The Malice of Unnatural Death: (15 page)

But when he saw de Sowe dead, the reality of what he was doing was suddenly brought home to him. This was not some abstract
scientific experiment, it was murder.

Croyser acted immediately. Robert le Mareschal was held and kept in a dungeon below the castle, and news of his capture and
the events which he said had led up to the death of Sir Richard de Sowe were sent to London. And within a matter of days,
the king’s men were back, and the arrests began.

That
was all some while ago. He didn’t know how long. Long enough for his hair to grow rank and greasy; long enough for his clothes
to rot in the dank chamber; long enough for his muscles to cramp and shiver. His teeth ached; his flesh crawled with creatures
that nipped at him.

He could weep to think that all was thrown away. The death of de Sowe had been dreadful, but the man had been a liar. He deserved
some sort of punishment. Dear Christ, though, the man had suffered …

Robert stood and made a slow perambulation, going as far as his leg-iron permitted him. It wasn’t far; the chain secured to
the ring in the wall only allowed a short walk. As he went, his arms wrapped about his torso, he kept his head huddled down
in his shoulders.

There was a rattle of locks, and he turned slowly to face the door, his flesh creeping at the sound. The arrival of a man
here was invariably the precursor to pain. The keeper of the gaol was a brutal man with no sympathy, only a hatred for all
those who lived under his power. And he had an especial loathing for traitors.

In here there was almost no light, for the only pale imitation of the sun could curl and twist about many passages before
reaching these depths, but as Robert le Mareschal peered at the door he was sure that he could see a glimmering orange light. The glow appeared to grow nearer, and Robert was tortured with conflicting emotions: an urgent, sensual desire to see that
torch or candle, whatever it might be – to see it and hear it crackle, imagining that he could warm himself by its flames
– that would be so good! And then there was the opposing terror that whoever it might be, he was coming here to inflict some
torture on Robert’s weakened frame.

There
were steps now. Loud, confident paces that marched along the flagged corridor, until they had grown so loud, their echoes
were a torment to his ears. They must pass … they
must
pass … they would go to another cell …

But they stopped outside his door, and looking up at the barred hole in the door Robert saw the glittering of the sheriff’s
eyes. Croyser spoke.

‘All taken. John of Nottingham was first, but the others are all secure now.’

‘Thanks to God!’

Croyser looked at him with contempt in his eyes. ‘You pray to God after what you’ve done? You summoned the devil and sold
your soul to kill a man. And would have killed your own king, no doubt, if fear of your punishment hadn’t stopped you.’

‘No! I summoned no demons! And I did tell you of the plot!’

‘Yes, you did, didn’t you? And all, I suppose, because you’d rather risk being hanged than suffering the death that the king
might plan for you.’

‘What will happen to them now?’

‘The others? They’ll all try to plead innocence and ask for sureties to help them escape from prison. They’ll only be here
a short while, I expect.’

‘And my master? How is he?’

‘I thought …’

There was a sudden doubt in the sheriff’s voice. Robert le Mareschal felt a griping in his belly that was not due to the thin
pottage he had eaten that morning. ‘He hasn’t escaped? If he has escaped, he can make an image of
me
and kill me!’

‘Well, he has escaped in a way, I suppose.’ The sheriff
grinned nastily. ‘His body’s here, but his spirit’s escaped, I suppose you could say. More than you will do.’

‘All I did was make mommets and obey my master,’ Robert declared.

‘You made the figures very realistic, too, didn’t you? So realistic even I could recognise my king when I saw it. No, you
only came forward because you thought you’d make a safer pact by selling your companions to the king than by killing him. What was it, did someone else hint that they’d give you up?’

‘I’ve already told you …’

‘Yes, you’ve told me what you want me to hear. You haven’t told me everything, though. Not by a long shot. But you will, you
will. I’ll have you shrieking in agony and begging to tell me all. We are skilled in the use of our devices here, and the
king is upset to hear that you helped make the imitation of him so that you could kill him by your
maleficium
.’

