Michael Jecks - The Malice of Unnatural Death

‘I think we’d be better served fetching ourselves a pie for our dinner.’

‘Come, it will take little enough time,’ Baldwin said.

With a bad grace the coroner gave in, and Baldwin was grateful for his company as they walked along the busy lane towardsthe Bear Gate.

‘He did say the second alley after the main street?’ Baldwin confirmed, his nose wrinkled at the stench. ‘I can understandwhy he would be reluctant to enter this noisome little trail.’

It was a narrow gap between houses like so many others, and yet here the width was much reduced. As Baldwin took a first tentativestep in, he felt as though the houses were all leaning in towards him, their upper storeys bending down and blocking out thesky.

Oddly enough, once the two men had walked about ten paces, the whole area brightened. Here there was a curve in the alley,and now it ran straight towards the south. The sun was up in the clouds there, brightening a thinner layer of cloud, and thealley appeared less repellent than it had at first because once they were away from the entrance, it widened somewhat. However, the odours of excrement and urine wereall-pervasive. A scuttling ahead showed where a rat was scavenging, and the sounds stopped as the two drew nearer.

‘I cannot imagine why any man would want to come down here.’

‘For a fellow making good his escape, it would be as good as any,’ Baldwin considered. ‘Look at this place! No one is hereduring the day, so it must be guaranteed to be deserted at night. Say you had killed a king’s messenger, and you had to escape. The South Gate would be shut, so where else could you go? This would be the ideal route to take, I should say.’

The coroner lifted his boot with an expression of distaste and stared at the sole. ‘So long as he didn’t mind being coveredin the ordure of the centuries, damn it! Look at that!’ He began to scrape the muck from his boot on a step.

‘The rat would explain why there would be a cat up here,’ Baldwin continued, walking on a short distance and peering abouthim. ‘I dare say this would be a cheerful hunting ground for any feline. And the appearance of a man suddenly coming up thealley from the gate might startle a cat so that it decided to bolt for it, and that was how it met with the fearful watchman.’

‘Perfectly logical,’ the coroner agreed.

‘And the watchman said he thought the man looked like a sorcerer. Let us go and visit the fellow, eh?’

Lady Alice reached the house late in the afternoon, with Sarra as chaperon, only to find it encircled by a small group ofgawping men and women. There was a beadle she recognised outside, a scruffy little fellow whom her husband had once said he suspected of half the crimes in the city, excepthe’d never managed to catch him.

‘What is all this?’ she asked a woman nearby.

‘Mistress, the man here was attacked and almost killed.’

Lady Alice’s eyes widened. ‘You are sure of this?’

There was no need to respond. The only reason for a crowd this size was an attempted murder, or, better, an actual one.

‘My lady, we ought to get back,’ Sarra said nervously.

‘Yes, of course,’ Lady Alice said with some irritation. It was so hard to get time away from the castle just now, and shewas desperate for any help she could get.

Matthew had never said as much, but she knew that he felt the lack of children as sorely as she herself. They had tried — God knew all too well how hard! — but she could not conceive for some reason. And then she had had the idea of enlisting thehelp of this man Langatre.

It meant lots of foul potions, which she did her best to apply as he suggested, rubbing them in about her body, but, as heexplained, the trouble with these kinds of problem was the womb itself. It was a strange organ, which could move about thebody. Only when it was positioned firmly could a man pierce her with hopes of success. And in her case, it was rarely fixed.

She would have to pray that he made a swift recovery so that she might see him again soon.

And just then she felt her heart seem to stop. Time ceased as she stared at the man with the black eyes, the scruffy stubbleat his chin, the deep creases like knife-slashes at either side of his mouth, and there was a moment’s confusion in her mindas she felt her belly roil.

‘Mary Mother of God!’

Sarra saw her confusion and paleness. ‘Mistress? My lady? What is it?’

‘Sarra, go to the tavern up on the corner and fetch me a pint of strong ale. Go! Now! I shall wait here.’

And as soon as her maid had left her, she sank down onto a moorstone trough that sat nearby and waited, not daring to lookas he approached her grimly, his hand ready on his knife.

North-East Dartmoor

Simon was growing concerned. He had been out on the moors of an evening often enough, but today the weather was rapidly growingchillier, and the clouds looked threatening. It might rain, but more likely they were going to be attacked by a blizzard.

‘Rob, can’t you hurry a little faster?’ he called over his shoulder. The boy was a nuisance at the best of times, but todayhe had excelled himself, whining about crossing a small area of boggy land when he had already seen the horses walk througheasily enough, and then falling flat on his face and refusing to get up for some little while, complaining that he had brokenhis toe on a rock. Now he was some yards behind them again, his face set in a lowering black mask of fury at the indignityof hurrying after the others.

‘I’m the one who’s not on a horse, master Bailiff,’ Rob responded with some asperity. ‘What do you expect me to do? Run thewhole way?’

Simon grunted his answer. It was only the truth. The worst delays had been caused by Busse. He had insisted on regular halts,supposedly to pray at the requisite hours of the day, and also to rest his horse, but Simon felt sure that it was more to do with his own sore buttocks. The last time, he had begged Simon to light a fire to warm his hands. True enough, Simon could see that Busse’s face was turning a little blue with the cold, but that was no excuse to use up their meagre supplyof firewood and tinder. Simon was painfully aware that they would need both tonight, and he was not going to risk the mainsupply of good tinder to light a fire when they might have need of it all later.

His attention was on the clouds forming to the north. It was plain enough that the weather was settling in for a cold blow. Simon was deeply unhappy to think that they could all be stuck out here on the moors for an extended period, but if the snowfell hard, that was exactly the risk.

It was growing dark as he stared about him, and he cursed the short winter days. ‘Right. We won’t make it off the moor beforenightfall. We have to find a shelter. I won’t continue in the dark, not with the moon hidden. It would be too dangerous.’

‘Surely we are almost at the end of the moors, Bailiff,’ Busse said, hearing his words. ‘There are plenty of farms out there.’

‘There are some, but I can see no sign of smoke yet,’ Simon said shortly. ‘Even all the miners seem to be hidden away. Withthis weather, I would expect them to be hidden away in a tavern. Probably up in Chagford, most of them. That’d be the nearestto us here, I think.’

He remained still, staring about him for a long time, making sure of his bearings, and then pointed ahead and slightly leftto a large outcrop of rock. ‘If we make for that, I think we’ll be close to the Grey Wethers. That’ll give me my bearings.’

‘You mean to say that you are lost,’ Busse said.

‘No. But look about you — if we were a mile behind us right now, would you know the difference? All is rolling hills, with occasionalrocks at their summits. It is easy to become confused, and always best to make sure of your bearings. However, once we hitthe Grey Wethers, I will be happier.’