Michael Jecks - The Malice of Unnatural Death

‘I should be at home with Meg,’ he grumbled to himself, feeling how the cold air was tightening the skin on the backs of hishands.

Rather than re-enter the shelter, he decided to warm himself up again. The pile of logs remained near the fire, and it took only a little shaking of it to clear away the snow. Then he spent a little time setting thin twigs on top of the embers, blowing determinedly to reignite the flames. Soon, mercifully,he had a few flickers, and he could set larger twigs about the pile. Only then did he sit back and hold his hands to it, feelingthat the fire was doing him some good.

‘May I join you?’

He groaned inwardly, but grunted a more or less polite acknowledgement to the monk.

‘This weather! You know, I had a friend in Tavistock some years ago, and he was removed to be sent to a monastery in Italy. Have you ever been there?’

‘No.’ Rather than sound entirely bound to this land, he added defensively, ‘But I’ve been to Galicia.’

‘Compostela? I am jealous. I always intended to go there, but I doubt I shall make it now. I am growing a little long in thetooth to make such a pilgrimage. What tempted you to go so far?’

‘It was a while ago,’ Simon said. He could not explain that it all stemmed from a friend’s accidental homicide of an innocentman.

‘I see. Well, my friend will be sitting back in a pleasantly warm room, I am told. No matter what the season, the weatheris always more clement than ours. Ah! But I am fortunate to be here in the land I love. Although the moors are daunting, doyou not feel?’

Simon glanced over through the trees at the hills beyond. ‘Daunting, you say? I suppose so. They are certainly dangerous forthose who don’t appreciate the risks.’

On the cool air, there came a weird, shuddering cry. It wavered on the air like a sob, and then died.

‘What, in God’s holy name?’

‘Sit down again, brother. It is a horse. You can often hear them at this time of year. They wander the moors, and every sooften they’ll go into a mire and drown.’

The cry came again, a long drawn out wail of terror and misery.

‘Are you sure? That sounds human!’

‘It’s a horse.’

‘Christ have mercy!’ Busse sat quietly, his eyes moving swiftly about the moors in front of them, hands clenched before him.

‘At least you’re used to being up at this time of night,’ Simon muttered. ‘I’m normally long asleep by now, and it’d takemore than a horse to wake me.’

‘Well, yes, I suppose so. But a sound like that … it reminds me …’

Simon heard a note of uncertainty in his voice. He glanced at the monk. In the firelight, Busse looked wide-eyed and terrified,like a man who was listening at the brink of hell itself.

‘I was talking to a necromancer not long ago. He was an interesting man, in many ways. And pious. He believed that in orderto compel a demon to do his bidding, he must make full use of the irresistible power of certain divine words. He would fast,too, and prepare himself with a long period of chastity and prayer before embarking on such a perilous act.’

‘You spoke to him?’ Simon asked, shocked.

‘Of course, Bailiff. If I, as a monk, am to pray for those whose souls most need God’s help, it is best to understand them. That was my first feeling. And then I realised that this man was a great proof of the strength of God’s power. After all, even a man who wished to make use of a demon must needs firstshow his devotion to God.’

‘It hardly sounds the sort of behaviour God would support,’ Simon said. His was a simple faith: God was good, and all demonswere evil and to be shunned.

Busse appeared not to hear him. ‘It was that poor creature’s cry that reminded me of him. He told me, you see, that therewas a magician called Philip about sixty years ago, who was challenged by a knight to show what he was capable of. He tookthe knight to a crossroads in the middle of the night — I believe that mid-night is supposed to be propitious for those involvedin such works — and there the knight endured what he had never before dreamed of. The man Philip made a circle in the dirt,and warned the knight that if so much as a digit of his finger were to stray outside the circle, he would inevitably be drawnout and pulled apart.

‘He sat in this circle for some while, and then he heard voices approaching. They were obscene voices, shrieks, squawks, allmanner of foul bestial cries. And then they reached him, and he found himself surrounded by the full evil of Satan’s hordes. Demonic creatures of all kinds. At last a massive, foul demon appeared, so repellent and terrifying that the knight fell onhis face in a dead faint.’

‘Did he recover?’

‘I suppose so. I didn’t ask. But that sound reminds me of the tale.’

Simon pulled a face as he listened to another cry. ‘It won’t be there for long. Soon drown now. He’s too tired to survive.’

‘Doesn’t it scare you too?’

Shaking his head, Simon threw a few more twigs onto the fire. ‘When I was a lad, I heard that sound, and I was petrified. I’d beentold stories of the wild hunt when I was little, by my nurse. She always told me that if I didn’t eat my food, or if I didn’tgo to bed when she said, or some other little thing, then the devil would surely come and get me. The wish-hounds would appearfirst, riding over the moors, and then the devil would ride up on his fire-breathing horse, and catch me, and I’d be takenaway to hell with them. But I’d never seen the devil down here.’

‘I wish you hadn’t told me that,’ Busse said.

‘You must have heard the stories about the moors,’ Simon said. ‘You’ve lived here long enough.’

‘I think that many of the tales are told to children who are raised here, but the same stories are not thought suitable fora middle-aged monk like me. Too racy, I dare say.’

‘Not even the stories of the pixies?’

‘Enough! I think you are taunting me intentionally. Perhaps I should go and rest again.’

‘You should. We travelled far yesterday, and tomorrow we’ll still have another seven or eight leagues or so to get to Exeter.’

‘I don’t think I could sleep just now,’ Busse said. ‘The cold, and that screaming, would stop me. And, of course, I am usedto being awake at this time of night. This is my usual waking hour for Matins. To think that all my brothers are even nowleaving their cots and making their way to the church … It is a beautiful service, Bailiff, when all the voices lift inpraise of the Lord.’

Simon nodded, studying the monk from the corner of his eye. It seemed so peculiar to be talking so normally to this man, whohad admitted to consorting with demon-conjurors and magicians. For anyone the association was curious, but for a man of God to confess to such behaviour was bizarre.

The two men stayed together for a little longer, quiet for the most part, simply sharing in the atavistic pleasure of holdingtheir hands to the fire, and then, as Simon yawned and stretched, Busse declared himself tired once more. Simon wished hima good night, and his eyes followed the monk as he crawled backwards into the shelter.

Yes. Busse was an odd character, certainly. And yet likeable in some strange way. Not that it mattered to Simon a jot. Asfar as he was concerned, the only thing that mattered was looking after the man on the way to Exeter, and then back to Tavistockagain. And he preferred not to think about the references to demon-conjurings or knights sitting inside small circles…

It was only as Simon considered that tale again that he wondered whether Busse was giving him some kind of warning. Perhapshe was telling Simon that if he intended to spy on him for John de Courtenay, he should be careful. Busse could have a manset a demon onto Simon himself.