The Butcher of St Peter's: (Knights Templar 19) Page 6

  ‘That man would bring war back to the country. And if the King hears of it, he will take Sir Peregrine and flay him alive to learn to whom he has spoken. If I appear to support him at all in public or in private, our lives would be at risk,’ Baldwin said, and thought of their daughter, at home in Furnshill. ‘I will not risk those whom I love for another’s vainglory.’

  Reginald was hoping to see her again today. He had been to the market that morning, and while there he’d seen the basket of oysters. Well, she’d always loved them, hadn’t she? And he was partial to a mess of oysters on a plate himself. It was a lovely evening, too, and since he would be alone, because his wife had gone off to see her mother in Exmouth, it was the perfect opportunity to see his lover.

  God, but it seemed a long time since he’d last been with her. Over a week, certainly, nearer two. And he was so desperate to have her. A God-damned miracle she had agreed to meet him again after the last time, the last fiasco. That was awful: realizing, just as he was getting to the short strokes, that there was someone in his boy’s chamber.

  Christ Jesus, seeing that tall figure in the room had near-emasculated him. He’d stood there, staring at the man at the window, and if he’d had a moment longer to think about it, he’d have shitted himself. The idea that a stranger could be in there with his son was so terrifying, it near stopped his heart. He’d heard once of a man who was so petrified with terror on finding felons attempting to rob his house that although he had hidden safely, he had discovered the next morning that his hair had all turned white! White! As though he had aged forty years in an instant. Well, if that could happen to anyone, it was a miracle it hadn’t happened to Reg that night, because he would have sworn on his mother’s grave that the presence of the man in there meant his son was already dead.

  Sweet Jesus, the sight of Michael breathing so easily had overwhelmed him. It felt as though God had forgiven him all his sins in one burst, seeing his lad there safe and sound. He would rather have cut off his own arm than see his son harmed in any way.

  He assumed she would keep their assignation, but perhaps … He’d not been thinking, shouting – well, screaming, really – for his servants to come and help, then roaring at them to go to the garden. It wasn’t the way to win her over, not when he’d left her in a steam to go and check on his lad – bellowing for all his men to run through, when any one of them could have seen her there, tits swinging, trying to pull a blanket over her gorgeous body. It didn’t please her, not at all.

  She had her own children. She should have understood what it would feel like to find a man in the room with her son, if she was in the same boat.

  It was her husband he was most scared of, after all.

  The weather was about to change. Est could smell it in the air. The unseasonable sunshine which had dried the earth and made the city smell more of dust than of faeces and blood was going to give way soon to the sort of wind and rain that was more to be expected. A chill was coming. He could feel it.

  He was sitting in the parlour of his little house near the fleshfold, which he had kept more or less as a memorial to his family. By the door was a hook on which Emma’s favourite apron still hung, as though she had set it there before putting on her second best for sweeping the floor, and near the fire was the little rough stool he had bought for her from the market. It had been old widow Marta’s, and he’d snapped it up from Marta’s son when she died. Emma had been pleased with it. Much more comfortable than her old one.

  Her face on the evening when he brought home his little gift was a pleasure to recall. She had always been so happy with so little. That was fortunate, too, because the year after they were wedded there was not enough money to buy anything much. It was the hard year when the King’s host was destroyed by the barbarians up north. All killed off in some place called Ballock-something, or Bannock-whatever. It was no matter to the folk down here, many leagues away. It only meant that there were more taxes for a while, and some vills were unlucky and had their grain confiscated by the damned Procurers of the King. They’d come round with their lists of what they wanted, and grab wholesale all the stores which had been intended to keep the folk through the winter.

  Before the fight, he’d even considered leaving Exeter and joining the King’s host, because no one really believed that the savages up there could do anything against their lawful sovereign. They didn’t call his father the Hammer of the Scots for nothing, and everyone knew that the new King, Edward II, would bring them to their knees in no time. Except it hadn’t happened, had it? The Scots had slaughtered the King’s men and sent the few survivors scurrying back. If he’d gone, Est would have died up there. No one who’d only had a limited experience of fighting with bare fists would have lived to tell the tale.

