The Butcher of St Peter's: (Knights Templar 19) (3 page)

She was intelligent, that was certain. That lovely head of hers held a brain that was capable of embarrassing the brightest.
Daniel himself had often been bested by her in argument, and when he had played her at nine men’s morris she had thrashed
him. Some fellows could have accused her of witchcraft for the skill she showed in calculating five or even six moves in advance.
There was a masculine ruthlessness in the way that she utterly destroyed him during that game which rankled even now. He was
so glad he’d chosen
her
, Juliana, in the end. She had given him his lovely daughter, Cecily, and no man could ask for more.

Juliana was a calmer, more kindly soul. She only ever had a smile and a welcoming word of encouragement. A sweeter woman in
every way.

Looking at her now, he told himself he was right to be so entirely besotted. Agnes would be an adornment for any man’s bed,
but – Christ Jesus! – how she would scold and taunt when the mood took her. She had the tongue of a viper when she wanted,
and she could poison a man’s heart with her words; by
contrast Juliana was supportive and thoughtful of his needs. A complete difference. Whoever was to win Agnes would find himself
with a right challenging bitch, and little peace in his marriage.

He could not help himself. His gaze was drawn to Agnes, and he caught a glimpse of her curled lip just as she looked away.
Hard-hearted bitch! Even today she had to watch and sneer. She had a heart frozen to ice.

Looking away, he found himself meeting the cynical stare of Jordan le Bolle, and he gritted his teeth. If he could, he would
run up to the son of a hog and beat him. But today of all days he could do nothing. He must endure, while the priests mumbled
their words over Jordan’s mother-in-law’s body in the hurried service that was so commonplace now, with so many dying of starvation.
It was a disgrace that the priests should let le Bolle in before Juliana’s and Agnes’s father. He at least had been honourable.

Later, walking out through the doors, he felt contempt for all priests. Supercilious and smug, they never had to work. There
was nothing that could worry them. Whatever happened, they took their money from rich and poor alike, and were never touched
by the disasters which struck down others. Even now, when the folk here in Exeter were starving and the famine was starting
to bite into even the wealthier families, the vicars and the canons in their cathedral close were safe enough. They had their
massive grain stores outside the city, all of them with food enough to keep them alive for many long months. Not that there
would be much point. Daniel gazed about him sombrely. What would be the purpose of St Peter’s Cathedral Church and all these
canons, vicars, annuellars and servants if all the city’s souls were dead? There was little sense in having a massive new
cathedral church erected if all the people for
whom it had been designed, to entice them inside, were already buried
out
side.

The death rate was now massively greater than it had been at the start. God’s bones, but if more people started to die, Daniel
would have to consider hiring another clerk to help him in his work. A part of his duties was to see to the wills of the dead
and already he had run up a profit of eleven shillings in the last six weeks, a massive sum of money.

As he pulled his hat over his head, he noticed the cart before the entrance and scowled at it. Mazeline’s mother had given
up a while ago. A little good broth and some pasties would have saved her, but of course Jordan le Bolle couldn’t provide
them, could he? Daniel sneered to himself. No, the wealthiest thief in the city couldn’t provide the food which his mother-in-law
desperately needed, because that would expose his life for the sham it was. He lived frugally as a lowly tavern-keeper, and
now he had no guests people would soon start to comment if they found him with apparently more money than he should have.
Since even bread had risen in price to six times its value at the start of the famine, all men were looking to their cash
ever more carefully. This was the second year of hardship. Last year had seen the beginnings of the disaster, when the crops
failed in the torrential downpours, but matters had grown much worse.

Everything was affected. Food cost so much that many were incapable of affording it. Although the King and others had tried
to enforce a strict control on pricing, it was pointless and had to be dropped. It was contrary to all reason to enforce low
prices. Every man knew food could only be grown when God willed it. He alone decided the fruitfulness of the earth and the
quality of the returns, and if He decided to make men suffer because of the sterility of the harvest, that was His choice.
And
price depended upon that capricious will, not the will of an English king.

So many had died of starvation, it was a miracle that there were not more outbreaks of violence. The Trailbaston gangs were
not so numerous as once they had been, and it appeared that the countryside was reverting to calmness. The peasants would
sometimes plead for food at the wayside when there was nothing to fill their bellies, and the sight of the children at their
sides was pitiable, but it was God’s way to remind men every so often of their feebleness compared with His power.

