Michael Jecks - The Malice of Unnatural Death

‘Well done, Sir Baldwin. Where are the other dolls, though?’

Baldwin reached round the stone and gripped John’s tunic. Pulling hard, he half pulled, half lifted the older man back tothe more solid base of the cathedral wall. ‘Where are they, John? You are John of Nottingham?’

‘Yes. I am John, but I see no reason to help you. The others will be destroyed in time. You cannot stop me and my friends.’

‘Why?’

‘Why do you think! Because of the injustice daily perpetrated by those miserable bastards. The king was a supposititious child. You only have to look at his unnatural activities to see that! Look at his lovers. Forsaking his own wife he consorts withhedgers and ditchers, dancers and play-actors! And then he gives up the riches of this sovereign realm to his advisers the Despensers, and richly rewards the thieves. And asks your Bishop Stapledon to spy on the queen. Did you know that?’

‘Enough! Come on, you’re coming down with us. You have many questions to answer,’ Baldwin said.

‘Oh, yes.’ John stared at him, a thin, gaunt man with a face like a skull. Baldwin could feel the strength of the man’s intelligenceas he met that firm gaze. It was almost as though John was trying to work upon Baldwin silently, by the power of his thoughts. It was alarming to see how he strained,as though by the mere exercise of will he could force Baldwin to change his mind and release him. A vein throbbed in his temple,and he brought his head down slightly, as though to add to the intensity of his stare.

It made Baldwin smile to see it. ‘You may as well relax your overworked features, John. I do not succumb to witchcraft.’

They reached the ladder in short order, and Simon, knowing how Baldwin felt about heights, volunteered to climb down it first. He went, and when he was almost at the bottom, Baldwin and Ivo pushed the sorcerer towards it, Baldwin sheathing his swordready for his own descent.

Suddenly John spun round, his fist catching Ivo full in the face. The watchman fell back, and would have toppled over theedge but for the attention of Robinet, who caught him and whirled him round, using his weight to pull him back towards thesafety of the wall. Baldwin saw it, and his hand was on his sword-handle, but before he could reach it he felt something whipround his neck. It was a fine cord or thong, and on one end was fixed a small lead weight, so that it encircled his throat. Immediately John grabbed the second end and started to pull tight, strangling Baldwin.

If he had done that from behind, Baldwin would have been fearful for his life, but as it was, he took hold of John’s handsand forced the older man to loosen his grip. Crossing John’s wrists, he lifted them until the cord was over his head. ‘It’stoo late for that.’

John responded by dropping the thong and grabbing at Baldwin’s belt. The old man was astonishingly powerful for one so frail and thin, and he wrestled Baldwin towards the edge of the wall.

‘ Baldwin! ’ he heard Simon shout, but he had his mind on other things. He threw himself bodily backwards to the wall, striking his headon a stone, and suddenly he felt a great lassitude overwhelming him. There was a roaring in his ears, and his head was swollen,so he thought, to double or more its usual size. He was aware of being dragged a little, and then he realised that John hadthrown himself over the edge of the wall, and his weight was pulling Baldwin towards the abyss.

‘No!’ he roared, scrabbling with his feet for any purchase, but they were already over the edge. There was nothing for themto grip. His hands were scratched as he tried to cling to the bare rocks, but the new dressing was so precise that he couldgain no hold. Inexorably he felt himself sliding towards the edge and certain death on the floor below.

And then he saw Robinet at his side. Robinet drew Baldwin’s sword and hacked down. There was a short scream, and Baldwin glanceddown to see the bloody stump of John’s left forearm waving, blood flicking in an obscene fountain. Still clinging to Baldwin’sbelt with his right hand, John stared up, and saw Robinet. ‘Tell Matthew I shall see him with you in hell!’

The sword flashed down again. There was a spurt of blood that sprayed up and over Baldwin’s face, then a hideous, damp sound.

The Bishop’s Palace

The bishop felt his headache begin to reduce as he sipped his wine. ‘It was most peculiar,’ he admitted.

Baldwin could say nothing to that. He was still only too aware of the great height from which he had nearly fallen. When hehad reached the ground eventually, which had taken him some time, the ladder did bounce so, he had been confronted with thebody of John of Nottingham, a tortured figure, oddly shrunken. At first Baldwin thought it was his headache and the sensationof sickness. Only later did he see that the man’s leg bones had been thrust upward until they protruded from his torso, soimmense had been the violence of his fall. It was Ivo who pulled the two hands from Baldwin’s belt and threw them after theirowner. Now the groin of his tunic was damp from the spurting blood as they had parted from John’s body.

‘Are you quite well, Baldwin?’ Simon asked kindly.

‘Yes, old friend. I am well enough.’

They were all in the bishop’s hall: Baldwin and Simon, the coroner, and Baldwin’s saviour. Baldwin had also asked Langatreto come to speak to them.

‘So can you tell me what this was actually all about?’ Bishop Stapledon asked.

‘I think that it is quite clear,’ Baldwin said. ‘We know already that there was the assassination attempt in Coventry, when this John of Nottingham tried to make seven wax figures with a view to killing a number of men — among them the king, the Abbotof Coventry, a man called de Sowe and others. He succeeded in one killing, but then his assistant caught a fit of fear, andreported the matter to the sheriff. The sheriff tried to catch all those accused, but there were twenty-seven of them, andperhaps one escaped. John. He gradually made his way here, and found himself refuge in the city, where he managed to finda man who was inclined to help him. This Michael. Perhaps he knew what John intended, but it is possible he did not. Although I can quite see that it would look curious to any man to see how people died when John was near, it is possible that Johnhad a control over Michael’s mind. He was very strong-willed.’

‘You mean that he did have some powers over others?’

‘He tried it on me. At the time I thought he was trying to force me to release him so he could escape, but maybe I was wrong. It is possible he was bending me to his will without my knowledge, and that I was the unwitting associate in his last plot- to kill me as well as himself. If he had succeeded, he might have killed Simon too.’

‘Why did he kill the messenger and take the message?’

Baldwin made a vague gesture with his hand. He still felt enormously weak after the near-death on the wall. Answering whatseemed to him to be fatuous questions was hardly relaxing. ‘He saw the messenger, and he recognised him, I expect. You yourselftold us, I think, that the messenger had brought news of the attempt in Coventry. It is quite possible that in a city thesize of Coventry a messenger would be a not common sight. Perhaps John saw James there, then saw him here, and feared that he was about to be arrested again. He killed the messenger to empty his purse, found the note fromyou and kept it.’

‘Why?’

‘I think Master Langatre is in a better position to answer than I.’

‘Most magic, Bishop, relies on the use of God’s own power and authority, as you know. But when there is some evil to be done,a magician would need more. He would need to have some tokens to give added force to his work. For him to harm you, he wouldhave had to have taken some part of you — parings from your nails, perhaps, or some hair. Or, so I would think, an exampleof your writing on parchment. Such as your writing on the note in the messenger’s purse.’