The Malice of Unnatural Death

Prologue

Friday before the Feast of the Holy Cross in the seventeenth year of the reign of King Edward II¹

Coventry

At the root of that murder there was no jealousy or hatred. If anything, it was murder in the interest of science. A new weaponmust be shown to be effective before it can be used with confidence. That was why Sir Richard de Sowe died: to prove thatthey could kill him.

In choosing him, the necromancer had selected a local man whose health it would be easy to ascertain. Sir Richard was a secularknight in the pay of the king, but he had not harmed John of Nottingham. No, his death was due to his proximity.

Not that Robert le Mareschal cared about that. No, as he stood in the dark room, the seven little figures illuminated by theflickering flames of the cheap tallow candles all about them, he didn’t even think about the man whose death they were planning. He felt only the thrill of the journey: the journey of knowledge.

It had always gripped him. There was nothing like learning for firing his blood. He had early heard about the use of demons andspirits to achieve enlightenment, and that was why he was here now, to learn how to conjure them, and have them do his bidding.

The room was warm, with the charcoal brazier glowing brightly in the corner, but for all that, he suddenly felt a chill.

It was as he was holding the figure of de Sowe that it happened. He was thrilled with the experiment and aware of little else,but as his master told him to take the lead pin there was a sudden icy chill in the room. It almost made him drop the doll,but fortunately he didn’t. John was a daunting man, tall, thin, with cadaverous cheeks and glittering small eyes that lookedquite malevolent in the candlelight, and Robert had no wish to appear incompetent in front of him.

‘Thrust it into his head,’ John said in that quiet, hissing voice of his.

Robert le Mareschal held the pin in his hand and stared at the figure. Glancing at John, for the first time he realised whathe was about to do: kill a man. Until that moment his thoughts had been on the power of magic, but now he was faced with thetruth. The pin was a three-inch length of soft lead. No danger to anyone, that. Press it against a man’s breast and the leadwould deform and bend.

‘I showed you what to do. Warm it in the candle, then thrust it into his head.’

The necromancer was wearing a simple black tunic with the hood thrown back, and Robert could see the lines about his neck. In this light, his ancient flesh was like that of a plucked chicken, and Robert felt repelled. But the penetrating eyes were fixed upon him, and the gash of his mouth above his beard was uncompromising.

Robert warmed the pin and then, as quickly as he could, he pressed it into the head of the wax model.

When he had been young and attempted something dangerous for the first time, Robert had found that his heart began poundingand his throat seemed to contract; then, as soon as the trial was over, he returned to his usual humour.

Not tonight. It was after midnight when he pushed that cursed pin into the model’s head, and the moment he did so the horrorof what he was doing struck home. His heart felt as if it would burst from his breast, and he shivered and almost fell.

John of Nottingham took the doll from him and observed it, smiling to himself, holding it gently in both hands almost as afather might study his first son. ‘Now, now: you mustn’t drop it, Robert. You could hurt him!’

Exeter Castle

Jen finished her work with a feeling of anxiety lest she might have failed in her duties, but when she was done beating thebed’s pillows into submission, ensuring that they were plumped nicely, and making them as soft and appealing as she knew how,and had almost finished tying back the beautiful, woven drapery about the bed, she heard the door open, and gaily called,‘Nearly done, Sarra. Leave me a moment, and I’ll be out.’

‘I am glad to hear it.’

Spinning, her mouth agape, Jen saw that the woman there in the doorway was not her friend Sarra, but the lady of the house.‘Oh! Oh, my lady, I am sorry, I …’

‘Do not have eyes in the back of your head. I know that.’

Madam Alice looked at her with that emptiness in her eyes that Jen had already come to recognise. In her opinion, a servant waslittle better than a beetle. Jen curtsied, then hurriedly made her way from the room, all the while under the woman’s silentgaze. She felt she was some unappealing, if necessary, feature of the woman’s household.

