Crediton Killings

by Michael Jecks

  Matters had come to a head after the robbery. When John and Henry were seen to be subjected to only a mild enquiry and, at least in the view of most of the company, inadequately interrogated, the men began to look askance at their leader. A captain who could not protect his own goods was not to be trusted with another’s life. How Sir Hector could expect them to put their confidence in him when he could not control two petty thieves who made money from blackmail, Wat could not understand. But there was more. Since losing his silver, the captain seemed to have withdrawn into himself, as if he had already accepted defeat. The men had noticed—and drawn their own conclusions. Their leader was grown insipid; he no longer had the edge he once showed.

  Whereas Wat had the trust of all the men, and the support of over half of them in this battle for the leadership. He had always stood up against the two blackmailers and supported any new member who was persecuted by them. Gradually, he had found a following among his colleagues, for he was a man who could hold his tongue when told a secret. He had skills as a warrior, could fight with bow or sword, and knew how to motivate men who were almost at their last gasp to leap to their feet and follow him up the siege ladders.

  He drank deeply and cast a cautious eye toward the man at the dais. Sir Hector had had his day, and now it was past. Even his title was fiction…“Sir” Hector, Wat thought, his lip curling. Most of the other members of the company didn’t realize he had given himself the title after a clash in Bordeaux. A knight had refused to fight him, saying that to draw sword against a commoner would be an insult to his chivalry and honor. Sir Hector had ambushed him the next day, killing the knight in a bloody ambush, then appropriating the man’s belt and spurs. He was no more chivalrous than Wat.

  And now Sir Hector was to be retired. Whether he wished it or not.

  Looking round the room, Sir Hector was aware of the eyes on him, and for a while he could not think what they reminded him of. He was so used to his absolute authority in all matters, that he had long since stopped taking notice of the opinions of his men.

  There was a uniformity among them now, he noticed. Occasionally he would observe a covert glance, a fleeting expression upon a grubby visage, which he was sure did not augur well for his future. It was as he came to this conclusion that he could suddenly name the look on their faces: speculation.

  His hand, as he reached for his tankard, was steady, he noted with inner satisfaction, and he brought the cold pewter to his lips with no sign of his sudden shock.

  Not for many years had he seen such feral expectancy. His men displayed the same impassive interest that a wolf pack showed toward an intended victim, when the prey was slowing from cold, terror and hunger, freezing to petrified languor as it waited for the final attack, the sudden rush which would end in the kill.

  He set the tankard back on the table. Outwardly calm, his brain raced with near-panic. It wasn’t only Wat he had to contend with, but the whole company. He must set his stamp on them all, and quickly. Otherwise there was no point in planning future campaigns.

  If only she was still here, he thought regretfully. Then she might help him to make sense of it all. But she wasn’t, and that was that.

  Rising, he made his way to his solar and shut the door, locking it securely with the heavy bolt. He gazed at the symbol of safety with a wry twist to his lips that was nearly a smile. Before, he had always been safe because of the strength of his little force, secure in the knowledge that any attack must first beat through his men before reaching his solar. Now his safety depended on locking himself away from his own troops.

  As the first clap of thunder exploded overhead, Margaret leapt upright, eyes wide in alarm. She had never grown used to the fierce demonstrations of the elements. Edith, sleeping by her bed, began to wail, and Margaret forgot her own fear enough to climb from her bed and step cautiously through the rushes to collect her child, holding her close as she crawled back between her sheets, pulling them up close round her daughter’s body while trying not to disturb her husband.

  A fresh blue-white flare lanced through the gaps in the wooden shutters, closely followed by another report, and Margaret heard a hound set up a mournful howling. The dismal sound made her shiver—it reminded her all too well of the wolves on the moors, and she recalled the stories of how the Devil rode with the wolves, pointing out the houses which held the youngest children for the beasts to devour, while he took the innocent souls.

  Edith murmured drowsily, comforted by her mother’s warmth, but at another crackle she stuffed her thumb in her mouth, squirming furiously.

  “Has she only just woken up?” Simon asked.

  “Yes. I tried to keep her still so she wouldn’t stir you, but—”

  “Don’t worry, Meg,” he said, and she nearly gave a groan of relief, it was so good to hear the gentleness in his voice. She smiled as he rolled onto his back. As the lightning flickered, illuminating the room with its cold blue-gray light, she could see his face.

  Hearing a low moan, which rose to a keening scream, he half-rose from the bed, and only subsided when her hand took his shoulder. “There’s nothing you can do to help him, Simon. Let him be.”

  She was right, he had to admit. The boy was inconsolable—and seeing the bailiff, a man he associated with his mother’s death, would certainly not help him. Then Simon heard a stealthily opened door, a faint creak as someone stepped out into the hall…followed shortly by the clatter of a falling polearm and a muttered curse. He could recognize the voice of Stapledon’s rector. It was typical of the young man that he would want to go to the aid of a scared child, and equally typical that the three-footed clumsy fool should wake the household in so doing.