There had been cases of sporadic violence, mostly outside the city. Often it had been between the gangs of felons who brought
food into the city slyly to avoid duties. They met on the highway and set about each other with enthusiasm, beating their
rivals about the heads and causing several deaths. Others were killed, too; notably travellers wandering about the place with
purses that bulged intriguingly. They were ripe for the plucking, and all too many of them were fleeced when they reached
the city if they hadn’t been already. Several were murdered, especially if they had some spare food about them. Today food
was more valuable than mere money.

Daniel hated such men with a vengeance. He had strong ideas who they were, too. It was obscene that a man like Jordan le Bolle
should be treated as an equal. He should have been excluded from the cathedral church. A man like him, responsible for fleecing
so many, robbing some, perhaps even killing them, and yet he could join a church ceremony like any decent man. It was revolting.

The funeral party was walking past to leave. He stood aside, one hand on his wife’s elbow, as they strode to the door. First
to go was Mazeline with her husband and her cousin, all of them pulling their hoods over their heads in preparation. Then
came
the men with the body on its bier. As they did so, Daniel curled his lip.

‘They’ll never starve, those two.’

‘Still hunting that stag?’ Agnes said sweetly. ‘Brother, perhaps you should seek more certain quarry than one which may always
outrun you.’

Daniel glanced at her briefly, and took delight in reflecting that he had married the other sister, but still, as he walked
away with Juliana on his arm, he knew no ease or comfort.

The sight of that felon, le Bolle, had soured an already doleful day. The weather was the perfect match for his temper: grim,
grey, and relentless. The rain fell in an unending downpour which, while not being so earnest as to justify the use of a word
like ‘torrent’, was so unremitting that it seemed to scour the soul. One week – no, even a single day – of rain now was enough
to turn a man’s mood to rage, but this, this was torment on a vast scale. It tortured everyone. When had he last witnessed
a day without rain? Christ’s blood, he didn’t know. St Peter himself could hardly be expected to know. Had there been a dry
day this year?

Later, after the old man had been buried and he was walking round the conduit, he saw the two shadowy figures. They were crouched
low, and as he took in the scene he could see what was happening. Two men, a well-wrapped corpse at their side, the cheap
fabric of the winding-sheet soaking up the red moisture from the soil on which it lay, were digging a fresh pit for the body.

‘Sweet Mother of God,’ he swore, and left his wife with the mourners as he made his way across the rough ground.

Every step seemed to dash water in every direction, much of it leaping up and splashing his shins. The red liquid, stained
by the soil around here, dripped like diluted blood, and for an instant he was revolted by the fancy and stopped.

All this space about the cathedral was the cemetery for the people of this city, and he suddenly had a foul thought that this
redness had not leached from the earth, but was in fact blood, the blood of all the dead bodies which lay beneath his feet.
The grass was flattened, rough, chewed by a hundred horses; trampled by the traders who haggled here, the children who played
hereabout, and the boots of the men and women who came to see their beloved relatives interred. He took another step, and
the rich soil threw up another gout of the scarlet liquid.

He was an officer of the law, not some superstitious fool of a peasant from Exmouth, he told himself sternly, and continued.

‘What in God’s sweet name do you think you’re doing here?’ he demanded.

Henry was in the pit, and he glanced over at the sergeant. ‘Only burying Emma, Daniel. You’ve just buried one man; let us
see to Est’s wife in peace, eh?’

‘Get her away from here and fill in that hole, you sacrilegious son of a Plymouth whore! This is the cathedral’s land.’

‘It’s all right here,’ Estmund said dully. ‘A vicar told us.’

‘Daniel, please,’ Henry pleaded. ‘Just leave us. It’s for Emma, and she deserves better than this anyway.’

‘You heard me: get that pack away from here and go yourselves!’ Daniel demanded. He could feel his frustration and anger rising.

Henry climbed out of the hole and reached for a spade. ‘Daniel, sometimes you’re a damned cretin. If you are so stupid as
to want to make Est suffer, I’m not. And Emma was a good woman. I’ll not take her anywhere else.’ He started to tidy the edge
of the pit.

