Paul Doherty - The Treason of the Ghosts

‘I hear what you say,’ Blidscote gasped. ‘I have told you. I keep a still tongue in my head and will do so till the day I die.’

‘I like that, Master Blidscote. So, tell me now, Molkyn’s death and that of Thorkle. .?’

‘I know nothing. I tell you, I know nothing. If I did-’

‘If you do, Master Blidscote, I’ll come back and have more words with you. Now, look at the wall. Go on, turn, look at the wall!’

Blidscote obeyed.

‘Press your face against it,’ the voice urged, ‘till you can smell the piss and count to ten five times!’

Blidscote stood for what appeared to be an age. When he turned, the shadows were empty. A light to the mouth of the alleyway beckoned him forward. Blidscote shook off the horrors of the night and ran. He reached the market square, the cobbles glistening in the wetness of the night. The place was quiet. The houses and shops beyond had their doors and windows closed but lights and lanterns glowed, welcome relief to the darkness and cold. Blidscote realised he had lost his staff. He ran back down the alleyway, collected it and returned to the marketplace. The shock of the meeting with that demon had sobered him. He adjusted his jerkin, pulling the cloak around his shoulders, and strode purposefully across the marketplace. He stopped at the stocks where Peddlicott the pickpocket had his head and hands tightly fastened in the pillory: sentenced to stand there till dawn.

Peddlicott lifted his head. ‘Master bailiff, of your charity?’

Blidscote slapped him viciously on the cheek and walked towards the glowing warmth of the Golden Fleece.

Ranulf-atte-Newgate, together with Chanson, sat in the comfortable house of Master John Samler, which stood in a lane on the edges of Melford. Ranulf stared around. The rushes on the floor were clean and mixed with herbs. The plaster walls were freshly washed with lime to keep away the flies, and decorated with coloured cloths. Onions and a flitch of ham hung from the central beam to be cured in the curling smoke from the fire in the open hearth. Chanson sat on the bench next to Ranulf, hungrily eating the bowl of meat stew garnished with spice to liven its dull taste. Ranulf picked up a piece of bread, smiled at his host and dipped the bread into the bowl.

‘So, John, you are a thatcher by trade?’

His host, sitting opposite, eyes rounded at having such an important person talking to him, nodded. Beside him, his wife, pink-cheeked with excitement. Their children, supervised by their eldest girl, clustered on the stairs. They reminded Ranulf of a group of owls, white-faced, round-eyed. Ranulf felt uneasy. The thatcher was a prosperous man with a garden plot before and a small orchard behind the house. He had been so overcome when Ranulf knocked on the door, ushering him in as if he was the King himself, serving the best ale his wife had brewed.

‘You have five children, Master Samler?’

‘Eight in all, two died. .’ The thatcher’s voice trailed away.

‘And Johanna?’ Ranulf insisted. He looked across at the children.

‘Yes, Johanna.’

‘I understand,’ Ranulf continued softly, ‘that Elizabeth Wheelwright was murdered a few days ago and your daughter Johanna earlier in the summer. Am I correct?’

Samler’s wife began to sob. Chanson stopped eating and put down his horn spoon as a sign of respect.

‘She was a fine girl,’ Master Samler replied. ‘She wasn’t flighty in her ways.’

‘And the day she died?’ Ranulf asked.

‘I was out working. Johanna was sent on an errand. She loved the chance of going into the market square to talk to her friends.’ He shrugged. ‘She went but never came back.’

‘Was there anyone special?’ Ranulf insisted. ‘Anyone at all?’ He lifted his head. ‘What’s your name?’ he asked the eldest girl.

‘That’s Isabella,’ Samler replied. ‘She’s two years older than Johanna.’

Ranulf studied the girl. She was comely enough, with flaxen hair coming down to her shoulders, thin-faced, sharp-eyed. Just a shift of expression betrayed her; perhaps she knew more than she had told even her parents.

‘And you know of no reason why she was killed?’

‘Why should anyone kill a young woman like Johanna?’ the thatcher retorted. ‘I have told you, sir, she had no secrets. Oh, she danced and she flirted but there was no one special, was there, Isabella?’

Ranulf smiled across at the young woman, who sat on the stairs above her brothers and sister.

‘But she was killed out in the open countryside,’ Ranulf insisted. ‘Down near Brackham Mere.’

‘I have told you what I know, sir,’ Samler retorted. ‘One afternoon she was sent on an errand to the marketplace and never returned.’

‘Will you catch him, sir?’ Isabella Samler called out.

‘Oh, we’ll catch him,’ Ranulf replied. ‘My master is like a hawk: sharp-eyed and swift. He’ll float above Melford and, no matter where the killer hides, be it the thickest bramble bush or the longest grass — ’ Ranulf got to his feet gesturing with his hand. Isabella watched him — ‘he’ll swoop, wings back, talons out, and he’ll clutch your sister’s killer in his tight claws.’

‘You are only saying that.’

‘No, Mistress, I am promising it.’

Ranulf undid his purse and put a silver coin on the table. The thatcher made to refuse.

‘No, no, take it,’ Ranulf urged. He patted Chanson on the shoulder. ‘For you, your family.’

He walked to the door, gathered up his cloak and sword belt, then looked round. Ranulf felt a tug at his heart. They looked now like a group of rabbits fascinated by a stoat.

‘I mean you well, I really do. But you have nothing to say, eh? Nothing more to tell me about Johanna’s death?’ He glanced quickly at Isabella.

‘She was a comely lass.’ The thatcher’s wife spoke up.

Ranulf put his hand on the latch and turned. ‘And she had no love swain?’

‘No,’ Isabella answered quickly. ‘Only those she laughed about.’

‘And a secret place?’ Ranulf urged. ‘Everyone has a secret place.’

‘The same as Elizabeth Wheelwright’s,’ Isabella blurted out. ‘They used to visit the copse on the hill overlooking Devil’s Oak. It’s not really secret.’

‘Could you show me the way?’

‘It’s dark,’ Samler replied.

‘No, no,’ Ranulf smiled. ‘I meant if Isabella could show us the lane back to the Golden Fleece.’

Samler’s daughter needed no second urging but grabbed her cloak from a peg on the wall. Ranulf made his good nights, as did Chanson, his mouth still full of food. They collected their horses. The lane was dark and muddy. Isabella walked ahead of them.

‘Just keep going straight on,’ she explained when they reached the end of the lane. She pointed to an alleyway. ‘That leads to the market square.’

Ranulf indicated that Chanson walk on.

‘You’d best go back then.’

Isabella watched Chanson lead the horses away. She drew closer and stared up at this strange, green-eyed clerk. Isabella Samler had lived a sheltered life. She’d never met a man like this before: tall, slim, smelling of horse, leather and fragrant soap. His white chemise was undone at the neck, allowing the glint of a silver chain, his sword-tip slapped against his boot. She felt frightened yet excited. He was dangerous. If his master was a hawk then so was he.

‘Will you really catch him?’

Ranulf chucked her under the chin. ‘If you tell me what you should, then it will be sooner rather than later.’

Isabella, in a mixture of fear and flirtation, moved a little closer.

‘Did your sister confide in you? Do you know why she went, whom she was meeting?’

‘We often lay awake in our bed loft. We’d frighten ourselves with stories about night-walkers.’