31 - City of Fiends (33 page)

Paffards’ House

Claricia hugged her arms about her as she sat rocking near the fireside. Gregory was somewhere in the house – perhaps at the workshop with Benjamin the apprentice. He
appeared to have taken a new interest in the business now that his father was in prison. It was a pity the boy had never shown such a fascination before. Things might have turned out differently if
he had.

It wasn’t fair to blame her boy. She knew that. It was Henry’s fault for being so free with other women. Why kill them though –
why
! Henry had certainly demonstrated his
ability to inflict pain on her over the years – but it was the searching for new flesh that had tormented her.

She had known about Alice, of course. Just as she had known all about Clara and Evie before. But she had always managed to find something to make the girls leave before now. Clara, she had
discovered, was a liar and a thief. Even Henry had lost all affection for the girl when his money was found in her bed, along with a prized brooch. And Evie had been even easier. In those days
Claricia had not yet lost her confidence, and she made it plain to Evie what would happen to her if she didn’t leave: she would find herself without a home. Claricia had been younger then, of
course, and Henry hadn’t worn her down so badly. It was before he started to take his belt to her regularly, and she had still felt sure that she could retain his affection, perhaps even make
him love her again. Of course, it hadn’t happened. He still came to her bed, but that was a mechanical urge, not from love. He wanted new conquests. One wife would never be enough.

Claricia sighed to remember the early days of her marriage, before serving girls and whores entered Henry’s life. He was a man of strong passions. That was the truth of it.

She heard a shout in the street, but it did not distract her from her mournful thoughts. There was another shout – and Claricia frowned and turned to look at the door as though there could
be some form of response from that direction.

Agatha passed by the doorway, and peered inside. Seeing her mother, an expression of blank contempt settled upon her face. Claricia flinched. Agatha had always thought her a foolish, incompetent
wife and mother, and there was nothing Claricia could do that would change her mind.

At least Thomas was loving and affectionate. She had been up to check on him a short time ago, and he had been completely dead to the world, his darling little face frowning as though he was
running after a friend. She had seen that look on his face so often when—

There was a loud crashing sound, and the house seemed to rock, the old timbers reverberating. ‘What on . . .?’

She rose to go to the front of the house, when John came hurrying from the buttery. He put a hand out to stop her, and suddenly she could hear voices, raucous laughter, a jeering shout. Up in
front she could see Agatha, pale in the passage’s dim light.

‘Mother,’ she began, but John again held up his hand.

There came another thunderous sound, and this time it was accompanied by crunching and splintering. John went to his buttery and came back gripping his hatchet. He stepped beyond Claricia and
curtly ordered Agatha to return to her mother. After a moment she obeyed, and stood beside Claricia, the two women watching John edge forward cautiously, his hatchet held out before him.

A final crunch of wood, and the door was thrown open. Outside, John saw a crowd of men all orange and hideous in the flickering light. He bellowed incoherently, motioning with his weapon, but
they laughed at him.

‘Out of the way, old man!’ one of them shouted, brandishing his torch. A second beside him held a lump hammer in one hand, a skin in the other, and he drank, dribbling wine, as the
men guffawed.

Claricia was convinced that John was about to be murdered before her eyes. She had to clutch at Agatha for support.

Only to feel her daughter stiffen and draw away.

There were too many for John alone. He couldn’t hold them back, not with one little hatchet.

It was not only men, either; he could see women behind them – some of the whores from the stews, one or two women from the street – plus a few urchins hoping to see a fight. All had
the appearance of devils taunting the damned, their faces demonic in the red firelight from a bonfire near the houses. There were four women, dancing with two men, all of them drunk. A couple were
kissing and fumbling against a wall.

These were the dregs of the city, John thought angrily. Scum: ill-educated and foul-mannered bitch-clouts, all of them. They did not deserve to live in the same street as folk like the mistress. Claricia Paffard was a saint compared to this filth.

‘We want them out, all of them!’ a man bellowed.

‘Their old man was a murderer, and we want them out before they copy him!’