It was enough. Daniel had been delayed by le Bolle at his mother-in-law’s funeral, he felt nervy after that odd reflection
about the red water, and now this pair of morons were disputing his authority. The rage and frustration enfolded him in its
warm embrace, and he grabbed the sack of tools that lay at the graveside. Heaving it back, he hurled it through the air to
the opposite side of the roadway, where it burst and scattered its contents about the cobbles.

‘You poxed son of a goat!’ Henry spat. ‘Look at all that lot!’ He started towards the sergeant, his face darkening with anger.

Daniel’s blood was up already, and seeing the brawny figure moving towards him he was sure that the spade would soon be swung
at his head. He had no hesitation. There was one weapon handy, a pickaxe. As Henry approached, Daniel grabbed it and swung
it. The pick missed Henry’s face, but ripped into his right shoulder, tearing through skin and muscle, crunching through bone
and exploding out again. A spray of blood rose from the wound, jetting up and over, drenching Estmund and his dead wife, and
as Henry was wrenched from his feet by the power of that appalling blow Estmund squealed like a child and fell to his knees
at her side, his arms outstretched, as though disbelieving that such a sacrilege could have struck her.

Exeter, September 1323

Even as she moaned and rubbed her glorious body over his, a part of him was sure that something was wrong.

Not with her: she had her arms about him as she returned his kisses, enthusiastic as any whore from the stews in Exeter, and
although that nagging doubt remained, Reginald Gylla was only a man; made of flesh and blood like any other. Was there a fellow
in the country who could have left that delicious wench lying there on the bed just because of a sudden notion? When she parted
her lips and her tongue slipped out to touch his mouth, he was too excited to worry about some little niggling concern. There
was nothing there, he told himself. Nothing to worry about.

Her hand reached under his shirt and stroked his belly and thighs, and he lifted himself over her, but even as his weight
was balanced on his forearms he had a sudden vision of a sword whirling, shearing through his neck. It made him start, and
distracted him enough to make him begin to withdraw.

She didn’t appear to notice. Her hand continued its ministrations while she whimpered softly, and he found himself forced
to continue, as though halting at this moment must question his
manhood. Soon he was moving forward, ready to plant his falchion in her sheath.

Falchion?
What a thought! Planting a blade in her was the last thing he would think of; he adored her! His manhood began to droop.

He wanted to swear aloud at the way his mind was diverted, but that was the trouble: no matter what he did with her now, the
thought of men attacking him here, in his own hall, was never far from him. The idea that someone could enter the place was
alarming. Jordan le Bolle was a fearsome enemy, and he had the money and the power to murder Reg, even here in the middle
of Exeter. Christ’s pains, it was mad to be in this place with this woman – especially when his only thoughts were of Jordan’s
sword aiming at his heart or his head, or … no, it didn’t bear thinking of other places he might attack.

Reg had some authority and money too, but his star was waning. He was sure of it. The urge for more power was fading. He didn’t
like his life, his business; he had made his money from other men and women’s suffering. That was wrong.

In the last few days he’d made enquiries of a man in the market, who was supposed to be good at seeing the future, and although
he had said the right things – a parcel of money coming his way, the blessing of more sons, ever fruitful business and the
rest – there had been a reticence about him that had convinced Reg that he saw something else too. When he paid and left,
he was sure that there was a sort of hard look in the old man’s eyes. He knew, all right … he knew.

She was at him again, and he realized that the mere thought of that shit of the devil, Jordan le Bolle, had shrivelled his
tarse as effectively as a cold bath. He was flaccid … he must concentrate to satisfy her. Looking down at her, he studied
her soft lips, the half-lidded blue eyes, now so wanton, and drank
in the picture of her naked breasts and fine white flesh. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever known, and she was
all his. He settled down, kissing her face and forehead, cheeks, chin, eyelids and nose, while she returned to her skilled
manipulation, and soon he was ready again.

He refused to permit any interruptions this time. The bastard wasn’t going to take this away from him. Not again. Le Bolle
could make a summer’s day feel cold. He had the ability to ruin any experience – even this. Reg carried on kissing, moving
down her neck to her breasts, and she squirmed with pleasure, emitting small moans of delight as he suckled and licked.

The furs gave off a warm odour of bodies and musk, and he drank it in as he—

Shit, shit, shit!
There – there
was
something. His head snapped up and he glowered at the door.

‘What is it, lover?’ she asked, her voice low with lust.

