The Sticklepath Strangler (2001)

by Jecks, Michael

  He had managed the Mass without difficulty, feeling light-headed and happy, and afterwards he had swept the chapel until the noise of Samson’s dogs got to him. That and the dust. It rose in a fine, stifling cloud, a choking mist. And every time he coughed, he felt slightly worse. The hangover grew gently, almost imperceptibly as he worked. Then, of course, he’d been called to attend the inquest, and it was all he could do not to vomit at the sight of little Emma’s ruined body. Poor, sweet little Emma, the last reminder of Ansel, the last reminder of Athelhard, too, in some ways.

  Fortunately he made it back to his little home and sprawled upon his bed, an arm over his eyes, intending to catch a few moments’ sleep before carrying on with his chores. He didn’t mean to fall asleep, only to relax. Then he was sick and fell into a heavy doze.

  It wasn’t his fault. He had needed to drink more last night, to drown out the noise of the hounds, damn them! And that other noise still kept coming back to him, the wail like that of a soul in Purgatory.

  The knocking came again, an insistent rapping on his plain, bare-timbered door, and he tugged the rough blanket up over his head, pretending he wasn’t there, while fumes from last night’s drinking rose to his nostrils. He had been sick again, he remembered, and acrid bile reeked from the rushes at the side of his palliasse. It was enough to make him want to puke again, and he rolled away to the other side of the bed.

  ‘Parson, are you well?’

  ‘Sweet Jesus, let me kick him just once in the cods, and I’ll forswear all wine from now on,’ Gervase muttered pleadingly from gritted teeth, adding more loudly, ‘My son, I am suffering from a vile malady. Come back later, and I shall see you then.’

  ‘Parson, this is Sir Baldwin Furnshill. I want to speak with you. Now.’

  ‘Holy Mother, give me strength,’ Gervase whispered, and let his legs slip over the edge. Soon he was upright, and he shivered as he unpegged the latch.

  ‘What possible excuse can you have for interrupting an ill man? I was praying, Sir Knight, and you should not see fit to break in upon my meditations.’

  Baldwin entered first, the Coroner following with interest, while the Bailiff stood blocking the doorway.

  ‘Good Christ, Parson – were you puking all night?’ Coroner Roger asked, his nose wrinkled at the noisome fumes.

  ‘A passing sickness, that’s all. What do you mean by breaking in upon me? Cannot even a priest count upon some peace in his own house? And what’s that hound doing in here?’

  ‘I hope you aren’t missing your services?’ Coroner Roger enquired, ignoring his questions.

  ‘Didn’t you hear me, Sir Knight? You can try to evade my questions if you wish, but by God, I shall keep asking them! What is the meaning of—’

  It was as though the knight had no respect for a man of the cloth. To Gervase’s astonishment, Baldwin walked out through the rear of his house, Aylmer trotting at his heel. ‘Just where are you going?’ Gervase shouted, and then winced as his head appeared to explode like one of those new-fangled cannons.

  ‘If you want to speak to him, you’d better go on after him,’ the Bailiff said helpfully.

  ‘He’s not of a mood to sit indoors,’ the Coroner added.

  Gervase was about to give a rude reply when the Bailiff sniffed with a slow deliberation. ‘You know, my master, Abbot Champeaux of Tavistock, is always careful to protect his monks from over-indulgence. Especially with wine and ale. I had thought that the Bishop of Exeter was moderate in his drinking, too. I must speak with him next time I meet him. He is a very pleasant man, Walter Stapledon, isn’t he?’

  ‘I have only met him twice,’ Gervase admitted warily. He was unpleasantly aware that there was a sting in this conversation’s tail.

  ‘Really? Oh, I meet him regularly. He often drops in on my wife and me when he is travelling through Dartmoor.’

  Gervase smiled without humour, but took the hint and walked out to the open air. Baldwin was sitting, the presumptuous popinjay, on Gervase’s own favourite bench, the dog in front of him, and a carelessly beckoning finger invited Gervase to join them. That would mean either sitting at his side, a prospect too awful to conceive of, or standing before him like a felon awaiting sentence. Gervase pointedly walked to a seat at an angle from the knight, sitting there with his back straight and as haughty an expression as he could fit upon his features. It wasn’t easy, with his hands wanting to shake and his urge to vomit. Gervase had a dislike for knights generally, but the sort of knight who could break down a man’s door, figuratively speaking, of course, or who would presume to break in upon a man’s pain when he might have drunk a little too much the night before, was detestable. ‘Well? I noticed you failed to appear at Mass. Is this to apologise or atone?’

