Later, walking out through the doors, he felt contempt for all priests. Supercilious and smug, they never had to work. There was nothing that could worry them. Whatever happened, they took their money from rich and poor alike, and were never touched by the disasters which struck down others. Even now, when the folk here in Exeter were starving and the famine was starting to bite into even the wealthier families, the vicars and the canons in their cathedral close were safe enough. They had their massive grain stores outside the city, all of them with food enough to keep them alive for many long months. Not that there would be much point. Daniel gazed about him sombrely. What would be the purpose of St Peter’s Cathedral Church and all these canons, vicars, annuellars and servants if all the city’s souls were dead? There was little sense in having a massive new cathedral church erected if all the people for whom it had been designed, to entice them inside, were already buried outside.
The death rate was now massively greater than it had been at the start. God’s bones, but if more people started to die, Daniel would have to consider hiring another clerk to help him in his work. A part of his duties was to see to the wills of the dead and already he had run up a profit of eleven shillings in the last six weeks, a massive sum of money.
As he pulled his hat over his head, he noticed the cart before the entrance and scowled at it. Mazeline’s mother had given up a while ago. A little good broth and some pasties would have saved her, but of course Jordan le Bolle couldn’t provide them, could he? Daniel sneered to himself. No, the wealthiest thief in the city couldn’t provide the food which his mother-in-law desperately needed, because that would expose his life for the sham it was. He lived frugally as a lowly tavern-keeper, and now he had no guests people would soon start to comment if they found him with apparently more money than he should have. Since even bread had risen in price to six times its value at the start of the famine, all men were looking to their cash ever more carefully. This was the second year of hardship. Last year had seen the beginnings of the disaster, when the crops failed in the torrential downpours, but matters had grown much worse.
Everything was affected. Food cost so much that many were incapable of affording it. Although the King and others had tried to enforce a strict control on pricing, it was pointless and had to be dropped. It was contrary to all reason to enforce low prices. Every man knew food could only be grown when God willed it. He alone decided the fruitfulness of the earth and the quality of the returns, and if He decided to make men suffer because of the sterility of the harvest, that was His choice. And price depended upon that capricious will, not the will of an English king.
So many had died of starvation, it was a miracle that there were not more outbreaks of violence. The Trailbaston gangs were not so numerous as once they had been, and it appeared that the countryside was reverting to calmness. The peasants would sometimes plead for food at the wayside when there was nothing to fill their bellies, and the sight of the children at their sides was pitiable, but it was God’s way to remind men every so often of their feebleness compared with His power.
There had been cases of sporadic violence, mostly outside the city. Often it had been between the gangs of felons who brought food into the city slyly to avoid duties. They met on the highway and set about each other with enthusiasm, beating their rivals about the heads and causing several deaths. Others were killed, too; notably travellers wandering about the place with purses that bulged intriguingly. They were ripe for the plucking, and all too many of them were fleeced when they reached the city if they hadn’t been already. Several were murdered, especially if they had some spare food about them. Today food was more valuable than mere money.
Daniel hated such men with a vengeance. He had strong ideas who they were, too. It was obscene that a man like Jordan le Bolle should be treated as an equal. He should have been excluded from the cathedral church. A man like him, responsible for fleecing so many, robbing some, perhaps even killing them, and yet he could join a church ceremony like any decent man. It was revolting.
The funeral party was walking past to leave. He stood aside, one hand on his wife’s elbow, as they strode to the door. First to go was Mazeline with her husband and her cousin, all of them pulling their hoods over their heads in preparation. Then came the men with the body on its bier. As they did so, Daniel curled his lip.
‘They’ll never starve, those two.’
‘Still hunting that stag?’ Agnes said sweetly. ‘Brother, perhaps you should seek more certain quarry than one which may always outrun you.’
Daniel glanced at her briefly, and took delight in reflecting that he had married the other sister, but still, as he walked away with Juliana on his arm, he knew no ease or comfort.
