Michael Jecks - The Tolls of Death

‘I thought I might find you here.’

She did not turn to face him. ‘Gervase, I wanted some peace.’

‘I think we need to talk, my love. There is much to discuss.’

‘We lay together, Gervase. That is all. There is nothing to talk about.’

‘And what if your child is born early? So early that even Nicholas realises it isn’t his?’

That was her fear. To have been cuckolded might break his heart. ‘I wish …’

‘What?’ he pressed. ‘That you’d agreed to accept me before you took the older man’s hand?’

She gazed at him stonily. ‘I love my husband, Gervase. Don’t deceive yourself.’

‘I loved him myself,’ he said earnestly. ‘I still do, a little. But I adore you, my love. You should have taken me when we first met.’

‘You had enough women. No doubt you still have.’

‘No! Even Julia cannot tempt me. I won’t have anything to do with her — I haven’t seen her in months.’

‘Athelina was still coming to the castle until recently.’

‘She was trying to persuade me to give her money. I wouldn’t, though.’

Anne looked up at him. His face was filled with a strange mixture of dread and yearning, as though he feared what she might say or do. ‘Did she go to you and threaten us? Did she tell you she’d seen us lying together that day in the meadow?’

He waved a hand. ‘Yes, yes. She said that, but it meant nothing. I told her I’d kill her if anything got out about it, and that was all.’

‘She did see us, so Serlo told me the truth,’ Anne said with a blank stare at the distance.

‘Anne, why don’t we run away from here? I can protect you! All we need is a small cottage somewhere away from Sir Henry’s lands, and we can live decently enough. Perhaps I could find a new position as steward somewhere, and we …’

‘What, run away?’ she said, her mouth falling open in astonishment. And then, cruelly, she couldn’t help but laugh at him.

‘Do you really think I’d give up my warm home, my tapestries, my tunics — my life — to run away with an impoverished steward? My God, Gervase, you must be mad! I lay with you, and mind you hear me carefully, I lay with you that time because I thought my husband might be dead. I was lonely and desperate, thinking that I might have lost my only protector, and sought another man who could look after me. The only man about here was you; there was no one else. I do not love you, Gervase. I don’t think I could. But if Nicholas was dead, I might have considered you as an alternative. That was all.’

‘Our child, though. He’s proof you love me.’

‘He’s proof that I lay with a man some months ago,’ she said dismissively. ‘If he is born early, I shall call in a midwife who’ll swear on her parents’ graves that the child is before full term and that I and the babe both need careful nursing. Nicholas will never guess. And you won’t tell him anything, Gervase.’ She stood and approached him slowly. ‘Because if you do, Nicholas will destroy you utterly. He’ll cut your ballocks off and stuff them in your mouth. So be very careful you keep your mouth sealed.’

‘I wouldn’t let news of this get out,’ he protested, but he was shivering like a man with the ague.

‘Be sure you don’t,’ she said, and then she faced him with a strange expression in her eyes. ‘Do you mean to say that it was you? Did you murder Athelina and Serlo to keep this all secret?’

He was too appalled to answer. Instead, his heart bleeding with shame, sadness and bitterness at the rejection of his love, he let his head hang, and turned his feet back towards the castle.

While Simon and Baldwin made their way to the alehouse, Sir Jules and Roger had already passed through the vill seeking the Constable at his home.

Letitia answered the door without enthusiasm when she saw who stood outside. ‘Coroner. Godspeed.’

‘Good wife, is your man at home?’

‘No, he’s …’ she glanced up towards the alehouse. ‘He’s gone out.’

‘Perhaps we could wait for him?’

‘He may be gone a long while,’ she said evasively. She had only this moment returned from church, where she had deposited Aumery with his mother. A few prayers with them had initially soothed her, but this fool’s appearance had unsettled her again. Where was her Alex? He wanted to see Richer dead, but please God, don’t let him have had the chance. Please let Richer have escaped back to the castle!

Sir Jules pursed his lips. ‘What would you say, Roger? Where can we seek the man?’

Roger smiled and bobbed his head at the woman, turning to gaze back down the track. ‘Perhaps he has gone to the church to see his sister-in-law?’

Nodding, Sir Jules led the way from the house. ‘We may also ask the woman Muriel whether she can help us.’

‘I am not sure that this would be a propitious time to speak to her.’ Roger was most reluctant to question a woman when she had just lost her husband as well as her son. The thought of interrupting her grief was sorely unpleasant.

‘I hardly like the thought myself,’ Jules said, demonstrating an empathy that surprised Roger. ‘But I’m the King’s man in this part of the county: I have two other corpses I should hold an inquest on, I’ve deaths here in this vill which I haven’t satisfactorily resolved, and there is news of Lord Mortimer’s escape! What must I do to return to Bodmin and normality? Clearly I must solve these cases to the best of my ability, and then take my leave.’

‘We should speak with the Constable first,’ Roger proposed.

‘If he’s at the church, we can do so. If not, the woman Muriel may know something. It is worth asking her. That is all I suggest — that we speak to her.’

‘You could be adding to a mother’s grief.’

‘You are a Coroner’s clerk, man! Aren’t you used to grief?’

Roger studied his master with the attitude of a gardener surveying a colony of slugs in his cabbages. ‘I have served as Coroner’s clerk these last many years, and I have observed all forms of misery, of loss, of injustice, of devastation. I’ve seen more mothers grieving for their children, more widows bemoaning the loss of husbands, more sisters missing their siblings, than you have ridden leagues. Do not think to preach to me my duties, Master Coroner. I know them all too well.’

‘Meaning you think I don’t?’ the Coroner bridled.

‘Meaning I don’t think it is yet right to intrude upon her sorrow.’

‘Well, I do,’ Sir Jules said firmly, and set off towards the church.

‘Like many a bull-headed fool, you have less blood in your heart than does your damned sword,’ the clerk muttered under his breath. ‘God save me from men like you if I should ever need compassion!’

The Coroner strode straight to the door like a man who sought to complete an unpleasant duty with as much speed as possible. Roger uttered a short prayer for Muriel before he entered, crossing his breast in the manner of a priest helping a man at the gallows.

Inside, the church smelled of blood. Although the vill’s women had tried to clean Serlo’s body as best they could, the mess at his skull was foul. Roger could see the little patches of white where flies’ eggs were already laid. Soon those heralds of putrefaction would hatch and begin the process of converting this corpse into dust as God demanded.

He knelt and bowed his head to the altar, crossing himself again, then stood and walked forward to the little group of people at the smaller body.

This, like Serlo’s, was lighted by candles, but the tiny corpse was saved from the ultimate degradation by women who fanned at approaching flies and kept them at bay while Muriel knelt at her boy’s side. Hamelin’s face was undamaged and he simply looked like a babe fast asleep.