The Malice of Unnatural Death:

by Michael Jecks

  He had not expected to be released. The sudden opening of his cell door in the middle of the night had been a terrible shock. At first he had been convinced that he was about to be dragged out to be tortured. Or pulled out to the gibbet and hanged without an opportunity of putting his own case. When he was grabbed by the arms and dragged out, he could not command even his voice. The words he tried to utter pleading innocence were stifled by his terror. There were steps, harsh orange light from the flickering torches, then a long corridor, and he was brought out into the open air. It made him want to shriek. As soon as he arrived out in the open, he saw a tall post, and the sight made him begin to swoon, his head pounding, his heart thudding as though trying to break free.

  Before the post he saw the tall figure of Croyser.

  The Sheriff of Warwick was standing by a huddled mess on the ground, and as he was pulled forward John saw that it was a man, a man of John’s own age, his face white, his lips blue in death. That was when he became sure that he was being brought here to be killed.

  ‘Master John,’ Croyser said. He was pulling on gloves, and John automatically thought of a murderer covering his hands so that no blood should pollute them.

  The hold on him was released, and John fell on all fours, where he remained with his head hanging, waiting for the blow to fall. He daren’t look up into the eyes of the man who was to kill him.

  ‘Get up, fool! Do you want to die here? Get up, I said.’

  John hesitated, fearing a trick, but then he noticed that the two men who had brought him had left. Their feet were not at his side any more. Hardly daring to hope, he looked up.

  Croyser pointed at the body beside him. ‘See him? Do you know him?’

  ‘I have never …’

  ‘He is Master John of Nottingham. Do you understand? I’m going to put him in that cell, and when the gaoler arrives in the morning, he will swear on his mother’s grave that it was you. Or who you once were. You are safe. You are free.’

  ‘I …’ John’s mouth hung open, and then he slowly closed it. ‘What do you seek, sir knight?’

  ‘You were paid to perform a task, were you not? There are many in the land would like to see that mission completed. If you have the stomach for it, man, fly from here and complete it. You were paid for it, weren’t you?’

  ‘Yes, but the money is lost. How can I start afresh?’

  ‘Here!’ Croyser tossed a purse to him. It was heavy, a ponderous weight, and John dropped it. Picking it up, he could feel the coins inside. Croyser nodded. ‘Yes, the balance of your twenty pounds. The money you were promised. The same men who paid you before want you to succeed, but you will have to leave Coventry. Go somewhere else, where you may be safe. But in God’s name, be quick. The country cannot survive much longer with this corruption at its heart.’

  John had needed no second bidding. There was a pack of food and drink with a blanket and heavy cloak against the weather, and he had taken them, stammering his thanks while the sheriff gave him some instructions for his own safety. There was no doubt that he was risking much, for if John was discovered, it would be the sheriff’s own neck that would be stretched.

  ‘One thing I do need, though,’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘My book … without that I cannot do my work,’ John had said despairingly.

  He looked over at the waxen image once more, remembering that night, flying from the gaol and the city of Warwick, guided by a man wearing the sheriff’s own livery. The man took John out by a small postern, and then led him along filthy, dark streets until they reached the road south. There the man gave him his book and left him. John attempted to thank him, but in return the man merely spat at the ground and turned on his heel.

  It had been a terrible flight, but at least he had escaped. And now he would do as he had promised, and make these models. Four pounds of wax. Enough for four images.

  One of the king, one each for the two Despensers, and one for the Bishop of Exeter.

  They would all die.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Exeter Gaol

  Master Richard of Langatre looked from one to the other, and he finally gave in with a grunt. This was not the way he’d foreseen his own future.

  ‘Look, I am no necromancer. Let us be quite sure of that. All I do is try to use some of God’s own power to help those who need it. For a fee.’

  ‘So you divine their futures?’ Baldwin asked with a mild smile.

  ‘Well … yes, I suppose. Although the most important thing is to gain their confidence, and then tell them what they want to hear. Usually.’