The sight of that felon, le Bolle, had soured an already doleful day. The weather was the perfect match for his temper: grim, grey, and relentless. The rain fell in an unending downpour which, while not being so earnest as to justify the use of a word like ‘torrent’, was so unremitting that it seemed to scour the soul. One week – no, even a single day – of rain now was enough to turn a man’s mood to rage, but this, this was torment on a vast scale. It tortured everyone. When had he last witnessed a day without rain? Christ’s blood, he didn’t know. St Peter himself could hardly be expected to know. Had there been a dry day this year?
Later, after the old man had been buried and he was walking round the conduit, he saw the two shadowy figures. They were crouched low, and as he took in the scene he could see what was happening. Two men, a well-wrapped corpse at their side, the cheap fabric of the winding-sheet soaking up the red moisture from the soil on which it lay, were digging a fresh pit for the body.
‘Sweet Mother of God,’ he swore, and left his wife with the mourners as he made his way across the rough ground.
Every step seemed to dash water in every direction, much of it leaping up and splashing his shins. The red liquid, stained by the soil around here, dripped like diluted blood, and for an instant he was revolted by the fancy and stopped.
All this space about the cathedral was the cemetery for the people of this city, and he suddenly had a foul thought that this redness had not leached from the earth, but was in fact blood, the blood of all the dead bodies which lay beneath his feet. The grass was flattened, rough, chewed by a hundred horses; trampled by the traders who haggled here, the children who played hereabout, and the boots of the men and women who came to see their beloved relatives interred. He took another step, and the rich soil threw up another gout of the scarlet liquid.
He was an officer of the law, not some superstitious fool of a peasant from Exmouth, he told himself sternly, and continued.
‘What in God’s sweet name do you think you’re doing here?’ he demanded.
Henry was in the pit, and he glanced over at the sergeant. ‘Only burying Emma, Daniel. You’ve just buried one man; let us see to Est’s wife in peace, eh?’
‘Get her away from here and fill in that hole, you sacrilegious son of a Plymouth whore! This is the cathedral’s land.’
‘It’s all right here,’ Estmund said dully. ‘A vicar told us.’
‘Daniel, please,’ Henry pleaded. ‘Just leave us. It’s for Emma, and she deserves better than this anyway.’
‘You heard me: get that pack away from here and go yourselves!’ Daniel demanded. He could feel his frustration and anger rising.
Henry climbed out of the hole and reached for a spade. ‘Daniel, sometimes you’re a damned cretin. If you are so stupid as to want to make Est suffer, I’m not. And Emma was a good woman. I’ll not take her anywhere else.’ He started to tidy the edge of the pit.
It was enough. Daniel had been delayed by le Bolle at his mother-in-law’s funeral, he felt nervy after that odd reflection about the red water, and now this pair of morons were disputing his authority. The rage and frustration enfolded him in its warm embrace, and he grabbed the sack of tools that lay at the graveside. Heaving it back, he hurled it through the air to the opposite side o
f the roadway, where it burst and scattered its contents about the cobbles.
‘You poxed son of a goat!’ Henry spat. ‘Look at all that lot!’ He started towards the sergeant, his face darkening with anger.
Daniel’s blood was up already, and seeing the brawny figure moving towards him he was sure that the spade would soon be swung at his head. He had no hesitation. There was one weapon handy, a pickaxe. As Henry approached, Daniel grabbed it and swung it. The pick missed Henry’s face, but ripped into his right shoulder, tearing through skin and muscle, crunching through bone and exploding out again. A spray of blood rose from the wound, jetting up and over, drenching Estmund and his dead wife, and as Henry was wrenched from his feet by the power of that appalling blow Estmund squealed like a child and fell to his knees at her side, his arms outstretched, as though disbelieving that such a sacrilege could have struck her.
