Those Who Go by Night

by Andrew Gaddes

  Far from being cowed, Eustace took a step forward, putting himself between the prior and Justus.

  “Then perhaps you should consider that the villagers are in pain, having just lost one of their loved ones, an innocent young girl, to a terrible assault of a lascivious nature. It would be hurtful for them to see their daughters accosted at this time. Nor are they likely to accept it without recourse to violence of their own.”

  Justus harrumphed, grudgingly acknowledging the point. He stroked his chin thoughtfully. “I suppose that is a fair point. If it will make you rest any easier, I shall speak with Guy and warn him of the dangers of the flesh. I shall tell him to arm himself against the arts and allures of the local slatterns so that he should not so easily fall prey to their temptations. But really, Eustace, you act as if it were his fault.”

  Justus slowly and deliberately knelt down again, assuming a prayerful posture. “Is there anything else we need to discuss, or may I finally return to my prayers?”

  Gilbert collected himself from the stupor into which he had fallen. “No, not at all. Well, I am glad we had this little chat.”

  “Then I shall return to my devotions, and I suggest that you do the same. It will shortly be Compline, and we should all ready our minds and spirits.” Gilbert turned for the door. “Oh and, Prior, you should consider including in the liturgy at repast some passages regarding the sins of women and the temptations of the flesh. Something from Proverbs or Ecclesiastes should suffice.”

  “Yes, an excellent suggestion,” allowed Gilbert as he backed out the door. “I shall do so. We are sorry to have disturbed you. It won’t happen again.”

  The two monks walked slowly back to the prior’s office.

  Gilbert gave an embarrassed chuckle. “Well, that went rather well, don’t you think?”

  Eustace sighed.

  * * *

  Justus scratched irritably at his shoulder. The hair shirt was itching terribly, and he would simply have to take it off soon for some relief. It was also making him sweat, and he feared that he was beginning to smell a bit ripe.

  The vicar had been murdered; Justus sensed it to be true. A man had been sacrificed on the very altar of the church. Another had been strung up in mockery of the Betrayer’s death. An innocent young girl had been defiled and slain. These things were all connected in some as yet unseen fashion.

  And then there was the strange look Lady Isabella had given De Bray’s daughter—a look that suggested Cecily was hiding some wickedness. Nor had Justus been fooled by Isabella’s pretensions to piety. Her efforts to ingratiate herself had been vulgar. So much so that she had instead only raised his suspicions. He thought it likely that she too had something to hide, and tomorrow he would return to the manor house and have it out of her.

  Yes, the Devil’s fingers were sunk deep into the soil of Bottesford village, and the more stones Justus overturned, the more creeping degeneracy he would uncover. Soon—very soon, he was sure—he would have enough to petition the archbishop for a broader investigation.

  The bell for Compline sounded, and Justus rose stiffly, his knees complaining at having rested for so long on the hard stone. As he strolled to the service, he reminded himself to spare an orison for young Maud. Or was it Margareta? Or Matilda? No matter—God would know of whom he spoke.

  CHAPTER 20

  She was charged to have nightlie conference with a spirit called Robert Artisson, to whome she sacrificed in the high waie nine red cocks and nine peacocks eies … In rifling the closet of the ladie, they found a wafer of sacramental bread, having the divels name stamped thereon in steed of Jesus Christ, and a pipe of ointment, wherewith she greased a staffe, upon which she ambled and gallopped thorough thicke and thin, when and in what manner she listed.

  —The Lady Alice Kettle, Holinshed’s Chronicle of Ireland (sub anno 1323)

  The next morning Thomas found himself once more standing before the door to Alice Kyteler’s little cottage.

  “Back again so soon, Thomas,” said Alice, throwing the door wide in welcome before he could knock. “People shall start to talk.”

  Thomas flushed and felt the same boyish awkwardness he had experienced on his last visit. Alice sensed his discomfort and laughed out loud.

