31 - City of Fiends Read Online Free PDF

their torches about a brazier. The two survivors of the
manor were in the doorway, hands bound, and Sir Charles nodded to the two guards with them.
    He turned and took his horse’s reins from Ulric. ‘Watch,’ he said, slipping his boot into the stirrup and springing up into his saddle.
    The lad was still looking very pale. Sir Charles had almost expected him to fly from the place in the dead of night, and it was with a vague sense of pride that he had beheld Ulric’s
earnest features this morning.
    Sir Charles knew what was happening without watching. The two men took their daggers and stabbed, one quickly thrusting in his victim’s back, the other sweeping his blade about the
man’s throat.
    Ulric winced, and tottered as though he was going to fall, but then threw a look at Sir Charles. ‘What, are you telling me you will do that to me in a moment?’ he said hoarsely.
    ‘No, my fellow. I am merely showing you what will be happening all over here soon. The King will be fighting for his kingdom, and all those who stand in his path will die, like them. It is
the way of war, the way of the chevauchée. When there is war, men-at-arms will ride all about the country, creating fear and panic in the hearts of those who stand against them. We
must do this now. And while we do, others will take up arms against us, and they will terrorise our friends and family. If you want, you can go back to the city, and live there.’
    Ulric looked down. The man with the slashed throat was squirming ever more slowly, his blood staining the ground. At his side, the other man was already dead, an expression of surprise on his
face.
    ‘Choose, then. Are you with us, with your lawful King, the man anointed by God, or not?’
    ‘I am with you,’ Ulric said dully.
    ‘Good! Mount your beast, boy,’ Sir Charles said with a smile. He glanced at the three with the torches and jerked his head. In a moment, all three had lighted their torches and then
flung them in through the open doorway. There was a whump as the oils drizzled over the floor and beams caught fire, and almost immediately a thick, black smoke roiled from the door and open
window.
    Sir Charles eyed it with satisfaction. ‘Come, my friends! It is time to visit terror on Devon!’
    Rougemont Castle, Exeter
    Adam Murimuth walked in at the red sandstone gate and peered about him.
    He did not like this castle. As Precentor, he had had to come here on various occasions. The last had been in the spring, when there had been a fight in the High Street near the Guild Hall. Two
servants of the Cathedral had been rightly infuriated to see a Dominican preaching to some folk, and had remonstrated. The friar loudly rejected their justified arguments, and a small crowd
gathered.
    As the dispute grew more heated, locals joined to take sides, and in the end it was necessary for some men-at-arms to come to cool tempers. Not that they had succeeded. The ensuing fracas had
been ended only when a few sensible traders managed to calm the troubled folk.
    And the cause of the escalating violence? The preacher and the servants were abusing each other in fluent Latin, the locals had interjected in their mixed languages, some in Celtic, some in
English, while the castle’s men had reverted to Norman French when they lost their tempers. In the babel that ensued, it was only when three merchants fluent in a variety of languages had
interposed, that peace was restored.
    The castle was a symbol of the power of the Sheriff, and Adam resented the man and his authority. However, thankfully Sheriff de Cockington had no control over the Cathedral or its staff.
    ‘Sheriff,’ Adam began when at last he was permitted to enter the hall itself, ‘I fear that there has been a death in the city.’
    ‘Aye, a maid was murdered. What of it?’
    ‘I wished to know what the Coroner thinks of the matter.’
    The Sheriff gazed at him. He was a pompous fellow, this James de Cockington, Murimuth thought. He