The Butcher of St Peter's

Chapter Twenty-Three

Agnes was furious. The idea that she might be simply cast out again … she had looked after the children, she had helped her sister move back into the house, she had done all she might to assist them, and yet as soon as Master Coroner with the shifty eyes appeared, she was unwanted again. It was sickening. She could scarcely control her fury as she slammed the door behind her and made her way along the street. The ungracious, miserable sow! How dare she simply wave her out, as though Agnes was little better than a maid!

She dodged a vast pile of horse droppings, and stopped just beyond, breathing heavily. Here she was at the top of the lane, and could gaze back down.

The river gleamed in the distance, reflecting the sun as it headed westwards over the road to Crediton, and the hills encircling Exeter seemed to shine, the sun shimmering on the few leaves remaining on the trees that smothered them, the reds and golds glistening. Autumn leaves, she thought, and suddenly the tears that had been stemmed so long burst from her.

It was unfair, so terribly unfair. Her sister had won Daniel when Agnes had wanted to have him, and now she was taking Sir Peregrine from under Agnes’s nose as well. It was terrible.

She sobbed. Autumn leaves, so beautiful, and then they fell and nothing remained, their beauty lost for ever. She was like them: her beauty was fading, and she was still without a husband. All she could manage was a lover, and he was already married. She was nothing more than a distraction for him. Nothing else. He couldn’t leave his wife. The Church wouldn’t allow him.

Turning back, she went to Gwen’s house. The idea of talking to a friend was now very appealing. She wiped her sleeve over her face. There was nothing else she could do. Her mind was numbed with misery, and her body was exhausted. She needed sympathy.

Gwen was sitting in her little parlour as Agnes entered.

‘Maid, you look terrible,’ Gwen said. She stood compassionately, her face twisted, and then a shot of pain went through her breast and she had to sit again suddenly. ‘Oh! That was a bad one.’

‘Gwen, are you all right?’

‘I’m fine. How are you? I thought you would be staying with your sister tonight.’

‘Oh, Gwen. I feel so stupid. So lonely. I wish …’

Gwen smiled soothingly. She knew what Agnes wanted more than anything else. It was obvious the way she behaved around men. ‘You’ll soon have a man of your own, maid.’

‘Every man I look to, Juliana wins his heart.’

‘You are thinking of a particular man?’

‘No! No. Well, I admired that Coroner. He’s very attractive, I think,’ she said with a faint desperation in her voice. She scuffed the floor with a toe.

‘Juliana’s not after your man, maid. She isn’t interested — look,’ Gwen laughed, warming to her theme, ‘people have been talking about her to me. Oh, ever since Jordan went visiting at her house, people’ve said she was having an affair. Some said she killed Daniel to clear the way, but there’s nothing in that. What, do you think your sister would commit adultery? She wouldn’t think of it. And they’d have to do away with his wife, too, if they wanted freedom.’

‘Gwen?’ Agnes asked. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘Jordan’s wife. They’d have to kill her too if they wanted to marry. All I’m saying is, she’s got nothing to do with anything like that. She’s too loyal to have had a part in Daniel’s death. She’d find it impossible to consider taking Jordan. But the rumours were all over the place — and it’s worse since he came here, I dare say. People can’t mind their business, but have to poke their noses in other folks’ affairs. No, I’d bet you’re safe. She’s too bound up in grief still, anyway. If you’re looking at that Coroner, you’re safe.’

‘She’s been seeing Jordan?’

‘There’s enough saw him go to her house when Daniel was out. But I think it was something else, not because he wanted her to part her legs for him. Don’t worry. Maid? What’s the matter?’

She saw Agnes stare at her, retreating from the room, slowly shaking her head as though in horror. All at once Gwen realized that Agnes had not meant what Gwen had thought. She tried to rise, but a fresh pain stabbed at her breast, and she gasped in agony, a hand to her side, sinking back on her stool. She watched Agnes turn and fly from the house, but she could do nothing, not even shout. The pain was too strong.

There was no point even thinking of going to the priory. It would be shut up for the night before long, and the Prior would be easier to speak to in the morning. Instead, Baldwin led the way to Reginald’s house, a large property up the lane that led past the Priory of St Nicholas.

