Michael JECKS: The Sticklepath Strangler

Joan sniffed unsympathetically. ‘If you don’t dare stay, leave me to it.’

Emma bridled. ‘It was me found it! All I’m saying is, you ought to poke it with a stick first, just in case the lot tumbles down. It could trap you.’

For all her boldness, Joan could see the force of the argument. The rocks which had landed in the road were some of them very large. One was over a foot deep; easily massive enough to crush her like a snail. Casting about for a stick, she found a thin branch about a yard long. Methodically stripping the twigs from it, Joan fashioned it into a pole, using her knife to sharpen the tip, cutting a barb into it. Then, while Emma waited below, watching with some anxiety in case her friend should be overwhelmed by a fresh fall, Joan stabbed at the cloth. The stick caught, the barb snagging in the cloth, but when she pulled, although there was a light scattering of soil, the stick pulled free. Poking again, she managed to pull a shred of the material away, and crouched to gaze closer.

‘What is it?’ Emma called.

‘There’s nothing,’ she returned. ‘It won’t come away, though. There’s another rock behind it. Maybe it’s trapping the cloth in there?’

She squinted in, beckoning to Emma, who sighed with relief, and began the slow ascent to rejoin her. Behind her, the man with the packhorse was climbing stolidly up the slope. And then something odd happened.

Joan had pushed her stick back into the cloth, trying to pull it away, and the stone behind had moved. It rocked, once, twice, and then the material tore. At the back of her mind Joan had been thinking that she might be able to rescue it to bind her hair or something, and now it was ruined. She screwed her face up with bitter disappointment. As she did so, the stone toppled out.

It wasn’t the way that the stone fell from the hole, so much, although it bounced somehow more slowly than she would have expected, as though it was lighter than it should be; no, it was the hollow sound it gave as it rolled haphazardly towards Emma.

At first Joan thought nothing of it, but then Emma’s horrified scream made her head snap around. ‘What?’

To her astonishment, she saw that her friend had already turned tail, and was fleeing from the rock, screaming her way down the slope towards the vill. As Joan watched, her mouth gaping, Emma hurtled past the traveller and his horse, alarming the beast and making it rear and snort. The man swore loudly, yanking at the leading rein and smacking the horse on the nose to calm him.

As he approached Joan, he glanced down and enquired, ‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes, I think so.’ Joan was still staring after her friend, wondering what could have so scared her. She glanced down, at the rock which had rolled so oddly from the wall.

But it was no rock. It was a skull, and it seemed to be gazing up at her as though in sardonic amusement.

Nicole Garde felt a stab of fear when the figure appeared in her doorway.

She hadn’t been expecting anybody. At that time of day, before noon, in the last hour before the sun rose to the highest point in the sky, visitors were the last thing on her mind. She had been preparing her family’s meal, squatting before the fire, teasing the embers into life with small quantities of wood chips and a lot of careful, steady blowing. Once she had the fire burning brightly, she would throw her large flat stone into the midst of the flames, getting it good and hot, while above it the pottage in her prized iron bowl began to bubble. When it was almost ready, she would drag out the stone, wipe it, and cook her bread.

But today the process was taking time; the fire was reluctant. She had already used up much of her store of tinder, and was worrying that she would never tempt the fire into roaring life. The room was smoky, so she had opened the door wide to release the fumes, and the sunlight streamed in, making everywhere look bright and cheerful when for so long the room had been dull and gloomy. That was how she knew someone had arrived, because the place was suddenly thrown into darkness again. Without even looking round, she felt the hairs on her neck rise, the breath catch in her throat, knowing it was him .

Only one man merited such contempt, mingled with fear: her brother-in-law Ivo Bel, Manciple to the nuns of Canonsleigh. He lusted after her, had done so for years. Thank God he was not often here at Sticklepath, and his nasty little eyes could not fix upon her with that unpleasing gleam, as though he had already undressed her in his mind and was mentally entering her. He wouldn’t dare offer her an insult in front of her husband, of course. Thomas would avenge her honour without fear of the consequences. Ivo was here too often and if he attempted to rape her, she would be hard put to defend herself. He was wiry and powerful and a dangerous man. She had not forgotten his offer to have her marriage declared illegal, because he had some power over the Reeve, so he said. He had witnessd the Reeve killing a man.

Sitting up, she rallied her thoughts. Her knife was resting beside the dough, where she had been tearing up leaves of orach and good henry and chopping garlic. She grabbed it and whirled to face him. If she had to kill him, she would; if she couldn’t, she would at least mark him. Only when she had risen into a crouch, the knife held out in front of her, did she see who stood in the doorway: Swetricus.

He was a hulking great man, one of Lord Hugh’s serfs who worked the lands under Reeve Alexander, but he was no enemy of Nicole’s. His enemy, since his wife had died and his daughter Aline had vanished, was the ale barrel.

‘Oh, Swet. I am so sorry!’ she gasped as she set the knife down again.

‘You thought I was the miller?’ He shrugged. Broad and heavily built, although not tall, he was bent with work and worry. At thirty-eight he was one of the older men in the vill and his dark hair was already shot through with silver. Grey eyes, which in the right light could look blue, were turned watery since the death of his wife. Now he must look after their remaining three daughters on his own, with a little help from the woman next door. It didn’t leave poor Swet much time to relax, but he tried to with his ale. Often he had to be asked to be quiet, when his drunken shouting and weeping threatened the vill’s peace.

‘Yes,’ she said. Everyone knew that he suspected the miller of having had something to do with Aline’s disappearance.

‘He wouldn’t trouble you,’ Swetricus said.

She suddenly saw something in his eyes, something almost like sympathy. A cold hand gripped her throat and she blurted, ‘It’s not Thomas, is it?’

‘No. Your daughter. Found a body up the sticklepath. She’s not well. Needs you.’

Nicole gaped, then rushed past him. Outside, she could see across the puddled soil of the roadway that there was a gathering crowd up on the sticklepath itself. Men and women were leaving the fields to go and gawp. There was a second, smaller group at the door to the tavern, and she guessed that her daughter must be there. Lifting her skirts, she ran, unheeding of the muddy water that splashed about her bare feet and ankles.

‘Joan? Joan, where are you?’

Emma sat on the tavern’s only bench, sobbing and incapable of speech, a large pot of strong ale at her side, but Nicole could see no sign of her own daughter. She was about to go to Emma’s side and shake her, demanding where Joan was, when she felt a hand touching her arm. It was as if Swetricus understood her terror – as he would, she reminded herself.

‘It’s all right,’ he said gently. ‘She’s with others – showing them where it was. Here she comes now.’

Seeing Joan walking down the lane towards them, Nicole was tempted to run to her and gather her up in a hug. She should be as petrified as poor Emma, she was only young, only ten years old… but something held the woman back. It was the tall, rangy traveller walking at her daughter’s side. He had his hand on the girl’s shoulder in a way that made Nicole’s hackles rise.