The Malice of Unnatural Death: (23 page)

He knew why he was here, of course. It was that devious shit Sir Matthew. The sheriff had made it clear enough that he didn’t
like men like Master Richard. Well, that was the sort of thing which he had grown all too used to – but he never expected
this! The man had seemed almost beside himself last night when he shouted at him. Sweet Christ in heaven, how could Langatre
have guessed that the sheriff would fly off the handle like that! The worst that anyone could say about Langatre was that
he had been attacked and
robbed, and yet here he was –
he
was – in gaol for his trouble! It was grossly unfair.

There was a skittering noise, which he had grown to recognise as rats, and then he heard the scrape of the bolts on the great
door outside that gave onto the castle yard. The screech of the door’s hinges was like a knife dragging down Langatre’s bones:
a hideous, drawn-out metallic squeal of agony. He wondered if they soaked them in water daily to give the sound that timbre.

Footsteps crunched along the paved corridor, and stopped, so far as he could tell, outside his chamber. There was a silence
for a moment, then the rattle of a key in the lock, and the door suddenly opened.

He winced in the sudden light from a torch, peering up at the shadowy figures before him and fearing what the sheriff might
have in store for him, but then he heard the welcoming bellow and felt his courage return.

‘Christ alive, man! What sort of sty have they kept you in overnight? Eh?’

‘Coroner? Sir Baldwin?’

The two slipped inside, and Baldwin looked about him with distaste. ‘I am truly sorry to see how you have been treated, Master Langatre. I shall ensure that you are released as soon as is feasible.’

‘I am grateful to you. I am not used to such conditions.’

‘Better get used to ’em, then,’ the coroner stated cheerfully. ‘If the sheriff keeps to his word and has you held for questioning
by the king’s men, you could be here a while.’

‘But that would be daft! What could I have done? I’ve never even seen the king!’

‘The sheriff seems determined enough,’ the coroner said. ‘Perhaps
he knows something else you’ve been doing?’

Langatre frowned down at his boots. These two seemed friendly enough, although that was an attitude which could all too easily
dissipate. Still, he was in no position to conceal anything from anyone. The very worst thing for him would be to continue
to be held down here.

‘My lords, look, I have done nothing wrong. I have certainly never tried to summon a demon.’

‘Tell us what you have done.’

‘Nothing! I swear! All I have ever done is try to earn a small living. That’s all. There’s nothing secret about my work. Sir Baldwin, you saw that I was robbed – my knives, my hat, all gone!’

‘You have been said to have been involved in telling the future,’ Baldwin said.

‘Oh, that! It’s mainly a knack of letting people tell me what they want me to say, and then telling them what they want in
a different manner. Easy, that is. But there are many in town who profess to be able to do the same – even one of the monks
in St Nicholas’s Priory is supposed to be able to do that.’

‘Is there something in particular that could have irritated the good sheriff? Anything you have done recently?’

‘Nothing I know of. What is this all about, anyway?’

‘Someone has attempted an attack on the king and his friend Despenser, from all we’ve seen,’ the coroner rumbled. ‘I should
take it that the king is not happy with anyone supposedly associated with the magical arts.’

Langatre stared about him helplessly. ‘Oh, cods!’

‘So if there is anything –
anything
– you can tell us that might help,’ Baldwin prompted seriously, ‘it might just assist us to help you.’

‘Oh,
God in heaven!’ Langatre gazed from one to the other. ‘You want me to be honest?’

Master John of Nottingham was happy with his work so far. The models were taking on their own appearances already, and he
felt sure that they would be as successful as the originals.

He put the final touches to the first of them, using his knife to remove a small flaking of wax from the little crown he had
placed on its head, and setting it upright on the table before him, then bowing his head and pinching at the top of his nose
where the headache seemed to be starting.

It was one of the problems he had suffered from for a long while now: he was sure that his eyes were beginning to fail him. In the past he had been graced with perfect eyesight, and there would have been little difficulty involved in doing this kind
of work by candlelight, but more recently it had started to take its toll. Perhaps it was just that he was still tired from
his long journey down here from Coventry. It had been a hard effort. A sore, hard effort.

