The Sticklepath Strangler

by Michael Jecks

  To his surprise he saw that the knight didn’t wear the same expression. Like a monk, his face held only compassion, as though he knew what it was to be reviled and persecuted. The fury which had been threatening to engulf Serlo receded. His bitterness became sadness, and his voice lost its harshness as he felt his frame sag.

  ‘You can’t understand, Master Bailiff. You are whole and strong, powerful. When little girls from a peasant’s home look at you, they see a man of authority and strength, tall and imposing. Look at me! I’m only a little taller than a child. Their parents all gaze upon me with horror and loathing, but the children just see another person and they are happy to come and chat to me, because I’m an outsider, and I can talk to them on their own level.’

  Simon, whose own daughter was growing more fractious as she learned to enjoy the company of youths rather than the young ladies of her own age whom he considered eminently more suitable for her, viewed him askance, wondering how any attractive young girl could crave his company.

  ‘They were such pretty little things, all of them,’ Serlo said without thinking, the sadness filling his voice.

  Simon wondered about the man’s sex-drive. There were stories of men whose natural strength was constricted in one way who developed astounding powers in others. Lepers were believed to be as lecherous as sparrows, for example. Could this man have a ferocious sexual desire which made him rape and murder young girls?

  Serlo saw his quizzical expression. ‘You wonder whether I could have taken them, Bailiff? Maybe I lured them up to my warren and had my wicked way with them, and then took them to the vill or out to the moors to kill them and silence them for ever. A nice thought, but no, I couldn’t.’

  ‘Your injury?’ Baldwin guessed.

  ‘An ox. He tossed me high in the air and then gored me and stamped on me a few times to make sure. That’s why I look like this. And that’s why I couldn’t have taken them.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Simon.

  ‘I’m a eunuch.’

  Simon blenched with the very thought, but Baldwin simply nodded. ‘I see. Now, the girls Denise and Aline. Is there anything you can tell us which might help us learn who their killer could have been?’

  ‘You are asking about deaths spread over the last seven or eight years. How should I know?’

  ‘You should wish to help us.’

  ‘Because you’re the King’s men?’ Serlo sneered.

  ‘No,’ Baldwin said thoughtfully, ‘because their killer could still be alive and might kill again. They were friends to you. Surely you would like to bring their murderer to justice?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  Baldwin smiled at his grudging tone. ‘Then just answer a few more questions, Serlo. For example, who was in the vill all through this period?’

  ‘Most of the men who are there now. Thomas Garde, he wasn’t, but almost all the others were.’

  ‘Including the reeve?’

  ‘Yes. He was here during the famine. He moved here from Belstone… oh, eight years or more ago.’

  ‘I see. So he could have captured any of them. Do you have any idea where Denise was last seen?’

  ‘I heard that she was seen by Drogo the forester walking up to the moor. She loved it up here. I often used to see her up near Ivy Tor Water, or up at the top of the hill.’

  ‘What about Aline – do you know where she was last seen?’

  ‘In the vill, I think. No one admitted seeing her leave the place,’ Serlo said, watching him from under beetling brows. ‘Are you serious about finding the murderer of these girls, then? Really serious?’

  Baldwin contemplated him for a moment, and then very slowly, he drew his sword and lifted it, point down, until the hilt was before him. ‘By the cross, I declare I am determined to find the murderer or murderers of these three young girls,’ he said, and kissed the hilt.

  Serlo grimaced. ‘Very well. I believe you. Look, Samson was a vicious bastard. He enjoyed hurting people, but he was also nasty in other ways. I know he scared all the girls in the vill, but some he scared worse than others.’

  ‘In what way?’ Baldwin asked.

  ‘I think he raped them, but made them too fearful to tell anyone. Even with me they were quiet.’

  ‘So now he is dead you think that the killings are over?’

  Serlo looked at him with those bird-bright eyes. ‘My Christ, but I hope so!’

  * * *

  They left him not long afterwards, and made their way carefully through the mist towards the growing noise of the river. Then, in a moment, the greyness had gone, and they were instantaneously warmed by the bright sunlight.