  But he’d stayed, because their lives had already changed. The joy in her face … Emma had sat there, so happy, so content, as she missed her monthly time in 1313, around the feast of St Andrew, and then started to feel the new life growing in her womb. So happy. There was so much for them to be pleased about in those days. Except even as she realized that she was carrying their child, the weather closed in. Rain. Rain for days. Everyone went about complaining, of course, but people always complained about the weather. Englishmen liked to moan about it all year round. But no one appreciated what this weather meant. Sweet Mother of God, how could they? It was rain. In Devonshire they were used to that!

  It was not only Devonshire which bore the rain. It was the whole country. Men and women and children watched their crops through the downpours, and soon after Cissy’s birth in mid-August it was obvious to all that the harvest had failed. And then, when the grain was gathered, it was useless. No goodness in the little they could collect, and what there was didn’t last long because it was soon foul. It went black and disgusting. Inedible.

  And a short time later prices started to rise. Food which had cost a penny rose to six, seven, even eight pennies. Just at the time when Emma needed it most, they found that food was growing too expensive for them to buy. Emma left the city each day to see what she could collect from the hedges, but that soon grew dangerous. Serfs from the vills disputed the rights of folk from the city to take from the countryside, and fights started. A man was stabbed in the early August of that year, and Emma was punched and hit across the head by a woman from a farm near Bishop’s Clyst. Estmund knew her; he’d dealt with her when she had a bullock to sell for market. She’d always been a pleasant, kindly woman, he’d thought.

  There was little money coming in from his butchery, either. No money, no food, and Emma needed all she could get. The Church had helped at first. Alms were available for the needy, and Emma was plainly that, but soon even the Church had realized that it couldn’t stave off the hunger of a city on its own. And people started to die.

  Emma tried to keep herself cheerful, but how can any young mother be hopeful after finding a corpse in the street? And there were so many. The elderly simply gave up, sat down and seemed to expire, like heifers struck with the poleaxe. One moment alive, the next dead. And others fell the same way. Children next, their parents last. No one was safe.

  She had tried to keep her sanity. Christ’s bones, everyone had. But when all that is to be seen is the dead, anyone’s mind is affected. Bodies were everywhere. They said that half the city was dead by the end of it, and how can anybody cope with that? The cemetery couldn’t, so men, women and children were piled higgledy-piggledy in obscene heaps while the cathedral paid men to act as assistant fossors, digging pits and shoving in all the dead. Only the rats and the worms lived well.

  When their child died, a little over thirteen months after the birth, it killed Emma. She died right then, in front of him. Her body still moved, her mouth opened and shut, but the light that had gleamed from her eyes … Christ Jesus, she had been so beautiful, it hurt, it hurt so much to think that she was gone! Emma just existed for the next two years. Nothing he did would bring her back. She was his own sweeting. The only woman he had
ever loved, and she was snatched from him so cruelly. Just when he needed her, she was gone. Perhaps if they’d had more children, it would have given her something to live for, but they only had each other. And then, two years later, at the time which should have been Cissy’s third birthday, Est came home to find her hanging from the rafter because she couldn’t bear to live any longer, not without her child.

  Why should she live when her baby was dead? She had asked him that often enough, and he never had an answer, except that God demanded lives when He was ready. Est had to believe that. Otherwise the whole city would have committed suicide just as she did.

  At least Est had found a way to manage his own grief. Even after his darling Emma left him, he still had something he could do. And he would do it.

  Cecily was playing with her rag doll in the yard behind the house when her father came home that day. She cocked her head to listen as he crashed angrily into the house, and she heard the plates and mugs rattling as he thumped his staff on the small sideboard and bellowed for wine.

  She hunched her shoulders a little. He was cross again. He often was just now. It might mean he’d smack her if she misbehaved, and she didn’t want that again.

  ‘Wine! In God’s name what does a man have to do to get a little drink in this place?’

