The Sticklepath Strangler

by Michael Jecks

‘Superstitious maundering!’

  ‘Don’t mumble,’ Jeanne said imperturbably. ‘If you hadn’t submitted to trial by combat, you wouldn’t have hurt yourself so badly and I wouldn’t have to nurse you, so lie back like a good wounded knight and drink this.’

  ‘This’ was a warming strong wine sweetened with honey and flavoured with spices. She motioned to Edgar. He held the cup to Baldwin, who irritably took it and sipped.

  ‘There must be some magic in this,’ he growled reluctantly after a few moments.

  Jeanne sent Edgar away and smiled at her husband, her features pleasantly shaded and softened by the trees above. The gentle light emphasised the softness of her skin, making her blue eyes seem more sparkling and alive with humour. ‘Magic?’

  ‘What else can it be, my Lady? I was prepared to be angry, chafing at the silken fetters with which you have me bound here, yet one sip and I feel as though it is better to lie here for ever than get on with the thousands of little tasks which ought to occupy me.’

  Jeanne laughed aloud. She was a tall, slender woman of some thirty years, but her red-gold hair was as soft and bright as that of a young woman, and her mischievous expression gave her an impish charm. Her face was regular, if a little round; her nose short, perhaps too small; her mouth over-wide with a full upper lip that gave her a stubborn appearance; her forehead was maybe too broad – but to Baldwin she was perfection.

  ‘Well, my Lord, I am glad if my wine is so effective,’ she joked, then grew serious. ‘But I would rather you had not been so battered and had not needed my medicine.’

  ‘I have my duties, my Lady,’ he said sharply.

  ‘And right now your duty is to yourself, Baldwin. God’s blood! Will it help anyone if you work yourself into the grave? You must give yourself time to heal.’

  ‘Very well, and I will try to avoid battles in future,’ he said, only half mockingly. He had no intention of getting into any more fights, not at his age – although he was concerned about the current political situation, which could lead to an armed struggle.

  ‘Are you troubled, my love?’

  He smiled. ‘You recognise my moods too well.’

  ‘It is easy when you sigh like that. You are thinking of the King?’

  ‘Not him particularly, but his advisers: the Despensers.’

  News had filtered down to them gradually after the disaster of Boroughbridge. Earl Thomas of Lancaster had been caught there and executed by his nephew the King, and almost instantly King Edward II had reneged on the agreements won after so much strife. He had called a parliament in May and revoked the exile imposed on his friends the Despensers, but that was not all. Edward was still bitter about the way his powers had been curtailed. He had repealed the Ordinances which had been created to protect his realm from incompetent or corrupt advisers, and now, for the first time in his reign, he held supreme power.

  This absolute control meant that he could reward those whom he considered his friends, and he lavished lands, wealth and titles on the Despensers. Hugh the Elder was created Earl of Winchester, while his son received many of the estates of the Marcher Lords, the nobles from the Welsh borders who had dared to stand against Edward II and his friends in the brief Despenser Wars.

  ‘It will lead to disaster,’ Baldwin said grimly.

  ‘Perhaps we can look forward to a period of stability,’ Jeanne said. ‘The King’s enemies are dead or imprisoned, and he will surely wish for peace himself.’

  ‘I expect he will,’ Baldwin said, but added heavily, ‘It is not him whom I fear, though. The Despensers are dangerous, avaricious men. With the consent of the King they have acquired almost the whole of Wales over the claims of those who have remained loyal to Edward. And then there is the Queen. How must she feel, now that the King has his closest friend back with him?’ Baldwin did not need to spell it out. The whole kingdom knew about the allegations that Hugh Despenser the Younger was the King’s lover.

  Jeanne was aware of her husband’s tolerance for homosexuals. When he fought in the hellhole of Acre, the last of the Crusader cities, until it fell, he had seen men who preferred other men to women. That he felt no disgust for such behaviour seemed peculiar in the extreme to her. Sodomy was sinful, and she agreed privately with Baldwin’s friend Simon Puttock, who had made his own opposition to such practices perfectly clear. Simon never minced his words.

