‘Before that where were you?’
‘During the famine I was in France. That was where I met my wife. We married and had our daughter there.’
‘It is important, of course,’ Baldwin told them all. ‘If he were here only after the famine, for example, he could not be guilty of the murder of Denise, could he? She died during the famine seven years ago.’ He allowed his eyes to range over the men in the jury, to see whether his shot had struck home, and he saw that it had – but it had no effect. The men knew that if they didn’t convict this stranger, the guilty man must be sought from their own ranks.
‘Swetricus, what do you believe?’
Baldwin watched as the large man bowed his head. Swetricus cleared his throat. ‘I think Samson might have killed some, but Aline and Emma . . . I think Thomas could have killed them.’
‘There you are, Keeper. Thomas must be attached or gaoled,’ said Alexander.
Baldwin stared long and hard at the Reeve. ‘I think you know, or have a good idea, who was guilty, but you are trying to protect him. Or,’ his eyes narrowed in a quick suspicion, ‘or is it simpler? Was it you, Reeve? Did you commit these crimes?’
‘No, I did not!’
‘You seem insulted by the suggestion, but that could be a counterfeit emotion. Some men are good at play-acting. No matter, I will find out.’
‘I have nothing to hide,’ Alexander stated firmly.
‘That is a lie in its own right,’ Baldwin said. ‘No man is that innocent.’
‘How dare you speak to me—’
‘We dare easily. You have lied about the death of Denise, and Mary too,’ Coroner Roger said. ‘Oh yes, Reeve, we have heard about Mary. Which makes us wonder whether you have told the truth at any point.’
Alexander rallied. ‘Whether you like it or not, the body was here. I demand that Thomas Garde be amerced – arrested on suspicion of felony.’
‘Nonsense!’ Baldwin snapped.
‘Quite,’ said Coroner Roger. ‘As First Finder, you must yourself be amerced, Reeve.’
As the Reeve reddened and swelled ready to explode, the Coroner raised his hand. ‘I will adjourn this inquest. Reeve, I want the truth from you, or by Christ’s own blood, I’ll have you gaoled in Exeter until you learn to tell it!’
‘Before you do, I declare that Samson was responsible for the earlier murders,’ Alexander stated loudly. ‘I believe that now he is dead, this man Thomas decided to punish the girl Emma for some insult or slight, and that is why her body is here.’
‘What evidence do you have?’ Baldwin demanded coldly.
‘The evidence of my eyes, Keeper! The man is here, the body is in his stable. I demand that he be attached ready to attend the next court, and if he won’t pay his surety, he must be sent to Exeter’s gaol to await the Justices.’
Thomas threw a glance at his wife as he was led away by the Reeve under the guard of William Taverner and Henry Batyn.
It was a curious feeling, this deadness in his soul. For some time while he was standing before all these people, his friends and neighbours, he had felt threatened only by the Coroner and the tall, grave knight. Swetricus had helped accuse him, but Swet wasn’t an evil man; he just naturally missed his daughter and sought anyone who could be her killer. Aline was his own, even if Swet had never much liked her. He was always telling the other men in the vill that she was a waste of good food, whenever he was in his cups. Too ugly to be married, even though everyone else thought she was nice-looking, and without the brains the Good Lord had given her, he grumbled that she would no doubt remain in Swet’s house until he himself died, a permanent drain on his purse.
That all changed, of course, when she disappeared. Then she became the perfect daughter, the most loyal, the warmest in his bed, the little one who always brought him a warmed ale on a cold winter’s day, or who kept his ale cool in the summer, dangling his firkin in the river. None of his other girls was so thoughtful or kindly, Swet would say, his eyes red and filled with tears. It was only natural that a father should feel that way about his daughter, though. Faults and misbehaviour were forgotten when a child died.
For his part, Thomas was wishing he had remained in France with Nicole. He had seen enough of the Justices’ tourns before, to know how they proceeded. All the hundreds would meet to present their veredicta, their responses to the questions asked in the rolls: one referred to murders to be reported. And the case would be called before the Justices.