In the room there was a constant swishing and rattling from the heavy drapery that covered the walls. The windows were unglazed,
and even with the shutters pulled over the spaces, the wind passed through. Now he could see the thick material of the tapestries
rippling softly. One was hung in front of a beam with a projecting splinter which he had meant to remove ages ago when his
wife first pointed it out to him, but it was high up and he hadn’t bothered. Now he wished he had. There was a ticking sound,
then a harsh rasping, as the material moved over it. It was annoying.

Christ’s pain, but this was ridiculous! There was nothing. Surely there was nothing. Here in his solar, he was safe from anything
– any
one
! A man trying to get in here would have to wade through the blood of the servants and men-at-arms in his hall, then climb
the stairs. He’d hear them from yards off; it wasn’t even as though they could expect to find everyone asleep,
not at this time of night. No, if there was to be an attack, he would know of it. Even a single assassin would—

His heart seemed to freeze in his chest. In an instant he realized what the noise must have been. He leaped to his feet, leaving
her naked on the furs, scarcely heeding her complaints, and bounded to the chest on which lay his old sword. This he snatched
up, and made for the door. The peg latched it and he yanked it free, sword in hand, and hurried down the heavy timber staircase.
At the bottom was the little chamber he had made for his son, and here he stopped, panting slightly. The bed was still there,
and on it he saw the shape of his boy. Against the chill, the lad had pulled a thick fustian blanket over his linen sheets,
and as Reg approached more quietly, his breathing already easing, he saw that his son’s face showed as a pale disc in the
moon’s light.

The lad was nearly six years old, and he wore an expression of mildly pained enquiry on his sleeping face, one arm thrown
up over his brow as though he was striking himself for a failed memory. He looked so perfect that Reg felt a pang of sadness
to think that soon such beauty must pass. It would be no time before the boy was learning his arms, practising with bow and
sword to the honour of his family and his king. God shield him!

Reg was about to return upstairs when he registered what had struck him already, that the window was open and the shutter
wide. He shouldn’t have been able to see his son in that room, not at night, not with his determination that all should be
secure against attack.

Turning, he glanced at the window, and his heart chilled again as he felt, rather than saw, the figure, grim, dark and menacing,
standing at the opening. Reg gave a shrill cry, partly rage, mostly fear, and hurled his sword at the man. It missed, striking
the wall and clattering with a ringing peal to the ground
as the man slipped out through the window, and then fled over the rough patch of yard.

Henry heard about the man’s screams the next day. Although with his terrible, twisted shoulder it was hard for him to perform
any manual labour of the type he had once found so easy, at least his natural affinity for horses meant he could earn a living
as a carter. He’d been lucky to acquire the wagon and pony, and fortunately he was also blessed with the natural good humour
of a man who had suffered through his life, and was able to find amusement in almost any tale.

That morning he had no business, and was sitting on a bench outside the tavern called the Blue Rache up near St Petroc’s,
enjoying his early wet of a quart of middling strong ale, when he overheard two men discussing the affair. One of the men
worked in Reginald Gylla’s household, and he appeared hugely amused by the whole incident. As, for that matter, was Henry.

‘He’s this big, bluff lad, the master. Well, you know him. Spit in the eye of the devil, he would usually, and not worry about
it. Well, thing was, when I saw him after that, he was shaking so much, he could hardly pick up his sword again. Just stood
there shouting for us to check the garden, saying there was an assassin out there or something, and holding his boy for all
he was worth. Never seen nothing like it.’

‘Sounds like he’s daft.’

‘Huh! If you had the one son and you found a man in there …’

‘Or thought you had. How much’d he had to drink, eh?’

‘Enough,’ the first conceded. ‘But it wasn’t that. I thought he’d seen a ghost, when he said the fellow was a tall man, clad
in black with a hood over his face and all … but it weren’t a ghost. It was that mad butcher again.’

‘Yeah? And how’d you know that?’

‘’Cos ghosts don’t leave muddy prints, do they? If you want to play the arse, that’s fine, but if you want to know what happened,
stop bleeding interrupting.’

‘Sorry. What else then?’

Shamefacedly, the man admitted, ‘Well, that’s about it, really. Someone had been there, and we found prints on the floor to
show where he’d been, but there was no sign of him outside. We all went round the place, grumbling a bit, ’cos, you know,
we didn’t want to be out there. Christ’s pain, it was cold last night! Still, nothing to find, I reckon. But it shows how
worried the master is. Just that, and he’s ordering us to keep a proper guard on the place. It’s like he’s got an enemy to
guard against.’ He spat and added dismissively, ‘When everyone knows about the man who watches children.’

