The Butcher of St Peter's: (Knights Templar 19) (28 page)

‘I could have saved her, I should have. But I was too
scared
,’ she said, and began to sob.

There was little else to be done that day, other than command that the hue and cry search out Jordan le Bolle if he was not
found within the city. Baldwin was loath to do that, at least until he had checked with the two men outside Jordan’s house
again.

It was remarkable that the man had not yet appeared. Baldwin was quite sure that he would have returned to his house. Even
a man who had need of a quick escape must first put together the means of survival. He would need food, money, some thick
clothing in this miserable season. It was unlikely that he would have been carrying much about with him, surely.

Unless he had hurried away last night, perhaps to take cash from a strongbox in his gambling rooms or his brothel. If he had
done so, they would have missed him. He could have boarded a ship at the quay and made his way down the river to the coast,
there to disappear for ever.

From the end of the street they could see the two men at the house. They were standing and indulging in a close debate. As
they watched, one of them lifted his tunic and directed a stream towards the road’s gutter.

Sir Peregrine swore at the sight. ‘Look at them! They’re
supposed to be keeping a close watch on the damned house, not chatting about the ales they drank in the tavern last night.
Worse than an old gossip from the market, those two!’

Baldwin smiled, but as he did so he saw both watchmen spin and stare at the house. A moment later, while the one was hobbled,
trying to put his tarse back under his tunic, and the other was grabbing for the polearm he had dropped, Baldwin and his companions
were sprinting along the roadway to the source of that scream.

Mazeline felt the table at the back of her thighs and had to stop. She wanted to get to the window, to call for help, but
there was no hope now, with Jordan standing before her, as insouciant as ever.

‘Who were you expecting? Anyone?’

‘I was waiting for you, husband, but with the men outside, I thought that you’d be caught.’

‘I’m not so stupid that two watchmen like them can catch me out. I came in through the garden. From the castle’s gardens over
our wall – it’s perfectly easy,’ he said, smiling. ‘Get me some ale, and meat. I am starved.’

She nodded and walked out to the buttery. The window was open, and she felt the breeze from the passageway, but then, as she
entered the room, she felt the chamber start to spin about her, and as her nostrils caught the tang of salt on the air, the
sweet, heavy odour that made her think of butchery and the slaughterhouse, she saw the body of the bottler with the head completely
stove in and the brains spread over the floor.

It was the smell of blood and the sight of the corpse that made her start to faint, and it was the sensation of damp tackiness
on her hands as she pitched forward that made her start to scream and scream …

Baldwin was at the door a moment behind Simon, and the two men thrust at it with their shoulders, but could achieve nothing
against the solid timbers. Simon grabbed the polearm from one guard and thrust the point of it between the door and the lock,
shoving hard. There was a cracking of timber, and Sir Peregrine took the other billhook and brought it down at the gap between
the door and jamb, making it shudder.

As he brought it down again, Simon felt the door move. ‘Push!’ he yelled, and rammed his shoulder against it again. There
was a definite shifting. The knight hammered with the bill’s butt and Baldwin and Simon threw themselves against the wood
until there was a loud splintering crash and the door gave before them.

Simon fell inside, and Sir Peregrine leaped over him, while Baldwin more delicately stepped round him, his sword already out,
his left arm down and before his belly in the defensive posture Simon had seen him adopt so often. Then Simon too was up.

‘He’s not here!’ Sir Peregrine called from the hall. He reappeared in the passageway.

‘His wife is here, though,’ Baldwin said from the buttery. He was crouched at her side. ‘Help me lift her up. I don’t think
there’s any point worrying about the other poor devil.’

Betsy sat shivering with her hands cupping the mazer of burned wine Ralph had given her. He’d have to distil some more at
this rate, he told himself morosely.

‘What happened to her?’ he asked.

‘It was him. Jordan. He came here last night with Reg as usual, and they had some sort of a row, and then Reg went off in
a rare mood. I’ve never seen him look so grim. Don’t ask me what it was about, but Jordan was telling Reg he had to do something,
and Reg was saying he wouldn’t. When he left the place, Jordan sort of laughed, and then he asked me for Mags, because he
said she’d refused some punter the other day. I don’t know anything about that. Still, he said he wanted her for the night,
and she seemed scared, but not overly, you know? I thought he was going to demand a good service from her just to make her
pay for not doing what she’d been supposed to last week, that was all. And then this morning, I heard her crying, and I thought,
Well, he’s hit her or something, and that’ll not make him any money for a while, because she’ll be too hurt and bruised to
work, and I didn’t want to go in myself, because with his temper, if I’d interrupted him, God knows what he could do to me,
so I left them … and when I came back, I found Mags like this …’

Ralph nodded understandingly. The cries and weeping from the room were still loud, even at the far end of the corridor. ‘She’s
past worrying, Betsy. She’s gone to a better place than this, you can be sure. What happened to Jordan?’

‘He was already gone when I went in there and found her. He just expects us to clear up her body and throw it away, I suppose.’

‘You’ll have to call the Coroner to view her, Betsy,’ he said gently.