Chapter One
Exeter, September 1323
Even as she moaned and rubbed her glorious body over his, a part of him was sure that something was wrong.
Not with her: she had her arms about him as she returned his kisses, enthusiastic as any whore from the stews in Exeter, and although that nagging doubt remained, Reginald Gylla was only a man; made of flesh and blood like any other. Was there a fellow in the country who could have left that delicious wench lying there on the bed just because of a sudden notion? When she parted her lips and her tongue slipped out to touch his mouth, he was too excited to worry about some little niggling concern. There was nothing there, he told himself. Nothing to worry about.
Her hand reached under his shirt and stroked his belly and thighs, and he lifted himself over her, but even as his weight was balanced on his forearms he had a sudden vision of a sword whirling, shearing through his neck. It made him start, and distracted him enough to make him begin to withdraw.
She didn’t appear to notice. Her hand continued its ministrations while she whimpered softly, and he found himself forced to continue, as though halting at this moment must question his manhood. Soon he was moving forward, ready to plant his falchion in her sheath.
Falchion? What a thought! Planting a blade in her was the last thing he would think of; he adored her! His manhood began to droop.
He wanted to swear aloud at the way his mind was diverted, but that was the trouble: no matter what he did with her now, the thought of men attacking him here, in his own hall, was never far from him. The idea that someone could enter the place was alarming. Jordan le Bolle was a fearsome enemy, and he had the money and the power to murder Reg, even here in the middle of Exeter. Christ’s pains, it was mad to be in this place with this woman – especially when his only thoughts were of Jordan’s sword aiming at his heart or his head, or … no, it didn’t bear thinking of other places he might attack.
Reg had some authority and money too, but his star was waning. He was sure of it. The urge for more power was fading. He didn’t like his life, his business; he had made his money from other men and women’s suffering. That was wrong.
In the last few days he’d made enquiries of a man in the market, who was supposed to be good at seeing the future, and although he had said the right things – a parcel of money coming his way, the blessing of more sons, ever fruitful business and the rest – there had been a reticence about him that had convinced Reg that he saw something else too. When he paid and left, he was sure that there was a sort of hard look in the old man’s eyes. He knew, all right … he knew.
She was at him again, and he realized that the mere thought of that shit of the devil, Jordan le Bolle, had shrivelled his tarse as effectively as a cold bath. He was flaccid … he must concentrate to satisfy her. Looking down at her, he studied her soft lips, the half-lidded blue eyes, now so wanton, and drank in the picture of her naked breasts and fine white flesh. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever known, and she was all his. He settled down, kissing her face and forehead, cheeks, chin, eyelids and nose, while she returned to her skilled manipulation, and soon he was ready again.
He refused to permit any interruptions this time. The bastard wasn’t going to take this away from him. Not again. Le Bolle could make a summer’s day feel cold. He had the ability to ruin any experience – even this. Reg carried on kissing, moving down her neck to her breasts, and she squirmed with pleasure, emitting small moans of delight as he suckled and licked.
The furs gave off a warm odour of bodies and musk, and he drank it in as he—
Shit, shit, shit! There – there was something. His head snapped up and he glowered at the door.
‘What is it, lover?’ she asked, her voice low with lust.
In the room there was a constant swishing and rattling from the heavy drapery that covered the walls. The windows were unglazed, and even with the shutters pulled over the spaces, the wind passed through. Now he could see the thick material of the tapestries rippling softly. One was hung in front of a beam with a projecting splinter which he had meant to remove ages ago when his wife first pointed it out to him, but it was high up and he hadn’t bothered. Now he wished he had. There was a ticking sound, then a harsh rasping, as the material moved over it. It was annoying.
