The Crediton Killings

13

Henry walked quickly from the room and through the hall, past men sitting drinking or playing at dice. To those who noticed him, he looked the same as usual: cheerful and calm, if in more of a hurry than normal.

John was playing nine men’s morris, or large merrills. It took all of his concentration to win at this. He was fine with other games, but trying to win seven of his opponent’s pieces while avoiding capture himself always made him frustrated. This game was not helped by the side betting. He caught sight of Henry walking from the room, and their eyes met. Seeing Henry jerk his head, John nodded quickly before returning to his game.

Outside, Henry waited for his accomplice with his nerves fraying. It seemed like hours before John could wind up the game and leave the hall, and Henry spent the time starting at every sound as he walked up and down in the yard, trying to appear unconcerned. “What in God’s name have you been doing? Didn’t you see I had to talk?”

“What’s the problem? I couldn’t just get up and leave when there was money on the table; everyone would have known something was the matter. I came as soon as I could.”

“It’s not soon enough,” Henry said, and for the first time John saw the naked fear in his eyes.

“What is it? What’s the matter?”

“Not here. Come with me.” Henry took his arm and led the way round behind the stables, to a shaded spot in the back lane where they could speak unobserved. “Sir Hector’s just had me in and was asking me about Wat.”

“Does he reckon Wat could have taken all the silver? The old bastard’s not got the sense.”

“No, he doesn’t. What he thinks is: Wat took the tunic he’d collected from the shop to Sarra and tricked her into thinking it was a present for her. Wat told her to get changed into it, expecting Sir Hector to murder her when he saw her wearing it. He probably thinks Wat killed her when his original plan failed.”

“Do you really think he could believe Wat killed her?”

“Yes. Right now, anyway. But if he talks to Wat, we’re dead.”

“He’d never…”

“He’s halfway there already. Just now he asked me if I’d ever plotted against him.”

“Christ Jesus!”

“Yeah.”

They both contemplated their immediate future for a minute. John said, “We’d better get to Wat and silence him before he can say anything.”

“That’s what Sir Hector just told me to do – kill him, but what good’ll that do us? You saw him talking to the bailiff’s servant. Other men heard what the fool said. If he suddenly dies, people will soon put two and two together. The fact that Sir Hector told us to won’t protect us. Anyway, we were seen going to Sir Hector’s room and it wouldn’t take much to guess we might have knocked her out. No. We’ve got to get away. Right away.”

“What, leave the team now? Go away for good?”

Henry nodded glumly. If only John hadn’t killed the bitch, there wouldn’t be a problem, but now things were getting complicated. Henry had knocked her out as soon as he had seen her in the storeroom dressed in that damned tunic, and ever since then their plan had gradually unravelled like a cheap shirt. Stabbing her was unnecessary. She hadn’t seen them – she could have been left there in the trunk for as long as they wanted, and no one would have cared. But once John had stabbed her, their chances of being able to enjoy the rewards of their theft were reduced to nothing. It wasn’t Sir Hector, for he could hardly care less about the death of a serving-girl; he cared far more for the loss of his silver. No, it was the local Keeper, the interfering bastard! He seemed determined to find out who had taken her life. Glancing at his friend, Henry had to bite back his bitterness. John had only done what he should have done himself. It was better not to leave witnesses. It was just a shame that this time they would have been better off leaving the girl alive.

“Come on,” he said. “This is what we’d better do.”

That evening Simon found it hard to relax. The evening meal was heavy for a fast day, with fish fresh from the stew ponds, and barnacle geese roasted with herbs and spices. Peter Clifford was not stinting in his efforts to appear in the best light possible before his Bishop.

“Goose?” Stapledon asked, sniffing at the aroma as the panter cut fresh trenchers and the carver sliced up the fatty, crisp and tender meat. He nodded and smiled at the page who held the bowl of hot, scented water for him to wash his hands, and then dried them on the towel while Peter washed.

“Barnacle goose,” Peter agreed.

“Some say that they are not fish,” Stapledon observed, and Peter was shocked.

“My apologies if it is not to your taste, my lord, but barnacle geese are fish. They live in the sea, growing from a worm. If you want I will have it removed and…”

“I think that would be a cruel waste of God’s plenty, and as you say, they are considered by most to be fish. It smells far too good to be thrown away.” He turned to Baldwin. “Have you enjoyed a productive day, my friend? Are you any nearer to finding who took the life of that poor girl?”

Baldwin dried his hands and leaned back. “I do not know who killed her yet, but I am suspicious of Sir Hector.”

“Ah, yes. Sir Hector,” said Stapledon, and sighed. “I wonder if he ever was knighted by an honorable man – all too often these leaders of wandering bands of soldiers call themselves ”Sir“ when it takes their fancy. This man’s sole claim to authority, I fear, is his ability to kill.” He broke off while grace was said by one of the canons. “And it is all too natural to suspect someone who can treat life as something to be ended when it suits, rather than a gift from Our Lord which should be honored and respected.”

