The Sticklepath Strangler (2001) (32 page)

‘Ah, I have heard of him. I am Sir Laurence de Bozon, from Iddesleigh – I fear we have not met?’

‘I regret no,’ she said, smiling when he bowed gracefully to her, never an easy feat for a man on horseback. She inclined her head. ‘But I am sure that my husband will be
pleased to meet you. We stay at the inn over there.’

‘I shall look forward to seeing you both there,’ Sir Laurence said courteously. ‘First, alas, I have business to attend to with the Reeve of this place. Forester, which is his
house?’

Drogo stepped forward, puffing a little. Jerking his chin, he said, ‘It is that one, the one opposite the tavern.’

‘I thank you. No hurry, then. My Lady, are you journeying far?’

‘No farther,’ Jeanne smiled. ‘We are here to help the Coroner with an inquest. My husband is a Keeper of the King’s Peace.’

‘There is more trouble here?’

‘There has been murder.’

‘Well, my Heavens. It is terrible that there could be another death in a little place like this, isn’t it, Forester? I trust there will be no more.’ Sir Laurence laughed, but
his amusement didn’t strike Jeanne as genuine.

The reaction of the men about him also struck her as interesting. Drogo’s features were bleak, Vincent Yunghe was sternly solemn, while Peter atte Moor was oddly excited, licking his lips
and finding it difficult to keep still as though he was keen to get something done. Adam was the only one among them who looked unaffected by Sir Laurence’s presence. All appeared to think
that the knight’s meeting with the Reeve would have dire consequences, although whether they were consequences only for the Reeve or for the whole vill she couldn’t tell.

‘I hope there will be no more violence too, my Lord,’ she said. ‘What are you here for, may I ask? It is rare to see so many guards about a lone knight.’

‘Ah, these good Foresters are here to help me with my work and protect my body from attack, my Lady,’ Sir Laurence chuckled. ‘I am the King’s Purveyor and I’m here
to collect money or grain to help provision the King’s host as he makes it ready to do battle in Scotland again. I sent for them from South Zeal.’

Jeanne smiled politely, but she was aware that this elegant man in his sweat-stained suit wearing that easy smile would be one of the most loathed men who could have arrived in any vill, let
alone one which had already been so scarred by famine, murrain and murder.

‘You think I could be in danger, my Lady?’ Sir Laurence said, seeing her face. He continued, overruling her protestations, ‘This is why I come with men. The last Purveyor for
the King to come down this way disappeared, apparently.’ He stared at Miles thoughtfully. ‘At the time some thought he had robbed the King and run away with the money.’

‘But not now?’

He smiled again. ‘I find it more sensible to keep an open mind, shall we say? And in the meantime, I suppose, I should be about my business.’

‘Collecting money for the King?’

‘Yes. Although,’ he glanced about him with his lip curled, ‘it is hard to imagine a place like this could afford much. What a miserable collection of hovels!’

Jeanne didn’t admit to sharing his scorn, and when she saw Drogo’s hurt expression, she was glad. No man should insult another’s home without reason.

Nicole Garde sat heavily on her stool and stared at her daughter, dazed. ‘Are you sure?’

Joan burst into floods of tears and her mother gathered her up in her arms and cooed gently to her, rocking her.

It felt as though her life had collapsed around her. Naturally, she had always known that the people of the vill resented her, that they distrusted her husband and shunned her daughter, but that
they should suddenly move against her family was terrifying. It was worse, somehow, than the treatment she had received at home before her husband brought her here to this rural English backwater.
At least she could comprehend the strange detestation she aroused in the breasts of the local peasants in the town where she was born. Here it was incomprehensible.

So, for breaking the King’s Peace, Thomas had been imprisoned in the Reeve’s house and would be transported to Exeter as soon as a small guard could be mustered. There he would have
to wait until he could be seen by the Justices, and all the time he was in gaol, he must pay for his own food and drink.

Nicole would have to find some way of sending money to him, perhaps even leaving their home here and taking on work in Exeter. Any sort of work – although she knew that she was only
qualified for the one profession, and her belly lurched at the thought of being forced to earn money by selling her body. It was one thing to consider allowing Ivo to make use of her, another
entirely to think of drunken men pawing at her, fondling her breasts and reaching up under her skirts in a darkened alley. And what would happen to Joan?

