The Tolls of Death

Chapter Twenty-Three

Inside the alehouse it was dark and gloomy. Richer entered with his chin high and his hand near his sword’s hilt, stopping at the doorway to the screens passage, staring about him.

This early in the evening, only a few men stood with pots in their fists. One, Angot, was merrily drunk, sitting on the floor near the bar and humming a tune, occasionally breaking into a bawdy song when he could remember the lyrics, and then laughing uproariously.

Two men were strangers and watched Richer with unconcealed surprise as others glanced his way, and then swiftly averted their gaze, suddenly finding the ale in the bottom of their cups a source of fascination.

Susan went to see him, hissing angrily, ‘Richer, what’re you doing here? By my mother’s soul, I thought you’d have more sense, man! Go back to the castle before Alexander hears that you’re here! Quickly: go!’

‘I am going nowhere. I didn’t kill Serlo, and I won’t skulk in the castle like a felon seeking sanctuary. Fetch me ale, Sue. Wine for my master here.’

‘Why, so you can be hanged from my lintel?’ she countered. ‘Get back to the castle until they find out who did kill Serlo.’

‘And if they don’t, what then? Shall I remain there for ever? If I hide away, people will think that proof of my guilt.’

‘Can’t you talk sense to him?’ she demanded, turning to Warin in frustration. ‘He’s your servant, isn’t he? You have a duty to protect him, in Christ’s name!’

‘I’ll have wine; he’ll have ale. We’ll be at the table there,’ Warin declared, pointing to a table at the far wall.

Richer nodded. It was well-chosen. There was no window behind. Both men could command a view of the entrance, with no risk of an assassin behind them. On the other hand, there was no means of escape, either. He slapped his hand on his hilt and marched to the table. Grabbing a bench, he kicked it against the wall and dropped down on it.

There was a curious feel to this, as though he had been in this situation before, and then it came to him. Many years ago in Wales, he was a part of the garrison of the King’s new castle at Ruddlan. The country had only recently been pacified, and the men living there detested the English with a passion. For Richer back then, in 1312, it was hard to imagine that the peasants could rise against their lawful King, Edward II, but they did. And Richer and a friend were caught up in it.

He and his friend had entered an alehouse like this, and just like this one, the atmosphere had chilled as they walked in, all conversations stopping. Yesterday the place had gone quiet because Serlo was in the corner; now it was quiet with fear. The folk knew that Richer was a fighter and dangerous, but they also knew that Alexander wanted to capture him and take him to the nearest tree to hang.

In Wales there had been rumours that one of the castle’s garrison had raped a local girl, and the vill’s men had gathered angrily, waving weapons and shouting for revenge against the ‘invaders’. As if Richer and his companion (he couldn’t recall his name; it was so long ago now) were invading! They were subjects of the same King.

The mob had appeared at the tavern before Richer knew what was happening. There had been a window behind them both, and as soon as they saw the men pouring through the doorway, his friend pushed him to the window and helped him up and through. Richer had drawn his sword the moment he was out, but even as he turned to help his friend, he saw the blood splash against the wall. The other man turned once, his eyes desperate, and bellowed to him to run and escape, and then he was borne down by the press of bodies.

Later he saw the body. It had been left dangling, naked, moving gently in the breeze, a bloody mess where his genitals had been. They had been hacked off and shoved into his mouth where they remained, protruding obscenely. The swollen face and bulging eyes seemed to look at Richer accusingly. He still saw that face in his nightmares.

This alehouse had the same feel. There was anger in the air, a tension like an over-filled bladder, that needed only a sharp blade to release it in death and fury. Richer knew that he was that blade. Unless he was careful, he might precipitate a disaster.

Warin sat next to him on the bench. ‘And now, old friend, we wait,’ he murmured.

