Michael Jecks - The Tolls of Death

She looked at her brother-in-law. Now he was going on about the folk up at the castle. He’d had enough of Alex’s strong ale to make him more calm, more expansive, and he sat back on his bench like a toad after eating a dragonfly, a broad grin on his face, his belly protruding. Letitia thought him never so repellent as when he sprawled back like this.

‘That little filly Nicholas caught is showing now. Have you seen her?’

Alex sighed. ‘Yes, but what of it? I heard she might be with child a long while ago.’

‘Ah, but who’s the father? That’s what I’d like to know.’

Alex shot a look at Letitia, but she was calm enough now. She shrugged slightly, then gave him a half-smile. Before long she’d go out and make sure that her chickens were all locked up, and then she’d leave them to it. The pair of them could talk for hours when the mood took them.

Alex returned her smile, but she could see that he was annoyed. ‘This sounds like more tavern gossip.’

‘Why don’t you speak your mind, Serlo?’ Letitia said, perhaps more sharply than she truly intended. ‘What do you mean to imply? Don’t just repeat rumours!’ Alex gave her a quick look, but Letty didn’t care. She was staring angrily at Serlo. ‘Well?’

‘There’ve always been rumours about her, haven’t there? ’Twas said Gervase had his eye on her. I reckon he’s been forking hay in the wrong barn!’

‘Oh, don’t be so stupid!’ Letitia said scornfully, but then Alex held up his hand.

‘Why do you think that, Serlo?’

‘I saw them,’ the miller said smugly. ‘I saw them together, when they didn’t realise there was anyone about. Athelina too — she was there. It was four or five months ago, just before that last cold spell when the rain started a couple of days after. You remember? Well, I saw them down by the river, walking along the bank. They’d been over to the fields, I think, but then they stopped and sat by the river for a while. He put his arm about her, and-’

‘This is sheer malicious nonsense!’ Letitia burst out. ‘I don’t believe a word of it.’

‘If this is true,’ Alex said, ‘why didn’t you mention it before?’

Serlo gave a half-shrug. ‘What was the point? It wouldn’t do any good, would it?’

‘So why mention it now?’ Alex demanded astutely. ‘There’s a reason, isn’t there?’

‘You heard what Richer accused me of doing,’ Serlo muttered with embarrassment. ‘Taking gifts instead of tolls. I’m sorry about that.’

‘You admit it?’ Alex asked.

‘I did ask for cash from a couple of people, but nothing more than that.’

Alex had stood, and now he towered over Serlo with an expression of such hurt in his eyes that Letty found it hard to watch him.

‘So you lied to me, and then stole from me, Serl? All you had to do was ask, and I’d have helped you. Instead you cheated me.’

‘It wasn’t really like that.’

‘One third of the tolls were for me, but you didn’t take the tolls. That means you stole from me,’ Alex said quietly, and passed a hand over his face, sitting again as though exhausted. ‘Anyway, what is this about? Why mention Lady Anne now?’

‘I thought I could ask her to ensure that Gervase doesn’t press the matter. She wouldn’t want her affair in the open, would she? And I could even charge a higher toll, maybe? If the steward was squared, we could ask what we wanted!’

‘You’ve kept it quiet all this time so you could fleece the travellers?’ Letitia said scathingly. ‘How good.’

‘Which makes me wonder why this has occurred to you now,’ Alex said.

Serlo’s face lengthened. ‘That bastard Richer’s determined to see me suffer, and the men I stopped today, they’ll try to make sure he’s supported in the castle’s court. One of them’s a Keeper, and the other one’s a Bailiff. I don’t stand much hope against them, unless Gervase squashes it.’

‘You could pay Gervase to leave the matter off the court’s rolls. Perhaps it’ll get forgotten. The Keeper and his friend can’t be here for long,’ Alex said ruminatively. His tone was quiet, but Letitia could see his inner tension by the way that his right hand picked at the arm of his chair, while his left cupped his chin. It was a posture she recognised only too clearly.

‘Aye, maybe I’ll try that,’ Serlo said, brightening.

‘But in the meantime,’ Alex said, fixing his brother with a glittering eye, ‘you’ll stop charging people these “gifts”. And you’ll stop making sour comments about Athelina. At least in front of us.’

And the note of suppressed anger in his voice was enough to calm Letitia again. She detested her brother-in-law, but Alex’s words had shown her why she was so happily married to her husband. They were so much in agreement.

She did love him.

Richer put his hands to his face again and pressed hard. His brain felt as though it was about to force its way through his skull, the pressure was so great. Rarely had he suffered from so much pain. He could scarcely comprehend that he had lost his love after dreaming of her for so many years.

The worst loss he had experienced was when his entire family was killed. Yet even that had not hurt him as much as this did. Somehow, losing Athelina was worse because God had given him the renewal of hope, then removed the object of his adoration. It was a terrible, cruel thing to have happened.

She was the same woman he had left fifteen years ago, with the same smile, the same kindly eyes, the same strong, taut figure, if a little bent from work, and if her face bore witness to the trials she had suffered, did that not apply to them all? No, she was his lovely Athelina, the same woman he had left when he learned of his family’s death. And now she was taken from him too. If only he had insisted on helping — rescued her from poverty and that damned miller’s clutches. She and her boys would be alive now.

It was this damned vill. Cardinham was an unwholesome, ungodly place. There was something evil here, that affected him, no one else. If there was any justice, the man suffering like this would be Serlo, or Alexander. Why should he, Richer, be forced to feel this? He’d done nothing to anyone and yet he was given the burden of grief.

Poor Athelina. She’d done nothing either, nor had her boys. Yet they were dead, rotting, ruined.

‘Aw, Christ Jesus, why?’ he howled to the sky.

‘Richer, come,’ Warin said gently. ‘We should go and fetch some food. You need to eat.’

‘Do you really think I’m hungry?’ Richer said, but without anger. He didn’t expect anyone else to comprehend his loss. Least of all someone like Warin, who had so much. ‘Food would make me puke.’

‘You should try to eat, nonetheless, and if you won’t, you should attend on me, because I am ravenous,’ Warin told him. ‘The best cure for such an anguish is wine, and I should be happy to fetch you a pint of the best.’

Reluctantly Richer allowed himself to be drawn towards the hall. All the way, in front of him, he was sure he could see the shade of Athelina drawing him onwards.

It was a relief to Nicholas that Gervase was nowhere to be seen when he ushered his guests into the hall of the castle. Sad, but there it was.

In his early years here, before he had found his wife, Gervase was his close comrade. Ever since Nicholas had come here, Gervase had been his sole friend and confidant, but since Anne had married him, things had changed and the steward seemed to have withdrawn into himself. Nicholas was forced to consider that he might be jealous of the relationship between himself and Anne. Possibly because Anne was so obviously in love with him.

Whatever the reason, Gervase had become an embarrassment and irritation. He seemed to exude the hurt of a man who had once been a close associate, but who was now spurned … it certainly made Nicholas feel uneasy when he sensed Gervase’s reproachful eyes upon him. Whenever the steward entered the room these days, Nicholas felt uncomfortable. If only the man would leave and find himself a new position with a different lord! All he had done was to marry and be happy, for God’s sake!