  There was a hurried slap of sandalled feet through the hall, and Cecily heard the calmer tones of her mother. ‘What is it, husband?’

  ‘Don’t stare at me like that, woman. I’ve been working hard today, and don’t need your high-and-mighty manner. Fetch me a jug of wine.’

  There was a muttered command and Cecily heard more feet. A moment later the maid appeared in the doorway, nodded to Cecily with a smile, and darted out to the little lean-to shed at the back. She reappeared carrying a leather jug filled with strong red wine and murmured, ‘Stay out here for a while; just play quietly,’ as she passed.

  ‘Well? What has happened today?’

  ‘More thefts from the cathedral, but when I try to pin it on that slippery bastard, there’s nothing I can do about it. He wasn’t there, he was playing knuckles at his house, he had witnesses to prove he was never near the cathedral … he makes me puke! Always the first with the quick answer, always so sure of himself …’

  ‘Can you not accept you could be wrong? Agnes knows him and says he is a very pleasant man, and she—’

  ‘Tell her I’ll not have him in this house!’

  ‘Husband? I don’t—’

  ‘Never. I don’t care if Agnes is a friend of his. If she wants to entertain him, she can do so in her own house, not here.’

  ‘You would throw her from our home? Where would she live?’

  There was a moment’s silence. ‘I would rent her a place somewhere. A decent little house.’

  ‘Why?’ Juliana’s voice was sharp now. Cecily was sure that she had turned her head to peer at her husband from the corner of her eye, as though her right ear was more reliable than the other. ‘Husband, why should you seek to exclude my sister from our home?’

  ‘It’s not her, woman! It’s him! He’s a murderer and a thief! I’m sure of it.’

  ‘You have been for many years – what of it? You have never shown what he has done or how.’

  ‘Because—’ Daniel roared, and then his voice dropped as though he was too weary to continue this argument. ‘Because, wife, he threatened me today. He said if I didn’t leave him to continue his business, he would murder all of us: you, me, the children, all of us. I won’t have him in the house, because he could set a trap for us if he knew the place too well. Now do you understand why I don’t want him here? Do you think I’d put you and the others at risk?’

  The knock at his door stirred Reginald, and he felt his face wreathe itself in a smile of delight. God’s ballocks, he’d thought she’d changed her mind! The vixen was here after all. Well, it was a relief. She had said her husband was going to be out for the night, so when she didn’t turn up Reg had assumed she was still angry with him because of the other evening. Well, he should have realized that the woman had too much of a tickle in her tail not to want him to scratch it!

  His bottler had been sent away, and the other servants were in the main hall. Only a very few people knew of this other door at the back of the house, and he hurried to it before the quiet knock should disturb his son. The last thing he needed was for the lad to overhear them together, and then ask his mother what Father was doing … If Sabina ever got to hear of his nocturnal activities when she was away, all hell would break loose, and if it did, Reg didn’t want to be in the same city, let alone the same house.

  It was with a feeling of satisfaction that he reached for the latch and opened the door, only to find that it was not his lover outside.

  Instead her husband stood there smiling at him.

  Chapter Four

  Henry winced as he shifted in his seat. The great gouge in his breast and shoulder where Daniel’s pickaxe had torn through him was always painful. Whether it was a sharp, stabbing sensation as when the wound had been inflicted, or had sunk to a dull throbbing, it was always there, and always in his mind.

  Before that day, he’d been a fit, healthy man. Given a little money, he could have found a woman and married, maybe. No chance of that now, though. Daniel had robbed him of his future. All he was was a carter. A lonely, bitter carter.

  The strange thing was, he hadn’t really known Estmund that well beforehand. Est had been one of the men Henry had known about the city, but they weren’t close friends or anything. Yet Henry was a generous-hearted man, and when Estmund had been so distraught he had wanted to help him.