  ‘How peculiar,’ Baldwin said.

  ‘That’s what happens when you mock the moors,’ Simon said seriously.

  They had reached a broad curve of the river, at which there was a deep ford. The two removed their boots to cross it, and sat on a rock at the far side to put them on again. While they were there, they heard steps, and Vin appeared, coming from the same direction as them.

  ‘Keeper… Bailiff…’

  ‘You look surprised,’ Baldwin said.

  ‘I didn’t expect to meet anyone up here.’

  ‘It was not fear that we could be vampires?’ Baldwin snorted.

  ‘You can’t live up here without being aware of them. There have been too many deaths.’

  ‘Do you believe in such nonsense?’ Baldwin asked.

  Vin gave a half shrug. ‘I think a man can be called many things.’

  ‘Have you got any idea who could have been responsible?’ Simon asked.

  ‘Whoever did it would have to hate the people he murdered. Killing little girls… I only know one man who could have done that: Samson. He was always a violent, dangerous man with his brain in his cods, and preferred young girls to his wife, if the tales are true. I’ve heard he raped his daughter and others. Perhaps he sought to keep them quiet afterwards.’

  ‘Wouldn’t someone have cut off his tarse if that was common knowledge?’ Simon scoffed.

  ‘Samson was a dangerous man,’ Vin said simply. ‘Even an angry father would have thought twice before accusing him. Perhaps his secret has died with him.’

  ‘Where was he when the girls died?’ Baldwin asked. ‘Do you know?’

  ‘Yes. Denise and Aline both disappeared when Samson was at the mill. We were up on the moors at the time. It was only when we came back that we heard about the Hue and Cry. I was with Drogo on his bailiwick because I was still new.’

  ‘You were with Drogo all the time?’

  ‘More or less. We went on separate patrols occasionally.’

  ‘Tell me, where was Denise found?’ Baldwin asked.

  ‘Up there.’ Vin pointed over beyond Serlo’s house. ‘Down towards Sticklepath. I remember coming back from Drogo’s bailiwick one day and finding the Hue and Cry waiting with her body. No one had passed me going up to the moors, though.’

  ‘What of this girl Mary?’ Simon asked. ‘Was she buried like Aline?’

  ‘No. She was out near the river, strangled like the others. And cut about.’

  ‘Why should Aline be treated differently and buried?’ Baldwin asked. ‘Is there anyone you suspect of her murder?’

  Vin was thoughtful. ‘Peter has been a bit unbalanced since his own daughter died. I doubt he could attack any children, unless he’s like Drogo and jealous of their fathers. Adam’s all right, but he keeps himself to himself.’

  ‘Drogo?’ Simon queried.

  ‘Nothing,’ Vin said, but on being pressed, he reluctantly imparted: ‘He can be a bit jealous of men in the vill who still have their daughters.’

  ‘Why were you up here today?’ Simon asked.

  ‘My parents used to live up there on the high moor, out near the Taw Marsh. I go there now and again to sit and remember them. They both died up there.’

  ‘It’s unforgiving, the moor,’ Simon said.

  ‘It is a hard land,’ Vin agreed.

  * * *

  Return
ing to the inn, there was no news of the coroner, and Baldwin walked through to sit with Jeanne. Simon remained in the tavern with a jug of wine, but when the jug was empty, rather than remain and doze, he wandered outside and sat on a bench in the fresh air.

  Although it was still daytime, the sun was low enough to leave the vill in twilight. He shivered, remembering the cloud settling on them, and felt another cloud settling on him like a cloak of sadness, a morbid conviction that here in the vill was an evil spirit, a demonic presence that could infect and pollute the whole parish.

  Baldwin couldn’t understand; he was no moorman. Simon had grown up with the moors nearby, and had lived the last few years out at Lydford. He knew that there was a spirit on the moor, a spirit which would protect it against men, and men only roused that spirit to anger if they were ignorant or stupid. The mist had been a warning.