‘I didn’t see her coming, Jen; I couldn’t warn you,’ Sarra said in a whisper as Jen closed the door behind her. ‘Are you allright?’

‘Of course I am — what do you think?’

‘No need to snap! I was only making sure that you weren’t upset by her turning up like that.’

Jen looked at her. ‘I don’t know why you all get so upset by her. She’s the lady of the house, but she seems perfectly allright to me. She’s just a bit too self-absorbed, that’s all. She isn’t airy-fairy like some, but that’s no bad thing.’

‘She doesn’t talk to us at all.’

‘She’s spoken to me. She did just then.’

‘What did she say? She always ignores me,’ Sarra said.

‘Nothing. Just that she didn’t expect me to know it was her. She was fine. I don’t know what you’re so worried about.’

‘Wait till you’ve been here a bit longer, then you’ll understand.’

‘Perhaps I will,’ Jen agreed, but she couldn’t see why. The mistress was not friendly, but no one expected a great lady tobe friendly, not really. Better to be ignored for most of the day, because while you were ignored you weren’t looked uponas a pest. The servants who lasted were the ones who could seemingly move among the family of the house without disturbingthem. Jen intended being the best of all the servants here.

‘Sarra! Sarra, come here. Now, you stupid draggle-tail!’

‘Oh, saints preserve me! Coming, Steward,’ Sarra called. With a sidelong glance at her friend, she hurried into the hall.

Jen continued on her way. She was new to this place, whereas Sarra had been here for at least a year already. But the girlwho had helped Sarra had suddenly fallen prey to a disease, and wilted away in a matter of days until she could no longerdo her work. She’d been sent home to rest, and in the meantime another girl had to be found. Sarra had recommended her friend Jen, and after a brief interview with the cold-eyed steward of the household, she had been employed.

That was two days ago, and now she was here, living in unfamiliar surroundings with all these new people. It was enough tomake any girl of only seventeen years anxious, especially as she was determined to please her new master and mistress.

‘Jen, come and help me,’ Sarra called, and as Jen walked to help collect up cups and dishes from the table, she almost bumpedinto her new master. She looked up at him for the first time, and as she met his laughing dark eyes she felt a curious stirringin her heart. It was only with an effort that she managed to pull her eyes away from him, and hurry to help Sarra at the table.

Coventry

Robert le Mareschal slept fitfully. When they had put away the dolls and packed up the potions carefully, he had waited untilhis master had returned to his chamber before falling on his own cot. He was exhausted, the weariness more than the mere tirednessof muscles or eyes that he was accustomed to. No, this was something much deeper. It was almost as though all the energy in his body had been sucked fromhim.

As the night wore on, he found himself waking regularly, each time drenched in sweat and fearful, as though he had just hada nightmare. And yet if a mare did visit him, it left no memory of his dreaming. In the morning he felt drained, and yet inhis mind he was perfectly clear about his actions and the potential results. If the dolls worked, there would be an end toa dreadful tyranny, and that was surely better than leaving matters as they were.

John of Nottingham had explained that the religious teaching about the devil and his demons was based on a lack of understandingand the Church’s own bigoted animosity towards any kind of learning that was not founded in their own limited understandings. For his part, John asserted that he was as Christian as any man in Coventry. ‘Look to the world outside the church, Robert,and you find that there are more truths in this world than priests could ever comprehend.’

However, in the morning, as Robert walked the last few steps to Richard de Sowe’s house, his courage began to fail him. Fromthe street outside he could hear the hoarse screams from the shuttered window.

Robert tried to boost his quailing spirit by reminding himself that there was a splendid irony about de Sowe’s fate. Johnof Nottingham had a dry, acerbic wit, and Robert attempted to emulate it now. He reminded himself that throughout his lifethis man Richard de Sowe had been content to take what he could at every opportunity, willingly using force to steal fromthose weaker or poorer than he. So now the irony was, that his life was being ripped from him without the motivation even of theft. There was no revenge in this — nothing. The assassination of Richard de Sowe was nothing more than an experiment. If John and Robert achieved his death, it wouldbe the proof of the process and other victims could be worked upon.