  “Will he ever get over it?” he wondered aloud.

  “Of course. We all do.”

  He studied her profile. Her face glimmered under the benign glow of the dying fire, giving her an orange-pink flush, and he smiled when she looked at him with feminine confidence. “You have great faith in his powers of recuperation, but I’m not so certain. He’s seen his mother slaughtered before his eyes, and that’s something I don’t think many children could cope with.”

  “Really? And do you not know that all the people in those alleys are as poor as beggars? How many of them have had to watch their mothers and fathers, children, wives and husbands, as they died?”

  “That’s not the same! Someone dying of natural causes is hard to take, but it’s not the same as seeing someone stabbed to death in the street.”

  “No. If the boy had seen his mother fail slowly, if he had seen her fade with weakness over weeks instead of falling quickly, he might have been torn by disgust. He might even have come to hate her, if he had to wipe her wounds, wash her, feed her, clean away her soiled bedclothes, and still try to find food to feed himself. He would have hated her all the more for the food and water he had wasted on her, just keeping her alive for an extra day or two, when that same food might have fed him instead of her illness.”

  “You think him seeing his mother die quickly is better?” he frowned.

  “Yes. In time he will know that nothing he could have done would have saved her. He will not hate her; he will remember her as a caring mother who never begrudged him a mouthful of her food or a sip of her water. Judith gave him life, and for that he will always be grateful. And now, because her death was unnecessary, he can enjoy the satisfaction of seeing her avenged. Not only that, he can participate in condemning her murderer.” Her voice was quiet, but absolute in her conviction. “And in years to come he will feel stronger for having helped bring her killer to justice. His healing will begin when he sees the killer hang, for then he will see that the fears of his boyhood are unfounded.”

  “And he will forget his pain and his mother that quickly?” Simon asked patronizingly, and she responded as if stung.

  “No, of course not! He will always miss her, and always regret not having had her with him for longer. No man can lose his mother without feeling the misery of the loss. But th
at does not take away from the inner strength he will gain from this. All I said was, it is better for him that she died this way.”

  “Is it the same for others?”

  She turned away. The hurt in his voice told her clearly enough of the turn his thoughts had taken. “How would you feel if your Peterkin had been murdered, and you knew who the killer was, Simon? How would you feel if you could capture him and have him arrested, put in front of a court and accused? When you saw the man hang, you would know you had done everything you could for your boy.”

  “We did everything we could—so why does it hurt so much?”

  “Because we couldn’t do enough. And we cannot get revenge for him. All we can do is try to have another Peterkin.”

  “No. Not another Peterkin.”

  His firmness made her glance round, but there was no harshness in his voice. “Another son, but not another Peterkin. Maybe,” he gave a self-conscious chuckle, “maybe a Baldwin. Ah, you’re tired. Give me Edith for a little while. You try to rest.”

  “She is all right here.”

  “You spent all last night with me, Meg,” he reminded her, and smiled. “Let me help you. I can at least look after our daughter.”

  The thunder was abating as she passed the sleeping girl to him, trying to control the sudden rush of burning hope. This was the first time he had spoken to her of Peterkin since his death, the first time he had mentioned his pain at the hole in their family…And the first time he had raised the idea of a new son.

  As she languidly curled and felt herself slipping toward sleep, she could feel the bed shaking with his gentle sobs, but she could not help the smile of relief which broke out on her face. Her husband had returned to her at last.

  The scraping noise was an irritation at the edge of Sir Hector’s hearing. He could hear it through the deep fogs of sleep, and while his mind tried to thrust it away and return to unconsciousness, docketing it as the feet of a mouse or another nightly creature, some extra sense made him waken.

  His room was in darkness, and his eyes snapped open as the storm broke overhead. The concussion of the thunder relaxed him for a moment, making him think it had been this which had woken him, but then he heard it again: the small, slow, squeaking sound which his ever-wary ears had noticed.

  Moving with the stealthy patience learned over many campaigns, he rolled silently to one side until his knees were off his palliasse and on the ground. His great sword was in the storeroom, but his lighter travelling sword, built for only one-handed use, was by the bed, and he picked it up still sheathed, holding it in his left hand ready to be drawn, as he faced the door.

  Before sleeping, he had taken the precaution of sliding a heavy chest in front of it, and now he lifted it at one end and hauled it away with painful slowness, making as little noise as possible. The scratching continued, and he cautiously raised the latch on his door and stepped into the corridor before standing stock-still.

  He saw the blade jutting through the shutter, the splintered wood, and the oh-so-faint glimmer of light from a candle. An electric blue light outlined the window, and then a clap of thunder rattled the doors, and still he stood watching as the fine blade of the knife wobbled from one side to the other, trying to force up the timber that locked the shutters closed.

  The wood moved a little, and he quietly crept forward. If he was quick and lifted the balk out of the way, he could kill the first assassin, and probably hold the window. He wondered dispassionately how many there would be outside, but he reckoned that there could only be three at most. Wat was bound to be there, and he would hardly attempt to kill Sir Hector on his own, but he could not count on the help of too many of his comrades in murdering his captain. More than two would be a risk—there was always the possibility that someone might decide Sir Hector was a safer master than Wat and take it into his head to warn him. No, if he was Wat, he would have arranged for two accomplices, no more.

