The Sticklepath Strangler by Michael Jecks

Author:Michael Jecks [Jecks, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Medieval/Mystery, Historical, Fiction
ISBN: 9781471126260
Google: 5K9R7n6PX7kC
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2012-12-05T18:30:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

Long after Drogo had gone, Gervase tidied up the altar and swept the floor. At the door, he bowed, making the sign of the cross, and then changed his mind, walking to the altar and praying for strength. Drogo’s words had reminded him that he was not solely guilty. ‘If You would help me, Lord God, I could become a sober, useful priest again,’ he begged.

Later, pulling the door shut behind him, he noticed that the cross in the cemetery was damaged. His first test, he thought. He stepped over the low mounds where bodies had been laid to rest, and touched the cross member gingerly. Only four years ago he had paid a carpenter to make this, and already the wood was rotten. The churl must have knocked it up from any old stuff. He would get a piece of Gervase’s mind next time they met. In the meantime he would have to get a new one made.

The hounds were still howling. It was a miserable sound, as though dead souls were calling to the living, desperate to rejoin their families and friends, he thought. Strange that an animal could form so close an attachment to his owner, but oddly comforting, too. Even a man like Samson, a fellow universally disliked, was mourned by his own creatures.

A breeze passed over the tree tops and Gervase shivered. His robes felt thin. Perhaps it was his age, he thought. He never felt warm these days; even his spiced wine failed to remove the chill from his bones.

He was about to walk to the gateway once more when there was a pause in the howling and he heard a low, coughing moan. He spun sharply on his heel, but there was no one there. Frowning, he peered into the murk, but saw nothing out of the ordinary.

At the low groaning he made the sign of the cross once more, murmuring a Pater Noster to give himself courage. Stiffening his resolve, he stepped forward boldly. ‘Drogo, is that you?’ he demanded.

The only answer was a sobbing wail which seemed to come from the earth at his very feet.

Uttering a choking cry, the Parson leaped back and, looking down, he saw he was standing on Samson’s grave. A breeze caught at the cross, and it squeaked and groaned, and Gervase gave a great sigh of relief: it was only the cross. For a moment he had believed that a ghost was with him.

All was well. He walked from the cemetery along the roadway past the puddle. As he went, he saw Drogo. The Forester was up near the spring, watching the priest. At his side were Peter and Vincent, the latter with his air of faintly baffled seriousness which always reminded Gervase of a hound which had lost a scent, and Peter, looking joyless, as he had ever since the day they had found his daughter.

Gervase nodded to them, but Drogo and Peter made no response. It was as though he was too insignificant to merit acknowledgement.

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