The Butcher of St Peter's

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.’

Henry smiled to himself and rose. It was always pleasant to know the truth behind a mystery. Still, he would have to go and speak to Est and tell him to be more careful. There was no need to risk a cut throat for no reason.

No reason! In an instant his light-hearted mood fled and he felt the grimness return. There was plenty of reason for it, even if it were to drive him mad. Poor Est.

Sir Peregrine de Barnstaple, clad in a new green tunic, walked off to church that morning to participate in the mass for St Giles. He felt no fondness towards the saint; he had been at the market at Tiverton, held during the vigil, feast and morrow of St Giles’s Day, when the woman he had wanted for his own had died in the attempt to give birth to his child. The double loss had been overwhelming for a while, and had been the cause of a great change in his own outlook on life.

It was quite strange, when he came to think about it. He had loved twice in his life, once a well-born woman in Barnstaple, and the second time poor Emily in Tiverton, and both were dead. It was as though any woman whom he ever grew to love would always be taken away from him … for a moment he hesitated in his striding towards the cathedral. Perhaps God Himself had marked him out for punishment, and this loneliness was a proof of His disapproval. God would not help a man like him.

For a man who prided himself on his integrity as a Christian first and as a knight second, this was a deeply alarming reflection, and he stood stock still for a while, his green eyes fixed intently on the horizon.

He was a good-looking man, Sir Peregrine. Tall, he had the build of a knight who had trained with his weapons every day since the age of five, with the powerful shoulders of a man who had used sword, lance and shield in battles. His neck was thick, as befitted a man who wore a helm at speed on a horse, but there the appearance of a warrior ended. Although his body was strong, he had the semblance of a man dedicated to God. His face was long, with a high brow like a cleric’s. He looked as though he had been tonsured expertly, leaving only a fringe of golden curls like a child’s all about his head, which seemed strangely out of place on a middle-aged man’s skull.

Many had been deceived by those bright green eyes and the mouth that smiled so easily, and many of those remained deceived, because Sir Peregrine believed in results. If he was forced to distort facts in the service of his master, he had always thought that such behaviour was best kept to himself. From his head to his toes, he was a very competent politician.

But the thought that he could have upset God was nonsense! There was no action he had undertaken in his life that was so heinous as to make him the target of God’s vengeful wrath. Rather, there was plenty to boast about. He tried to be honourable and chivalrous: it was a measure of his worth that he had been elevated to knight bannaret. For some while he had been the Keeper of Tiverton Castle for his lord — although more recently he had suffered a fall from grace.

Lord Hugh de Courtenay was a good lord and a fair and loyal man, but there were times when even the most reasonable master had to divest himself of devoted servants. That was particularly true when politics came to the fore, as they now had.

Nobody who knew the two men well could doubt that Sir Peregrine was as devoted to Lord Hugh as a hound to his master. For Sir Peregrine there was no concept of loyalty higher than that of a knight to his liege-lord. He was content, as he set off once more, that his own record was enough to justify a certain pride.

It was painful to accept that it must be a long while before he could return to his place at his lord’s side, but Peregrine knew the reason for his eviction from the castle, and he was content that his master had justification. In compensation, Lord Hugh had petitioned certain people and gained this new post for Sir Peregrine, so now he was the King’s Coroner to the City of Exeter and surrounding lands. A good position, certainly, although fraught with fresh dangers, for it meant that he was always under the eye of the King himself.

Not that he was just now. In the last few months, ever since the escape of Mortimer from the Tower, the King had had other matters on his mind.

It was a source of amusement and not a little delight to Peregrine that King Edward II, who had caused so much damage to the country, who had depended on loyal subjects to support him, who had trampled on the rights and liberties of so many, finally slaughtering hundreds of knights up and down the country, even his own relatives, in his determination to keep his advisers the Despensers close by his side, should now shake at the knowledge that his own best warrior-leader, the man whom the King had himself disloyally imprisoned, was now his greatest enemy. There was a delicious irony in that, one which Sir Peregrine appreciated.

Sir Peregrine was not a natural regicide, but he would have been delighted to see this appalling king removed and destroyed. King Edward had proved himself to be incapable of ruling the kingdom. He chose to take his own advisers and stole lands, treasure, and even lives to enrich those he most loved: the Despensers. Their rapacity had led to the destruction of many, and it was in order to fight against these men that Sir Peregrine had counselled his lord to prepare for war. At the time, he had been certain that the Lords Marcher must win their battle against the King. As soon as they gave the word, men would flock to their side, Sir Peregrine thought.

But it had not happened. To his private astonishment, he had discovered that the Lords Marcher were not in fact prepared to raise their banners against King Edward. None could deny that he was their lawfully anointed king, and so they surrendered rather than take the field against him. Only Earl Thomas of Lancaster, the King’s own cousin, would fight, and he only because the King hurried to attack him. At Boroughbridge Thomas’s host was destroyed … and then the persecution began.