She gave a dry, hacking sob. While she was in Exeter, the farm and their house would fall apart. They wouldn’t be able to trust anyone to look after them, not if the whole vill thought
that Thomas was a child-murderer.

Joan looked up at her. ‘If I ever find out who killed Emma, I’ll kill him,’ she said passionately.

‘You mustn’t say that,’ Nicole said, but her heart was breaking.

‘What about Father?’

Nicole stood and took a deep breath. In her wooden chest was her second tunic, and she fetched it now. Shaking it out, she noticed holes, but it was mostly undamaged. With hesitant fingers, she
untied her apron, then doffed her tunic. Her shirt beneath was dirty and darned, but she couldn’t help that. She pulled the fresh tunic over her head, tying a clean apron about her waist.
Then, before her resolve could leave her, she slipped her tippet over her shoulders, raised the hood over her head and strode out, leaving Joan alone.

In some curious way she had always felt that Alexander de Belston’s house matched him. He was a large, rugged man, and the appearance of the place fitted him so perfectly that he might
have been constructed of the same materials. The walls were of good moorstone, rendered with cob to fill all the cracks, and then limewashed. It was redone each year, and the brilliant white
gleamed in the sunlight, looking pure and awesome, especially in comparison with the other dwellings, whose limewash was older, and flaked or smothered in green streaks. His thatch was patched each
year, too, all the holes filled, the peak checked and recovered, the whole mass patted and combed into shape. It wouldn’t do for a man as important as the Reeve to let his standards slip.
After all, Alexander de Belston was the Lord’s own representative. He was the law: both judge and gaoler.

As was usual, his door stood open. There was nothing for a man of his position to fear from thieves or draw-latches. Nicole entered the gloomy interior, feeling the atmosphere within settle over
her like a chill, damp cloak.

Lighted by a large window high in the wall, the smoke from the fire in the middle of the floor rose up like a fine mist, with tiny gleaming motes dancing in it all the way up to the ceiling of
dried thatch high overhead, which was blackened by the smoke of decades.

Beyond the shafts of light from the window, Nicole could see the hulking figure of Alexander de Belston, sitting alone at his table on the dais, slowly twirling a cup of wine in his hand, one
foot on the table, the other jiggling up and down with nervous energy.

‘I was expecting you,’ he said gruffly. ‘You’re here for Thomas.’

It was a statement, given with no apparent emotion, and all the woman could do was nod mutely.

‘You know why he’s in gaol?’

‘No.’

‘Didn’t he tell you himself what he intended?’

‘
Non
. Reeve, he told me nothing. There can be nothing for him
to
tell – he is a good man. Honourable. He is no criminal. Someone has lied about him to make you
arrest him.’

‘In truth?’ Alexander said, but now his eyes had moved from her towards the window. The sunlight was fading as a cloud passed by, and Nicole could see the smoke disappear, only to
re-emerge from the gloom as the sun returned. ‘But I cannot let him free.’

‘We have little money, but I could pay a fine to—’

‘He had none this morning.’ His teeth showed in a humourless smile. ‘You think I want paying?’

‘Hold him in mercy.’

‘In mercy,’ he repeated. ‘You want him released in exchange for a surety he will turn up at the next court.’

‘There is so much work to be done, sir. We need him.’

‘He’s in prison because he has broken the King’s Peace, woman, and his brother’s nose.’

She shivered, closed her eyes, and stepped forward slowly, her feet feeling as though they were made of lead. ‘I will submit to you.’

‘You will let me have you?’ He gave a dry chuckle. ‘Ah, my dear, you are tempting a man who has been lonely so long . . . My God, it would be good to lie with you. But you will
expect me to release your husband afterwards. Well, I can’t, maid. He’s in gaol because he’s been accused of attempting to kill his brother Ivo. And while there’s a Coroner
and a Keeper here, much though I would like to take you, I think it wouldn’t be safe.’

Nicole gasped, her face reddening. ‘Is there nothing I can do?’ she asked, stepping forward, her hand reaching up to her laces and pulling. Her tunic fell away. She could see him
watching her with sad interest while she let her shirt fall open.

He stared at her breasts, then lower. His smile broadened, but there was no amusement in it, only sadness.

