The Sticklepath Strangler

Praise for The Last Templar Mysteries

‘The most wickedly plotted medieval mystery novels’

The Times

‘Michael Jecks is a national treasure’

Scotland on Sunday

‘Atmospheric and cleverly plotted’

Observer

‘Marvellously portrayed’

C. J. Sansom

‘Michael Jecks is the master of the medieval whodunnit’

Robert Low

‘Utterly enthralling’

Karen Maitland

‘If you care for a well-researched visit to medieval England, don’t pass this series’

Historical Novels Review

‘Torturous and exciting… The construction of the story and the sense of the period are excellent’

Shots

‘Jecks’ knowledge of medieval history is impressive, and is used here to great effect’

Crime Time

‘A gem of historical storytelling… authentic recreation of the modes and manners, superstitions and primitive fears that made up the colourful but brutal tableau of the Middle Ages’

Northern Echo

‘A tremendously successful medieval mystery series’

Sunday Independent

‘Jecks writes with passion and historical accuracy. Devon and Cornwall do not seem the same after reading his dramatic tales’

Oxford Times

‘Each page is densely packed with cuckolding, coarseness, lewdness, lechery, gore galore, but also with nobility. A heady mix!’

North Devon Journal

‘His research is painstaking down to the smallest detail, his characters leap alive from the page, and his evocation of setting is impressive’

Book Collector

This book is for Shirley and Dartmoor Dave Denford, the blacksmith who ‘don’t do ’orses’.

Cast of Characters

Sir Baldwin de Furnshill: The Keeper of the King’s Peace in Crediton, Baldwin has been marked by the injustice of the destruction of the Knights Templar. As a result he seeks justice for common folk.

Lady Jeanne: Baldwin’s wife, who was once widowed and now fears losing her second husband.

Edgar: Baldwin saved Edgar’s life in Acre, and since then Edgar swore loyalty to him for life. He is Baldwin’s most trusted servant.

Simon Puttock: Long a friend of Baldwin’s, and an official of the Stannaries, the tin miners of Dartmoor. Simon and Baldwin have often worked together on investigations.

Roger de Gidleigh: Coroner Roger is one of only two coroners who must investigate all sudden deaths and wrecks in Devonshire.

Nicole Garde: The French wife of Thomas Garde; mother of Joan.

Thomas Garde: Thomas is a freeman, who works his own little plots, but he is an incomer to the vill of Sticklepath and has never been fully accepted.

Joan: Daughter of Nicole and Thomas, Joan has found a corpse.

Ivo Bel: Brother of Thomas, and Manciple to the nuns of Canonsleigh. He lusts after Nicole, his sister-in-law.

Serlo Warrener: A gruff, hardy man, crippled years ago, who tends to the warren up on the moor.

Athelhard: Athelhard was killed by the vill when they thought him guilty of murder.

‘Mad’ Meg: Sister to Athelhard, and simple from birth, Meg avoids the vill since the death of her brother.

Ansel de Hocsenham: A purveyor to the King, Ansel last visited the vill during the 1315-16 famine.

Emma: Close friend of Joan who found the corpse with her.

Swetricus: A peasant of Sticklepath who lost Aline, his daughter, several years ago. Three daughters survive.

Samson atte Mill: The miller, known for brawling and drunkenness.

Gunilda: Samson’s wife, a downtrodden woman.

Felicia: Samson and Gunilda’s daughter.

Alexander de Belston: The cautious Reeve of Sticklepath who is determined to preserve the reputation of the vill and its people.

William Taverner: William is the master of the only inn.

Ham: Taverner’s son, who was killed in the recent floods.

Mary: Daughter to Taverner, who often serves visitors to the inn.

Gervase Colbrook: Parson to the little chantry chapel of Sticklepath.

Drogo le Criur: Leader of the foresters, charged with guarding the Forest of Dartmoor and travellers over it.

Peter atte Moor: A forester under Drogo, Peter lost his daughter Denise to the murderer some years ago.

