The Sticklepath Strangler aktm-12

by Michael Jecks

  ‘What is he arrested for?’

  ‘This morning they said he killed the child.’ Nicole dried her eyes on her sleeve. ‘This afternoon they said he tried to kill his brother. It is not true. He hates Ivo, but he is not violent. He is too calm and gentle to harm another, but they say that he will be taken away as soon as they can arrange a guard.’

  Jeanne patted her arm comfortingly. ‘Do not fear. My husband will look into it.’

  ‘What can he do?’

  ‘He is Keeper of the King’s Peace. The Reeve will not dare to argue with him,’ Jeanne said confidently.

  ‘Keeper?’ Nicole pouted doubtfully. ‘You think so?’

  ‘Why do you believe they should want to arrest your husband?’

  ‘If they can have him arrested, the jury will convict him of murdering those children. You have seen how the people here are scared of strangers. They want to blame us for everything, and they will have Thomas killed, just so that the man who is really guilty isn’t shown up. Why else would they arrest my husband?’

  Jeanne shivered. Convicting a man because he was new to an area was a complete travesty of justice. ‘Who is the real killer?’

  ‘I do not know,’ Nicole said miserably. ‘If I did, I would appeal him before the whole vill and save my husband.’

  ‘Are you wealthy? Perhaps someone covets your property.’

  ‘We have very little.’

  ‘Your only defence is to help show who did kill the girls.’

  ‘I know nothing of them except Aline – she I knew. The others died before we came here. Ivo said that Denise died long ago, when he was buying provisions during the famine.’

  ‘What was Aline like?’

  Nicole thought a moment, her tears drying now that she was distracted. ‘She was a quiet little thing, but it was the end of the famine, you know? All the children were subdued. They were so hungry all the time. Except, I know that Aline was…’

  Her voice trailed off and she shot Jeanne a look from lowered lashes.

  ‘Well?’ Jeanne asked.

  ‘Madame, the girl, she was with child.’

  ‘Are you sure? But I thought she was only eleven years old?’

  ‘I know. And she did not even have a boyfriend, you know? Her father would not let her walk about the vill on her own.’

  ‘What of his wife?’

  ‘She was dead many years ago. I never met her.’

  ‘How well do you know Swetricus her father?’

  ‘He is a neighbour, but I had thought that others here were friends and neighbours. I will not call anyone here friend again.’

  ‘I have not seen any other children. Does he have more?’

  ‘Yes: Lucy is the eldest, then there was Aline, then Gilda and Katherine, but they rarely come to the vill to play with other girls. They are too shy, I think.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Jeanne said, but even as she breathed the word, her mind was considering that the three young girls might wish to avoid others for another reason. So that their secret could not be spoken of.

  She had never been touched by her own father, but Jeanne knew only too well that men were capable of molesting their daughters; especially their most beloved daughters.

  ‘Swetricus,’ she murmured. Could a man murder his own daughter to hide the fact that he had made her pregnant? And could he have killed the other girls as well?

  Then she realised something else Nicole had said. ‘Ivo told you about Denise, you say? Ivo was here when she died?’

  ‘Oh, yes. He is often here, and knew Denise well, so he said.’

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Baldwin could see that the woman Meg was terrified to be confronted by Simon and him, and he tried to calm her nerves, smiling gently and speaking slowly and carefully.

  Her voice was low, and although she had an impediment to her speech, she was easily understood. If she had been healthy, Baldwin considered that her voice could have been quite pleasing. By turns she was agitated and twitchy, picking at one hand with the other, and then calm, her round face vacant, as though uninterested in proceedings. Apart from that, as he spoke and as she gradually gained confidence in their company, he saw the signs of her affectionate nature. She held on to Serlo’s hand, but with less and less of a firm grip. As she eased, she took to stroking his bare forearm, not a conscious thing, but merely a proof of affection.

  They made an odd couple, Baldwin thought. The man so twisted and graceless after his terrible injuries, and she so dumpy and clumsy, but for all that the two had one thing that shone from them: love. She adored him, watching Serlo’s face eagerly as he spoke, and for his part, when Serlo looked at her, his expression softened, like a man watching his own daughter.

