The Malice of Unnatural Death:

by Michael Jecks

  Simon grunted and sucked his teeth with dissatisfaction. ‘So a man was here when another died? How many others were there?’

  Baldwin held up his hand. ‘You are saying that this fellow killed Piers? Was there ever any proof of it?’

  ‘Piers’s wife. She saw the man. She denounced him before the world, told the men of the hue and cry, told the coroner and the sheriff … but he was released. It was said that he was a king’s man. He’d been sent to leave a message for all those who disobeyed the king’s lawful commands.’

  Baldwin gave a sidelong grin. ‘You think that the king of England can command the death of any man he wishes on a whim? That he has men who will obey his every little desire?’

  ‘Ask the sheriff. See what he says,’ Will said seriously. ‘The man’s name was Walter. Walter of Hanlegh.’

  ‘Aye, and what of it now?’ the coroner asked with frank bewilderment.

  ‘It is said that he is back here again. He’s been seen in the city. He’s a killer, Coroner, and if he killed Piers, perhaps he may have killed again.’

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Exeter City

  ‘I do not care for that man. I don’t think we can trust a word he says. D’you think he’s told us the whole truth? I feel sure he is holding something back,’ the coroner grunted as the men walked up South Gate Street towards Carfoix.

  ‘Perhaps he is,’ Baldwin conceded, ‘but after the suffering he has gone through, I am scarcely surprised. And look upon it in this way: if you were married to a woman who blamed you for her own pain and the destruction of her body, as well as the deaths of her children, and were asked questions before her, what would you sound like? I rather think that if my own wife were to treat me with such open contempt and hatred, I should also appear to be concealing something. I should think that the poor fellow conceals much. He is too distraught to be rational.’

  ‘This Walter of Hanlegh could be worth finding, none the less,’ the coroner said. ‘Although what he could want to kill a king’s messenger for, let alone a mere comb-maker, is beyond me.’

  Simon nodded, but his eyes were narrowed as he considered. ‘Yes. But if this Walter is a genuine killer, perhaps the man Mucheton merely offered some sort of insult? He could have done so entirely unwittingly, but still have given grave offence.’

  ‘Eh?’ The concept of subtle affront was alien to the forthright coroner.

  Baldwin nodded, considering. He was about to comment when they all heard the shouting and horns. ‘Come! That sounds like the hue and cry!’

  The three hurried their pace, and soon they were trotting down the hill towards the source of the noise.

  ‘Not this place again!’ Baldwin breathed.

  ‘You know it?’ Simon asked.

  ‘It is where the necromancer was attacked and his servant killed,’ Baldwin said heavily. ‘It is a place of ill-repute.’

  Simon grunted. ‘And here’s a lad of ill-repute.’

  ‘Bailiff—’

  ‘Speak up, boy!’

  ‘No, I—’

  ‘I said speak up! Good God, boy, I can’t hear a word you say over this row.’

  Rob looked at him, and then bawled: ‘There’s a man up there who was watching this place when I got here. He looked really upset about …’

  ‘Don’t shout, Rob, you’ll scare him away!’ Simon hissed, his eyes over Rob’s shoulder as he studied the crowds. ‘Point him out to me.’

  The noise was appalling, and it smothered the disturbance as Simon pushed his way through the crowd, whistling a little tune he had heard a while before in a tavern, his hands in his belt, until he was at the opposite side of the street. There he instantly saw the man Rob had told of.

  He was clad in well-worn garments, a thickset fellow who had lived long in that face. Simon drew down the corners of his mouth. The man was fit, but Simon reckoned he would have the advantage of some decades. With that conviction, he approached the man cautiously and slowly, stepping briskly but quietly until he was only a matter of yards from him.

  It was plain as a pikestaff that the man was watching the house. He gazed at it almost hungrily, and as the crowds in front of him moved he swayed with them, his head straining to stretch his neck so that he might peer over their heads. With his height, there was little enough need, Simon thought privately.

  Making a decision, he went to the man’s side. ‘What’s happened in there?’