Adam Thorne: Also a forester, Adam has a bad limp, but is known for his strength and integrity.

Vincent Yunghe: The youngest of the foresters, Vin is still learning his duties.

Miles Houndestail: A traveller who was first to see the corpse with the two girls.

Preface

Sticklepath, 1315

They were out there.

In the darkness about his cottage, as he sat inside, panting like a wounded dog, he knew they were silently gathering, like rats about carrion, and Athelhard shivered not only from the pain of his wounds, but from the knowledge that he was soon to be slaughtered and burned until nothing remained, nothing but the lie that he had killed the girl; that he had drunk her blood and eaten her flesh; that he was a sanguisuga – a vampire. It was that thought, more even than the pain, that made him snarl in defiance like a bear at bay in the pit.

His leg felt as if it had been savaged. The hole through his flesh was more painful than he could have imagined, a pulsing agony that produced a sort of deadening cramp in his groin. Not that it compared with the injury to his back. That was sharper, like a knife thrust. That was the one which would kill him, he knew. The arrowhead was lodged deeply, and he could feel his strength seeping away with his blood.

Why? he wondered again. Why attack him? Why think he could have done that to the girl?

The arrow in his leg heralded the attack.

He’d had no premonition all that long day he’d been at his holding, far on the western outskirts of the vill, peaceably chopping and storing logs in preparation for the winter. At the beech tree that marked the eastern edge of his plot, he set down his axe while he ducked his head in his old bucket and rubbed his hair. It had been hard work, and tiny chips and flakes of wood were lodged in his scalp, making the flea bites itch.

Puffing and blowing, he shook his head, relishing the coolness, feeling the water trickling down his back. As he did so, he thought he heard something, an odd whirring noise which came from his left and disappeared to the right, but his ears were filled with water and he didn’t recognise it. Probably a bird, he told himself.

Then the missile slammed into his thigh.

The jolt itself was vicious, yet even through his shock he was conscious of every moment of the impact: he could feel the barbs pierce his flesh, slicing through muscle, tearing onwards until they jerked to a halt against his thigh-bone. Even as he collapsed, he was aware of the arrow quivering in his thigh.

And then he was on his arse, while water scattered from his upturned bucket, staring at his leg, scarcely able to believe his eyes. It was tempting to think it must be an accident, that someone had been aiming at a bird or a rabbit, and the arrow had missed or skittered up from the ground, like a spinning stone on water, only to find him, a fresh target, but as the idea occurred to him, he realised it was impossible. There were no rabbits here, and an arrow wouldn’t bounce upwards when it struck the ground; it would bury its entire length. Yet he had no enemies. Who could have deliberately aimed at him?

As the stinging grew more painful, he studied the arrow, seeking clues as to who might have fired at him. The fletchings were bright blue peacock feathers, moving lazily with the beating of his heart. Like most longbow arrows it was at least a yard long, a good missile over long range, he told himself, an ideal weapon for an assassin.

As the pain increased, he realised he must move. His attacker must still be there, perhaps drawing back the bowstring a third time. Athelhard stumbled to his feet and scurried around the tree’s trunk like a vole looking for a hedge, leaning back against it while the nausea washed over him.

His axe was around the other side of the tree, right in the line of another arrow and he daren’t reach for it, but somehow he must get away, and first he had to remove the arrow. Looking down at the slender stem protruding from his hose, the thought of what he must do made him retch. While a soldier he had seen others do the same often enough, but that didn’t make it any easier. Swallowing the bile that rose in his throat, he touched it gingerly. He couldn’t pull it out backwards, as the barbs would rend his flesh and do more damage. No, he must drive it forwards, so that the arrowhead cut through the thickness of his thigh and came out the other side.

It was firmly lodged at his bone, however, and he wept freely as he twisted and turned it, trying to move it away without harming himself more than he must. When he finally succeeded, he fainted as a gush of hot blood fountained from the wound, flooding his hands, but he came to only a moment or two later, shivering and nauseous deep in the pit of his stomach. At first he was fearful to see the bright crimson puddle, but he felt all right. No arteries had been broached.

