Michael Jecks: City of Fiends

But these were not the memories he wished to record. Ach!

Setting the quill on his desk, he rose and walked around his room, head down, contemplating, and then as inspiration suddenly came to him, he resumed his seat and picked up his quill once more.

The door opened and his steward slid around it like oil under a gate. Adam looked up irritably. ‘What on earth is the matter? You know that this is my time to write.’

‘Sir, I am sorry, but Janekyn would like to speak with you.’

‘What about?’

‘Something to do with the murder last night.’

‘Murder? What – here?’ Adam hadn’t heard of a killing. ‘In the Close, do you mean?’

‘No, sir, out along Combe Street, I heard.’

‘What of it? It’s a city matter. Oh, never mind. Show him in,’ Adam said grumpily. He put his pen back down and stared at the empty sheet. Today, he felt sure, he would never write a thing.

Soon Janekyn Beyvyn, the porter from the Broad Gate of the Close, entered, shooting little glances all about him with that expression of nervous awe that servants so often exhibited. They were unused to such magnificence.

‘Porter, my steward tells me you want to speak to me. Well?’

Janekyn nodded. ‘Sir, last night there was a maid killed. It was a way away, but as I was closing the gates, I heard running.’

‘Did you see the man?’

‘No, sir.’

‘So, then? What of it?’

‘My fear was, where the footsteps went.’

‘Explain yourself, man!’

Janekyn cleared his throat. ‘I think they came into the Close, sir. It was someone from the Cathedral.’

Combe Street, Exeter

It had been an unprofitable day for William Marsille. Again.

He had set aside thoughts of Alice lying dead in the alley as soon as he had risen, and had come here to the Cathedral in the hope that his prayers might succeed in winning him work with the masons. He must earn some money somehow, and he had tried every other possible avenue.

He had hoped that sheer determination and persistence would persuade a mason or carpenter to hire him, but they only laughed at him.

‘Come here, boy,’ one had called, a heavy-set man a clear six inches shorter than William. He’d been to a barber recently, so his beard and head were well shaven as he pinched and prodded William’s arms. ‘Did you ever have a muscle on them, boy?’ he laughed.

Another man was behind him, and he squeezed the flesh of William’s thighs and buttocks hard enough to hurt. ‘He couldn’t carry a hod, and those spindleshank legs of his won’t drive the treadmill.’

The first was eyeing him up and down. ‘Give me your hands . . . thought so. You’ve never done a day’s real work, have you, boy?’

‘I can add, write and read, and I’m used to accounting.’

‘Then go and speak to someone who has need of such skills. We don’t. We need carpenters, masons, plumbers and all the others who can help build a cathedral, not parchment-scratchers. Well?’ he said, standing back, arms akimbo. ‘Go on, get up there.’

‘Where?’

The mason pointed to the nearest ladder. ‘There. That one’ll do.’

William stared at it. The thing was immensely long, reaching up to the third level. The larch poles of the scaffolding had some kind of rope that bound the cross members to each other, and while William had heard that sailors tended to be used for lashing the poles to each other, he could see clearly that the ladder had nothing to hold it steady.

‘What ails you?’ the mason said, and the others all laughed.

He walked to the ladder, set his hands on the rough rung, and began to climb. He did so with a steady carefulness, and a rising panic as, after ten or twelve feet, the whole contraption began to bounce. It felt as though he must be catapulted from it, and his speed slowed as he approached the middle. Here it was terrifying. He clung with knuckles whitened, as the ladder sprang in and out, towards the new cathedral walls, and away again. His thighs turned to water. He could no more climb than jump, and he must set his entire body flat against the madly bouncing contraption, his eyes shut. Surely it would fly away from the wall at any moment.

Looking down, he saw that all the masons had left. He was alone, desolate in his failure. Slowly, he let himself down to solid ground once more.

Thrusting his thumbs in his belt, he walked down the Close and went out by the Bear Gate. While there, he saw the old beggar woman who had her post there. Reaching into his purse, he was about to throw her a penny, when he realised he had nothing. She had more money than he. With a mumbled apology, shame firing his face a dull beetroot, he scurried past her, and out to Southgate Street.

Here he almost bumped into someone. William tried to apologise, but his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth.

The man was his height, with pale, waxen features, and a long, straggling beard that reached to his middle-breast. His clothing was a mixture of tattered shreds: there was a once-good tunic that was sorely worn, a fustian cloak, and hessian sacking covered his legs. In a bundle he clutched to his chest were all his worldly belongings. But it was his eyes that caught William’s attention. They were wild, terrified. The eyes of a man who had lost everything, and knew that life would never improve. He must walk, and hope to find food. That was his entire life.

William stared after him. That sight, he felt, was a revelation. An appalling picture of how he might look in a short time, if he and Philip could find no work and money: a desperate vagrant dependent upon the alms of the Church just to exist.

Petreshayes

Sir Charles stood at the gateway and donned his worn riding gloves as he watched the three men. They were gathering with their torches about a brazier. The two survivors of the manor were in the doorway, hands bound, and Sir Charles nodded to the two guards with them.

He turned and took his horse’s reins from Ulric. ‘Watch,’ he said, slipping his boot into the stirrup and springing up into his saddle.

The lad was still looking very pale. Sir Charles had almost expected him to fly from the place in the dead of night, and it was with a vague sense of pride that he had beheld Ulric’s earnest features this morning.

Sir Charles knew what was happening without watching. The two men took their daggers and stabbed, one quickly thrusting in his victim’s back, the other sweeping his blade about the man’s throat.

Ulric winced, and tottered as though he was going to fall, but then threw a look at Sir Charles. ‘What, are you telling me you will do that to me in a moment?’ he said hoarsely.

‘No, my fellow. I am merely showing you what will be happening all over here soon. The King will be fighting for his kingdom, and all those who stand in his path will die, like them. It is the way of war, the way of the chevauchée. When there is war, men-at-arms will ride all about the country, creating fear and panic in the hearts of those who stand against them. We must do this now. And while we do, others will take up arms against us, and they will terrorise our friends and family. If you want, you can go back to the city, and live there.’

Ulric looked down. The man with the slashed throat was squirming ever more slowly, his blood staining the ground. At his side, the other man was already dead, an expression of surprise on his face.

‘Choose, then. Are you with us, with your lawful King, the man anointed by God, or not?’

‘I am with you,’ Ulric said dully.

‘Good! Mount your beast, boy,’ Sir Charles said with a smile. He glanced at the three with the torches and jerked his head. In a moment, all three had lighted their torches and then flung them in through the open doorway. There was a whump as the oils drizzled over the floor and beams caught fire, and almost immediately a thick, black smoke roiled from the door and open window.