‘No. She was lucky. I took things and made it seem that she had stolen them. I showed the things to my mistress, and she was happy to tell Master Henry. He wasn’t going to keep a thief in his house, so he threw her out the same day.’
‘But Evie was different?’
‘She wouldn’t have been so easy. She was a shrewd little vixen, that whore. She had Master Henry so tightly bound round her little finger, it’s a miracle her finger didn’t fall off. She had him paying for new clothes for her, for necklaces, and rings. And all at the time he was ignoring his own wife. The poor mistress was forced to watch all this. And when she complained, did he listen to his rightful wife? No. He beat her with a belt. She was in her bed for days, and the only one allowed in to see her was Evie. She took up the food and drink. That was cruel of the master. I swore then that I’d never let my mistress be so foully treated again.’
‘So you killed this Evie?’
‘I didn’t want to. She found me when I was putting things in her room, same as I had with Clara. Said she was going to tell Master Henry, and that I’d be forced out of the house. And then she began to bait me about it: she jeered at me, saying she’d get a better man for my mistress, a man who was more virile than me. Said I’d always wanted to lie with my mistress, and that was why I was so pathetic. Sir, I couldn’t tell you half what she said.’
‘And you couldn’t bear her words?’
‘How could I? Saying I would lie with Mistress Claricia? That would be like bedding my own daughter. I have looked after her since her birth, all the time while her mother died, and her father, and then her sister. I helped her through all that, and when she married, I helped her again. And ever since, I’ve been here.’
‘So you killed for her. How did you bring Evie to this grave?’ Baldwin asked.
‘I killed her in her room, and when all were busy in the shop or out, I took her body down to the pantry and wrapped her in a sack, then carried her out to my shed. It took no time at all to lift some planks and install her beneath. And I would have been clear, except a dog came into the yard and started trying to get to her. That and the rats.’
‘What of the smell?’ Baldwin asked.
‘It was winter. The chill kept that away. The privy was nearby, and that smell covered the other.’
Baldwin nodded. ‘And then you began to suspect that Alice was behaving in the same way?’
‘She was worse. She didn’t want little trinkets, she wanted a house of her own. And Master Henry was going to buy one for her! All that money on a house? He used to have a chest of money behind the wall in the hall, but he took it and used it all to buy a place in Stepecoat Lane, which was to be hers.’
‘What happened to it?’
‘It is still his, I think. You should ask him.’
Sir Richard and Baldwin exchanged a look. Baldwin continued, ‘How did you manage to kill Alice?’
‘She was a fool. That day she flaunted herself at the master again. He went with his family to the inn to have a meal, and she persuaded him to come back and lie with her while the others were eating. He did, too. He came back under pretence of forgetting his rosary. He and she were loud, very loud. And I became more and more angry the longer they went on. He didn’t care what anyone thought; he didn’t care if it broke his wife’s heart. He didn’t care what I must think either, hearing him whoring away, when he knew I adored my mistress. No! So I sent her out into the yard to take a message to the apprentices, and followed her and killed her. It was easy, so she didn’t suffer. Later, I took her body out into the alley and left her there. She had company.’ He laughed. ‘There was a dead cat.’
‘What of Juliana?’ Baldwin said.
‘She went to the master and threatened to tell about his family’s affairs.’ John’s eyes went to Claricia, and then to Gregory.
‘What of it?’
‘How do you think my mistress would feel to know that everyone was pointing at her behind her back and laughing at her? All her friends, her neighbours, all the people about her here, knowing that she was being made a fool of and could do nothing about it?’
‘How will they all feel to think that she held a murderer as a bottler in her household?’ Sir Richard said.
‘Why did you cut away Juliana’s lips?’ Baldwin asked.
‘She was going to talk about my mistress all around the city. I wanted to show that people couldn’t get away with that sort of behaviour. So I showed them. All of them.’
‘And you stabbed her eyes.’
‘Because she had seen… She said she had seen things.’