Henry smiled to himself and rose. It was always pleasant to know the truth behind a mystery. Still, he would have to go and
speak to Est and tell him to be more careful. There was no need to risk a cut throat for no reason.

No reason! In an instant his light-hearted mood fled and he felt the grimness return. There was plenty of reason for it, even
if it were to drive him mad. Poor Est.

Sir Peregrine de Barnstaple, clad in a new green tunic, walked off to church that morning to participate in the mass for St
Giles. He felt no fondness towards the saint; he had been at the market at Tiverton, held during the vigil, feast and morrow
of St Giles’s Day, when the woman he had wanted for his own had died in the attempt to give birth to his child. The double
loss had been overwhelming for a while, and had been the cause of a great change in his own outlook on life.

It was quite strange, when he came to think about it. He had
loved twice in his life, once a well-born woman in Barnstaple, and the second time poor Emily in Tiverton, and both were dead.
It was as though any woman whom he ever grew to love would always be taken away from him … for a moment he hesitated in
his striding towards the cathedral. Perhaps God Himself had marked him out for punishment, and this loneliness was a proof
of His disapproval. God would not help a man like him.

For a man who prided himself on his integrity as a Christian first and as a knight second, this was a deeply alarming reflection,
and he stood stock still for a while, his green eyes fixed intently on the horizon.

He was a good-looking man, Sir Peregrine. Tall, he had the build of a knight who had trained with his weapons every day since
the age of five, with the powerful shoulders of a man who had used sword, lance and shield in battles. His neck was thick,
as befitted a man who wore a helm at speed on a horse, but there the appearance of a warrior ended. Although his body was
strong, he had the semblance of a man dedicated to God. His face was long, with a high brow like a cleric’s. He looked as
though he had been tonsured expertly, leaving only a fringe of golden curls like a child’s all about his head, which seemed
strangely out of place on a middle-aged man’s skull.

Many had been deceived by those bright green eyes and the mouth that smiled so easily, and many of those remained deceived,
because Sir Peregrine believed in results. If he was forced to distort facts in the service of his master, he had always thought
that such behaviour was best kept to himself. From his head to his toes, he was a very competent politician.

But the thought that he could have upset God was nonsense! There was no action he had undertaken in his life that was so heinous
as to make him the target of God’s vengeful wrath.
Rather, there was plenty to boast about. He tried to be honourable and chivalrous: it was a measure of his worth that he had
been elevated to knight bannaret. For some while he had been the Keeper of Tiverton Castle for his lord – although more recently
he had suffered a fall from grace.

Lord Hugh de Courtenay was a good lord and a fair and loyal man, but there were times when even the most reasonable master
had to divest himself of devoted servants. That was particularly true when politics came to the fore, as they now had.

Nobody who knew the two men well could doubt that Sir Peregrine was as devoted to Lord Hugh as a hound to his master. For
Sir Peregrine there was no concept of loyalty higher than that of a knight to his liege-lord. He was content, as he set off
once more, that his own record was enough to justify a certain pride.

It was painful to accept that it must be a long while before he could return to his place at his lord’s side, but Peregrine
knew the reason for his eviction from the castle, and he was content that his master had justification. In compensation, Lord
Hugh had petitioned certain people and gained this new post for Sir Peregrine, so now he was the King’s Coroner to the City
of Exeter and surrounding lands. A good position, certainly, although fraught with fresh dangers, for it meant that he was
always under the eye of the King himself.

Not that he was just now. In the last few months, ever since the escape of Mortimer from the Tower, the King had had other
matters on his mind.

It was a source of amusement and not a little delight to Peregrine that King Edward II, who had caused so much damage to the
country, who had depended on loyal subjects to support him, who had trampled on the rights and liberties of so
many, finally slaughtering hundreds of knights up and down the country, even his own relatives, in his determination to keep
his advisers the Despensers close by his side, should now shake at the knowledge that his own best warrior-leader, the man
whom the King had himself disloyally imprisoned, was now his greatest enemy. There was a delicious irony in that, one which
Sir Peregrine appreciated.