  “Oh, I jest! I do not think that the forest animals will disclose our rendezvous. I am quite secluded here, you know. I suppose that is why my niece chose the place. And it does get lonely, so I am glad of your visit.”

  She led him inside, taking his arm in a gesture strangely reminiscent of her niece’s, and soon had him comfortably seated with a cup of wine in his hand. So comfortable, in fact, that he scarcely even noticed the decapitated chicken she had left hanging in the corner, all plucked and strung up by its feet, the blood still draining from its neck into the small leather pail set beneath.

  Thomas remembered his previous incivility and made a show of drinking deeply from his cup. Alice smiled, recognizing and accepting the apology, and lowered herself gracefully—for gracefully was the word—to the seat opposite him.

  “Has anyone told you what has happened these last few days?” he asked as the last of the unfortunate fowl’s blood plopped down into the bucket.

  “The murders?” Alice pursed her lips in disapproval. “Hunydd has spoken of them. I believe you were the one who found the girl, were you not?”

  She listened intently, observing him with shrewd eyes and saying nothing as he recounted what he knew of the recent deaths.

  “Why are you telling me all this, Thomas?” she asked when he was done.

  “I thought perhaps you might have some insights,” he replied, taking another much smaller and more appreciative sip of his wine. It was an excellent and unusual vintage—a dark earthy red, barely watered, with hints of blackberry, plum, and clove, and something else that Thomas could not easily place. It was certainly not one of the local wines that so often bit like a snake. Nor yet was it a simple Rhenish. This was altogether different—an unusual wine that belonged in a goblet at a lord’s table; something to be sipped at and savored, and not what one would expect to find served by an exile living in a dingy forester’s hut.

  Alice, it seemed, was not sharing the same mellow moment. She quite deliberately set down her cup and pushed it a little away from her.

  “Still I find it strange that you should consult me. I am after all a stranger here and, for obvious reasons, rarely leave this cottage. I have to wonder whether perhaps you are hoping that I might perform some kind of divination for you. That I might stir the ashes of the fire or take apart some poor creature, spread its guts with my fingers, peer into its innards, and miraculously see your killer. Is that what you are here for, sir?”

  Her voice had become hard, and her eyes flashed dangerously, reminding him again of Cecily when he had first disturbed her peace in the manor gardens.

  “Well, sir,” she continued in the same mordant tone, “is that what you are about? You take me for a witch and have come here to ask me to scry, is that it? Am I to strip naked for you and dance around a fire under the light of moon and thereby divine your murderer? Am I to summon a demon and consult with it from within my looking glass?”

  Strangely enough, her stormy visage and angry tone in some way released him. Thomas almost felt the spell of her presence dissipating around him, and when he chose to respond, he did so calmly and with a smile, letting Alice know that she did not cow him.

  “I suppose you could do those things if you wished.” Alice arched an eyebrow. “I had expected something a little less dramatic, however. I came to you because you seem to be an intelligent woman whose horizons have stretched beyond the small world of those who live in these parts. I had taken you as someone, like me, who has experienced the darker side of humanity. In truth, I thought I could benefit from your wisdom. I am truly sorry to have given you offense and shall take my leave now, if that is what you wish.”

  She blinked slowly and, when he made as if to rise, placed her hand over his. Her touch
was warm, and when she looked into his eyes, he realized that her own eyes were not violet at all, as he had thought, but a remarkable shade of blue and gray. Perhaps it was just a trick of the light.

  “No, Thomas, it is I who must apologize. I have been rude to you, and you have shown me nothing but discretion and consideration. I suppose I have become overly sensitive. Is it any wonder after all the terrible things of which I have been accused?”

  He settled back into his seat. “Not at all. You have every right to be bitter, Alice. I think few could have borne what you have suffered with such dignity. There is really no need to apologize.”