‘You admit to slaying three women. And you killed Philip Marsille tonight as well,’ Baldwin observed.
‘I would do it again, gladly, for my mistress. You think it is easy to watch the child you have raised being insulted in that way?’
William pushed his way past a surprised Sir Richard. Baldwin reached for him, but William did not try to advance further to hurt John. He stood staring down at him.
‘When you have the opportunity to consider,’ he said quietly, ‘you can reflect on how you destroyed my life, and my brother’s, and my mother’s, just to satisfy your notions of “loyalty”. You can never repay me the harm you have done. I will go to your trial and I will accuse you, and when you hang, I will stand with the executioner to make sure no one goes to ease your suffering. You will take a long time to die.’
John looked up without expression. This cur had no idea what suffering was, he thought, and he shrugged and turned away.
But then he heard a rustle of skirts, and saw that Claricia was at William’s side.
‘Master Marsille,’ she said quietly, ‘if this house has been bought in Stepecoat Lane, I hope you will accept it as a gift from me, in proof of my good intentions towards you.’
She then faced John. ‘As for you, I reject you utterly. You must have been infected with a demon to have thought that I could ever support you in this. To kill those girls, those women! It leaves me with a feeling of utter horror that I have shared a house with you.’
‘Mistress…’
‘I do not know you. You are nothing to me.’
‘Mistress, please!’
‘Gregory, Agatha, come with me and—’
‘Mistress, you must not desert me!’ John called. He roared now. ‘Mistress Claricia, if you don’t want the worst secret loosed, you will not leave me!’
‘There is nothing else you can say that can harm us more,’ Claricia said.
‘You think so?’ John said. ‘Ask your son, then, and your daughter, mistress! See what they think. See Agatha’s face? How she blushes? Like an innocent maid, not at all like a wench who knows the pleasures of a condemned lust, is she? And your son! Look how he pales!’
‘What are you saying, churl?’ Gregory managed. He stepped forward threateningly, his hand on his dagger.
‘You’d kill a man bound, would you? How brave! But I am speaking the truth, as you know, Master Gregory. Beware! If you attack me, it’ll be on your soul.’
‘It would weigh on my soul as much as slaughtering a rabid dog,’ Gregory said. ‘You are nothing. I will not defile my hands with your blood.’
He turned and marched away, his mother and sister following.
‘Enjoy your bed, then! Enjoy your unnatural lusts!’ John bawled after them. He collapsed back on the bench, his head pounding, the rage still making his blood boil. He couldn’t believe that they would dare to desert him. He had given the family everything, the utmost loyalty, the devotion of a slave. And in return they would willingly see him hanged.
Well, if he was to hang, he would see that they suffered too. He stared after them as they disappeared into the house.
‘I want to see a priest,’ he demanded. ‘I will confess all you want, if you let me see a priest and make my confession on the Gospels.’
* * *
Claricia was still carrying Thomas as she entered her house. She stumbled slightly over the paving slabs on the way i
n, but it did not stop her in her dazed journey.
‘Mother,’ Gregory called, but she gave no indication that she had heard.
Claricia’s world had collapsed about her. Her son and daughter were guilty of incest – a crime against God as much as men. She could not take it all in. Her husband’s treason, his betrayal of her and the family, his plotting with the murderer Sir Charles, and now his death… the attempted murder of her two sons… There was no sanity in the world.
‘Mother?’ Gregory called again.
‘I do not know you,’ she whispered, cradling Thomas’s head at her shoulder.
Gregory glowered. ‘You don’t believe him, do you? The old fool doesn’t know anything – he made that claim to upset you, that’s all. I’ve never done that with Agatha, Mother!’
She should have guessed. When she had seen those secret looks between her two older children, she should have sensed that there was something going on between them. It was obvious now, but before, when she was always so fearful of being punished by Henry for the slightest offence, she had not had time to worry about Gregory and Agatha. Incest! It was a terrible word. All would get to hear of it and they would shun her, and Thomas as well as the others. The family faced financial ruin already. This would push them into abject poverty.
