Michael Jecks: City of Fiends

‘So you killed this Evie?’

‘I didn’t want to. She found me when I was putting things in her room, same as I had with Clara. Said she was going to tell Master Henry, and that I’d be forced out of the house. And then she began to bait me about it: she jeered at me, saying she’d get a better man for my mistress, a man who was more virile than me. Said I’d always wanted to lie with my mistress, and that was why I was so pathetic. Sir, I couldn’t tell you half what she said.’

‘And you couldn’t bear her words?’

‘How could I? Saying I would lie with Mistress Claricia? That would be like bedding my own daughter. I have looked after her since her birth, all the time while her mother died, and her father, and then her sister. I helped her through all that, and when she married, I helped her again. And ever since, I’ve been here.’

‘So you killed for her. How did you bring Evie to this grave?’ Baldwin asked.

‘I killed her in her room, and when all were busy in the shop or out, I took her body down to the pantry and wrapped her in a sack, then carried her out to my shed. It took no time at all to lift some planks and install her beneath. And I would have been clear, except a dog came into the yard and started trying to get to her. That and the rats.’

‘What of the smell?’ Baldwin asked.

‘It was winter. The chill kept that away. The privy was nearby, and that smell covered the other.’

Baldwin nodded. ‘And then you began to suspect that Alice was behaving in the same way?’

‘She was worse. She didn’t want little trinkets, she wanted a house of her own. And Master Henry was going to buy one for her! All that money on a house? He used to have a chest of money behind the wall in the hall, but he took it and used it all to buy a place in Stepecoat Lane, which was to be hers.’

‘What happened to it?’

‘It is still his, I think. You should ask him.’

Sir Richard and Baldwin exchanged a look. Baldwin continued, ‘How did you manage to kill Alice?’

‘She was a fool. That day she flaunted herself at the master again. He went with his family to the inn to have a meal, and she persuaded him to come back and lie with her while the others were eating. He did, too. He came back under pretence of forgetting his rosary. He and she were loud, very loud. And I became more and more angry the longer they went on. He didn’t care what anyone thought; he didn’t care if it broke his wife’s heart. He didn’t care what I must think either, hearing him whoring away, when he knew I adored my mistress. No! So I sent her out into the yard to take a message to the apprentices, and followed her and killed her. It was easy, so she didn’t suffer. Later, I took her body out into the alley and left her there. She had company.’ He laughed. ‘There was a dead cat.’

‘What of Juliana?’ Baldwin said.

‘She went to the master and threatened to tell about his family’s affairs.’ John’s eyes went to Claricia, and then to Gregory.

‘What of it?’

‘How do you think my mistress would feel to know that everyone was pointing at her behind her back and laughing at her? All her friends, her neighbours, all the people about her here, knowing that she was being made a fool of and could do nothing about it?’

‘How will they all feel to think that she held a murderer as a bottler in her household?’ Sir Richard said.

‘Why did you cut away Juliana’s lips?’ Baldwin asked.

‘She was going to talk about my mistress all around the city. I wanted to show that people couldn’t get away with that sort of behaviour. So I showed them. All of them.’

‘And you stabbed her eyes.’

‘Because she had seen . . . She said she had seen things.’

‘You admit to slaying three women. And you killed Philip Marsille tonight as well,’ Baldwin observed.

‘I would do it again, gladly, for my mistress. You think it is easy to watch the child you have raised being insulted in that way?’

William pushed his way past a surprised Sir Richard. Baldwin reached for him, but William did not try to advance further to hurt John. He stood staring down at him.

‘When you have the opportunity to consider,’ he said quietly, ‘you can reflect on how you destroyed my life, and my brother’s, and my mother’s, just to satisfy your notions of “loyalty”. You can never repay me the harm you have done. I will go to your trial and I will accuse you, and when you hang, I will stand with the executioner to make sure no one goes to ease your suffering. You will take a long time to die.’

John looked up without expression. This cur had no idea what suffering was, he thought, and he shrugged and turned away.

But then he heard a rustle of skirts, and saw that Claricia was at William’s side.

‘Master Marsille,’ she said quietly, ‘if this house has been bought in Stepecoat Lane, I hope you will accept it as a gift from me, in proof of my good intentions towards you.’

She then faced John. ‘As for you, I reject you utterly. You must have been infected with a demon to have thought that I could ever support you in this. To kill those girls, those women! It leaves me with a feeling of utter horror that I have shared a house with you.’

‘Mistress . . .’

‘I do not know you. You are nothing to me.’

‘Mistress, please!’

‘Gregory, Agatha, come with me and-’

‘Mistress, you must not desert me!’ John called. He roared now. ‘Mistress Claricia, if you don’t want the worst secret loosed, you will not leave me!’

‘There is nothing else you can say that can harm us more,’ Claricia said.

‘You think so?’ John said. ‘Ask your son, then, and your daughter, mistress! See what they think. See Agatha’s face? How she blushes? Like an innocent maid, not at all like a wench who knows the pleasures of a condemned lust, is she? And your son! Look how he pales!’

‘What are you saying, churl?’ Gregory managed. He stepped forward threateningly, his hand on his dagger.

‘You’d kill a man bound, would you? How brave! But I am speaking the truth, as you know, Master Gregory. Beware! If you attack me, it’ll be on your soul.’

‘It would weigh on my soul as much as slaughtering a rabid dog,’ Gregory said. ‘You are nothing. I will not defile my hands with your blood.’

He turned and marched away, his mother and sister following.

‘Enjoy your bed, then! Enjoy your unnatural lusts!’ John bawled after them. He collapsed back on the bench, his head pounding, the rage still making his blood boil. He couldn’t believe that they would dare to desert him. He had given the family everything, the utmost loyalty, the devotion of a slave. And in return they would willingly see him hanged.

Well, if he was to hang, he would see that they suffered too. He stared after them as they disappeared into the house.

‘I want to see a priest,’ he demanded. ‘I will confess all you want, if you let me see a priest and make my confession on the Gospels.’

Claricia was still carrying Thomas as she entered her house. She stumbled slightly over the paving slabs on the way in, but it did not stop her in her dazed journey.

‘Mother,’ Gregory called, but she gave no indication that she had heard.

Claricia’s world had collapsed about her. Her son and daughter were guilty of incest – a crime against God as much as men. She could not take it all in. Her husband’s treason, his betrayal of her and the family, his plotting with the murderer Sir Charles, and now his death . . . the attempted murder of her two sons . . . There was no sanity in the world.

‘Mother?’ Gregory called again.

‘I do not know you,’ she whispered, cradling Thomas’s head at her shoulder.