  “None of my suffering was of your doing, Thomas, and it was wrong of me to speak so. An apology was owed and is now given. Though in some ways I find it even more curious that you should seek my counsel—my wisdom, as you so nicely put it. I had always supposed it to be rather dangerous for a woman to display too much intelligence. Men do not tend to like intelligent, independent women. My niece is such. She is also proud and far too bold.”

  Alice looked to the side, her lips pressed together thoughtfully. “I fear it will hinder her. Have you not wondered that she is not yet married?”

  He had, and his wonderings had led to some very strange thoughts indeed.

  “Perhaps it is for the best. Few men would truly appreciate her talents. My first husband was one such.”

  Alice cast her eyes down in a moment of reflection, the ghost of a smile playing at the corners of her lips. Then she shook her head and poured him some more wine. “Most men would only seek to break her.”

  “Forgive me, madam, but why remarry if you felt so? Your fortune was assured. You need not have done so.”

  “Oh, you know better than that, Thomas. Women in our society are defined almost entirely by the men who possess them. A girl belongs to her father. A wife belongs to her husband. Her body, her property, everything, is his to do with as he wishes. And young widows are expected to remarry, even when they are women of independent means. When the peasant woman becomes a widow, if she does not remarry quickly enough for her lord’s liking, the local reeve finds her a new man, and she is forced to wed. After all, she is the property of her lord. Well, it is much the same for wealthy women. The king or our overlord marries us off as reward to men who offer him service, or to pay a debt. It matters not a jot whether that man beats us, ravishes us, or spends us into penury.”

  What Dame Alice said was all too often true. Thomas could not deny it.

  “And God forbid that a woman give in to any of her natural instincts and desires. Why then she becomes the veritable whore of Babylon, one of the true daughters of Eve, who caused the downfall of man. Anyway,” she said, smiling to lift the gloom that had gripped them both, “you did not come to me for a homily on the plight of women. I could speak on that subject for hours, I assure you. And, as it happens, I have thought upon the subject of these murders. The Lord knows I have had little else to do.”

  Alice looked disconsolately around the miserable shack, her eyes passing over the dead chicken as though it were not there.

  “I do not need to tell you that this is the work of a truly evil man. Nor is that any great insight. But I do believe all these murders are somehow connected and the work of a single individual.”

  She touched her fingers to her lips in thought.

  “Putting aside the nonsense about heresy and blasphemy, I find it significant that the first two murders were connected to the church.”

  “The first two? No. The miller was killed and strung up at his mill.”

  Thomas’s eyes drifted unconsciously back to the corner where the chicken’s limp form still hung down over the red-stained bucket.

  “The miller? I am talking of the priest. The vicar of Saint Mary’s.”

  Thomas sat back, stunned. “The vicar died of a heart failure.”

  “Are you so sure? He may well have, but I do not think we should assume so and dismiss his death out of hand. On this point, that horrid Dominican may be right. It is a coincidence that cannot be so easily dismissed. In either case, the manner of Roger Lacy’s death shows something akin to a hatred for the Church. Why otherwise choose to murder him in a church on a dark night when he could have easily dispatched him elsewhere? And why else be so extravagant and crude?”

  Alice took a sip of her wine and set the cup down.

  “The fact Lacy was murdered and so gruesomely displayed at Saint Mary’s is one reason I believe this must be the work of a stranger.”

  Thomas frowned and shook his head to indicate he did not follow.

  “The villagers hereabouts do tend to be hopelessly religious. The Church and its sacraments are a great mystery to them. They hold both in awe. I think it unlikely any of the local people would defile their own house of worship in such a fashion, however demented they had become. What is that charming saying? Oh yes—‘A bird does not shit in its own nest.’ ”

  Her words caught Thomas drinking, and he spluttered, having to quickly set aside his cup lest he spill the wine all over himself. An awkward silence ensued.

  “Oh, I am sorry. Not ladylike enough for you? I understood that you had fought in the border wars. I had assumed that you were accustomed to such language and worse, no?”

