City of Fiends

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

Paffards’ House

Thomas felt a shrinking sensation as they all walked through the passage, out past the kitchen, where Joan was being fed warm broth by a solicitous Sal, and out to the yard behind.

‘Where was it?’ Baldwin asked gently.

Thomas stared at him. His tongue clove to the roof of his mouth, and he could say nothing. Instead he tried to cling still more tightly to his mother.

‘It’s all right,’ she said, but he knew it wasn’t. Nothing was right at all. Not since the day his dog had been killed, not since the day he saw his brother in the firelight. Not since his father said he had killed those ladies. Nothing ever could be right. He began to sob quietly.

There was a whistle, and Thomas peered out from the protection of his mother’s neck. He saw Wolf come out and sit by Baldwin, and Baldwin crouched, and spoke without looking at him.

‘A big dog like this will always protect the people he loves,’ he said. ‘And there is no one he loves more than small boys. Did you know that? It’s because they are more fun. They play, and they like to cuddle the dogs. You should come here, and let him guard you.’

Thomas gripped his mother more firmly.

‘A dog like this can make you feel all your troubles are leaving you,’ Baldwin said. He rose and moved away.

Thomas held on, but Wolf was looking about him in an interested manner. He sniffed idly at some grasses. When Thomas looked over at Baldwin, it was clear that the knight was expecting him to climb down and hug the dog again. It was tempting, but he couldn’t. Even as he watched, the dog was ambling towards the shed where he had hidden. He gave a little cry, and hid his face again.

‘Was it there?’ Baldwin asked, looking at the shed. ‘Was it there, Thomas?’

‘There’s nothing there but my ales,’ John said.

Thomas looked at John, and felt again that fear he had known all those years before when his dog had been killed. There was something in his eyes that terrified Thomas. He couldn’t speak.

Baldwin followed his dog towards the shed.

‘There’s nothing in there,’ John said again. ‘Come, I’ll show you.’ He walked to the door purposefully, unlocked it, and opened it with a flourish. ‘See, sir?’

Baldwin entered, and Thomas watched, shivering slightly. He wanted Sir Baldwin to see the body, but he daren’t show him, not himself. That would be awful. The skeleton underneath was terrifying, and John was even worse.

He saw Baldwin come out again, and the knight shook his head, smiling. ‘There’s nothing in there, Thomas. It’s perfectly safe.’

‘There’s nothing in there, master,’ John repeated as he closed the door and locked the padlock again. He looked straight at Thomas. ‘Nothing at all. You just had a nasty dream.’

The people with them began to move away. They all thought Thomas had been making up his story, that he had dreamed it all, just as John said. Thomas himself could not hold John’s gaze. Instead his eyes went to Wolf, who was sniffing at the side of the shed. The side where his plank had come down.

Baldwin was about to call Wolf away, but decided to inspect the side of the shed, where Wolf was sniffing with keen interest. ‘Simon? Could you come here a moment?’

Suddenly there was a flash of steel as John brought out a dagger from beneath his robe. It gleamed wickedly in the sun, and Baldwin had to move back with a muttered oath as it almost sliced his robe. Thomas saw him stumble, and then recover his poise and draw his sword, but before he could attack, Edgar had clubbed John over the head with the pommel of his own sword.

Paffards’ House

John was brought to with a bucket of water from the well thrown over his face. He came to spluttering, angry, and with his head aching badly, momentarily confused as to where he was, and why he was lying on a bench. He tried to sit up, but his hands were tied, and it was impossible to do so without help. Edgar was there, and he pulled on John’s arm to haul him upright with all the grace of a miller heaving a sack of grain.

‘You have much to explain,’ Baldwin said sternly.

The knight was before him, and John recognised the other two knights, Sir Richard and Sir Reginald, the city’s Coroner. Gregory and William were here too, staring at him with loathing. But it wasn’t to them that he looked.

‘I have done nothing but serve my mistress.’

‘You have done her a great disservice. You say that this was all at her instigation?’

‘No. I was acting without her.’

‘Then what do you tell us?’ Sir Richard demanded.

‘She was Evie – a maid. She was a strumpet, a right forward wench,’ John said. He was tired and his head hurt, but he wasn’t going to submit to these fools. ‘She was waggling her arse at the master, and my mistress was upset. So I removed her. I thought it would stop him – after the earlier one.’