  He was cold. Standing, he decided to clear his head with a brisk walk and set off westwards towards the sticklepath. He marched along the roadway until he reached an enormous puddle near the chapel. Circling it, he walked nearer the chapel itself, following the line of the cemetery’s fencing going under the branches of the pollarded trees which stood there. It was then that he heard it.

  At first he thought it was the breeze soughing through the branches above him, but then there was a prickling at his scalp, as though he knew that this was no wind but something unearthly. He carried on, past the trees, and it was then that the sound came towards him without interference, a distinct, mournful cry; half that of an animal in deep pain, half that of a soul in torment.

  Simon felt his eyes widen, his hair stand on end; he was filled with a terror so all-encompassing that he could not move. All his attention was focused on the sound that drifted to him, quiet, but unutterably sad.

  It was like a voice whispering, cursing, begging, threatening – a spirit’s voice, a ghost’s voice – and even as they heard it, Samson’s dogs began to howl.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Vincent Yunghe felt scared. He had made his way back from the river and met Drogo and the others at the inn, but every time he looked up he found himself staring into Drogo’s eyes, as if the leader of the foresters was wondering whether Vin would turn him in.

  Drogo le Criur was dressed in older green clothes today, with a stout leather jerkin to protect his torso from brambles and thorns, and his knife and horn at his belt.

  Vincent swallowed uneasily. It would serve Drogo right if he told everyone the truth – that Drogo was never at his bailiwick when he was supposed to be on duty, that he was jealous of all the fathers who had little girls of eleven or so, the age at which Drogo’s daughter Isabelle had died, but the words wouldn’t come.

  It was true. Drogo was rarely at his post when he should be. Hadn’t anyone else noticed? He was always making the excuse that he had to go and walk about to see that no cutpurse or felon was robbing someone, but Vin doubted that. He was away too often.

  His eyes met Drogo’s again, and he felt his spirit quail. The man was his friend. He had taken him under his wing when Vin’s father had died, when no one else wanted to know. How could he betray that loyalty and friendship? He couldn’t.

  This time it was Drogo who looked away, and Vin blinked. He suddenly wondered whether the forester held the same doubts about him. After all, Drogo knew that he wasn’t with him when the girls had died. Still, he had always demonstrated that curious, twisted loyalty towards him, much more than even the son of a friend deserved.

  Drogo knocked back the last of his drink and stood. Adam rose with him, slapping Vin’s shoulder. ‘Come on, boy! We have work to do.’ He gazed about him at the villagers drinking and eating. ‘Look at them,’ he grunted. ‘Now Samson’s dead, they feel free to eat and drink and be happy because the ogre from the mill’s gone for good. So many thought he was the murderer, but not one dared accuse him. Not a single one. Fucking peasants! I’ve pissed stronger streaks than this lot. None of them realise that Samson’s soul hasn’t gone, though, do they?’ He came to with a visible shiver. ‘What are you gawping at, boy?’ he snapped. ‘Get moving before Drogo loses his patience with you.’

  He rolled away, the crippled leg impeding his progress, and Vincent spat angrily. Adam knew well that he hated being called ‘boy’. He was no mean, feeble youth, he was a man, in every sense.

  Walking away, he found himself meeting the sad gaze of Felicia. She sat at the back of the tavern with her mother, and as she caught his look, she gave a weak smile.

  Vin felt as though she had stabbed his heart. He had grown up with her, made love with her, and then deserted her immediately afterwards from terror of her father. That was hardly the action of an adult. If he had the courage of his conviction, he would have returned to her later, maybe even offered to marry her. At least he could have rattled her again.

  There was still time. Samson was gone, rot his soul! But Felicia was still here, and maybe even more lonely than before. It should be easy to persuade her to see him. If he could get close to her, surely she’d submit to him again, as she had that day by the river, the day Ansel had died.

  * * *

  Gervase was in his cottage when Simon strode past, and the priest looked about him blearily as the splashing of the bailiff’s feet in puddles disappeared up towards the village. He had never forgotten his roots, Gervase hadn’t. No, he could still bring to mind the tatty little vill where he’d been born, the great barn owned by the Bishop just outside, where the cathedral’s crops were stored after harvest, dwarfing the peasants’ own meagre supplies.

