The Sticklepath Strangler

Chapter Twenty-One

Baldwin could see that the woman Meg was terrified to be confronted by Simon and him, and he tried to calm her nerves, smiling gently and speaking slowly and carefully.

Her voice was low, and although she had an impediment to her speech, she was easily understood. If she had been healthy, Baldwin considered that her voice could have been quite pleasing. By turns she was agitated and twitchy, picking at one hand with the other, and then calm, her round face vacant, as though uninterested in proceedings. Apart from that, as he spoke and as she gradually gained confidence in their company, he saw the signs of her affectionate nature. She held on to Serlo’s hand, but with less and less of a firm grip. As she eased, she took to stroking his bare forearm, not a conscious thing, but merely a proof of affection.

They made an odd couple, Baldwin thought. The man so twisted and graceless after his terrible injuries, and she so dumpy and clumsy, but for all that the two had one thing that shone from them: love. She adored him, watching Serlo’s face eagerly as he spoke, and for his part, when Serlo looked at her, his expression softened, like a man watching his own daughter.

Serlo was gentle as they explained about her daughter. ‘You have to be brave, Meg. Try to be brave. Emma, she can’t come back.’

‘My Emma?’

Serlo glanced up at Baldwin, gave a short shrug which was a confession of his own inadequacy. ‘She’s dead, Meg. I’m sorry.’

He had his arms wrapped about her as he spoke, but Baldwin saw her face crumble like a child’s. She looked up at Serlo with desperate hope, as though thinking he might be joking, and her expression as that hope faded tore at Baldwin’s heart. He hated to think how Serlo must feel. He regretted coming here like this, intruding on the grief of a poor, simple woman, but the alternative was to have some petty official come here from the vill, someone like Drogo, who would give her the news without Serlo to calm her afterwards. This was surely kinder. For a moment he tried to tell himself that so simple a woman could not appreciate her loss, but then he could have cursed himself for his callousness when he caught a glimpse of her face. This was no dim-witted girl he was watching, but a mother who had lost her only child. There could be no more hideous pain that that which Meg suffered now. Her very simpleness made her feel the pain all the more keenly. She could not imagine any alleviation of her grief.

‘NO! Not my Emma as well! No!’

Suddenly shrieking, she struck feebly with her fists at Serlo’s breast. He had to grab them and hold her, mumbling sympathetic noises, calling to her by name, and after some minutes she collapsed against him, weeping and shaking her head, her wrists still gripped in his hands.

It took a long time to calm her and prepare her to be questioned, and even then her face would occasionally become blank as her eyes appeared to turn in upon some inner thought or memory. ‘She was my baby,’ she said several times.

‘I am sorry to have to tell you this,’ Baldwin said, feeling stiff and formal in the presence of her overwhelming grief. ‘I want to find out who killed her.’

Meg nodded, but there was little comprehension in her features. She responded dully to his initial questions.

‘Tell us about Emma, Meg.’

‘She was my girl.’

‘When was she born?’

Meg turned to Serlo with a bewildered look on her face.

He answered for her. ‘She was about ten years old. Not above eleven.’

‘Who was her father?’

She smiled happily. ‘It was my husband. He married me, in the field by the river, my lovely Ansel. He worked so hard, and he had to travel much, but he always came home to me.’

Baldwin stared at Serlo in confusion.

The Warrener sighed. ‘Look, he made his promises to Meg about six years after the crowning of the King–’

‘That would be about 1313 or so,’ Simon muttered.

Serlo shrugged. ‘I don’t have much use for numbers. Only seasons. He made his promises, and he came back when he could. Emma was born, and Ansel came back for a couple of years–’

‘Until about 1315?’ Simon pressed him.

‘Yeah, well, then he left, and didn’t say farewell, and about a year later, Athelhard returned. He had heard that Meg had had a daughter, and he came to protect them and help as best he could. He wasn’t happy with the situation, but which older brother would be? At least Athelhard had helped with money.’