  But she was sure that Baldwin was right to be thinking of the poor Queen. Isabella had recently given birth to another child, a daughter, while locked up in the Tower for her own protection during the King’s successful campaign against Lancaster. Rumours said that the poor woman had been forced to give birth in a room with a leaking roof, and the rain spattered her even as the child was bom. Jeanne shivered at the thought. It was an awful idea, as though the Queen was imprisoned so that the King might be free to enjoy his lover. ‘How will she react to the return of Despenser?’

  ‘I am sure she will tolerate her husband’s… um…’ Baldwin’s voice trailed off.

  Jeanne noticed he was staring at Aylmer, who frowned at a rider cantering along the road. As she watched, the rider reined in at the end of the track which led to Furnshill, then pulled his horse’s head around and aimed for them. Aylmer stood, a growl rumbling deep in his throat.

  Keeping an eye on him, Jeanne answered, ‘I can guess at her reaction. She is French, Husband, and herself the daughter of a King. I have lived among the French, as you know, and I think I know how a Frenchwoman would react to learning that her husband had little interest in her. She would not be patient for… Baldwin? Perhaps you would prefer me to demonstrate how a French wife would behave when she was being ignored?’

  Hearing the caustic edge to her voice, he tore his gaze from the approaching rider. ‘Sorry, my Lady?’

  ‘Nothing, Husband,’ Jeanne said with poisonous sweetness. ‘I am sure I was only talking nonsense. What interest could it be to you? Who is it on that horse?’

  Baldwin was squinting in his effort to recognise the rider. ‘I can’t quite see.’

  Jeanne cast a quick look over her shoulder, but she need not have worried. Edgar, who had been sergeant to Baldwin in the Order of the Templars, and who took seriously his duty to protect his master, was already approaching, a long staff in his hands. He stopped a short distance from Sir Baldwin, resting the staff on the ground, gripping it loosely in his right hand, ready to deflect an attack.

  The rider was a young man, probably not yet twenty, with sandy hair and the thin, pinched features of hunger. He reined in before the door, near to where Baldwin, Jeanne and Edgar waited, and ducked his head like a man used to being polite to officials. ‘My Lady, God’s blessing on you. I seek Sir Baldwin Furnshill – is he here?’

  Jeanne put out a hand to restrain her husband on his bench, but she was already too late.

  ‘I am,’ Baldwin said, sweeping the cloak away and standing. He studied the rider with a calm gravity. ‘Who sent you?’

  ‘Sir Baldwin, I am glad to have found you so soon. My master, Sir Roger de Gidleigh, asked me to request your help.’

  ‘A murder?’ Baldwin said. Sir Roger was one of the Devonshire coroners. From the look on the messenger’s face Baldwin realised that his eagerness must have sounded strange, but he had conducted two enquiries with Sir Roger, the most recent during the Oakhampton tournament in which Baldwin had received his wounds, and he respected his judgement. If Sir Roger was asking for help, it should prove to be a matter of interest.

  ‘Of a sort, sir, yes.’

  ‘What do you mean, “of a sort”?’ Jeanne demanded.

  The lad looked at her with a sort of weary acceptance that there was no way to ease the impact of his news.

  ‘Madam, I fear Sir Roger is investigating a matter of cannibalism.’

  * * *

  Felicia could hear the row as she approached the mill, even over the harsh rumbling of the great stones grating over each other as they ground the corn. Her parents were at it again.

&
nbsp; There was no surprise in it. The whole vill knew about them. Other families were normal, they lived easily with each other, with only the occasional flarings of anger, but not in her home. Her parents detested each other. The only surprise was that Samson had not yet killed her mother.

  At the mere thought of her father, she shivered. Felicia was a strongly built girl of twenty-one, with thick dark hair swept back under her wimple. Her eyes were large and almost blue; her face had high cheekbones that could make her look beautiful when she was excited and flushed, but her mouth was thin and severe. When she smiled her features lit up as though with angelic calmness, but she never smiled when thinking of her father. He aroused too many conflicting feelings in her, ones she couldn’t altogether understand. His large hands were as coarse and rough as moorstone, far better suited to clenching in anger than to soothing and stroking in love, although some women liked that. Felicia shivered again. That was the trouble. He enjoyed so many females, and Felicia’s mother Gunilda raged with jealousy. Never, even in their bed, would he turn to her to fulfil their marriage duties, but always sought younger flesh.

