Michael Jecks - The Butcher of St Peter's

He had known from the beginning that his duty was to help as many men as possible to see that their route to personal salvation lay through the offices of the Dominicans. And to that end, he had sought out the rich and elderly without issue. Men with families would naturally wish to ensure that their children were not impoverished, but those with none … well, it made sense for them to look to the benefit of the Dominicans.

That was why John was the most efficient fundraiser in the priory. It was for that reason that Sir William de Hatherleigh was even now lying on a palliasse in a cell not far away. It was a measure of John’s skills at persuasion that Sir William was determined to remain here, not only now while he prepared for death, but later, when he was dead.

And this to John seemed an ideal situation. Sir William was one of the wealthiest men in the city. Holding his funeral and burying him here in the friary would produce welcome funds.

Of course there were obstacles: the ridiculous monopoly on burials which the cathedral insisted upon upholding, for example, but John was sure that there would be ways round that. After all, the Bishop would hardly want another fight with the Order. On the last occasion, it had taken Bishop Walter four or five years to calm the situation down again. John knew that. And he knew that this particular battle was one he could — he must — win.

He was looking forward to it with relish.

Daniel was exhausted that evening. The efforts of his day had included a sharp ride over to Bishop’s Clyst with two sergeants to try to help a posse catch two felons, the remainder of the morning in his chamber with two clerks trying to make sense of old records and attempting to twist them to the advantage of the city, and then another ride to the north, beyond the Duryard, to see whether he could use his good offices to mediate between two bickering landlords. He was back in time for a fight outside a tavern, and here his patience finally ran out.

It was old Ham atte Moor again. He’d drunk far too much as usual, and then started picking fights with everyone. Knocked down the innkeeper, then tried to do the same to the sergeants when they arrived. By the time Daniel got there, he’d managed to nick one of the officers with his knife, and there was a small but respectful crowd of men all about him, while women stood outside the ring, egging them on.

‘What’s going on here?’ Daniel demanded as he arrived on the scene.

It was the last thing he needed, truth be told. The events of the day had taken their toll, and now he was tired, desiring only a good pot of wine and some meats before going off to his bed. He had no wish to be stuck here soothing an old drunk who’d taken more than he should again.

‘This old fool wanted more to drink, but you know what he’s like,’ the innkeeper said, holding a damp cloth to his temple. ‘I told him to bugger off, and he clobbered me, the git. He’s never getting served in here again, that I’ll swear! I won’t have him in my hall again. If he tries it, I’ll have the sod served as he deserves!’

‘Shut up!’ Daniel snapped. ‘Ham, you finished? Because in God’s name, if you want more trouble, I’ll be happy to give it to you.’

Ham was wild-eyed at the best of times. He’d always liked his drink, but recently he’d taken to starting on strong ale in the morning and continuing with it all day. It was too easy for a man with little occupation. Ham was a freeman who had worked as ostler in an inn but he had been fortunate enough to be granted a sum of money on the death of his master a year ago. With no wife, for she’d died some while before, he had no one to spend his money on but himself, and for an old man with few friends or interests, that meant wine and ale. There was nothing else for him.

This was not the first fight Daniel had witnessed. Ham had been before the city’s courts often enough charged with breaking the King’s Peace, and Daniel himself had been responsible for bringing him in on several occasions. Usually, it was a case of the poor old fool getting too drunk to be able to conduct himself sensibly, for after all, most people quite liked him. He was an amiable old devil when sober. The trouble was, when he had too much to drink, he could become a monster.

‘Put it down, Ham,’ Daniel said now.

Ham swore something — his speech was too indistinct to be comprehensible now he was drunk; it was bad enough when he was sober since the day Peter of Ide had knocked out his front teeth a month and a half ago — and lunged. In his hand he had a long-bladed, single-edged knife, and it swept past Daniel’s belly alarmingly quickly.

All Daniel’s frustration erupted. He lifted his iron-shod staff and swung it heavily. It cracked across Ham’s forearm with a dry sound, like an ancient twig being snapped. Then, almost before he knew what he was doing, he had reversed the stave, and brought it back smartly. While Ham’s face fractured from evil aggression into alarm and agony the iron tip was hurtling back, and Daniel watched dispassionately, as though this was another man’s doing, as it crunched into Ham’s temple. He saw the eruption of blood, the eyeball leaping out of its socket, the snap of the head upon its neck, and the sudden tottering step to one side, as though Ham was considering jumping to safety a moment too late. His broken forearm flailed in the air, the wrist and lower part wild and disjointed, and then the man fell, his eyeball plopping onto his cheek a moment after his head hit the cobbled roadway.

That was when he started to scream, a shrill noise that spoke of excruciating pain and terror, like a horse with a broken leg.

And while Daniel stood panting, appalled at what he had done, he gradually grew aware of the people in the crowd drawing away from him, as men would from a felon caught in the act.

As he watched the sergeant walking to the crumpled figure, Reginald swallowed. He was not a strong man, and the sight made him compare himself again with the like of the sergeant. It was not a favourable comparison. Yet Jordan wanted him to kill the man, a man who could hit out like that, carelessly, mindlessly, as though a mere drunkard didn’t matter.

It made him wonder again about his companion. There was something uniquely terrifying about Jordan le Bolle. He was like that sergeant in many ways, not that Reg would ever dare say so. The two men detested each other with a loathing that was poisonous to both. Although both enjoyed the thrill of violence, the rush that wounding another man gave them, still there was a difference between them: Daniel had always seemed in control of his anger. The sight of the sergeant knocking down a defenceless old piss-head — he may have had a knife, but he was pretty incapable of using it against a man with a staff — was oddly shocking, as though the foundations of Exeter had actually shivered with the sudden eruption of blood from Ham’s head.

That sort of behaviour would have been far less surprising in Jordan. Jordan had learned his skills in the hard years of the famine. Back then, it was take what you could or die. If men stood up against Jordan, they died. He had a knack of leaping straight from joking banter into pure violence, wielding his long knife like a berserker of old. No one was safe when the red mist came down over him. There was something foul, repellent, in the way that he seemed to enjoy inflicting pain on those he caught. Towards others, he was a mixture of extreme contradictions. As a father, he was besotted, doting on his little ‘sweeting’, his Jane; as a husband he was moderately patient, but a brute when he felt his wife had upbraided or insulted him. Either was an offence punishable by a whipping or worse. Yet hearing of his latest lover was enough to send her into another man’s bed: Reg’s. Christ, what a sodding mess! How had he ever got into this?