The bailiff was impressed. He had seen many like this down at Dartmouth, imposing places built to enhance the status of the owner as much as provide a space in which to live. This was rather magnificent. It had a broad front, with a bridge to the front door that stood over a basement area like a drawbridge over a moat. It gave the impression of a house that was strong and defensible.

Entering, Simon and Baldwin were brought to a pleasant hall. Sitting in a comfortable-looking chair was a man dressed in fur-trimmed robes and a warm-looking cap, while at his side was a startlingly attractive blonde woman, similarly clothed. As Simon walked in, he thought to himself that they appeared the ideal couple. The man was plainly a successful merchant, while his wife was the perfect adornment for him, a cool beauty with the calmness of a woman who possessed her own intelligence.

And then he approached more closely and he saw the flaws in both.

The man was sad, careworn and grim-faced. The woman was shrewish, with fine-chiselled features that were sharp and almost cruel-looking. Glancing back at Reginald, Simon thought he could see why he looked so solemn and beleaguered. The happiness had been sucked from him by this woman, Simon reckoned, and he found his sympathy going all to the man.

‘Lordings, how may I help you?’ Reginald asked. ‘I have wine — would you like me to serve you with a little?’

Baldwin was still at the stoup by the door. He crossed himself with pensive deliberation, then walked over the floor to stand in front of Reginald. Standing and studying the man with a small frown on his face, he shook his head, then glanced at the man’s wife. ‘I would question your husband, lady. Would you leave us alone for a while?’

‘Why? Should I be ashamed of him?’

‘You should ask him that,’ Baldwin replied mildly.

‘I will stay.’

Reg licked his lips. He called for his bottler and demanded a good goblet of wine for himself, and when it arrived he drank heavily, smacking his lips appreciatively. ‘A good one that. Cost me a fortune, but worth every penny. What’s this all about?’

Baldwin frowned at the ground, and Simon rested his hand on his sword hilt. ‘We have a problem,’ he said.

‘Can I help you with it?’ Reg asked, surprised. He rather liked the look of this bailiff. The man looked like a moorman, with his rugged, leathery skin and dark eyes. He had the appearance of the sort of fellow Reg would like to share a drink with.

Baldwin looked up. ‘We have come from the cathedral chapter. We have heard how you ensnared Gervase le Brent and persuaded him to lie for you, purely to stir up trouble between the cathedral and the priory. I’m not sure why, but I will learn. We know that you are involved in the gambling and whoring down by the docks. Well, that isn’t against the law, although I’m surprised your wife is happy for you to manage all those wenches down there. No, those are little affairs, really. More serious is the systematic theft of Church property, by having your people rob the ships of their cargoes before the cathedral even sees them, and then selling the goods back to the chapter when you have stolen them in the first place. Still, that is not the most important matter — more important than any of these is the affair of the murders. Three of them. And I’m not sure how you achieved them all.’

‘Me? You accuse me of murder?’ Reginald demanded with some shock.

‘You are a partner of Jordan le Bolle. You laid the trap for Gervase, we have learned, and you also helped Canon Peter, didn’t you? With all these aspects of your life so closely bound up with Jordan’s, I think you must have been involved in the murders.’

‘I’ve never killed a man in my life.’

‘Never? And yet we have witnesses who saw you about Daniel’s place when he died, and near the alley when Mick was murdered,’ Baldwin invented. He was sure that this man, if he was an ally and comrade of Jordan, must know something of the murders. Surely they were both involved in the attempt to defraud the cathedral if nothing else; and in the gambling. ‘Tell me, where do you say you were on the day of Daniel’s murder?’

‘I can’t remember exactly … I, um …’

‘You were at Daniel’s house, weren’t you?’ Baldwin said.

‘Whoever told you that was a liar. I was probably here, wasn’t I, darling?’

Baldwin watched as the woman clenched her jaw. She had the look of a bull terrier which has chewed a bone only to find it was a rock.

‘Of course, husband. Whatever you say, husband. If you think you were here, clearly you must have been.’

Agnes was shaking with grief.

