‘What happened to him?’ Coroner Roger snapped.
‘He rode off one day during the famine, and that was that. It was the year before the death of Peter atte Moor’s daughter, Denise. Never turned up again.’ Gervase wiped at his brow with the palm of his hand and shook his head. He stood and motioned vaguely towards the house. ‘Would you care for some drink? I have some wine, a loaf. It would be sufficient for us, I am sure.’
‘It is most kind of you,’ Baldwin said with a gracious inclination of his head, ‘but I am neither hungry nor thirsty.’
‘I am,’ said the coroner hurriedly.
Gervase gave him a pale grin, then wandered back inside his house.
‘Look at this place!’ Baldwin said. ‘What a miserable hovel. One room only, in which he must eat, work and sleep, and this little garden where he might be fortunate enough to grow some peas and beans, were he to bother trying.’
‘If the river hadn’t risen and washed them all away,’ Simon agreed, eyeing the few straggling plants which had survived. ‘But it’s no worse than thousands of other parsons’ dwellings up and down the country. And provided that he performs the daily chantry, he will always have money and some food. Probably a new tunic each year, too.’
‘And yet he seems relatively well educated,’ Coroner Roger mused. ‘Why should a man with a brain wish to come to a dump like this?’
‘It isn’t that bad,’ Simon protested. ‘And there’s nothing wrong with a priest who wants to serve his community.’
‘No,’ the coroner agreed, ‘but there’s something wrong with a man who invests all his wealth in wine and regularly drinks himself into a stupor.’
‘Perhaps last night was a rare occurrence.’
‘And perhaps I was born a Moor,’ Baldwin said. ‘Didn’t you see the state of his rushes, couldn’t you smell the vomit? It is days since he cleaned in there. No, this man has his own guilty secret.’
Gervase soon returned, bearing a jug in one fist, a platter with three irregular sized pots on it and a large loaf. He spoke a short prayer in thanks, then sat, pulling the loaf into chunks and pouring wine for them. Then he sat back, chewing and slurping.
‘This Ansel. His wife doesn’t live in the vill?’ Coroner Roger prompted.
Gervase felt the cold grip of fear grasp at his bowels. ‘They were not married. I fear he was one of those men who sought their pleasures here on earth instead of the enlightened attitude which looks to the life to come. No, he was not very religious.’
‘In out of the way places, not many are,’ Baldwin noted reasonably. ‘Where is the mother, then?’
‘Meg is touched, and more than a little insane since her brother died, God bless him, in a terrible fire in their cottage.’ He studied the bread in his hand and bit off a chunk, chewing it dry. ‘Meg saw him die and it addled her brains. People about here call her “Mad Meg” now.’
‘Where?’ Coroner Roger demanded, his patience run out.
‘She inhabits a place in the wood out to the west of the vill. A small assart, which her brother worked for her.’
‘She was local?’ Simon pressed.
‘Not really, no. She was from up aways, round Exbourne. She and her brother came here after he had fought with the King in France and made himself some money. When he came back, he used his money to buy the plot from Lord Hugh.’
‘When would all this have been?’ Baldwin enquired.
‘He died in the famine. Shortly after Denise had been found.’
‘After her man disappeared?’ Coroner Roger asked.
‘Yes. Ansel disappeared in 1315, while her brother died in 1316, just before Mary died.’
‘Ah, Mary!’ Simon said. ‘We have heard a little about her. She was an orphan?’
Gervase bent his head in assent.
‘Did she die the same way?’ Baldwin demanded. ‘Throttled and eaten?’
‘May God take her to His breast and comfort her, yes,’ the parson said, closing his eyes as the vision rose before his eyes. ‘The little child had her legs cut away, as though someone had… as you would a haunch of venison. I can still see her poor little face. She was such a sweet, kindly little girl. No one deserves that sort of death. It was an obscene attack: a violation! Hideous.’
‘You buried her?’
‘Of course. And there is never a day I don’t go out there and pray for her. I love children, just as Our Lord did, if you know your Gospels, Sir Knight.’
‘Except you never reported her death, did you?’ Coroner Roger rumbled.