  ‘Another dead man, so I’m told.’

  ‘Really? Is that why you were watching the place so carefully?’

  The man turned and considered him. ‘There are many watching it now.’

  ‘Yes,’ Simon agreed reasonably. ‘But you were here long beforehand, weren’t you?’

  The man moved abruptly. If Simon hadn’t expected it, he might have succeeded in making his escape, but if there was one activity at which Simon did not excel it was running, and so as soon as his quarry tried to bolt, Simon jumped. He caught the man’s neck with one hand, and gripped his tunic, while the other grabbed him by the belt.

  What Simon lacked as a runner, he more than made up for in wrestling, and now he swung hard, pulling the man over his hip and throwing him to the ground. ‘Good! Now, let’s start again, shall we?’

  Jen was inconsolable with grief. She didn’t know what time it was. There was no meaningful passage for her: all she knew was that she was no longer in the castle which she had come to look upon as her home, and that the man whom she had adored from the first moment of setting eyes on him detested her. The ugly old cow he had married must have poisoned him against her.

  The roads were quiet, but she was oblivious. Her despair was so acute, she would not have noticed if the road were paved with burning coals. There was nothing which could ever ease her torment. Not now – not ever. Her life was a long stretch of grey misery without redemption. Nothing could ever give her joy again.

  When Busse and Langatre had entered the house, they strode straight through to the main hall.

  ‘Very well – tell me! What was that all about?’ Busse demanded as soon as they were inside the door.

  ‘I couldn’t tell you in the street, Brother,’ Langatre said. ‘When you asked me, we were inside the castle still, and it would have been dangerous to talk. No, I was anxious when I heard the sheriff ask whether his own wife had visited me, because she had – several times.’

  ‘Why?’ Busse asked with the eagerness of a man to whom an entire sex was a mystery.

  ‘She was anguished, for her husband and she having no children,’ Langatre admitted reluctantly. ‘She came to ask me whether she ever would bear children, and I had to tell her that I thought she would not. It is a sad problem, but the conjuration was entirely convincing to me, as a professional. She will have none.’

  ‘Why would that make you so anxious?’

  ‘She did not want her husband to hear of her visits to me. If he were to learn, just think how he might react. Knowing that she was barren, and learning that she’d been here and had told me about their problems … it is not the sort of news that a man would appreciate, much less when it means a man’s wife has been consulting a known magician – especially just now. You have heard of this suspected conjuration with the intention of harming our own noble king?’

  ‘Sweet Christ on the Cross!’ Busse said, crossing himself hurriedly.

  ‘Yes. So we should be cautious, Brother. I must not see her again. Perhaps I could send a message to her, explaining, but I do not know how.’

  ‘By sending her a note, of course!’

  ‘And who would open it? Probably her husband or his steward!’ Langatre said scathingly.

  Busse nodded distractedly. He could quite see that this was a matter of some delicacy. A mistake, and thereby letting her husband know her business, would inevitably lead to recriminations. And Busse had no intention of losing Langatre – not when he was still so useful. ‘Give me writing tools. I shall write to her and have a priest deliver the note to her alone. That
will be best.’

  ‘Of course. No one would open a letter sent from a priest,’ Langatre agreed with delight. He fetched a small square of parchment and a quill and ink, and watched as Busse scrawled laboriously. Then, when it was done, Busse melted some wax from a candle and thrust his ring into it to seal the note. He went to the door and walked the short distance to the church of St John Bow. Soon he was back again.

  Langatre spun on his heel, startled by Busse’s abrupt return.

  ‘What is it, man? Do you think to be taken again when I have only just had you released?’ Busse said acidly.

  ‘Brother, I have been attacked in here, my servant murdered, and then I have been arrested for harming him, and all the while the killer stood upstairs in my chamber. I am nervous in the place!’

