by Alys Clare
Jack stood still, looking down at the sheriff. Realizing he had put himself at a disadvantage by sitting down, Picot struggled up again, dragging his tunic down over the large hump of belly. But that was no better, since Jack was considerably the taller. With a sigh and a muttered, ‘Oh, what in hell’s name does it matter?’ he subsided again. He ran a hand over his face and said, ‘What do you want?’
Several things ran through Jack’s mind. What do you want?, he reflected, was that sort of a question.
He wasn’t even sure what his purpose had been when he’d taken the decision to face Sheriff Picot. Now, as his thoughts gathered into a cohesive whole – as if a sensible, wise part of himself had quietly assumed control – he believed he knew.
He also knew that he was never going to get an opportunity like this again.
‘You have been in the habit of allowing other hands to hold the reins here,’ he began. ‘You had by your side a younger man, closely related to you by blood, who was raised in your own image, and you encouraged him to pursue the methods you yourself brought into being. Your system panders to those who have wealth, influence and power, and the hard-working men and women of the town who do not possess these things stand helpless in the face of the cheating, coercion, dishonesty and bribery that are the whips you use to rule.’ He paused, waiting until he was sure his temper wasn’t about to get the better of him. He hadn’t realized quite how angry he was. ‘Your late nephew Gaspard Picot, typical of the worst sort of rich man who always wants more, was a thief, caught in the act of hiding the stolen goods inside his clothing.’
‘He—’ the sheriff began feebly.
Jack didn’t let him go on.
‘It was I who stopped him,’ he shouted, ‘and in his desperation to escape, he attacked me and, but for the care I received, he would have killed me. As he threw himself on me, he landed on my own weapon, and the blade opened a wound in his throat.’
He seemed to be losing his battle with his better nature. Moving close to the cowering sheriff, leaning over him with his hands on the arms of the big chair, he said coldly, ‘Perhaps, had there been one shred of respect or affection for Gaspard Picot, he would have been as lucky as I was, and some skilled, compassionate healer would have hurried up and stopped his life’s blood flowing from his body. But as men sow, so do they reap, Sheriff Picot. Your nephew was universally loathed and feared, and not a woman or a man in that crowd wanted him to live.’
The sheriff gave a low moan.
And, hearing the echo of his furious, cruel words, Jack straightened up and stepped away.
For a while there was silence in the room. Once or twice the sheriff emitted a quiet sound, whose significance Jack didn’t at first understand.
Then it occurred to him that he just might be weeping.
Is it grief for his lost kinsman? he wondered. Or is his distress because he has been forced to confront unpleasant truths?
He decided to give the sheriff the benefit of the doubt.
‘You grieve for your nephew, I am sure,’ he said. Only someone who knew him well would have detected the faint irony. ‘His death, moreover, has both left you isolated, since you have lost the man who stood at your right hand, and served to show you emphatically just how unpopular you are.’ He met the sheriff’s close-set eyes. ‘Yes, I’ve been told just how many honest townspeople hurried here to tell you they saw your nephew strike first, and that I acted in self-defence.’
‘Half of them were lying!’ Picot spat out. Jack said nothing. ‘They must have been!’ he went on, drips of spittle on his thin lips.
‘How could you possibly know?’ Jack said calmly. Before the sheriff could think up an answer, he went on, ‘Whatever opinion your town may hold of you, however, is irrelevant, for you are the appointed authority and nobody may question that.’ Briefly Picot’s mouth twisted into a cunning little smile. ‘But no man can hold power alone,’ he went on softly. ‘Before, when together you and your nephew were strong enough to draw ambitious and like-minded men to you, you could do as you liked. Now that the voice of the town has spoken, those who saw matters rather differently have found their courage, and I do not believe you will find life quite so easily bent to your will.’
Sheriff Picot stared up at him with a face full of hatred. ‘Just you wait and see!’ he hissed. ‘I’ll – men will—’ But he seemed unable to go on.
Jack moved to the side of the room, where a stout board set upon trestles bore sheets of blank vellum, rolled documents, quills and ink horns. He perched on the edge.
‘This is what I propose,’ he said, making his tone reasonable. ‘I am almost fit for duty, and as soon as I know I am fully restored, I shall return. I have a group of capable, loyal and trustworthy men whose wish is to serve this town as it deserves to be served, and they will work with me.’ He fixed the sheriff with a hard stare. ‘Don’t tell me that it’s you who’s in charge and who ultimately controls how the law is upheld here, because I already know. You will, I believe, find it a challenge, however, to continue in your old ways. If we are to work together, I suggest you think about what I’ve just said. There have been recent crimes of great violence, and answers will be sought. I do not refer solely to the death of your niece by marriage and the burning down of your late nephew’s house, for, although these are without doubt the offences that most disturb you’ – and for which you most urgently require somebody to blame, he might have added, whether this person is in fact guilty or not – ‘let us remember that even before the widow Picot met her death, two young men had already been murdered.’ He stood up, moving towards the door. Without turning round, he said, ‘And if you’re planning to have me arrested and thrown in a dungeon for insubordination, I will merely remind you that there are just two of us in this room, and nobody to bear witness to what has just been said. The only men who even know I’m here are loyal to me.’
