The Sticklepath Strangler (2001) (14 page)

Edgar had slept at the door to Jeanne and Petronilla’s room to protect them from intruders, but by the time Simon sat up, blearily gazing about him, his mind muzzy from lack of sleep, his
belly rumbling and acrid from the mixture of rough wine and thin ale, Edgar was already at Baldwin’s side with a jug of water.

Christ’s bones, the place stank! Simon thought. The odours of vomit and urine made him feel queasy. It was always the trouble with cheaper inns; few tavernkeepers would bother to keep the
place clean. At least there were no other people staying here. A big city inn might have real beds to sleep in, but the casual visitor had no choice of bedmate. A man could climb naked between his
sheets to find that on one side his companion for the night was a grubby merchant who reeked of fish and whose breath wasn’t cleansed by chewing spices, while on the other was a tanner who
stank of ammonia, or worse. Perhaps that was why Houndestail was not unhappy to have lost his bed with Ivo Bel.

He shouted to the tavernkeeper to bring him weak ale, before gradually climbing to his feet, standing and stretching, feeling the cool morning air wash over his bare body. He dragged his cloak
about him like a robe, pulling it tight over his chest. Although there was a fine wisping of smoke up in the eaves, the room was brighter than on the previous afternoon because the window in the
eastern wall caught the early sun. It made the room appear less foreboding than it had during the night.

He shivered again at the memory of Baldwin’s words. ‘Vampires!’ he muttered. ‘Stuff to scare children!’

Glancing at his friend, Simon saw to his surprise that Baldwin was not yet up. He lay on his bench, idly stroking Aylmer’s head, staring up at the ceiling.

Breaking into his thoughts, Simon asked, ‘Did you sleep all right?’

Baldwin turned his head just a little so that he could see his friend, and a faint smile eased the solemnity of his appearance. ‘Not too badly,’ he said. ‘I was troubled by a
dream, but no matter. It is daylight now. Soon we shall have helped the good Coroner with his inquest and be on our way.’

‘Quite right!’ Coroner Roger agreed, standing naked in front of the feeble fire and warming his hands. ‘Ah good, it looks as though we have pleasant clear weather for it, too.
What would you say to a jug of wine and some good bread and pottage, Sir Baldwin?’

Trying to prevent his nausea showing at the thought of food, Simon threw off his cloak and stood, shivering as he pulled on hose, shirt and tunic. By the time he was done, Baldwin and Coroner
Roger were both sitting waiting for their meal, chatting happily about the weather, Baldwin sipping water while the Coroner slurped at a jug of ale. Simon winced, not only from the thought of
eating food before viewing a corpse, but also from the noise. It was unnerving to see a man like the Coroner who, albeit some years older than him, was as full of bounce and energy as a
youngster.

Simon took his pot of ale to the door, leaning on the jamb. ‘What do you think about this story of a Purveyor going missing?’

Coroner Roger cocked an eye at him. ‘You think there’s anything new in that? The man who can tax an area and take their food is always unpopular.’

‘No body was presented,’ Baldwin said.

‘True, so I’ll have to see whether I can arrange a suitable fine.’ Coroner Roger was quiet for a short while, thinking. ‘What do you suggest, Sir Baldwin? I can see
you’re not happy.’

‘I would recommend that you send someone to find the new Purveyor. Perhaps he has some record to show that Houndestail was mistaken. It is possible that the last Purveyor became ill and
resigned his post.’

‘Aye, and perhaps there’s no record,’ the Coroner growled. ‘Which might indicate that the man died around here. It’s a shame: if it weren’t a King’s
Officer, I ’d just forget about it. A murder committed maybe seven years ago – what chance is there of finding out anything useful?’

‘Perhaps none,’ Baldwin admitted, ‘but we may find that there is a dead Purveyor as well. If more people have been killed here, we should be aware. It could have a bearing on
this girl’s death.’

‘Very well,’ the Coroner said.

‘And what of this so-called curse?’ Simon wanted to know.

‘Forget it,’ Coroner Roger said with conviction. ‘Like you said last night, Bailiff, peasants will swallow the most stupid of stories.’

