Michael Jecks - The Tolls of Death

‘Yes, well, fine, but what about the boys? You can’t keep them in there with you. Where are they?’

‘I left them outside so they’d be safe. Didn’t want them falling into the machine, like the silly fool of an apprentice I used to have.’

‘ Where outside?’

‘Over near the logs.’

Letitia stared at him. ‘You mean by the leat? What if one falls in?’ In her mind she had a vision of the great paddles on the wheel beating Aumery’s head into a froth of red bubbles at the water’s surface. She fled to the leat and could only gasp in relief to see them both playing with old snail shells and nuts at the edge of the woods.

‘See?’ he said nastily. ‘I told you they’d be fine.’

‘You have no idea, do you? I’m taking them back to my house.’

‘You can’t. They’re fine. I’ll look after them.’

She peered down her nose at him once more, but it didn’t seem to have any impact. ‘I want my nephews put somewhere safe, Serlo. Let me take them to your brother’s house.’

‘I said no ! You always look down on me, don’t you? Well, I can take care of my own sons, Letty. Leave us alone.’

‘At least let me take them to your house, then. My maid will be there to look after Muriel. They’ll be safer there.’

‘Oh yeah? That’s where their mother was nearly killed this morning, woman! You think that’s safer than here?’

If he had wanted to make a worse entrance, Coroner Jules was not sure how he could have done so.

He’d never forget turning that corner and seeing the woman curled in a ball in the middle of the roadway. She’d tightened, like a hedgehog when a dog approaches, until she was like a small knot of muscles, and then his rounsey had tried to leap over her. Mostly, he succeeded, too. Sir Jules’s horse was not trained in war, and would automatically avoid stepping on other creatures, and he shied, leaping, but as he did so, Roger’s palfrey barged into them, and the rounsey must slip sideways, catching the poor woman a glancing blow.

At first he thought it might be worse than it actually was. He had thought that one of the children might have been hurt as well, but fortunately both were safe, as their lungs testified … astonishing how much noise a brat could make. It was their mother whom he hit, though, and the sight of all the blood probably made them anxious. The scene certainly made him anxious! It was hardly the duty of the Coroner to create more bodies to investigate.

Sir Jules had only been made Coroner a short while ago, when Sir Simon of Launceston died in an accident, falling from his horse. He couldn’t wait to get back home again. Still, at least he wouldn’t have to remain here for too long. He would go and make records of the other deaths, and then head for home again, and a chance to rest awhile.

Away, he thought, from this blasted clerk.

Roger swung down from his palfrey and glanced at Sir Jules. ‘I think that this is the house.’

Julia opened the door to find a pair of men waiting.

‘Is this the house of the priest? I am the Coroner, and this is my clerk. Where is the priest, in the church?’

‘I am here, Coroner. Please come inside. You are here for poor Athelina?’

‘If that’s her name. I was called here last night and came as swiftly as I might,’ the Coroner said. ‘I am Sir Jules of Fowey. You are …?’

‘Adam Tailyour at your service. It is a sad case, Coroner. A woman tormented by widowhood and poverty, and the despair got to her.’

‘Didn’t the vill help her?’

‘The vill did all it could, yes. The castle and others gave her alms, and kept her clothed and fed. But sometimes a woman will become frenzied in her loneliness. This Athelina did so, and she killed her two boys before killing herself. A terrible tragedy.’

‘I see. Well, we should go to the place as soon as you have gathered the jury and called the First Finder and other nearest people. Please send a message to the Constable to tell him I’m here and am eager to call the inquest as soon as possible.’

As he sat, Julia saw him lick his dry lips and glance about him nervously, and she thought to herself, Aha! You aren’t eager at all, are you? You’re nearly shitting yourself at the thought of the inquest, Coroner!

Baldwin and Simon were warned by Ivo that the Coroner had arrived, and the three made their way to the yard before the church.

‘You can stay away if you like,’ Baldwin told the youth ungraciously. He had a dislike of ghoulish interest, and he was unpleasantly aware that there would be many watching the inquest just for a sight of the bodies.

‘Don’t mind if I do,’ Ivo said cheerfully. ‘Might get a chance to see the girl from the priest’s house again. Anyway, there’s nothing to do up at the castle except play at dice, and I’ve already won a fair amount from the guards there. Probably best I don’t hang around alone.’

‘You’re after the priest’s maid?’ Simon asked in disbelief. ‘I doubt whether she’d risk her position there. If he learns she’s been playing with you, he’ll have her out in an instant.’

‘Why d’you reckon that? She’s not his mare,’ Ivo said confidently. ‘He’s more interested in men.’

‘You mean he is a catamite?’ Baldwin asked with surprise, and then he realised his error of the day before. The man was no womaniser.

Simon had a less understanding attitude to homosexuality and he scowled with revulsion. ‘Are you sure? I thought the child was his.’

‘No. She told me that she was made pregnant by a lover, and the priest gave her sanctuary. She cooks for him and keeps his home warm, but that’s all.’

Baldwin looked about him as they reached the church. ‘Is she here?’

Ivo swept the area with a sharp eye. ‘Nope. Maybe I’ll see if she’s at home. I’ll find you later.’

‘Arrogant puppy,’ Baldwin muttered.

‘Look,’ Simon said, all thoughts of the priest gone. ‘There’s Lady Anne. I wonder what she’s doing here?’

‘Hardly a maternal act, coming to view a pair of boys’ corpses,’ Baldwin said with disgust. She wasn’t alone, however. The whole vill seemed to have turned out.

It was not the bodies of the two poor murdered boys which tempted Lady Anne to join her husband and go to view the inquest, it was the body of Athelina.

Anne was more shocked than she had allowed her husband to know by the death of the other woman. What’s more, she thought she knew who was responsible: a lover who had discarded his mistress for a younger one.

She shivered. The weather was improving, and there were occasional gaps between the clouds, but it was still chilly, giving the place a curious atmosphere of doom. Not, Anne reflected, an unsuitable mood for an inquest of this type.

‘Hear me! I am Sir Jules of Fowey, Coroner for this county, and I call on all who have any knowledge of the deaths of this woman and her children to come forward and answer my inquest.’

His voice was a surprise. When he shouted, the weaselly-looking man had a deep voice with a slight trace of a foreign tongue. Perhaps it was Burgundian. There were several men whom the Lady Anne had met who came to this part of the country from there. It was their interest in trade that first brought them to the ports, usually seeking markets for their strong red wines, and some travelled inland to see whether they could do business with the tin miners.

Sir Jules began in the normal manner, stripping the three bodies and declaring his findings, but once Anne was over the shock of the sight of the two boys’ throats, with the gaping wounds where the knife had slashed, she found the whole matter tedious.

Athelina’s body was more shocking, in some ways. She had throttled herself, the rope bruising her neck, but not breaking her spine. She must, so the Coroner said, have dangled there for days. The marks of nibbling at the feet and hands of the two boys showed that the three had been there long enough for the rats to grow interested. That image, of the dead woman, desolated after her husband’s death and broken by a life of continuous hardship, hanging from a beam and swinging gently for days because no one knew nor cared enough to seek her out, burned itself into the other woman’s imagination. She could all too easily understand Athelina’s state of mind.