Letty was much recovered now. At least, she thought she was. Letitia knew she was fortunate enough to have the constitution of a man, and a stronger man than most who lived here in the vill, but even so, the shock of seeing that terrible wreckage lying among the cogs had almost given her a brain fever. She had needed to return home and rest. Awful, too, considering how Alexander had needed her. Poor Alex! He’d seen Serlo lying there. If only she had controlled herself better, rather than screaming and bolting like a pathetic child.

That was how Alex learned of Serlo’s death: she’d collapsed at her door and Alex had taken her in and seen to her before going to the mill. Unlike most men, who would have left their wives and run, Alex was organised. He first sent a man up to the castle, then called on two women to come to the house. Their maid had also helped, and before too long Letty was back in her bed, Jan applying a damp cloth to her forehead. And only then had Alex gone to see his brother.

Aumery had been lying near the fire overnight, and exhaustion had prevented his waking this morning, but he was truly awake now, and like any little boy who had witnessed a dreadful event, he wept and started to cry for his mother. Letty was forced to rise from her palliasse and catch him, taking him back to bed with her.

Then Alex returned, blanched and shaking; he looked like an old man. To see a brother crushed so brutally was a truly hideous experience. Stoically, Alex tried to conceal his feelings. He was never one to wear his pain on his sleeve. A man brought up apart from others, motherless, beaten and shamed by their father in poverty, he had only ever known self-reliance. All his love had been devoted to his brother — until he married Letty. She felt guilty that he must look after her, but she was also glad; he could concentrate on her and save his own grief for later.

She rolled over when she had managed to comfort Aumery enough to leave him alone, and saw her man at the doorway. ‘Alex? Are you all right? Come and let me hold you.’

‘I am all right.’ He didn’t turn to her, but remained staring out at the roadway.

‘I am so sorry!’

‘I know you never liked him — many didn’t. He was always an aggressive fool: a bully, and in many ways a coward. Perhaps it was my fault. I used to spoil him when he was a child. I’d take the blame for his faults and take his punishment too, just to protect him. If I’d let him stand on his own, perhaps he’d have learned to win friends.’

‘You did all you could,’ Letitia said, shivering. She pulled a rug over her nakedness and stood. Tucking Aumery in, she exhorted him to close his eyes.

Alex continued, ‘It was never enough though. And then when we grew, and I started to make a decent fist of my life, he still wanted to be molly-coddled and swathed in my love. Whatever I did, he thought was good, but he couldn’t copy me. Running the mill was the limit of his abilities. When he tried to make his own way, he failed.’

‘In what way?’ she asked. She had walked to his side and now she wrapped her rug around him as well, enclosing him in her own warmth.

‘Look at the matter of the tolls. How stupid, taking gifts to let people use the bridge when the castellan and steward must have seen what was happening. Soon they must have taken action against him for that. It was too flagrant. And it defrauded us, too! His own family!’

‘I am only surprised that they hadn’t already taken action against him,’ she agreed, tight-lipped. No matter how hard she tried to think kind thoughts about Serlo, when all was said and done, he was an aggressive idiot, just as Alex said.

‘And as for his talk about Athelina … I could have hit him for what he said about her.’

Alex remained silent for a long moment. In the circle of her arms, Letty could feel his heart thundering like a destrier’s after a race, and then she felt the catch as he sobbed.

‘And then he made more enemies …’

‘It’s all right, Alex. Alex, my love, come!’ she crooned. If only they had been able to have their own children, she thought as she turned him gently and rested his head on her shoulder. She let her cheek touch his and smiled. At least he was letting the anguish out. That was bound to be good for him. He couldn’t stop up all his feelings all the time. Now that fool of a brother of his was dead, perhaps Alex would be able to find some rest. The last link with his miserable childhood was gone. ‘It doesn’t matter now,’ she murmured.

‘No. All that matters is, Serlo’s dead. That’s all that matters,’ he said dully.

There was a loud sobbing from the bed, but neither moved. Poor Aumery would have to grow used to his loss, just as would Alexander himself. Both had lost their brothers.