‘It was our home,’ Meg burst out suddenly. ‘Our house in the woods. Ansel built it for us. He liked it there.’ A dullness came down over her face like a shadow from a veil. ‘But he said he wasn’t going yet. He promised he’d be about for another week. He would have said farewell.’

‘Miserable bastard son of a whore and a dog fox,’ Simon muttered viciously under his breath. He hated to hear of women who were taken for a ride, and all too often men could get their own way by pretending to marry someone. Litigation was expensive, thus many escaped censure or punishment. If the Purveyor had been murdered, perhaps he deserved his end.

Baldwin shot him a look to silence him, then, ‘He said nothing? Gave no hint that he was leaving?’

‘No, he just upped and went.’ Serlo shrugged.

‘Will Taverner said he’d left, but he wouldn’t have, not without seeing me first,’ Meg said tearfully.

‘I see,’ Baldwin said. ‘What of the rest of your family?’

Her reaction startled him. She stiffened, and then her eyes grew wild. Suddenly she spun around, as though fearing an attack from behind her. Serlo had to catch at her wrists again and talk to her quietly. All the while she moaned with a keening noise as though mourning.

Serlo grunted, ‘Her family died many years ago, all but her brother, Athelhard. He was older than Meg, and when their father died, he was all she had left, but he was away with the old King hammering the Welsh. When he died, Athelhard stayed in the retinue of a Marcher Lord. He did well and brought back plenty of booty, so that was fine, but he wasn’t here for Meg. Like she said, when she was alone, she married but then her man disappeared and it was a good year later that Athelhard returned here to look after her and take over the assart.’

‘Which assart was that?’ Baldwin asked.

‘The one where I met you today. It was theirs. Ansel had built the cottage for Meg, but it was Athelhard who started to clear the woods about it to create some pasture.’

‘I saw you there, Meg,’ Baldwin said softly. The recollection of the sight made a shiver of ice trickle down his spine, but he could sense the relief now that there was an explanation. ‘You were standing at a tree with your arms behind you. Why was that?’

She sniffed, but couldn’t answer. It was left to Serlo to respond for her.

Gruffly he said, ‘They tied her to that tree when they set fire to Athelhard’s house. To burn him out. He wouldn’t come out even when they set fire to his thatch, and they wanted to make sure of him. They found Meg and used her, binding her to the tree so that she could see everything, and when she screamed, her brother came running. As they knew he would.’

‘Who are they?’ Baldwin asked.

‘The vill. The Reeve, the Foresters – all of them. They thought Athelhard was a vampire.’

‘Why should they have thought of vampires?’ Baldwin asked quietly, his eyes going to Serlo. ‘I can understand people being horrified by the thought that a child could have been murdered and her flesh eaten – but surely they knew that people can be driven to desperate measures from starvation. Why think of supernatural agents?’

‘This is a small vill, Sir Knight. You are well-travelled and experienced, but many of the folk here have never been farther than Oakhampton. When they hear of cannibalism, it seems so inhuman that they assume a demon is responsible. And that means a vampire.’

‘You mean they used Meg here to draw her brother outside?’ Simon said with shock. ‘Christ’s cods!’

‘They killed him,’ Meg said brokenly.

Baldwin studied her. In some way the death of her brother was more immediate to her than the death of her own daughter, which at first he thought appalling, but then he found himself in sympathy with her. She had been forced to endure many years alone, and the loss of her sole remaining protector, especially since she was witness to his death, must have had a significant impact upon her, coming back and haunting her each night.

That was why she relived the terror of that day, he guessed. Perhaps she regularly returned to the assart, hoping that this time her brother would escape the flames and go to her.

Serlo shook his head. He could remember it so clearly: the stinking cottage reeking of burned meat, the blackened and twisted corpse in the doorway. ‘They hunted him down, then slaughtered him like a rabid dog. That’s why she can’t sleep in the hut, even though I rebuilt it for her.’

