Michael Jecks - The Butcher of St Peter's

He had no faith. Not now. His shoulder was as well healed as it ever would be, but the pain was something he had to cope with every day of his life. There was no escape for him. Just as there was none for Estmund. Est had lost his family, and trying to help him had cost Henry his livelihood and future, thanks to the shit Daniel, the man who’d nearly killed him and ruined his body.

Henry looked over at the sergeant.

Daniel stood leaning heavily on his staff like a man weary almost to death. To Henry’s mind he looked like someone who had slept only fitfully for many days. His eyes flitted from one face to another almost fearfully, and Henry suddenly had a sense of what the man’s life must be like: scared at all times in case a felon saw him as his natural prey and chose to attack him for no apparent reason. Constantly anxious, sleeping lightly so as to spring awake at the slightest disturbance. And now he had slaughtered poor Ham, and many here would not forget or forgive that. One lapse of temper had cost Daniel the trust of the people he was supposed to depend on for his authority.

Yes, he was scared. He started at every sound … soon he must go mad if he was going to continue like this.

So much the better. The bastard deserved death.

Hiding under her blanket, Cecily told herself she had never been scared by the man. Not really. And of course now, with that new board covering the old hole and splinter in the shutter, there was nothing to fear anyway. She was safe enough, and no need to be scared, not of the man, nor of dreams. They wouldn’t hurt her. No, Mother had said she wouldn’t have those dreams again.

The weather was changing again, and she felt the chill at her fingertips and toes. Seeking some comfort, she rolled over and cuddled Arthur. There was a muffled squeak from him when he felt her frozen hands, her cold knees, but he was too deeply asleep to complain loudly. He pushed at her half-heartedly, muttered a little in his sleep, but then simply moved away from her, leaving a warm cocoon where he had lain. Gratefully she snuggled into the conquered territory and closed her eyes again. Sleep soon took her.

When the sound came, she snapped awake in an instant, but was too anxious to turn and see what had made the noise, a strange scraping that seemed to come from the window. Now it was silent, and she was about to persuade herself that she had imagined it when she heard something again. This time it was a quiet slithering, a faint, ever so quiet squeak, like polished metal slipping against a smooth piece of burnished timber, and then there was a rough scraping like a blade rubbing on wood.

She felt the hair start to rise on her neck. Dread filled her heart and she wanted to scream until her father came to rescue her, but she remembered clearly how he had thrashed her the last time she woke him by playing in the chamber when he was trying to sleep. Even a ghost wouldn’t make her disturb him unnecessarily.

A rattle and a thud, and she slowly turned her head, feeling the flesh of her scalp start to move. The peg that stopped the bar had been pushed out again, and now she could see the wooden bar lift from its brackets.

Her breath was uncontrollable. Her ribs spasmed painfully and she found she was panting with terror, moving away from the window in the bed. She wanted to cover her head and face with the blankets and skins, but dared not. Petrified, she was too frightened to avert her gaze, torn between the horror of seeing what might enter and the equal dread of hiding and not seeing it.

The hinges squeaked as the shutter was pulled open, and she saw, or thought she saw, a dark figure in the opening. A man’s body clad in a black robe with a cowl over the head, the face hidden. He seemed to stare in, and then a leg appeared and was thrust inside.

She was close to being sick. Her stomach was rebelling against the tension, and she felt sure that she must dirty herself like a baby when she saw him take hold of the sill and enter fully. He stood there a moment as though listening, and then he started to walk towards her and Arthur.

It was too much. She gave a short cry of panic and hurled herself from the bed, ripping the coverings from it. Arthur was startled awake and gave a shrill scream even as Cecily tripped on a blanket and fell headlong. There was a clatter as her head knocked an iron candle-holder against a table, the candle rolling over the table top, the metal stand striking a pewter plate, which rang with a shivering rattle as it rolled across the floor.

There was a roar, a harsh, unintelligible bellow, and the clumping of heavy feet. Cecily looked up to see her father and the hooded man grappling. There was a blow, a shriek, and she saw her father’s face twisted and distorted with horror and agony just before he collapsed, and then her mother grabbed her and mercifully covered her eyes as the tide of blood crept over his shirt, his eyes still staring accusingly towards his killer as the stranger fled through the window.

There was that snuffling again, and if Jeanne had heard that every night for the last few years she would be out of her mind by now. As things were, she listened to it sympathetically and even with some thankfulness.

Edgar had been guarding his master from a murderous attack when he was knocked down. This snuffling was the result. Jeanne only hoped that whatever was causing it would eventually right itself, because if she knew Edgar’s wife Petronilla, he would not be forgiven for keeping her awake at night.

The main thing was that both these men, one whom she regarded with the single-minded adoration of a girl for a first lover, the other with the respect of a mistress for an entirely faithful servant who would die in order to protect his master and herself, were alive and safe, although Baldwin was not quite out of the woods yet. His physician, Ralph of Malmesbury, an insufferably arrogant man with the manners of a prince who knew his own importance, had drawn Jeanne aside only four days ago to tell her to watch her man carefully.

‘If he begins to find himself breathless, or his colour changes, let me know, madam. And if his humours appear disordered, send for me.’

She knew what that meant, of course. The well-being of a man’s body depended upon maintaining the correct balance of the natural humours. Baldwin had always been somewhat sanguine, and she had more than once been a little anxious at the sight of his reddened complexion after he had taken exercise. Even more concerning was his occasional lapse into a phlegmatic disposition, such as when he had to spend too much time at one of the many courts at which he sat in justice; at such times his manner became desperately indolent. He would drink more than usual and eat more, and his belly would begin to grow until he had a paunch.

If anything, he was looking quite phlegmatic just now, she felt. While Edgar snored quietly on his palliasse on the floor by their door, Jeanne eyed her husband.

He lay on his back with his face to the ceiling, his expression, even in sleep, fixed into that intense glower which she recognized so well. The first time she had seen that look she had thought that it denoted either doubt or disapproval, but more recently she’d realized that it was a sign of his confusion about the world. He had many secrets … she knew a few of them, but she knew also that there were large parts of his life about which she might never learn. It didn’t concern her. Provided he continued to love her, that was all that mattered. She could still recall her desperation only a short while ago when she had thought that she had lost his love. That had hurt her more than she had thought possible. It was appalling to think that her man could have grown like her first husband, the unlamented Ralph de Liddinstone.