He had not expected to be released. The sudden opening of his cell door in the middle of the night had been a terrible shock. At first he had been convinced that he was about to be dragged out to be tortured. Or pulled out to the gibbet and hanged
without an opportunity of putting his own case. When he was grabbed by the arms and dragged out, he could not command even
his voice. The words he tried to utter pleading innocence were stifled by his terror. There were steps, harsh orange light
from the flickering torches, then a long corridor, and he was brought out into the open air. It
made him want to shriek. As soon as he arrived out in the open, he saw a tall post, and the sight made him begin to swoon,
his head pounding, his heart thudding as though trying to break free.

Before the post he saw the tall figure of Croyser.

The Sheriff of Warwick was standing by a huddled mess on the ground, and as he was pulled forward John saw that it was a man,
a man of John’s own age, his face white, his lips blue in death. That was when he became sure that he was being brought here
to be killed.

‘Master John,’ Croyser said. He was pulling on gloves, and John automatically thought of a murderer covering his hands so
that no blood should pollute them.

The hold on him was released, and John fell on all fours, where he remained with his head hanging, waiting for the blow to
fall. He daren’t look up into the eyes of the man who was to kill him.

‘Get up, fool! Do you want to die here? Get up, I said.’

John hesitated, fearing a trick, but then he noticed that the two men who had brought him had left. Their feet were not at
his side any more. Hardly daring to hope, he looked up.

Croyser pointed at the body beside him. ‘See him? Do you know him?’

‘I have never …’

‘He is Master John of Nottingham. Do you understand? I’m going to put him in that cell, and when the gaoler arrives in the
morning, he will swear on his mother’s grave that it was you. Or who you once were. You are safe. You are free.’

‘I …’ John’s mouth hung open, and then he slowly closed it. ‘What do you seek, sir knight?’

‘You were paid to perform a task, were you not? There are many in the land would like to see that mission
completed. If you have the stomach for it, man, fly from here and complete it. You were paid for it, weren’t you?’

‘Yes, but the money is lost. How can I start afresh?’

‘Here!’ Croyser tossed a purse to him. It was heavy, a ponderous weight, and John dropped it. Picking it up, he could feel
the coins inside. Croyser nodded. ‘Yes, the balance of your twenty pounds. The money you were promised. The same men who paid
you before want you to succeed, but you will have to leave Coventry. Go somewhere else, where you may be safe. But in God’s
name, be quick. The country cannot survive much longer with this corruption at its heart.’

John had needed no second bidding. There was a pack of food and drink with a blanket and heavy cloak against the weather,
and he had taken them, stammering his thanks while the sheriff gave him some instructions for his own safety. There was no
doubt that he was risking much, for if John was discovered, it would be the sheriff’s own neck that would be stretched.

‘One thing I do need, though,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘My book … without that I cannot do my work,’ John had said despairingly.

He looked over at the waxen image once more, remembering that night, flying from the gaol and the city of Warwick, guided
by a man wearing the sheriff’s own livery. The man took John out by a small postern, and then led him along filthy, dark streets
until they reached the road south. There the man gave him his book and left him. John attempted to thank him, but in return
the man merely spat at the ground and turned on his heel.

It had been a terrible flight, but at least he had escaped. And
now he would do as he had promised, and make these models. Four pounds of wax. Enough for four images.

One of the king, one each for the two Despensers, and one for the Bishop of Exeter.

They would all die.

Master
Richard of Langatre looked from one to the other, and he finally gave in with a grunt. This was not the way he’d foreseen
his own future.

‘Look, I am no necromancer. Let us be quite sure of that. All I do is try to use some of God’s own power to help those who
need it. For a fee.’

‘So you divine their futures?’ Baldwin asked with a mild smile.

‘Well … yes, I suppose. Although the most important thing is to gain their confidence, and then tell them what they want
to hear. Usually.’

