Michael Jecks - The Tolls of Death

He was looking very sad, though. Letitia began to wonder whether there wasn’t something more important at the heart of his strange behaviour. But for the life of her, she couldn’t think what it could be.

It was almost dark when Letitia heard her husband returning down the lane. He was declaiming loudly, as he sometimes would when he was particularly incensed by some petty or foolish action.

‘The fellow should be set in the stocks for all to throw their waste at. Fancy thinking he could get away with it!’ he was saying as Letitia opened the door for him. She gave him a perfunctory kiss on his cheek and took his jack from him, hanging it from a hook on the back of the door. Serlo she left to his own devices.

‘Alex, come to your chair, dear.’

‘In a moment, wife. My brother has much to tell me, apparently,’ Alex said, in that bluff, hearty way of his that Letitia liked so much. It was at once open and friendly, but simultaneously powerful — so masculine. ‘Serlo, sit and take some ale with me. You fetch it, while I kiss my wife. You know where it is.’

Serlo grunted, and Letitia thought, he ought to know — he’s guzzled enough of our best ales over the years. Just as he has eaten our best food. Always appearing whenever we’re sitting down to eat or drink, the foul, scrophulous chancre. Then he sits and dribbles, glopping his drink like a ploughman in an alehouse. It’s enough to make you want to throw up.

Alex knew her feelings only too clearly. He went to her and patted her hand, but in a way that showed he wasn’t best pleased with her.

‘Letty, he’s my brother.’

That was just what she needed to hear! ‘I think, husband dear, that I knew that already,’ she said with poisonous sweetness. ‘But I was hoping to be able to talk to you myself tonight. I didn’t realise that we were once more to be joint advisers to your brother.’

His smile was a little warmer than his pat. ‘Come on, now. He won’t be here for long. You know what he’s like. He gets a bee in his shirt and has to shake it loose. I’m the only man he can trust. It’s always been that way. Remember, he’s never known a mother. That sort of thing marks a man.’

‘Marks him enough to steal from you?’ she asked pointedly.

‘If he’s been making a little on the side — well, you can’t blame him,’ Alex said, but less forcefully.

‘He’s robbing you after all you’ve done for him!’ Letty hissed. ‘You heard what Richer said at the church just as I did.’

‘Richer’s always been an enemy to us.’

‘Maybe, but was he lying?’ Alex was so unlike his brother, Letitia thought gratefully. He had seen his father’s decline into poverty and ruin, and it was that which had spurred his own ambition. Alex had started with a cottage and a few chickens, but in four years he had developed his assets and now he had this house, a large share of the mill, three sheepfolds, and numerous other investments. He was the most important man for ten miles in any direction outside of Bodmin.

Serlo followed in his father’s footsteps. What he had, he risked in gambling; what he didn’t have, he tried to win by threats and cajoling. Sometimes he succeeded, because many people here had a nervous conviction that what Serlo wanted, Alex would get for him.

Letitia watched as her brother-in-law sat down on the bench in front of her husband’s chair. Alex sat easily, relaxed. This hall was a recent acquisition, but he wanted a home that suited his new status. The size of the place went to prove how important he was; the dimensions dwarfed the people inside. It was even larger than the hall in the castle. The buttery and pantry always contained food and drink for friends.

‘I’m sorry, Alex. I …’

Alex waved a hand. ‘Come on, Serl. What’s the matter this time? Is it that arse Richer again?’ he asked, leaning forward keenly. ‘If it is, I’ll deal with him.’

‘No. It’s just that bitch Athelina. I wish she’d killed herself out on the road and saved us all this trouble!’

Alex allowed a short frown to cross his face. Letitia knew he hated to hear women slighted.

‘You ought to show her a little more compassion, brother. She’s dead, isn’t she?’

‘Oh, stuff that. She was asking for it. Useless baggage. Never did a decent day’s work after her husband died, did she? No. As for those squalling brats … I’m not surprised she topped them first. I’d have done it for her if I’d had a chance.’

Alex sucked on his teeth. ‘What is the problem?’

‘You know how behind she was with her rent. I told her to get out if she couldn’t pay. Said she must find the money somehow or I’d break one of the boys’ legs.’

‘And? Is that all you said?’

‘She didn’t pay.’ Serlo shrugged.

Letitia watched him with a feeling of intense, sickening rage. She daren’t open her mouth in case she screamed abuse at him for using those words, those cruel, horrible, unrepeatable words. In that moment, she learned what true hatred was.

‘I’d have done it if she had the cash and was holding out on me, but since she hadn’t, what was the point?’ Serlo continued. ‘There wasn’t any way she could get that money together. She had nothing. I’d asked for it so we could empty the place and put someone in for more money, but now! Well, how in God’s name can we find new tenants when it’s crawling with guards and the castle’s men? And even then, it’ll take a load of money to get the stench of death from it. Who’s going to want to live in a place that smells of filth?’

‘Blood isn’t filth,’ Alex remonstrated quietly. Letitia thought he should have bellowed. When she looked at his still, inexpressive features, she saw that in his heart he had.

‘The blood of two bastards and their bitch of a mother is. She must have rutted like a stoat before her husband died. Probably wore him out — that’s why he had that fall.’

Letitia felt as though the air itself was starting to throttle her as Serlo continued his vile tirade. Her face was reddened in shame and self-disgust, she could feel it. It was almost as though her head could explode from the pressure of her humiliation.

Serlo must have known that she and Alex had been trying for a child all their married life, while he himself, who had been married only half as long, had already managed to produce two boys.

All those nights when she had sweatily and hopefully rutted with Alex, all those happy days when she thought her monthly time was going to be missed, and the despair when she had suddenly felt the menstrual ache grip her abdomen.

They had agreed now that they couldn’t continue like that. There was no point in worrying about children, not when every other aspect of their lives was so good. Their marriage was strong, much more so than those of many others, and Alex was growing ever more successful in his work, so there was no need to torture themselves any more. Better by far to enjoy the lives they had and hope that some day God would reward their patience. The barrenness could be caused by any number of problems and Alex, bless him, was as aware as Letitia herself that the culprit could be either of them. There were as many dogs who couldn’t father a litter, or bulls a calf, as there were barren bitches and cows.

Their lives had taken on a relaxed, even tenor since their agreement. They made love whenever they wanted now, rather than when Letitia thought it was most conducive. There was less straining, more loving. Alex was a kind lover, and Letitia had never doubted that he adored her. He often told her so.

And now here was his moronic brother throwing their failure in their faces like sand.

Serlo had no idea he was doing it. He couldn’t ever get beyond his own petty desires and fears. Those of other people were irrelevant to him. Letitia felt her anger rise, peak, and then begin to subside. It was as Alex had always said: his brother was spoiled, and Alex was largely at fault for that. When Serlo had made a mistake, he rarely had to own up. It was Alex who shouldered all the responsibility.