It was hard to believe that this was really happening. Surely Jordan wouldn’t have betrayed her so cruelly? He couldn’t have gone to Juliana, could he? The cow couldn’t have ensnared Agnes’s lover as well as Daniel and now Sir Peregrine, in God’s name …

Juliana was a beautiful woman, though. Those lovely flashing eyes of hers, the trim figure even after two births, the delicious colour of her milky skin, all spoke of her attractiveness. She would soon snatch the favours of any man she set her eye upon. Agnes was mere chaff in the wind once Juliana had decided upon a man.

The irony, the bitter, bitter irony of it all. Agnes had always wanted a sister when she was young. A friend to play with, the closest friend of all to grow up with, to share a life with. That was what she had hoped for. Now the flavour left in her mouth was dust and ashes, nothing else. Juliana had ruined every aspect of her life. She had stolen all the men Agnes had ever wanted: Daniel, Jordan and Sir Peregrine. All taken by Juliana before Agnes could snare them. All taken. Agnes’s life was ruined.

She had reached his house and she stood outside for a moment, staring up at the closed and shuttered windows, then went to the door and beat upon it with her fist.

‘Open this door! Open it!’ she screamed, not caring who might hear, who might know. It didn’t matter. Not now. All she knew was, her life was ruined. Even this man, the one whom she had trusted above all others, had betrayed her.

When the door opened, she swept past Mazeline without noticing her. She was just a servant, to her mind. Mazeline didn’t matter compared with her own feelings. What was some other woman when her life was devastated?

‘Well, husband. That was an interesting meeting,’ Sabina declared as soon as the door closed behind the visitors.

‘Sab, please. Not now.’ Reg groaned. Jesus’s pain, but those two seemed to know a lot. The only saving was that they couldn’t force Sabina to accuse him. A wife’s word was not to be extorted like that. But they said that they had witnesses … someone had seen him at Daniel’s, and at the alley … There was no one there, though. Only Est and him at Daniel’s. No one else knew he had been there. And as for the alley, only Jordan himself knew he was there then.

‘Why keep silent? Who’s going to care what happened tonight when you’ll be in a cell before long?’

The words sank in. He turned to look at her. ‘What?’

‘You killed Daniel, didn’t you? You said you were here, but you weren’t. I remember that night. It was the night after Ham’s inquest. I thought you were out with the whores, but I don’t think you were. You were killing poor Sergeant Daniel, weren’t you?’

‘Christ Jesus, woman — no, I wasn’t. I swear I didn’t kill him.’

‘Oh, and you expect me to believe that? Give me some credit, man! Do I look so stupid I’ll believe any garbage you throw me? I am no fool. And I’m certainly not thick enough to remain here while you try to bring more shame on me or my son. We are leaving you now.’

‘Where are you going?’

‘Home. Father will protect me better than you could!’

‘Sab, I am your husband …’

‘Only on paper. When did you last actually want me? You aren’t a man to me. You don’t desire me. You’re happier with the whores than with me, aren’t you? Or this other woman. Who is she?’

‘I can’t tell you. It’s nothing. Nothing at all. You’re making it all up. There’s no one else.’

‘Oh, really? So my son imagined hearing her panting? He imagined seeing her legs wrapped round you?’

‘He dreamed it,’ Reg said with a brief flaring of imagination.

‘You expect me to believe that?’ she screeched. ‘You’ve lied to me all these years, why should I trust you now? Get away from me! I’m leaving with Michael, and don’t try to stop me!’

Jordan listened to the noise in his head. It was a ringing, whistling sound that wouldn’t go away whatever he tried. Mazeline appeared in the doorway a short while after Agnes rushed in, and stood there staring inside with an expression of fear mingled with shock. But the stupid bitch must have known what he was up to. She didn’t expect him home every night — where else did she think he was?

Agnes screamed at him, and her voice cut through his brain like a bill. ‘Is it true? Did you take my sister as well? You told me you wanted me, only me! How could you do that to me? How could you take her as well?’

‘Shut up, shut up!’ he bellowed as the voice grew more insistent. Christ’s bones, but the bitch was loud.

‘What is all this about, Jordan?’ Mazeline asked quietly in the sudden silence.