‘Bring them out, strip them,
tar them
!’ a woman chanted, and others began to take it up, until everyone was clenching their fists, shouting the words.

John gripped his hatchet firmly, turned quickly to see that Gregory had come down and stood now with his mother, an arm about her shoulder, while Agatha gripped his arm and waist, her face
turned to the crowds with horror and fear. Then she reached up and buried her face in her brother’s neck.

‘Begone, you fools! There’s no one here deserves your violence,’ John tried, but the two men nearest pushed forwards, the man with the skin swigging from the open spout as he
came. The man with the torch grinned wolfishly when he caught sight of Agatha.

‘That’s more like it,’ he said lecherously, and would have gone to reach for her, but John slashed at him, and he dropped the torch, grabbing his forearm and staring in dull
disbelief. ‘You prickle!’

The other swung the hammer, and John had the wit to duck, but even so the maul hit his shoulder, and the head thudded into his flesh. He didn’t feel the bone shatter, but he knew he soon
would if the man tried another attack. He dived down, thrusting with his hatchet, and was gratified to feel it slip into the man’s thigh, then grate on bone. Pulling it back, he crouched low,
warily, eyeing the two men. Then he was aware of another beside him, and thought Gregory had joined him, until he shot a look and realised Benjamin the apprentice had come. He had a pair of
cudgels, and swung them hopefully, narrowly watching the two men. Gregory had disappeared.

From somewhere overhead there came the three blasts of a horn, and John breathed a sigh of relief. That Gregory might have gone to an upper window to blow the alarm for the Hue and Cry had not
occurred to him. There was a murmur, then a series of cat-calls and insults, but it worked. Suddenly the folk outside realised that the Watch would soon be with them, with their long iron-tipped
staves, and they would be likely to ask questions about the people and what they were doing there.

For a moment the mob stood still, and John reckoned that his life was held in the balance, but then there was a bellow, and John saw two priests hurrying up the stairs to the door. They entered,
and the mob gradually broke up, the man with the ripped forearm glaring at John as though memorising his features for later.

‘Thank you, Fathers,’ Claricia called, her voice trembling.

Agatha had gone. John wondered to where.

‘Are you all uninjured?’ Father Paul asked, his eyes wide with alarm. He saw the torch, still smouldering on the floor, and picked it up. ‘The fools! They could have set fire
to the whole city!’

‘Please, Fathers, stay here a while and have some wine,’ Claricia said. She stared at her ruined door. ‘They may come back if you leave us.’

‘The Watch will soon be here,’ Father Paul said. ‘They will serve to protect you. But until then, yes, a little wine would be exceedingly pleasant.’

Claricia nodded, and then began very quietly to weep. Paul took her and walked her to the hall.

John was suddenly as weak as a newborn kitten, and would have dropped the hatchet, had not Laurence reached out and rested a hand on his shoulder.

‘You did well, my friend. A Hector at the gate.’

John didn’t know what that meant, but he did recognise the priest. He bowed, and went to fetch wine, and as he strode to his buttery, he saw Agatha coming down the stairs. She saw Laurence, and stopped.

As John poured wine, he heard Laurence say, ‘Hello, maid,’ with a kind of brittleness in his voice.

Second Thursday after the Nativity of St John the Baptist
⁹

Marsilles’ House

Philip Marsille woke early the next morning with the smell of burning still in his nostrils. Here, at the wall with Combe Street, the daub was broken away at the base, and where
the wattles were exposed, the smell of the bonfire had come in to him. The screaming and shouting had been terrifying, and he had been convinced that there would be a battle, here outside his
house.

He rose, carefully so as not to wake his brother, and walked to the table.

When Alice had rejected him, he had gone mad for a while, he thought. The woman he adored, whose feet he would have kissed, had no feelings for him. In his passion, he had decided he must leave,
and that he would go to war with the King, but when there was the reality of a fight nearby, like last night, he was too scared to go and pitch in.