At the door to the hall, she turned and faced her eldest son. Her face was drawn into a rictus of pain and grief.
‘Leave me!’
Chapter Forty-seven
Paffards’ House
Baldwin and Simon took hold of John’s arms and took him out through the house to the front door. In the hall, Simon saw the figure of Claricia sitting on a chair near the dead fire, Thomas still in her arms.
Closely followed by Sir Richard and the other members of their party, they went out through the front door, and into the street.
It was early evening, and the scent of woodsmoke was all around. Simon snuffed the air, feeling as though a great weight had fallen from him. To be out of that house was a marvellous feeling. It was as though the walls themselves were permeated with misery.
‘Baldwin, I don’t ever want to go back there.’
‘I do not blame you for that.’
‘It is a good house,’ John said. He was walking resolutely, his head up, looking about him like a man who was at ease with himself and off for a walk on a pleasant evening, enjoying the sights and scents about his home.
‘It was,’ Sir Richard corrected him. ‘Until you decided to kill all the servants.’
‘I only sought to protect my mistress. I was always a most devoted servant.’
‘Aye. I believe devoted servants can be the most dangerous of all,’ Sir Richard said.
‘You make fun of me?’
‘No. There is nothing amusing about this situation. You have brought ruin upon your house, but no more than your master. Henry Paffard has done as much.’
‘He was a fool,’ John scoffed, ‘to think that he could forever get away with his behaviour. No man can own all the women in a city, but he seemed to think it was possible.’
They were already at the end of the street, and Baldwin pulled John with him down towards the church by the South Gate. Baldwin opened the door, and they all passed inside. Baldwin and Simon remained at the rear with their prisoner and the watchman, while Sir Reginald walked up the nave towards the figure of Father Paul kneeling at the altar. Sir Reginald cleared his throat gently, to indicate that the Father had company.
‘Yes? What can I do for you?’ Father Paul asked tiredly, breaking off from his prayers.
He was not feeling well, and now he was seized with a great emptiness and sorrow. The death of Father Laurence had quite shaken him. He had thought that God’s will should be visible all about, but the events of the last week had disturbed his equilibrium, and just now he was less sure of his faith than he had ever been.
‘Father, we need you to let this man put his hand on the Gospels and swear to tell us the truth.’
‘Why? Why do you need to know the truth? The truth is, good men have died!’ Father Paul said with great bitterness.
‘Father, you are unsettled,’ Baldwin said kindly. ‘We will leave you and find another priest. I am sorry to have troubled you.’
‘You haven’t troubled me. It’s my good friend Laurence. His death was so pointless.’
‘He tried to save Gregory Paffard’s life,’ Baldwin said.
‘For what? Why should God allow Laurence to die like that so that another may live? Who is to say that the saved man is more worthy than Father Laurence?’
‘Not I, Father – and yet God did. Who are we to assess His means or His plans?’
Father Paul stood. ‘You speak truth. But I don’t know that I can work towards His aims any more. I am too tired of this world and the endless battles.’
He took up a volume of rough-edged pages, and holding it carefully in both hands, walked up to them. ‘So, then, John,’ he said, and held out the book. ‘Put your hand on it.’
‘I swear I shall tell the whole truth,’ John said.
‘Begin,’ Sir Reginald commanded.
Cock Inn
Bydaud drank well in the Cock that night. He was feeling cheerful. More men had come and demanded his services, and whereas a week ago he had been close to bankruptcy, now he was being feted by many of the richer elements of the mercantile class in the city. There were risks, as he knew. A man’s reputation could be destroyed as swiftly as it could be built, usually more easily, too. And those who were even now keen to establish links with him because of the destruction of the House of Paffard, would be just as keen to discard him and go to a newer, fresher face. There was no loyalty in business. Only self-interest.