‘Didn’t he tell you? He never loved you, he wanted me!’ Agnes declared brokenly.

‘Shut up!’ he said again with a grimace. The noise was growing. A persistent, nagging, irritating sound that stopped his thought processes. And then, in a flash, it was gone.

Mazeline was staring at him, crushed. Her eyes met his and held his stare, but he had little time for all this.

‘Agnes, get out!’

‘But you love me, you told me you do.’

He stood and stared along his hall at her. ‘You were fun for a while, but you’re not now. Get out.’

‘You bastard! You took me and ruined me as a diversion! Was life so boring here that you needed me for a few months to …’

Her voice was stopped by his slap. It took three strides to reach her, and then his hand caught her cheek and her head was snapped round by the force of it. She stood as though petrified; unmoving, her head turned over her right shoulder, staring fixedly at the wall. ‘You hate me?’ she whispered.

‘I feel nothing for you,’ he said coldly. ‘I never did. You were enjoyable for a while, that’s all. Now get out of my house.’

Mazeline stepped from the doorway as Agnes turned away from him. Her head drooped as she made her way to the corridor that gave out to the door.

She was destroyed, Mazeline thought. Utterly destroyed. Where Mazeline had seen her life gradually eroded by her husband as he had whittled away at her self-assurance, this woman had seen her hopes and dreams destroyed in one fell swoop. He had taken her for a ‘diversion’ as she had said, and in return given nothing.

Mazeline’s destruction had been less sudden, more progressive over the years, but it was as inevitable as Agnes’s. She was to be ruined just as completely. As Agnes shuffled past her, Mazeline found herself studying this woman, once so attractive, who was now no more than a ravaged crust, like a discarded snail shell when the thrush has plucked all the meat from it.

She had never stopped to think before, but it was just how she must look. When she had married, she was pretty enough, perhaps no beauty, but still attractive enough to take the fancy of a man in the street. Yet now, as she turned her head and caught sight of herself in a mirror, all she could see was a woman old before her time. Her eyes were red, one still bruised, while her brow still had the line of scabbed blood where his goblet had struck her. If she was not so completely destroyed as Agnes at that moment, it was only because her slide into despair had been more gradual, with more halts on the way when he persuaded her that the punishment was due to her own failings, and that he really still loved her and wanted her to improve so that he need not chastise her any longer.

For the first time, she realized now that his words were lies. He loved her as much as he loved Agnes. They were not women, they were simply things, possessions he had acquired through his life, toyed with, and now tossed aside like trash. While he had a use for them, he would keep them, but now he was done with Agnes.

Which left Mazeline with what, exactly? she wondered. Agnes had gone, and Mazeline remained standing at the side of the doorway, silently surveying her husband.

‘What is it now, wench? You’re looking at me like a trapped rabbit. Ach, what the hell! Get me ale. From a good barrel this time!’

She walked out and fetched a jug, filling it from the barrel, but all the time her mind was fixed on the sight of that poor woman in her hall. Then, beginning with one sharp, painful sob that took her completely by surprise, she began to weep.

Baldwin and Simon stood in the street outside Carfoix and looked up at the fading light. The sun had already sunk behind the far hills, and the twilight was giving way to the night. Baldwin could see stars like diamonds lying in a sheet of black velvet.

‘Shall we find the Coroner and go to this man Jordan?’ Simon asked. ‘Where does Sir Peregrine live, do you know?’

‘He has a house in Correstrete, the same as Jordan. Let’s go and see whether he’s at home. If he is, we can walk round to le Bolle’s house with him.’

Simon agreed and soon they were outside the Coroner’s house.

It was a new building, with clean, square lines. They entered to find themselves in a broad hall with a fire smoking fitfully in a fireplace at the wall on their right. There was a newfangled chimney over it, and Simon was intrigued to see how the smoke would disappear up the flue, occasionally billowing back into the room.

Sir Peregrine saw the direction of his gaze as yet another blue-grey blanket roiled into the hall. ‘I know. I bought the house before I realized it had a chimney. If I’d known, I’d have been keener to pay less. I’ve never known one work properly. Give me an old-fashioned fire in the middle of the floor any time. You know where you are with them.’