  Felicia stood at the door while their voices rose inside, his a hoarse bellow over the constant noise of the stones, hers a petulant whine. She wanted him, although Felicia couldn’t understand why. The bastard hated her, just as he hated everyone.

  She couldn’t go in. The thought of coping with the pair of them fighting, him striking Gunilda then his rage overwhelming him so that he turned on Felicia too, made her panic. She scurried around the house and slipped away over the far wall, past the dogs’ kennels, and into the church ground. She felt safe in the shadow of the great cross. It was far enough for her parents’ voices to be overwhelmed by the grumbling of the mill’s machinery and the noise of the river rushing past. For a while she could be at peace as she walked around the chapel.

  It had been a dream of hers for as long as she could remember, the idea of escaping from Sticklepath. There was nothing to keep her here. Odd, to think that her father would find that idea shocking. He must think that she loved him in her own way, but she didn’t. She obeyed purely from a fear of punishment. If it weren’t for that, she’d never submit to him.

  Yet as she walked she saw the one thing that could tempt her to stay: Vin. There he stood, guarding the place where the body of Aline had been found, up the hill. Several years ago they had kissed and cuddled out on the riverbank, a clumsy fumbling together in a clearing among the bushes, and although it wasn’t very satisfying for Felicia, especially when he groaned and fell across her when she had only begun to play with him, she had been oddly gratified, and expected that he would want to marry her. Except they had heard Samson bellowing, and Vin had run off, terrified.

  That was the last time she saw Vin with any intimacy. Afterwards he seemed to avoid her, as though ashamed of his behaviour with her, or perhaps it was simple fear of Samson. Or, more likely, he was put off her by what she did with Samson.

  Whatever the reason, Vin never made love to her again.

  * * *

  Once the messenger had gone to the buttery to refresh himself, Jeanne followed Baldwin into the house. Her mood was not improved by his twisted grin. ‘I know what you are going to say, my love: you are unhappy that I should consider going. That is fine, but—’

  ‘But nothing, my Lord. You are a man and feel you must ignore your injuries and return to take part in an investigation many miles from here in the miserable waste of Dartmoor.’

  ‘I have not yet agreed to any such thing,’ he protested, smiling. ‘And anyway, your own manor is as near to Dartmoor. You never complained about it before.’

  ‘I am aware that Liddinstone is near to the moors,’ she said, with dignity And it was. Her comfortable, pretty little manor was out near Brentor. Although she had lived there during her first miserable marriage, the fact of her husband’s cruelty had not changed Lady Jeanne’s love of the place. But that was not her only memory of the moors. ‘You haven’t forgotten the hideous murder at Throwleigh, and that sad woman Katherine, losing first her husband and then her son?’

  ‘Just because there was one murder there—’ Baldwin began, but she cut through his emollient speech.

  ‘Not just one murder. You haven’t forgotten Belstone?’

  ‘Ah, that was different,’ he said, and gazed at her with suspicion. ‘I never told you about that.’

  ‘You didn’t have to, Husband. A hundred little clues can tell a wife what she needs to know. Besides, I bribed Bishop Stapledon’s messenger with several pots of ale when he came to thank you for your help. The simple fact is that the moors are dangerous – and for you particularly. Why, when you were at Belstone you were almost killed.’

  ‘I survived,’ he murmured.

  ‘Yes. To go to Oakhampton and be all but ruined there instead,’ she said acidly. She went to his side and crouched, holding his hand. ‘I fear losing you, my love. And I feel you treat the dangers of the moors with scant regard.’

  ‘I will wear thick clothing when I go, I swear.’

  ‘See? You make light of my anxiety even now!’ she said bitterly. He saw that she was growing angry, and in an attempt to mollify her, took both her hands in his, looking attentively into her eyes. ‘Come, now. What need I fear on the moors? There are bogs and pools in which a man may drown, but I can make sure that a guide shows me the safest roads.’

