The Medieval Murderers - The Deadliest Sin

Why? Why would anyone want to help a young woman in her predicament? She was young, fresh, beautiful, a reminder to him of when he was younger and in love, perhaps. Or maybe it was because he thought he saw in her a dim reflection of his own mother. Whatever the reason, he only wanted to aid her. She had a need of food, and would find it hard to come by here, with the English taking everything for miles around. It was foolishness to refuse his offer, no matter what she thought he was like.

He set her from his thoughts. She didn’t deserve his efforts, he thought. The ungrateful wretch could go hang.

If there was any justice, that is what would have happened. Janyn would have gone through the siege and never seen her again. She would have been found stealing from a baker’s or from a butcher’s, and would have been hanged on the spot. Janyn would never have been tormented by the sight of her again.

But life was never so straightforward.

He came to see her every so often. She had become a familiar face about the camp after a few days, and while men occasionally leered at her and tried to get close, they always found themselves reluctant to get too close. There was something about her that made a man keep away. Not exactly fear – the men of King Edward’s army were not scared of any woman – but a sort of grating on the nerves. When they spoke to her, or made lecherous comments in the hope she would respond, she said nothing, but she had a look that spoke to many of them; it was the kind of stare a witch might give. It was as if there was no soul within her breast, no heart, no compassion or feeling. She felt neither terror nor hatred; she was filled with a numbing emptiness that was so cold it would freeze a man who touched her.

Once, Janyn saw three men attempting to persuade her to lie with them. They circled about her, one trying to engage her in conversation, another playing with the binding of his cods and holding out a penny, while the third laughed inanely, waving his arms like a cockerel warning off an interloper in his ring. It was plain enough that if she refused their money they would take her for free.

It was a sight to spark his rage, and Janyn had his hand on his sword as he opened his mouth to bellow at them, but he need not have worried. Even as he prepared to defend her, and while she stared at the men, one at a time, without moving, he saw two others running to her aid: Bill and Walter. They shoved the men away, and her attackers left her like melting snow sloughing from a roof, to go and find easier prey.

It came back to him now, that scene. The ringleader of the men spitting at the ground, another biting his thumb at Bill and Walter, but all three moving off, unwilling to test the anger in the faces of the two men who stood at her side to protect her.

Bill and Walter glanced at each other, then at Pelagia. She stood looking at them, utterly still, and the two men looked confused, pinned under her scrutiny like a man stabbed to an oaken door by an arrow.

‘Are you well, maid?’ Bill asked at last.

She gazed at him from those fathomless eyes of hers, but said nothing.

‘I wanted to help,’ he said.

Janyn watched the woman turn and walk away from them. Neither brother made a move to follow her. They watched her as she made her way between the little shacks and carts of the camp. But in their faces, Janyn saw the dawn of adoration.

They looked like men who would cast aside their own lives to protect her.

Janyn knew that there was something between the brothers and the girl from the first moment. Bill and Walter would stare at her, and he wondered at first whether they were planning on making use of her for their own enjoyment. He kept a close eye on them, but soon he realised that these two were not seeking to rape, they were both attempting to win her over in their own ways.

The older of the two, Walter, was a heavy-set man. If he had been a tree, he would have been an oak. Brown-faced and with a thick, black beard and slanted blue eyes that gleamed under his brimmed felt cap, he had heavily muscled arms and short, stubby fingers. Although he was a massively strong fellow, he had already gained a reputation for kindness – he was the first to share any food or drink, and when he did capture the enemy, he always brought them in alive.

His brother was not the same. Bill was a harder man, with the slim, wiry strength of a birch tree. He had lean, narrow features, and while he was as dark of hair, there was a tinge of brown in his beard and moustache that wasn’t in Walter’s. Unlike his brother, Bill had long, slender fingers, and his arms and thighs looked as strong as reeds compared to Walter’s powerful build, but Bill was a ferocious fighter. Janyn saw that himself often enough in the little fights about Calais. Still, while both were very different men, neither gave him any cause for concern.

Not for their fighting prowess, anyway. It was different when it came to love.

Janyn was wary with all his men when it came to Pelagia. She was aloof, holding all the men in contempt, but for some, especially Walter, this served as a spur to his desire for her. It was not a rough, demanding lust, but a deep infatuation that tore at him whenever he saw her. Janyn could see it, and just as clearly so could the other men. However, Bill adored her too, in his own quiet manner. When she walked about the camp, Janyn could often see the two brothers, their eyes following her slim figure.

Seeing their competitive desire for her, Janyn had thought they might come to blows, yet their fights were not with each other, but with any other man in the vintaine who threatened Pelagia or who tried to force himself into her company. The two brothers were protecting her, and she seemed to appreciate their help as much as she did Janyn’s own calm defence.

Perhaps all would have been well, were it not for Henry the Tun.

Henry was not a man to hold a secret. He was content to tell his tale to any who would listen, and he had spoken of it to Janyn on many occasions. His life had been full of incident, but he was a senior commander in the King’s army now, and safe. Besides, along with his age and experience, he had confidence in his prowess and authority. His tale was known to many. It was a source of pride to him, a proof of his strength and valour, he thought.

Henry had been born the son of a cooper in a village called Cleopham, some few miles from London. When he was old enough, he had travelled up to the city, and there he was apprenticed to a barrel-maker, but the work didn’t satisfy him. He was a bold, roistering fellow who loved ale and women, rather than being tied to a master who ordered him about and made him work at tasks in which he had no interest. Henry was not remotely interested in sweeping and cleaning, or learning how to split and shape barrel staves, nor in binding barrels with willow. He wanted money to enjoy himself with friends in alehouses lining the Southwark streets. And there he got to know the women.

There were so many of them, and they were enthusiastic companions to a man with money. The Bishop of Winchester’s lands south of the river were full of brothels and individual women making their own way, usually supporting their pimps with their income.

It was one of these who got Henry into trouble.

He had been with the boys in London during the excitement of a riot. King Edward II, the King’s father, was realising that his reign was coming to an end, and when Walter Stapeldon, Bishop of Exeter, was slain in the street like a common felon by the London mob, Henry and the other apprentices went on the rampage. They swept down Ludgate Hill to the Fleet River, and broke the shutters of all the shops on the way, beating up anyone they met. Any men who wore the insignia of the hated Despenser family were grabbed and tormented, or battered with canes and clubs on the way.