Praise be to God, the castle and Priory were saved and Sir Gilbert’s men were driven off in search of easier pickings. Peter and his friends and Brothers began to think that they were safe. That was when the Scots came.
The Armstrong clan had first arrived there six months before, but Sir Tristram de Cokkesmoor had all but destroyed them. They were feared all about the Marches. Brave they were, certainly, but Peter knew that their courage was only the outward manifestation of their pagan attitude to life and God. He had heard that border men, not only the Armstrongs, routinely demanded that their boy-children at their christenings were blessed with the exception of their right hands, that they might use them freely to kill.
There were many of them. Too many, when they arrived in the area. It was only the brutal raid against them, driven home with callous disregard for the understood rules of humanity, that shattered the clan before they could devastate the whole area, and yet some men escaped the slaughter. Even as Sir Tristram rode back with the heads of his enemies dancing at his saddle, some few remained and gathered together.
Wally had been terribly cut about and left for dead, probably because he managed to crawl away from the general bloodshed. Peter’s lovely Agnes found him, and the Scots lass bathed and cleaned his wounds, sitting up with him for hours while he slowly recovered.
And the reward for Peter? He lived to see Wally again, but the next time, Wally was with two others. Martyn and another.
If it hadn’t been for Sir Gilbert, the Priory might have had a chance. Usually, refugees from the raids bolted into the castle, fleeing from the blood-maddened Scots, but because of Sir Gilbert’s attack, there was no warning.
While Sir Gilbert’s men retreated southwards, pulling back towards their inevitable fate and Sir Gilbert’s own hanging, the small party of Scots who were all that remained of the Armstrong clan approached from the north, seeking plunder of any sort.
The few men left had banded together under one leader, who was known only as ‘Red Hand’, a name that terrified all the peasants because it meant death to any who crossed his path. He killed, it seemed, for pleasure. And beneath him were others who had grown to the nomadic, warrior culture of the March.
When they arrived, Peter himself was outside the Priory’s walls, searching for herbs with the infirmarer, and it was only when the pair tried to return that they were spotted.
Screeching their unnatural war-cries, the Scots spurred their sturdy little ponies towards the monks, who turned and fled as best they could, but it was an unequal race. The Scots soon ran down the infirmarer and felled him with a single blow from a war-axe that split his head in two, the halves falling to his shoulders while his body kept on running. It was a scene from hell, a sight which Peter would never forget.
The rider who dealt this blow was delayed while he retrieved his axe, but his companions chased after Peter, laughing like young girls, high and weird. Peter’s own terrified screams seemed only to egg them on.
He almost made it. Not far away was a tiny vill with a stone house in the middle which would have given him ample protection, but even as he leaped a low wall, one of the men sprang over it on his pony and cut him off. Smiling, he trotted on, facing Peter. God! But he could never forget that smiling face. It was the face of a demon; the face of the devil himself: Martyn Armstrong. Behind Armstrong, he saw another pony, and caught a glimpse of Wally’s horrified expression; Wally whose life Peter had saved.
The monk was no coward, and he squared up to Martyn with his fists, but the third man was already behind Peter. He had jumped from his horse, and Peter turned in time to see the axe swinging at him.
There was no time to deflect the blade, not even a moment to duck. He had instinctively swayed his body backwards, away from that grey steel, which perhaps saved his life, but it left him with this mark. The blow, aimed for his throat, instead caught the angle of his jaw, shearing through bone, smashing his teeth together and knocking all into shards, jolting his head back so sharply he thought he must be dead. He felt himself falling, as though in a dream. It didn’t seem real, somehow. The wound, the death of his friend, all had a sort of hideous unreality.
When he lay on the ground, his body was lifeless, like a machine that had been shattered. There was no ability to move. His arms and legs were no longer a part of him. Not even the sensation of jerking as his attacker attempted to free his blade from Peter’s jaw could bring life to his limbs. He was quite sure that he was dead. His eyes registered only a cloaked figure, a curious voice. Nothing more. His eyes would not focus.
At last the weapon was retrieved: the man planted his foot on Peter’s chin and yanked it free. Hands wandered over his body, stealing his little leather scrip, taking his rosary, pulling him this way and that, before grabbing a handful of his robe and using it to clean the blade of the axe which had done this to him. None of the men appeared to think Peter could survive, and he himself had no doubt that he was dead. In his mind, he said his prayers, begging forgiveness for his sins – and he could vaguely recall beginning the service of the dead, first for his friend and then again for himself.
The three had gone. It was dark, and he found himself shivering awake, shaking with the cold, or perhaps not just the cold. He had seen men who were wounded after battles – my God in heaven, there were always so many up on the Scottish Marches – and some were like him, shaking uncontrollably. Perhaps that was what had affected him. The fear of death – or of life. It was with a certain thankfulness that he felt himself slipping away into oblivion again. One moment he had a hint of a thought, and then he felt himself falling away, as though the ground itself was gently accepting him, letting him sink softly into its arms, and all became black.
He never met the peasant who found him. The man had realised he was not dead and had dragged the monk into his room, setting him before the fire before hurtling off to the monastery to call for help. Soon gentle hands had come to rescue Peter, picking him up and carrying him back to the monastery’s infirmary, and it was there that he awoke again, more than a week later, coming to life once more to find himself staring at the altar. The vision of the cross acted like a stimulant on his fevered and pain-racked body, and he burst out into sobs of gratitude, and of sadness, for he had partly hoped to have died and reached heaven. But it was not to be. Not yet.
Even the memory of that rebirth, which was what it had felt like, was enough to bring tears to his eyes, and he had to wipe his blurred eyes in the street, sniffing and muttering a quick prayer of thanks, crossing himself as he cast his eyes upwards. Feeling calmer, he carried on. He was thankful, of course he was, that God had given him this second chance at life. It meant he had a purpose. There must be a reason, surely, for his continued existence on the earth.
Perhaps He was right, but Peter couldn’t remain in Tynemouth. The terror of his attack, the constant pain in his jaw, were enough to persuade him to beg his Prior that he might be permitted to move to a different monastery, somewhere further away from the Marches. His Prior, ever a generous-hearted man, understood perfectly and not only gave his permission, he also wrote to friends in other Priories and Abbeys asking whether they could find space for his wounded monk. Soon he was told that there was an Abbey far away, down almost as far from Scotland as it was possible to go, where the kindly Abbot had agreed to take him on, and shortly afterwards he had made the long journey southwards to this quiet, peaceful backwater of Tavistock.
Abbot Robert was a good man and had taken Peter to his heart as soon as they had met. There were few who could see the monk’s face without flinching, but when Abbot Robert saw him, he welcomed him with open arms and made a point of giving him the kiss of peace as though he was unharmed. That single act made Peter break down and weep. It was the first time that a man or woman hadn’t retreated before him, but Abbot Robert had made it clear that he cared only for the man himself, not at all for the damage done to him; more, that he accepted Peter unreservedly into his Abbey.