Their debate was cut short by the entrance of Jeanne and Petronilla, and soon afterwards food arrived. There was a large loaf of bread which the Coroner tore apart with his bare hands, and a
platter of cold roasted meats. Waving the flies from it, Coroner Roger cut off a thick slice of cold pork and shoved it into his mouth. Simon watched him for a moment or two, but when the Coroner
went on to spear a large yellow slab of fat, licking his lips, Simon felt his belly rebel. Muttering that he was going outside to clear his head, he left the others to break their fast.

All was bright and clear. Northwards he heard people in the fields, the rattling of tools, animals complaining as they were harnessed, chickens clucking and calling. He inhaled deeply, noticing
the clean scent of cow’s muck, the grassy odours of horse dung, the fresh tang of cut grass. It was a glorious morning, and his head was already beginning to feel a little better.

And yet something was missing. His mind was working slowly today, but he was sure that in and among the smells and noises of the little vill as it began to prepare for the new day, one specific
sound was lacking. It took him some time to work out what it was. In fact, he had meandered around the huge patch of mud in the road outside the cemetery, and was up at the spring, drinking, before
light dawned.

He stood up, shaking the water from his hands, and gazed about him with astonishment. To the north he could see labourers in the strip fields, bent over as they tugged tiny weeds from the rows
of wheat and oats, or hoeing between rows of peas and beans in the gardens; he saw a girl methodically scattering grain for chickens in a yard; he saw a woman sitting at her door with a knife,
cutting leaves for a pottage; he saw peasants heading for the door of the chapel to attend the first Mass. People everywhere, yet not one spoke.

It was incredible. The place could have been under anathema, despairing because their souls would be lost under the papal ban. Their demeanour would certainly have suited such a terrible fate,
he thought as he watched them going about their business. No one chatted or laughed. All walked as though bent under an intolerable weight, and that was particularly the case when they caught sight
of him. The women averted their faces, or raised their hands to hide themselves from him.

He remembered Houndestail’s words: ‘It’s Athelhard’s curse again!’ and he gave a convulsive shudder.

Personally Joan thought that the inquest was a good idea. It meant that people had other things on their minds rather than looking into
her
affairs, and while all the
vill were being told how much they would be fined for discovering the body, she and Emma could disappear.

Emma was panting already, and they weren’t halfway up the hill yet. This track, which led straight to the moors, rose up from the vill and then turned right. It was steep, if not quite so
stiff as the climb of the sticklepath itself, but it was quieter, and with the trees all about it was better hidden too. In fact, as Joan toiled upwards, she knew that by the time Emma and she
broke out through the trees onto the moor itself, the whole vill would be up at the road and watching the inquest.

It was a shame, she reflected, staring back the way they had come. She would have quite liked to see the body dug up, but her mother Nicole had made it quite clear that if Joan showed her face
down there, she would skin her alive. In preference Joan had persuaded Emma to walk up and see their old friend Serlo Warrener.

He was a curious fellow, Serlo. Short and bent, with a shock of brown hair that was never combed or untangled, he had deepset eyes which twinkled above his thick moustache and beard. Invariably
dressed in a much-patched and worn fustian tunic of faded green, he would appear in sheepskins when the weather deteriorated, with boots made of the same plentiful material. Consequently he had a
distinctive, musty odour, as Nicole once put it in her delicate way. Joan had laughed aloud when her father had growled, ‘If you mean he stinks like a pig, say so, woman!’ Her amusement
had earned Joan a clip around the ear.

Many people didn’t like Serlo at all, nor trust him. He was friendly with Mad Meg, and that was enough to put them off. Privately Joan thought that her mother was scared of him, but he
wasn’t scary to Emma and her, of course. They could see he enjoyed their company, with his funny smile and his fluttering hands, his high-pitched laugh and rumbling voice, but he was always
reticent in front of adults.

They were at the top of the steeper part now, almost through the trees. As they came into the light, they turned left at the heather-covered hillside, and then right, towards Belstone.

This part was always quiet. There were no miners here on the northern face of the moor. The nearest miners were over at Ivy Tor, near where Vin’s parents had lived. Here the only other
creatures were the sheep and cattle which were pastured according to the ancient rights of the tenants of the forest, and the deer which belonged to the King himself.

