Michael JECKS: The Sticklepath Strangler

The stranger was of a heavier build than Thomas, with long, unkempt hair of a pale brown, and eyes that might have belonged to a cat; they were a peculiar shade of green, wide-set and intelligent. His mouth had full lips, and although he wore a solemn and respectful look, he was quick to smile at Nicole as he approached the tavern.

In that smile there was something wrong. Nicole always judged people quickly, and this man, she felt sure, was false. There was a veneer of sympathy there, but no more than that. His sole interest was himself.

Joan rushed to her mother, burying her face in Nicole’s skirt.

‘It’s all right,’ Nicole said, gently tousling her daughter’s hair.

Joan looked up, and in her face there was a mature, fearless expression. ‘I wasn’t scared, Mother. Emma was, but I wasn’t.’

‘She’s telling the truth there, madame ,’ said the stranger, hearing her accent. ‘She was more intrigued than fearful.’

‘Who are you?’ Swetricus demanded from behind her.

‘Miles Houndestail, master,’ the stranger said, bowing graciously. He was clad in simple hose, with a short tunic over a shirt, and a leather jack to keep out the wind. In his hand was a felt cap with several pilgrim badges pinned to it, and he wore a long-bladed knife in his belt, next to his horn. ‘I’m a simple Pardoner, here to assist those who seek God’s forgiveness.’

‘What was so scary?’ Nicole asked her daughter.

‘The skull. It rolled down past me and finished up with Emma. She became hysterical.’

‘Skull?’ Nicole repeated dully.

‘Yes. Drogo said he thinks it must be poor Aline.’

Nicole gasped and turned to see whether Swetricus had heard. He must have, but he merely stood and watched the men huddled about the body up on the sticklepath with an unreadable expression, saying nothing.

His daughter Aline had disappeared many years ago, but surely he would still show some reaction on hearing that at last her corpse had been found? Any father would – wouldn’t he?

Only a matter of days after Joan and Emma’s discovery, Sir Baldwin Furnshill lay on a bench in his garden before his house, enjoying the warmth of the sun on his face as he dozed, listening idly to the peasants in the fields. Overhead, larks sang in the sunshine and a pair of doves called to each other in his oak. They sounded delightful, and he decided that he would have a pair or two killed. His wife loved the taste of them roasted with honey.

The sounds of laughter and birdsong were wonderfully soporific. Gradually he found himself slipping into sleep, but not into a happy daydream; this was a nightmare, the same he had endured many times before.

He was in some woods – he did not know where or why. All he knew was that he was pursued by a nameless dread, and as he rushed forward, raising his arms to protect his face against brambles and twigs, he scarcely knew which to fear most – the pursuit or the horror which awaited him.

Soon he could see it: a broad swathe of grass. The sun pierced the high canopy of leaves here, and he could detect an odour – of roasting meat – of human flesh . The smell was noisome, sickly sweet, and then he reached the clearing and could see the man bound to the tree, his body slumped forward, his legs consumed in the fire that raged about his feet. It was a Knight Templar, from the cross at his breast, and then Baldwin recognised him. He was one of Baldwin’s friends, a knight who had died in the mass burnings in Paris after the death of Jacques de Molay, the Templar Grand Master. Even in his dream, Baldwin knew that this man had died many years before, and yet as he stared in horror, the scene was horribly real.

The knight was dead. No man could live with the flames licking upwards as they were now about his breast, but as Baldwin stopped and stared, he saw the head rise, saw the blackened skin about the eyes crack as the lids opened, and saw the mouth fall wide as though to call him…

He came to with a start, a cold sweat all over his face and back, a shivering like the ague, his breath coming in short gasps. Aylmer rose and padded softly to his side. The glossy rache, Baldwin’s hunting dog, stood near him with his head set to one side, his tan eyebrows frowning and his forehead wrinkled with concern. Baldwin stroked the animal to reassure him.

Above him the swallows called, whirling and spinning in the warm summer air. A pair of buzzards circled lazily high over the fields towards Cadbury, and when he gazed southwards, he could see a hundred rooks slowly rising into the air as one of his villeins’ sons threw stones or shouted at them. Looking about him, he could feel his heartbeat returning to normal, his breathing growing calmer. Feeling the sun on his face, he was aware of a curious sense of anti-climax. The world was unchanged. People strained and worked without fear, he could hear a woman singing, and cattle moaned gently as they chewed the cud.

The dream regularly impinged upon his sleeping mind, not every night, but often enough to unsettle him. Its roots lay in the violence which had begun long ago when his comrades in the Poor Fellow Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon , the Knights Templar, were burned at the stake. Baldwin felt a residual guilt for having survived the persecution, and the dreams were a reflection of that guilt.

Resolutely non-superstitious he might be, but he was still prey to the prickings of conscience, he told himself as he wiped away the sweat that filmed his forehead.

With that reflection, he broke wind and grinned to himself, glancing around to make sure that no one had heard him. It would not do for the Master of Furnshill, the Keeper of the King’s Peace in Crediton, to be overheard indulging in such shameful behaviour.

Shaking off any lingering anxiety, he yawned, then stretched voluptuously. At once he had to stifle a curse. A pain shot from under his shoulderblade, a reminder of his recent joust at Oakhampton’s tournament. His wounds no longer healed as quickly as they had when he was a young man, not that he would admit as much to his wife. She was already ruining him with her solicitous nursing. Much more of it and he would be as round as a football. Detestable sport that it was, he thought grumpily. Always led to violence and death.

Still, it was a glorious day. He could, in sunshine such as this, forget the horrors of his past and the annoyance of football. The reflection made him grin to himself, but when he cast a look over his shoulder, there was another stab in his neck, and the breath hissed softly between his teeth.

Baldwin was a grey-haired man in his late forties with the strong shoulders and thick neck of a trained sword-fighter. Only one scar testified to his past as a warrior: it stretched from temple to jaw, a souvenir from the battles about Acre. The sole incongruity about him was the neatly trimmed and still dark beard, which followed the line of his jaw. Not many men wore beards these days, especially among the knightly class.

Only two years ago his features had reflected the anguish which he had endured after the destruction of his Order and the slaughter of his companions, but recently his face had lost much of the torment, although there were still deep tracks scored at either side of his mouth, creases at his forehead, and a lowering wariness in his dark eyes that sometimes alarmed people when he stared intently at them. It had been said that he could see beyond a man’s lies, through to a man’s soul. He only wished that were true.

Since marrying he had found a new delight in life and had gladly thrown off the melancholy which had cloaked him for so long. As he must soon throw away this tunic, he told himself as he gazed down at his growing paunch. His wife had seen to it that his diet had subtly altered, and his frame was filling out. The proof of this was the way that his tunics fitted: tightly. It was partly due, too, to lack of exercise. Whenever he took his ease he found his weight increased alarmingly and he felt lethargic.