Michael JECKS - The Abbot's Gibbet

“Excellent, my lady. And your husband must be a strong and noble gentleman, I am sure – and a man with a wonderful eye for beauty. This would be the perfect thing.”

She eyed the crimson cloth in his hands, then looked at Margaret. “What do you think my husband would need?” she asked, and giggled. Margaret grinned, then both were rocking with gales of laughter while the stallholder and Hugh exchanged uncomprehending stares.

Elias’ door was unlocked. Inside it was as black as a cellar; the shop’s entrance faced east, and the meager light from the waning sun missed the interior completely. Baldwin waited while the port-reeve cursed and muttered, trying to light tinder from flint and his knife. As soon as the flames spluttered fitfully into life, he lit a candle, and the room was filled with a yellow glow as he handed it to Baldwin.

Holcroft had not wanted to check on Elias’ house like this. He had the soul of a free portman, and this felt like trespass. The fact that the Abbot himself had ordered it did not help. Abbot Champeaux did not own Elias’ house any more than he owned Holcroft’s. The borough was a free entity, and while the Abbot might possess the rights to the court, that did not mean he owned the justice dispensed in that court, only the profits accruing from it.

Baldwin accepted the candle and studied the room carefully. Sleeping rolls and blankets lay on the floor. Elias had rented out every inch of spare space for the duration of the fair, but his lodgers were presently at the ground, and the house was deserted. Only their unwashed smell remained, overwhelming the more wholesome tones of cooked food.

To Peter it was an unexceptional place, constructed of timber with cob filling the panels. The shop windows – two large shutters which opened outward to form tables on which Elias could display his wares – lay at either side of the door. Apart from a number of tables and benches, there was little furniture. The floor was covered in straw which, from the look of it, had lain there some time.

There was no obvious place Baldwin could see where a hole might have been bored to conceal the missing head. The walls were thin, so he set the watchman to clearing the straw and looking underneath for a secret cache.

He walked through the low doorway into the back room. Here was all the paraphernalia of a cookhouse. A brick oven stood at the back, furthest from the street. Pans, dishes and bowls were stacked on the table that lay along one wall. At the opposite wall was a staircase, each step formed from timber cut diagonally to give a triangular section and then nailed on two rails. Baldwin clambered up it to reach the small chamber upstairs. A bed sat in the middle, the linen curtains hanging loosely, none tied back. There was a musky scent from the herbs laid under the straw mattress to keep the fleas at bay. A chest stood at the foot of the bed, and when the knight peered inside, he found spare sheets and clothing. Nothing more. A few rolls of bedding lay on the floor.

Simon had followed him, and stood in the doorway while Baldwin stared out into the street.

“Not very prepossessing, is it?” Simon said.

The knight waved a hand curtly round the room. “I was just thinking that this man must live alone. He can hardly be married in a place so sparsely decorated.”

He gave the place a last cursory glance and descended. The room reminded him of his own, similarly spartan chamber, and he was struck by an odd sense of sympathy for the lonely cook, living above his shop, without even the comfort of a woman – the comfort of a woman like Jeanne, he found himself thinking, and roughly forced the memory of her face from his mind. “Holcroft?”

The port-reeve scurried through from the front room. “Yes, Sir Baldwin?”

“Elias – is he married?”

“Widowed. She died in labor. Then his son died.”

Simon had followed them, and heard this last. He saw Baldwin’s quick glance, and smilingly shook his head. He was over the death of his son, and hearing mention of another’s loss couldn’t hurt him.

The knight turned back to the port-reeve. “Has Elias no woman?”

“Only the girls from the tavern.” He recalled the night before the fair. “One in particular, I suppose – Lizzie. She was here with him yesterday afternoon.”

Peter glanced about him. After the opulence of the Abbey, he found this little shop with its smell of unwashed bodies distasteful.

“We should speak to her as well at some point,” Baldwin murmured. He looked round the room again, noting the trivets and pans, the large bowls and dishes. “Is there any sign of him hiding something in here?”

“None. I’ve even had a look in the oven and firebox.”

“Ah, well. I suppose we should be glad of the fact,” Baldwin said, and walked to the back door. “What’s out there?”

“His yard.”

Baldwin opened the door and went out. Simon walked with him and saw him standing and gazing around carefully. The knight looked like a shortsighted and absentminded monk who had mislaid something. When the bailiff studied the area, he saw the general rubbish of years. There was a loose pile of logs under a haphazardly thatched roof, a small shed that looked like Elias’ privy, a little series of raised beds planted with leeks, onions and garlic, brassicas, beans and worts. In a small section fenced off with hurdles, chickens scratched and clucked quietly. The plot was separated from the alley by a paling fence.

“Nothing here,” Baldwin said, turning to leave.

“Wait a moment,” Simon said. By the logs was an old wooden box. Striding over, he lifted the lid and picked up a heavy-bladed bill-hook that lay within. “Baldwin?”

The knight took the tool from him and hefted it in his hand. He met Simon’s gaze. “It could be,” he agreed.

“It’s hard to tell, but the staining on the blade…”

“Yes, it looks like blood.”

Simon peered round the little garden again. He walked to the bed furthest from the house and squatted, staring down at the soil. Tentatively he reached out and touched it. There was a shallow depression in the ground. “Daniel, fetch a shovel,” he called.

“What is it?” Baldwin asked.

“That soil has been dug over recently,” the bailiff said with certainty. “I recognize the look of it: when miners fill in their holes, it dips like this.”

Daniel was not happy with his task. He brought the spade and began digging, but with little enthusiasm. The job of watchman was something he enjoyed for the money – it was not his plan to investigate murders or to seek out parts of dead people. His distaste for his task made him slow as he gradually went deeper, and when he felt the shovel strike something that gave way a little, he recoiled from the hole, staring up at the Keeper with despair in his eyes.

Baldwin took pity on him and gestured the man aside. He discarded the shovel, reaching down with his bare hands to scrape the earth away. Soon he could see a sack, and he tugged it free. Pulling it from the hole, he set it on the ground and glanced at Simon, who gave an unwilling grimace. Baldwin cut the string that bound it and the coarse material fell away. Peter winced and turned away, swallowing hard to keep the bile at bay.

“You were right, Simon,” Baldwin said.

“Yes.”

Holcroft said thickly, “No, we were all wrong. That’s not the merchant who sat with Elias. It’s a man from Ashburton way: Roger Torre.”

Baldwin stared from him to the head. “Are you sure?”

Holcroft nodded. Behind him, Peter staggered to the fence, his eyes shut.

“Perhaps that’s why Elias was shocked when we told him his friend had been killed,” Simon mused. “If he knew the corpse was Torre’s, our words must have made him think his companion had been murdered as well.”