Michael Jecks
The Malice of Unnatural Death
Prologue
Friday before the Feast of the Holy Cross in the seventeenth year of the reign of King Edward II1
Coventry
At the root of that murder there was no jealousy or hatred. If anything, it was murder in the interest of science. A new weaponmust be shown to be effective before it can be used with confidence. That was why Sir Richard de Sowe died: to prove thatthey could kill him.
In choosing him, the necromancer had selected a local man whose health it would be easy to ascertain. Sir Richard was a secularknight in the pay of the king, but he had not harmed John of Nottingham. No, his death was due to his proximity.
Not that Robert le Mareschal cared about that. No, as he stood in the dark room, the seven little figures illuminated by theflickering flames of the cheap tallow candles all about them, he didn’t even think about the man whose death they were planning. He felt only the thrill of the journey: the journey of knowledge.
It had always gripped him. There was nothing like learning for firing his blood. He had early heard about the use of demons andspirits to achieve enlightenment, and that was why he was here now, to learn how to conjure them, and have them do his bidding.
The room was warm, with the charcoal brazier glowing brightly in the corner, but for all that, he suddenly felt a chill.
It was as he was holding the figure of de Sowe that it happened. He was thrilled with the experiment and aware of little else,but as his master told him to take the lead pin there was a sudden icy chill in the room. It almost made him drop the doll,but fortunately he didn’t. John was a daunting man, tall, thin, with cadaverous cheeks and glittering small eyes that lookedquite malevolent in the candlelight, and Robert had no wish to appear incompetent in front of him.
‘Thrust it into his head,’ John said in that quiet, hissing voice of his.
Robert le Mareschal held the pin in his hand and stared at the figure. Glancing at John, for the first time he realised whathe was about to do: kill a man. Until that moment his thoughts had been on the power of magic, but now he was faced with thetruth. The pin was a three-inch length of soft lead. No danger to anyone, that. Press it against a man’s breast and the leadwould deform and bend.
‘I showed you what to do. Warm it in the candle, then thrust it into his head.’
The necromancer was wearing a simple black tunic with the hood thrown back, and Robert could see the lines about his neck. In this light, his ancient flesh was like that of a plucked chicken, and Robert felt repelled. But the penetrating eyes were fixed upon him, and the gash of his mouth above his beard was uncompromising.
Robert warmed the pin and then, as quickly as he could, he pressed it into the head of the wax model.
When he had been young and attempted something dangerous for the first time, Robert had found that his heart began poundingand his throat seemed to contract; then, as soon as the trial was over, he returned to his usual humour.
Not tonight. It was after midnight when he pushed that cursed pin into the model’s head, and the moment he did so the horrorof what he was doing struck home. His heart felt as if it would burst from his breast, and he shivered and almost fell.
John of Nottingham took the doll from him and observed it, smiling to himself, holding it gently in both hands almost as afather might study his first son. ‘Now, now: you mustn’t drop it, Robert. You could hurt him!’
Exeter Castle
Jen finished her work with a feeling of anxiety lest she might have failed in her duties, but when she was done beating thebed’s pillows into submission, ensuring that they were plumped nicely, and making them as soft and appealing as she knew how,and had almost finished tying back the beautiful, woven drapery about the bed, she heard the door open, and gaily called,‘Nearly done, Sarra. Leave me a moment, and I’ll be out.’
‘I am glad to hear it.’
Spinning, her mouth agape, Jen saw that the woman there in the doorway was not her friend Sarra, but the lady of the house.‘Oh! Oh, my lady, I am sorry, I …’
‘Do not have eyes in the back of your head. I know that.’
Madam Alice looked at her with that emptiness in her eyes that Jen had already come to recognise. In her opinion, a servant waslittle better than a beetle. Jen curtsied, then hurriedly made her way from the room, all the while under the woman’s silentgaze. She felt she was some unappealing, if necessary, feature of the woman’s household.
‘I didn’t see her coming, Jen; I couldn’t warn you,’ Sarra said in a whisper as Jen closed the door behind her. ‘Are you allright?’
‘Of course I am — what do you think?’
‘No need to snap! I was only making sure that you weren’t upset by her turning up like that.’
Jen looked at her. ‘I don’t know why you all get so upset by her. She’s the lady of the house, but she seems perfectly allright to me. She’s just a bit too self-absorbed, that’s all. She isn’t airy-fairy like some, but that’s no bad thing.’
‘She doesn’t talk to us at all.’
‘She’s spoken to me. She did just then.’
‘What did she say? She always ignores me,’ Sarra said.
‘Nothing. Just that she didn’t expect me to know it was her. She was fine. I don’t know what you’re so worried about.’
‘Wait till you’ve been here a bit longer, then you’ll understand.’
‘Perhaps I will,’ Jen agreed, but she couldn’t see why. The mistress was not friendly, but no one expected a great lady tobe friendly, not really. Better to be ignored for most of the day, because while you were ignored you weren’t looked uponas a pest. The servants who lasted were the ones who could seemingly move among the family of the house without disturbingthem. Jen intended being the best of all the servants here.
‘Sarra! Sarra, come here. Now, you stupid draggle-tail!’
‘Oh, saints preserve me! Coming, Steward,’ Sarra called. With a sidelong glance at her friend, she hurried into the hall.
Jen continued on her way. She was new to this place, whereas Sarra had been here for at least a year already. But the girlwho had helped Sarra had suddenly fallen prey to a disease, and wilted away in a matter of days until she could no longerdo her work. She’d been sent home to rest, and in the meantime another girl had to be found. Sarra had recommended her friend Jen, and after a brief interview with the cold-eyed steward of the household, she had been employed.
That was two days ago, and now she was here, living in unfamiliar surroundings with all these new people. It was enough tomake any girl of only seventeen years anxious, especially as she was determined to please her new master and mistress.
‘Jen, come and help me,’ Sarra called, and as Jen walked to help collect up cups and dishes from the table, she almost bumpedinto her new master. She looked up at him for the first time, and as she met his laughing dark eyes she felt a curious stirringin her heart. It was only with an effort that she managed to pull her eyes away from him, and hurry to help Sarra at the table.
Coventry
Robert le Mareschal slept fitfully. When they had put away the dolls and packed up the potions carefully, he had waited untilhis master had returned to his chamber before falling on his own cot. He was exhausted, the weariness more than the mere tirednessof muscles or eyes that he was accustomed to. No, this was something much deeper. It was almost as though all the energy in his body had been sucked fromhim.
As the night wore on, he found himself waking regularly, each time drenched in sweat and fearful, as though he had just hada nightmare. And yet if a mare did visit him, it left no memory of his dreaming. In the morning he felt drained, and yet inhis mind he was perfectly clear about his actions and the potential results. If the dolls worked, there would be an end toa dreadful tyranny, and that was surely better than leaving matters as they were.