Michael Jecks - The Malice of Unnatural Death

There was a stall to her side. It was a butcher’s from the shambles opposite, and she acted almost without conscious thought. A foot lashed out and the trestle holding up the table on which the wares were displayed collapsed. Amid the shrieks of ragefrom within the shop, Jen hurried along the street to the opposite corner and darted over the main intersection, thence upand along the High Street.

She had only the one thought: she must reach her lover before anyone else could get to him and lie about what had happened.

The man was inconsolable, and it was some while before Simon and Baldwin could persuade him to stand, leave the body on thefloor, and go with them up the stairs.

People outside had heard the unearthly shriek and wailing of despair as Robinet caught sight of his old companion, and theystood blocking the way as the men left the undercroft. It took some curses and the threat of Baldwin’s sword before they weregiven a free passage. In preference to the street, Baldwin crossed the way, grabbed Langatre’s arm and hissed urgently, ‘Upto your rooms now, and bring the sheriff’s wife with you. Don’t argue, just do it!’

In a short while they were inside the room and Langatre was fussing about heating water over his brazier for some concoctionfor the lady, while Baldwin secretly wished he had a good quarter-pint of burned wine instead. In his experience that colourlessdistillation was a supreme cure for almost all ills and panics.

‘This maid, my lady,’ he ventured at last, when Lady Alice was seated more or less comfortably on a chair, ‘is she a localgirl from the city?’

‘No … I think she came from north of here … Thorverton, perhaps, or Silverton. I had no reason to question her onit. Master Langatre — could you permit me a little of your wine?’ With her hand she pointed to a small dresser. Langatre noddedand opened a curtain. Behind it was a quartet of pewter goblets and a jug. He poured a measure and passed it to her.

‘Of course not.’ Baldwin smiled reassuringly, thinking that he knew the names of all his serfs, their parents and their offspring,let alone which homestead they had sprung from. ‘Has she shown such violence before?’

‘Never. I would not have allowed her into my house if she had.’

‘You have no children, though. That at least is a mercy.’

‘A mercy?’ Lady Alice snapped.

‘I meant only that she could not have harmed a child, since there were none there,’ Baldwin said, but now he eyed her moreclosely. A woman with no children would often be sharp on the subject, as he knew only too well. His own wife had been accusedof barrenness by her first husband, and he had made her life miserable, refusing to accept any blame for her inability toconceive. Although he had reasons to dislike the sheriff and mistrust him, Baldwin was a rational and fair man. The fellowwas no bully to his own wife, he felt sure. No, any pressure this woman felt was more than likely self-inflicted.

And yet … many a man had unknowingly put his wife under strain. Women could attach significance to the least matter, and then live in despair while refusing to explain what it was that made them upset.

‘My lady, what was it that made you consult this magician?’

‘I? What makes you …’

‘It is clear that you know each other, and you are familiar with his room here. You even knew where he might keep a jug ofwine, lady. I am sure that your reason for coming to such a place as this is honourable, and I suspect it must be a naturalwoman’s concern. Am I right?’

She shot an accusing look at Langatre, as though she expected him to confess to betrayal, and then eyed Baldwin more haughtily.‘What of it? I admit nothing, but yes, I know this man and his rooms.’

‘I ask again: why? You have to understand that at the moment there is a murderer, a most ruthless murderer, loose in the city. He has killed a king’s messenger, the man who lies in the undercroft below, and possibly another, not to mention strikingdown this magician’s servant and trying to kill the magician himself. His throat still bears the mark.’

She could not help but look up at that. Langatre’s throat was visible above his tunic as she glanced at him, and she couldsee the mark about his neck, a dark bruising that encircled it like a necklace. Except here there were bruises at the fronttoo, where his fingers had scrabbled for purchase on the cord. She met his look and let her eyes slide away. ‘I know nothingof this.’

‘Really? The man who was living downstairs was a magician too, by repute. Did you know that? He left the tools and trinketsof his trade, which makes me wonder what he was doing down there.’

‘I know nothing of this.’

‘One thing was not found. Did you know who the first victim was in this miserable little charade? A mere carver of bones andantlers.’

‘I know nothing of him,’ she exclaimed in astonishment. ‘Sir knight, I do not understand what you are trying to suggest! But I am a woman, and if you have an accusation to make, you should speak to my husband, and not badger me without his being hereto defend me. This is unseemly.’

‘No. Dead bodies are unseemly,’ Baldwin said heavily. ‘The murder of innocents is unseemly. Questioning a woman who may beable to help resolve some of these issues is not unseemly. It is sensible.’

‘Except I know nothing about any of this. I have enough other affairs to concern me, Keeper.’

‘Did your husband know you were consulting this fellow?’

Her face told him all he needed to know. This, then, was another complication, Baldwin told himself.

The Palace Gate

It had taken him some effort, keeping up with the old bastard, but Rob was nothing if not persistent. A lad growing in a townlike Dartmouth could be rewarded for being persistent. Standing out of reach of a sailor and watching a ship could show alad when to slip up to the dock and casually slide a hand into a bale of goods to retrieve some little item of value. Yes. A lad with determination and grit could get far.

Today it had brought him right back to the bishop’s palace, though. No further. He’d seen Simon and Baldwin walking away with Robinet, but he reckoned his place was still following Busse. Simon had promised him a penny a day for performing that duty,and that was worth a bit, that was. With any luck, he’d soon get a whole shilling if Busse kept on wandering about, because Rob was competent at merrills and other games of skill or chance. There were few lads of his age who were more capable ofpalming a die when necessary.

There was no telling what the monk was doing in the bishop’s palace. It was plain enough even to Rob that the man had receiveda severe shock when he hurried from the house where the body was discovered in the undercroft. Anyone would have thought hehad never seen a dead man before, the way he darted up the stairs after finding him with that man Langatre, and then stoodabout like a whore in a church, gaping with a daft expression on his face as men eyed him up and wondered whether he was mador murderer.

Rob didn’t much care which he was. So far as he was concerned, the man was a source of money, and that was all. He hadn’tgot to know him on the way here, other than to be insulted by his reference to the ‘boy’, and that had not endeared him to Rob in any way.

There was a noise from a little shed near the gate to the bishop’s palace, and when Rob went and peered inside, he saw a groupof lads, all a little older than him, standing about an upturned barrel, playing some game or other. It made him grit histeeth. He had two pennies already saved in his purse, and with them he felt sure he could fleece these fools and make hisfortune.