It was done. He snapped off the remaining length with the fletchings, then tugged the splinter of wood which was left attached to the point through his leg, his face pulled into a mask of revulsion. Tearing off his hose, he fashioned a makeshift tourniquet which he bound as close to his groin as he could. He couldn’t touch the arrowhead again. Slick with his blood, he was repelled by it. Instead he took up the piece with the fletchings and shoved it into the cloth, twisting it until the ligature was tight and the blood ceased flowing. Then and only then did he turn his attention to the man who had ambushed him, who must still be there, waiting for him.

A good bowman could hit a butt at four or five hundred yards. Trying to get a moving man was more difficult, especially if he could dodge and sprint, but Athelhard wouldn’t be doing that, not with his leg in this state. He would only be able to hobble, presenting an easy target to the most incompetent archer.

There was the crack of a breaking twig and he knew that his attacker was edging forward. If he remained here, he would be killed. He climbed to his feet as quietly as he could, gritting his teeth as his ruined leg refused to support his weight.

With infinite caution he peered around the tree. That was when he felt his heart plunge. There was more than one man: he could count at least three at the edge of the nearest line of bushes. One held something in his hands – it must be a bow. Athelhard gripped his knife, frozen with indecision. Should he throw it now, kill one of his attackers, and then cry for help? The vill wasn’t far from here. Someone would be bound to hear his screams, and it was possible that the remaining two would bolt if they saw their companion fall.

He was calculating the likelihood of the men in the fields hearing him when he saw one of the figures move.

It was a shambling gait, as though he was dragging his left leg, and in that moment, Athelhard knew he would soon die. The man was from his own vill: Adam. That limp was caused by a badly mended leg after he was run over by a cart. It was as distinctive as a coat of arms. Then he recognised another man by his voice, and felt the blood freeze in his veins. These three stalkers were his neighbours, men with whom he had drunk, eaten, fasted, toiled and prayed. They were men he had called his friends. He glanced down at the fletchings on the arrow and now he recognised it, knew who had made it, who had fired it.

That decided him. He couldn’t get to his axe, so he must somehow make his way back inside his cottage and find another weapon. He had his own bow and arrows in there; with them he might yet be able to turn the tables on his attackers. If he could hit two of them, that might persuade the others to go, but even with God’s help, it would be hard: he’d be lucky to get to his house before being shot again.

From here he could just see his cottage through the trees. There was a cleared space between the edge of the trees and his door, and the thought of covering it in his current condition made his flesh creep. No, ballocks to that: he’d have to work his way round to the back of the cottage and hoist himself in through the rear window.

He retied the shreds of hose about his leg and twisted the shard of arrow until the pain almost made him cry out, before beginning to crawl forwards.

Fear of making a noise forced him to move with exceptional care. The wound in his leg was smarting now, and he shivered in shock. He made it to a bush and slumped down, loosening the tourniquet. Immediately, or so it seemed, his leg was afire with stabs of agony flashing up and down, from his toes to his cods. It felt as if someone had wrapped his entire leg in a blanket of tiny needles, and was progressively shoving them in deeper and deeper.

There was a shout behind him, and he felt his heart lurch.

‘Are you sure you hit the bugger, Drogo?’

‘Course I am! I saw the arrow strike.’

‘Where is he then, eh?’

There came another cry from further up, a thrilled call like a huntsman’s. ‘Blood! Gouts of it! You bled him well enough, like a stuck pig!’

‘How do you kill them?’ the man called Adam asked. ‘Sanguisugae are dead already, aren’t they? How’d you kill someone who’s dead?’

‘You cut out his heart and burn it. That’s what I’ve heard. If not, he’ll keep coming back, keep attacking our little ones.’