She saw a figure approach and shook her head at the man, but even as she did so, Alex felt her movement and turned to face the door. There, shame-faced, was Wal from the farm near Holy Well. He shuffled a little under Alexander’s fixed stare.

‘Constable? Sorry to hear about Serlo. Some of us, we reckon it’s terrible what that bastard’s done.’

‘Thank you. He’ll pay.’

‘He’s at the alehouse now. We’ll help you, if you want.’

‘He’s come here? He’s flaunting himself in my vill?’ Alexander demanded, aghast.

Letitia clung to him. ‘Alex, don’t do anything — the Coroner and his friend will arrest him and see that he’s punished. Don’t go there, it’ll only end in you being hurt!’

‘Me? Hurt?’ Alexander gave a hollow laugh. ‘I have no children, no brother, no hope. All I have created will die with me.’

‘There’s me, Alex, and there’s still time! If we pray, He may send us a child to-’

Alex made a small gesture of dismissal. ‘We shall never have children, my love. And justice must be done. It was that son of a hog who killed my brother,’ Alexander said. ‘And now he will pay!’

Sniffing, Aumery watched as his uncle left. His father had spoken about the lady at the castle, as if the secret was important. ‘If he learned that another man knew his wife,’ his father had said, ‘it would be terrible.’ Aumery was not to speak about it, or his father would kill him. Now his father was dead.

He sobbed again. The rock of his life was gone, as well as his baby brother. He felt very lonely. He wanted his mother to come home and cuddle him. It was a relief when he felt Letitia’s arms go about him. ‘It’s all right, Aumie. Auntie’s here. Don’t worry. Poor Aumie. Soon I’ll take you to your mother, all right?’

Yes. That was what he wanted. Then he thought: his father was dead now, so he was master of the house. He was responsible for his mother, and he must protect her. He was big enough. He was nearly four years old.

Daddy was dead. So was Ham. He sobbed again and hid his face in his aunt’s rug.

‘There is no sign of Squire Warin or the man Richer anywhere,’ Baldwin said. ‘Have you sent them on an errand?’

Nicholas eyed him distractedly. ‘No. They may have gone out for some exercise.’

‘No,’ Simon said bluntly. ‘We’ve asked the grooms. All the mounts are there.’

They had gone to ask Ivo — against Baldwin’s better judgement — but all they had learned was that Warin and Richer had left the castle on foot. Sir Jules volunteered to seek them, and Simon and Baldwin gladly accepted his offer. Both were finding the Coroner’s company tedious. Baldwin, watching him leave with Roger, had a fleeting sense of compassion for the clerk, along with gratitude that it was not his task to look after the Coroner — and gladness that someone else was there to protect the young man from his blunderings.

‘I am concerned that Richer in particular might be in danger,’ Baldwin said. ‘He was known to dislike Serlo; if the Constable should take it into his mind to challenge him, or worse, attack him, there could be bloodshed.’

‘True,’ Nicholas said heavily. Since the death of Athelina, he had been prey to appalling doubts, and he was aware that his attitude must seem peculiar to these men. How could they understand!

‘Are you quite well?’ Baldwin asked.

Nicholas looked at him sadly. ‘I would see the boy safe, if at all possible,’ he said.

‘Boy?’ Baldwin asked, confused.

‘Richer atte Brooke.’

‘We shall protect him if we can,’ Baldwin said, but then he took a second look at Nicholas’s face. ‘But if you know something which may help us, you should tell us now. You do know something, don’t you? Tell us, please!’

Yes, I should. But how can I tell you the truth without earning your condemnation? Nicholas thought to himself. He rose from his chair, went to the door and called to a servant. ‘If anyone wants me, tell them they’ll have to wait,’ he ordered. ‘I want no one to come in here until I say so.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Go!’

Nicholas returned to his table and poured himself a mazer of wine. Standing with it in his hands, he began to speak, not once glancing at the other two men.

