Michael Jecks - The Tolls of Death

Letitia suddenly heard something like a whistle piping far away. At first she dismissed it as children playing. Boys who played in the water meadows would sometimes pluck the massive bulrushes and cut them up to make their own whistles. The cleverer ones could cut small holes in the stem and play tunes.

She returned her attention to the Coroner, but there was something about that sound … something that made her flesh crawl. A ridge of goosebumps travelled up her arms, and the compulsion to go and find its source was too strong to ignore. It sounded as though it came from beyond her home, down towards … the mill!

Letty’s face tensed, and then she was pelting away from the crowd, down the lane, past her home and on along the narrow, tree-darkened track, past the gates to the meadows, on towards the chuckling stream, tripping once and nearly falling over, then up on her feet and rushing at full tilt, on, on, the screams and sobbing coming ever more distinctly, until she was at the mill’s house, and she could see Muriel, kneeling in the dirt, howling in anguish, while beside her Aumery bawled, hands to his eyes, not understanding, blaming himself for his mother’s grief. And on Muriel’s lap was the small still figure of her younger son, his eyes wide in death, his flesh a single huge, open sore where a whole pan of boiling soup had tipped over his tiny body.

Coroner Jules concentrated on the faces before him, but it wasn’t easy. My God, no! What a terrible state of affairs. The woman strangling herself from a beam while her children’s bodies lay beneath her. And the smell in that little cottage! Everyone knew that bad air could kill even the strongest men, and Jules had put himself at risk, going in there to see the bodies in situ .

Still, at least the case was almost done.

Why ever had he taken on this revolting job? he asked himself. Roger was a nasty little man who treated him like a dog’s turd on his sandal, and the men here in the vill hardly seemed to notice him. The Keeper, that tall, intense man, he seemed to constantly hang about nearby as though he was watching every error Jules might make. Well, damn him! Jules might not be the best Coroner in the land, but he was conscientious. He was doing his best in very difficult circumstances.

Sir Jules glowered at the jostling men and women before calling for silence again. These noisy brutes! They had no idea about the correct behaviour at a time and gathering of this sort. They were restless and keen to hurry off to the nearest alehouse, he guessed. Well, they could wait. He wasn’t going to rush just because a bunch of yokels might miss their lunchtime cider!

Roger was waiting for him to continue, reed poised over his parchment, and Jules pointed to the next witness, fitting a stern expression to his face.

Sternness he could manage. It involved muscles which might otherwise display his anxiety and horror. Even here in the open air the smell from the corpses was overpowering. He could feel nausea threatening.

Next time, he would bring some fruit or sweet herbs to conceal the stench, he swore, before taking a deep breath and posing his next question.

Baldwin and Simon remained at the edge of the clearing before the church after their evidence had been given to the Coroner.

For Simon it was unpleasant listening to an inquest on such a sad little incident, but the two had seen worse. In recent months they had witnessed sudden death in all its hideous variety, and Simon himself had almost been killed, first in Spain and then on a ship attacked by pirates. Somehow, though, this was more poignant.

He had left home months ago, and he missed his wife dreadfully — and not only her. A proud father, he longed to see his son and daughter too. There was some fear in him. He had adored his little Edith from the day she was born, so perfect, so blonde and beautiful; and now she was old enough to seek her own husband. Soon she would be readying herself to become a mother and preparing to make all the same mistakes that he and his wife had made with their children.

There was some time left before she departed from his household, and he wanted to make the most of those months, to enjoy her company — but also to learn how to live without her. It would be a hard loss when she went.

Somehow this inquest made him feel maudlin. The sight of the mother with her dead children made him appreciate his own family that much more. Especially when he heard that the woman was a widow. He realised just how grim his wife’s life would be once he had died. If he were to die here, for example, before he reached home, dear Meg could be put under the same sort of pressure as this poor maid. Perhaps she, too, would be threatened with eviction.

That news had brought a black scowl to his face. It was Iwan, an old smith, who had volunteered the fact that Serlo the miller owned Athelina’s cottage and had told her to pay more rent or go. The miller didn’t deny it, but blustered that he had no responsibility to the chit. It was her problem if she’d podded two children and couldn’t feed them. If the Church wanted her saved, the Church should have donated enough to see her remain in her home, rather than accuse an honest man who tried only to make a living.

Simon wondered whether he was an honest man. To his mind, Serlo looked a brute; the dead bodies like so many chickens slaughtered in a yard by a fox. The vision of this man threatening the woman, clenching his fist and demanding more money, repelled him. How could a man cause so much suffering and death, yet show no remorse? If anything, he seemed intent on proving that he didn’t care a fig for the dead.

‘She and her children were useless mouths,’ Serlo was blustering now. ‘Can we afford to keep a house for her sort, when decent men and women are struggling to find a room of their own?’

‘Her boys would have grown to be men,’ Baldwin observed with a tone that could have frozen the pond.

‘Perhaps. How long would we have had to feed them before they grew?’

‘Is it your place to assess the value of another’s life, miller?’

‘Sir Baldwin,’ Sir Jules said with a note of some petulance, ‘I think you can leave the questioning to me. I am the Coroner.’

Baldwin subsided with a poor grace, turning his back on Serlo. Simon was disappointed. He would have liked to see Baldwin launch into a verbal attack on the miller.

Serlo appeared amused by Baldwin’s discomfiture. He grinned broadly until Sir Jules snapped, ‘Don’t smile in the presence of death, churl!’

Simon wondered how the man could smirk like that when his greed had led to these three deaths, but as he told himself, there were many unscrupulous people who were equally greedy. If Baldwin was right, the King’s own advisers were among the most avaricious men yet born. The Despensers were capturing highborn women and holding them prisoner in gaol until they agreed to sign over their inheritances. It made Simon very glad to be living under the protection of the Abbot of Tavistock, Robert Champeaux. ‘God Bless Abbot Robert,’ he muttered quietly to himself.

‘Bailiff?’

The quiet voice of Lady Anne brought him back from his reverie. ‘My lady?’

‘There is something I feel is odd — something about the woman. Surely, yes, she was desperate …’

‘Go on.’

Anne’s face was troubled. ‘If she was utterly without hope, if she was convinced that she had no reason to live longer … I can comprehend her despair although I know self-murder is a sin. Yes, but to kill her sons? I met up with Athelina many times, and never saw her show anything other than love and affection to her children. She adored them both individually, and also as the last remaining vestige of her husband. I find it hard to believe that she could have killed them.’