Meg shuddered. ‘I was there. I heard them walking, so I followed and saw them shoot at him after he had chopped wood. They chased him to the house and shot him again, and Drogo told his men to light torches. I tried to scream, but a man caught me and put his hand over my mouth. They tied me to the tree and made me watch while they set torches on the thatch and waited, and I screamed. The Reeve tried to make him come out, but it was my screams that brought him out. He was hobbled, but they shot him like a rat! Like a rat!’

She broke down again, wailing and snivelling inconsolably, and it was some while before she could speak again. Baldwin looked enquiringly at Serlo.

He shrugged. ‘Far as I know, it’s all true. She was there when I found her. I’d seen the fire from my warren and went to look. Thought it might be a house fire and someone needed help. Not that they’d have asked me.’

‘Why not?’ Simon shot out.

Serlo gave him a scathing glance. ‘Because I look like this. Because people like you, people who are fit and well, hate to see someone who’s this twisted and wrecked. And they hate the way that their own children prefer to come up and talk to me on the moors than spend time with them here, that’s why!’

‘You were going to tell us about the assart,’ Baldwin gently reminded him.

Serlo’s anger faded, although he ignored Simon and addressed all his words to Baldwin. ‘When I got there, I found Athelhard’s place burning. He was dead just inside. It was his funeral pyre, poor bastard! They’d cut his heart out and burned him. The stink! Christ Jesus, I shall never forget it!’

‘No,’ Baldwin said quietly. ‘It is not an odour that ever leaves you, once you have breathed it in.’

Serlo eyed him doubtfully. It had been a horror to him, but he would have expected a knight to have smelled far worse in his time. Yet when he stared into Baldwin’s eyes, he could see that he was serious. He looked like a man who could still sense that foul stench in the air about them.

‘I found Meg there and took her away. Later, I went back and buried her brother’s remains. She stayed with me a while, just until she was better. Emma was with us as well, bless her. Then she took to staying in the vill.’

‘Where?’

‘With various people. Some took pity on her. They thought that a poor little creature like her needed all the help she could get. She was with the miller for some while, then with Swetricus, I think. I was sorry to see her go. I looked on her as my own,’ he added quietly.

‘Was there anything else?’

‘Just one thing. When I found Meg, she was holding a piece of arrow. The arse-end with the nock and fletchings.’

‘It was his, his – the Forester’s,’ Meg said. ‘He must have killed my poor Athelhard. I saw them shoot him, and Peter cut out his heart, and then they picked him up and swung him onto the flames, but when they lifted up his body, I found the arrow on the ground.’

‘Was there anything distinctive about it?’ Baldwin asked.

She looked at him, then up at Serlo, who gave her an encouraging nod, and she darted off into the tunnel. A moment or two later she was back, gripping a six-inch length of arrow. She thrust it into Baldwin’s hands.

‘Ask Drogo about his arrows,’ Serlo said grimly. ‘And compare them with that. Then you’ll have proof you have yourself a murderer.’

Baldwin nodded and carefully placed the splinter of wood into his purse to be studied later. The light was fading, and it was already too dark here in the woods to be able to distinguish much about it.

‘I shall,’ he promised. ‘Except it would be a great deal easier if I knew why the murderer – or murderers if it was indeed the whole vill – decided to kill Meg’s brother like that. It was not the random act of one man trying to rob another. Why should the people of Sticklepath decide to do such a thing?’

‘You need to ask that? Because they thought he was a vampire – a sanguisuga!’

‘It was revenge, then?’ Baldwin asked, whistling for Aylmer.

Serlo looked at him for a moment. ‘I don’t live in the vill. I am a moorman, that is all. But I know this: the Purveyor disappeared, then Denise died, and Drogo was keen to blame Athelhard. Very keen.’

‘Because Athelhard was foreign?’ Simon asked.

‘Perhaps. But there was another reason. Athelhard bought some pork to feed Meg. It cost him a fortune, but he did it to keep her alive.’

‘So what?’ Simon asked. ‘Couldn’t he have explained?’

‘No one would have believed him if he had. They had already jumped to the conclusion that he was eating human meat.’