‘How so?’ Coroner Richard asked. He was leaning down like a great cat preparing to pounce.

‘Well, there are ladies who come and ask if their love is in vain, for example. I cannot always give them the answer they
want.’

‘Why?’ the coroner demanded.

‘Sir, if you heard a maidservant who was convinced that her master was in love with her and would run away with her to start
a new life elsewhere, would you want to let her continue in her delusion, or would you try to help her come to terms with
the fact that the bastard had been pissed and
fancied a tumble with a well-proportioned wench? At least, told carefully, that story could have power: the wench was attractive,
after all. But there was no possibility of the … man’s leaving his wife.’

‘I see,’ Baldwin said. ‘This has happened recently?’

‘The damned sheriff’s own servant girl. She saw me the other day for just this reason, thinking he fancied her. She wanted
to know how to keep his love.’

‘So this kind of work requires little in the way of magic?’

‘Little of my work has any element of magic, further than my skill to understand people and what they want to hear,’ Langatre
admitted dolefully.

‘So the tools of your trade are unnecessary?’

‘They look good,’ Langatre said defensively. Then he nodded. ‘But they aren’t necessary. They just help to make people think
that they have been sold something of value.’

‘What do you know of real necromancy?’ Baldwin asked.

‘I don’t do anything like that,’ Langatre countered instantly.

Baldwin held him in a long stare, and the man had the feeling that he was pinioned under that shrewd, intense gaze. It was
almost as though the knight could see through Langatre’s eyes and perceive the world as he did: a venal place, filled with
those who sought only to take whatever a man might earn. Someone like Langatre was not evil: he was merely making a living
in the only way he knew how. Just now the only way he could do so was by making up false futures for gullible women in the
city, or selling them potions and salves that would hopefully do them little harm.

Langatre wanted to look away, but he felt sure that to do so would only persuade this knight that he was not reliable or
honest. And there was something compelling about his eyes, too. It was hard to drag his own eyes away.

‘Tell me: do you know how other men perform their works when they are supposed to be authentic?’ Baldwin said.

Langatre felt as though a little of the pressure was immediately removed. ‘There are many ways a man might prepare, master. Some will just offer a potion or make a few mumbles and wave their hands about, but they’re the counterfeiters. They don’t
really do anything. They’re in it for the money.’ He had the grace to look away as he spoke, but then he nodded to himself. He had nothing to hide in all this, after all. He was a man of integrity.

Continuing, he frowned a little, considering the tools of the men who tended towards magic. ‘There are a number of different
types, I suppose. I have met many of them. There are those who seek to cure by the power of God and His works, men like me,
who will pray and fast for days to achieve our works. We only seek positive outcomes. Using God’s authority to bring about
a foul or evil deed would be bound to redound on us, I would think. But there are some who don’t care. They try to exercise
their skills to call up demons, and they do so with various spells and commands, much as I do, but their aim is to have the
demon do their bidding, so they are using God’s power to produce an evil effect.’

‘How would they achieve that?’ the coroner demanded. ‘It sounds as if these fellows should be punished.’

‘They will take the white-handled and black-handled daggers, they would have a sword, a staff, a rod, a hook, a lancet… many tools. All would have to be fumigated and asperged, and then the magician would consecrate them too.’

‘How
so?’

‘He would recite seven or eight psalms over them. I have heard that the usual manner would be for the man to undergo a period
of fasting, chastity and intensive prayer. A couple of days before the act, he would confess his sins and then fast again,
because if a man tries to conjure a spirit he must do so in a state of grace. Otherwise, instead of being able to command
the spirit, it might command
him
! Only then, after all this preparation, would he be ready to consecrate the tools. After reciting the psalms, he would offer
prayers to God and His saints for a successful outcome.

‘When it came nearer to the date for the conjuration, he would prepare his body. Consecrated water would be used to wash himself,
and then he would clothe himself in the robes for the ceremony. A long robe and a white leather hat with the names of God
written on it, like mine.’