But he would not consider the possible pitfalls ahead. He was enjoying himself now, for the first time in many weeks, and he intended to make the most of it. He had seen the group of men bringing John from the Paffards’ house, and he was sure that it boded well for him. Paffard was over and done with.
Still, he must return to his wife and see what she had prepared for his meal. Ho finished his drink, slammed some coins down on the bar, and made his way homewards.
There was a crowd gathering outside, and he wandered through them all, beaming beatifically. The world, to him, had a roseate hue tonight after a half gallon of the Cock’s best ale. It was only a miracle that an alehouse of that nature could brew their ales so well. They had the same ingredients, so he imagined, as most others, and yet there was a sweetness and maltiness to theirs that quite outstripped all the others he had tasted in the last year.
As he went along the street towards his home, he gradually became aware of a shouting from behind him, and when he glanced over his shoulder, he saw that there were more and more men following along behind him. At least thirty, although his eyes were a little hazy. He wondered what they could be doing out here, before he realised that the leading men were the two whom he had seen the other night at the Paffards’ house. One still had his forearm bound with a piece of filthy cloth where John’s hatchet had opened it. Bydaud could see it quite clearly by the light of the flaming torch the man held in his good hand.
There was nothing in the way of firewood here for them to light, he thought to himself, so what could they be intending to do? And then he realised that they were set upon the destruction of Henry Paffard’s house!
With a squeak, he set off homewards as fast as his legs would take him. These men had tried to break into the Paffards’ house only two days before, and tonight they looked as though they intended to finish their job.
‘Oh, Christ Jesus!’ he muttered to himself, and was for a moment nonplussed. Should he go home, or fetch the Watch? Home, of course. He couldn’t leave Emma and the girls all alone with this mob. He hurried his steps, and then, as he ran up the alley, he saw William.
‘Quick, please, go to the Holy Trinity, fetch the Watch and those knights,’ he panted. ‘These fools may try to burn the house again, and we’ll lose the whole st
reet!’
Church of the Holy Trinity
Baldwin and the others had already heard John’s confession regarding the two maids Clara and Evie, and how he had killed Alice and Juliana Marsille, but now he began to talk about Gregory and Agatha. Baldwin listened for only a short time, before deciding he needed hear no more.
‘Simon, I cannot listen to this,’ he muttered, and Simon nodded and left with him. Sir Richard and Edgar joined them.
‘A shameful business,’ Sir Richard said as they stood outside the church.
‘I am shocked to hear it,’ Simon said gruffly. ‘The idea of incest is not unknown in some of the farther distant valleys near Cornwall, but here, in a Christian city?’
Sir Richard eyed him with a benevolent smile. ‘Me dear fellow, there is nothing you can find happening in the most pagan of lands which ain’t goin’ on in the middle of the biggest cities in this kingdom. Wasn’t it you told me of the necromancer trying to kill the King by stabbing pins into a wax figure? At least incest doesn’t normally end a man’s life, eh?’
‘Clearly the boy Thomas has seen something of it, from the way he hid from his brother and sister,’ Baldwin hazarded. ‘It is sad to think that his own innocence has been shattered in this way.’
‘Aye,’ Sir Richard said, and would have continued, had not Simon pointed up the road. ‘What is that up there? It looks like the boy William.’
William ran up and drew to a stop, pointing back the way he had come. ‘Please! There is an angry mob outside the house again. They look as if they’re going to set fire to it!’
They could all hear the sound of chanting and singing, and a sudden bellowing. ‘Come!’ shouted Baldwin.
The street was already in an uproar by the time they reached it.
Simon found himself looking at the men and women of the mob. ‘Baldwin, I don’t like this. It is too much like London last year. And Bristol when the city was under siege.’
‘There are only forty or fifty men,’ Baldwin noted.
‘Forty or fifty swords could make me lose a lot of weight,’ Sir Richard considered. A man walked near him with a torch, and Sir Richard took it from his hand. He gave the stunned reveller a beaming smile and walked on, leaving the man bemused. ‘Come along, then, before they get rowdy.’
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