Gervase looked away, but Baldwin was frowning. ‘This brother. What was he named?’
Gervase felt the clamminess at his palms as he took up his cup and took a deep draught. It served to soothe his spirits, and as he put the cup back down, he could say without a tremor in his voice, ‘Just some fellow called Athelhard.’
‘And you say he too is dead? In a fire?’
‘Yes.’
‘An accident?’
‘I can tell you no more. I’m bound by secrecy and the secrets are not mine to divulge. Only let me say that I may have inflamed them, and I am heartily sorry. I feel my guilt most terribly.’
‘Damn this!’ Coroner Roger roared with frustration. ‘I need answers, Priest! Who can answer if you won’t?’
‘I can’t. I am tied. Why not speak to Mad Meg – she may be able to help.’
‘Is there nothing you can tell us?’ Baldwin asked, his tone more gentle.
Gervase looked into his dark, intense eyes and found himself wavering. ‘I can’t tell you secrets told to me under the oaths of the confessional, Sir Knight. All I can say is, I heard that Athelhard shouted out a curse before he died. A terrible curse, one which still stalks the vill even now, six years later.’
Chapter Eighteen
‘This is maddening. There is a secret in this vill, I am sure of it,’ Baldwin said bitterly as they left the parson’s place. ‘Look at that fellow’s attitude in there. Did you see how he reacted when I asked about this man Athelhard? He almost chewed through his cup!’
‘You’re reading too much into it,’ the coroner protested. ‘There may be some secret, but it’s probably just that they’ve been holding back on some of their grain, trying to conceal it from Lord Hugh, or perhaps it’s avoidance of the tithes or some other tax. There are always secrets in little vills like this. They have to struggle hard enough just to survive, God knows, and you can’t blame them for keeping a bit back for themselves.’
‘My Heavens! And this is the terror of Exeter talking?’
‘There’s no call for sarcasm. I’m only pointing out that there could be a perfectly innocent explanation.’
‘Let us find this woman Meg and see what she thinks,’ Baldwin decided.
‘We need to talk to the other child as well,’ said Simon. ‘The girl called Joan, whom I saw returning from the moors on the day of the inquest.’
‘Perhaps,’ Baldwin said, ‘but later. She can wait. Let’s see this Meg first.’
‘Very good,’ Coroner Roger agreed, but as he spoke he stumbled on a dried rut, and his ankle turned painfully. ‘Ach! Christ Jesus! My leg.’
‘You cannot walk down the lane,’ Baldwin observed.
‘Christ’s bones, trust this to happen.’
‘Do you want me to help you back to the inn?’ Simon asked.
‘No. I can manage,’ the coroner said. ‘Thanks all the same.’ He pointed to a tree. ‘Bring me a branch and I will be fine. I’ll get back to the inn, you two go ahead without me.’
‘If you’re sure,’ said Simon. The inn wasn’t that far away, fortunately. He hurried to cut a stave.
Baldwin lent Roger his shoulder while they waited, but his thoughts were not with the coroner. Since hearing that Mad Meg lived out at the western tip of the vill in her own assart, Baldwin had wanted to go there and talk to her. He felt a curious certainty that if he could visit the place with the level-headed Simon, he would be able to confront his dream head-on and reduc
e the potency of his fear. Somehow his dream had grown more virulent here, as though something in the vill associated itself with his own dark past and drew upon his own guilt and secrets. It was foolish thinking, immature and irrational, which irritated him beyond belief, but as Simon passed the stick to the coroner, he felt relieved that he and Simon would continue alone.
Once Roger was gone, hobbling slowly back to the inn, the two approached the spring. Baldwin could not help his steps from faltering. A fine sweat broke out upon his forehead and back, but there was no heat. He felt stony cold as he stared down the track between the trees. Aylmer stopped at his side and looked up into his face.
Simon, of course, could see nothing. For all his superstition, he was quite insensitive. He peered down the trackway. ‘You think this is the road, then?’
Baldwin said nothing, merely moved on along the track, his own sense of foreboding growing as he let himself slip under the shadow of the trees. He felt like Orpheus entering the Underworld.