  Serlo was gentle as they explained about her daughter. ‘You have to be brave, Meg. Try to be brave. Emma, she can’t come back.’

  ‘My Emma?’

  Serlo glanced up at Baldwin, gave a short shrug which was a confession of his own inadequacy. ‘She’s dead, Meg. I’m sorry.’

  He had his arms wrapped about her as he spoke, but Baldwin saw her face crumble like a child’s. She looked up at Serlo with desperate hope, as though thinking he might be joking, and her expression as that hope faded tore at Baldwin’s heart. He hated to think how Serlo must feel. He regretted coming here like this, intruding on the grief of a poor, simple woman, but the alternative was to have some petty official come here from the vill, someone like Drogo, who would give her the news without Serlo to calm her afterwards. This was surely kinder. For a moment he tried to tell himself that so simple a woman could not appreciate her loss, but then he could have cursed himself for his callousness when he caught a glimpse of her face. This was no dim-witted girl he was watching, but a mother who had lost her only child. There could be no more hideous pain that that which Meg suffered now. Her very simpleness made her feel the pain all the more keenly. She could not imagine any alleviation of her grief.

  ‘NO! Not my Emma as well! No!’

  Suddenly shrieking, she struck feebly with her fists at Serlo’s breast. He had to grab them and hold her, mumbling sympathetic noises, calling to her by name, and after some minutes she collapsed against him, weeping and shaking her head, her wrists still gripped in his hands.

  It took a long time to calm her and prepare her to be questioned, and even then her face would occasionally become blank as her eyes appeared to turn in upon some inner thought or memory. ‘She was my baby,’ she said several times.

  ‘I am sorry to have to tell you this,’ Baldwin said, feeling stiff and formal in the presence of her overwhelming grief. ‘I want to find out who killed her.’

  Meg nodded, but there was little comprehension in her features. She responded dully to his initial questions.

  ‘Tell us about Emma, Meg.’

  ‘She was my girl.’

  ‘When was she born?’

  Meg turned to Serlo with a bewildered look on her face.

  He answered for her. ‘She was about ten years old. Not above eleven.’

  ‘Who was her father?’

  She smiled happily. ‘It was my husband. He married me, in the field by the river, my lovely Ansel. He worked so hard, and he had to travel much, but he always came home to me.’

  Baldwin stared at Serlo in confusion.

  The Warrener sighed. ‘Look, he made his promises to Meg about six years after the crowning of the King–’

  ‘That would be about 1313 or so,’ Simon muttered.

  Serlo shrugged. ‘I don’t have much use for numbers. Only seasons. He made his promises, and he came back when he could. Emma was born, and Ansel came back for a couple of years–’

  ‘Until about 1315?’ Simon pressed him.

  ‘Yeah, well, then he left, and didn’t say farewell, and about a year later, Athelhard returned. He had heard that Meg had had a daughter, and he came to protect them and help as best he could. He wasn’t happy with the situation, but which older brother would be? At least Athelhard had helped with
money.’

  ‘It was our home,’ Meg burst out suddenly. ‘Our house in the woods. Ansel built it for us. He liked it there.’ A dullness came down over her face like a shadow from a veil. ‘But he said he wasn’t going yet. He promised he’d be about for another week. He would have said farewell.’

  ‘Miserable bastard son of a whore and a dog fox,’ Simon muttered viciously under his breath. He hated to hear of women who were taken for a ride, and all too often men could get their own way by pretending to marry someone. Litigation was expensive, thus many escaped censure or punishment. If the Purveyor had been murdered, perhaps he deserved his end.

  Baldwin shot him a look to silence him, then, ‘He said nothing? Gave no hint that he was leaving?’

  ‘No, he just upped and went.’ Serlo shrugged.

  ‘Will Taverner said he’d left, but he wouldn’t have, not without seeing me first,’ Meg said tearfully.

  ‘I see,’ Baldwin said. ‘What of the rest of your family?’

