Michael JECKS - The Leper's Return

“I believe you went with your master yesterday to the house next door, and you found Godfrey’s body with him?”

“That’s right, sir. We went straight in as soon as we heard the scream, and found all three of ’em on the floor.”

“Your master then sent you to find the constable and raise the Hue?”

“Yes, sir. He remained to prevent anyone else from breaking in and stealing anything.”

“Did anyone come in?” Baldwin asked Coffyn.

“Only the maid. Almost as soon as we got there, she came down. She had been too scared to come down before, but when I called for help, she ran in quickly enough and helped us carry Lady Cecily up to her bedchamber. William and I left the two of them there, and that was when I sent him to fetch the constable. Not long after that, the constable arrived, and he said we could leave.”

“You saw no one else in the house?” Baldwin asked, turning once more to the soldier.

“I saw only the three people on the floor and the maid.”

“And there was no sign of anything being moved or stolen, as far as you saw?”

“No, sir. But I’d never been in there before, so how could I?”

“I hope you have some reason for asking all these questions, Sir Baldwin, because I have plenty to be getting on with, and surely you have enough other people to question,” Coffyn interrupted irritably.

“There are others I need to speak to, yes,” said Baldwin, rising. “I thank you both for your help.”

“At least you know no one escaped from the front of the house; he must have gone out by the back. And it seems as if he was trying to rape Godfrey’s daughter. That appears plain.”

“Does it?” Baldwin peered at the merchant. There was an eagerness in his face, an almost greedy look, like a dog which expects its reward after performing its trick. Baldwin felt only revulsion for the man.

“It is later than I had thought,” Baldwin said once they had retrieved their horses. He climbed the step and mounted, turning the beast toward the road and setting off at an easy walk. At the gate he hesitated, torn with indecision. He knew he should go to study the body again, see if he could speak to the girl Cecily and, from what he had heard, talk to John of Irelaunde, as well as seeking out other suspects, but he could only sit staring at the road, wondering what to do for the best.

This confusion was a novelty. Usually Baldwin was certain of the path he must take, no matter what the issues which confused the way. If he was involved in a judicial matter, he could find a logical solution; if he investigated a robbery or murder, he would be able to decide upon an appropriate course of enquiry – after all, most killings were committed in the heat of an argument, and premeditated murder was a rarity. But whenever he had embarked upon solving a crime of this kind, he had always had the assistance of his friend Simon Puttock. This time, Simon was not around, and Baldwin found his absence to be a constant niggling emptiness. The knight had never before thought of Simon as essential to his function as a servant of the King, but now that there was a serious crime to consider, he realized that he needed the bailiff, not only in his capacity as a sounding board, but also because his friend was apt to think of points that the knight, with all his education and experience, would never have considered. “Where are you, old friend?” he muttered.

“Sir?”

“Nothing. Let’s get something to eat before we see the girl.”

Thomas Rodde sat resting against an oak near the western edge of the town and dozed. The sun was warm on his face, the thick grass of the roadside was as soft as the finest down beneath him, and for a few minutes he could forget the horror of his disease and cling to a memory of what life used to be like before he became ill.

Now he was twenty-nine those far-off days of his youth seemed to be suffused with a rosy glow. Nothing bad or evil ever seemed to interrupt their easy flow. The weather, as now he remembered it, was always balmy – and when it did rain, it was always gentle showers, never harsh, bitter drops that felt as if they had been frozen before falling.

These reflections made him give a small smile, his eyes still closed against the brightness of the sun. He knew, logically, that the rain had been bitterly cold on occasion, just as he knew he had seen thunderstorms, had suffered biting winds while riding through the winter, and had more than once felt frozen to the core when he had been out in snowstorms – yet it was hard now to bring them to mind. It was as if his memory was separated into two parts: that before his illness, the happy life, and that after, the living death. All that happened in his early years was splendid: it was as if his childhood was a perfect dream in which even the elements had conspired to ensure his memories were delightful – and now, since developing leprosy, his entire existence had been blighted.

Whenever he thought about the winter, it was the desolate plains of the northern marches which sprang into his mind. The misery – of being constantly damp; of having the rain driven into his face by a wind that felt so cold it froze the blood in his veins; of walking through puddles and rivulets that might have been composed of pure, liquid ice, that penetrated his cheap shoes in an instant; the pain while his feet at first went cold, then became vessels of pure fire before losing all sensation, followed by the torture of recovery. It often seemed to him that he would be better off staying out and allowing the life to leave his freezing body. Once he had attempted this, remaining in the open air as the ground around him hardened and his breath misted before his eyes. But his will to live was too deeply ingrained in his soul, and he had returned, half-unwillingly, to the protection of the fire at the leper camp.

That was all he could recall of the bleak wasteland of Northumbria. He had loathed the climate, the country, and the people. It had been a refuge of sorts, somewhere for him to escape to, far from the disgust he saw in the eyes of his friends and family, but, like any place of sanctuary, it was no substitute for home, especially when his mild antipathy to the area developed into fierce repugnance.

This was partly due to the apparent slowness of his disease. The suddenness of his affliction had been hard to accept, but if he had continued to slide steadily toward death, he would have been able to cope with his burden. It wouldn’t give him that satisfaction. For some reason, while he had remained in the north, he had enjoyed a period of remission, and it had left him nursing a perverse, bitter fury against God. Thomas could have borne the trials of death, but knowing that he must stay away from contact with society, was excluded from all the pursuits and pleasures which made life bearable, while remaining fit enough in body and mind, was unendurable.

He had stayed there for six years, six long, intolerable years, living in the closed community of lepers, watching others suffering, becoming hideously disfigured, dying. And at last he was forced to leave. The Scots poured over the border in one of their periodic raids, and his little refuge was wasted. There was nothing to keep him there. To him the very air was foul, the climate worse, and he had made his way by easy stages down to the south.

And now it was almost possible to forget some of the pain and hardship. He opened his eyes and gazed up into the cornflower-blue sky, enjoying a moment’s serenity. The tree above him stood solid and unmoving, there was a scent of thyme and wild garlic in the air, and his contentment was enhanced by a small bird high overhead, which sang with a clear, liquid tone. Closing his eyes again, he could imagine himself back in the fields of his old country home in the flat lands of Stepney in the county of Middlesex.