‘What can I do?’ she sobbed. ‘What’s a tart’s death to him? He won’t care that we’ll be thrown on the street.’

‘Why should that happen?’

‘You know why! Jordan owns this place. If he’s caught, we’ll be thrown out, and if he isn’t, we’ll still be thrown out. Can’t
we hide her …’ She caught sight of his expression and was still.

‘Send for the Coroner and I’ll see what I can do to help you.’

‘You? What can you do to help us!’

Ralph smiled enigmatically. Even Coroners needed a leech sometimes, after all. Especially when the piles were biting.

Jordan ran over the grass with his mind in a torment. Again his hearing had gone peculiar, and he shook his head as he ran,
a frown of pain twisting his features as the high whistling screeched through his head.

The high red sandstone walls of the castle stared down at him, and he gazed up at it bitterly. That building was the symbol
of the Coroner’s power – of all official power in the city. Without it, he would have been able to continue his work happily,
but no, that sodomite of a sergeant had decided to take an interest in his activities, and as a result he was brought to this
low pass.

Perhaps he could recover his position. He had only killed the bottler when the fool stirred awake. It was Jordan’s own buttery,
in Christ’s name. He could say he’d been expecting it to be empty, and finding a man in there he’d assumed the fellow was
a thief. His wife would support him. She always did.

This morning had been good, though. Aah! She had behaved impeccably all night, the worry always in her face even as she
simulated her moaning and lustful panting for him. Yes, she’d known what she was about. A good whore, that.

But Anne had been too, and Jordan had learned that there were more ways than one to enjoy a whore. He’d had fun with her today.
First with his bare hands, almost killing her, and then the knife. It was as satisfying as the sex. Better than anything he’d
known with his wife. Sweet Jesus, if those two hadn’t been at the front of his house, he could have tried the same with Mazeline.
She’d have been good for that.

Yes, as she went out to the buttery to fetch him his ale, he had thought of pulling out his knife again, and perhaps taking
it to her clothes first, stripping her naked, just as she had been when Jane was conceived in her womb … Jane, where was
Jane?

The whistling and whirring was deafening now and he looked about him wildly. He could do nothing without his little girl.
He loved her, he adored her, and she was all his. There was nothing he wouldn’t do for her. Where was she?

The noise grew until he was deafened. In his vision he thought he saw the bodies of the two whores, the bodies of Mick and
his bottler, all laughing, mocking him. He had killed them as though he was all-powerful and could kill with impunity, but
now they knew that they could conceal his daughter from him. They couldn’t. No, not them. Mazeline must have taken her away.
Where? Where?

In an instant the sounds were gone and his face cleared. He knew exactly where Jane would be – surely at Mazeline’s cousins’
house. He could go there and rescue her. And then he would have to lie low somewhere until he could escape the city with her.
Looking up at the bright sun, he changed his mind. He was exhausted after the excitement and thrills of the previous night.
Better, surely, to go and hide somewhere now
in the quiet, while it was daylight, and then come out again at night.

He knew the perfect place to hide, and then, later, he could maybe visit Agnes and Juliana. Reg had seemed so unwilling last
night … perhaps this could be Jordan’s last job, then, before he fled the city. The thought of the two women before him,
under him, his knife ready for them, was so entrancing that he almost stopped in the roadway. Then he noticed a man looking
at him oddly, and he forced himself to smile and nod before hurrying on his way.

First hide. Pleasure later.

Ralph was relieved to see how the Coroner reacted. The man appeared to take the murder of the prostitute seriously, and immediately
began barking orders, commanding messengers to fetch a clerk to help him, and blowing his own horn in the street and bellowing
hoarsely, ‘Out, out, out,’ to raise the hue and cry. He sent the two watchmen, who had been muttering rebelliously about working
all hours, off to the brothel to guard the dead woman’s body. When they complained, he fixed them with a basilisk stare.

‘During your watch here, a bottler was murdered and a woman could have died. Be glad you’re being given another job rather
than thrown in the gaol yourselves for being no better than fools!’

In the meantime, Baldwin and Simon had helped Mazeline to a bench in the hall, and here Ralph tended to her. He bathed her
face with fresh boiled water in which sweet herbs had been steeped, and washed her hands and arms to remove the clots of blood
and yellow lumps of bone.

‘Ralph, you make a marvellous nurse,’ she whispered at one point.

‘Concentrate on being well again.’

‘I shall never be well again. I cannot be whole or well. Not after the last days. He has gone?’

Baldwin was at her side now. He looked down on her with compassion in his eyes. ‘He is gone, lady, and you are safe.’

‘This house is hateful to me, though. It is what he has made it: a charnel!’

Baldwin looked at Ralph, who nodded. ‘Is there somewhere else we could take you where you would feel more comfortable?’

She was quiet a long time, then turned her head away and began to weep. ‘No.’

Ralph was not a physician for nothing. He scowled blackly at Baldwin and jerked his head. It took three goes, but then the
knight appreciated his meaning and left them, walking slowly away for some steps until he was far enough distant not to disturb
the woman. Then he marched away to speak to Sir Peregrine.