  ‘How so?’ Coroner Richard asked. He was leaning down like a great cat preparing to pounce.

  ‘Well, there are ladies who come and ask if their love is in vain, for example. I cannot always give them the answer they want.’

  ‘Why?’ the coroner demanded.

  ‘Sir, if you heard a maidservant who was convinced that her master was in love with her and would run away with her to start a new life elsewhere, would you want to let her continue in her delusion, or would you try to help her come to terms with the fact that the bastard had been pissed and fancied a tumble with a well-proportioned wench? At least, told carefully, that story could have power: the wench was attractive, after all. But there was no possibility of the … man’s leaving his wife.’

  ‘I see,’ Baldwin said. ‘This has happened recently?’

  ‘The damned sheriff’s own servant girl. She saw me the other day for just this reason, thinking he fancied her. She wanted to know how to keep his love.’

  ‘So this kind of work requires little in the way of magic?’

  ‘Little of my work has any element of magic, further than my skill to understand people and what they want to hear,’ Langatre admitted dolefully.

  ‘So the tools of your trade are unnecessary?’

  ‘They look good,’ Langatre said defensively. Then he nodded. ‘But they aren’t necessary. They just help to make people think that they have been sold something of value.’

  ‘What do you know of real necromancy?’ Baldwin asked.

  ‘I don’t do anything like that,’ Langatre countered instantly.

  Baldwin held him in a long stare, and the man had the feeling that he was pinioned under that shrewd, intense gaze. It was almost as though the knight could see through Langatre’s eyes and perceive the world as he did: a venal place, filled with those who sought only to take whatever a man might earn. Someone like Langatre was not evil: he was merely making a living in the only way he knew how. Just now the only way he could do so was by making up false futures for gullible women in the city, or selling them potions and salves that would hopefully do them little harm.

  Langatre wanted to look away, but he felt sure that to do so would only persuade this knight that he was not reliable or honest. And there was something compelling about his eyes, too. It was hard to drag his own eyes away.

  ‘Tell me: do you know how other men perform their works when they are supposed to be authentic?’ Baldwin said.

  Langatre felt as though a little of the pressure was immediately removed. ‘There are many ways a man might prepare, master. Some will just offer a potion or make a few mumbles and wave their hands about, but they’re the counterfeiters. They don’t really do anything. They’re in it for the money.’ He had the grace to look away as he spoke, but then he nodded to himself. He had nothing to hide in all this, after all. He was a man of integrity.

  Continuing, he frowned a little, considering the tools of the men who tended towards magic. ‘There are a number of different types, I suppose. I have met many of them. There are those who seek to cure by the power of God and His works, men like me, who will pray and fast for days to achieve our works. We only seek positive outcomes. Using God’s authority to bring about a foul or evil deed would be bound to redound on us, I would think. But there are some who don’t care. They try to exercise their skills to call up demons, and they do so with various spe
lls and commands, much as I do, but their aim is to have the demon do their bidding, so they are using God’s power to produce an evil effect.’

  ‘How would they achieve that?’ the coroner demanded. ‘It sounds as if these fellows should be punished.’

  ‘They will take the white-handled and black-handled daggers, they would have a sword, a staff, a rod, a hook, a lancet… many tools. All would have to be fumigated and asperged, and then the magician would consecrate them too.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘He would recite seven or eight psalms over them. I have heard that the usual manner would be for the man to undergo a period of fasting, chastity and intensive prayer. A couple of days before the act, he would confess his sins and then fast again, because if a man tries to conjure a spirit he must do so in a state of grace. Otherwise, instead of being able to command the spirit, it might command him! Only then, after all this preparation, would he be ready to consecrate the tools. After reciting the psalms, he would offer prayers to God and His saints for a successful outcome.

  ‘When it came nearer to the date for the conjuration, he would prepare his body. Consecrated water would be used to wash himself, and then he would clothe himself in the robes for the ceremony. A long robe and a white leather hat with the names of God written on it, like mine.’