It was a speedy process. The accusation would be registered, and the man who appealed the guilt of the accused would be questioned, together with any witnesses he brought to support his case, and then the accused could give his reply, again with his supporters, and the matter would be put to the jury. The Justices didn’t mind how the decision went, they were too busy looking at how much they could fine the vill, take from the guilty man, or fine the man appealing the murderer because of presenting his case wrongly. There were always good sums for the King from dispensing justice.
Thomas knew his own case would take little time. No one would speak for him. He would be listened to, then the jury would speak, and immediately he would be taken outside and hanged. Just as Nicole’s father had been. He was an outsider too.
They couldn’t really have stayed in France. That was clear as soon as the old man was hanged. No one liked an executioner, but Nicole’s father was detested still more because he was a drunk. Perhaps he hated ending young lives unnecessarily; for whatever reason he would drink wildly before attempting an execution. He was a bleary-looking man, with dribbling mouth and sagging eyes under a tousled thatch of grey hair, with large hands that looked too thick and unwieldy to tie a knot. And often they wouldn’t. When Thomas first met him, he was begging the priest to help him, and when the priest refused, old man Garde had looked about him at the angry crowd with a fearful eye, like a horse shying from a flapping cloth in a hedge.
Thomas himself offered his help, not because he wanted to assist an executioner, but because he hated seeing the victims waiting, and he feared that the executioner would botch the job, leaving them to throttle too slowly, or mistying the knots so that the victims fell to the ground, and must wait while another noose was fashioned in order that they might go through the whole process again.
The thought of the poor devils’ torment spurred Thomas on. He ducked under the polearms of the two nearest men-at-arms while they laughed – two of the waiting convicts had soiled themselves in their terror – and walked over to the pathetic executioner. Taking the slack rope, he swiftly fashioned a knot, English-style, with a large loop to allow the rope to travel quickly. At home he knew that the local executioner smothered it in a thick layer of rendered pig’s fat to make it slip all the more easily, for any countryman disliked the thought of protracting death. Whether it was a hog, ox, rabbit or man, the slaughterman tried to make death as swift as possible.
Old man Garde bobbed his head and flapped his hands while his mouth slobbered his gratitude, and then Thomas found himself helping move the four convicted men into a line. While they shivered, staring about them with the terror that only a man about to die can know, Thomas thrust the executioner from him and gently slipped the nooses over the men’s heads. As they sobbed and prayed, one loudly declaring his innocence, another calling on the devil to hear his plea that the crowd should themselves be burned in Hell’s fire for eternity, Thomas rested his hand on their shoulders and tried to calm them.
Not for long. The old man gave the signal, and the teams began to haul on the ropes, yanking the four high into the air; twisting and jerking, their legs kicking madly, bound hands tearing at the ropes that choked their lives away as their women and friends came and pulled on their legs, trying to end their suffering more speedily.
Later he heard of the executioner’s own trial. Thomas felt no sympathy for him. Garde had tried to rape a woman and she had later died, living only long enough to point him out. Garde was hanged.
Thomas went to watch it.
It wasn’t often you got to see a hangman’s end, and at least the old man went gamely, cursing his gaoler and executioner. Then Thomas saw men punching a woman and making for her daughter, shouting lewd obscenities and taunting her. One pulled down his hose and displayed his tarse, beckoning the terrified girl to him.
It was enough. Thomas saw red. He took his iron-shod staff and thrust it at the man’s ballocks, then sprang to Nicole’s side. With his staff he was able to beat back the crowd, and although a few hurled rocks in a lacklustre manner, Thomas bellowed to some men-at-arms for protection, and finally they grunted assent and stood between them and the mob.
Within a week Thomas and Nicole were wedded, and she soon fell pregnant with Joan. That was 1311, and for a while they were happy, but Thomas didn’t want his daughter brought up in a vill where all pointed at them, saying, ‘Her grandfather was the executioner.’ No child of Thomas’s should have to live with that. In 1317 he returned to England with his little family to make a home.