‘Come, now, maid. There is a place where you would feel more comfortable, isn’t there? Is it a place you could go and rest
with propriety?’

She said nothing, but after a moment or two shook her head.

‘In that case, do you care about the propriety? Would you like me to find out whether there might be somewhere for you to
stay there anyway?’

This time she slowly turned to face him, and told him.

‘I could ask,’ he mused, ‘but I do not wish to leave you here alone …’

Sir Peregrine was happiest ordering men as though in preparation for battle, and it was not until Sir Baldwin appeared at
his side that he realized that this was actually the Keeper’s duty.
Still, Sir Baldwin smiled at him and indicated that his shoulder was still painful.

He would have this bastard caught by nightfall, the Coroner swore to himself. Jordan was wholly evil, and had to be stopped.

Baldwin was frowning. ‘Sir Peregrine, would you mind if I left you here? I feel a little too tired to continue walking the
streets searching for this man.’

‘Of course, Sir Baldwin. Please rest. I hope you’ll soon feel much recovered.’

‘I am sure that I shall,’ Baldwin said.

He walked from the house and set off along the street towards the high street. Here he paused, considering, but his feet soon
took him off westwards towards St Nicholas’s Priory. Within a hundred yards, he heard the footsteps behind him. ‘So I can’t
sidle away that easily?’

Simon laughed. ‘No. As you know full well, I wish always to be with you at the end of an investigation. And just now we need
to know what has been happening with this partnership.’

They walked on past the fleshfold, where the butchers were carving up the carcasses, and on down to the alley in which Daniel
had lived.

‘They won’t welcome us,’ Simon observed.

‘Very possibly true,’ Baldwin agreed. He sighed. ‘Simon, this matter is simply a case of hunting down that man. He is a lunatic,
surely. What in God’s name could have made him grow to want to inflict so much pain?’

‘You know more about men like that than I do,’ Simon said. ‘You must have seen men behave barbarously.’

‘It is one thing for a knight to charge a man and cut off his head in battle, another to torture a woman. This man must be
quite insane.’

‘What do you want here?’ Simon asked as they stood outside the house waiting for the door to open.

‘I feel sure that there is more to learn here. I don’t know what, though,’ Baldwin admitted as the door opened. He led the
way inside and soon the two were standing before Juliana.

‘Sir Baldwin, Bailiff – how may I serve you?’ she asked.

There was no coldness in her voice, Baldwin noted, just a sadness that seemed unappeasable. And a little fear. ‘Lady, the
man Jordan is suspected as the murderer of several people recently – perhaps including your husband. Would that surprise you?’

She closed her eyes a moment. ‘He threatened us.’

‘Pardon?’

‘He told my husband that he would kill us all if Daniel didn’t stop looking into his affairs.’

‘He said that?’ Simon asked. ‘Just because your man was growing too close to him?’

‘I think so. He hated to be thwarted; Jordan has always been a greedy man. He can never possess enough riches, but always
has to seek more.’

‘He did threaten you and your children directly?’ Baldwin pressed.

‘Yes. He warned Daniel, and Daniel told me. How did you guess?’

‘It was the matter of Estmund. Everyone was used to him entering, and no one seemed worried about his visits.’

‘Why should we be? We all knew poor Est.’

‘Quite, but you told us your husband would go downstairs with a sword in his hand. That doesn’t sound like a man who was at
ease with Est’s visits. Unless there was another man, of course.’

‘I see,’ she said. ‘How logical.’

‘But your husband’s murderer has so far escaped justice.’

‘Yes. I hope you can catch Jordan soon,’ she said, and began to weep once more.

Reginald had not enjoyed a restful evening. The thought that Jordan wanted him to murder the sisters – ‘and the children,
don’t forget them, Reg’ – had left him feeling sick. This was infinitely worse than anything he had known before. The idea
that he should murder those two women for no purpose was ridiculous, but he saw no means of escape. He could twist and turn,
but he was hooked. The man had paid him for murdering Daniel, and Daniel was dead. Now he would have these women murdered,
and because he was convinced that Reg had murdered Daniel, he saw no reason to suppose that Reg would fail him in this either.

And if Reg were to refuse, Jordan could announce to the world that Reg was Daniel’s murderer. He would stop at nothing to
get his way, after all.

At the knock on his door, he felt his spirit quail. There were only two people who knew of that doorway, and he was tempted
to ignore the summons at first, but then he stood resignedly and unlocked it, half expecting the blow as he pulled the door
wide.

‘Mazeline!’

Estmund finished butchering the pig’s carcass and left the fleshfold as the light was fading.

It was better. His anxiety was all but passed. He had needed to stand there with his knife in his hand, just as he had for
these last years past, every day he could, making use of the skills he possessed. He had few enough skills, after all. And
at least here in the fleshfold he could help others. There was a pride in
making the right incision, finding the bones hidden under the flesh, and twisting the blade
so
to move a ball from its socket without damaging the outer appearance of the meat. He was talented with a knife, he knew,
but today the excitement was not there for him.