Michael JECKS - The Sticklepath Strangler

‘I don’t know.’

‘So you can tell us nothing conclusive,’ Baldwin said. He eyed Houndestail keenly. The man was like an old gossip relating a tasty morsel of vill history, and Baldwin was sure he was withholding something.

‘There was a feeling about the place even then,’ the Pardoner persisted. ‘Haven’t you felt it? There’s something wrong here. Something unwholesome.’

‘You’re dreaming, man!’ the Coroner rasped. ‘If you mean there’s been murder or somesuch, say so, but if that was true, the Reeve would have stopped you from spreading rumours.’

‘He tried, and he was most persuasive. Almost scared, I would have said. But I sent a man for you because I heard talk in the vill that this body was another one “eaten”, as they said. I hadn’t heard of cannibals in this area before.’

‘So you sent for me,’ Coroner Roger said heavily.

‘I met a fellow who was travelling through and gave him a coin to find you.’

‘Very public-spirited of you,’ the Coroner said suspiciously.

Houndestail’s face hardened. ‘I have a daughter.’

‘There is more, isn’t there?’ Baldwin said quietly.

‘Yes,’ Houndestail said, meeting his gaze. ‘It was the other thing I heard the Reeve say. I heard him mutter, “It’s Athelhard’s curse again!” ’

Vin stared over at the strangers in the tavern with a premonition of disaster. Every so often their eyes would move towards him and the other Foresters, and each time Vin flinched, wishing he had never joined Drogo’s men.

At the time it had seemed the best thing to do. Vin had been lonely and terrified after his father’s death, and Drogo, his father’s only real friend, had been the one person he could go to, even though he found the man fearsome. Living alone as he did, after the death of his wife and daughter, he seemed still more daunting to the teenaged boy, but there was no one else to turn to.

That was years ago now. Since then, Vin had come to know Drogo’s real nature. The Forester, quite simply, hated everyone. When he saw someone being happy, Drogo wanted to spoil their pleasure. It wasn’t only the travellers passing by; Drogo wanted to hurt and offend the very people he had grown up with. He hated them all. And most of all Vin was sure Drogo hated him .

It was the sullen, measuring looks he gave him. There was contempt in those looks, and hatred, and although Adam had tried to explain to Vin that they were emotions directed at Drogo himself, the young man was unconvinced. Drogo despised him. He had done nothing which could have led to such loathing. Still, at least Drogo did not treat him particularly harshly, compared with the other Foresters. If anything he treated Vin with scrupulous fairness, as though he recognised his hatred.

Vin watched Miles Houndestail, and wished the Pardoner would clear off. He was a foreigner , a stranger to the vill, and he had found that grave. Vin glanced at Drogo, remembering that time when he had seen Drogo and the Reeve up there at that field, the Reeve carrying a shovel.

It had been a strange night, that; the night Vin’s life was to change. Only a short while before, his father had died during the famine, and Vin was already starving. They all were. Desperate for food, everyone, and then that bastard Purveyor arrived and demanded their stores. It was no surprise that he’d ‘disappeared’.

Felicia had met Vin the previous evening as he walked home, and she had teased him, flirting. They had kissed and cuddled a few times before, as friends do who have grown up together in the same vill, but this was more serious. Perhaps it was because both feared they might soon die. They knew that without food they wouldn’t survive long. She had taken his hand and led him along the river towards Belstone, then, at a clearing, she threw her arms about him and kissed him again, before standing back and untying her belt, then her tunic, tempting him with her woman’s eyes. They were both young, but suddenly both were adult.

Later he would remember the keen thrusting of her hips, the sweet melting explosion that stilled both, and the calmness, the overwhelming lassitude. They lay there for what seemed like hours, cradled in each other’s arms, until they heard a hoarse bellow, her father Samson roaring with fury, then calling for Felicia. Hurriedly Vin had risen, pulling up his hose while Felicia watched, her face sad as she smoothed her tatty skirts.

‘Will you come here again tomorrow?’ she asked, but he hadn’t answered. He was too scared of Samson. Everyone was. He had hurried away, darting into the bushes before Samson could see him, and hurrying back towards the ford behind the inn. There he floundered through the water before making his way to the roadway again.

And it was there that he saw them the next night, on his way to see her again: Drogo and Reeve Alexander pulling the heavy weight of a body from near the mill, Drogo shouldering it and making his slow way up the sticklepath while Alexander followed, carrying a shovel. The two made their way silently into the field beside the road, then stumbled cursing up the hill. There, Alexander began digging.

Vin hid and watched them from the road, tiptoeing near to where the rocks had fallen and had only recently been replaced, and there he saw the two men take turns to dig a hasty grave and roll in the body of the Purveyor.

That was why Houndestail was an embarrassment. The place where the Pardoner had found Aline’s skull was dangerously near the spot where Drogo had buried the body of the Purveyor all those years ago – and Drogo wasn’t one whit happy about it.

It was late when all the other drinkers had left and Simon and Baldwin could unroll their cloaks and blankets, taking up places to sleep on benches and tables away from the floor and the scurrying creatures that moved in among the noisome rushes.

Houndestail went to the stable, he said in order to protect his horse and his goods, but Simon thought he preferred to sleep in peace away from the Coroner and Keeper. Not many people would want to sleep in the same room as two senior officials. Even Ivo Bel declared himself too warm in the tavern and said that he would seek the cool of the hayloft.

Simon dragged a bench to the fireside while the Coroner was draining his last jug of wine. Stripping naked, he bundled up his clothes into a thick pillow, then spread his cloak over the bench, lay down and draped a pair of heavy blankets over himself.

‘What did you think?’ he asked the Coroner.

Coroner Roger was pulling his hose off and he grunted, pausing while he considered. ‘Houndestail seems a reliable enough man. I wonder how many others he thinks might have been killed?’

‘An excellent question. And why should they immediately think of cannibals?’ Baldwin wondered from the other side of the fire.

‘Or a curse,’ Simon added.

‘Ridiculous! Only a foreigner would think of such a thing,’ the Coroner said with disdain. He recalled the innkeeper’s words. ‘And if Samson is a rapist, that isn’t the same as a cannibal.’

Stroking Aylmer’s head, Baldwin recalled his horror in the lane. ‘Perhaps there is a popular superstition here.’

The Coroner was pulling rugs and a thick sheepskin over him. He yawned and cast a sour eye at the knight. ‘Oh yes? What are you speculating about now, Baldwin?’

The knight smiled weakly. ‘It is that time of night, is it not, when men should tell tall tales to freeze the blood of others.’

‘Not me!’ Simon declared firmly. ‘All I want is sleep.’

‘What story were you thinking of, Baldwin?’ asked the Coroner, ignoring him.

‘Have you ever heard of William of Newburgh?’