  ‘Perhaps so, but you have work to do!’ Busse snapped. ‘I cannot afford to be here too long. I must return to the abbey and make sure that my rival doesn’t steal my supporters away from me by the use of heavy bribery or threats. All the time you stand here gazing around like a lovesick owl, you are wasting time. Get on with it!’

  Langatre nodded disconsolately. There was a large cauldron in the corner of the room, and he went to fetch it. The brazier was gone out, of course, and he must take scorched cloth and flint to start another fire, blowing hard to light it. Soon he had a spark caught on the cloth, and could set it amongst some light tinder: feathers and hay. These he placed in the brazier, and as the flames sparked and crackled he began to set twigs about them, and then reached for his little pail of coals. ‘Oh!’

  ‘What now?’

  ‘My pail’s empty. I need more charcoal.’

  ‘Good God! Then get it, man!’ Busse barked.

  Langatre set his jaw, but did as he was bid. The coals were down in the alley that ran from the street to the garden, and he took the pail with him as he left the room, walked into the street and thence to the alley.

  It was always dark here, but today it felt very close, as though the weather was about to change. A strange smell reached him, and he twisted his features at the odour. Something was different – odd.

  The little sack of charcoals sat deep in the alley, away from the wet, and he lifted it and poured the contents into his pail, cursing quietly as some coals missed the pail and fell to the ground. One or two toppled over the edge and slipped down to the entrance to the undercroft. There they splashed in the rainwater by the door.

  He peered down, tutting to himself. No doubt the new lodger there would complain if he stood in Richard’s discarded waste. Some tenants about here were astonishingly fussy, and would moan to the landlord at the slightest infraction of whatever rules they felt supreme. He considered, then tutted once more. Carrying the pail to the top of the stairs, he walked down, collected the offending coals from the strangely viscous pool, and carried them up. He set them in the pail and picked it up, wiping his hand on his gown as he walked to his door and entered.

  The little fire was burning merrily, and he began to set more dry sticks on it, building up the pile before setting a ring of coals about it, putting more and more on top until he had a small, smoking pyramid. Then he began to blow at it until the coals spat and gleamed.

  Busse had been wandering about the room as he prepared his fire, but now, as Langatre stood again, he peered at him. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I dropped some coals,’ Langatre said absently. ‘I had to pick them up, so I wiped my hand. Why?’

  ‘What were they lying in?’

  ‘Just some rainwater.’

  ‘Red rainwater?’

  Busse led the way. Soon they were in the street, and Busse saw the steps at the front of the alley. He approached them nervously, and stood studying them before tentatively putting his foot on the top step and descending.

  It was cool down here, and well shaded, and soon he found that the noise of the street was left behind him. The steps were good sandstone, moving but little with his weight, and he was soon at the bottom. Here there was a pool of liquid, which in the dark was merely a puddle. It had no apparent colour, and it could easily have been water, were it not for its apparent thickness and the odour of tin. It seemed to run from beneath the door, a good, board door to the right, that had a latch. He set his thumb to the latch and pushed.

  He burst from the undercroft like a rabbit before ferrets, and it was his sudden appearance which caused the first ripples of delicious interest through the people in the street.

  ‘You all right, Brother?’ a man asked, and Busse stared at him wildly.

  ‘Get away from me!’

  ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost,’ another said, and there was a little laughter, but it was stilled when someone noticed his hands.

  ‘Have you cut yourself?’

  ‘That’s blood!’

  Busse felt his heart pounding like a wild deer’s at the hounds’ approach. He was distraught, confused, desperate, uncertain what to do for the best. He should have taken a horn and blown the hue and cry, bellowed for men … but the first idea to come into his head was to fly from here. He couldn’t now. He’d been seen, and even as thoughts of flight came to him, he felt hands grip his rough tunic. ‘Release me!’

  Where was Richard de Langatre? Where had he gone?

  ‘Not until we’ve seen what’s in there,’ someone said, and then there was a nasty chuckle from someone. ‘We don’t believe in benefit of clergy here, Brother. If you’ve killed an Exonian, you may just fall down a ladder or something on the way to the gaol.’

