatives in Normandy, and as long as they had no news of his disgrace, he could start to rebuild his life - anything was better than dangling by the neck on the end of a rope.

He trudged on for another hour, past the village of Kennford, where several children and some dogs came to jeer and bark at him. A few carters’ wagons passed him in the other direction, the drivers ignoring him.

He was still oblivious of John, a quarter of a mile behind him, Bran’s hoofs muffled in the soft slime.

On a long curve of track, where the forest came right to the edge of the road, he was suddenly aware of a noise in the tall trees on his right, but he could see nothing. Feeling naked without a sword or even a cudgel, he was wary of attack, but the crackling stopped and he carried on, though the hairs on his neck had risen in tense apprehension.

John was thinking of giving up his impromptu escort duty and returning home - he began to wonder why he had wasted his time in the first place. The curve in the track had taken the abjurer out of sight but when he came round the bend the situation had dramatically changed.

The cross was lying in the road and two men, dressed in rough clothes little better than rags, were attacking the man in the long sackcloth robe. One ruffian was using a piece of branch as a crude club and the other was pulling at the abjurer’s arm, trying to drag him off the road into the trees. The unarmed Gervaise was putting up a vigorous fight for his life, punching and kicking as he yelled at the top of his voice, but the outlaw with the branch was putting in repeated blows at de Bonneville’s shoulder and arm, slowly driving him off the road as his accomplice hauled him from the other side.

John spurred his great horse into a gallop and shot down the road, rapidly closing the gap between him and the struggling trio. The heavy thump of the warhorse’s hoofs and his own bellowing froze the tableau ahead. All three men stopped fighting and looked open-mouthed at the apparition bearing down on them.

With a yell of fear, the two ruffians let go of Gervaise, who fell to the ground. They ran for their lives into the trees and by the time that John’s stallion pounded up to the stricken abjurer they had vanished as if they had never existed.

John stared for a long moment into the tree-line where the men had disappeared, then slid from his horse and hoisted Gervaise to his feet. The man was bruised and bleeding down the right side of his face and had deep scratches on his neck and arm. ‘Are you badly hurt?’ asked John, immediately feeling the incongruity of concern for the health of a man whom he would gladly have hanged a couple of hours earlier.

De Bonneville staggered to his feet, gingerly touched his injuries with his good hand and examined the blood on his fingers. He winced as he moved his neck and right arm, but said he was free of any serious damage.

John walked a few yards and picked up the cross, which he gave back to Gervaise. ‘Then walk on, as you are bidden by your oath.’

The man groaned, but turned and began to limp again down the centre of the track. One blow of the cudgel had caught him on the thigh and his heels were now rubbed raw by the clogs.

John put a foot in a stirrup and hoisted himself on to Bran’s back. He walked slowly behind de Bonneville and, after a few hundred yards, said, ‘Chudleigh is the next village. You can stop there this night and recover.

I’ll give you an extra day and a night travelling time to Plymouth, in the circumstances.’

They carried on for a few more minutes until the coroner spoke again. ‘I’ll see you safe to that village.

After that, you’re on your own, for better or worse.’

Later, John never understood why he was so reluctant to tell Gervaise that when he had looked into the trees back there, he had seen Martyn de Bonneville waiting, a naked sword in his hand.

The End.