Sir Peregrine had reached the cathedral, and now he gazed about him before entering. This would, one day, be the most magnificent tribute to God. The two towers of St Paul and St John, with their squat spires thrusting upwards amidst the chaos of the building works, stood out as isolated beacons of sanity. Apart from them, it was a mess of builders, plasterers, carpenters and masons, all hacking and chiselling together in a cacophony of appalling proportions.

For his part, Sir Peregrine would take the word of the Dean and chapter that this would one day be a magnificent edifice, honouring God and His works; the best efforts of man would have gone into it in praise of Him. It would soar mysteriously over the heads of all the congregation, a fabulous, unbelievable construction that could only stand, so it would appear, by God’s grace. All would gaze down the length of the vast nave and marvel.

But at present it was nothing more than a building site, and Sir Peregrine could only cast about him with distaste at the sights and sounds of masons, smiths and carpenters as he made his way inside.

Even with the old walls still standing, it was long and broad enough to make a man wonder how the ceiling could be supported. Massive columns of stone rose up into the gloomy shadows high overhead. The ceiling was arched between them which, so Sir Peregrine had once heard, was the cause of its stability, but he made no claim to understanding such matters. As far as he was concerned, it was a matter of common knowledge that God existed, and in the same way he knew that ceilings were supposed to remain suspended without collapsing on the congregation below. Fortunately, such disasters were quite rare, although Sir Peregrine had heard that Ely’s cathedral tower had recently fallen. An appalling thought, he considered, glancing up into the darkness overhead.

Censers swung, filling the place with their incense, and the light was filtered by their smoke, while the bells calling the faithful to their prayers could be heard tolling mournfully outside, and Sir Peregrine bowed his head as the familiar sights and sounds took him back to that time only a few years before when he had been so happy. Keeper of his lord’s most important castle, a bannaret with the military skill and knowledge to lead his own men into battle, and at last content in the love of a woman who adored him. A poor woman, perhaps, whom he could not marry, but still a good woman who wanted to have his children.

And it had been the child that killed her, he reminded himself as the grief swelled in his breast, threatening to burst his lonely heart. His child had killed her during that difficult birth, and died in the process.

‘Who is he?’ Agnes asked quietly.

It was normal, of course, for people to be segregated by their sex as they entered the church; women to one side, men to the other. That way there was less chance of members of the congregation being ‘distracted’.

Juliana gave her sister a sharp look. There was no point in separating people in this way if her sister would insist on peering round all the time to see who was there and who wasn’t. It was one aspect of her sister’s nature that never ceased to astonish her, this inquisitiveness. When there was someone new in the city, she must try to learn as much as she could. Especially when it was a man. With a sigh, Juliana told herself she should be more patient.

‘I suppose you want to know whether he is married or not?’ she whispered in return.

‘It’s not that. I just wondered where he comes from. I’ve not seen him in here before,’ Agnes said, ignoring the reproof in her sister’s voice.

‘I dare say he is some wandering knight travelling past our city and you won’t see him again,’ Juliana said dismissively.

‘Perhaps so. Yet look at his behaviour! Is he really weeping?’

‘I neither know nor care, sister. Please concentrate.’

‘I shall … but I should like to know who he is.’

‘We can ask later,’ Juliana said. ‘I will ask my husband if you wish.’

She saw Agnes incline her head a little, and turned back to face the altar with a little sigh of annoyance. It was typical of her older sister that she should be so fascinated by a mere stranger. There was probably nothing of interest about him. Juliana glanced towards him and saw a man of some authority, but bent in silent prayer. He scarcely looked prepossessing enough to attract her sister.

That was unfair, of course. No man looked at his best when riven with grief, and this stranger knight appeared to be consumed with sadness, from the way he wiped at his eyes with his sleeve, keeping his head down and his eyes closed. Perhaps Agnes had developed a maternal instinct at last, and would like to have taken him and cuddled him to ease his sorrow? The thought that Agnes could be so empathetic made her smile. Agnes was the least thoughtful or considerate woman Juliana had ever known.

Poor Agnes. Juliana stole a look at her, considering her features. In profile, they had grown more sharp and intolerant, much as many an older maid’s would. She had not been fortunate, of course. It was sad to have to say so, but the last years had not been kind to her, whereas of course Juliana herself had been enormously lucky. After all, she had a man who doted upon her. Where Agnes was lonely and dependent on others wealthier than herself, Juliana had money and security. And love, of course.

When the service was concluded, she walked outside with her sister, and she was surprised to see that the stranger was talking to the receiver, the most important man in the city’s hierarchy. Perhaps he was worth getting to know after all, she thought. And then she noticed the depth of his green eyes and found herself modifying her initial view.

Yes — she could understand Agnes’s interest. Handsome and powerful, this man could make her sister a good match. Juliana would speak to her husband at the first opportunity, and learn who he might be.