* * *
Still in his garden, Gervase felt dread overwhelming him. He knew that the three men who had visited would not be content with half truths for long. The knight in particular had a peculiarly intent gaze, as though he could see right through a man’s deceits to the filth and lies that had held him together all his life. Talking to him had been difficult, like confessing to a foul deed before a Bishop, but there had not been the slightest hint of Absolution at the end of it. He had not confessed with honesty, he had concealed more than he had admitted. It would remain on his conscience until somehow he let it out. And yet he couldn’t.
He wanted to cry, to bawl his head off, to admit his crimes and receive some form of penance, but he knew that he must wear the mask of an ordinary village parson. Only a few knew his guilt, and they knew because of their complicity.
If he could, he would give all his wealth, such as it was, to bring back that life. He was a sinner, for he had murdered. Doubly a sinner, for he had withheld the extreme unction and viaticum. He had knowingly condemned a man to Purgatory or Hell, thinking he was guilty of murder, but now the real killer had struck again.
The thought forced him to close his eyes and weep. It was unbearable, this guilt. Maddening and incurable. Perhaps he should travel to Exeter, confess his crimes to the bishop, admit all that he had done and wait to hear what penance he would receive. At least then there would be an end to it, although he might well be condemned to a monastery hundreds of miles away, to spend the rest of his days in silence, without the solace even of sunlight playing on flowers, of the feeling of warmth on his back. Even the simple delight of standing in a summer’s shower would be lost to him for ever.
He stood, feeling suddenly ancient, and walked through his house. Shutting the door behind him, he went over the road to his chapel and entered it, genuflecting to the altar, before which lay the body of young Emma. Two women sat beside her, and he recognised them as Gunilda and her daughter, Felicia. They were holding vigil. Gervase nodded to them, then approached the altar himself. He knelt, pressed his palms together in the modern way and begged for forgiveness.
It was unsatisfying. There was no relief for him in prayer. There never was, not since his realisation of his guilt. That recognition had so devastated him that his faith had suffered accordingly. Now he hardly knew the right words to use, as though God had taken them from him, as though God was Himself disgusted and wanted nothing more to do with him.
He heard steps and the door shutting. Looking over his shoulder he saw that Felicia had left, and now only Gunilda sat, rocking gently by the side of Emma’s corpse.
‘It’s all right, Father,’ she said. ‘He’ll not want any more.’
The woman was plainly losing her mind. Her sanity, which Gervase doubted had ever been better than fragile, was shattered. He tried to sound comforting. ‘That’s good.’
‘You think I’m talking rubbish, don’t you?’ she smiled. ‘But Samson won’t come back now. This was the last one he fancied. He’ll leave the others in peace.’
Gervase was tempted to point out that her husband was dead, but his tongue clove to his palate in sympathy at her ravings.
‘He got Aline pregnant, you know. He loved her, I think. And Felicia, too, but she was lucky and miscarried. It would have been difficult for me if she’d gone to term. But Aline, she was scared. I think Samson thought she might go to her father. Swet would have been very angry if he’d learned that Samson had molested her, wouldn’t he?’
Gervase felt his belly contract at her words. Surely she was wrong. She must have told someone if she had known about her man’s raping of young girls. Nobody could stand by and permit such a heinous crime, could they?
He was grateful to be interrupted by Felicia returning. Patting Gunilda’s hand, he stood. She hardly appeared to notice, as though she had already forgotten he was there, and he walked from the chapel, going into the cemetery to seek peace. The sun was lower in the west now, and he stood watching it move towards Tongue End, musing on the evil that there was in the world. When he continued walking, his sandal was loose, and he irritably scuffed it against the ground. The sole came loose and he stamped his foot in anger. It was as if even his footwear was conspiring to make life difficult.
And it was then, as he stifled his cursing, that he heard the low, doleful wail coming from beneath him; from beneath the soil, from the grave itself, and he gave a short shriek of horror, walking backwards, his gaze fixed in terror at the ground.
The truth was forced upon him. God sought to punish him, the vill, everyone, for their evil: the curse was returned to life!