But this first, slow death was hideous. Even as he listened to the demented screaming from the solar, he felt appalled to think of what he had achieved.

‘Please, in God’s name, help us!’ a servant blurted, and Robert jumped. ‘Are you all right, Master Robert?’

‘I am fine! Don’t interrupt my considerations!’ Robert snapped, and saw the man’s eyes drop as though cowed; but even as le Mareschal turned away, the thick black gown swirling about his feet, his cloak flapping, he was sure that he could feel theman’s eyes on him weighted with loathing, as though he knew what Robert had done. It made his heart shrivel. The penalty wouldbe fierce if he was discovered.

At first it had been the thought of what he might learn from his master that had prompted him. To take up a position witha necromancer was daunting only for a man who was not determined to learn all he might. For a man like Robert le Mareschal,the fact that Master John plainly knew much about succeeding through his use of magic was enough to lure him. With the knowledgehe would glean here, he would be able to follow his own ambition. Only after that came the desire for money.

Fifteen pounds! That was Robert’s payment, all in silver, simply for helping his master as he may. At the time it had seemedan enormous amount of money, and all of it just to help him to learn his master’s arts. The men were paying John of Nottinghamto assassinate some other men, that was all. Many of the foul churls from about the priory here at Coventry, those who scraped a living by their skills at begging from the doorman, would have accepted far less to overtakethe knight and slip a knife between his ribs, but that was not the point. Any man might kill another in a brash and bloodthirstymanner: the art here was to do so without anyone’s realising. To kill a man without touching him; to kill him while murderer and victim remained miles apart — thereinlay the skill.

The payment had been made in part, along with the seven pounds of wax and two ells of cloth, and soon afterwards Master Johnbegan instructing Robert in how to form the bodies. One was larger than the others, and wore a small crown encircling hishead. A second was shorter, a more corpulent fellow; the third taller, more slender, with a hawkish, cruel set to his features;another squat and fat … seven in all. Each wonderfully, if simply, fashioned to indicate whom they represented …

There was a lengthy shriek from the solar, and Robert crossed himself. The man was enduring the torments of the devil in there.

‘Come with me! You have to help us! He doesn’t recognise any of us — no one! Please!’ Robert recognised the shouting figure: Henry, Richard de Sowe’s steward, a short, thickset man with an almost bald head and gaunt, anxious features. Henry grabbed Robert’s arm and all but dragged him indoors, turning into the little hall, and striding through it to the stairway beyond. He mounted the stairs two at a time, gripping the rope to heave himself upwards, all the while clutching Robert’s sleeve,while the apprentice panted reluctantly behind him, and then they came into the room.

It was a spare chamber lit by clusters of guttering candles and a large charcoal brazier. Over the burning tallow Robert could smell the sourness of urine: the knight had lost all bodily control. The windows were fastened and shuttered to keepunhealthy odours from the sick man, but within the place there was an overwhelming, unpleasant stench. Robert had smelledenough dead and rotting flesh to recognise the foulness of decay.

When he had discussed the commission with Master John, it had seemed almost a game. The idea of killing a man from half amile distant had seemed — well, almost laughable. It was ridiculous. Even when they had taken the down payment, Robert feltmore like a mischievous student than the accomplice to a murder. Now he was being confronted with the fruits of his labours.

Steeling his heart, he took two paces into the room.

Sir Richard was straining, every muscle taut, as though the bed was drenched in a burning acid. He was a man in agony, boundto the posts of his bed with thongs, and gripped by four of his strongest servants, who tried to prevent his thrashing toovigorously and hurting himself still more. They gazed at Robert pleadingly, hoping that he might procure a swift release from Sir Richard’s anguish. Which indeed he would.

‘How is he?’ Robert asked now, and Henry looked at him as though he was mad.