Baldwin found himself warming to the Bishop, but before he could speak, Margaret said, “I don’t understand what they are doing here. Why have they come to Crediton?”

“Apparently they were considering joining the King’s army, but the pay did not satisfy them,” Peter said. “I have heard that they were with the King’s representatives, but decided not to go north. I think they were told they would not be wanted.”

“I doubt that the King or his men would miss such as these,” Stapledon said with a smile, but Baldwin was not so sure.

“Whatever their morals or the complexion of their souls, one thing the King could rely on would be their ability to fight and strike fear into the hearts of the Scottish. They may not be gentle or kindly, but they are undoubtedly soldiers, whereas most of the King’s army are raw peasants, unused to killing, who are as likely to turn tail and bolt when the battle gets too fierce as remain. At least Sir Hector’s men would know when to stand and when to give ground.”

“If they weren’t bribed at the wrong moment to change allegiance,” Stapledon remarked lightly. “You almost sound as if you hold them in some esteem, Sir Baldwin.”

“Not exactly, but I have been in wars where similar men have shown themselves as brave as any, and where they have been as honorable as many of their seniors should be. One thing I have learned is not to take such men for cowards or fools. They are often forced into their way of life against their judgment and will.”

“They cannot be the equal of a similar troop of men with better morals and clean hearts, surely,” Stapledon said.

“My lord, I fear that if you are ever in a battle arrayed with numbers of the godly on the one hand, all pure in heart and living life to Christ’s own principles, who are nevertheless matched on the other side by trained mercenaries like Sir Hector’s men, all well-versed in warfare and combat, you should look to your armor and ensure you have a fleet-footed destrier nearby. The mercenaries, for all their loose living, will undoubtedly win.”

“I too have fought, Sir Baldwin,” the Bishop said coolly. “And you may be right, but sometimes it is better to die in a good cause than live for a bad one.”

“Of course,” Baldwin said. “But no matter how good you feel your cause to be, you are the more likely to win your battles with trained and expert soldiers.”

“Baldwin!” Peter expostulated. “Are you trying to deny the achievements of centuries of chivalry? The whole of society depends on the virtue and thence the power of our knights, and it has always been so, ever since King Arthur ruled.”

“What is chivalry? It is a method of making war, and sometimes it does not work. We learned that in Outremer, in the Kingdom of Jerusalem, where all too often the Saracens beat us, even when we were strong…”

“Ah, Sir Baldwin, I think you may not understand the problems there,” said the Bishop seriously. “Too many of the knights were ungodly and were motivated by the wrong things.”

“Such as what? The motivation of a knight should be for glory, by fighting honorably to defend the poor and weak. Perhaps the same could be achieved by a smaller number of men better versed in the ways of warfare, and for less cost. Look at the war in Scotland. Will we win it? I have no idea, but I do know this: almost none of our men are warriors. There are wellborn knights in the King’s entourage, but most of the rest are lowly archers and foot soldiers. It is on them that the main fighting will fall – and how many of them are trained in anything other than the scythe and the plow? These few under Sir Hector could be worth three hundred ordinary peasants.”

Simon listened to the discussion in silence. He had no wish to join in and talk about things of which he knew little, for he did not want to display his ignorance about wars and fighting. All he knew about was fighting gangs of outlaws and keeping miners away from the locals on the moors – and neither matched the experiences of a man like Baldwin, who had spent his youth fighting Saracens.

Something else made him hold his tongue. There was a niggling feeling of unease at the back of his mind, a sense that something was wrong, and he was aware of a growing anxiety.

At the end of the meal, once the warmed water had been brought for all to wash away the grease and sauces from fingers, he excused himself and walked out to the road, pleading an overfull stomach.

The sun had sunk behind the far hill, and the street was almost deserted. Buildings rose all round like the high sides of the Teign Valley, rugged and misshapen like moorstone cliffs. All the shops were blank and dead-looking, the houses had their shutters over the windows to keep out the unhealthy night air, and the only light came from louvres and trap doors in the roofs, all opened to let out the smoke from the cooking fires.

There was a curious air of expectancy. He heard a door slam, a shout of laughter and giggling, a dog bark echoing down a street, a man cursing, and the sound of revelry from a tavern. All were the normal marks of a night in a large town. A chicken murmured to itself on the other side of a wall as he passed, grumbling at being disturbed, and a lamb bleated sleepily, but over all these usual, unremarkable sounds, Simon thought there was a stillness, as if the whole town was waiting for something to happen.

Near the jail, Simon paused and watched the inn. There was a gust of raucous humor from the hall, and the bailiff felt sorry for those who lived close by. They would surely regret living so near to an alehouse, he felt, when the guests were as rowdy as these soldiers. He was tempted for a moment to join them and lose himself in drinking with men who had no fear for the future, who lived merely for the present, but he stayed outside, staring wistfully at the glimmer which showed through the closed shutters.