  It was that awful day when the cathedral decided that Emma had committed a mortal sin by killing herself after their child had died. Poor little Cissy. She had been so tiny when they buried her in her pit. Unbaptized, she was not eligible for a place in the graveyard, and Henry still thought it was that, more than her death alone, which had made Emma so disturbed and grief-stricken. To think that even when she died she would not be with her child in Heaven had been the final blow. If God wouldn’t have her Cissy, she wanted no part of His Heaven.

  God! But when Est found her, that was a terrible day. For all that he was still suffering, Henry couldn’t feel regret for helping him. The man had lost daughter and wife, and then to learn that he was not permitted to bury Emma in the cemetery was enough to unhinge his mind.

  It was good that Est seemed to trust him. Est was not the kind of man to get close to anyone, but he accepted Henry’s companionship. Before that dreadful day, when Henry won his wound trying to help Est, they would rarely speak. Few people did during the famine. After that day they sat together in companionable silence, Est staring into the distance while Henry lay on his bed, Est occasionally wiping his brow with a cool cloth. Some women from the street had come to help, and Henry was gradually nursed back from the brink of death.

  The silence was good for a while, but both needed to talk. Est started to tell Henry of his life, of his past and his shattered hopes. To Henry, that meant they were both recovering. When Est was silent, Henry would talk until he grew too tired, and then Est would wipe his sweating face again, speaking of his love for his dead Emma and Cissy. There were few enough men who would bother to try to share their feelings, Henry thought later, but when the whole city was starving, when the likelihood of their dying in a short while was so high, there was little to stop them unburdening themselves.

  No, Henry had hardly known Est before Emma’s death, but there was something in Estmund that had appealed to him: a kindliness and generosity of spirit. That was why he had wanted to help him. And perhaps too it was the damage wrought on Henry in his attempt to help Est that had spurred Estmund to live on. He had a responsibility again, someone to look after.

  Just as Henry had too. He felt that he had a reciprocal responsibility for Estmund.

  Reginald stared. ‘Look, Jordan, I don’t know how to get hold of a man to do something like that, and I’m not
sure I’d want to, even if I could. It’s a serious—’

  ‘Don’t say “affair”,’ Jordan le Bolle said. ‘This is just business, after all. We have to stop this man.’

  He was tall, with the calm assurance of a man who knew that he would get his way. That was a mark of his position and control: he always got what he wanted. His eyes were calm and unworried. There was never any need for him to be anxious, after all. There was no one in the city whom he need fear.

  Such was not Reg’s own state of mind at that moment. Reg was filled with an overwhelming dread. At any moment, he felt sure, the other person who used that door would knock and enter, ready to throw herself into Reg’s arms or onto his bed. It was truly appalling. Reg knew that his partner was perfectly capable of murdering people – it had been necessary when they had first got to know each other, and the years had not altered the reality of their relationship.

  ‘Killing him would not be easy, Jordie,’ Reg said feebly. He didn’t hold out much hope for an argument of that nature. Jordan was too adept at debating his position. Reg had known that from the first moment.

  ‘Any man will fall when he’s hit hard enough in the right place.’

  ‘That’s easy for you to say. You’ve had practice.’

  Jordan smiled. ‘And we’ve both benefited, haven’t we?’

  Reg hated to see that easy grin. It was as though Jordie didn’t care about any other lives. Sometimes Reg wondered whether he’d even miss Reg. Perhaps he’d shed a couple of tears, but there was no guarantee that they’d be genuine. Then he caught sight of the expression in Jordan’s eyes.

  ‘We’ve lived this long without having to kill him, Jordie. Why risk everything now?’ His thin smile felt more like a grimace.

  Jordan le Bolle ignored the interruption. ‘Yes, we’ve both benefited. I’ve taken many risks to bring in our profits, Reg. Now it’s time you helped. I think Daniel is getting too close to me. Far too close. There’s a risk that soon he’ll throw caution to the winds and try to take us on properly. And you know what that would mean, don’t you? If he comes in and stops our work, it’ll be the end of our easy life. The end of all this,’ he said, waving a hand nonchalantly at the chamber, encompassing the hall, the wine, the food …