Michael Jecks - The Malice of Unnatural Death

‘No. I only want to try to help this man. He is paying well.’

‘The sheriff may pay well too, to have us all in his gaol nice and safe. Don’t think I want to go there, though. Perhaps you should be made an example, eh? We haven’t had a fresh boy down here for a long time. Maybe you’d like to be beddedby us all, eh?’

Art felt a sweat of ice break out all over his body. The idea of being raped by this motley gang was enough to make his stomachturn over in his belly, and he shivered with a sudden paroxysm of terror. He wished now he’d not taken the man’s money again.‘No, look, let me go and I’ll just be away. I only said I’d try to learn if I could, that’s all.’

‘I don’t think you should try to go in such a hurry,’ Hob said, and he smiled. Somehow that was more petrifying than his words.

Hands grabbed him. Art felt them on his arms, rough, calloused hands on his wrists and elbows; a foot kicked his legs away,and he was on his back suspended by his arms. Someone was giggling, pulling at the cords of his tunic, pulling down his hosen,yanking at his underclothes, and he was struggling, crying, shouting, and then he was on the floor, dropped, thud, just likethat, and gasping. He drew up his hosen quickly, while all the men had their attention elsewhere. And then he heard the voice.

‘Leave him, I said. Anyone who touches him is picking a fight with me. And you don’t want that.’

Art could see Hob above him. He was peering over towards the doorway, fingering the knife that dangled by a thong from histhroat, and then he hawked and spat, and at the same time his hand took hold of his knife and he started to walk.

Hob had a lumbering walk, but for all that he covered the ground quickly when he wanted to, and now he wanted to. Art sawhim move off and accelerate fast, and as he drew nearer to the door he started to bellow like a bull, and then he slashed with his hand.

There was a spray of blood, a roaring, and Art saw Hob spin, then crash sideways into a wall. His hands were at his face,and the blood was pumping in a fine mist from a gash in his temple, and Art suddenly realised that he had been hit in hisremaining eye. He was blind.

‘Any others want to try themselves against me?’

Art could hear the poison in that voice. It was the sound of a man who hated himself. He could ravage and kill, but he loathedit. And now he was Art’s sole friend. Art could no more leave him than fly. He closed his eyes, expecting a knife in his sideat any moment, maybe a kick in his kidneys, but nothing happened. When he opened them again, he saw that the men about himhad gone. They were over near the barrels, muttering to each other as they refilled their cups, ignoring Art and his companion.

‘Are you all right, boy? Then get up.’

Art obeyed him, staring at Hob with fearful fascination. Hob was hunched over on the floor, his head down, and Art could hearhis snuffling as he wept. Then he looked up.

‘Kill him! You going to let him do this? Kill the son of a Winchester whore! He’s blinded me!’

None of the men moved. And now Art felt the man beside him start to twist his head, revolving his skull on his neck. ‘I wantto know. Who saw him. Who knows anything. I want to know where this necromancer has gone.’

‘Kill him! You can take him, there’re seven of you! Kill him, but do it slowly! Come on, where are you all? Are you women? He’s one man!’

Art felt his eyes filling up. It wasn’t the shabby figure on the floor there, it was the thought that if this man hadn’t been here, he would have been spread over a table by now, with all these men covering him … he would have been killedtonight, and if he hadn’t, he would have wanted to take his own life. The revulsion at what Hob had tried to do ate at hissoul. He detested the old man, and he wanted to kick Hob into a pulp. He wanted to stab at him again and again … but justnow all he could taste was a foul nausea in his mouth. He wanted to spew.

‘I want him. One of you must know where he is.’

He stood at Art’s side on feet lying flat on the ground, slightly apart, his arms at his sides as though resting, the littleblade showing from his right hand, apparently gripped lightly, not tightly as Art would have imagined, but more as an artistwould hold his reed.

‘No one wants to help me?’

Suddenly all was silent in the room. Hob was still, listening with a pained expression on his face. Art noticed that he couldactually hear the men breathing. Not himself, and not the man at his side, but he could hear all the others, the stertorousnoise of Hob, the rasping, higher-pitched sound of the alehouse-keeper’s son, the low, guttural tone of an older draw-latchin the corner … and then the man moved again.

He reached out and took a man’s hand in his own, then pulled. The man fell off-balance, and as he fell the man took a gripunder his chin and set the knife against his neck.

Instantly the men all spun around, two with knives already in their fists.

‘Do nothing or he will die.’

‘You can’t make it to the door without us getting you. I think we ought to teach you about coming into our little house. Weought to …’

‘Shut up, Saul, he’s sticking it in! Jesus save me!’

‘If you try to rush me, he dies. If you try to throw something, he dies. If you try anything, he will die. Is that clear?’

Art wondered whether any of the men would be concerned to see the man die, but they seemed to be unwilling to risk his life. All stood and stared as Art and the man slowly made their way backwards towards the door.

‘I want to hear who. I want to know where he is.’

And at last a man spoke.

Maurice stood in the dark and stared back at the little hay loft where he’d locked the girl. There was no sound from it, andhe wondered whether she had even realised that she’d been trapped.

She couldn’t be left in there to die. He could not do that. Better to go to her and slay her humanely than to leave her tosuccumb to hunger or thirst. The idea of killing her was appalling, but little worse than the idea of letting her loose andseeing her kill his sister. That too was unconscionable.

He cursed, swearing at his miserable fortune. If it were not for the depredations of the foul Despenser clan, the fecklessnessof the king and his own misfortune, he would be able to march to the sheriff or a city bailiff and tell of this chit’s crime. Then the responsibility for her punishment would be someone else’s. Although that would merely pass on the accountability. What he would prefer would be to give the child some chance of protection. Not now, though. In his outlaw state, that wasimpossible.

Unless there was someone who could mediate for the girl. That set his mind racing, and soon he was setting off towards thecathedral’s close. At the entrance to the gate, he saw a rather pale-looking man in clerical clothing, and walked to him. ‘Father?’

Busse was startled, and caught his breath as the stranger approached. Sighing, he closed his eyes a moment. This was one ofthe worst days of his life, he thought. The discovery of that body in Langatre’s undercroft, the realisation that he was asuspect when the folk from the street crowded round him … it was a day he would prefer to forget, and that as soon aspossible.

‘Yes,’ he answered testily. ‘I am on my way to see my lord bishop. Please be quick.’

‘I saw a woman enter a hayloft down this lane, Father,’ Maurice said. ‘It’s just down here, on the right as you go towardsthe South Gate. Above a stable with a broken door in a cobbled yard. The latch fell and locked her inside.’

‘What of it?’ Busse said, but even as he turned back from staring down the lane in the direction indicated, Maurice was gone.‘Where is he?’ he demanded pitifully. ‘What can I do about this?’