The Moorland Murderers by Michael Jecks

Author:Michael Jecks [Jecks, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Severn House
Published: 2021-06-25T00:00:00+00:00

FIVE

Saturday 1st August

I would like to be able to say that I passed a comfortable evening, that I was given ale, bread and cheese, and that I woke to the sound of birdsong and the cheery voices of the town’s maidens singing or at play. I would like to be able to say that I didn’t wake with the damp freezing my bones, that the floor didn’t seem to be comprised solely of stones and bits and pieces of gravel, each curiously designed to be all sharp edges, or that as soon as the gaoler deigned to wake, which was somewhat later than me, it has to be said, his walking about in the chamber above me did not lead to great drizzles of fine dust and dirt showering me from between the cracks of the planks overhead.

Yes, I would like to be able to say all this, but the fact is that I spent my night huddled with my arms about myself, shivering in the cold and wet with moisture seeping into my hosen, my jack losing any ability to keep me warm. Yes, I did try to lie down, but there was only one place that did not smell as though the last hundred prisoners had died there, and left their bodies’ fluids to mature for a year or more. In the end, I found the least wet, least noisome area and tried to make myself as comfortable as I could. I was not overly successful, and it was not only the lack of any creature comforts.

The wind howled about the place. All night, it was like listening to the howling of demented, tortured souls. There were words in that wind, and it was cursing and damning all those who broke up the soil on the moors. Not that many would want to be there. The poor fools who tried to make some sort of a living out there in the wildlands were not there for the joy of their labours – most would be constantly screaming for escape, I’d imagine. It would take a civilized person only moments to realize that a place like that, with the mud, foul weather, vicious wind and general feeling of utter decay and revulsion, was no place for a man of sensitivity. Any man who was unsure of the fact need only look at the features and bodies of those who lived there: the peasants and miners.

Or, of course, the gaoler.

My first sight of him that morning reminded me of nothing less than a particularly unhealthy bull at the baiting. You see them, sometimes, scraggy old beasts so ancient you know that even strenuous exercise cannot tenderize their meat, and which look about with grumpy ferocity.

This man was like one of those old bulls. His frame was dissipated and shrunken, but his eyes held the same malevolence. I have seen many a dangerous felon in my time, and they all tend to have that same, flat, uninterested look in their eyes. They see a human being like themselves, but without caring or any form of compassion.

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