‘No! God, please, no!’ he whispered. At that moment the hounds began to howl again, and he felt his bowels loosen as though filled with water. A primeval horror rose and engulfed him, making him gibber, and then he turned and ran from that hideous place, over the road to the security of his own house and his wine.
Only later did he realise he had bolted past the open door to his chapel and the safety that the cross should have offered him, and that realisation made him weep still more bitterly. His soul was taken by demons, and now it must be tormented for all eternity in hellfire. Even the cross couldn’t give him solace.
He was lost.
* * *
Thomas walked from his house with the feeling that everyone was watching him, although whenever he turned and peered at the houses all about him, he could see no one.
His sow, his pride and joy, was in her yard, enclosed by a solid wall and well-constructed hurdles which she could have pushed over if she had a will, but she was ever a calm, mild-mannered creature, and never bothered. Thomas walked to her and stood leaning on the wall a while, watching her as she snuffled her way through the thick straw piled high all about her. She at least looked unconcerned by accusations or possible trials. All she cared about was the next meal. It was a simple life, one which today Thomas could envy.
The body was gone. That was a blessing, although from the clouds of flies which rose and swarmed about the straw, there was still plenty of Emma’s blood about the place. The corpse had been taken away and was even now probably being bathed and wrapped in her winding sheet. In this heat the vill would want her in her grave as quickly as possible, and since her father was long gone and her mother was insane, there was no need to worry about the family’s wishes.
She was the last of her father’s line. It was a poignant idea, that the youngest member of a family should die and be found in so undignified a manner, lying half concealed in an outbuilding. It made him consider Joan. If he were to be accused in court and convicted, for he had no faith in his neighbours after this morning’s display, then what would happen to his little girl? On a busy road like this, there would be bound to be plenty of felons, drawlatches and thieves who would be interested in a girl like her.
Nicole would do all she could to protect their child, but her own life would become unbearable after Thomas had died. He had seen too many other widows in vills like this f
or him to harbour false hopes. It would only take one man to decide that she wanted him after he had spent an afternoon on the ale, for him to rape her. And soon the news would spread that she was ‘begging for it, desperate, she was, without a man for so long. Give her one for me…’ Oh yes, Thomas had heard it all before. There had been subtle variations on the same theme when he had married Nicky to protect her from the families of her father’s victims.
Rape wasn’t unknown. It was rarely appealed in court, for the woman must demonstrate that she had suffered, and that meant displaying her torn and bloodied garments, and stripping to prove that she had been evilly used. Not many women would willingly go through that.
He tried to force the ideas from his mind, walking out to the roadway again.
‘So, brother, you may go to gaol soon.’
‘Ivo!’ Thomas breathed. ‘Have you come to gloat?’
‘No, not gloat. I merely wanted to see where the murderer lived. You know, I hadn’t realised you could do something like that. Killing her, yes, raping her, of course, poor child. But eating her? That seems to have shocked even your neighbours here, surprisingly. I’d have thought that the folks here would be fairly stolid, but they seem perfectly stunned at your behaviour.’
‘I’ve done nothing wrong. I never touched Emma.’
‘Come, brother, you don’t have to lie to me! Was she sweet and willing? Or did you have to force her?’ Ivo asked. He held a long staff in his hand, and he leaned on it to smile lecherously at Thomas.
‘By God’s grace, shut up.’
‘Threats again? That’s one way of convincing everyone that you’re innocent, I suppose, although I’d have thought it preferable to maintain a dignified calmness.’
‘Be silent, Ivo!’ Thomas noticed a movement out of the corner of his eye, and looked up to meet Joan’s appalled gaze.
‘Perhaps you think that I would be easy too, like that little girl? Is that it? I am only a clerk, when all is said and done. A manciple has no military training, after all. I should be easy for a hulking great peasant, like you to overwhelm. Just like a little girl. I hope you found her satisfying. It’s a shame that your wife can’t satisfy you any more, but I suppose even you learned that a hangman’s daughter is not the tastiest morsel. Strange. She looked attractive enough when I first saw her and lay with her, but now I don’t think I’d want to touch her with your staff, brother, let alone my own.’
The Sticklepath Strangler Page 22