  Others were sent inside as he spoke, and amidst the muttering Busse heard some cries, and he tried to struggle free at the noise. He had to get away!

  They had found the body!

  Chapter Thirty

  Exeter City

  Sir Richard de Welles and Baldwin saw Busse pulling this way and that, and although the coroner wore a happy smile on his face at the sight, he remonstrated gruffly with the men who held him.

  ‘What is this, eh? A man of the cloth being held by you horny-handed peasants? Eh? Have you no respect for the Church? You should release him at once.’

  ‘He was in there, Coroner. We saw him come out just a few moments before, and there’s a dead man inside.’

  ‘What? Is it murder?’

  The man who had spoken glanced around at his peers, but it was clear that none had been inside to see whether it was murder or not.

  But Busse knew. ‘It was murder, Coroner. His throat has been opened from one side to the other.’

  ‘What is this, Brother Robert?’ Baldwin asked. ‘Have you had a part in a murder?’

  ‘It’s nothing to do with me! I had no part. I was with the sheriff until a very few moments ago. I came back here with Langatre, and we found this … body when we came here.’

  ‘A body in Langatre’s house?’

  ‘In the undercroft. We saw that the door to it was open, and there was a pool outside … blood, Keeper. Blood in a puddle like rainwater. It had drained from his body … Good God! I hope never to see a sight like that again.’

  ‘He’s lying!’ One of Busse’s captors had no doubts. ‘He bolted from there like a quarrel from a bow.’

  ‘If he is telling the truth and the man in there was killed by having his throat cut,’ Baldwin said mildly, ‘then God must have performed a miracle indeed.’

  ‘Eh?’

  Baldwin stepped nearer, and gestured with a hand that encompassed Busse’s torso. ‘To have cut his throat and not been smothered in the fellow’s blood.’

  The men gripping Busse gradually allowed their hold to loosen. It was clearly true. Although Busse’s sandalled feet showed signs of blood, there was none on his body or his hands. ‘Sorry, Brother.’

  ‘You are forgiven, friends. You had no reason to consider me innocent,’ Busse said, although it was partly through clenched teeth. However, that was less from anger than from an urgent need to stop his teeth from chattering. The sight of the body had shocked him more than he could say.
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br />   Baldwin beckoned the coroner. ‘Let us go and view this latest body.’ He looked about him for Simon, but he reasoned that Simon was never at his best in the presence of sudden violent death, and the bailiff would probably prefer to be saved studying yet another. He would no doubt return shortly.

  ‘Yes,’ Coroner Richard agreed, but he shot a look at the miserable monk. ‘Don’t go anywhere until we’re back, though, Brother. Wait for us here, eh?’

  Busse gave a dejected nod as the two men made their way to Langatre’s house.

  Although the front door gave onto Langatre’s own little hall and the stairs which led up to the small second storey, there was a passageway to the left side of the property. Originally Baldwin had assumed that this must lead to the garden at the back, but now he realised that there was another staircase here that led to the basement beneath the house. He stepped to it, and saw that there was indeed a series of stone steps leading down below the main house. And on all the steps there was the unmistakable sign of bloody footprints. Peering down it was easy to see where they came from. At the bottom, as Busse had said, there was a thick pool of blood.

  Descending, Baldwin mused that this must be how hell itself smelled. There was a strong, tinny odour from all the blood, but as he came to the rough elm boards of the door at the bottom, that was overwhelmed by the stench from within. Brimstone, sickly decaying foulness, all with the cloying, repellent tang of death. He wanted to pull a fold of his tunic over his mouth to protect himself from infection, for all knew that bad air, malaria, could kill, but it was impractical to try that down here. Instead he took a deep breath before entering, hoping to be able to take in less air within the room, and carefully stepped over the blood.

  It was dark. Even with the candles set about the place at different vantage points, it was still gloomy. There were two windows at the front of the building, but the sun was at the rear of the house, and there was no ingress for light from that direction. Instead the two front windows served to provide all light and air. They were inadequate.