Mel Starr - The Unquiet Bones

“Where is it?” Lord Gilbert whispered when we were in the inner yard.

“Peace, m’lord. The search must not end too soon. Set your men to search the east range hall first. Instruct them to overturn the possessions of the poor — but only a little. Enough to make our hunt seemly without troubling those who have enough trouble already.”

Lord Gilbert so ordered, and we stood together in the entry as the searchers overturned the hall. Half an hour later they had done. There was, of course, no casket.

“Where now, m’lord?” a groom asked. Lord Gilbert cocked his head and peered at me, but I looked away, as if examining the carpenters’ art in the trusses of the hammer-beam roof.

“Uh…the marshalsea next. Find rods to poke through the straw.”

The grooms darted off to the other side of the castle and Lord Gilbert and I followed in their wake. “Is it there?” he whispered.

“No…but next have the acrobats’ tents searched.”

The sun was low over the bare west woods when the grooms finished their work in the marshalsea. Lord Gilbert set them off to the tents and but three or four minutes later a cry of success rose from the jugglers’ tent. I was relieved. I had in the preceding hour suffered visions of some other felon discovering the casket and making off with it.

We approached the tent and peered through the flap. A groom held the casket aloft, bedclothes strewn about at his feet.

“You found it there?” Lord Gilbert asked, pointing to the disarray.

“Aye, m’lord. The very place, under that lot, hidden-like, it was.”

“What say you, Master Hugh?” Lord Gilbert turned to me.

“Send two…no, three men to bring Hamo Tanner here.”

“It might take three to compel him,” Lord Gilbert smiled, “should he wish not to come.”

The wrestler came readily enough, his face marked with a combination of anger, fear, and curiosity. A groom pulled back the tent flap, and bade him enter. The light was failing, but there was yet enough to see the casket at our feet.

“We have found that which was stolen,” Lord Gilbert thundered. I have said before, thundering was a thing Lord Gilbert did well. Hamo blanched and started as if a groom had struck him from behind with a timber. “Is this how your company repays my favor?”

“N…n…no, m’lord…not me…my tent is next…”

“Then whose is this?”

“The jugglers, m’lord. Roger and John and Robert.”

“And whose place is that…whose bedclothes be those?” He pointed sternly at the place where the casket lay.

“Roger’s, m’lord, I think.”

Lord Gilbert turned to the grooms. “Take this man back to the hall. Bring Roger the juggler.”

When Hamo and the grooms were out of earshot Lord Gilbert turned to me. “What now, Master Hugh? I am in the dark. What say we to this juggler?”

“I will question him. You stand by and fix him with an angry eye. Follow my lead when you see my way.”

The juggler appeared a few minutes later, quivering so I thought his legs might fail. A groom walked on either arm, ready to steady him should he totter, and another walked behind, should he turn to run. This I thought unlikely as he seemed barely able to place one foot before the other. What I was about to do troubled me some, and has since, for although I did not lie to the juggler, I certainly intended him to believe a thing which was not true.

“You are called Roger?” Lord Gilbert asked the fellow, quietly this time, but with undisguised wrath lurking in his voice. He folded his arms across his chest and scowled so that his brows nearly met above his nose.

“Aye, m’lord,” Roger quivered. He looked at the casket. “I did not do this.”

“Why,” I asked, “was it then discovered here?”

“Some other has placed it here.”

“And why would another do such a thing?” Lord Gilbert glowered. “Have you enemies who wish to see you hang?”

At that word Roger blanched and seemed to stagger, as if struck at the knees with an oaken staff.

“A man might hang for such a theft,” I reminded him. “It will go hard for you if you will not give us the truth.”

“I…I speak truth, m’lord. I have not before seen this box. I know not how it came here.”

“Hmm,” Lord Gilbert grunted, his face and voice projecting disbelief.

“We must have truth from you, Roger,” I pressed. “No guile; your life may depend on it.”

“I speak truth…I…”

I interrupted the man’s stuttering: “We must have truth about this, and other matters. Shall we have it, or shall Lord Gilbert convene a court for the morrow and send a groom for rope?”

The juggler’s shoulders sagged, and his head fell. “I will speak truth…as I have already,” he turned to protest to Lord Gilbert.

“We shall see,” Lord Gilbert rumbled, then glanced at me with that raised eyebrow, as if to say, “Well, where do you go from here?”

“I would have answers to another matter, before we learn how this casket came to be in your possessions,” I said. “Hamo’s daughter, Eleanor…she did not run off with a lad, did she? She is dead, is that not so?”

Roger cast about him as if seeking a means of escape. I thought it wise to remind him of the threat he thought hanging over him. “We will have truth, remember, or you may see the consequences.” Roger wilted again; I thought I should permit him to sit before he collapsed. I drew up a stool and motioned him to it. This proved a useful ploy, for it forced him to look up to us, while Lord Gilbert and I stood in authority above him.

“We have found her, you should know, so lying will gain you nothing.”

He looked up quizzically from his seat. Then silently he nodded his head, as if he could not bear to speak the words.

“Speak up, man,” Lord Gilbert demanded.

“Aye…she is dead,” Roger admitted.

“And the lad she was to have gone off with? He, I think, is alive. Is this not so?” I asked.

To speak truth seemed to come easier for Roger now that we had forced the first confession from him. “Aye, he is…so far as I know. We left him stabbed, in the care of his grandmother at Abingdon. I know not if he yet lives.”

“Pierced by Sir Robert Mallory or his squire, I think,” I asserted. “Is this not so?”

“Aye, ’tis so,” Roger agreed.

Now it was Lord Gilbert’s turn to stammer in surprise. “What…why should he do so?” he demanded.

“The lad saw Sir Robert with Eleanor. She was not seen again,” Roger sighed.

“How is this known to you?” Lord Gilbert demanded, having regained his poise.

“The truth, remember,” I reminded him.

“Hamo could not find the two when we were to leave Bampton. None could credit they’d run off together. But what other account could answer?” Roger explained.

“I remember him seeking them,” Lord Gilbert remarked, tugging now on his chin.

“We were but two miles from town, speaking loudly of our loss, when Walter heard a weak cry from near t’road. He went to the sound and found Ralph pierced near the heart, but no sign of Eleanor.

“Ralph was near to food for worms, but yet able to speak if one came close to his lips. And all bloody-like they were, too. Told Hamo that Sir Robert had killed him, an’ Eleanor as well. Sir Robert, he said, took him from the castle bundled on his pack-horse an’ dumped him in a thicket when he thought himself safely away from town.”

“And this happened only a few minutes before you came…is this not so?” I asked.

“Aye. Ralph played dead, like, as was near to bein’ so, for fear they’d run ’im through again an’ they knew he yet lived.”

“As Sir Robert surely would have,” I agreed. “I will finish your tale. A few of your party unhitched the horses from cart and wagon and rode ahead to accost Sir Robert — Hamo, Walter, surely and as many others as could fit on the backs of three horses?”