  Gervase had been born into a poor family, but that didn’t mean they weren’t proud. His father was never so pleased with him as on that day when the bishop’s man had claimed him. All because Gervase had been blessed with a pretty voice as a youngster, and the ability to memorise songs. That was all they wanted in those days. They didn’t expect a chorister to be able to learn Latin and French, only to sing in tune with other boys and behave in the cloister. And for that, he was to have a new life at the age of six, taken away from his home and dropped down into the midst of the great bustling city of Exeter.

  If he had worked more assiduously, perhaps he would have been able to make more of a mark, he thought as he poured a fresh beaker of ale. The wine was all gone. More and more often lately he had been prone to thinking of what might have been possible, now he was approaching forty years, especially when he was in his cups. Not that he was often dry since the discovery of Aline’s grave. Poor little lass.

  It hurt. God’s body, but it hurt! He hadn’t wanted to harm anyone, had never wished to see a man cut down and burned without being shriven, but he had. It was him, him and his damned stupidity, which had sealed the execution, and he had given up the man’s soul to the devil. All he had to do was take the confession and give him Absolution, but he hadn’t.

  Sniffing, he finished his beaker and set it down on the table, then he pulled his robe about him. A parson had duties to his flock. Gervase walked out into the warm evening air and set off towards the chapel. Hearing the dogs howling, he reflected that it was good to witness creatures demonstrating loyalty to their fallen master.

  Sticklepath was a nice little place. If it hadn’t been stained with blood, he would have been very happy here. After his years in Exeter, it was a shock to be dumped in so squalid a mud-filled parish, but he was glad of a post of any sort. So many of his friends were doomed to be forced out of Holy Orders, luckier ones taking clerical posts, others reduced to menial chores about the city’s churches, that he knew he was fortunate.

  For a parson, Sticklepath was better than places like Belstone. Folk were odd up there, he thought and burped. After all, Belstone was cut off from civilisation. No road to speak of. Whenever it snowed, no one could get up there. And the wind, God’s teeth, how it howled up there! Like the hounds of hell.

  Hang on, he thought, Alexander came from Belstone. But there was nothing to suggest that the reeve was mad. Not like Samson. Parson Gervase
had heard his confession.

  ‘An evil, evil man,’ he said to himself.

  The ale was making itself felt. At the cemetery’s wall, Gervase lifted his robe and pissed against one of the pollarded trees. Resettling his hose and tunic, he suddenly stopped. He was sure he could taste the change on the wind. More rain, he told himself gloomily. Always more rain. Unless it was snow.

  He reached the chapel’s door and gave an elaborate reverence. It was hard to remember which day of the week it was, and if he weren’t reminded by travellers, he would have the day wrong more often than he already did, often missing fast days. He was fallible.

  At the altar he prostrated himself, arms outstretched in imitation of the crucifixion. The position was looked upon as an affectation or, worse, proof of ill-education, but he didn’t care. He was before God, and other men didn’t matter.

  ‘Glad you deigned to drop in, Gervey.’

  He didn’t need to turn his head. ‘What are you doing in here? You pollute the air of my chapel.’

  Drogo laughed quietly. ‘More than your drunken breath, you mean? Be fair, old shriver, and look to yourself before you insult me. What is it – pull the plank out of your own eye before seeking the splinter in mine?’

  ‘What do you want? I am here to perform my holy ritual, and you offend God by delaying me.’

  ‘Gervase, there is a coroner here in the vill. I don’t want him reopening old wounds that he can’t possibly do anything about. There’s no point in getting him involved.’

  ‘You threaten me? You come to God’s house and threaten one of His own priests? You are a blasphemous dog, Drogo.’

  ‘Aye, I dare say you’ve the right of it.’ The forester nodded agreeably.

  ‘Damn you! You think I compliment you, you son of a whore! You whore’s shite, you turd of a festering snake, you worm, you—’