‘Why think that?’

‘The priest had preached a sermon about the demons all about us. He told the vill about vampires and how demons could turn a man into one – so that although someone looked the same as they had always done, underneath he could be a sanguisuga. That was enough to seal poor Athelhard’s fate.’

‘I see. Now who would have had meat to sell during the famine?’ Simon asked.

‘Ivo Bel,’ Meg said clearly. ‘He sold it to Athelhard to save me.’

‘Is that right?’ Baldwin asked Serlo.

He shrugged. ‘Probably. But I think it suited people to assume the worst. What if Drogo had good reason to want Athelhard convicted?’

Baldwin said, ‘You suspect Drogo was the murderer?’

‘No. I don’t think Drogo could be so inventive. He’s a God-fearing man, for all his bluster, but I do think he could seek to protect a friend or someone.’

‘What are you hinting?’

‘Ask Drogo. Ask the Forester.’

‘I shall,’ Baldwin promised. ‘But before we leave you, where were you last night? Emma died and we must learn all we can about everyone’s movements.’

‘I was up at my warren until dark, and then I came here to see Meg.’

‘Did you notice anyone about the vill?’

‘I didn’t pass near the vill. I came down the road from Belstone and straight up here. Hang on – I did see one man. Vin. He was going to the mill.’

‘I see,’ Baldwin said. ‘One thing we haven’t learned is, where would Emma have been sleeping last night?’

Serlo scratched his head. ‘It varied. Sometimes with Swetricus, sometimes at the mill. Occasionally she’d stay with Thomas Garde.’

‘Just one last question,’ Baldwin said. ‘Have you heard of Athelhard’s curse?’

Serlo nodded slowly. ‘Oh yes. He cursed all the men there, so they say – but I think he meant Drogo and the Reeve. He damned them both to Hell, and they will be there before long.’

Sir Laurence was enjoying himself. He always did when his job gave him the opportunity to exercise his humour at the expense of others.

‘So, Reeve. I think I shall need to have most of your corn.’

His eyes twinkled with merriment as he spoke, the firelight giving him a cheerful aspect, but in Reeve Alexander’s eyes, his smile was that of a demon grinning at the miserable fate of another.

‘Sir Laurence, I am sure we would all like to do everything we can to assist the King’s efforts in Scotland–’

‘I am delighted to hear it. I assume that there is a “But”?’

‘We have so little here. The famine, then the murrains, and no travellers to speak of. We don’t have a market or fair like South Zeal. Couldn’t you seek what you need from a more prosperous town?’

‘I have already been to South Zeal. It is a pleasant place. All the burgage plots so well laid out, and the whole town prospering nicely. That, you see, is what happens when a place is run efficiently. But then you come here and what do you find? A midden! Look at it! The vill is falling apart, and it’s all the fault of the man at the top. Laziness, that’s what it is. I wouldn’t allow it on my own manor, I assure you.’

Alexander gritted his teeth. He detested hearing his vill so denigrated, but he knew he must swallow his pride. ‘These are difficult times for all the King’s subjects, but for a little place like this with so few resources, it is even worse,’ he said in a choked voice. ‘Surely at South Zeal they would be able to afford a much larger stock of grain than we can?’

‘Yes, I arranged for a little grain from South Zeal, but I feel sure that you will have enough stored away here to support the King.’

‘We have nothing!’

‘That is very sad.’

‘My Lord, please! We have nothing to give, and we can’t even pay the King money instead. We could never afford to compensate him.’

‘Perhaps you could compensate someone who was of a lesser position?’ Laurence asked, gazing at his fingernails with an air of mild enquiry.

‘The last Purveyor used to find it served him to seek out the wealthier vills. They could afford to pay the King’s Procurers enough to satisfy the King, but smaller ones like this, well, we could only hope to pay enough to satisfy one man,’ Alexander said carefully.

‘I see. And how much would one man be satisfied with? Say a man like Ansel de Hocsenham?’

