Michael Jecks - The Tolls of Death

Susan smiled but there was nothing to say.

Soon Letty sniffed, wiped her nose, and stood. ‘Right!’ she said briskly. ‘Is Muriel at her home?’

‘Yes. We didn’t want to move her after the accident. But the boys …’

‘They can come here, and so can she. I can look after them, although I don’t know how we’ll cope with Serlo as well. That would be too much.’

They were soon done. Letitia packed her bag, hesitated over the basket of eggs, and then selected the freshest she could find. Muriel deserved careful protection and egg-whites could help clean deeper cuts. Ready, she led the way at a fast trot to the mill.

Outside were a pair of dark brown mounts, one a large rounsey, the second a smaller pony with a splatter of light brown coat on his flank. Letitia scarcely gave them a glance, but instead shoved at the door and walked into Serlo and Muriel’s house.

It was a small, rather noisome place, filled with the odours of a home: a baby’s excrement, sour milk, vomit, and the smell of sheep from the small fold at the farther end of the long, narrow cottage. The fire sat in the middle of the earthen floor on a hard clay base, and it had been carefully tended, Letitia saw with an approving nod. A clerk squatted at its side, a doleful little man with a pasty face washed free of any semblance of cheer. He glanced up. There was a sombre look about him, as though he was waiting to be accused of murder, and Letitia assumed he was the rider who had struck Muriel.

Muriel’s bed was a low wooden frame with a thin mattress stuffed with fragrant herbs and hay, and she lay on it with her head flung back like a corpse. Her eyes were closed and her face dreadfully pallid, so much so that Letitia wondered immediately whether she had dallied too long and was here to witness the death of her sister-in-law. Yet even as she turned to whisper to Susan, Muriel’s eyes opened. For all that they were dull and had bruises beneath them, there was none of Athelina’s despair or madness in them.

That at least was a relief. Letitia crossed the floor and squatted beside her. ‘This is not going to hurt too much,’ she said, and Muriel smiled faintly up at her, as though recognising the dishonesty of the statement. Then she closed them tightly as Letitia began to examine the wound.

Later, when she had cleaned it and rinsed it first with oil, then with a little egg-white, she wrapped a clean linen towel about her head. Only then did Letitia glance at Susan. ‘Where are the boys?’

‘They’re out with their father,’ said a deeper voice. A man in a faded grey tunic appeared from the darkness near the doorway. He was young, with olive skin, of slender build for a knight, but he wore the spurs and belt like a man born to the noble class. He stepped forward until he was close to Letitia. His eyes were dark as soot, set rather close together about a hawk-like nose. Now he looked unutterably sad. ‘I ordered that the miller should come and collect them while their mother was seen to. Will she be all right?’

‘She should live, unless she’s unlucky,’ Letitia said, holding Muriel’s hand gently. ‘You’ll be all right, won’t you? Godspeed, Muriel. Sleep well. I’ll look after your sons.’

There was a subtle reciprocation of pressure on her fingers, and then she put Muriel’s hand back down on the blanket.

‘So your clerk managed to knock her down? He must have been riding very fast,’ she said accusingly, staring at the whey-faced fellow by the hearth. ‘I hope you will compensate this woman for her suffering.’

The man glanced at his clerk, then turned back to her with a little grimace. ‘It wasn’t him, I fear.’

‘It was you . Always the same: it’s the wealthy and careless who inflict pain on others,’ she said uncompromisingly.

‘In this case, it wasn’t frivolous, madam. I was hurrying to another body. A woman who died in the vill here?’

She looked at him. ‘You are the Coroner?’

He gave a wry smile. ‘You think me too young?’

‘I do not care about your age, sir, but I fear the inexperience of a man who might cause one death while investigating another.’

He winced, she was glad to see, and apologised. ‘It was this summons, madam. I had to come and view the body, but I also have two other suspicious deaths to investigate. I was in a great hurry … and now, because of my haste, I could have killed a young mother protecting her children. It is a miserable man you see before you, madam.’

‘That’s all very well,’ she said, glancing once more at Muriel. ‘You may also have made a widower of her husband and taken away the mother of two sons.’ I have seen what that loss can do to a man, she thought to herself, and was vaguely disquieted by the reflection. There was nothing wrong with her man, nothing wrong with Alex. The only one who had grown ill-favoured and unpleasant was Serlo.

‘My apologies. I only hope she recovers. In the meantime …’ The Coroner reached into his purse, pulled out a few coins and studied them carefully, the coins close to his nose, his eyes narrowed to slits. ‘Here.’ He handed her one.

She could feel by its weight that it was a valuable coin and thought she should give it to Serlo, but then rejected the idea. That would be madness indeed, giving that wastrel and spendthrift money — she might as well pass it straight to Susan. No, she must keep it safe, she thought.

‘Thank you, sir,’ she said. Then: ‘Susan, I must see to the boys. Can you remain here until I have fetched Jan from home?’

‘God’s blood! Of course I can wait to help poor Muriel. I’ve got to get back before too long, though. There’ll be the harvesters arriving.’

‘Good. Do you remain here then, and I shall send my maid to take over shortly.’

‘We should be continuing our journey, then,’ the knight said. ‘Come, Roger, we have to go and view this body.’

Julia, the young woman who acted as housekeeper for Father Adam, had woken later than usual this morning. The death yesterday had shocked her, but she knew that she must continue as though nothing was altered; otherwise the priest might notice and wonder. When he returned after his services, she had to hurry to prepare his food; her thoughts had been so tangled, caught up with Athelina and her miserable end, that she hadn’t noticed the passing time. Mind, she had time to consider the new fellow — Ivo, the lad with the winning grin, the smutty sense of humour and strong frame. If she were ever in danger, this fellow might rescue her.

‘I’ll have an egg today, Julia,’ came the call from the little hall, and Julia leaped to her feet, startled, before setting her child on the floor and hurtling about the room. She readied a platter, cutting bread into rindless sheets, and set a pot of dripping beside it on a tray. Going out to the nesting place of the irascible white hen, who shot off angrily to the other side of the yard after pecking viciously at her hand, she rescued the egg and took her prize back into the house, only to see the baby crawling off through the doorway into the parlour. Hurrying, she gathered up the tray with the bread, a wooden board and knife, and carried them to the priest’s main room.

It wasn’t large, but at least it smelled wholesome in there. He didn’t have a dog so his reeds weren’t infested with bones and shit, and Julia was happy that her boy was safe in there, although when she had set the tray on the table by Adam, she heard his swift intake of breath, and spun round to see her son crawling towards the fire. She swept him up and set him back on her hip. ‘You little bugger, you’ll be the death of me,’ she said with exasperation.

‘You shouldn’t swear at him,’ Adam remonstrated, but she gave the priest a glare.