Michael JECKS - The Sticklepath Strangler

‘Mother! Oh, God in Heaven!’

Gunilda wanted to speak, wanted to offer her daughter words which could make things better for her. Felicia was too young to have to suffer this life. It wasn’t fair! It wasn’t fair ! But the words couldn’t come. Gunilda knew that if she was to open her mouth, she would scream.

‘Mother, your back!’

Gunilda didn’t need to be told. He had stripped the tunic from her, yanking it from her neck and leaving her upper body naked. Then he had beaten her with the rope, each blow slashing at her like a sword, all over her upper body. Felicia could only see her back, but her breasts and belly were scored with the same long, raw wounds. Even breathing was hideously painful.

Felicia left, returning a moment later with a bucket filled from the leat. Saying nothing, she used a scrap of cloth to wipe slowly and gently at the weeping stripes.

Gunilda cried silently. All her pain, all her fear, all her futile anger were bottled up. If she let them out, she must explode. The heat and intensity of her uselessness would sear Felicia as well as Samson, and Gunilda couldn’t bear to think of the girl being hurt even more.

Her silence didn’t surprise her daughter, but Felicia’s quiet acceptance of her own suffering was a constant barb in Gunilda’s soul. Felicia was beaten as well, whenever Samson was displeased. Not that she refused him often. She knew that when Samson was in the mood for rutting, he preferred Felicia to his wife. He always preferred younger girls.

Poor Felicia, she thought again, while the tears streamed down both cheeks.

‘Has he gone to the tavern?’ Felicia asked in a still, quiet voice.

Gunilda couldn’t nod. Yes, her father was gone to the inn to drink again, washing away the sweet taste of his victory over his wife. He would stand there and brag, tell stories to impress his friends, and then he would return, filled with dark, amorous longings. Gunilda had no idea what went on in his head, maybe she never had, but she knew his routines. He would return drunk, ignore her, move over her to lie behind her.

And while Gunilda cried, he would rape their daughter.

Simon was pleased to meet Jeanne again. She hadn’t been to the tournament, and it was six months since they had last met, thanks to her pregnancy and the safe delivery of Baldwin’s first child, baby Richalda.

So far, Simon had avoided seeing the corpse. On hearing that the body was probably that of a young girl, he had grown still more unwilling to see the remains. He knew it amused Baldwin, and sometimes exasperated him, that he displayed such squeamishness, but he couldn’t help it. Although Baldwin himself often expressed the wish that the victims of violence could have lived to a contented old age, Simon felt that he declared it a little too regularly for it to be entirely frank. And the way that Baldwin would leap into action at the sight and smell of a corpse was, frankly, repellent to his friend.

If there was one crime the Bailiff hated more than any other, it was the murder of children. To him, child-killing was the foulest crime imaginable. When his own son Peterkin had died some years before, it had felt as though a candle providing warmth and light to his family had suddenly been snuffed out, and the thought that someone could willingly destroy a child was horrific.

Baldwin didn’t notice his quietness; he was more interested in the Coroner’s thoughtful mien. ‘What is it, Sir Roger? I do not remember you being so quiet before.’

Roger glanced at Simon before answering him. ‘There’s something wrong here, Sir Baldwin. Something very odd. The people… well, I’m used to being shunned in public, it’s all a part of my job, because I can hand out more fines than anyone apart from the Sheriff, but this goes deeper.’

‘I had noticed people avoiding me, too,’ Baldwin mused. ‘I thought my rank, and yours, explained their attitude well enough.’

‘No. I have never seen a vill react in this way. There’s something behind it, you mark my words.’

Simon wondered if he was right. ‘They’re only peasants, and you know how gormless they can be. Some children in Lydford tried to stone a traveller three weeks ago because they thought he looked dangerous. Scared the poor devil half to death. I had to put him up for the night just so he was safe.’

‘Why did they do that?’ the Coroner asked.

‘Who knows? He might have kicked a cat, or stepped on a dog’s tail, or muttered something under his breath about someone’s cottage. They’re all uneducated fools.’

‘I don’t think Baldwin’s villeins are that foolish,’ Jeanne said defensively.

Baldwin grinned at her protective tone. ‘What of this suggestion of cannibalism?’

‘I’ve heard of such cases,’ Roger admitted. ‘The poor, the dimwitted and the drunk have all been known to eat men when they couldn’t afford food.’

‘I heard of cases during the famine,’ Baldwin agreed, ‘but I have heard of others too, quite unconnected with starvation. Witches are rumoured to eat young flesh or use it to achieve their aims by black magic.’

‘Absolute rubbish!’ the Coroner scoffed.

‘I know, but simpleminded peasants can get hold of these ideas and take them seriously.’

While Baldwin and the Coroner fell to discussing the inquest, Simon drained his pot. William the Taverner was working hard, and it was some time before he noticed Simon and nodded, going to fetch a refill.

Baldwin took a long draught of his wine and leaned towards the Coroner again. ‘So you will hold the inquest tomorrow, Sir Roger?’

‘Yes. Whether the Reeve will be able to organise it is a different matter; he seems a complete fool. The child’s corpse has been left where it was found, apart from the skull, which was taken to the Reeve’s house.’

Baldwin nodded. ‘The jury has been called?’

‘I told him to ensure that all the men over twelve years would be there, and to bring shovels.’

‘The body is buried?’

‘Up by the road, yes. That’s why I was in a hurry to get here,’ the Coroner said, ‘before the vill’s dogs could pull it apart. A man has been guarding the place, apparently, so it’s safe from wild animals.’

‘You have little faith that the Reeve will have arranged all this?’

The Coroner grunted. ‘Like I say, he’s either useless or deliberately unhelpful. Still, it can wait till morning. If it’s not done, I’ll give him a ballocking.’

One word the Coroner had used sprang in upon Simon’s thoughts. ‘You said “skull”, not “head”.’

Sir Roger shot him a keen look. ‘The locals here told me that she died years ago.’

‘Thank God,’ Simon breathed, and gulped at his wine in relief.

‘I heard four years,’ Baldwin said, recalling Drogo’s taunt. ‘I am surprised that they have decided that the victim was cannibalised, since there can be no meat left on her bones. Perhaps there is more to this than we realised.’

Simon shuddered. He had no wish to hear these details about the body. To him it seemed almost sacrilegious: the poor girl would have to be exposed to the sight of the whole vill tomorrow, an appalling thought. He wondered how he would feel, if it were his own daughter, Edith. If this girl had lived, she might be the same age as Edith, not that her family would know. Peasants often forgot the year of a birthday. It was difficult enough to keep track, because years were measured by the King’s reign, and trying to recall how long the present King had held power made one’s brain ache. Edith was born in the first year of King Edward II’s reign, which made her age easy to work out, but as many peasants spent their whole life in ignorance even of the King’s name there was little likelihood that they would be able to make use of such information.