Michael Jecks - The Malice of Unnatural Death

Exeter City

Ivo had no idea what he was about. The man stood a long while, considering the place, especially, apparently, the door itself. It was a firm enough barrier, made of good elm boards that had been nailed to two cross-pieces, the nail heads all on display. Suddenly he spun and faced him.

‘Master watchman, there is a man inside that house who is plotting the murder of the king and his advisers. You have a dutyto arrest him.’

‘What? Me? No, you have to tell the sheriff if there’s someone dangerous in there. He’s the man would have to look at writs and stuff. It’s not my place to knock the doors down,’ Ivo said. He wished he was back at home in his bed in the eaves. His job was watchingover his mother while she haggled over the cost of some trinket from a thief, not risking his life in an attack on a sorcerer.

‘Do you say so? Perhaps that would be adequate in normal times, but today we must hurry. There is no time to wait.’

‘Let’s get some help from the sheriff first. What’s the hurry?’

‘There is no time. The king’s life is in danger.’

He would have argued more, but at that moment he felt the little knife under his left shoulder blade. ‘Hey — you’ll have acut in my jack.’

‘I’ll cut more than your jack if you don’t hurry and knock on the fuckin’ door.’

Ivo hesitated, but then, as the knife dug deeper and he could feel his flesh opening, he walked forward and banged on thedoor.

There was the sound of feet hurrying, and then a shutter slid down in its runners. ‘Who are you, and what do you want?’

‘Open this door in the name of the king!’

Ivo heard the roar behind him, and turned to glance at the man. He seemed to have grown, and now his face displayed his angerfor all to see. Suddenly he shoved Ivo from him, snatching at his heavy staff as he did so and gripped the latch. The doorremained barred. He lifted the staff and used it to smash at the door, over by the hinges. He swung the staff again and again,the staff crashing hard into the timbers and sending clouds of dust rising. There was a creak and a crack, and the door began to move. Then, after yet another thunderousassault, the topmost board gave way. It remained in the door, pushed back a good two inches, but a final blow broke it away,and the next plank was taken. Once that too had fallen, the man reached in and pulled the bolts open, then hurtled inside.

Michael was at the far end of the screens passage gripping a sword and a knife, and now he bellowed his defiance and flewat them.

Ivo would have fled, but the man with him knew nothing about running. He waited, then used the staff in a quarter-staff grip,knocking the sword away, and coming back to thrust with it at Michael’s face. It connected, striking the man’s nose, mashingthe bone and slipping down to hit his mouth, striking all the front teeth from his jaw and carving a great gash in his upperlip and chin.

Screaming incoherently with pain, Michael clapped his hands over his mouth and fell to his knees.

‘Where is he? Here in the house? Where, man?’

He grabbed Michael’s shoulder and pulled him up, holding the knife to his chin and letting the older man see his eyes. ‘Youmay make the mistake of thinking I wouldn’t want to kill you — but look in my eyes, master. You’ll see that would be a foolishmistake. If you don’t tell me, I’ll kill you as easily as I would squash a beetle. Now: where is he? ’

Michael drew his hands away from his mouth and spat on the floor. There was a step behind him, and Ivo saw a woman appearfrom a doorway. She saw her master and shrieked, high and terrified. Michael seemed to take strength from her, and held hischin up defiantly.

‘Don’t kill him,’ Ivo said quickly. ‘He’s not …’

But the man had no intention of killing him. Not yet. He took Michael’s hand and put it flat on the wall, and then set the littleknife over his index finger. Michael made to snatch his hand away, but before he could, the knife pressed down, hard, andthere was a little crunching sound. Held by a tendon, the finger flapped and jerked as Michael pulled his hand free, a muffledscream bursting from him because he was too shocked to even open his mouth properly.

‘You want to lose another? My friend James lost two, didn’t he? But I expect you think you’re stronger, eh?’

Michael was shaking his head, and now he spoke, ‘No, no, please, no more …’

‘You showed no pity to my friend, did you?’

As Michael tried to fight, his hand was taken again. A snatch and a tug, and the finger flew off. Ivo could not help but watchit as it bounced on a wall, to come to rest on the ground near the servant’s feet. She rolled her eyes skywards and slowlycollapsed. When Ivo looked back, Michael was pulling his hand away. There was a short punch from a fist, and Michael’s headsnapped back. He began to fall, but his hand was held up again, rested on the wall again, and the little knife pressed downonce more. There was a ‘click’ this time as the blade passed through the finger and struck the stone.

Michael’s body tensed with the pain and horror. He watched as his finger, still twitching, was lifted before him. The mantapped it against his mouth as though tempting him to eat it, and then at last Michael spewed, retching violently.

‘Where is he, Michael?’

‘In the back. The barn. He’s there.’

Wasting no more time on more words, the man took the staff and ran along the passage, then out to the garden beyond. Ivo gathered his thoughts and followed him.

The garden was a small affair, with four little vegetable patches set apart with decorative woven hurdles to raise them. Fartherbeyond was an orchard. Nearer, though, stood a small thatched barn. The man ran to it, grabbing the door and throwing it wide. With his staff held high, he entered, and then Ivo heard him curse viciously and long.

‘He’s not fucking here ! We missed him!’

Jen walked with her hood over her head all the way up the little lanes and streets to the castle’s main gate. She was wearinga thick, rather smelly old cloak of Will’s, and with her head under the hood she was unrecognisable, she felt sure. Will spokea little as they walked, all inconsequential stuff.

‘I had a little girl. She’d have been quite like you by now, I suppose. About your age, too. Her name was Joan. Lovely thing,she was.’

Jen said nothing, but her silence seemed not to offend him. Rather, he appeared to like it. She did not realise that his friendat the bishop’s palace gate had asked him to look in the loft for her. There was no need to mention her ordeal of last nighthe reasoned.

‘She was always into things. That was why I looked in the hayloft just now, you see. Joan once climbed into a loft like thatone, and the door slipped when she was inside, and if my neighbour hadn’t heard her shouting, she might have been left upthere until the next need for hay. So, when I saw that the door on that loft was shut when usually it’s left open, I justthought, maybe some little girl has fallen inside. But there was no need to worry about that, was there?’

They were passing the ruins of an old house, and Jen heard him sigh and sniff a little. ‘There. That was where she died. Her and her brother and sister. We had a fire one night. Everyone said it was an accident … You never stop loving them, you know. Your own children. Never stop loving and missingthem, when they die. Doesn’t seem natural, your children dying before you. No. Not at all.’

She had nothing to say, but as they carried on up the alleyway, she squeezed his upper arm. He patted her hand. ‘There, itwas a long time ago now. Who knows but that they would have died in the famine, anyway? So many other little ones did. Doyou remember that? Of course you do. You’d have been eight or nine by then.’