Michael JECKS - The Sticklepath Strangler

‘But not now?’

He smiled again. ‘I find it more sensible to keep an open mind, shall we say? And in the meantime, I suppose, I should be about my business.’

‘Collecting money for the King?’

‘Yes. Although,’ he glanced about him with his lip curled, ‘it is hard to imagine a place like this could afford much. What a miserable collection of hovels!’

Jeanne didn’t admit to sharing his scorn, and when she saw Drogo’s hurt expression, she was glad. No man should insult another’s home without reason.

Nicole Garde sat heavily on her stool and stared at her daughter, dazed. ‘Are you sure?’

Joan burst into floods of tears and her mother gathered her up in her arms and cooed gently to her, rocking her.

It felt as though her life had collapsed around her. Naturally, she had always known that the people of the vill resented her, that they distrusted her husband and shunned her daughter, but that they should suddenly move against her family was terrifying. It was worse, somehow, than the treatment she had received at home before her husband brought her here to this rural English backwater. At least she could comprehend the strange detestation she aroused in the breasts of the local peasants in the town where she was born. Here it was incomprehensible.

So, for breaking the King’s Peace, Thomas had been imprisoned in the Reeve’s house and would be transported to Exeter as soon as a small guard could be mustered. There he would have to wait until he could be seen by the Justices, and all the time he was in gaol, he must pay for his own food and drink.

Nicole would have to find some way of sending money to him, perhaps even leaving their home here and taking on work in Exeter. Any sort of work – although she knew that she was only qualified for the one profession, and her belly lurched at the thought of being forced to earn money by selling her body. It was one thing to consider allowing Ivo to make use of her, another entirely to think of drunken men pawing at her, fondling her breasts and reaching up under her skirts in a darkened alley. And what would happen to Joan?

She gave a dry, hacking sob. While she was in Exeter, the farm and their house would fall apart. They wouldn’t be able to trust anyone to look after them, not if the whole vill thought that Thomas was a child-murderer.

Joan looked up at her. ‘If I ever find out who killed Emma, I’ll kill him,’ she said passionately.

‘You mustn’t say that,’ Nicole said, but her heart was breaking.

‘What about Father?’

Nicole stood and took a deep breath. In her wooden chest was her second tunic, and she fetched it now. Shaking it out, she noticed holes, but it was mostly undamaged. With hesitant fingers, she untied her apron, then doffed her tunic. Her shirt beneath was dirty and darned, but she couldn’t help that. She pulled the fresh tunic over her head, tying a clean apron about her waist. Then, before her resolve could leave her, she slipped her tippet over her shoulders, raised the hood over her head and strode out, leaving Joan alone.

In some curious way she had always felt that Alexander de Belston’s house matched him. He was a large, rugged man, and the appearance of the place fitted him so perfectly that he might have been constructed of the same materials. The walls were of good moorstone, rendered with cob to fill all the cracks, and then limewashed. It was redone each year, and the brilliant white gleamed in the sunlight, looking pure and awesome, especially in comparison with the other dwellings, whose limewash was older, and flaked or smothered in green streaks. His thatch was patched each year, too, all the holes filled, the peak checked and recovered, the whole mass patted and combed into shape. It wouldn’t do for a man as important as the Reeve to let his standards slip. After all, Alexander de Belston was the Lord’s own representative. He was the law: both judge and gaoler.

As was usual, his door stood open. There was nothing for a man of his position to fear from thieves or draw-latches. Nicole entered the gloomy interior, feeling the atmosphere within settle over her like a chill, damp cloak.

Lighted by a large window high in the wall, the smoke from the fire in the middle of the floor rose up like a fine mist, with tiny gleaming motes dancing in it all the way up to the ceiling of dried thatch high overhead, which was blackened by the smoke of decades.

Beyond the shafts of light from the window, Nicole could see the hulking figure of Alexander de Belston, sitting alone at his table on the dais, slowly twirling a cup of wine in his hand, one foot on the table, the other jiggling up and down with nervous energy.

‘I was expecting you,’ he said gruffly. ‘You’re here for Thomas.’

It was a statement, given with no apparent emotion, and all the woman could do was nod mutely.

‘You know why he’s in gaol?’

‘No.’

‘Didn’t he tell you himself what he intended?’

‘ Non . Reeve, he told me nothing. There can be nothing for him to tell – he is a good man. Honourable. He is no criminal. Someone has lied about him to make you arrest him.’

‘In truth?’ Alexander said, but now his eyes had moved from her towards the window. The sunlight was fading as a cloud passed by, and Nicole could see the smoke disappear, only to re-emerge from the gloom as the sun returned. ‘But I cannot let him free.’

‘We have little money, but I could pay a fine to–’

‘He had none this morning.’ His teeth showed in a humourless smile. ‘You think I want paying?’

‘Hold him in mercy.’

‘In mercy,’ he repeated. ‘You want him released in exchange for a surety he will turn up at the next court.’

‘There is so much work to be done, sir. We need him.’

‘He’s in prison because he has broken the King’s Peace, woman, and his brother’s nose.’

She shivered, closed her eyes, and stepped forward slowly, her feet feeling as though they were made of lead. ‘I will submit to you.’

‘You will let me have you?’ He gave a dry chuckle. ‘Ah, my dear, you are tempting a man who has been lonely so long… My God, it would be good to lie with you. But you will expect me to release your husband afterwards. Well, I can’t, maid. He’s in gaol because he’s been accused of attempting to kill his brother Ivo. And while there’s a Coroner and a Keeper here, much though I would like to take you, I think it wouldn’t be safe.’

Nicole gasped, her face reddening. ‘Is there nothing I can do?’ she asked, stepping forward, her hand reaching up to her laces and pulling. Her tunic fell away. She could see him watching her with sad interest while she let her shirt fall open.

He stared at her breasts, then lower. His smile broadened, but there was no amusement in it, only sadness.

‘Cover yourself, please. I can’t take advantage of you. I am finished if I let him go, and I am ruined if I don’t. I don’t need your temptations to make my choices any more difficult.’ He motioned as if swatting a hand at a fly, and she slowly donned her clothes. With great dignity, she turned away from him and went into the road.

Only there could she give herself over to her grief, leaning against a tree, her heart thundering with fear.

Her nightmare had returned.

‘This is it,’ Serlo said.

Baldwin and Simon looked about them. There was no dwelling here so far as they could see. They had climbed a little way up the hill from the clearing towards the Cornwall road, higher into the woods, but there appeared to be no house nearby. As Baldwin stared about them, all he could see was trees and a low wall some distance farther up the slope. Aylmer went and sniffed at it.