  As the blade twisted and a crack appeared in the shutter, running upward with the grain, Sir Hector decided to act. He walked into the storeroom and selected a crossbow. Hauling with both hands, forcing the blunt wooden butt into his belly until it felt as though it was going to stab through his skin and into his guts, he managed to pull the string back until the sear caught and held it in place.

  There was another splintering from the shutter. He snatched up a heavy metal bolt and fitted it to the grove, then walked out. Taking careful aim, he fired.

  The iron bolt struck the wood to the right of the wriggling blade, and disappeared. Simultaneously there was a shrill cry of pain, and the knife was dragged back. Sir Hector heard someone sobbing in fear and pain, and he smiled grimly to himself, cocking the bow once more and taking another bolt. He was sure that there would be no more attempts on his life tonight, but he still slept very lightly, sitting in a chair with the crossbow on his lap.

  It was impossible to stay inside. While the rain lanced down, he had to go out and stand in the yard, the drops pelting on to his upturned face so hard it was like being hit by gravel. Giggling, he held his hands over his head and let them slowly fall in reverence to the cleansing water.

  His mind was clear now. The lightheadedness of the last few days had gone, as if the killing of her and poor Judith had finally cured him of a fever. He felt as if he had been suffering from some sort of illness, and now, under this rain, he had been redeemed, absolved and strengthened in the one heady downpour.

  With the disappearance of the other two, he could finally bring his plan to fruition. Now was the time for the last throw in the game. And after that he would see whether it was sensible to cuckold him.

  19

  Baldwin grunted, sipped at his water, and then belched volcanically. Peter Clifford threw him an admonishing look.

  “Peter, I know. My apologies, but the meal last night was rather rich for my constitution,” the knight said, and burped once more. Grumpily he sat at the table. “Be grateful. It could be the other end.”

  “I’m no longer surprised that you were so off-hand about knights and the very concept of chivalry the other night, Sir Baldwin,” the priest admonished him testily.

  Baldwin grinned, but soon his features had fixed themselves into a frown of concentration, and the priest sighed. Crediton was an important town for the diocese, bringing in a good income each year, and Peter had wanted to be able to impress the Bishop during his visit. Instead, the conversation invariably revolved around the murders in the town. The plans Peter had set in place to impress had all gone awry: the visit to the hospital, the tour round the recent work on the church, the plans for celebrating St. Boniface’s birth, all were overshadowed by the killings.

  Though Exeter was nearby, it was rare for Stapledon to come this way. His business was conducted more often in London, Winchester and York, wherever Parliament met or in the fine homes of other bishops. Stapledon was not by nature a greedy man; he believed in trying to help the souls in his diocese, but Peter knew that the state too often intervened, forcing him to set his religious responsibilities aside and shoulder the burden of civil service.

  For many, becoming involved in politics was solely a means of self-advancement, and Peter, being realistic about the motivations of his colleagues in the Church, could see that the Bishop was not averse to extra power and authority, but Stapledon did not have the urge to seek power alone. Much of his efforts were directed toward making the kingdom stable, and to that end he spent weeks in discussions and negotiations, trying to make the King and his enemies see sense.

  Peter supposed that, for a man involved in such weighty affairs, the unpleasant, even banal, pair of murders were almost a welcome relief from the petty disputes and arguments which could embroil thousands if the Bishop’s fears were realized. Certainly his interest in the two deaths had been surprising; a wealthy cleric was not usually the kind of man who would show fascination with the dealings and deaths of the poor.

  Just then there was a knock at the door, and Peter saw Baldwin spi
n to face it. When the servant opened it, he was surprised to see the old mercenary, Wat.

  Peter made a muttered apology and left the room while Baldwin invited the man to be seated.

  Studying him, Baldwin was struck by the demeanor of his visitor. Wat had lost his coldness and truculence and appeared almost meek in the way he entered, his eyes cast demurely downward like a young virgin.

  The curtain to the screens rattled, and Baldwin glanced up to see that Simon had entered. Baldwin was pleased to note that his friend appeared fully recovered, and walked in with a steady step, sitting beside the knight.

  “You wanted to see us, Wat?” Baldwin asked.

  “Yes, sir. I thought you ought to know.”

  “Know what?”

  The soldier looked up and held Baldwin’s gaze. “My master,” he said simply. “I think he must have killed those women.”

  Ignoring the bailiff’s quick intake of breath, Baldwin leaned forward and nodded encouragingly. Wat pulled a grimace, as if any discourse with officers of law was loathsome, but then he began to speak.

  “You see, I’ve been with him for longer than most. I know all his ways, and I know how he works. He’s not just an ordinary lord, he’s too used to killing. Far as he’s concerned, the only thing that matters is him. Nothing and nobody else.”