Michael JECKS - The Sticklepath Strangler

Her voice was low, and although she had an impediment to her speech, she was easily understood. If she had been healthy, Baldwin considered that her voice could have been quite pleasing. By turns she was agitated and twitchy, picking at one hand with the other, and then calm, her round face vacant, as though uninterested in proceedings. Apart from that, as he spoke and as she gradually gained confidence in their company, he saw the signs of her affectionate nature. She held on to Serlo’s hand, but with less and less of a firm grip. As she eased, she took to stroking his bare forearm, not a conscious thing, but merely a proof of affection.

They made an odd couple, Baldwin thought. The man so twisted and graceless after his terrible injuries, and she so dumpy and clumsy, but for all that the two had one thing that shone from them: love. She adored him, watching Serlo’s face eagerly as he spoke, and for his part, when Serlo looked at her, his expression softened, like a man watching his own daughter.

Serlo was gentle as they explained about her daughter. ‘You have to be brave, Meg. Try to be brave. Emma, she can’t come back.’

‘My Emma?’

Serlo glanced up at Baldwin, gave a short shrug which was a confession of his own inadequacy. ‘She’s dead, Meg. I’m sorry.’

He had his arms wrapped about her as he spoke, but Baldwin saw her face crumble like a child’s. She looked up at Serlo with desperate hope, as though thinking he might be joking, and her expression as that hope faded tore at Baldwin’s heart. He hated to think how Serlo must feel. He regretted coming here like this, intruding on the grief of a poor, simple woman, but the alternative was to have some petty official come here from the vill, someone like Drogo, who would give her the news without Serlo to calm her afterwards. This was surely kinder. For a moment he tried to tell himself that so simple a woman could not appreciate her loss, but then he could have cursed himself for his callousness when he caught a glimpse of her face. This was no dim-witted girl he was watching, but a mother who had lost her only child. There could be no more hideous pain that that which Meg suffered now. Her very simpleness made her feel the pain all the more keenly. She could not imagine any alleviation of her grief.

‘NO! Not my Emma as well! No!’

Suddenly shrieking, she struck feebly with her fists at Serlo’s breast. He had to grab them and hold her, mumbling sympathetic noises, calling to her by name, and after some minutes she collapsed against him, weeping and shaking her head, her wrists still gripped in his hands.

It took a long time to calm her and prepare her to be questioned, and even then her face would occasionally become blank as her eyes appeared to turn in upon some inner thought or memory. ‘She was my baby,’ she said several times.

‘I am sorry to have to tell you this,’ Baldwin said, feeling stiff and formal in the presence of her overwhelming grief. ‘I want to find out who killed her.’

Meg nodded, but there was little comprehension in her features. She responded dully to his initial questions.

‘Tell us about Emma, Meg.’

‘She was my girl.’

‘When was she born?’

Meg turned to Serlo with a bewildered look on her face.

He answered for her. ‘She was about ten years old. Not above eleven.’

‘Who was her father?’

She smiled happily. ‘It was my husband. He married me, in the field by the river, my lovely Ansel. He worked so hard, and he had to travel much, but he always came home to me.’

Baldwin stared at Serlo in confusion.

The Warrener sighed. ‘Look, he made his promises to Meg about six years after the crowning of the King–’

‘That would be about 1313 or so,’ Simon muttered.

Serlo shrugged. ‘I don’t have much use for numbers. Only seasons. He made his promises, and he came back when he could. Emma was born, and Ansel came back for a couple of years–’

‘Until about 1315?’ Simon pressed him.

‘Yeah, well, then he left, and didn’t say farewell, and about a year later, Athelhard returned. He had heard that Meg had had a daughter, and he came to protect them and help as best he could. He wasn’t happy with the situation, but which older brother would be? At least Athelhard had helped with money.’

‘It was our home,’ Meg burst out suddenly. ‘Our house in the woods. Ansel built it for us. He liked it there.’ A dullness came down over her face like a shadow from a veil. ‘But he said he wasn’t going yet. He promised he’d be about for another week. He would have said farewell.’

‘Miserable bastard son of a whore and a dog fox,’ Simon muttered viciously under his breath. He hated to hear of women who were taken for a ride, and all too often men could get their own way by pretending to marry someone. Litigation was expensive, thus many escaped censure or punishment. If the Purveyor had been murdered, perhaps he deserved his end.

Baldwin shot him a look to silence him, then, ‘He said nothing? Gave no hint that he was leaving?’

‘No, he just upped and went.’ Serlo shrugged.

‘Will Taverner said he’d left, but he wouldn’t have, not without seeing me first,’ Meg said tearfully.

‘I see,’ Baldwin said. ‘What of the rest of your family?’

Her reaction startled him. She stiffened, and then her eyes grew wild. Suddenly she spun around, as though fearing an attack from behind her. Serlo had to catch at her wrists again and talk to her quietly. All the while she moaned with a keening noise as though mourning.

Serlo grunted, ‘Her family died many years ago, all but her brother, Athelhard. He was older than Meg, and when their father died, he was all she had left, but he was away with the old King hammering the Welsh. When he died, Athelhard stayed in the retinue of a Marcher Lord. He did well and brought back plenty of booty, so that was fine, but he wasn’t here for Meg. Like she said, when she was alone, she married but then her man disappeared and it was a good year later that Athelhard returned here to look after her and take over the assart.’

‘Which assart was that?’ Baldwin asked.

‘The one where I met you today. It was theirs. Ansel had built the cottage for Meg, but it was Athelhard who started to clear the woods about it to create some pasture.’

‘I saw you there, Meg,’ Baldwin said softly. The recollection of the sight made a shiver of ice trickle down his spine, but he could sense the relief now that there was an explanation. ‘You were standing at a tree with your arms behind you. Why was that?’

She sniffed, but couldn’t answer. It was left to Serlo to respond for her.

Gruffly he said, ‘They tied her to that tree when they set fire to Athelhard’s house. To burn him out. He wouldn’t come out even when they set fire to his thatch, and they wanted to make sure of him. They found Meg and used her, binding her to the tree so that she could see everything, and when she screamed, her brother came running. As they knew he would.’

‘Who are they?’ Baldwin asked.

‘The vill. The Reeve, the Foresters – all of them. They thought Athelhard was a vampire.’

‘Why should they have thought of vampires?’ Baldwin asked quietly, his eyes going to Serlo. ‘I can understand people being horrified by the thought that a child could have been murdered and her flesh eaten – but surely they knew that people can be driven to desperate measures from starvation. Why think of supernatural agents?’

‘This is a small vill, Sir Knight. You are well-travelled and experienced, but many of the folk here have never been farther than Oakhampton. When they hear of cannibalism, it seems so inhuman that they assume a demon is responsible. And that means a vampire.’