  ‘I have nothing to atone for. What of you?’

  Gervase was tempted to throw a tantrum, to stamp his feet, declare his rage, insist that these rude bastards leave his home, and then sink back once more onto his palliasse, out of this hellish sun. Perhaps with a cup or two of wine to help him, he thought. But one look at their faces told him that they wouldn’t listen to him. ‘I have nothing to confess to a secular knight. I am a man of God.’

  ‘That is good,’ Baldwin said. ‘But perhaps we can discuss matters which do concern you. First, I believe that this chantry chapel of yours was given to you by the Lord Hugh de Courtenay. Is that correct?’

  ‘What if it was? It’s now in the hands of Holy Mother Church.’

  ‘Yes. Except the Lord Hugh has an interest in it and I fear he would become most alarmed to learn that the very priest he had installed here was keeping secrets from him. Secrets which could affect him.’

  Gervase felt his eyebrows rise. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘There is a secret in this vill which permeates the whole place. It is rooted in the soil, and it affects every man, woman and child in the place. You attended the inquest this morning, so you know that there has been another murder.’

  ‘Murder?’ Gervase felt his stomach shift at the word as though ready to fight free. The sweat broke out on his brow and the faint breeze chilled it like ice; God, but he needed a cup of wine.

  ‘Oh, poor Emma,’ he groaned. Sadly. ‘She was such a sweet little thing!’

  Simon interrupted. ‘She wasn’t only killed, priest.’

  ‘She was eaten, too,’ Coroner Roger said relentlessly. ‘Just like the other three.’

  Gervase stared at him blankly for a moment, but then his belly clenched and he had to bend over, throwing up over the foot of his robe.

  The Frenchwoman could have wept to see her man so dejected and distrait. He looked as though everything he had striven for was suddenly gone; all his hopes, ambitions and dreams had been snatched from him in the space of one morning.

  After Batyn had left, Thomas sat for a long time on his stool, and when he stirred, it was with an effort, as though his mind was far away. He looked up at his wife and smiled ruefully. ‘It seems I brought you from the dangers of your home only to set you down amid others just as deadly.’

  ‘We are still alive, my love.’

  ‘For now, Wife. For now.’

  He reached up and caught her about the waist, pulling her to him so that his face was between her breasts, inhaling her fragrance, his cheeks surrounded by her softness. He closed his eyes as he felt her bend over him, her hands on his shoulders, her lips on his brow. ‘Ah, my chéri, it will all be good. We shall survive this. No one who knows you could ever believe you guilty of anything so monstrous as killing the child. Our own daughter would never think it for a single instant.’

  ‘Someone has accused me by leaving her body in our yard,’ he said, his voice muffled.

  ‘There is someone here who is mad. That is all. Soon he will be found and hanged.’

  ‘Nicky, you must be ready to leave,’ he said, withdrawing from her embrace and gazing up into her eyes.

  ‘Nonsense! We have friends here,’ she scolded mildly. ‘They would not let us do
wn.’

  ‘This is England, Nick, not France. Here the powerful make the decisions and the peasants have to agree. If the Reeve decides it’s in his interests to convict me, I’m dead. You heard Batyn just now. He was warning us. We have to go.’

  ‘Perhaps your brother might help us?’

  ‘Him?’ Thomas gave a short laugh. ‘Nicky, if you think Ivo would lift a finger to help me, you’re mad.’

  She frowned slightly at his words. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘After he tried to tempt you from me last time, we argued. Well, we fought. I struck him down and told him that if I ever met him here in Sticklepath again, I ’d kill him. There’s no possibility that he’d try to save me.’

  It was fortunate that Thomas was staring out through the open doorway as he said this, for otherwise he must have seen her face. On it was printed a terrible resolution.

  Ivo wouldn’t help them because he was jealous of Tom, mainly jealous of Tom owning her, she thought. But perhaps Ivo would help save him if Nicole was his reward. If she offered to sleep with him, Ivo might be willing to forget his enmity.