  The coroner looked blank. ‘How many names does he have?’

  ‘Many,’ Baldwin said. He spoke quietly, meditatively, as he recalled his education with the Templars. ‘There are Jehova, Adonay, Elohim, El … very many are given in the Gospels.’

  ‘That is right,’ Langatre said approvingly. ‘And then the celebrant would perform the conjuration itself.’

  ‘Which would be to have a demon do his bidding?’ Coroner Richard asked. His voice was growing quieter and more thoughtful.

  ‘Yes … or not. Sometimes a powerful man might be able to take a demon and confine it. Perhaps in a crystal, or in a mirror … anywhere, really. So long as he uses the right words to bind the foul creature, it will remain under his control and must do his bidding.’

  ‘So if a man were to want to kill another,’ Coroner Richard said slowly, ‘he would have to have one of these creatures there ready to do it for him?’

  Up until that moment Langatre had been enjoying his exposition on the theory and practice of the magical arts. Now there was a sudden leaden sensation in his belly and bowels. ‘I’ve done nothing like that.’

  ‘I should hope not!’ Coroner Richard said.

  ‘You are accused of nothing by us,’ Baldwin said mildly. ‘We only seek to learn what we may about other methods of magic. Would the necromancer need the assistance of a demon necessarily?’

  ‘I should think so – at least, in all the arts I’ve heard of … Unless he used some other form of magic.’

  ‘What other sort could there be?’ Baldwin asked.

  ‘There are many types of magic. Some is good, but some is … less so. All magic is simply harnessing God’s power to do what we wish. It’s only when a man turns to its misuse that there is a problem.’

  ‘So how else might a man kill another?’

  ‘There are probably many ways. I do not profess to know them,’ Langatre said warily. He was not going to condemn himself out of hand by merely admitting that he knew too much about the arcane arts.

  ‘Come! This is no time to grow diffident, Master Langatre,’ Baldwin said. ‘This is the crime you will be accused of and questioned about. Questioned professionally by the king’s men. You know what that would mean.’

  Langatre swallowed. ‘I have heard of men who compose models of the man they wish to kill. They perform the preparation as I have explained, with much fasting, prayer, celibacy, and invocations to bring God’s power down upon them, and then they have a ritual at which they will ceremonially kill the image.’

  ‘How so?’ Coroner Richard rumbled.

  ‘They will stab it with a splinter, or a pin, or perhaps just shatter it. If the preparation is right, and the likeness is good, I dare say, then the attempt should succeed.’

  ‘And this thing, this model, would be made of something rare and valuable?’ the coroner asked hopefully.

  ‘No.’ Langatre smiled. ‘It could be made from candle wax if need be, although …’

  ‘What?’ the coroner demanded irritably. He was growing bored with this recitation.

  ‘Well, for something like that to work, the man would need to have something of the man he intended to kill.’

  ‘Not the finger of another man?’ Baldwin asked.

  ‘No.’ Langatre smiled. ‘That would only confuse things. Only a little hair, or skin from the man whom the wizard wished to see dead. Not much. It would be mixed in with the wax to give it identity.’

  ‘Who would be able to do such a thing?’

  ‘Very few have the skill.’ Langatre shrugged. ‘There are few enough men in the city who can manage even the most simple tasks. To take on control of a demon powerful enough to kill a man – that would be a great task indeed.’

  ‘I am not interested in your self-congratulation on your own skills. Just tell us: who here in Exeter could do it?’ Baldwin rasped.

  ‘In honesty … I do not think any necromancer in this city could attempt such a work of maleficium. It would be the work of a great magician. You would have to go to London or York for a man like that.’

  Baldwin nodded, and tried to feel comforted.

  ‘Keeper, you look like a man who’s bitten into a medlar and found it was a sloe!’ the coroner said as they both tramped up the stairs from the gaol. ‘What is it? Surely it’s good to know that there are no more fools like him in the town?’

