Michael Jecks: City of Fiends

His banner was already trampled on the ground, and as Sir Charles turned, he spotted the remains of the Bishop’s guard galloping off towards the manor.

‘With me, with me!’ he roared, and hared off after them, his soul singing with the joy of the encounter.

Yes. Today, he was doing God’s work.

Alley beside Paffards’ house

She was panting. The sight of that priest’s terror was enough to bring back all her own terrors. Thank the Holy Mother she was close to the house now. The mass of the South Gate was in front of her, and she turned right, along Combe Street. Only a very little way to go now.

The house was imposing, with its great height on three levels, yet narrow. Steps were cut in stone before it, bridging the filth of the gutter. Today the area stank even more than usual. Someone had left the corpse of a dog in the road, and now, trampled and squashed by cartwheels and hooves, it rotted half-hidden beneath the bridge where it had been kicked.

To the right lay one door, which opened onto the place of work. Here the merchant plied his trade, while the other, to the left, was where he would invite his guests, clients and friends. They would enter to his welcome, drawn along the passageway to the hall behind where his fire would cheer any visitor.

These doors were not for her. She was only a maid: the lowliest servant in his employ, not even the equal of Alice. She must use the alley on the farther side. This led to the rear of the house, where servants and apprentices were expected to gain entrance, but from here, it looked like the entrance to hell. She hesitated. She always did. It was like the little copse of trees back at home, where it was said a woman once hanged herself. All the children knew that place, and all avoided it. This had a similar brooding menace.

There was little light here, between the buildings, and she kept her eyes ahead as she hurried down the alley. If she looked about her, she might see something, and it was better not to dwell on that. There was a skittering of claws, and she imagined rats scurrying.

She had to keep away from the wall’s edge on the left here, she remembered. A dead cat’s corpse lay there, and she didn’t want to carry the reek of carrion on her shoes.

At last she saw a lighter patch a few yards away, and grunted with relief. This was the little door in the wall that gave into the garden behind the kitchen – sanctuary. Without conscious thought she increased her pace but, just as she was about to reach the gate, her foot caught on something and she tumbled to the ground, dropping her package and breaking her fall with her hands, grazing both on the stones and dirt of the alley floor.

‘Oh, what . . . ?’

She clambered to her feet, and saw the head she had tripped over. She took in the fixed gaze from those dimmed blue eyes, the bright, red lips with the small trickle of blood, the golden hair surrounding the young woman’s face, and began to scream and scream as she desperately scrabbled for the door handle, to get her away from that hideous stare.

Paffards’ House

In his bed, six-year-old Thomas Paffard heard the maid’s screams, and his eyes snapped wide. He didn’t dare move until he heard men shouting. The knowledge that other grown-ups were there made him relax slightly.

‘Mother?’

His bed was low, and he pulled his legs up to his chest as he listened. He couldn’t recognise the voice of the person screaming. It almost wasn’t human.

‘Mother?’

He had heard a dog being killed once. Thomas had found it wandering in the streets, when he was only four years old, and had brought it back to the house here, concealing it out in the yard in a small lean-to that used to hold the family pig. After his meal, he took pieces of bread and some meat to it, and fed it, and the dog had been grateful. It had wagged its tail, and it made Thomas feel happy. His heart seemed to grow bigger, and he knew he loved it.

His family had never owned a dog. Most of his friends had a little dog of some sort, and he couldn’t understand why he didn’t. He was sure his mother would let him keep this one, if he told her about it, but Father and John, their bottler, didn’t like dogs. He couldn’t see why. It didn’t make sense to the young lad. So he didn’t tell anyone.

But it is difficult to conceal a dog.

That night, while Thomas slept, it had escaped from the makeshift kennel and began to bark and howl in the yard. That had sounded scary, too. Thomas had heard it, and the noise woke him in the end. He sat up in bed, rubbing his eyes, and then felt his whole body grow cold as he realised that if it had woken him , John might hear it and go down and hurt it.

Thomas quickly climbed from his bed and stole to his door, hoping to get outside before anyone could waken. And then, as his finger lifted the latch, he heard a horrible, wet sound, and the barking changed into a screech of agony. There was that wet thudding sound again, and then once more, and the noise died.

He never saw his dog again. There was a patch of redness on the dirt by John’s old shed, where he stored the ales and wines in their barrels, near to where a plank had been badly scratched. It looked to Thomas as though the little dog, his little dog, had been scrabbling to get in there, under the raised floor, to escape the spade of the bottler.

Thomas had never brought another dog home. He couldn’t bear to think of a second being killed.

‘Mother?’

‘It’s all right, dear. Go back to sleep. It’s nothing to worry you,’ his mother called from the next room, and with renewed confidence, knowing that she was there, he rolled over in bed and closed his eyes.

But in his mind, he still saw that poor dog. His darling little dog.

Alley beside the Paffards’ House

Standing in the gloom, Henry Paffard tapped his foot impatiently as the neighbours gathered. A boy with a horn lamp shed a pale glow over the scene, his own eyes fixed on the corpse.

Henry had been standing here since the first alarm. It really was time they got on with things. A man of his status shouldn’t be forced to wait out here like a peasant.

‘Where is Juliana Marsille and her boys?’ he demanded, but nobody answered. His wife looked at him, then glanced away. She was shivering with cold.

Henry Paffard was tall and strong, with the blue eyes and fair hair of a king, but today as he looked along the alley at the huddle of death, he felt the sadness again. Poor, sweet Alice.

All his life he had been fortunate. He had sired two boys and a girl: the boys to secure his future, the girl to bring him a noble connection. Agatha would one day be a useful bargaining chip. The boys, meanwhile, were healthy and intelligent. Not like others. He had not even suffered the loss of a child.

Only this maid, he told himself with a frown. Only Alice.

The watchman who had been sent to beat on the Marsilles’ door at last returned with Philip and William.

Philip looked as peevish as ever, Henry reckoned, while his younger brother William was his usual self, ducking his head in polite acknowledgement to the others before glancing down at the body with every appearance of sorrow.

The reaction of his brother was shocking, womanish.

When Philip recognised Alice, he seemed to crumble, his face a mask of anguish. It was ludicrous behaviour, Henry Paffard thought impatiently. Most lads his age would bear up, show a little backbone. Not Philip Marsille. He’d simply fallen apart after his father’s death. While his brother held himself like a petty baron, Philip was going to pieces.

Henry sighed, deeply. They really should hurry along. Poor Alice couldn’t be helped by any of them now.