A gentle lowing from the shambles, and a bleating, brought him back to the present. There was no point in his joining the soldiers. They were not of his kind. If he were to go in, there would be silence followed swiftly by a general turning of backs. He was a bailiff, a man used to giving commands, but he had no authority over such as these. They were free men, free of the restraint that others might feel on seeing him. Anyway, he knew that shaking off his black mood would not be helped by going into a crowded room full of cheerful drinkers. His was a mood for which alcohol could provide no cure.

With a wry grimace he accepted that he also might not be safe alone with Sir Hector’s singing and swearing force.

Simon started off toward the western end of town, but his steps faltered as he passed the entrance to the alley where he had seen the woman in gray. Something about it made him pause and frown.

It gaped like the maw of an evil creature, long and noisome as a dragon’s gullet. But like prey beguiled by a tempting bait, he found himself lingering. The alley was a twisting black tunnel, in which sound was altered and the senses dulled. Here lived the poorer people of the town: those who could not afford the cosseted lifestyle of the merchants and priests farther out from the center. The tradesmen had their own rooms over or behind their shops, the smiths and carpenters above their workshops, but here, in the reeking corridor between tightly packed houses, were the families of the others who made the town what it was: tanners and curers; weavers and dyers; cooks and servants for the merchants’ houses – all lived thrown together in as few short feet as possible for warmth and defense. The smell of unwashed bodies, urine, rotting flesh and vegetation from the sewer mingled with that of roasting meat and stews to form a stench which assaulted his nostrils and made him curl his lip in revulsion.

Then he froze, peering intently. There had been a scuffle and muted cry. It was not the swift skitter of a frightened rat, but a kind of shuffling and slithering. Nervously wetting his lips, he stepped in to the alley.

In the dead interior, the sound of his footsteps changed. Rather than the solid, confident ringing of his boots on the cobbles near the market, now his feet sloshed and slapped in the puddles left by people emptying bowls and bedpans. At this time of night those who lived in the alley were all in their beds, and Simon could see nobody. All he was aware of was the light above, where the moon and stars stood out with precise clarity in the deep blue-black sky, compared with the grayness of the buildings on either side.

The steps approached. He could see no one clearly yet, huddled as he was in the doorway, uncomfortable where the drips from the washing overhead had spattered against him until they formed a rivulet down his back. Now in the doorway, at least he was away from that irritation.

There was a slowness in the footsteps which annoyed him. He almost wanted to shout at the man, tell him to come along faster and stop tormenting him. His nerves were already drawn as tight as the hemp of a hangman’s noose when the body was hanging. This slow, methodical sound was increasing his tension, as if he was listening not with his ears alone but with his entire body. The noise slammed into his chest and belly like blows.

And then he had passed. The hidden watcher let his breath out in relief. Soon he could escape, run away to the town and lose himself, while this fool stumbled onward along the alley.

But the unearthly wailing stopped him. It began as a low moan, a cry of indescribable suffering, which rose in gusts only to fall again, then rising and falling with increasing regularity, until it formed a steady cadence, now rising to a shriek, now falling to a disbelieving shuddering of horror.

Simon stopped dead in his tracks. The noise had put an end even to the quiet sounds in the alley, and the whole area was still, as if the very buildings were listening to the misery in the voice with hushed sympathy.

Then his legs propelled him forward. His hand snatched at his sword and tugged it loose, then swept it out as he pounded up to a slight bend in the path, feeling the blood rush in his head, his belly hollow with sudden fear, his scalp itching with icy foreboding.

The corner came, and then he was past it, and nobody had sprung out to attack him. Carrying on, the wail rose to a shriek – but now was behind him. He skidded to a halt, turned, pelted back, and saw the thin, darker hole: another alley leading from this one. He would have seen it in daylight, but in the darkness, it was all but invisible. Stopping his rush by pushing a hand out before him to cushion his speed against a wall, he caught his breath, then ducked inside.

It was a mean little dead-end. At the far side was a building with a fitful light showing between the cracked and broken shutters, and it was by this meager illumination that he confronted the bleak tragedy.

She was huddled, as if even in death she was trying to take up as little space as possible, and keen to conform to the laws that required the poor and widowed to be unseen and out of the way. At first Simon thought she was simply kneeling and searching for a lost oddment, her arms on the ground, head resting gently between them. But then he saw that her pillow was the feces flung from the upper rooms.

Her child stood beside her, a grubby cherub with spiky hair where the dirt had given it the consistency of wood. His grimy face was all mouth, bawling in his fierce grief, and Simon felt as if his heart would break at the sight of his absolute loss.

He held out his hand, his own face cracking under the massive weight of the little boy’s grief, and he called out something – he would never recall what exactly – and saw the boy turn to him.

And then he saw the little face break in renewed terror. He saw the boy’s mouth widen and heard the dreadful, baying howl.

And then the blow struck, and he fell headlong, clutching vainly at consciousness like a drowning man reaching for a rope lying just out of reach, as the waves of black oblivion rushed forward to engulf him.