Alys Clare - Ashes of the Elements

It had apparently been quite a job to make him leave his own sword and knife at the gates. Sister Ursel, so Helewise had been informed, had stood her ground like an aggravated hen with her feathers ruffled out, and told Harry Pelham that, sheriff or not, nobody bore arms into God’s holy place.

The same observant nun — it was Sister Beata, who, as a nurse, was always observant — also reported to the Abbess that Harry Pelham’s sword was stained, and his knife looked as if he’d recently used it to carve his meat.

And it is this careless man, Helewise now thought, listening to his booming voice, who is our sole protector of law and order. Efficient he might be — he must be, she corrected herself, for he was appointed by the Clares of Tonbridge, and they surely did not tolerate slackness in their officers — but, oh, what an oaf he is!

‘Of course,’ Harry was saying, leaning back on the little wooden stool so that its rear legs squeaked a protest, ‘of course, Hamm Robinson was a well-known felon. Me, I’m not in the least surprised someone’s done him in, no, no, not at all, ha, ha, ha!’

Unable, for the life of her, to see why that was funny, Helewise said in a cool tone, ‘Felon, Sheriff? What was the nature of his crime?’

Harry Pelham leaned towards her, as if about to confide a secret. His fleshy nose had semicircles of little blackheads in the creases where the nostrils met the cheeks, and there were oily-looking creamy flakes in his eyebrows and at his hairline. ‘Why, Sister, he was a poacher!’

‘A poacher,’ she repeated. ‘My word, Sheriff, a dangerous man.’

Entirely missing the mild irony, Harry Pelham nodded. ‘Aye, Sister, dangerous, desperate, all of that.’ He hesitated, and she had the strong conviction he was wondering how far he dare exaggerate the details of what he was about to say. Leaning close again — she wished he wouldn’t, he didn’t smell any too fresh — he said, ‘Come near to apprehending him, I have, on several occasions. Tracked him, see, through those old woods.’ He jerked a thumb over his shoulder in the vague direction of the forest. ‘Ah, but he was a sly one! Wormed his way through that undergrowth like some wild animal, he did, all silent and swift, like. Reckon he knew the lie of the land like the back of his hand.’ Harry Pelham shook his head. ‘Never could quite lay my fists on him.’

‘Perhaps he heard you coming,’ Helewise remarked neutrally.

The sheriff shot her a quick glance. ‘Aye, that’s as maybe. And it’s also maybe my good fortune that I never did catch him, desperate man like him! Why, maybe I wouldn’t be sitting here now talking to you, Sister, if I had of!’

‘Yes,’ Helewise murmured, ‘he’d have put up a rare fight, of that I’m quite sure.’ Deliberately she stared at Harry Pelham’s broad shoulders. ‘Was he a big man, would you say, Sheriff?’ she asked, raising innocent eyes to his. ‘I only saw him dead, and it was hard to tell.’

The sheriff went, ‘Humph,’ and ‘Ha!’ a few times, then grunted something barely audible.

‘What did you say, Sheriff? I didn’t quite catch it.’

‘I said, he was big enough,’ Harry Pelham growled.

‘Ah.’ Helewise bent her head to hide her smile. Then, straightening her face, she said, ‘He was killed by the spear thrust, and, when hit, he was running from the forest. Yes?’

Another grunt. Then, grudgingly, as if he resented her awareness of even such bare facts, ‘Yes. That’s how it was.’

‘And from that, you hazard the guess that he was killed by — what did you call them, Sheriff? The Forest People?’

‘Aye. Forest People, Wild People, folks refer to them by both names.’

‘And you know for sure that these Wild People were in the forest the night before last?’

‘Aye. It’s June, see. They come here in June.’ He frowned. ‘Leastways, they sometimes do. They have done in the past, anyhow.’

‘I see.’ It seemed, Helewise thought, slim evidence on which to convict this unknown, hitherto unsuspected group of people who, apparently, were wont to camp at certain times of the year, almost on the Abbey’s doorstep. ‘And — forgive me, Sheriff, if I seem to be questioning your actions, only what with the murder being so close, and-’

‘And what with you finding him, Sister,’ the sheriff interrupted her. ‘Aye, I understand.’ A patronising smile stretched the moist lips. ‘You go on and ask me,’ he said earnestly, ‘anything I can tell you, to set your mind at rest so you and the good sisters can lie easy in your beds at night, I will!’

‘How kind,’ Helewise murmured. ‘As I was saying, Sheriff, you’ve been up into the forest, I take it? You’ve found evidence that these Wild People have been there recently?’

‘Well, I…’ Again, the frown. More like a scowl, really, Helewise thought, deciding that, frown or scowl, it probably meant that Harry Pelham was about to tell her a lie. Or, at least, try to get away with a fudging of the truth. ‘There’s not much point in looking for signs of the Wild People, see, Sister. They’re cunning and canny, and they don’t go about cutting down trees or hacking off branches to make shelters. They’re more, like, open-air folk. They live under the trees, under the sky. They’ve been there forever, they have, carrying on in their strange ways. Old even when the Romans came, some say.’ Remembering the point he was making, he repeated. ‘No use looking for evidence. None at all. Although, of course, I sent some of my men up there anyway.’

‘Of course.’ A likely story! ‘And they found nothing.’ It was a statement, not a question.

Harry Pelham grinned. ‘No. Like I said.’

Helewise carefully put her hands together, resting her chin on the tips of her fingers. ‘What we have, then, Sheriff, is a dead poacher, whom, despite any evidence, you are quite sure was killed by these Wild People. Who, since you have not managed to locate them, cannot be questioned.’ She shot him a direct look, and felt a totally unworthy pleasure in seeing him flinch slightly. ‘Therefore you have no proof of their guilt, other than your own conviction.’

Harry Pelham rallied quickly. Giving her his most threatening scowl, he said, ‘My conviction’s quite enough for me!’ As if even he realised the flimsiness of that, he added, ‘Anyway, you tell me who else could have done it! Go on, tell me!’

‘Not knowing anything of the man or his background, naturally, I can’t,’ Helewise said mildly. ‘But, surely, that is your job, Sheriff? To discover how and where the man lived, if he had any enemies, if anyone would be likely to gain from his death?’

‘Ha!’ the sheriff cried, punching the air as if to say, got you there! ‘I know who he was. He was Hamm Robinson, like I said. He has a wife — poor meagre little woman she is, Hamm bullied and beat her within an inch of her life, the good Lord alone knows why she didn’t make off in the night — and, as for what he did, he was a poacher.’ He pointed a grubby finger at the Abbess. ‘Told you that, too.’ He exhaled a big sigh, and said, ‘If you ask me, the world’s well rid of him.’

‘Perhaps so!’ Helewise cried. ‘But he was a man, Sheriff! A living, breathing man, until someone threw a spear at him and killed him. Is he not as entitled to justice as any other man?’

Harry Pelham, she was certain, almost said, ‘No.’ That, she thought, would have been the truth. Instead, the fleshy, greasy face took on its patronising look once more. ‘Like I keep telling you, Sister,’ he said, ‘I’d do what you want and go and accuse the Wild People if I could. Arrest them, bring them to trial, hang a few, if it was in my power! But how can I if they’ve gone?’ He chuckled. ‘Even I can’t arrest a man if he’s not there, now can I, Sister?’