  Her reaction startled him. She stiffened, and then her eyes grew wild. Suddenly she spun around, as though fearing an attack from behind her. Serlo had to catch at her wrists again and talk to her quietly. All the while she moaned with a keening noise as though mourning.

  Serlo grunted, ‘Her family died many years ago, all but her brother, Athelhard. He was older than Meg, and when their father died, he was all she had left, but he was away with the old King hammering the Welsh. When he died, Athelhard stayed in the retinue of a Marcher Lord. He did well and brought back plenty of booty, so that was fine, but he wasn’t here for Meg. Like she said, when she was alone, she married but then her man disappeared and it was a good year later that Athelhard returned here to look after her and take over the assart.’

  ‘Which assart was that?’ Baldwin asked.

  ‘The one where I met you today. It was theirs. Ansel had built the cottage for Meg, but it was Athelhard who started to clear the woods about it to create some pasture.’

  ‘I saw you there, Meg,’ Baldwin said softly. The recollection of the sight made a shiver of ice trickle down his spine, but he could sense the relief now that there was an explanation. ‘You were standing at a tree with your arms behind you. Why was that?’

  She sniffed, but couldn’t answer. It was left to Serlo to respond for her.

  Gruffly he said, ‘They tied her to that tree when they set fire to Athelhard’s house. To burn him out. He wouldn’t come out even when they set fire to his thatch, and they wanted to make sure of him. They found Meg and used her, binding her to the tree so that she could see everything, and when she screamed, her brother came running. As they knew he would.’

  ‘Who are they?’ Baldwin asked.

  ‘The vill. The Reeve, the Foresters – all of them. They thought Athelhard was a vampire.’

  ‘Why should they have thought of vampires?’ Baldwin asked quietly, his eyes going to Serlo. ‘I can understand people being horrified by the thought that a child could have been murdered and her flesh eaten – but surely they knew that people can be driven to desperate measures from starvation. Why think of supernatural agents?’

  ‘This is a small vill, Sir Knight. You are well-travelled and experienced, but many of the folk here have never been farther than Oakhampton. When they hear of cannibalism, it seems so inhuman that they assume a demon is responsible. And that means a vampire.’

  ‘You mean they used Meg here to draw her brother outside?’ Simon said with shock. ‘Christ’s cods!’

  ‘They killed him,’ Meg said brokenly.

  Baldwin studied her. In some way the death of her brother was more immediate to her than the death of her own daughter, which at first he thought appalling, but then he found himself in sympathy with her. She had been forced to endure many years alone, and the loss of her sole remaining protector, especially since she was witness to his death, must have had a significant impact upon her, coming back and haunting her each night.

  That was why she relived the terror of that day, he guessed. Perhaps she regularly returned to the assart, hoping that this time her brother would escape the flames and go to her.

  Serlo shook his head. He could remember it so clearly: the stinking cottage reeking of burned meat, the blackened and twisted corpse in the doorway. ‘They hunted him down, then slaughtered him like a rabid dog. That’s why she can’t sleep in the hut, even though I rebuilt it for her.’

  Meg shuddered. ‘I was there. I heard them walking, so I followed and saw them shoot at him after he had chopped wood. They chased him to the house and shot him again, and Drogo told his men to light torches. I tried to scream, but a man caught me and put his hand over my mouth. They tied me to the tree and made me watch while they set torches on the thatch and waited, and I screamed. The Reeve tried to make him come out, but it was my screams that brought him out. He was hobbled, but they shot him like a rat! Like a rat!’

  She broke down again, wailing and snivelling inconsolably, and it was some while before she could speak again. Baldwin looked enquiringly at Serlo.

  He shrugged. ‘Far as I know, it’s all true. She was there when I found her. I’d seen the fire from my warren and went to look. Thought it might be a house fire and someone needed help. Not that they’d have asked me.’

  ‘Why not?’ Simon shot out.

  Serlo gave him a scathing glance. ‘Because I look like this. Because people like you, people who are fit and well, hate to see someone who’s this twisted and wrecked. And they hate the way that their own children prefer to come up and talk to me on the moors than spend time with them here, that’s why!’