‘When I was a lad, I was a cause of shame and embarrassment to my father,’ he said at last. ‘He was a cobbler, a simple but cheerful soul who wanted me to follow him. I hated the thought of being apprenticed; instead I set my heart on higher things. So when the King’s Sergeant came asking for men to join his Host, I volunteered.

‘I’d always been a hearty lad, full of piss and wind, and when there was ale flowing, I was there, mouth agape to drink it. After taking my fill, more often than not, I’d get into a fight. Many’s the time I’ve been knocked sideways by someone bigger than me,’ he said nostalgically, ‘but I usually got my own back on the bastards.

‘Anyway, I left my home and went with the King. I fought well in his service, and I made my way through his forces. Lord Henry was my master, and as he grew from squire to become a belted knight, I grew with him.’

Baldwin nodded. ‘It is the way with warriors.’

‘Yes. Still more so when they have been involved in evil.’

‘What do you mean?’ Baldwin asked sharply.

‘When we were sent to subdue the Welsh, we had a hard time of it. They captured the King’s baggage train, and we spent a miserable few weeks in Conwy waiting for ships to come with food and drink. God bless the old bastard’s memory! The King was always a warrior first and politician second: he knew what it was to fight. When his supplies of wine were down to the last gallon, he insisted that it be shared among the men with him. While we waited, we were forced to go and seek provisions. We had to take whatever we could, before the enemy could starve us. You are a knight, you know what war is like!’

As he turned to look at Baldwin, he saw the cold expression on the other’s face. Baldwin looked like a man who had been turned to stone.

‘Yes, I have seen war,’ he replied, ‘yet I never robbed the poor unnecessarily. We always took what we needed at that moment, and left enough for them to survive.’

‘Enough? What is enough for a peasant?’ Nicholas cried. He flung an arm towards the south. ‘Look at them! They have a hard time feeding themselves when the weather’s good, let alone when it’s foul. There’s never enough to fill their bellies. They survive when they’re fortunate, but more often they starve. What we did was wrong, perhaps, but we were at war.’

‘You robbed them and left them nothing, then?’ Baldwin asked.

‘We took what we needed.’ He remembered the flames. When he closed his eyes, he could see them lighting his inner lids with amber vigour. The horror was still foul even after so many years.

‘We were told to fetch food from a vill a few miles from the castle. It should have been an easy job, but the land wasn’t safe. You know how these things go: occasionally sling shots, some arrows. A companion of mine suddenly fell, an arrow in his throat. That kind of thing wears you down, and I never had a good temper. I was in charge of the chevauchée because I was the more senior man there, and I grew more and more bitter and vengeful. The people were spiteful. Rebellious to the last, damn them all!’

He paused for a moment, remembering. ‘We rode into the vill and as we entered, I saw some men with …’

Weapons. That was what he’d thought. They looked like the long bows which had been plaguing them all day, and he’d felt his bile rise to see these peasants flaunting their treachery. What could a man do? He ordered the charge, and spurred his horse on in a moment.

It was like a dream, or so it felt now; a slow-moving dream in which he wallowed onwards through treacle, his mace in his hand. The men turned and saw him, their faces blank in terror, and then one dropped his weapon and darted away, ducking under the lintel of a nearby cottage; a second slowly stepped backwards, appalled; the third stayed put, no fear on his face, only bovine resignation. And then the scenes came with a vividness that still woke Nicholas in his dreams.

The nearer man was felled by the iron mace, his skull so completely crushed that the spikes caught, and when Nicholas twisted it free, it pulled great slobbery lumps of brain with it. Blood dripped on his arm as he rode at the second man. He was still there, a look of pleading in eyes filled with tears. Nicholas saw his hands come up as though in supplication, but Nicholas knew no compassion. The mace swung, and the spikes raked down his cheek, puncturing his eyeball, which turned to a bloody mess in an instant. A second swing and his face dissolved: the steel hit his nose squarely, smashing his features.