Sir Richard de Sowe’s teeth were bared. Every sinew showed, from his neck to his skinny calves, and his red-rimmed eyes dartedfrom one to another of his retainers like a torture victim surveying his tormentors. There was blood at his mouth, at hiswrists, at his ankles. It had sprayed from his lips to spatter the breast of his stained linen shirt. With every jerk andtwitch of his body came a relentless moaning, like a dog’s whining anguish when its back was broken. Richard de Sowe knew, in that small space where rational thought still survived, that he was dying. Yet when his servantsglanced at him, he flinched as though not recognising any of them.

Robert recoiled as Sir Richard’s gaze flicked towards him. ‘My Christ!’

With the shutters firmly closed, the only light came from the tallow candles, but their fumes were those of animal pyres. It made the chamber a charnel house.

‘He was fine yesterday,’ the man who held Richard de Sowe’s head mumbled. ‘What could do this to him?’

‘Perhaps his humours are disturbed,’ Robert blurted. ‘Let me go to … I can ask Master John of Nottingham. He will know…’

Henry released Robert’s sleeve, as though recognising at last that the fellow before him was as unable to help his masteras he himself. He held Robert’s eyes for a long moment, before a gasp and shriek from the bed drew his attention once more.‘You ask him. Me, I’d think it more likely that only the devil himself could answer for this.’

Tavistock Abbey

As soon as he heard of the death, John de Courtenay knew that at last he would receive the reward he had craved. There wasno sorrow, no sadness at the ending of a life which had been so full of generosity and goodness, only a boundless relief. At last that God-bothering, cretinous obstacle to his advancement had been withdrawn.

For the rest of his life he would recall this moment: where he sat, how he felt, what the weather was like. Abbot Robert Champeauxwas dead!

He was in his chamber, feeling the somnolence that came from a well-filled belly and a seat positioned comfortably close to the fire, while in his mind he contemplated the days tocome. There was the promise of good hunting. Since the abbot had been warned to keep his hounds away from the king’s deer,he had enforced a strict code of abstinence among his brethren, but not even a forceful nature such as old Abbot Champeaux’scould effectively command obedience while he was confined to his own bedchamber. While he had been laid up with this lastillness, his face grey-green in the thin light from his window, shaking like a man with the ague, it was clear that he couldnot enforce his rules.

Some had been fearful, and had thought that the abbot might recover at any time. They had drawn up terrifying pictures ofhim in their minds, a grim-faced old man leaning on a heavy staff as he always had, with great white eyebrows that scowledso a man might be frozen from thirty paces. Many a newly tonsured brother had cause to dread his chastisement; they had allexperienced the rough edge of his tongue when they had fallen short of his high expectation. The abbot was a strong-willedman, and punished any transgression that might affect his monastery with ruthless determination.

John de Courtenay had held no such terror of Abbot Robert. The man was, when all was said and done, only a monk; while he, John de Courtenay, was the son of Baron Hugh of Okehampton and Tiverton. Yes, he owed the abbot his obedience and respect,but that was all.

And with any fortune, the election for the next abbot would be uncontested. Who could hope to stand in the path of the sonof Baron Hugh de Courtenay?

Evesham Abbey

And in the guest room of the great abbey devoted to St Ecgwine, the man who slept on the floor as far from the door as possibleturned over and was still, listening raptly to the heavy breathing and snoring of the others in the room. He closed his eyes,his breast rising and falling gently, but even as he teetered on the brink of sleep his fist remained clenched firmly aboutthe dagger’s hilt.

There were too many men who wanted him dead for him to dare to give himself up entirely to the sleep he so desperately craved.

It was the problem he had been trying to avoid, but he couldn’t any longer. The abbot here knew his secret and wouldn’t betrayhim, but unless he was prepared to take the tonsure he could not stay. And he was not going to become a celibate.

There was only one place in the country where he could be safe. Perhaps he ought to go there …

To Exeter.