There was also the warren. It lay on the path to Belstone, just past the soggy area where the streams so often overflowed their banks and swept down over the top of the grassed plains. The two
girls sprang from boulder to boulder, giggling as they went, playing their usual game, but then Joan slipped on a moss-covered rock and fell with a squeak, straight into the black peat-rich
soil.

‘You’ll get a right thrashing for that,’ Emma said unsympathetically.

Joan shrugged. ‘It’ll wash out. I’ll rinse the mud off in the river before we go back.’

‘Ugh! It’ll be freezing in the water today,’ Emma said with a grimace. She turned and jumped to the next rock, her bare feet gripping the stone with the unconscious skill of
long practice.

‘I’ll live,’ Joan said. She wasn’t looking forward to stripping and washing her garment, still less to putting it on again afterwards, but there was nothing else for
it.

The hut stood a few yards below the warren on the side of the hill. It was a short distance from where Joan had fallen, and the two girls made their way to it without further mishap, walking
around the stone-built warren on their way. The warren was quite large. Some three yards wide and ten or so yards long, it was built of good moorstone like any of the walls, but every few yards,
gaps in the stonework made doorways for the rabbits to enter. To keep it warm in winter and cool in summer it was covered with turves.

Serlo had once told Joan that warrens had to be built all over the country to protect rabbits, because they weren’t clever beasts and couldn’t hide or run away from faster creatures.
Martens and stoats, weasels and foxes could all hunt the slow and rather dim creatures in the open, while smaller predators would ferret down into the warrens as well. But at least when there was a
decent warren like Serlo’s, they could be protected. Serlo maintained a wall around the warren, with small stone traps installed in the angles. Here, if a weasel or marten should try to gain
access, they would trip a lever which would release slate shutters in front and behind. Serlo checked his traps daily, with a large stone hammer to despatch the captured thieves.

The wall itself was a trophy display. Hanging from it, in various stages of decomposition, were many smaller carnivores, as well as magpies, jays, crows and rooks. There was even one skeletal
buzzard. All were animals which had tried, or might have tried, to eat one of Serlo’s rabbits. In the vill there were rumours that Serlo had killed men who had tried to break into his beloved
warren. Even children, so people whispered. Joan thought the rumours silly.

His home was a circular hut with a thick thatch roof. The two girls walked straight inside, expecting to find him, but to their surprise, there was no sign of him. They sat and waited for some
while, but then, as Joan felt the mud drying on her clothes, they carried on down into the valley to the river at the bottom. Quickly stripping, Joan shivered as she plunged her tunic into the
water, rubbing it against the rocks at the edge until she was satisfied that it was clean enough. Then, thankfully, the sun came out, and she draped it over a bush, squatting naked on a rock while
Emma lay back chewing a long stem of grass with her head on her hands.

‘Where do you think Serlo could have gone?’ Emma asked after a while.

‘How should I know?’

‘Do you think he went along to watch the inquest?’

‘P’raps.’

‘He’s never asked to the juries in the vill, is he?’ Emma frowned. ‘Why not?’

‘Well, he isn’t from the vill, is he? He’s from . . . the forest, I suppose.’

‘He’s so close, though. It seems odd.’

‘People just feel uncomfortable with him around,’ Joan said. She felt her tunic. Still wet.

‘He’s always nice to us.’

‘So? That doesn’t make other people like him,’ Joan responded, thinking about the priest again. She shouldn’t dislike him, she knew, because he was the man who could save
souls or destroy them. He had the power. At least, that was what she thought he had said.

Emma was frowning now. ‘Why shouldn’t they like him, though? He’s always kind. I’ll never forget how he helped my mummy when I was little.’

‘It’s his back: all twisted like that. I think it makes people scared.’

‘He can’t help that,’ Emma said.

‘No. But it scares people,’ Joan repeated.

‘Does it?’

The girls sprang up like startled deer and spun around. Behind them, standing a short distance away, was Drogo the Forester. ‘What are you doing here, girls?’

Joan flushed as he eyed her all over. She snatched her tunic from the bush and put it on. ‘We were just talking about Serlo,’ she said defensively.

‘Where is the lazy whoreson? I was looking for him myself.’