‘Cut out his heart? Ugh!’ The voice came from dangerously close to Athelhard. He recognised it as the youthful tones of Vincent Yunghe, a hanger-on of Drogo’s. Instinctively he tensed, but the lad was walking away, going to join the other three. ‘I’m not doing that!’

‘I’ll do it, Vin. I’m not scared, and I want revenge after what he did to my little Denise, the devil!’ The angry, bitter voice of Peter atte Moor choked off and there was silence for a while.

Athelhard gritted his jaw and set off again, his leg dragging. The tingling meant he couldn’t stand on it for any time, nor could he bolt; all he could do was make for the uncertain sanctuary of his cottage. On he went, sticking to the line of low bushes he had planted to keep dogs from his hens, until he came to a gap.

The blundering of many feet was nearer now. Hell’s fires, there must be half the vill up here, he thought to himself. They sounded as though they were congregating at the point where he’d pulled out the arrow, and he bit his lip when he heard someone shout. They were on his trail.

Ahead of him the window was a rough, square hole in the wall of his cottage. A matter of four feet from the ground, and ten yards from him, it looked almost impossible to reach without being seen and hit, but he had to try: inside was safety. He could string his bow, nock an arrow to it, and hold them off, at least until he learned why his neighbours had decided to kill him.

When he heard the command to follow the marks in the mud, he knew he must move fast or be killed like a beast at bay. Summoning up all his courage, he stood. There was a bellow, then a roared instruction, and he could have sworn he heard an arrow, but by then he was hurtling inelegantly forward, hobbling weakly on one leg, forcefully shoving himself on with the other.

One pace, two, and he was waiting for the arrow to pierce his unprotected back. Three paces, four, and his breath was wheezing in terror at being in the open. Five paces, six, and the window was so close he could almost reach it. Seven, and his hand caught the rough cob wall.

He crouched on his good leg, both hands on the ledge, then roared with pain and anger as he tried to leap upwards, wrenching with both arms, using all the muscles of his powerful shoulders. He was already halfway through when the second arrow struck him with a terrible, hollow, wet sound, like a stick striking a damped woollen cloak.

Not a sound broke from him as he thudded heavily to the ground, although the shaft struck the floor and wrenched the broad barbs of the arrowhead deeper into his back. It had found its mark. As he reached around tentatively and felt it, he knew that it would kill him: it had lodged in his liver. The pain was excruciating. Outside, the cries of glee showed that the success of the shot had been seen.

But he wasn’t dead yet. He could sting back, he promised himself. Climbing slowly up the wall, he pulled the shutter over the window and tied it in place. Then he could hop along the wall to his stool. Once he was sitting on that, he could snap the arrow-shaft in his back with both hands. It was less painful than the one in his leg, perhaps because he was already growing weak and he simply couldn’t cope with more pain; his frame had registered all it could. He didn’t care. Now all that mattered to him was killing as many of them as he could. His neighbours, his friends, he sneered to himself.

The bow hung from a beam, away from the damp. He could just touch it with his fingers at full reach, and that was enough to knock it down, falling across his head and then down his back, where it snagged on the broken arrow. A scream broke from his lips. Standing, he grabbed the bow and with slow determination he rested one end on the ground and leaned forward, pushing the bow and bending it, shoving the gut string up and over the curve until it could fit into the two slots at either side.

It was done. His back was soaked, and he knew he was losing a lot of blood, but he carried on. The small quiver with his arrows was near the door, and he plucked one and nocked it on the string before dropping back with a grunt to his stool to wait.

But now the rats were closer. He had husbanded all the energy he could, and he rose, shuffled to the doorway and peeped out from behind the leather curtain. He hoped that the men would not notice him there but if they did, the leather might serve as some protection.

Outside, the light was swiftly fading, and he could scarcely make out anything, save the great trees which towered all around. He could see none of his attackers in the gloom, but he could hear them moving about. He couldn’t be sure of hitting them, not aiming by sound alone.