He had found things peaceful until Ivo had turned up, causing trouble, and then Swet’s girl had gone missing. Many had looked at him askance, but nobody had actually accused him. Now of course he understood why. Everybody knew that there had already been two earlier deaths, long before he had arrived here – during the famine years, while he had been in France.
As he and his guard reached his house, he considered that again. No one had accused him before, even though he was a stranger; only today, when Emma’s body had been found. Swetricus couldn’t really believe him to be guilty, or he would have killed him long before the inquest. He was the sort of man who’d pick up a baulk of timber and beat to death any man who harmed one of his darling daughters, even if Aline hadn’t been his darling before she died.
There was no money in the house. He knew that as well as the Reeve, but he did have chattels worth a few pence. After some consideration, he selected the large iron pot. He had little choice.
‘I want cash,’ Alexander said harshly.
‘Take that and be damned!’
‘If you threaten me, it won’t make your position any better, foreigner!’ Alexander taunted.
‘Foreigner? I’ve lived here almost five years, man! I was born in Devon.’
‘Ah, maybe you were, but you and your brother come from the north, don’t you, not from here. Are you sure you have no cash?’
‘No, I haven’t. Now take that and go.’
Taverner had remained silent. Now he glanced at Batyn, and Thomas saw them exchange a look. Batyn he had always thought a fair and reasonable man, just as he had thought Swet all right in his own way. Now he wasn’t sure of anything or anyone.
Batyn’s voice was gentle. ‘Come on, Reeve. Take the pot and be done.’
‘I’ll have the cash, or this fool can go to the gaol.’
‘In that case, I’ll buy it from you, Tom,’ Batyn said. He reached into his purse and brought out a shilling or so in coins.
‘No!’ the Reeve protested. ‘He should pay me now from his own money, or he will have to go to gaol in Exeter and wait for the Justices.’
‘Why are you so determined to get me away from here?’ Thomas demanded. ‘What have I ever done to you that you should persecute me like this?’
‘Take the money from Batyn if you must, and then give me the sixpence the Coroner commanded. And leave Swetricus alone. He learned what you were capable of when he saw Emma’s body.’
‘You can’t think I could kill a little girl!’
‘I don’t know what you could do. You seem mad to me.’ Alexander curled his lip as he looked about the room. Seeing a bowl next to the fire, he stalked to it and stirred it with the wooden spoon. ‘What is this?’
‘It is only pork, sir,’ Nicole said quietly. She had followed the men into her home and now she stood at the doorway, her hands clasped at her apron, her eyes following the Reeve as he stalked about her room. ‘From our pig.’
‘How can I tell that?’ Alexander asked, staring at the meat on the spoon with undisguised disgust. He had heard that human flesh looked and smelled much like pork.
‘Taste it, sir. It is salted pork.’
He dropped the spoon back into the dish, shuddering as though it might in fact be part of Emma, held out his hand for the money, and counted it carefully before sniffing loudly as though disappointed, and marching out. Taverner walked after him, but Henry Batyn stood uneasily a moment.
‘Tom, don’t blame the Reeve too much. He has to get rid of the Coroner and the other two before he can get the vill back to normal.’
‘He knows I am innocent.’
‘He has to get the matter sorted, that’s all.’
Thomas dropped onto his stool and shivered. ‘Henry, I helped you when your house was flooded, didn’t I? I had you here, in my house, and let you and your wife sleep here until you could build another shelter. And you expect me to tolerate a Reeve who seeks to have me hanged?’
Batyn met his eye resolutely. ‘There are ways to protect yourself. The Justices won’t be here for ages, and you know that the church at Oakhampton is a sanctuary. You could make your way there for a market, and then abjure.’
‘Why should I? I am innocent!’
‘You think that matters?’ Batyn expostulated, throwing his hands wide. ‘Look, if you remain here, you’ll be the obvious target. You have to go.’
‘If I go, it’ll be as good as an admission. I’ll be remembered for all time as a vampire.’
‘And if you stay, you’ll be hanged and still be remembered as a vampire. Which is better? One way at least you live.’
‘And what about Nicole and Joan? They will be reviled as the widow and child of a confessed man-eater. You would have that?’