‘What earlier one?’ Baldwin asked.

‘Clara. She was the first wench Master Paffard started to swyve in the house. Before that, he just made use of the bitches down at the stews. I know – I saw him there. I was with Agatha when she was little, and we were trying to walk past, but he was lustful and went to spend himself with one of those whores. In front of his daughter! She didn’t realise, I hope, but what if she were to tell her mother what she had seen? Eh? It was shameful! And the mistress must have known. She’s a very intelligent woman, my mistress.’

‘I am sure she is.’

‘So when he started to make his use of the maids here, I saw it must stop.’

‘You killed this Clara?’

‘No. She was lucky. I took things and made it seem that she had stolen them. I showed the things to my mistress, and she was happy to tell Master Henry. He wasn’t going to keep a thief in his house, so he threw her out the same day.’

‘But Evie was different?’

‘She wouldn’t have been so easy. She was a shrewd little vixen, that whore. She had Master Henry so tightly bound round her little finger, it’s a miracle her finger didn’t fall off. She had him paying for new clothes for her, for necklaces, and rings. And all at the time he was ignoring his own wife. The poor mistress was forced to watch all this. And when she complained, did he listen to his rightful wife? No. He beat her with a belt. She was in her bed for days, and the only one allowed in to see her was Evie. She took up the food and drink. That was cruel of the master. I swore then that I’d never let my mistress be so foully treated again.’

‘So you killed this Evie?’

‘I didn’t want to. She found me when I was putting things in her room, same as I had with Clara. Said she was going to tell Master Henry, and that I’d be forced out of the house. And then she began to bait me about it: she jeered at me, saying she’d get a better man for my mistress, a man who was more virile than me. Said I’d always wanted to lie with my mistress, and that was why I was so pathetic. Sir, I couldn’t tell you half what she said.’

‘And you couldn’t bear her words?’

‘How could I? Saying I would lie with Mistress Claricia? That would be like bedding my own daughter. I have looked after her since her birth, all the time while her mother died, and her father, and then her sister. I helped her through all that, and when she married, I helped her again. And ever since, I’ve been here.’

‘So you killed for her. How did you bring Evie to this grave?’ Baldwin asked.

‘I killed her in her room, and when all were busy in the shop or out, I took her body down to the pantry and wrapped her in a sack, then carried her out to my shed. It took no time at all to lift some planks and install her beneath. And I would have been clear, except a dog came into the yard and started trying to get to her. That and the rats.’

‘What of the smell?’ Baldwin asked.

‘It was winter. The chill kept that away. The privy was nearby, and that smell covered the other.’

Baldwin nodded. ‘And then you began to suspect that Alice was behaving in the same way?’

‘She was worse. She didn’t want little trinkets, she wanted a house of her own. And Master Henry was going to buy one for her! All that money on a house? He used to have a chest of money behind the wall in the hall, but he took it and used it all to buy a place in Stepecoat Lane, which was to be hers.’

‘What happened to it?’

‘It is still his, I think. You should ask him.’

Sir Richard and Baldwin exchanged a look. Baldwin continued, ‘How did you manage to kill Alice?’

‘She was a fool. That day she flaunted herself at the master again. He went with his family to the inn to have a meal, and she persuaded him to come back and lie with her while the others were eating. He did, too. He came back under pretence of forgetting his rosary. He and she were loud, very loud. And I became more and more angry the longer they went on. He didn’t care what anyone thought; he didn’t care if it broke his wife’s heart. He didn’t care what I must think either, hearing him whoring away, when he knew I adored my mistress. No! So I sent her out into the yard to take a message to the apprentices, and followed her and killed her. It was easy, so she didn’t suffer. Later, I took her body out into the alley and left her there. She had company.’ He laughed. ‘There was a dead cat.’

‘What of Juliana?’ Baldwin said.

‘She went to the master and threatened to tell about his family’s affairs.’ John’s eyes went to Claricia, and then to Gregory.

‘What of it?’

‘How do you think my mistress would feel to know that everyone was pointing at her behind her back and laughing at her? All her friends, her neighbours, all the people about her here, knowing that she was being made a fool of and could do nothing about it?’

‘How will they all feel to think that she held a murderer as a bottler in her household?’ Sir Richard said.

‘Why did you cut away Juliana’s lips?’ Baldwin asked.

