Michael Jecks - The Tolls of Death

Maybe Athelina had been murdered. If so, perhaps it was a result of her badgering her lover, who might have killed her in anger. Her lover … who had thrown her over for Julia. At the time Athelina had told Adam of her desperation, but he had not believed her, had brushed it aside. Anyway, he thought it was better that she should leave the vill. Otherwise, she might see her old home rented out to Julia, and that would bring untold dissension to the vill. In all conscience, Adam couldn’t allow that. So instead, he’d taken Julia in and left Athelina to her fate. And now she was dead. Her murder was his fault.

He must rise, he must rise and seek out Muriel, the distressed mother, and Serlo too, if he was there in the church with her. Standing, Adam stared ahead to where the body lay. He could see Letitia by the side of the church hearse, and then he saw the figure of Muriel, her head once more wrapped in linen to staunch the blood that had stained the shoulder of her thin tunic, but there was no sign of the miller.

Yes, he should go to her and offer her what consolation he could, but right now, all he wanted to do was fall on his face and beg forgiveness for his own sins. To beg forgiveness for the death of Athelina and her two lovely little boys.

‘I should have thought that I was to be the man leading any investigation,’ Sir Jules said with some force once the priest was out of earshot. It was hard enough to keep a grip on an inquest without these dabblers barging in.

‘Of course,’ Baldwin said easily. ‘But Adam was there, and a few questions occurred to me.’

‘They would have occurred to me as well, Sir Baldwin,’ Jules said with hauteur.

‘Of course they would. And you’d have asked them as quickly as us,’ Simon said. ‘Except we beat you to every one, didn’t we? Very unsporting.’

Sir Jules looked at him contemptuously. ‘Perhaps you can’t understand, being a mere Bailiff; when you have my responsibilities, others getting under one’s feet can be a hindrance.’

Baldwin set his jaw. ‘Sir Jules, when you hold your inquest, all the facts I have learned can come out. Perhaps until then we should unite in order to seek this murderer.’

‘If there is a murderer to find,’ Sir Jules said. ‘There is little enough evidence of that.’

‘Perhaps when you’ve stopped looking at responsibilities and instead have real experience ,’ Simon said kindly, ‘you’ll realise the importance of marks like those on her neck.’

Sir Jules’s nostrils flared with rage, but before he could say anything, Baldwin murmured in his most placatory tone, ‘We need your expertise, if we are to make sense of the matter. And your perspicacity must surely lead to the identification of the murderer. Why don’t we go to the alehouse to discuss the affair?’

And before Simon could speak again, Baldwin kicked out and felt his toe connect with the Bailiff’s ankle.

Julia only just had time to smooth the blanket on her palliasse before the priest arrived back at the house, pale and angry still after his questioning. As soon as he slumped in his chair he shouted at her to bring him some ale.

‘Father, what is it?’ she asked.

‘Those men are intolerable! Quite insufferable! I should complain to Nicholas — demand that he makes them treat me with respect. As though the woman could have been murdered!’

She passed him his cup and a jug of strong ale, and as he sat staring at the embers of his fire, he didn’t see how she had been rocked by his news. ‘Athelina — murdered?’ she repeated faintly.

‘It’s nonsense,’ he said dismissively. ‘Complete rubbish. And they so disordered my thoughts that I was incapable of lending any form of solace to poor Muriel in the church.’

She left him there, and went through to her own room again, sitting on the bed. Ivo’s warmth was still there, and she spread her fingers over it, feeling the little glow of satisfaction from his lovemaking gradually seep away from her, to be replaced by a sense of concern.

If Athelina had been murdered, Julia was sure that the only man who could have done so was her lover, Gervase. Everyone knew that Athelina was desperate about money, and that she kept pestering him for help. And Julia herself had been asking him for money too, recently.

She looked at her sleeping child, and suddenly hoped very strongly that she hadn’t upset the steward of Cardinham Castle with her demands for cash.

Richer left the tavern and walked along the roadway until he reached a tree trunk lying by the road. Here he stopped and sat down, a hand at his head, eyes closed in pain.

Once he had been prone to these headaches, suffering at least one a month, but now he was unfortunate if he was so afflicted more than once in a year. Yet this, for all its suddenness, had attacked with more venom than any he had known in the last five years. His eyesight was affected: as he stared at the trees, their trunks at the bottom of his vision, to his left, were all moving oddly, as though he was watching them through water. Farther left, his vision ceased working altogether. He had to screw up his forehead against the pain that stretched across the back of his skull.

It was Serlo’s words that had made it blow up like this. The bastard! He had to mention the fire.

Richer could recall it all only too clearly. The night sky lit up like a beacon, with the sparks flying into the air, madly whirling in the roaring heat. Richer had been out at the fields helping his father with the harvest all day, but when their work was done and when the lord’s ale casks and cider barrels were opened, his father had made his way home, like other older men, leaving the field to their sons and daughters. The end of the harvest often led to a rash of births, and marriages in Maytime the next year; it was the way for natural desires to be slaked, and no one objected.

From an early age Richer had been enslaved by Athelina’s beauty. A child’s view of marriage was different to the reality of hot, sweating bodies moving to create a new life, but Richer had always been sure that he would have her. He knew that he loved her. And that night, he almost won her.

The evening had drawn in and the sky was purpling. As the swooping swallows and martins ceased their loud screechings and the bats began to dart as darkness deepened, Richer lay on his back on the bed of straw he had made for himself, and kissed Athelina. Their passion excited by hard work and copious quantities of cider, they were soon engaged in the pursuit of their pleasures, when they heard a scream and a cry for help.

‘Ignore it,’ Richer had said as distinctly as he could while his mouth was welded to Athelina’s, but she pushed him away. Forced to pause, while the blood yet boiled in his veins, Richer heard the cries calling all to join in putting out the blaze. Over his protests that they could be little aid after all the drink they had consumed, Richer found that he and Athelina were soon joining the crowd heading back towards the vill. He could still remember the ferocious face of Serlo at the rear of the group, sneering at Athelina for disappearing with Richer. ‘You should have come with me, wench. I’d have given you something to gag on!’

‘Leave her alone,’ Richer grated, but then his attention was drawn away as he saw the towering column of flames in front of him. It was very close to his parents’ house, he thought with dread, and he wondered which of the nearby homes it could be. Through the trees it was hard to gauge, but as they drew ever nearer, he saw that it was …

In his mind there was a blankness, a stolid refusal to believe what his eyes told him. He preferred to think that it was the woods behind the house which were alight; his family should gather up all their belongings as soon as they could, and try to escape, he thought frantically; then he pretended that it was a fire in the small barn his father had built a few yards from the house, and that it would soon burn out; then the log store on the side. Someone should find a grapnel and tug the logs away so that their flames couldn’t hurt the thatch …