He went out, ducking under the low archway and quietly closing the door. As he strode off across the anteroom, there was a loud thud: Picot, it seemed, had hurled something heavy at its sturdy planks.
Grinning, Jack emerged into the light. Apart from the sheriff, nobody other than the two guards had seen him; pausing briefly at the top of the steep slope, he muttered to one of them, ‘I was never here.’
Quickly mastering his surprise, the man replied, ‘Course you weren’t, chief.’
Walking home, buoyed up by euphoria, it was only when he had almost reached his house that Jack wondered what on earth he was going to do next.
He stopped. Looking ahead, he stared at the closed, locked door. He felt a surge of relief: had he suspected, then, that the woman he’d shut up inside might have broken out?
He thought about her, and about his own actions. Any other lawman, finding her so close to Gaspard Picot’s burning house and having seen her watching the house several times before, would have arrested her without hesitation. Now she’d be locked in a cell, being questioned with a greater or lesser degree of harshness, depending on who was asking the questions, and she wouldn’t be left alone until she’d given an explanation.
I have just challenged a corrupt man who applied the law the way he wanted to, he thought. Is it any more right and honourable for me to bend the law according to my own views, even if that bending is not towards cruelty and dishonesty but towards leniency?
‘The law is the law,’ he muttered.
Then he marched up to the house, unlocked the door and went inside.
He could see her in the dim light of the further room. She was lying on the bed, the covers folded tidily back. Hearing him, she sat up, supporting herself on her arms as if her body was weak.
‘I do not know what you administered to me,’ she said, the husky voice holding a note of accusation. ‘I try to make myself rise, but each time sleep overcomes me.’
‘It was nothing that I haven’t taken myself,’ he said curtly.
He caught a gleam from her large, dark eyes as they reflected the light streaming in
through the door. Abruptly he closed and barred it.
Observing him, she said, amusement in her tone, ‘You think I shall try to force my way past you and flee?’
‘You’re not going anywhere until you have told me who you are and what your business is with the house and the kin of Gaspard Picot,’ he said. ‘Now, I’m hungry, and I dare say you are too, so, while you work out what you’re going to say to me, I shall prepare food.’
She stayed where she was while he set water on to heat and put together a simple stew of oats, root vegetables and beans. For flavour, he was about to add a piece of ham bone, to which quite a lot of salted meat was still attached. The very handling of it made his mouth water. But, as he leaned towards the hearth she said quickly, ‘Not that. Please.’
He nodded. He had encountered people before who, for reasons of faith, did not eat certain foods. He would, he decided, carve off the last of the flesh and add it to his own portion once he’d served the food.
He heard her get up off the bed, and she asked for water to wash her face and hands. He provided a pail. There was another need that she must surely need to address before she washed: ‘The privy’s outside,’ he said. ‘If you wish, I will show you.’
She nodded, and he escorted her out to it, waiting until she was ready to re-enter the house. She went back into the rear chamber, and he heard splashing.
Presently the food was ready. As he ladled it into two wooden bowls, she emerged once more and sat down on one of the sections of tree trunk that served as stools. She accepted her bowl with a murmur of thanks, eating swiftly but daintily until the bowl was clean.
‘And now,’ he said when he too had finished, ‘you start to talk.’
She stared down at her hands, folded in her lap. ‘I have nothing to say.’ He detected a tremor in her voice. ‘I did not kill the lady of the house and I did not start the fire.’
He refused to allow his annoyance to show. ‘I found you there, beside the house,’ he said tonelessly. ‘Where I had also seen you on previous occasions. You surely would not have me believe you were there out of innocent curiosity.’
She had no answer for that.
‘You appear to know your way around the settlement of razed houses,’ he went on, ‘and from that I guess that you have been here in the town for some time.’
‘I was—’ she began. Then she closed her mouth.
‘You were undoubtedly here when the first two murders were carried out,’ he went on. He was watching her closely.
‘No! No, I—’ Again she stopped. He had the sense that the words had burst out of her before she could prevent them.
Sensing a very slight opening, he persisted: ‘You knew one of those young men,’ he said harshly. ‘Knew him and cared deeply for him, for I observed your reaction when I spoke of them last night. They were similar in appearance, those two poor men, and it seems likely that the first was killed because the murderer had mistaken him for the other. Which one, I wonder, was the man you loved? The one struck down on the road to the fens, or the one whose body was thrown into the river? Both had been savagely beaten, and had suffered greatly before the mercy of death took them.’
She had dropped her face in her hands. ‘Stop,’ she said. ‘Please, stop.’
A harsh demon in him was urging him on, and he very nearly obeyed. But then, leaning over her, about to hit her with more cruel words, suddenly he saw another handsome woman, cowering on the beaten earth floor of this very house as a brutal man coerced her into doing something against which her very soul revolted …
He drew back. Then – for this woman in his memory and his heart was still far too near – he stood up and went to lean against the door.
