The Sticklepath Strangler (2001)

by Jecks, Michael

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.

  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!’

  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.

  Athelhard, the man accused of murder. Athelhard the innocent.

  ‘God forgive me,’ the priest whispered, grabbing his wineskin. ‘Please, God, forgive me!’

  Chapter Three

  Simon Puttock didn’t need a messenger to ask him to join Sir Roger. He was still at Oakhampton’s great castle, recently renovated and modernised by Hugh Courtenay, because he had helped Lord Hugh to stage the tournament at which Baldwin himself had been wounded.

  Tall, dark-haired, with the ruddy complexion of a man who spent hours each week on the moors, Simon was shattered, worn down by the grinding efforts of the last few weeks. First it had been the trial of creating the field, setting up the grandstands, laying out the positions of the markets and agreeing where the tents and pavilions for the knights and their men should be erected, but then he’d been forced into the hectic post of field’s marshal, keeping the peace and ensuring the smooth running of the whole event.

  If he’d succeeded, he might feel less emotionally drained, but he hadn’t. There had been a series of murders, now resolved to the satisfaction of all, but that didn’t hide the fact that people had died while he was there running the thing. The pageantry and festivities went off well enough, but Simon hadn’t been in a position to enjoy them. Instead he’d spent his time working doggedly at uncovering the murderer with his friend Baldwin and the local Coroner.

  All about him the roadway was filled with puddles. The detritus from the market and tented area had already been gathered up and burned or thieved by the poorer elements of the town, and all that was left was the inevitable mud after the rains. Sometimes Simon wondered whether he would ever see the predictable, seasonal weather he had known as a lad. It was all very well his wife laughing that he always hankered after better times from his youth when all was golden and wonderful, but things had been better. The winters had been cold and snowy, the summers drier and warmer.

  He stopped and gazed about him, taking in the sodden grass, the dark, soaked soil rutted with cart-tracks and hoofprints, booted and bare feet, the marks of dogs and cats and children, and his lip curled. This was one of the worst summers he’d ever known. The famine years of 1315 and 1316 had been terrible, but this year of Our Lord 1322 was a continuation. It was as though there was some sort of blight on the country.

  At least his wife and daughter were back home in Lydford. They would have hated being locked up in the castle during the rains. He missed them terribly. Margaret, his Meg, tall and slender as a willow, with her long fair hair and full breasts; his daughter Edith, the coltish young woman of fourteen or fifteen – it was hard to remember now – who at Oakhampton had proved that she was no longer merely his daughter, but was grown into an attractive woman.

  He missed them, yes, but he was glad that they were gone. Edith was in so gloomy a temper since the end of the tournament . . . Simon pushed away the unpleasant memory, hoping that back in the happy, bustling town of Lydford, she would soon forget her misery. Her many admirers would see to that.

  It was better than having them moping here. A castle filled with the retinue of a lord was a loud, exciting place, full of roaring, singing men, and wayward-looking women – not only whores: Simon had been surprised at the behaviour of some of the well-born married women. However, as the people faded away, Lord Hugh himself departing to visit Tavistock and then distant manors, taking his stewards, cooks, almoner, ostlers, ushers and bottlers and all the other men of his household with him, the place grew silent. All the local serfs commanded to serve Lord Hugh had cleared out, and only the small garrison remained. It was as though a burgh had been one day filled with people going about their business, and the next the place was dead: all the inhabitants struck down by God’s hand.

  A shiver passed up his spine. It was scary to think such things, but he couldn’t help it. He was of a cheerful disposition generally, but he was also a Devonshire man, and that meant he was cursed with a powerful imagina
tion. His friend Baldwin treated his wilder flights as the ravings of an irrational fool, although he usually mitigated the harshness of his words with an affectionate grin. Usually, anyway. Sometimes his irritation got the better of him.

  No matter. Simon had been raised in Devon, meeting few strangers, only the occasional traveller, and was accustomed to hearing local stories about the strange things people had seen, the odd things they had heard. Baldwin could dismiss all this if he liked, but even the priests at Crediton’s canonical church knew of ghosts. When Simon had been a student there, he had heard them tell tales around the fire of an evening which had frozen the blood in his veins. Terrible stories of phantasms and ghouls, of ghosts which haunted the living, or even killed them. Simon had never seen one himself, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t believe in such things. He’d never seen an angel, but he didn’t need to in order to believe in them.

  The end of the tournament had been a relief, but only now, with the stands pulled down, the castle all but closed, the lands cleared and all the guests gone, could Simon begin to relax. And it was a marvellous feeling, knowing that at last he could think about packing up his belongings and setting off for home.

  He had reached this conclusion when he saw Sir Roger de Gidleigh cantering towards him. When the knight had drawn to a halt at his side, Simon put out a hand to pat the mount’s neck and looked up at him. ‘You only left two days ago. Did your wife chuck you out again?’

  ‘Her? She’s probably glad to see the back of me. Doesn’t like me mucking up the place,’ Sir Roger joked. He was a thickset man, strong in the arm and shoulder, but with a paunch that demonstrated his skill lay more with a knife and spoon than with a sword and spear. For all that, he rode his mount like a man bred to the saddle from an early age. His face was square and kindly, with warm brown eyes and a tightly cropped thatch of hair which was frosted about the temples – the only proof of his increasing years.

  ‘You mean you’ve come back here without even seeing her?’ Coroner Roger often derided his wife, but in reality Simon knew he was devoted to her. ‘What’s going on, man? Out with it. This is going to cost me money or time, I can feel it in my bones.’