Baldwin walked to the fire and stood with his back to it. ‘We think that we are coming closer to solving all these matters,’ he said, and explained what they had learned from Gervase and Peter de la Fosse, then what they had been told by Reginald.

‘You think that this Reginald is in league with Jordan le Bolle, then?’ Sir Peregrine asked. He took his seat on a bench. Drinks had been ordered from his bottler already, but the man appeared to have the speed of a hobbled donkey. Still, Sir Peregrine tried to concentrate on Sir Baldwin’s words. The man was a very good investigator, as he had told Juliana.

The mention of her name in the confines of his mind was enough to make him lose the train of thought. She was so lovely, so sweet and kind. The way that she had taken her daughter and cuddled her after that poisonous maid her sister had sulkily stormed from the room, that was the action of a truly loving mother. A lovely sight. And such a contrast with her older sister.

At first he could think of no topics which they could discuss, but then, slowly, they had begun to speak. He had chosen to tell her of the investigation first, their lack of success in finding Estmund, his hopes that he might soon learn where the man was, if he hadn’t fled the city with his guilt so obvious. Then he told her a little about the death of the pander Mick.

She had apparently wanted to hear nothing of death, though. Perhaps it was because the children were there, or maybe because the death of her man in this very house was still too close. It made him wonder whether the two children would be sleeping in her bedroom tonight, and the thought quickly led to another. The idea of her undressing for bed was painfully erotic, and he had to force his mind away from the delightful scene … There was one thing of which he was absolutely convinced: he would not shame this woman by attempting to persuade her into his bed. She was so wonderful, so sweet and kind and lovely, that he could no more think of propositioning her than flying. She was so far above him in every way.

And then, haltingly, she had started to talk. Almost as though he wasn’t in the room, she spoke of her marriage, how her man had won her when many others competed for her affection, how she had reciprocated his interest and finally accepted his offer. They had lived through the misery of the famine, and even when men like Estmund were burying their dead, she and Daniel had prospered. Their wealth had grown as the wills had proliferated, and at the end of that dreadful time they had been moderately well-off, although more recently they had been less fortunate.

She told him of Daniel’s fixed hatred for felons who preyed on the weak and foolish, crimes which were so repellent to him that he sought to destroy those who had committed them, and how he had gradually become morose and uncommunicative. ‘It felt as if I’d lost him. Another man had taken his place.’

‘I am sorry.’

‘It didn’t happen in a flash, and we didn’t lose our love for each other,’ she said. ‘That is the truth, Coroner. I still loved him, you know, and that never changed. It was just that he became so obsessed with these crimes.’

‘Which crimes?’ Sir Peregrine asked, noting the line of her throat as she kissed Cecily.

‘Those caused by a man’s venality or greed. He hated them most of all. When a weaker man was injured by a stronger. That was why he …’

Sir Peregrine scarcely noticed the break in her speech.

‘Henry Adyn was badly hurt by Daniel. I know he hated my husband for that terrible wound, but Daniel thought he was in danger, you see. That was why he bought the cart and a pony for Henry, so that he’d have a means of supporting himself.’

‘He did? That was good of him.’

‘He was a kind man,’ she agreed. Cecily was on her lap, and Juliana put her arms about her shoulders. ‘He had made his mistakes. He knew everyone could.’

‘We all make errors; sometimes they have unexpected consequences,’ he agreed. Then, ‘Is it possible that there is any offence he was investigating that could point to his murderer?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘If he was looking into any specific crime, where the man concerned could have taken fright at learning that Daniel was investigating him?’

Juliana looked away. Sir Peregrine saw her close her eyes a moment. When she opened them again, she looked from Cecily to Arthur.

‘There was one man,’ she said.

Baldwin was almost certain that Sir Peregrine had fallen asleep, but when he mentioned the name the Coroner’s head jerked up. ‘Who?’

‘Jordan le Bolle.’

‘That is the man whom Juliana accused tonight,’ Sir Peregrine said. ‘She said Daniel had been trying to gather enough evidence to arrest him for an age.’

Juliana had looked away. ‘He is evil, evil!’ she said, and she drew Cecily to her and hid her face in her neck.