Christ’s pain, but this was ridiculous! There was nothing. Surely there was nothing. Here in his solar, he was safe from anything – anyone! A man trying to get in here would have to wade through the blood of the servants and men-at-arms in his hall, then climb the stairs. He’d hear them from yards off; it wasn’t even as though they could expect to find everyone asleep, not at this time of night. No, if there was to be an attack, he would know of it. Even a single assassin would—
His heart seemed to freeze in his chest. In an instant he realized what the noise must have been. He leaped to his feet, leaving her naked on the furs, scarcely heeding her complaints, and bounded to the chest on which lay his old sword. This he snatched up, and made for the door. The peg latched it and he yanked it free, sword in hand, and hurried down the heavy timber staircase. At the bottom was the little chamber he had made for his son, and here he stopped, panting slightly. The bed was still there, and on it he saw the shape of his boy. Against the chill, the lad had pulled a thick fustian blanket over his linen sheets, and as Reg approached more quietly, his breathing already easing, he saw that his son’s face showed as a pale disc in the moon’s light.
The lad was nearly six years old, and he wore an expression of mildly pained enquiry on his sleeping face, one arm thrown up over his brow as though he was striking himself for a failed memory. He looked so perfect that Reg felt a pang of sadness to think that soon such beauty must pass. It would be no time before the boy was learning his arms, practising with bow and sword to the honour of his family and his king. God shield him!
Reg was about to return upstairs when he registered what had struck him already, that the window was open and the shutter wide. He shouldn’t have been able to see his son in that room, not at night, not with his determination that all should be secure against attack.
Turning, he glanced at the window, and his heart chilled again as he felt, rather than saw, the figure, grim, dark and menacing, standing at the opening. Reg gave a shrill cry, partly rage, mostly fear, and hurled his sword at the man. It missed, striking the wall and clattering with a ringing peal to the ground as the man slipped out through the window, and then fled over the rough patch of yard.
Henry heard about the man’s screams the next day. Although with his terrible, twisted shoulder it was hard for him to perform any manual labour of the type he had once found so easy, at least his natural affinity for horses meant he could earn a living as a carter. He’d been lucky to acquire the wagon and pony, and fortunately he was also blessed with the natural good humour of a man who had suffered through his life, and was able to find amusement in almost any tale.
That morning he had no business, and was sitting on a bench outside the tavern called the Blue Rache up near St Petroc’s, enjoying his early wet of a quart of middling strong ale, when he overheard
two men discussing the affair. One of the men worked in Reginald Gylla’s household, and he appeared hugely amused by the whole incident. As, for that matter, was Henry.
‘He’s this big, bluff lad, the master. Well, you know him. Spit in the eye of the devil, he would usually, and not worry about it. Well, thing was, when I saw him after that, he was shaking so much, he could hardly pick up his sword again. Just stood there shouting for us to check the garden, saying there was an assassin out there or something, and holding his boy for all he was worth. Never seen nothing like it.’
‘Sounds like he’s daft.’
‘Huh! If you had the one son and you found a man in there …’
‘Or thought you had. How much’d he had to drink, eh?’
‘Enough,’ the first conceded. ‘But it wasn’t that. I thought he’d seen a ghost, when he said the fellow was a tall man, clad in black with a hood over his face and all … but it weren’t a ghost. It was that mad butcher again.’
‘Yeah? And how’d you know that?’
‘’Cos ghosts don’t leave muddy prints, do they? If you want to play the arse, that’s fine, but if you want to know what happened, stop bleeding interrupting.’
‘Sorry. What else then?’
Shamefacedly, the man admitted, ‘Well, that’s about it, really. Someone had been there, and we found prints on the floor to show where he’d been, but there was no sign of him outside. We all went round the place, grumbling a bit, ’cos, you know, we didn’t want to be out there. Christ’s pain, it was cold last night! Still, nothing to find, I reckon. But it shows how worried the master is. Just that, and he’s ordering us to keep a proper guard on the place. It’s like he’s got an enemy to guard against.’ He spat and added dismissively, ‘When everyone knows about the man who watches children.’
The Butcher of St Peter's: (Knights Templar 19) Page 3