His bloodlust was still with him. He threw himself from his horse and pelted into the cottage. There was a naked woman with a rug over her breast, but he thrust her aside and he stood, breathing like a horse after a gallop, until he heard the sobbing.

Pulling away a curtain, he found the two children hiding in a recess in the wall. They stared at him, eyes wild like dogs with the rage, the drooling disease that made men fear water even when they were dying of thirst.

He reached in, hooking out the first, slamming the figure to the floor with a blow from his mace, then grabbed the other, lifting the mace high over his head to kill, when the bare woman grabbed his arm.

Christ’s bones, but she had some strength, that woman! She grabbed him so hard, he thought he must have his arm wrenched from its socket, and when he turned to face her, he saw she gripped a knife. He shattered the hand with his mace, the spikes ravaging her wrist, tearing down her hand and pulling off her thumb and forefinger. Still she came at him, a terrible expression of hatred on her face, eyes quite mad, mouth spitting in that lunatic gibberish they called a language! He swung again, and the fury and hatred died with her.

Turning to the last, he saw that he was too late. The figure had snatched the dagger from the floor, and had already used it on himself, thrusting it into his own breast. Except now he could see more clearly as the red mist left him, Nicholas saw that this was no warrior but a slim girl. Probably the dead woman’s daughter. Only thirteen years or so. Not more.

The boy at his feet was the one who had ducked inside, but now Nicholas looked, he too was hardly more than a child. He was her son. The woman herself was older, more worn, but there was something about her; the sweat and stench of the cottage was not just from the odour of animals or rank humans, it held something else, and when he looked at her more closely, he saw that she had a disease.

‘We went into the vill, and they had some people there,’ he said at last. ‘I had ridden with the men for miles, with bowmen taking their chances at us all the long way, and when I saw three men with bows in their hands, I thought these were some of those who had been attacking us. I rode them all down. A woman tried to protect one, too, and I killed her.’ He swallowed. It hardly expressed the reality of the slaughterhouse that was their home. ‘When I looked later, it wasn’t a weapon. They were all playing with wooden lances. Toys.’

‘You killed them for playing?’ Simon asked. His face registered incredulity.

‘We rode in, we saw what we thought were weapons, so we protected ourselves,’ Nicholas declared stiffly. ‘If it helps you, Bailiff, I have ever seen those faces before me in my nightmares. We fired the place once we had taken all we could.’ It was all he could do not to order that the vill be razed to the ground, he felt it to be so vile, but instead he ordered that the carts be filled, and while the sullen villagers watched, he took the first of the burning torches and threw it into the cottage, watching as the flames grew, the smoke rising, first green and yellow and foul, then thick and blue-black, the stink of burning flesh disgusting on the evening air. And they had left. But Nicholas bore the scars. He always would.

‘What has this to do with us now?’ Simon demanded harshly.

‘I left there soon afterwards. I grew ill with a sickness. Henry my lord was unwell too, and he and I left Wales to come here, to his home, to recuperate. It was here that I found some peace.’

‘With a woman?’ Baldwin asked, glowering.

‘She was willing!’ Nicholas protested at Baldwin’s tone, and then his eyes dropped. ‘When she conceived, I was delighted. My own child. And I saw to it that she and her family were looked after. When she decided to marry, I gave her money to help. Later, she and her husband and all their children died in a fire. Only my son survived, and he fled, but I was able to ensure that he wasn’t chased for being a runaway serf. Instead, I had him guided into the arms of Sir Henry’s retinue, where he was protected. He learned his skills as a warrior, and later he could come home again.’

‘This was Richer?’ Baldwin continued relentlessly. ‘You are his father?’

‘He is my only child.’

‘Be glad you have another coming, then,’ Baldwin said remorselessly. ‘Because I swear, if I find he is the murderer, I shall see him hanged.’

Nicholas stared at him, wanting to demand sympathy, but couldn’t. After a moment, he looked away again, and prayed that Richer might be safe.