When the man called to him, the sound of his voice was so unexpected that Athelhard caught his breath.

‘Athelhard, surrender to us.’

He made no answer. The voice was coming from the right of the beech tree, and he squinted, but he couldn’t be sure of a target in the gloom.

‘Come out and we’ll send you to Exeter to be tried by the justice of Gaol Delivery. Otherwise we will kill you. We have to.’ It almost sounded as though the man was pleading. ‘We’ve found her. We know what you did to her. We’ve heard of your… your meal!’

A shot of pain lanced his back, and the breath hissed through his teeth. He had no idea what the reeve was talking about, didn’t care especially. A moment later he caught sight of the man, a tall, powerfully built figure standing a little distance from the beech tree, roughly where Athelhard had pulled the arrow from his thigh.

He could feel his strength ebbing, but he was determined, and lifted his bow. Every week he had practised with his bow since his youth, and now he had a clear picture of his enemy. Raising the bow until the point of his arrow was on the man’s face, Athelhard drew back the string.

Normally he could pull it back smoothly, the arrow resting on his knuckle while his hooked fingers drew the string back to reach his face, softly touching his nose, lips and chin, while he stared along the arrow itself, waiting for the moment to release it. Not today. He couldn’t hold it steady, even when the string was only halfway drawn. Hauling back on it, he kept his eye on the man, gasping with the effort, but before the arrow’s nock was six inches from his chin, his arm began vibrating madly. The bow wavered impossibly; his hands couldn’t control it. The pull was too strong for him in his weakened state. Blood flooded from his wound, slick on his skin, glueing his shirt to his back. He couldn’t aim, couldn’t even be sure he’d get the thing to fire through the doorway – it would be more likely to strike the wall at this rate. Slowly, he permitted the string to inch forward without firing, then sagged, silently weeping, his chin falling to his breast after the expenditure of so much effort. There was nothing left. He was done.

That was when he noticed the light playing about the doorway, saw the torches. Instinctively he glanced up at the thatching of his roof.

There was an odd noise, like a pheasant in flight, and he wondered for a moment what it might be. He realised when he heard it thud against his roof that it was a torch. After so much rain, it had little immediate effect, producing a loud spitting and fizzing, but then he heard another thump above him, and a third. Soon he could hear a loud hissing and crackling as the thatch began to ignite.

It was enough. As the flames took hold, the fight left him. He had no more energy. The vital force which had directed him was fading as his blood dripped steadily to pool on the floor. With it, his urgent need for revenge was dwindling and in its place an overwhelming lassitude settled upon him. He fell back onto his stool even as the first whiff of burning thatch reached his nostrils, as the first glowing strands fell at his feet.

Resigned to death, he preferred to be consumed in the flames that devoured his cottage. Rather that than give his enemies the satisfaction of seeing him bolt from his door like a rabbit chased by a ferret, only to be shot and killed. He would have been pleased to die fighting, but it was too late. As the smoke began to fill his room with a greenish, yellow vapour, he inhaled deeply, welcoming the light-headedness that proclaimed the onset of oblivion.

The scream stirred him: Margaret, his responsibility, his sister.

Her despair made him sit up, coughing painfully. In her voice he could hear her terror. She was too simple to comprehend what was happening, probably didn’t know her only brother was inside, but seeing her cottage in flames made her give shriek after shriek.

‘Go on! Throw her in with him!’ he heard someone shout, and that was enough to galvanise him.

‘NO!’ he roared, stumbling to his feet. She cried out again, and he felt the fury take him over. Gripping his useless bow in both hands and leaning heavily on it like a staff, he limped to the door, then lurched on outside shouting for his Meg. It was there, before his threshold, that the three arrows found their marks.

One smashed straight into his shoulder, the heavy arrowhead spinning him around, making him drop his bow and stumble to the ground. He had just propped himself up on his good arm to face his tormentors when the second arrow flashed into his neck and flew through it, thudding on into the cottage wall. He coughed once, and even as he drew breath to cough again, the last arrow slammed into the left side of his breast, straight into his heart.