  ‘Yes. Of course it is.’

  ‘So why the long face?’

  ‘Because a man can always walk or ride from one place to another. Just because Langatre knows no one who could attempt such a business does not mean that someone has not arrived here recently who would be interested in trying it.’

  Exeter Castle

  Sir Matthew rode back to the castle gate in the middle of the morning, famished. He threw himself from the saddle and left the reins dangling for a groom. It was his usual way of returning. If the horse was to be left too long, and ambled back out of the gate, the grooms would learn to regret their laxness, and that was that. For his part, Sir Matthew expected his men to be prepared for him at all times, and when they failed him they paid for it.

  The morning’s ride down to the bishop’s house at Clyst St Mary had been enough to make him start to sweat, and he was just thinking that he ought to arrange a fresh hunt when he caught sight of the new servant girl. Strange chit: she’d taken to staring at him, slightly goggle-eyed, like a fish just pulled from the water. He had wondered whether she might be a little dull-witted, but the child seemed to be all right in all other ways. There was nothing to suggest that she was a cretin, only that curious expression on her face.

  She was there now, at the top of the stairs to the main hall, just standing and gazing at him. It was disconcerting, having her up there, but Sir Matthew was no fool, and it was safer for a man to maintain a calm attitude before the people who worked for him in the castle. Punish those who were disobedient, froward, or felonious, by all means, but it was hard to have a servant girl beaten for merely looking at him. Actions like that might start to upset the staff. They would grow sulky and petulant, and that was no good to anyone.

  He crossed the yard, pulling off his thick riding gloves as he went, and climbed the stone stairs. She waited at the top, as though expectantly, her bright face turned to him the whole while.

  It was damned uncomfortable. The girl was staring as though there was something wrong with him. It made him wonder whether his cods were untied, or his tunic was rucked up under his belt or something. Damn the child! What was the matter with her? He could feel his face reddening as he came close to her, and the knowledge made his voice harsh and brusque.

  ‘Do you want me?’ he asked.

 
She gaped, and then turned away, flushing scarlet, he saw.

  The fool had been wool-gathering. Nothing more than that. She didn’t even realise it was him she was staring at. That was the meaning of it all: she was in a daydream and hadn’t known she was insulting him. That was a relief, anyway, he told himself. For a moment there … but no. That would be daft.

  ‘Sir Matthew?’ his steward called quietly from his table near the door.

  ‘Well?’ he responded testily. ‘I haven’t much time. I need my dinner.’

  ‘It is only that the good keeper and his friend the coroner were here today. They visited your prisoner. I thought you should know.’

  ‘Did they?’ Sir Matthew’s face turned dark. ‘What did they want with him?’

  ‘I took the precaution of having a clerk follow them and listen as best he could. They were talking all about the methods of having a necromancer fashion figures in the likeness of a man, and have that man murdered by means of it.’

  Sir Matthew clenched his jaw. ‘I want that man kept locked up. No one is to see him without my express permission. Ensure that it is so.’

  ‘Yes, Sir Matthew.’

  ‘And now, if you don’t mind, I should like to enjoy my meal!’

  Chapter Twenty

  Exeter City

  Baldwin and Coroner Richard had enjoyed a leisurely meal in a tavern near the castle while they absorbed Langatre’s tale of how a necromancer might summon up a demon.

  ‘To me, it sounds half-baked. Stodgy in the middle like a poorly cooked pie,’ the coroner said with satisfaction as he finished his own meat pie. The crumbs and gravy on his beard were wiped away with a massive hand and brushed onto the table. Some fell into his quart pot of ale, and he glared at the pot as though it was the pottery’s own fault that it had been polluted. He fished out a couple of crumbs, then shrugged. ‘Ah well, it’s all going down the same hole! I didn’t like the idea that a man might confine a demon in a chip of glass or diamond, either.’