Michael JECKS - The Sticklepath Strangler

If Ivo believed he could have been guilty, what chance was there that others wouldn’t think the same?

Gervase woke with a pounding in his head and a sour taste in his mouth. As soon as he opened his eyes, he knew what was meant by light ‘lancing’ through a window. It felt as though he was stabbed with a white-hot point, and he snapped both eyes shut again, groaning to himself.

He had managed the Mass without difficulty, feeling light-headed and happy, and afterwards he had swept the chapel until the noise of Samson’s dogs got to him. That and the dust. It rose in a fine, stifling cloud, a choking mist. And every time he coughed, he felt slightly worse. The hangover grew gently, almost imperceptibly as he worked. Then, of course, he’d been called to attend the inquest, and it was all he could do not to vomit at the sight of little Emma’s ruined body. Poor, sweet little Emma, the last reminder of Ansel, the last reminder of Athelhard, too, in some ways.

Fortunately he made it back to his little home and sprawled upon his bed, an arm over his eyes, intending to catch a few moments’ sleep before carrying on with his chores. He didn’t mean to fall asleep, only to relax. Then he was sick and fell into a heavy doze.

It wasn’t his fault. He had needed to drink more last night, to drown out the noise of the hounds, damn them! And that other noise still kept coming back to him, the wail like that of a soul in Purgatory.

The knocking came again, an insistent rapping on his plain, bare-timbered door, and he tugged the rough blanket up over his head, pretending he wasn’t there, while fumes from last night’s drinking rose to his nostrils. He had been sick again, he remembered, and acrid bile reeked from the rushes at the side of his palliasse. It was enough to make him want to puke again, and he rolled away to the other side of the bed.

‘Parson, are you well?’

‘Sweet Jesus, let me kick him just once in the cods, and I’ll forswear all wine from now on,’ Gervase muttered pleadingly from gritted teeth, adding more loudly, ‘My son, I am suffering from a vile malady. Come back later, and I shall see you then.’

‘Parson, this is Sir Baldwin Furnshill. I want to speak with you. Now.’

‘Holy Mother, give me strength,’ Gervase whispered, and let his legs slip over the edge. Soon he was upright, and he shivered as he unpegged the latch.

‘What possible excuse can you have for interrupting an ill man? I was praying, Sir Knight, and you should not see fit to break in upon my meditations.’

Baldwin entered first, the Coroner following with interest, while the Bailiff stood blocking the doorway.

‘Good Christ, Parson – were you puking all night?’ Coroner Roger asked, his nose wrinkled at the noisome fumes.

‘A passing sickness, that’s all. What do you mean by breaking in upon me? Cannot even a priest count upon some peace in his own house? And what’s that hound doing in here?’

‘I hope you aren’t missing your services?’ Coroner Roger enquired, ignoring his questions.

‘Didn’t you hear me, Sir Knight? You can try to evade my questions if you wish, but by God, I shall keep asking them! What is the meaning of–’

It was as though the knight had no respect for a man of the cloth. To Gervase’s astonishment, Baldwin walked out through the rear of his house, Aylmer trotting at his heel. ‘Just where are you going?’ Gervase shouted, and then winced as his head appeared to explode like one of those new-fangled cannons.

‘If you want to speak to him, you’d better go on after him,’ the Bailiff said helpfully.

‘He’s not of a mood to sit indoors,’ the Coroner added.

Gervase was about to give a rude reply when the Bailiff sniffed with a slow deliberation. ‘You know, my master, Abbot Champeaux of Tavistock, is always careful to protect his monks from over-indulgence. Especially with wine and ale. I had thought that the Bishop of Exeter was moderate in his drinking, too. I must speak with him next time I meet him. He is a very pleasant man, Walter Stapledon, isn’t he?’

‘I have only met him twice,’ Gervase admitted warily. He was unpleasantly aware that there was a sting in this conversation’s tail.

‘Really? Oh, I meet him regularly. He often drops in on my wife and me when he is travelling through Dartmoor.’

Gervase smiled without humour, but took the hint and walked out to the open air. Baldwin was sitting, the presumptuous popinjay, on Gervase’s own favourite bench, the dog in front of him, and a carelessly beckoning finger invited Gervase to join them. That would mean either sitting at his side, a prospect too awful to conceive of, or standing before him like a felon awaiting sentence. Gervase pointedly walked to a seat at an angle from the knight, sitting there with his back straight and as haughty an expression as he could fit upon his features. It wasn’t easy, with his hands wanting to shake and his urge to vomit. Gervase had a dislike for knights generally, but the sort of knight who could break down a man’s door, figuratively speaking, of course, or who would presume to break in upon a man’s pain when he might have drunk a little too much the night before, was detestable. ‘Well? I noticed you failed to appear at Mass. Is this to apologise or atone?’

‘I have nothing to atone for. What of you?’

Gervase was tempted to throw a tantrum, to stamp his feet, declare his rage, insist that these rude bastards leave his home, and then sink back once more onto his palliasse, out of this hellish sun. Perhaps with a cup or two of wine to help him, he thought. But one look at their faces told him that they wouldn’t listen to him. ‘I have nothing to confess to a secular knight. I am a man of God.’

‘That is good,’ Baldwin said. ‘But perhaps we can discuss matters which do concern you. First, I believe that this chantry chapel of yours was given to you by the Lord Hugh de Courtenay. Is that correct?’

‘What if it was? It’s now in the hands of Holy Mother Church.’

‘Yes. Except the Lord Hugh has an interest in it and I fear he would become most alarmed to learn that the very priest he had installed here was keeping secrets from him. Secrets which could affect him.’

Gervase felt his eyebrows rise. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘There is a secret in this vill which permeates the whole place. It is rooted in the soil, and it affects every man, woman and child in the place. You attended the inquest this morning, so you know that there has been another murder.’

‘Murder?’ Gervase felt his stomach shift at the word as though ready to fight free. The sweat broke out on his brow and the faint breeze chilled it like ice; God, but he needed a cup of wine.

‘Oh, poor Emma,’ he groaned. Sadly. ‘She was such a sweet little thing!’

Simon interrupted. ‘She wasn’t only killed, priest.’

‘She was eaten, too,’ Coroner Roger said relentlessly. ‘Just like the other three.’

Gervase stared at him blankly for a moment, but then his belly clenched and he had to bend over, throwing up over the foot of his robe.

The Frenchwoman could have wept to see her man so dejected and distrait. He looked as though everything he had striven for was suddenly gone; all his hopes, ambitions and dreams had been snatched from him in the space of one morning.

After Batyn had left, Thomas sat for a long time on his stool, and when he stirred, it was with an effort, as though his mind was far away. He looked up at his wife and smiled ruefully. ‘It seems I brought you from the dangers of your home only to set you down amid others just as deadly.’

‘We are still alive, my love.’

‘For now, Wife. For now.’

He reached up and caught her about the waist, pulling her to him so that his face was between her breasts, inhaling her fragrance, his cheeks surrounded by her softness. He closed his eyes as he felt her bend over him, her hands on his shoulders, her lips on his brow. ‘Ah, my chéri , it will all be good. We shall survive this. No one who knows you could ever believe you guilty of anything so monstrous as killing the child. Our own daughter would never think it for a single instant.’