  ‘Baldwin, it’s not that. It’s the spirits and ghosts I fear. If they have taken against you and choose to make you their plaything, there is nothing you can do to protect yourself.’

  He smiled. ‘Ghosts are things to petrify peasants. There is nothing in them for me to fear.’

  She saw she had lost him. Her concerns had overwhelmed her to the extent that she had lost her powers of persuasion. He would listen to no more. She knew him too well, and the slight smile that played about his eyes told her that this particular conversation was at an end.

  Yet for her the dangers were very real. The Church taught that souls could return to haunt the living, and sometimes, walking into a new house, or passing by a gibbet, or merely riding along a quiet road, she had the oddest sensations, as if someone else was nearby, although nobody ever was. Baldwin laughed at what he called her ‘superstition’, but the thrill of fear which shivered up her spine on these occasions felt very real.

  He continued, ‘No, do not fear for me, my love. There may be ghosts which the eyes can see, perhaps, but just because the eyes can accept them does not mean that they are real. They are illusions, no more. We need not fear them.’

  ‘The priests tell us of ghosts which can take on violent forms! Ghosts which can kill, which can give birth to children and—’

  ‘You have been listening to too many wandering friars. Once the body dies, the spirit flees to Heaven or to Purgatory. And now I must plan my journey to Sticklepath.’

  She turned away, staring out over the many miles to the south, to where, dark and sullen on the far horizon, she could see the cloud-covered hills of the moor.

  ‘I shall come with you and bring Richalda.’

  ‘There is no need. I made the same journey returning here from Oakhampton Castle without your nursing,’ he pointed out. ‘And my wounds were fresher then. Surely now it will be much easier.’

  ‘Baldwin, you know I fear that you may be injured and die and that I should be widowed again – this time with our baby daughter to bring up on my own. Can you not understand my concern? Can you not remain here a while longer, just until you have fully recovered?’

  ‘You need not worry. I shall be perfectly safe. It is a journey of a little over a day and a half from here if the weather holds, no more. And by the time I arrive there, I am sure that the good coroner will have arrested the culprit. After all,’ he added with a chuckle, ‘the vill of Sticklepath is only very small. Not above about ten households all told. There can’t be too many suspects if Coroner Roger is correct and the crime is that of one man eating another!’

&nb
sp; * * *

  Father Gervase walked to the door of his tiny cottage and leaned against the post a while, waiting till he could force his feet over the threshold. He was physically exhausted, his rounded features grey after a day spent labouring in his little field. It was the same feeling that people had so often early in the year, when there were fewer vegetables and the meat was heavily salted, sometimes even rotten in the barrels. It was an all-but-unbearable lassitude, as though he was suffering from a malaise, one from which there could be no recovery.

  Another death. Somehow, through all the intervening years, Gervase had hoped that she lived, poor little Aline; that her disappearance was caused by her running away, or perhaps drowning and being swept away. He had hoped that this was not merely further proof of his guilt. Yet she had been found.

  They had thought years ago that this horror was ended, that when they slaughtered Athelhard in front of his hut, this evil would end. Instead it had enveloped the whole vill in a miasma so foul it infected everyone. Gervase could do nothing about it. It had been he who had caused the murder of Athelhard. His guilt was worse than all the others’; his crime had led to the curse which now lay on the vill.

  This cottage was no sanctuary. It was here, in the room where he ate and slept that the memories flooded back, where the horror attacked him each night. His only comforts were the crucifix resting on his table and the wineskin. He knew he was drinking too much now; he was rarely sober even when conducting the chantry for the chapel’s patrons. That was no way to carry on, but he couldn’t help it. Without the wine his every moment was bound up with thoughts of the murder and the innocent victims.

  He was so tired. His muscles ached from his work in the fields, but that wasn’t it, he could cope with that. No, it was the lack of sleep. He daren’t sleep. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the hideous vision again – that poor idiot girl’s screaming face, her terror and pain as she watched her brother die, saw the men pick up his broken body, swing it once, twice, thrice and then let it fly back into the smouldering remains of their cottage.