  Prison was a terrible place. When her father was alive, she had visited gaols with him, and she had no illusions about them. Gaols were filthy, festering places, filled with rats, lice, fleas and death. Men who went inside hale and strong came out wizened, pale and bent, or dead. Thomas was a man who loved the elements. He worked hard in wind and rain, and enjoyed labour in the open air. To throw him into a cell beneath a castle would destroy him as surely as a knife-thrust in the heart.

  Compared with his safety, nothing mattered. If it would save him from gaol, Nicole would even submit to Ivo.

  Gervase returned, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. ‘I’m sorry, Lordings,’ he gulped. ‘I knew the poor child was dead, but to die and then be violated . . . and in such a way. My God! Only the arch-enemy of God could conceive of such a foul transgression. It’s appalling.’

  Baldwin eyed his ravaged features dispassionately. ‘Perhaps, but I have less faith in human nature than you. I think that men are perfectly capable of such evil.’

  ‘The poor child.’

  ‘We have been told her father was Ansel de Hocsenham,’ Simon commented.

  ‘Yes,’ Gervase swallowed. ‘He’s dead. He was a local fellow, Ansel, from out beyond South Zeal. He was a King’s Purveyor, and often had to ride out over the country.’

  ‘What happened to him?’ Coroner Roger snapped.

  ‘He rode off one day during the famine, and that was that. It was the year before the death of Peter atte Moor’s daughter, Denise. Never turned up again.’ Gervase wiped at his brow with the palm of his hand and shook his head. He stood and motioned vaguely towards the house. ‘Would you care for some drink? I have some wine, a loaf. It would be sufficient for us, I am sure.’

  ‘It is most kind of you,’ Baldwin said with a gracious inclination of his head, ‘but I am neither hungry nor thirsty.’

  ‘I am,’ said the Coroner hurriedly.

  Gervase gave him a pale grin, then wandered back inside his house.

  ‘Look at this place!’ Baldwin said. ‘What a miserable hovel. One room only, in which he must eat, work and sleep, and this little garden where he might be fortunate enough to grow some peas and beans, were he to bother trying.’

  ‘If the river hadn’t risen and washed them all away,’ Simon agreed, eyeing the few straggling plants which had survived. ‘But it’s no worse than thousands of other parsons’ dwellings up and down the country. And provided that he performs the daily Chantry, he will always have money and some food. Probably a new tunic each year, too.’

  ‘And yet he seems relatively well educated,’ Coroner Roger mused. ‘Why should a man with a brain wish to come to a dump like this?’

  ‘It isn’t that bad,’ Simon protested. ‘And there’s nothing wrong with a priest who wants to serve his community.’

  ‘No,’ the Coroner agreed, ‘but there’s something wrong with a man who invests all his wealth in wine and regularly drinks himself into a stupor.’

  ‘Perhaps last night was a rare occurrence.’

  ‘And perhaps I was born a Moor,’ Baldwin said. ‘Didn’t you see the state of his rushes, couldn’t you smell the vomit? It is days since he cleaned in there. No, this man has his own guilty secret.’

  Gervase soon returned, bearing a jug in one fist, a platter with three irregular sized pots on it and a large loaf. He spoke a short prayer in thanks, then sat, pulling the loaf into chunks and pouring wine for them. Then he sat back, chewing and slurping.

  ‘This Ansel. His wife doesn’t live in the vill?’ Coroner Roger prompted.

  Gervase felt the cold grip of fear grasp at his bowels. ‘They were not married. I fear he was one of those men who sought their pleasures here on earth instead of the enlightened attitude which looks to the life to come. No, he was not very religious.’

  ‘In out of the way places, not many are,’ Baldwin noted reasonably. ‘Where is the mother, then?’

  ‘Meg is touched, and more than a little insane since her brother died, God bless him, in a terrible fire in their cottage.’ He studied the bread in his hand and bit off a chunk, chewing it dry. ‘Meg saw him die and it addled her brains. People about here call her “Mad Meg” now.’

  ‘Where?’ Coroner Roger demanded, his patience run out.

  ‘She inhabits a place in the wood out to the west of the vill. A small assart, which her brother worked for her.’

  ‘She was local?’ Simon pressed.

