Michael Jecks - The Malice of Unnatural Death

Hearing Rob and Busse, he snapped at them both to help, and continued stacking thicker branches which seemed to have somestrength in them. The rest he tossed into a pile nearby. Then he began to lay the longer, straighter stems against the maintree trunk lying on the ground.

‘What are you doing?’ Rob demanded, watching him as children often watch the antics of their parents.

‘If you want to survive this night, Rob, find every small, dry twig you can. The best are those which have been dried on the tree and not on the ground. Those will be too damp. Justfetch as much as you possibly can. When you’ve built up a good pile, we’ll start a fire with them.’

Rob shrugged and set off half-heartedly. Meanwhile Busse was watching Simon with an appreciative eye. ‘And what of me, Bailiff?’

‘Brother, if you could just help me to fix these boughs to the tree here, that would be a great help.’

‘You are building a low shelter?’

Simon nodded. He had stayed out in the open before, usually with a large tree trunk to make a wall, and then built up a lean-towall and roof with boughs to create a low but cosy hovel. However, it would not do for all three of them. Instead, he wouldhave to form a shelter that used the trunk as a side wall, but which also had two walls with a roof.

He found a large branch with a fork in it, and smiled. After hunting about, he found three more, and began building. Firsthe gauged the wind, and moved to the leeward side of the trunk. Here he thrust the two shorter sticks into the soft soil,the forks uppermost. He found a sapling of more than six and a half feet, and took his knife to it, placing his knife’s bladeagainst it and using a branch to hammer at it, ringing the bough, and then cutting a notch at the very bottom. Soon he couldhear it crack as he pulled it, and then it came down. He set this in the forks, and braced them with the last pair of forkedbranches.

Running to his saddle-bags, he pulled one open. He always carried some hempen cord for emergencies, and this was just suchan emergency. Soon the whole was lashed together, and he could start to set thick branches from the trunk to his supportedbeam. These he tied with simple loops, and used all the spare branches he could find to make a side wall and block the bottom. Now there was a basic shelter.

‘Very good, if a little leaky,’ the monk observed.

Simon said nothing. He was searching in the gathering darkness for Rob and growing fearful for the lad’s safety.

‘Don’t worry, Bailiff,’ Busse said. ‘He’s bright enough.’

‘He has little sense of direction. He has never been on the moors before,’ Simon said through gritted teeth. Bellowing Rob’sname, he was relieved to see a figure jerk upright only a few tens of yards away. ‘Hurry up!’

‘You see?’ Busse said.

‘Yes. Now, I need you to gather up as many ferns as possible.’

Busse was startled. ‘Me?’

‘If you want to sleep dry and not freeze, you’ll help me now. We need to cover this shelter in ferns and leaves — anything. And we need to be quick, before that snowstorm starts!’

Exeter City

As the light outside faded, Baldwin and the coroner demanded candles, and remained sitting with the man who had dared to makeuse of demons to achieve his ends.

Or so it had been said.

Baldwin was not prey to fears about men such as this. He was perfectly comfortable with the notion of an all-powerful Godwho would remove the foolish from the world without any need for his help. And there was not too much to be fearful of aboutthis fellow. He did not inspire terror in Baldwin’s breast.

‘How long have you lived here?’

‘In Exeter, you mean? Or Stepecote Street?’ His voice was harsh and rasping, and sounded forced, as though it took a greatdeal of effort to speak at all. The pain he suffered was clear: he kept swallowing, each time wincing, and his eyes were wateringfreely.

‘Either,’ Baldwin said, but this time more gently. ‘Take your time, friend; your voice is clearly giving you trouble.’

Langatre was a chubby fellow who was little more than thirty years old, Baldwin decided. He had the weakly chin of a man whowas not destined for greatness of any sort, but there was little enough malice in his eyes. Rather, he displayed more the appearance of a man who laboured under a great fear.

‘I was born in Langatre in Kent. I suppose I arrived here in Exeter about ten years ago, and I’ve been plying my trade hereever since, although it was only two years ago that I learned the deeper, more subtle arts, and that was when I took on thehouse down the street.’

‘The dead boy?’

‘Oh, God! Don’t remind me! Poor lad! I don’t know how I’m going to tell his mother about this!’

‘Tell us first, then,’ the coroner rumbled, unconvinced. Like Baldwin, he had seen too many felons deny their crimes and thenburst into tears in an attempt to evade punishment.

‘Gladly, lordings. I was in my workshop when there was a knock. I heard it distinctly, and heard my fellow go to answer it. I was involved in some important work at the time, making a special potion for a client, and could not pay attention. Well, I heard this strange tapping, as though someone was knocking on my workshop door, but ignored it, because Hick knows — knew — not to interrupt me when I was working, and then, as I was carrying my alembic to cool, someone dropped a noose about myneck and tried to draw it tight.’

Baldwin motioned with his hand and Richard de Langatre shrugged, lifted his cowl, and opened the front of his tunic.

Immediately Baldwin was struck with the similarity of his wound to the one on the king’s messenger at the South Gate. ‘Yousaw his face?’

‘No. He was behind me all the time. I don’t mind telling you both, it was a terrifying experience. I thought I would surely die!’

‘Why didn’t you? He was pulling hard,’ Coroner Richard commented.

‘I know that well enough! He was pulling so hard, I couldn’t even get a nail under the cord.’

That much was true. Baldwin could see where he’d tried to jam a finger under the weapon: there were several scrape marks wherehis nails had scrabbled. ‘What did you do?’

‘I destroyed a perfectly good alembic … lost a valuable potion, rot his soul! I swung it over my head at his, and I fancyhe’ll be well scalded by now.’

‘He shouldn’t try to rob people, then, should he?’ the coroner growled.

‘What then?’ Baldwin pressed him.

‘When I was free, I grabbed for a knife, but he saw me and kicked me in the belly. God, but it hurt! Well, as soon as I couldget up again, I realised he’d fled. I grabbed a weapon just in case, and went out, and that was when I almost fell over poor Hick’s body. He was just lying there, right by the door. And he’d been attacked in the same manner, with something round hisneck — a leather thong, I think.

‘Well, I wanted to call for help, so I went to the door and threw it wide, but when I did so, I couldn’t speak! No one couldhear me, and I had to wave my hands about and make a fuss before anyone noticed me. And when they did, the damned fools thought I’d gone mad. When they saw poor Hick lying there dead, they assumed I must have killed him myself, and they looked on meas a dangerous madman! I was going mad, to think that the killer had escaped and might even now be hiding about the place,so I tried to explain, and then tried to go to find him, but all I got was a poke in the ribs from some cretin with a staff, and then a crack on my head to keep me quiet. Then the bastards wanted toput me in the gaol! When my voice is back, I shall have words with that man. Bloody Elias!’