Just before he died, Athelhard used his remaining strength to scream one last defiant curse. All the men heard him; all would remember it for the rest of their lives.

‘Damn you! Damn you all! I’ll see the whole vill roast in hell! You are all accursed!’

Later, much later, Serlo the Warrener walked down into the clearing. He took in the smoking shell of the house and eyed the smouldering corpse which lay just inside the doorway where the departing men had thrown it, to be consumed by the flames.

A dead body was nothing to Serlo; he had handled enough of them in his time, although he had never burned one. That looked wrong. It was one thing to bury a man after listening to his confession, letting him answer the questions of the viaticum and giving him absolution, but to slaughter a man like this was repellent.

He shrugged and turned away; a man of few words has little need of contemplation, and for the present he had one pressing consideration.

The girl knelt not far from the wreck of her house, her eyes wild, her mouth dribbling. Her round face was enough to show that her mind was addled, and it was that which saved her, of course. Serlo knew that the superstitious folk of the vill wouldn’t harm a girl like her. She was touched.

He gently crouched before her, blocking her view of her brother’s corpse, and clasped her hands in his. It took a long time, much talking, a lot of reassuring and comforting, but at last, as the dawn lighted the eastern horizon, she complied with his gentle urging and went with him up to his house.

Chapter One

Seven years later

Joan bolted up the track as though the hounds of hell were snapping at her heels. Splashing through the ruts and puddles, she could feel the mud spattering her calves and thighs underneath her skirts, the brambles catching at her sleeves.

Gasping, she paused at the top of the steepest part of the hill, gripping her sides and facing back the way she had come. There, far below her, she could see her red-faced friend Emma panting and waving up at her. Soon Emma had recovered and set off again, pressing her palms on her thighs with each step as though it could ease her progress.

Emma was too chubby, that was why she struggled to keep up with Joan, not that either minded. Joan was fond of her friend, and Emma was devoted to Joan. There were few other girls in the area and although with Joan’s fertile imagination she could populate the surrounding ten miles with different inhabitants, it was nice not to have to bother, and Emma had a similar sense of fun to her own. She was a good companion.

It was terribly steep here – Joan could recall her father telling her that ‘stickle’ meant steep – but now that they had climbed the sharper incline at the bottom of Greenhill, the slope rose less cruelly, taking them through the trees to the scrubby land above the vill.

From here she could see right over the clump of small cottages and the reeve’s own larger house, to the river and then the hill which stood between Sticklepath and South Zeal.

She loved this view. Below her she could just glimpse her own family’s home, a large cottage at the edge of the vill under the hill that led up to the moors, a good-sized house for her and her parents. Behind was the mill, whose crunching and rumbling could be heard even over the steady rushing of the river. A short distance away was the chapel, sitting in the broad loop where the river curled around the bottom of the hill’s slope with, beside it, the small cemetery with its twin defences: the hurdles enclosing it to protect the dead from scavenging dogs and wild animals, while their souls were protected from demons by the single large wooden cross planted like a tree in the middle.

After that stood the inn, always filled with travellers. Sticklepath lay on the main road between Exeter and Cornwall, and pilgrims, merchants, fish-sellers and tranters of all kinds passed by here. Even now Joan could see a man leading a packhorse down the slope from South Zeal. He followed the muddy trail to the ford and stood there contemplating it, then ran across quickly, feet splashing the water in all directions. At the far side he turned, but his horse hadn’t followed him, and it stood for a moment, watching him with a kind of bemused surprise before wandering to the verge and nibbling at the grass. The man’s angry voice couldn’t reach Joan over the rumble and clatter of the mill, but she smiled to see him raise his fists in impotent fury before recrossing the river to fetch the beast.

The men and most of the women were outside, working, their legs stained brown from the mud in the narrow strips in the communal fields. Each little half-acre strip was separated by an unploughed, grassy path called a landsherd, and the women were bending to pull out the straggling fingers of couch grass before they could invade and establish themselves in the strips and threaten the new crop of oats.

