Michael JECKS - The Sticklepath Strangler

‘You mean they used Meg here to draw her brother outside?’ Simon said with shock. ‘Christ’s cods!’

‘They killed him,’ Meg said brokenly.

Baldwin studied her. In some way the death of her brother was more immediate to her than the death of her own daughter, which at first he thought appalling, but then he found himself in sympathy with her. She had been forced to endure many years alone, and the loss of her sole remaining protector, especially since she was witness to his death, must have had a significant impact upon her, coming back and haunting her each night.

That was why she relived the terror of that day, he guessed. Perhaps she regularly returned to the assart, hoping that this time her brother would escape the flames and go to her.

Serlo shook his head. He could remember it so clearly: the stinking cottage reeking of burned meat, the blackened and twisted corpse in the doorway. ‘They hunted him down, then slaughtered him like a rabid dog. That’s why she can’t sleep in the hut, even though I rebuilt it for her.’

Meg shuddered. ‘I was there. I heard them walking, so I followed and saw them shoot at him after he had chopped wood. They chased him to the house and shot him again, and Drogo told his men to light torches. I tried to scream, but a man caught me and put his hand over my mouth. They tied me to the tree and made me watch while they set torches on the thatch and waited, and I screamed. The Reeve tried to make him come out, but it was my screams that brought him out. He was hobbled, but they shot him like a rat! Like a rat !’

She broke down again, wailing and snivelling inconsolably, and it was some while before she could speak again. Baldwin looked enquiringly at Serlo.

He shrugged. ‘Far as I know, it’s all true. She was there when I found her. I’d seen the fire from my warren and went to look. Thought it might be a house fire and someone needed help. Not that they’d have asked me.’

‘Why not?’ Simon shot out.

Serlo gave him a scathing glance. ‘Because I look like this. Because people like you, people who are fit and well, hate to see someone who’s this twisted and wrecked. And they hate the way that their own children prefer to come up and talk to me on the moors than spend time with them here, that’s why!’

‘You were going to tell us about the assart,’ Baldwin gently reminded him.

Serlo’s anger faded, although he ignored Simon and addressed all his words to Baldwin. ‘When I got there, I found Athelhard’s place burning. He was dead just inside. It was his funeral pyre, poor bastard! They’d cut his heart out and burned him. The stink! Christ Jesus, I shall never forget it!’

‘No,’ Baldwin said quietly. ‘It is not an odour that ever leaves you, once you have breathed it in.’

Serlo eyed him doubtfully. It had been a horror to him, but he would have expected a knight to have smelled far worse in his time. Yet when he stared into Baldwin’s eyes, he could see that he was serious. He looked like a man who could still sense that foul stench in the air about them.

‘I found Meg there and took her away. Later, I went back and buried her brother’s remains. She stayed with me a while, just until she was better. Emma was with us as well, bless her. Then she took to staying in the vill.’

‘Where?’

‘With various people. Some took pity on her. They thought that a poor little creature like her needed all the help she could get. She was with the miller for some while, then with Swetricus, I think. I was sorry to see her go. I looked on her as my own,’ he added quietly.

‘Was there anything else?’

‘Just one thing. When I found Meg, she was holding a piece of arrow. The arse-end with the nock and fletchings.’

‘It was his, his – the Forester’s,’ Meg said. ‘He must have killed my poor Athelhard. I saw them shoot him, and Peter cut out his heart, and then they picked him up and swung him onto the flames, but when they lifted up his body, I found the arrow on the ground.’

‘Was there anything distinctive about it?’ Baldwin asked.

She looked at him, then up at Serlo, who gave her an encouraging nod, and she darted off into the tunnel. A moment or two later she was back, gripping a six-inch length of arrow. She thrust it into Baldwin’s hands.

‘Ask Drogo about his arrows,’ Serlo said grimly. ‘And compare them with that. Then you’ll have proof you have yourself a murderer.’

Baldwin nodded and carefully placed the splinter of wood into his purse to be studied later. The light was fading, and it was already too dark here in the woods to be able to distinguish much about it.

‘I shall,’ he promised. ‘Except it would be a great deal easier if I knew why the murderer – or murderers if it was indeed the whole vill – decided to kill Meg’s brother like that. It was not the random act of one man trying to rob another. Why should the people of Sticklepath decide to do such a thing?’

‘You need to ask that? Because they thought he was a vampire – a sanguisuga !’

‘It was revenge, then?’ Baldwin asked, whistling for Aylmer.

Serlo looked at him for a moment. ‘I don’t live in the vill. I am a moorman, that is all. But I know this: the Purveyor disappeared, then Denise died, and Drogo was keen to blame Athelhard. Very keen.’

‘Because Athelhard was foreign?’ Simon asked.

‘Perhaps. But there was another reason. Athelhard bought some pork to feed Meg. It cost him a fortune, but he did it to keep her alive.’

‘So what?’ Simon asked. ‘Couldn’t he have explained?’

‘No one would have believed him if he had. They had already jumped to the conclusion that he was eating human meat.’

‘Why think that?’

‘The priest had preached a sermon about the demons all about us. He told the vill about vampires and how demons could turn a man into one – so that although someone looked the same as they had always done, underneath he could be a sanguisuga . That was enough to seal poor Athelhard’s fate.’

‘I see. Now who would have had meat to sell during the famine?’ Simon asked.

‘Ivo Bel,’ Meg said clearly. ‘He sold it to Athelhard to save me.’

‘Is that right?’ Baldwin asked Serlo.

He shrugged. ‘Probably. But I think it suited people to assume the worst. What if Drogo had good reason to want Athelhard convicted?’

Baldwin said, ‘You suspect Drogo was the murderer?’

‘No. I don’t think Drogo could be so inventive. He’s a God-fearing man, for all his bluster, but I do think he could seek to protect a friend or someone.’

‘What are you hinting?’

‘Ask Drogo. Ask the Forester.’

‘I shall,’ Baldwin promised. ‘But before we leave you, where were you last night? Emma died and we must learn all we can about everyone’s movements.’

‘I was up at my warren until dark, and then I came here to see Meg.’

‘Did you notice anyone about the vill?’

‘I didn’t pass near the vill. I came down the road from Belstone and straight up here. Hang on – I did see one man. Vin. He was going to the mill.’

‘I see,’ Baldwin said. ‘One thing we haven’t learned is, where would Emma have been sleeping last night?’

Serlo scratched his head. ‘It varied. Sometimes with Swetricus, sometimes at the mill. Occasionally she’d stay with Thomas Garde.’

‘Just one last question,’ Baldwin said. ‘Have you heard of Athelhard’s curse?’

Serlo nodded slowly. ‘Oh yes. He cursed all the men there, so they say – but I think he meant Drogo and the Reeve. He damned them both to Hell, and they will be there before long.’

Sir Laurence was enjoying himself. He always did when his job gave him the opportunity to exercise his humour at the expense of others.