The Medieval Murderers - King Arthur's Bones

‘Tell me again what happened,’ commanded the steward.

Alice related her brief tale through her sobs. ‘My husband went out to close down for the night, sir, as he always did,’ she blubbered. ‘Then one of the stable-hands rushed in to say that he was lying in the yard. There was a wound on the back of his head and a great bruise on his temple. We brought him in, but he died without recovering his wits.’

A grey-haired man, dressed in a sombre but good-quality cote-hardie, nodded his agreement. ‘I can confirm that, steward, as they came rushing up to my court to tell me my bailiff had been assaulted and I was there when the poor man died.’

This was Sir Vincent Scudamore, and Jacques was careful to be deferential to a man who was second only to Prince Edmund in the hierarchy of the district.

‘It seems this carter is the obvious suspect, sir. We were already seeking him as a renegade Welshman intent on continuing their hopeless fight.’

Sergeant Shattock, lurking near the doorway with one of his men, was bold enough to speak up. ‘We’ll get him today, sirs, never fear. I already have all my men-at-arms out seeking this Owain.’

Scudamore nodded his approval. ‘I suggest that you use my hounds in your search – their master is the son of the dead man, so he will have an added reason to succeed.’

This brought forth a fresh bout of howling from Alice Merrick, and her daughter Rosamund tried to soothe her, though the girl herself did not seem unduly distressed at the loss of her father.

Vincent Scudamore walked to the door and jerked his head at the steward to accompany him. Outside, with the sergeant in attendance, he spoke to d’Isigny in a low voice.

‘This man Owain had a dispute with my bailiff a few days ago, so one of his sons tells me. On the eve of Christ’s Mass he came to their house and uttered threats if they disclosed that he intended to go off to join the rebels in the north.’

The steward nodded. ‘So I heard from the other son, the butcher, who came with the news of the murder earlier today. Obviously the miscreant must have decided that his elder brother had revealed his treachery to us – as, of course, was his duty.’

‘And had he?’ asked Vincent bluntly.

‘No. As it happens, it came from someone else. But nevertheless, the carter exacted his revenge on your bailiff with the sin of Cain on Abel.’

The Lord of Kentchurch shook out the heavy riding cloak that he had been carrying over his arm and swirled it about his shoulders, ready to leave. ‘This is damned inconvenient, losing such a good servant,’ he snapped. ‘Now I shall have to find another to take his place.’

As he started down the steps to the cluttered bailey, which looked more like a builder’s yard, he gave an exhortation to the steward. ‘Do everything you can to find this bloody man! I’ll send John down with his hounds as soon as I get home.’

As Scudamore went to his horse, Jacques made a mental note to have the gallows put back up in the bailey, in spite of the builder’s objections.

While more than a score of soldiers and a pack of hounds were beating the countryside, Madoc and Arwyn were worrying about the box of bones as well as the safety of their uncle. The news of the bailiff ’s death had already reached Garway by noon, and they had realized that Owain would immediately be the prime suspect.

‘With all this searching, that chest is not safe under the straw,’ declared Madoc. ‘We need to hide it somewhere well away from here, best of all back in Abbey Dore. There’s no chance now that Owain will be able to take it to Gwynedd as he’d planned.’

‘He’ll be lucky to get there himself,’ growled Arwyn. ‘But how are we going to move it? It’s too big to go in the pannier of a packhorse.’

‘I’ll have to bring the oxen back here, or they’ll starve. We can use them for the time being. The preceptory has to have some transport when our uncle’s gone.’

They were standing outside Madoc’s cottage, well above the church and the preceptory, and he stared out westwards across the undulating countryside to the dark mountains that formed the edge of Wales. They agreed that Madoc would go to Hoadalbert to fetch the oxen, take the pig to Rhiannon’s house and give her the disturbing news about Owain now being a fugitive.

‘You’d better have a quiet word with Dewi in the mill,’ advised Arwyn. ‘Tell him to keep his head down for a while.’

The two brothers moved to sit on a log outside the door, each with a quart of ale brewed by Madoc’s wife Olwen. They were silent for a while, staring out over the countryside, which today at least lay under a watery sun.

‘You don’t think he could have done it, do you?’ said Arwyn eventually. ‘His mood has been desperate since Llewelyn was killed.’

Madoc looked indignantly at his younger brother. ‘For God’s sake, man! Of course not! He wouldn’t harm Ralph, other than perhaps with his tongue. He was his brother, objectionable though he might have been!’

‘Well, who did it, then?’ persisted Arwyn. ‘Someone lay in wait for Ralph and it must be a local, otherwise they wouldn’t know he had that regular round of the farm each night.’

Madoc was implacable in his defence of the uncle who had virtually brought them up.

‘Anyone with bad intentions could spy on the place for a couple of nights and discover that… and almost every bailiff does the same. And how could Owain get up there last night, when he’s holed up in a badger sett two miles away?’

Arwyn muttered something about two miles being nothing for a tough man like Owain, but he wanted to be reassured that his fears were unfounded. When their ale was finished, he went off to repair the thatch on one of the preceptory outbuildings. Madoc returned to his duties at the farm, checking on two labourers who were whitewashing the back of the calf shed, before he went for the ox-cart. In the yard he met one of the three Templar Knights who lived in the preceptory. This was Brother Robert de Longton, a thin, cadaveric man who had returned from the Holy Land some years before, following a severe illness.

‘What are all those men doing down in the lower fields, Madoc?’ he demanded.

The reeve had no option but to tell him that they were searching for his uncle, in the mistaken notion that he had murdered the Kentchurch bailiff. The Templar clucked his tongue in concern.

‘A sad thing to disturb the peace of this village. We cherish the serenity of this innocent place.’

Gathering his heavy black cloak around him, he stalked away, the eight-pointed red cross on his shoulder glowing in the pale sunlight. Madoc wondered how many Saracens he had killed in his time, which was seemingly at odds with his present pacifism.

As the warrior-monk reached the gate leading into the grounds of the preceptory, he saw that the two other Templars had appeared, John de Coningham and the preceptor himself, Ivo de Etton. They began talking earnestly and de Longton’s gesturing hand told Madoc that he was relaying the latest news to his brothers-in-God.

Later, as he set out on his pony to Hoadalbert, he saw more evidence of the soldiers from Grosmont. At the end of the strip fields sloping down to the river, iron helmets were bobbing among the bushes at the edge of the woods. As he neared the castle he saw another dozen men-at-arms marching out with menacing clubs dangling from their wrists, and when he had gone a little way along the road beyond Grosmont towards his uncle’s house the baying of hounds came clearly across the still winter air.

Saddened at the turn of events, Madoc carried on with his task, all too conscious that there was no way he could warn Owain of the new hunt for him. They had arranged to meet again at the elm, for them to give him more food. To try to find him deep in the woods along the Monnow, with all these soldiers around, would be futile and probably suicidal.