‘I wouldn’t have done anything to him! I couldn’t!’ Robert pleaded. He had surrendered himself as soon as he could when he
realised that the attempt must be discovered: the thought of the punishment that would come to a man who had dared to make
an attempt on the life of the king had petrified him with fear.

‘You’ll have to convince him, not me. And not only him. You know, I don’t think that the good king’s friends are happy either. From what I’ve heard, the Despensers are also distressed to think that you and your master could have taken money from these
malcontents and traitors to kill them. I don’t know, but I rather think that Sir Hugh le Despenser will want to be involved
in your punishment personally. And God help you if he does!’

It took
Baldwin and the coroner only a short while to walk up South Gate Street towards the area in which the watchman had seen the
shadow, but it took considerably more time for Baldwin to persuade the coroner to enter the lane with him.

‘You are seriously suggesting that there could have been a man in here who had the skill to change himself into a blasted
cat to escape that poor excuse for a guard?’

‘Of course not! Yet he may have seen something which was out of place, even if he did succumb to superstitious nonsense shortly
afterwards.’

‘I think we’d be better served fetching ourselves a pie for our dinner.’

‘Come, it will take little enough time,’ Baldwin said.

With a bad grace the coroner gave in, and Baldwin was grateful for his company as they walked along the busy lane towards
the Bear Gate.

‘He did say the second alley after the main street?’ Baldwin confirmed, his nose wrinkled at the stench. ‘I can understand
why he would be reluctant to enter this noisome little trail.’

It was a narrow gap between houses like so many others, and yet here the width was much reduced. As Baldwin took a first tentative
step in, he felt as though the houses were all leaning in towards him, their upper storeys bending down and blocking out the
sky.

Oddly enough, once the two men had walked about ten paces, the whole area brightened. Here there was a curve in the alley,
and now it ran straight towards the south. The sun was up in the clouds there, brightening a thinner layer of cloud, and the
alley appeared less repellent than it had at
first because once they were away from the entrance, it widened somewhat. However, the odours of excrement and urine were
all-pervasive. A scuttling ahead showed where a rat was scavenging, and the sounds stopped as the two drew nearer.

‘I cannot imagine why any man would want to come down here.’

‘For a fellow making good his escape, it would be as good as any,’ Baldwin considered. ‘Look at this place! No one is here
during the day, so it must be guaranteed to be deserted at night. Say you had killed a king’s messenger, and you had to escape. The South Gate would be shut, so where else could you go? This would be the ideal route to take, I should say.’

The coroner lifted his boot with an expression of distaste and stared at the sole. ‘So long as he didn’t mind being covered
in the ordure of the centuries, damn it! Look at that!’ He began to scrape the muck from his boot on a step.

‘The rat would explain why there would be a cat up here,’ Baldwin continued, walking on a short distance and peering about
him. ‘I dare say this would be a cheerful hunting ground for any feline. And the appearance of a man suddenly coming up the
alley from the gate might startle a cat so that it decided to bolt for it, and that was how it met with the fearful watchman.’

‘Perfectly logical,’ the coroner agreed.

‘And the watchman said he thought the man looked like a sorcerer. Let us go and visit the fellow, eh?’

Lady Alice reached the house late in the afternoon, with Sarra as chaperon, only to find it encircled by a small group of
gawping men and women. There was a beadle she
recognised outside, a scruffy little fellow whom her husband had once said he suspected of half the crimes in the city, except
he’d never managed to catch him.

‘What is all this?’ she asked a woman nearby.

‘Mistress, the man here was attacked and almost killed.’

Lady Alice’s eyes widened. ‘You are sure of this?’

There was no need to respond. The only reason for a crowd this size was an attempted murder, or, better, an actual one.

‘My lady, we ought to get back,’ Sarra said nervously.

‘Yes, of course,’ Lady Alice said with some irritation. It was so hard to get time away from the castle just now, and she
was desperate for any help she could get.

Matthew had never said as much, but she knew that he felt the lack of children as sorely as she herself. They had tried – God knew all too well how hard! – but she could not conceive for some reason. And then she had had the idea of enlisting the
help of this man Langatre.