After a time, his withdrawal seemed to penetrate the dark woman’s awareness. She lowered her hands, revealing a deathly pale face. Her glittering, slanting eyes searched his face. Just for an instant, he thought he saw a different expression flash in her eyes, but he could have been mistaken.
He knew he should go on, pushing her, bullying her, for he had sensed a weakness in her and it was there for the using. But he couldn’t.
After a time, he resumed his seat by the hearth.
She was studying him. ‘You are a man who has seen violence done to women,’ she said very softly. ‘You do not approve, I think.’
‘What I’ve seen and what I don’t approve of are nothing to do with you,’ he said with force.
‘I beg to differ,’ she countered, ‘for here I am, a woman, in the power of you, a big, tall, strong man. I think that the—’ she paused, thinking ‘—the nature of you, how you treat a helpless woman who is your captive, is very much to do with me.’
Absurdly, he laughed. She looked at him, the strong dark brows raised. ‘Whoever or whatever you are,’ he said, still laughing, ‘I do not believe you to be helpless.’
She smiled. ‘Perhaps not, but nevertheless it is you who has control here.’
There was a brief silence. It was, Jack thought, a more friendly silence than before.
Presently she said, ‘Your mother, is it?’
He felt as if he’d been struck. ‘What?’
She smiled again, but now it was an expression of tenderness. ‘I have been here in your house all day and for much of the preceding night,’ she said. ‘Although it is true that I have slept for much of that time, my sleep has been filled with images and dreams. It is as if I have sensed a presence here; a woman, kind, strong, generous, loving. A woman who suffers, because she is alone in a harsh world and she has children who need her for their very survival. A woman who, faced with a terrible choice, made the hard decision to—’
‘Stop.’ It was his turn to give the command.
She cannot know, he thought. She has perhaps sensed a presence, or, more likely, she merely observes the clean tidiness and order of this house and detects the hand of a careful, diligent woman.
For this stranger to have seen his mother, to have detected her brave spirit when he who had loved her could not, was not to be countenanced.
She said after a while, ‘I am sorry. I did not mean to hurt you.’ Then, when he didn’t answer, she added, ‘Would it not be good to tell me?’
Everything in him shouted no. But, all the same, he heard himself start to speak and he didn’t think he could – didn’t think he wanted to – stop.
‘She was a local woman,’ he began. ‘Her name was Rowyn, and her father had a boat in which he ferried goods around the fens. When the Conqueror came, he brought not only the soldiers but also engineers, blacksmiths and carpenters to build the castles with which he was to curb his new subjects. One of his carpenters was my father. He had fought at Hastings, for William the Bastard habitually selected men with more than one skill.’ He paused, an image of his father floating up from his memory. ‘He and my mother fell in love, despite the fact that he was a part of the invasion force. They were wed and they settled here, in this house, for it was one of the dwellings put up for the workforce who were building the castle. She conceived her first child, but soon after that child’s birth, my father was sent away to work on other castles, and he was repeatedly away in the years that followed, although he earned good money and was able to provide adequately for his wife and son.’ He paused. It was painful, looking back. ‘Then he came home to stay, and his wife conceived again, this time bearing a daughter. But before that child was a year old, my father died. Then the bad times began, for the money dried up and, careful and frugal though my mother was, she—’
But he couldn’t continue. The story was there, locked away deep inside his heart, and now he was seeing the images that he had tried so hard to forget. The little sister, sickening, feeble. His mother, trying remedy after desperate remedy, yet, without the money even for food, unable to go to the best apothecaries and buy what she needed.
His own efforts to find work and bring in money, lying about his age – for he was tall and powerfully built – and persuading them to let him join the army. Discovering
too late that, although his new job earned him the money his family needed so badly, it also took him away. Far away, so that, when his mother did what she had to do, he wasn’t there.
And, last and most haunting image of all, his sister lying dead, and his mother, who had endured so much for her child’s sake, dying.
‘You came!’ she had whispered to him when he had finally managed to get home. ‘I knew you would, my son.’
Her poor, bruised, skeletal face was still beautiful in his eyes; her smile the same loving smile that had always warmed his heart and made the world seem better.
‘I’m so sorry!’ he had whispered. ‘I should have been here, I could have—’
But, with a huge effort, she had raised her hand and gently put it to his lips. ‘It is not for you to be sorry, for there is nothing – nothing – for you to regret,’ she said firmly. ‘You took on a man’s role when you were a boy, and, but for you, we would have starved years ago.’
‘But—’
Once more she stopped him. ‘You are here, son. In answer to my prayers, here you are. Let us not waste what time we have left.’
He had put his arms round her and held her until she died.
Later, when he had seen both his mother and his little sister safe in the earth, he had sought out the man. And he’d killed him.
It was not the first life he had taken, for he was a soldier and that was part of his job.
It was the one, however, over which he had never had the least regret.
He came back to himself. The dark woman was watching him intently. For a disconcerting moment, he wasn’t sure how much he had told her; how much had remained in the secret spaces of his memory.
Then, with huge relief, he heard the echo of his last words.
‘My mother died,’ he said shortly.