‘He would have been content with…’ Alexander did a quick calculation. There was always the risk that Ansel – rot him! – had managed to let this new man know how much he had routinely milked from places like Sticklepath. Honesty was safest, although the thought of so much cash going again was sorely painful to him. It was all the money he had left. There was nothing after this. He swallowed. ‘Three shillings and tenpence.’

‘So little?’ Sir Laurence yawned, but his eyes remained sharp. ‘And that was the last time he came here?’

‘There are so many felons and footpads on the roads,’ Alexander said nervously.

‘And some of them live in towns and vills like ordinary men. Like Reeves.’ Sir Laurence was staring out through the window as though finding the conversation unbearably tedious.

Alexander said, ‘He must have been set upon and robbed after he left here. Perhaps someone in Oakhampton will know of his passing through.’

‘Curiously enough, the people there deny ever seeing him. It’s most peculiar, but he never appeared there. But we know that he indeed left here, don’t we? I was told that by Drogo Forester when I asked him.’

Drogo cleared his throat and shuffled his feet. Alexander didn’t bother to look at him. Christ Jesus! It wasn’t as though Ansel hadn’t deserved his end. He was a leech in human form, demanding money from any Reeve who couldn’t afford the King’s Purvey, sucking their blood to within a few pennies of their conscience. Any more and most Reeves would have felt it worthwhile to tell the King that the Purveyor was corrupt, but Ansel knew how to gauge the amount to a nicety. He always left the people with just enough to live on: not enough to live comfortably, but enough for survival.

‘He had an unsavoury reputation, you know,’ Sir Laurence was saying, idly dipping a finger into his bowl of wine and licking it clean. He raised innocent eyes to study Alexander. ‘It has been said that he was bent as hell, that he’d take money to release people from the King’s demands.’

‘I am surprised,’ said Alexander with pointed sarcasm.

Sir Laurence didn’t appear to notice his irony. ‘Yes. And of course he’d force people to sell their grain at less than he was supposed to, and pocket the difference. Not a pleasant fellow, our Ansel, but still a King’s Officer, when all is said and done.’

‘Of course.’

Alexander wondered when all the play-acting would stop and they would arrest him. Peter atte Moor had left the place a while ago, gone off to get some sleep after the last two nights he had spent up on the moors walking about his bailiwick, but the others were still here. Drogo and two Foresters were behind him and it would take only a moment for them to bind him. One thing he was sure of – if he were to run, Drogo would have him dead in a moment; he would want Alexander to be silenced for good. However, the Reeve wouldn’t give him that satisfaction, nor that relief.

Alexander’s thoughts were interrupted when he heard the first dog begin to howl again. He hesitated, listening, but the dog continued, and he frowned. Forgetting Drogo for a moment, he rose to his feet.

‘Where are you going?’ Sir Laurence demanded harshly.

From the corner of his eye, Alexander saw Drogo make a sharp gesture with his hand and Vincent Yunghe appeared before him, an apologetic grimace on his face.

‘I want to see what that dog is making such a noise over. The damned thing spent much of last night howling.’

‘Wait here awhile instead,’ Sir Laurence said silkily. ‘We are having such a fine talk. It would be a shame to pause in the middle. Come, pray return to your seat, my good Reeve.’

Alexander slumped back into the chair, chewing at his lip. Outside he was sure that a second dog had begun to howl. They must be Samson’s two in their kennels.

‘That’s right!’ Sir Laurence said heartily. It was always pleasant to show that beneath his velvet glove there still remained a main de fer, a hand of iron. This man was cowed already, as he should be, but many a beaten man in the past had tried to escape by using a minor distraction like a howling dog or two.

It was an unsettling noise, true. There was a mournful quality about it that was rather eerie. There was also more than a little fear in those two voices, if he could hear them aright. It was odd, he’d never heard dogs howling like that before.

No matter, though. He eyed the pale and anxious features of the Reeve before him and told himself with satisfaction that there was more fun to be had in here, taunting this fellow, than in going out to investigate a pair of poxy, yapping curs.