It meant lots of foul potions, which she did her best to apply as he suggested, rubbing them in about her body, but, as he
explained, the trouble with these kinds of problem was the womb itself. It was a strange organ, which could move about the
body. Only when it was positioned firmly could a man pierce her with hopes of success. And in her case, it was rarely fixed.

She would have to pray that he made a swift recovery so that she might see him again soon.

And just then she felt her heart seem to stop. Time ceased as she stared at the man with the black eyes, the scruffy stubble
at his chin, the deep creases like knife-slashes at either side of his mouth, and there was a moment’s confusion in her mind
as she felt her belly roil.

‘Mary
Mother of God!’

Sarra saw her confusion and paleness. ‘Mistress? My lady? What is it?’

‘Sarra, go to the tavern up on the corner and fetch me a pint of strong ale. Go! Now! I shall wait here.’

And as soon as her maid had left her, she sank down onto a moorstone trough that sat nearby and waited, not daring to look
as he approached her grimly, his hand ready on his knife.

Simon
was growing concerned. He had been out on the moors of an evening often enough, but today the weather was rapidly growing
chillier, and the clouds looked threatening. It might rain, but more likely they were going to be attacked by a blizzard.

‘Rob, can’t you hurry a little faster?’ he called over his shoulder. The boy was a nuisance at the best of times, but today
he had excelled himself, whining about crossing a small area of boggy land when he had already seen the horses walk through
easily enough, and then falling flat on his face and refusing to get up for some little while, complaining that he had broken
his toe on a rock. Now he was some yards behind them again, his face set in a lowering black mask of fury at the indignity
of hurrying after the others.

‘I’m the one who’s not on a horse, master Bailiff,’ Rob responded with some asperity. ‘What do you expect me to do? Run the
whole way?’

Simon grunted his answer. It was only the truth. The worst delays had been caused by Busse. He had insisted on regular halts,
supposedly to pray at the requisite hours of the day, and also to rest his horse, but Simon felt sure that it was
more to do with his own sore buttocks. The last time, he had begged Simon to light a fire to warm his hands. True enough, Simon could see that Busse’s face was turning a little blue with the cold, but that was no excuse to use up their meagre supply
of firewood and tinder. Simon was painfully aware that they would need both tonight, and he was not going to risk the main
supply of good tinder to light a fire when they might have need of it all later.

His attention was on the clouds forming to the north. It was plain enough that the weather was settling in for a cold blow. Simon was deeply unhappy to think that they could all be stuck out here on the moors for an extended period, but if the snow
fell hard, that was exactly the risk.

It was growing dark as he stared about him, and he cursed the short winter days. ‘Right. We won’t make it off the moor before
nightfall. We have to find a shelter. I won’t continue in the dark, not with the moon hidden. It would be too dangerous.’

‘Surely we are almost at the end of the moors, Bailiff,’ Busse said, hearing his words. ‘There are plenty of farms out there.’

‘There are some, but I can see no sign of smoke yet,’ Simon said shortly. ‘Even all the miners seem to be hidden away. With
this weather, I would expect them to be hidden away in a tavern. Probably up in Chagford, most of them. That’d be the nearest
to us here, I think.’

He remained still, staring about him for a long time, making sure of his bearings, and then pointed ahead and slightly left
to a large outcrop of rock. ‘If we make for that, I think we’ll be close to the Grey Wethers. That’ll give me my bearings.’

‘You mean to say that you are lost,’ Busse said.

‘No.
But look about you – if we were a mile behind us right now, would you know the difference? All is rolling hills, with occasional
rocks at their summits. It is easy to become confused, and always best to make sure of your bearings. However, once we hit
the Grey Wethers, I will be happier.’

‘Why, are they safe?’ Rob asked innocently.

Simon shot him a look, then glanced at the monk beside him. Busse, he saw, was nervous. Good! Well he might be, Simon reflected.

‘No, but their spirits may lead us to safety,’ he said at last, and kicked his horse to greater speed.