‘She was going to talk about my mistress all around the city. I wanted to show that people couldn’t get away with that sort of behaviour. So I showed them. All of them.’

‘And you stabbed her eyes.’

‘Because she had seen . . . She said she had seen things.’

‘You admit to slaying three women. And you killed Philip Marsille tonight as well,’ Baldwin observed.

‘I would do it again, gladly, for my mistress. You think it is easy to watch the child you have raised being insulted in that way?’

William pushed his way past a surprised Sir Richard. Baldwin reached for him, but William did not try to advance further to hurt John. He stood staring down at him.

‘When you have the opportunity to consider,’ he said quietly, ‘you can reflect on how you destroyed my life, and my brother’s, and my mother’s, just to satisfy your notions of “loyalty”. You can never repay me the harm you have done. I will go to your trial and I will accuse you, and when you hang, I will stand with the executioner to make sure no one goes to ease your suffering. You will take a long time to die.’

John looked up without expression. This cur had no idea what suffering was, he thought, and he shrugged and turned away.

But then he heard a rustle of skirts, and saw that Claricia was at William’s side.

‘Master Marsille,’ she said quietly, ‘if this house has been bought in Stepecoat Lane, I hope you will accept it as a gift from me, in proof of my good intentions towards you.’

She then faced John. ‘As for you, I reject you utterly. You must have been infected with a demon to have thought that I could ever support you in this. To kill those girls, those women! It leaves me with a feeling of utter horror that I have shared a house with you.’

‘Mistress . . .’

‘I do not know you. You are nothing to me.’

‘Mistress, please!’

‘Gregory, Agatha, come with me and-’

‘Mistress, you must not desert me!’ John called. He roared now. ‘Mistress Claricia, if you don’t want the worst secret loosed, you will not leave me!’

‘There is nothing else you can say that can harm us more,’ Claricia said.

‘You think so?’ John said. ‘Ask your son, then, and your daughter, mistress! See what they think. See Agatha’s face? How she blushes? Like an innocent maid, not at all like a wench who knows the pleasures of a condemned lust, is she? And your son! Look how he pales!’

‘What are you saying, churl?’ Gregory managed. He stepped forward threateningly, his hand on his dagger.

‘You’d kill a man bound, would you? How brave! But I am speaking the truth, as you know, Master Gregory. Beware! If you attack me, it’ll be on your soul.’

‘It would weigh on my soul as much as slaughtering a rabid dog,’ Gregory said. ‘You are nothing. I will not defile my hands with your blood.’

He turned and marched away, his mother and sister following.

‘Enjoy your bed, then! Enjoy your unnatural lusts!’ John bawled after them. He collapsed back on the bench, his head pounding, the rage still making his blood boil. He couldn’t believe that they would dare to desert him. He had given the family everything, the utmost loyalty, the devotion of a slave. And in return they would willingly see him hanged.

Well, if he was to hang, he would see that they suffered too. He stared after them as they disappeared into the house.

‘I want to see a priest,’ he demanded. ‘I will confess all you want, if you let me see a priest and make my confession on the Gospels.’

Claricia was still carrying Thomas as she entered her house. She stumbled slightly over the paving slabs on the way in, but it did not stop her in her dazed journey.

‘Mother,’ Gregory called, but she gave no indication that she had heard.

Claricia’s world had collapsed about her. Her son and daughter were guilty of incest – a crime against God as much as men. She could not take it all in. Her husband’s treason, his betrayal of her and the family, his plotting with the murderer Sir Charles, and now his death . . . the attempted murder of her two sons . . . There was no sanity in the world.

‘Mother?’ Gregory called again.

‘I do not know you,’ she whispered, cradling Thomas’s head at her shoulder.

Gregory glowered. ‘You don’t believe him, do you? The old fool doesn’t know anything – he made that claim to upset you, that’s all. I’ve never done that with Agatha, Mother!’

She should have guessed. When she had seen those secret looks between her two older children, she should have sensed that there was something going on between them. It was obvious now, but before, when she was always so fearful of being punished by Henry for the slightest offence, she had not had time to worry about Gregory and Agatha. Incest! It was a terrible word. All would get to hear of it and they would shun her, and Thomas as well as the others. The family faced financial ruin already. This would push them into abject poverty.

At the door to the hall, she turned and faced her eldest son. Her face was drawn into a rictus of pain and grief.

‘Leave me!’