Kate Sedley - The Hanged Man

Edward Herepath stood up. 'I have had enough of this nonsense!' he exclaimed furiously. 'Neither Mistress Ford nor I wish to hear your lies. Leave my house now, and I will say nothing of these monstrous accusations of yours to anyone, provided you leave the city tonight. You would do well to take that offer, otherwise you will find yourself in prison. I have powerful friends in Bristol.' I noticed the first flicker of doubt in Cicely's eyes as she glanced at her guardian, and pressed my advantage.

'I don't think you would hand me over to the sheriff or any of his officers, Master Herepath, because you know that I would be certain to repeat my accusations to them.

They might grow suspicious that I was telling the truth and make their own inquiries. Mistress Ford, will you have the goodness to give me a hearing?'

There was a moment's silence before she answered firmly, 'Yes. Yes, I will. Edward, please don't be cross. It is only by listening to what Master Chapman has to say that you will be able to refute it? She drew a stool close to the fire and sat down. Edward Herepath hesitated for a second, then resumed his own seat, defeated. Perhaps he hoped there was still a chance that I knew too little, or that he would be able to find specious answers to my allegations. Be that as it may, he made no further effort to prevent me speaking. Cicely gestured in my direction.

'Proceed, Master Chapman.'

For brevity's sake, I will set down my story as I told it to Cicely Ford, but without detailing either her interruptions or her gradually diminishing exclamations of disbelief. Edward Herepath said nothing, but as my recital continued, he huddled deeper into his chair, his face growing ever more ashen, his whole demeanour giving weight and substance to my indictment. If Cicely Ford had doubts when I began, I think she had few by the time I had finished.

The paths of Edward Herepath and William Woodward crossed because they were both followers of John Wycliffe and believers in the Lollard heresy. They probably first encountered one another at one of the meetings in the cave in the great gorge, outside the city. Lollards foregathered — and for all I know still do — in such places, for lack of their own conventicles. Edward must have learned of William's discontentment with his lot, living with his widowed daughter, and dissatisfaction with his treatment by the Weavers' Guild. Five years earlier, therefore, he had offered William the job as his rent collector, when it had suddenly fallen vacant, together with the cottage in Bell Lane. And I guessed it to be Edward Herepath who had given William his English Bible, for the older man could never have afforded such a thing himself.

Although at the time it had been nothing more than a gesture of goodwill from one Lollard to another, the offer, and its acceptance, had later proved invaluable to Edward when the most pressing desire of his life became that of ridding himself of his brother. For barely a year after William Woodward was installed in his new job, John Ford died, leaving his daughter and only child in Edward Herepath's care; and Cicely went to live in the house in Small Street. Edward fell instantly in love with his ward, but he was then still a married man, and in any case, Cicely had eyes and heart for no one but Robert.

A year later, Mary Herepath, Edward's wife, died, leaving him a free man. And from that moment on, Edward must have started planning how to get rid of his brother.

It had to be in such a way that no blame could possibly attach to himself, but there was more to it than that. Mistress Walker had told me that nothing Robert did, however venal, seemed to lessen Cicely's affection for him. Therefore, to have him killed, as Edward Herepath had tried to have me killed, by hiring bravos from the Backs to do the deed, would only have made him a martyr in Cicely's eyes. No: it had to appear that Robert had committed a crime so heinous that even she would be unable to forgive him. And what could be more horrible than the murder of an old, defenceless man for gain?

But Robert Herepath could not be made to kill to order.

He was a thief, a drunkard, a gambler, but not a murderer; so Edward had to make him seem one. He laid his plans carefully. The Lollard heresy was spreading, and about that time was reaching across the Severn. William, again according to his daughter, was a devoutly religious man, but with his own beliefs. I had no proof, but I was as certain as if I had overheard their conversation, that Edward Herepath had persuaded him it was his duty to go as an itinerant preacher into Wales, in spite of the attendant dangers. 'But when I eventually return,' William would have argued, 'how shall I explain my absence?' And so Edward had persuaded this simple man to lay a false trail, secure in the knowledge that he would never come back. 'Say you were captured by Irish slavers, but managed to escape. Do as I tell you and you will be believed.'

I remembered Margaret Walker telling me that William had been seen, late on the day of his disappearance, coming from the butcher's shop near All Hallows Church; and when I had watched her making black pudding on that morning some weeks since, I had suddenly realized that his purchase must have been sheep or ox blood, which, on Edward's instructions, he had daubed about his room. He had smeared some on his hat as well, which, under cover of darkness, he had dropped into the Frome.

Also, when it was dark, he had left his cottage in Bell Lane and walked the little distance to the Small Street garden, where, in the outbuilding, he had changed into clothes which Edward had left for him before he himself set off for Gloucester earlier in the day. For it was essential that William should not be recognized when he left the city the following morning.

It was also necessary to Edward's plan that William should reach the vicinity of Gloucester by nightfall on the Friday, and therefore he could not travel on foot. He was given a key to the stable and instructed to take the bay, for had not the farrier told me that he and his master were the only two people who had the means to unlock the wicket gate? And so, dressed in Edward Herepath's clothes which, although the two men were much of a size, were just a little too small for him, and riding the bay, it was hardly surprising that Henry Dando had mistaken William Woodward for Edward Herepath in the dim light of that early Friday morning, as he turned from Magdalen Lane into Stow Hill and rode towards the windmill.

'Indeed,' I said, sparing a glance for the huddled figure in the armchair, 'it is less surprising than the fact that William was not "recognized" as you by the porter at the Frome Gate. But he was probably still half asleep, for I imagine that William began his journey as soon as it was light.'

'You imagine a great deal too much,' Edward Herepath sneered, but the sting had gone out of his words. I could see that Cicely's stillness frightened him: she was beginning to be convinced by my story. Nevertheless, he continued, 'And when William reached Gloucester, what then? If you have made inquiries at the New Inn, as I am sure you have, you will know that the only person to visit me there was Richard Shottery, from whom I bought the gelding.'

I nodded. 'But Master Woodward did not enter the city.

On the Friday afternoon, having completed your purchase of the horse before dinner, you disappeared and only returned after dark. You told the landlord that you were the last man in at the West Gate before it closed.'

'So?'

'I think you met William Woodward, as you had already arranged, to escort him over the Severn and set him on his way through the forest into Wales. It would have been late in the day by that time, nearly dusk, and William would have been extremely weary, having ridden hard all day. His wits would be wool-gathering, thinking only of a meal and a bed. No doubt you pretended to be escorting him to some Lollard's cottage, where he would be provided with rest and refreshment for the night. Instead-' I paused for a moment to give weight to my words 'instead you persuaded him to dismount on some pretext or other, and while he sat on the ground to ease his aching limbs, you attacked him, belabouring him about the head with a bludgeon, or whatever else you had brought with you for the purpose, eventually leaving him for dead. You then rode back to Gloucester, wrapping yourself in your cloak to conceal any bloodstains there might have been on your clothing.'