  “Well, yes,” Thomas mumbled, feeling uncomfortably hot and trying to recall when he might have mentioned his experience as a man at arms. Perhaps Cecily had managed to sneak Bishop Henry’s letter away from her father after all.

  “You said the fact the murder happened in a church was one of the reasons you believe this to be the work of a stranger?” Thomas urged.

  “Killers like this enjoy what they do and are incapable of doing otherwise. Any remorse they might feel after the deed is short-lived, and they soon find themselves gripped by the need to kill again. For them it is as intoxicating as carnal pleasure.

  “Were your killer a local, there would surely have been other murders here. Nor can such a beast hide his true character for long in such a close-knit community. Unless, of course, he is just beginning,” she mused. “But these murders were not the crude slashings of a virgin killer. No, this man has killed before. Many times, I suspect.”

  “You are a stranger, Alice, and you are at odds with the Church. By your reasoning, you could be the murderer.”

  “I am a woman, Thomas. Do you imagine I could truly kill a man?”

  “An old man weakened by penury, yes I do. Nor are you weak, Alice. And who has cause to hate the Church more? Besides, I am not so naive as to think that women are incapable of killing, just as I am not naive enough to suspect they are incapable of reasoning.”

  She lifted her cup to him, acknowledging the point. “You continue to impress me, Thomas. I understand what my niece sees in you.”

  Yet again Thomas felt himself blushing. He was at the same time both greatly pleased and thoroughly embarrassed at the confirmation of Cecily’s interest. Alice knew it, and he sensed that she was enjoying his discomfort.

  “But you have already said you do not suspect me of any involvement,” Alice reminded him.

  “Nor do I. Like you, I believe these murders are connected. You might have been able to kill a weak old man, or poison a priest, if that is indeed what happened, but you could not have overcome the miller, however soused he might have been. And only a man can have harmed young Margareta so.”

  Alice knotted her brows, the eyes underneath turning flat and hard. “Yes. I had assumed the beast used her.”

  Thomas looked down, the sight of Margareta’s despoiled young body still livid in his mind, and for a time neither one of them spoke. Alice was the first to break the silence.

  “I always find it curious that we womenfolk are so often spared such details out of some misguided notion that we are sensitive. As though it might overwhelm us. As if we do not endure childbirth. As if we do not bear the losses of children to disease and of husbands to war. As if none of us has suffered before at the hands of a man. With all we must
bear in life, I would have thought it more likely men would quail before the ugliness, not we women.”

  She picked up her cup again, deliberately not looking at him. “You did not consider that I might have summoned a demon? Or that I do indeed have an incubus who performs these tasks for me?”

  Thomas answered only with sidelong smile and a bemused shake of his head.

  Alice stood up and began to pace the room.

  “What do you know of Roger Lacy—the old man who was killed at Saint Mary’s?”

  Thomas shook his head. “We actually know very little, only that he was once steward at Lady Isabella’s family estate, that he had fallen on hard times and had come begging alms and position from her.”

  “Interesting, after so long? And you say he had coin—it sounded as though he was dressed as a vagabond. Why would he have coin do you suppose?”

  “Lady Isabella told us that she took pity on him and that she feared her gift was the cause of his death.”

  Alice stopped her pacing and turned fully to him. “Do you believe that Lacy was killed for the contents of his coin purse?”

  “Not at all. A simple robber does not feel the need to make statements. He does his work and is gone. He departs quickly so as to avoid discovery. Money may have been a consideration in this instance, but not the main one. If it had been, he would never have parted with it in attempting to point the finger of blame at the miller.”

  “Perhaps Lacy had something else of value then,” she suggested. “Knowledge is more valuable than coin, is it not? He once held an important position as steward to Lady Isabella’s household. She gave him quite a sum of money and promised him favors. Perhaps she wanted to buy his silence. Perhaps she feared that would not be enough and took other, more … drastic measures. He died shortly after visiting her, did he not? Perhaps, if not capable of the murder itself, she might have been capable of directing it.”