He missed his mother. She had always tried to instil in him a strong code of honour, such as his father had possessed, but Philip hadn’t absorbed it. Or perhaps it was the shock of all the
things that had happened in the last weeks. First Alice being found, then hearing they would lose their house, and Mother dying like that. Poor Mother! All she ever wanted was to see her sons do
well, and they’d failed her.

William was clever. He would be all right, with a little luck. Perhaps he would learn his own trade. But it was certain that he was better off without a coward for a brother. Philip should be
the master of the house since their father’s death – he was oldest, after all. But the chill reality was, he was too afraid. Of life, of the world, of other men. In fact, he was
useless.

He threw an old cloak about him, and pulled on a hat, making his way out to the street. Walking often aided him when he felt miserable, and never had he felt the need for comfort more than now.
He wandered up Southgate Street, and when he reached Carfoix, deliberated a moment about keeping on going up to the North Gate and perhaps continuing out of the city, leaving forever. But a small
gathering at the High Street outside the Guild Hall took his attention and he went to see what they were doing.

It was a posse, he learned. A number of men were called upon to help Sheriff James de Cockington hunt down a group of trailbastons who were ravaging the episcopal estates, and who were
themselves probably guilty of the murder of the Bishop himself. Apparently many others had been killed too, he heard, and he suddenly had a flash of brilliance.

Seeing the Sergeant on his sturdy rounsey discussing the men present, Philip called up to him. ‘Sir, can I join you? I want to be part of the posse.’

‘Where’s your sword?’

‘I have none.’

‘Horse?’

‘I . . .’

‘Yeah, right. Piss off, boy, and when you have something to offer, that’s when you can come back, eh?’

It was his laughter that sent Philip on his way. He walked on until he came to the East Gate, and there he stood staring out at the lands down towards Heavitree. That was where the felons were.
He ought to go and see if he could find them himself, fight them himself, and maybe bring news back to the Sergeant. Show him he had been a fool to refuse such a competent guide and fighter.

Except he wasn’t. He had no weapon, as the man had said. As for a horse, he couldn’t afford a day’s fodder, let alone the beast itself. Like the man had said, he was only a
boy.

Sunk in dejection, he turned around and headed homewards.

Rougemont Castle

The Sheriff left his hall with his goblet in his hand. Draining the wine, he tossed it to a servant, who fumbled the catch, dropping the valuable pewter on the ground.

‘If it is marked, have it mended,’ Sir James de Cockington said to his steward. ‘You can have the man pay for the damage.’

He stood on the mounting stone while grooms brought his beast, and then mounted and surveyed the men all about him.

It was a goodly-sized posse. More than fifty men were gathered on horseback before him in the castle’s inner ward, and none were the foolish old dolts one expected at this time of year.
Usually the hale and hearty types would be held back for their work in the fields, but today he had forced the Watch to scour the city for younger, strong lads who knew how to handle a sword.
Apprentices, the sons of richer men, some men-at-arms from the castle’s garrison, and of course Sir Baldwin, Sir Richard, and their friend Puttock, were all there. All competent men.

‘My friends, today we go to hunt outlaws. These men are wolf’s heads. They have murdered your Bishop, and they have ravaged his lands, killing his peasants. They will do the same to
us, if they come here. Make no mistake about that. So our duty is clear. For the defence of the city, for the protection of our families, we must find them, and arrest those we may, and kill those
we cannot. Are there any questions? No? Then we ride: first to Bishop’s Clyst, and thence to see where they have ridden.’

He raised his hand, gave a wave to indicate that they should move off, and then as he urged his great palfrey into a trot, the cavalcade began to fall into line behind him.

Some distance to the rear, Sir Richard was talking to Simon. The big knight rode in a casual manner at the best of times, but today he was at his ease, and he leaned back, giving space to his
belly, which rested on the crupper.

‘Ye see, Simon,’ he said in what he fondly supposed was a conspiratorial whisper, ‘what ye have to bear in mind is that the fellows down here don’t need too much in the
way of training. You point ’em at the enemy, and they’ll fight all day. All the same, they are, the fellows down here in the wild lands.’