  ‘Not really, no. She was from up aways, round Exbourne. She and her brother came here after he had fought with the King in France and made himself some money. When he came back, he used his money to buy the plot from Lord Hugh.’

  ‘When would all this have been?’ Baldwin enquired.

  ‘He died in the famine. Shortly after Denise had been found.’

  ‘After her man disappeared?’ Coroner Roger asked.

  ‘Yes. Ansel disappeared in 1315, while her brother died in 1316, just before Mary died.’

  ‘Ah, Mary!’ Simon said. ‘We have heard a little about her. She was an orphan?’

  Gervase bent his head in assent.

  ‘Did she die the same way?’ Baldwin demanded. ‘Throttled and eaten?’

  ‘May God take her to His breast and comfort her, yes,’ the Parson said, closing his eyes as the vision rose before his eyes. ‘The little child had her legs cut away, as though someone had . . . as you would a haunch of venison. I can still see her poor little face. She was such a sweet, kindly little girl. No one deserves that sort of death. It was an obscene attack: a violation! Hideous.’

  ‘You buried her?’

  ‘Of course. And there is never a day I don’t go out there and pray for her. I love children, just as Our Lord did, if you know your Gospels, Sir Knight.’

  ‘Except you never reported her death, did you?’ Coroner Roger rumbled.

  Gervase looked away, but Baldwin was frowning. ‘This brother. What was he named?’

  Gervase felt the clamminess at his palms as he took up his cup and took a deep draught. It served to soothe his spirits, and as he put the cup back down, he could say without a tremor in his voice, ‘Just some fellow called Athelhard.’

  ‘And you say he too is dead? In a fire?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘An accident?’

  ‘I can tell you no more. I’m bound by secrecy and the secrets are not mine to divulge. Only let me say that I may have inflamed them, and I am heartily sorry. I feel my guilt most terribly.’

  ‘Damn this!’ Coroner Roger roared with frustration. ‘I need answers, Priest! Who can answer if you won’t?’

  ‘I can’t. I am tied. Why not speak to Mad Meg – she may be able to help.’

  ‘Is there nothing you can tell us?’ Baldwin asked, his tone more gentle.

  Gervase looked into his dark, intense eyes and found himself wavering. ‘I can’t tell you secrets told to me under the oaths
of the confessional, Sir Knight. All I can say is, I heard that Athelhard shouted out a curse before he died. A terrible curse, one which still stalks the vill even now, six years later.’

  Chapter Eighteen

  ‘This is maddening. There is a secret in this vill, I am sure of it,’ Baldwin said bitterly as they left the Parson’s place. ‘Look at that fellow’s attitude in there. Did you see how he reacted when I asked about this man Athelhard? He almost chewed through his cup!’

  ‘You’re reading too much into it,’ the Coroner protested. ‘There may be some secret, but it’s probably just that they’ve been holding back on some of their grain, trying to conceal it from Lord Hugh, or perhaps it’s avoidance of the tithes or some other tax. There are always secrets in little vills like this. They have to struggle hard enough just to survive, God knows, and you can’t blame them for keeping a bit back for themselves.’

  ‘My Heavens! And this is the terror of Exeter talking?’

  ‘There’s no call for sarcasm. I’m only pointing out that there could be a perfectly innocent explanation.’

  ‘Let us find this woman Meg and see what she thinks,’ Baldwin decided.

  ‘We need to talk to the other child as well,’ said Simon. ‘The girl called Joan, whom I saw returning from the moors on the day of the inquest.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Baldwin said, ‘but later. She can wait. Let’s see this Meg first.’

  ‘Very good,’ Coroner Roger agreed, but as he spoke he stumbled on a dried rut, and his ankle turned painfully. ‘Ach! Christ Jesus! My leg.’

  ‘You cannot walk down the lane,’ Baldwin observed.

  ‘Christ’s bones, trust this to happen.’

  ‘Do you want me to help you back to the inn?’ Simon asked.

  ‘No. I can manage,’ the Coroner said. ‘Thanks all the same.’ He pointed to a tree. ‘Bring me a branch and I will be fine. I’ll get back to the inn, you two go ahead without me.’

  ‘If you’re sure,’ said Simon. The inn wasn’t that far away, fortunately. He hurried to cut a stave.