The Medieval Murderers - The Deadliest Sin

Those left behind ordered more food and drink and talked a little more loudly or rapidly, perhaps to reassure themselves that they were doing the right thing in staying behind. There were several hours of daylight left, no need to go to bed yet. Besides, it was pleasant to be warm and fed and to talk at leisure while receiving the hospitality of these excellent innkeepers. Whether it was because the remaining pilgrims were generally more cautious and reflective people, or had other reasons for not travelling on, the general conversation soon took a more serious turn. Although you might try to forget the pressing matter of the pestilence, you could not do it for long, and so it was here at the Angel inn at Mundham. Once again the same questions came up, as they surely recurred in thousands of conversations and exchanges taking place across the country every day.

Why was God allowing the pestilence to attack His people?

How might it be evaded?

Or, if it could not be escaped, how might its effects be minimised?

Someone had heard of a most infallible method, involving the gathering up of the contents of piss-pots and privies and the pouring of the mixture into a great brass cooking pot. Drape yourself with a towel, said this individual, and hang your head over the cauldron. Breathe deep and long until your gorge rises. Then, as soon as you have recovered, repeat the treatment. The noxious vapours will not only harden you against the pestilence but the vomiting that will likely result has the benefit of purging your body of any dangerous elements. The more fastidious pilgrims turned up their noses at this treatment but, even so, a number of them made a mental note of it.

From physical remedies the talk turned to spiritual ones: to human sin and divine salvation. There was discussion about which sin, out of the seven deadly sins, was the worst and so the most deserving of God’s punishment. Some said it was pride, others wrath or envy. Gluttony was scarcely mentioned – after all, the pilgrims were still eating and drinking. Lust was referred to, but in passing, and with an embarrassed snigger or a wry look. Rather in the way that the original pilgrim party had divided in two by instinct, so now it seemed that there was a natural tendency for this woman to denounce one particular sin, or that man to turn his attention to another, until not a single one of the seven was left unmentioned and commented on. Settling in for a longer session, several of these same pilgrims indicated that they might have stories to tell, each of which would prove the wickedness of the sin that he or she was proclaiming as the very worst, the most damnable.

Seeing an opportunity, their host, Laurence, who had by now made himself one of the party, suggested that the guests should tell their tales. After all, the long summer evening had scarcely begun. (There was plenty of time to purchase more refreshment, he might have added.) ‘Why don’t we have a proper contest?’ he said. ‘As they do in universities and such learned places, but not all dry and dusty. A contest of storytelling, told by people with real knowledge and experience of life. As,’ he said, looking round with a beaming smile, ‘I can see all of you ladies and gentlemen have knowledge and experience.

‘Yes, let us tell stories of sins, and then it might emerge which one is the best. That is, the worst…’

Though the idea was received with enthusiasm, there seemed to be a reluctance to go first, as if each speaker feared being judged not for his storytelling but for the sin that was its subject. Then from the group clustered around the fire came the sounds of urgent discussion…

He had listened to the anecdotes and rumours told by the other travellers with half an ear while they were trudging along the road, but once they reached the inn, Janyn Hussett glanced about him and shook his head as he settled himself near the fire, trying to ignore them.

These folks were all full of piss and wind. They wittered on about their feelings, their lives, as though nothing else mattered, but they were shallow, insubstantial people. If he had any choice, he would leave them. He wasn’t one of them. They had no idea what life was like for men like him, for men like Bill and Walt and Barda. For those who had died.

He sat and stared at the fire. Flames were licking up the faggots from the twigs beneath, and he was reminded again of the fires about Caen after the terrible sacking of the city, the wailing and weeping. And those horrors were early in the campaign, long before the astonishing victory at Crécy, and then the capture of Calais itself. His was a life of horrors: war and bloodshed, power and fear.

But now? Now it felt as though his life was ended. He had fought and killed, and when Calais fell, he had enjoyed a brief spell of happiness, but now God was punishing him – punishing everyone. Janyn’s wife and little babe were only two among the countless bodies that littered France’s villages and towns after the arrival of the Terrible Death, ‘ atra mors ’, or what the French were calling the ‘ morte bleue ’. So many: all tossed into the mass graves in cities like Calais, or left to rot in the fields and lanes uncared for, since all the others had already died. The horror would never leave him, he was sure. God had decided to punish them all. But Janyn knew others who suffered even more than he himself. One man had thought himself responsible, and suffered in his own private hell.

That was his curse.

When the travellers started this stupid game, asking about the worst sins, Janyn almost shot to his feet and left the room, struck with the urge to vomit. Scenes appeared in his mind, pictures of the corpses at the roadside, women screaming as they were raped, soldiers laughing and queuing for their turn, a nun’s corpse decapitated, babies… the world was full of sins. The deadliest sins? They were all deadly. Wherever men went, they brought evil with them. For a while he had been happy with his wife. He had been content. Seeing the miracle of pregnancy and birth, feeling the wonder as he held for the first time his little pink, mewling son, he had thought life could not offer anything so marvellous and awe-inspiring. Then the joy in his heart had almost crushed him. He adored his wife and son so much, he would happily have died for them.

But now both were gone. God had taken them.

Janyn Hussett wanted to shout at the other pilgrims: ‘You know what I think? I think you have no idea what real life is like! Look at you, all of you! Sitting here in comfort, out of the rain, whining about the weather…’

But he held his tongue. He held his hands to the fire and gritted his teeth. It was better not to speak, but to hold himself in resentful silence, ignoring their vapid maunderings.

But they would keep going on about their pointless, stupid, irrelevant lives.

‘Friend, you are very quiet,’ one of the pilgrims said to him. ‘Tell me, where do you hail from?’

Janyn looked up and snapped, ‘What is it to you where I come from? Why do you want to know?’

‘Please, friend! I was being amiable, that is all,’ said the man. He was stocky, serious-looking. His name was Nicholas. ‘We are all friends here, aren’t we? We are making a long journey. It would be good to know you better. Then, if we meet again, we can exchange stories about our lives.’

‘Exchange stories?’ Janyn said with contempt. He took a stick of kindling and broke it, hurling the halves into the flames. ‘What stories do you want? Tales of death and horror? Shall I tell you how I have seen nuns raped and slaughtered like so many sows? Or children taken from their mothers’ breasts to have their heads dashed against a wall? Is that what you would hear? No: you don’t want that. You don’t want to know my story.’