It was a peaceful, comforting scene. Joan knew enough about poverty. It was hard not to, when everyone was struggling to make a living, when neighbours could scarcely find the money for grain to make bread and had to depend on the largesse of their lord, Hugh de Courtenay, whose serfs they were. Still, none of that could detract from the warmth she felt, surveying this serene little vill. It was her home.

As she gazed down she could feel her heart swell. The picture before her represented safety and comradeship; it contained all she knew of life and love. She had no idea of the trials which would soon afflict her and her family – those troubles were in her future, so today she smiled happily at the sight. The sun was shining down, the rains all but forgotten, and the fields glowed with green health and promise, shot through with blue and silver silken threads to show where streams and rivulets fed the soil.

All looked clean and pure, not like other places. Inevitably her attention moved beyond the fields, past the larger pastures and water meadows, all bounded by the river as it wound its way northwards.

She gazed in that direction, feeling faintly troubled. From here she couldn’t see the hills. If she walked up to the warrens on the moorland nearer to Belstone, the long, low blue line on the horizon was plainly visible, but not from here. Her father had told her that it was far-distant Exmoor, and that beyond it was the sea, but she found it hard to believe. It was so far away, it was incomprehensible that it should in truth exist. She had seen far-off towns – she had been to Oakhampton many times, and had even joined her father when he went to market in Tavistock once, miles to the south and west – but to think that somewhere like Exmoor lay there, so distant that even massive hills were an indistinct smudge, was quite difficult to accept. It was scary.

Sighing, she glanced down at Emma. ‘Come on! We’ll have to set off back home before we even get there, at this rate,’ she called imperiously.

Emma grinned up at her. Her breast was heaving and she was plainly feeling the warmth. To Joan’s eye she panted like a dog. The sun was beaming down, almost directly overhead, and Emma’s face shone like a cherry. ‘There’s no hurry. Everyone’s out working. They won’t notice we’ve gone for ages.’

It was rare that there was anything up here of interest. They both visited the moors often enough, sometimes to see the spoor left by the fox which lived up at the wall before the moor, or to steal eggs from the larks and other ground-nesting birds, but they were natural sights. Unusual sights, like the rotting corpse of the wolf which Emma had discovered last year, were unique; not that it stayed there long. The heavy springtime rains had dismembered the remains, washing them away as though they had never existed and the two girls couldn’t even find the skull, no matter how long they searched.

What a spring it had been! Two houses down in the vill had been flooded and collapsed when their walls were washed away. Poor Ham, the son of William the Taverner, had died when a beam fell on him as he tried to help rescue the animals and belongings from the home of Henry Batyn. It was fortunate that the other buildings survived, and the houses built to replace the fallen ones were almost completed, but Joan still missed Ham. He had been a natural enemy, cat-calling and sneering at her, but sometimes even the loss of an enemy can be sad. His death had left a hole in her life.

The rains had been terrible. Not so bad as the famine years, all the adults said, but Joan and Emma wouldn’t know that. This was the year of 1322, so the priest told them, when Father Gervase deigned to speak.

Samson atte Mill said that Emma and Joan were only two and three when the great downpours started. Not that they spoke to Samson much. He was a huge, fearsome man with red, slobbering lips and a brutal expression. Joan had heard horrible stories about him, and she tended to avoid him, but he seemed to like to get close to her. Once he tried to persuade her to kiss him. Not when her parents were around, though, and Joan felt sure it was because he knew it was wrong.

This year the weather had been worryingly similar to the famine years, everyone said. The rains began in March and continued for weeks on end. Farmers took to watching the skies anxiously, for if the grain they planted were to drown, or grew to produce only weak, spindly plants with feeble, non-nutritious grains which weren’t strong enough to bake into bread or brew into ale, they would starve again. Even the little ovens which the Reeve had