‘Cover yourself, please. I can’t take advantage of you. I am finished if I let him go, and I am ruined if I don’t. I don’t need your temptations to make my choices any
more difficult.’ He motioned as if swatting a hand at a fly, and she slowly donned her clothes. With great dignity, she turned away from him and went into the road.

Only there could she give herself over to her grief, leaning against a tree, her heart thundering with fear.

Her nightmare had returned.

‘This is it,’ Serlo said.

Baldwin and Simon looked about them. There was no dwelling here so far as they could see. They had climbed a little way up the hill from the clearing towards the Cornwall road, higher into the
woods, but there appeared to be no house nearby. As Baldwin stared about them, all he could see was trees and a low wall some distance farther up the slope. Aylmer went and sniffed at it.

‘She wouldn’t come to live with me, even though she knew I would have protected her,’ Serlo said gruffly. ‘I think her man gave her enough of a clue about what men would
do. Not that it stopped her that once.’

‘You mean her daughter?’ Baldwin asked. He was still gazing about him, trying to see where Meg could be living.

‘Yeah. Poor child. She was a nice little thing, too. Chubby and cuddly, if you know what I mean. Never had an ill word for anyone, even though they shunned her. And why? All because her
mother was looked on as mad, and probably a whore to boot.’

‘Her father was a Purveyor, I hear.’

‘That’s right. Ansel, he was named. Evil bastard, he was, too. Took Meg when she was young and hadn’t a clue. But men will take advantage in those circumstances. There’s
nothing you can do to stop it.’

‘Where is she?’ Baldwin asked.

‘Sorry, I was forgetting.’ Serlo walked to the wall where Aylmer stood, his head on one side. Where the wall met a tree, there was a thick growth of ivy, and the Warrener pushed it
to one side. ‘I’ll fetch her.’

Baldwin could see that the ivy concealed the entrance to what looked like a tunnel.

Simon saw his enquiring gaze. ‘There’s plenty of tin and copper all over the moors. I expect this is the result of some man’s effort to find a new source.’

‘You’re right,’ Serlo said, reappearing. ‘This was a little attempt to see if there might be copper. It failed. So many of the mining attempts always do. This is
Meg.’

Behind him, he had pulled a woman. He held her by the forearm, as though she was unwilling to come out into the light, but also as though she was frail and needed his support.

Baldwin smiled at her. ‘Meg? Is that your name?’

She was wearing the same hood, the same grey shreds and tatters, remnants of an ancient robe, as when he had first seen her in the forest. And as her head lifted slightly so that she could
glance at him from under her hood, as though it was a defence against him and all other adult men, he saw the wide-set eyes, the round face, the small tip-tilted nose, and realised how ridiculous
had been his terror. He held out a hand to her, to the little half-witted mother of the dead Emma.

Nicole was so overcome with misery that she didn’t notice Sir Laurence and the Foresters until they had stopped at Alexander’s house. It was only when Sir Laurence
began to roar for a groom to tend his mount that she paid them attention, and seeing them at the Reeve’s door, she hurried away, towards her house.

The first thing was food, she told herself. Her man would need food tonight, and then he’d need more to be able to travel all that way. He was viewed as a felon, so he’d be set in
chains and forced to walk the whole way. No one would waste a steed on a man like him, so he’d have to make the best he could of it.

He’d need money to buy things as soon as he arrived: bread, some cheese. A little dried meat. Even the water would cost him dearly in gaol, and he must be able to afford it, or he might
starve to death! She couldn’t face the thought of life without him.

‘Oh God in Heaven, how could You do this?’ she murmured so quietly that no one could hear. ‘I suffered for my father’s sake in France, and now I must suffer for my
husband’s. You do to my daughter what You once did to me! How much misery should one woman suffer in her life?’

She had picked up her skirts now, and was hurtling headlong towards her house. Mud splashed from her bare feet, and she didn’t care about the dung she stepped in, nor the pools of urine
puddled at the side of the road where the oxen had waited for a few moments before being led to their pasture. She was blind to the Coroner as he limped from the tavern’s door. He stood
propped with his staff, one hand on a sapling, gazing down the road, and then he happened to glance in her direction. Seeing her coming straight at him, her head bent, he had time only to gape in
horror before she pelted straight into him.