  ‘You were going to tell us about the assart,’ Baldwin gently reminded him.

  Serlo’s anger faded, although he ignored Simon and addressed all his words to Baldwin. ‘When I got there, I found Athelhard’s place burning. He was dead just inside. It was his funeral pyre, poor bastard! They’d cut his heart out and burned him. The stink! Christ Jesus, I shall never forget it!’

  ‘No,’ Baldwin said quietly. ‘It is not an odour that ever leaves you, once you have breathed it in.’

  Serlo eyed him doubtfully. It had been a horror to him, but he would have expected a knight to have smelled far worse in his time. Yet when he stared into Baldwin’s eyes, he could see that he was serious. He looked like a man who could still sense that foul stench in the air about them.

  ‘I found Meg there and took her away. Later, I went back and buried her brother’s remains. She stayed with me a while, just until she was better. Emma was with us as well, bless her. Then she took to staying in the vill.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘With various people. Some took pity on her. They thought that a poor little creature like her needed all the help she could get. She was with the miller for some while, then with Swetricus, I think. I was sorry to see her go. I looked on her as my own,’ he added quietly.

  ‘Was there anything else?’

  ‘Just one thing. When I found Meg, she was holding a piece of arrow. The arse-end with the nock and fletchings.’

  ‘It was his, his – the Forester’s,’ Meg said. ‘He must have killed my poor Athelhard. I saw them shoot him, and Peter cut out his heart, and then they picked him up and swung him onto the flames, but when they lifted up his body, I found the arrow on the ground.’

  ‘Was there anything distinctive about it?’ Baldwin asked.

  She looked at him, then up at Serlo, who gave her an encouraging nod, and she darted off into the tunnel. A moment or two later she was back, gripping a six-inch length of arrow. She thrust it into Baldwin’s hands.

  ‘Ask Drogo about his arrows,’ Serlo said grimly. ‘And compare them with that. Then you’ll have proof you have yourself a murderer.’

  Baldwin nodded and carefully placed the splinter of wood into his purse to be studied later. The light was fading, and it was already too dark here in the woods to be able to distinguish much about it.

  ‘I shall,’ he promised. ‘Except it would be a great deal
easier if I knew why the murderer – or murderers if it was indeed the whole vill – decided to kill Meg’s brother like that. It was not the random act of one man trying to rob another. Why should the people of Sticklepath decide to do such a thing?’

  ‘You need to ask that? Because they thought he was a vampire – a sanguisuga!’

  ‘It was revenge, then?’ Baldwin asked, whistling for Aylmer.

  Serlo looked at him for a moment. ‘I don’t live in the vill. I am a moorman, that is all. But I know this: the Purveyor disappeared, then Denise died, and Drogo was keen to blame Athelhard. Very keen.’

  ‘Because Athelhard was foreign?’ Simon asked.

  ‘Perhaps. But there was another reason. Athelhard bought some pork to feed Meg. It cost him a fortune, but he did it to keep her alive.’

  ‘So what?’ Simon asked. ‘Couldn’t he have explained?’

  ‘No one would have believed him if he had. They had already jumped to the conclusion that he was eating human meat.’

  ‘Why think that?’

  ‘The priest had preached a sermon about the demons all about us. He told the vill about vampires and how demons could turn a man into one – so that although someone looked the same as they had always done, underneath he could be a sanguisuga. That was enough to seal poor Athelhard’s fate.’

  ‘I see. Now who would have had meat to sell during the famine?’ Simon asked.

  ‘Ivo Bel,’ Meg said clearly. ‘He sold it to Athelhard to save me.’

  ‘Is that right?’ Baldwin asked Serlo.

  He shrugged. ‘Probably. But I think it suited people to assume the worst. What if Drogo had good reason to want Athelhard convicted?’

  Baldwin said, ‘You suspect Drogo was the murderer?’

  ‘No. I don’t think Drogo could be so inventive. He’s a God-fearing man, for all his bluster, but I do think he could seek to protect a friend or someone.’