Batyn looked away, unable to meet either Thomas’s or Nicole’s eyes. ‘I could look after them, if you want.’
‘In Sticklepath, where other children would victimise my daughter, where men would insult and rape my wife? No, Henry. I thank you, but no!’
‘Thomas, you must do something. The alternative is death.’
‘Take your pot.’
‘I don’t want it. Pay me back when you can,’ Batyn said. He met Thomas’s gaze. ‘You must do something.’
Chapter Seventeen
Reeve Alexander was fuming as he walked away from Thomas’s house. It was frustrating as hell to have to let the man go when he was the perfect suspect for the Coroner to choose. Why that cretin hadn’t arrested him on the spot and had him taken away to Exeter’s gaol was beyond him. Someone like Garde could be left there safely, waiting for his trial, if he should live to see it. After all, so many prisoners died of natural causes in gaol – from cold, illness, starvation, thirst – and wounds caused by other prisoners trying to rob them to buy food. Yes, gaol was the best place for him.
Sighing, he felt the weight of his office crushing him. He knew Thomas was innocent, but that meant nothing compared with Ivo’s threat and bribe. Ivo had seen him burying the Purveyor’s body that night in 1315, and although it was a long time ago, Alexander could be hanged if Ivo was to spread the story around.
What was Ivo’s problem? Fine, so he hated his brother and fancied his sister-in-law, but why go to such trouble to destroy the one and possess the other?
More to the point, who had killed the girls? After all, if it wasn’t Thomas, it was surely someone from the vill. It was confusing, because Alexander had believed the local stories that it must have been Samson. If there had been a shred of evidence, and if anyone in the vill had dared to stand and accuse him, Alexander would have seen him destroyed. But now Emma was dead. It was baffling.
The murders were committed by someone who was in the vill during the famine, someone who was in the place last night. That left it open to almost anyone, he acknowledged.
‘Has my brother paid?’
‘Ivo Bel,’ the Reeve muttered under his breath. Then, ‘Yes, Master Bel. I have his money.’
‘Shit!’ Bel swore. ‘How did you come to le
t him get off ?’
Alexander saw no reason to comment. He was reflecting on the fact that Ivo himself was always in the neighbourhood when one of the girls disappeared. He himself could be the murderer.
‘My brother was always a violent man, you know,’ Ivo said fussily. ‘That was part of the reason why he had to leave home. He left England to go to France, but soon he had to return. I wonder why that was. He might have been forced to leave. After all, he was always getting into fights when he was a boy.’
Alexander stopped. Rebellion overwhelmed him. ‘I can’t put him in gaol for no reason, Bel. You’ve seen the Coroner – he won’t listen to me.’
‘My friend, I don’t know what you mean!’ Ivo said. ‘I would never try to convict an innocent man. Especially my own beloved brother. No, but if Thomas were to get into a scrape . . .’
‘I won’t have fools causing fights here in my vill.’
‘. . . and if he were crazed enough, I would think you’d have a good reason to believe him capable of killing poor Emma.’
‘I won’t gaol a man I’ve known for years just because you want his wife.’
‘No. You’ll do it for money and because you want your life!’ Ivo hissed. ‘I haven’t forgotten that grave. Odd, isn’t it? Just in the same place. Anyone would think you could have killed the girls!’
Alexander gaped. ‘You can’t seriously suppose . . .’ Anger made him sputter.
‘I accuse no one. I only hope my brother can contain himself, but you know what he’s like. I should keep a close eye on him, Reeve. You don’t want any more deaths, do you?’
He turned away and wandered off, whistling under his breath, while the Reeve stood staring after him. He hawked and spat into the road where Ivo had been standing.
If Ivo believed he could have been guilty, what chance was there that others wouldn’t think the same?
Gervase woke with a pounding in his head and a sour taste in his mouth. As soon as he opened his eyes, he knew what was meant by light ‘lancing’ through a window. It felt as though he was stabbed with a white-hot point, and he snapped both eyes shut again, groaning to himself.
The Sticklepath Strangler (2001) Page 21