Michael Jecks - The Prophecy of Death

‘So if he fell in with another traveller, he might well allow the man to get behind him?’

Joseph chuckled at the idea. ‘No. I said he’d be suspicious, and I meant it. There are too many men who would like to get their hands on private correspondence. General outlaws are less of a threat, because no messenger or herald carries too much money with them, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t enemies about. I doubt whether Richard would let anyone get too close to him. He’d be more keen to leave another traveller and go alone, than go with a man he didn’t know.’

‘Where were you in the week before we met you in those woods?’ Baldwin asked bluntly.

‘Me? Not far from there. I was sent to the King’s son at Eltham, but had to deliver a note to the King’s man in Rochester first, so I took the same route. He wasn’t there then, so far as I know.’

‘Was there anyone who had a dislike for Richard?’ Baldwin wondered.

‘No more so than any. He was very religious, so he tried to visit many shrines and chapels, which annoyed some of the men, but apart from that, he was a mild enough fellow. No, I don’t think he irritated that many. There were more whom he’d have had reason to dislike, than could have formed a loathing for him.’

‘Which means that he almost certainly did die as a result of some accidental meeting. Perhaps an outlaw?’ Baldwin said.

‘I think so,’ Joseph said. And then he took a deep breath. ‘Look, I had not thought of this before, but it occurred to me yesterday …’ and he told them of his sudden suspicion of the peasant woman at the wood’s edge.

‘That could be the woman who told us about the outlaws in the area,’ Baldwin said.

‘She was very anxious, you thought?’ Simon said.

‘Yes.’

They questioned him in more detail, but there was little more for him to tell them. He left them soon afterwards, and Simon and Baldwin looked at each other once he was gone. Baldwin shrugged.

‘He was there,’ Simon noted. ‘He felt no need to conceal the fact. He could have invented the story about the peasant woman.’

‘But why would he kill Yatton? And how would he know Yatton had the oil on him?’

‘Perhaps he didn’t,’ Simon guessed. ‘The same goes for any other man who saw the herald and killed him, though.’

‘That peasant woman. From the way he described her and her holding, it must have been the same place which we saw before entering the woods. And that woman was certainly worried, wasn’t she?’

‘Very worried.’

‘But I just thought it was because she saw so large a mass of men entering her yard. If her tales were true, I thought she may have feared being set upon by outlaws.’

‘Whereas Joseph thinks she knew who the killer was and reckoned we were the posse.’

‘It would make more sense. I mean, the woman could hardly have thought a man like the Bishop was a drawlatch. Nor me.’

Simon studiously avoided glancing at his friend’s threadbare clothing. ‘And her man didn’t appear while we were there. But when Joseph came upon the place alone, he was there. Until he heard Joseph talking, that is. Then he disappeared.’

‘According to Joseph.’

‘Perhaps he killed Yatton in error? If Yatton came upon the holding at night, say, and he thought Yatton was an outlaw, couldn’t he have killed the herald, and then realised his error, and so taken the body into the forest and left it? He discovered the oil, so set about …’

‘What? Set about selling it? Didn’t recognise what it was, so he threw it away?’

‘I know. Cob without straw … I may as well suggest that Yatton himself was not the victim, that Yatton met someone on the road, killed him and set his tabard on the body to hide the fact that he was running away …’

Baldwin peered at him. ‘Do you think that likely?’

Simon looked at him. ‘What, that Yatton happened to meet a man on the road who was his size, killed him — I suppose he ran on to Canterbury, killed the monk as well, stole the oil, and returned there to the forest to live a life of indolence and mild insobriety? What would he live on? The hope that the oil would itself bring him some form of marvellous wealth?’

Baldwin eyed him. ‘So you don’t think it likely?’

They were able to speak with many of the King’s messengers as the day passed, but when they saw that it was almost midday, they called a halt and made their way to the New Palace Yard, and the stalls selling everything from pies to honeyed larks. With their bellies filled, they felt prepared to return to their questioning, and they set at it until the middle of the afternoon, but by then both were growing despondent.

There had been five or six heralds and messengers passing by that roadway in the days between Richard de Yatton’s disappearance and his body’s discovery. Of them, some could be discounted, because they had remained in the company of others at all times, but there were some who didn’t have witnesses to their actions, and these were the ones in whom Baldwin was most interested.

‘So, there is this fellow Philip, one of the cursores,’ Simon said. ‘I didn’t like his look.’

‘He was the one with the slight squint?’ Baldwin said with a grin. Simon was often suspicious of those who had any kind of mark which made them stand out or look different. Baldwin had often tried to explain to him that he shouldn’t judge people on the basis of physical differences, but Simon was still of a mind to doubt the word of those who looked more villainous.

Baldwin continued, ‘I felt his word sounded good enough. To be fair, he was with other people for almost all the time, except for a two-day period, and he said a man was with him in Maidstone. If we can confirm that, he must be innocent. He’d never make the journey to the woods in the time available.’

‘What of the man called Thomas?’

‘He was interesting. There was something about him that struck me as curious. Did you notice that?’

‘Yes. He was oddly reluctant to speak about himself, wasn’t he? There was something strange about him.’

‘But if he was telling the truth, there was no need for him to be nervous. He said he was in the party with Ayrminne and the others, all the way homewards from the Queen to Beaulieu. Did you see him in France?’

Simon paused and considered. ‘Not that I remember, no. But you know what it was like over there. We spent all our spare moments just talking to each other about how much we wanted to get home again, didn’t we?’

‘Let’s go and ask Ayrminne about him.’

William Ayrminne was staying in rooms in the grounds of the abbey, and he received the two with a smile and motioned them to a bench seat.

‘Sir Baldwin and Bailiff Puttock, it is very good to see you both again. And so soon, too.’

‘We have been asking people about some of the messengers who could have been responsible for the death of this man de Yatton on the road,’ Baldwin said. You had a man with you on your travels back from France, a fellow called Thomas, I think you told me. Thomas of Bakewell? What did you think of him?’

‘You asked me before whether he had disappeared from my group, I think?’

Ayrminne was no fool, and he looked from one to the other shrewdly. This was an embarrassment, potentially, and he had no desire to be thrust into a difficult position because of these two and their investigation.

Until January, Ayrminne had been the Keeper of the Privy Seal and a canon of St Paul’s Cathedral. He had lost those positions when he was elected to the see of Carlisle, but then he lost that when his election was quashed. It was a sore trial, seeing such a magnificent post go, but that was a part of life. Now, with the Queen’s backing, he had hopes of the next senior position to come available. There were stories of John Salmon, Bishop of Norwich, being in an increasingly frail state, which made Ayrminne hopeful. But he would do or say nothing that could hurt the Queen.