The Medieval Murderers - King Arthur's Bones

Sir Richard was not so young. Tall, broad-shouldered, with a face that was made to smile, he was a powerful man who wore a thick beard and moustache. He was a kindly soul, though, who had seen much of life. He was often surprisingly sympathetic to victims, because he had seen sadness in his time, losing his young wife when he was still very young, yet he always attempted to see the best in life. There were few situations in which he would not find a grain of humour, and for that if nothing else Baldwin was fond of him. His other traits, bellowing at people as though all peasants were deaf, telling appalling jokes and playing practical jokes when he could, were less endearing.

‘Where’s the stiff, then, eh?’

‘Through here,’ Ulric said starchily. He had not yet been introduced, and he felt that this was an insult to his reeve’s dignity. A reeve was the most senior representative of his area, and for Ulric to be ignored was bound to have been noticed by some of the local villeins. They would make fun of him for this.

‘You are?’

‘I am Ulric, reeve of Sandford.’

‘Master Ulric, you have my apology. I have travelled far today, and was so glad to see my friend Sir Baldwin that I entirely forgot myself. Master, would you do me the honour of showing me the corpse? And if you could let me know his name and anything else you know of him, I would be most grateful. And while we are viewing the unfortunate, if you would be so good as to suggest to the good alewife here that a man who’s ridden close on twenty miles for a sight of a body is likely to have a parched throat, I’d be even more glad. A man could die of thirst here and lose his voice before a body stirred to help him, I dare say.’

Ulric hesitated, overwhelmed by the effusive friendliness as much by the bellowing voice, before waving to Hob and hurriedly leading the way into the back room.

‘Not pleasant,’ Sir Richard said, peering down at the body. ‘Who did it?’

Ulric shook his head. ‘We have no idea.’

‘Who was he?’

‘A pardoner, sir. He arrived here yesterday, no earlier, and came alone. Nobody in the vill knew him, so far as I know. His accent was not local. And I’ve travelled.’

Sir Richard tilted his head to one side and cocked an eye at Baldwin.

‘I think he is right,’ Baldwin intervened quickly before Sir Richard could make a joke about a reeve’s potential journeys. Few would see more than a radius of some twenty miles about their vill in their lifetime, but he knew that Ulric had fought in the king’s wars. ‘I have myself met this fellow, only the day before yesterday. He was in Crediton then. I noticed that he had an accent from the north. I would think he might have hailed from Bristol, or somewhere about that way.’

‘You get his name?’

‘I think it was John.’

‘No need to worry about proving he was local, then. Just a murdrum fine and the usual amercements,’ Sir Richard grunted.

‘He was with another man too.’

‘Aha. You interest me, Sir Baldwin. Who was this other man?’

Huw sat at the side of the road and pulled his boot off, staring at his foot with wry discontent. The hole in the side of his boot had grown, and mud had stained his toes red, as though he was bleeding from a cut. It also let in stones, and he tipped the boot up, watching pebbles and muddy water dribble out.

The weather was atrocious this year. Nearly as bad as the famine years, when all the crops withered where they were planted, the rain flattening them to the ground, drowning the grain and leaving many people to die of starvation.

At least the downpour had eased a little over the morning. Now he was more than a part of the way to the place he thought John had mentioned. Somewhere called Sandford. From the look of it, it was well named, he thought sourly. There was indeed a shallow little ford here, with a wooden bridge for those on foot. Hardly any point in his worrying, though, with this hole in his boot.

A loud thudding of hooves made him look up. Even this close to a large town like Crediton, no traveller could afford to be complacent, not with the numbers of cutthroats and club gangs who roamed the lanes, always seeking out the unwary. And status meant nothing. There were all too many noblemen who behaved in the same manner, stealing anything they might from those who passed near their castles.

All the same, these didn’t look like outlaws. They were not clad in bright armour, but they were on horseback, which together meant well-to-do and less likely to attack. He hoped so, anyway, because it was clear that they had seen him from the way that they slowed and pointed.

No one was safe in this God-forgotten land, Huw told himself as he pulled his boot on again and slowly made to stand up as they approached.

‘You are Huw? The triacleur?’

‘I have been called that. Not that I have much in the way of medicine with me just now, friends,’ he said, observing how two of the men had their hands near their long-bladed knives.

A third held a billhook in his fist, and he pointed it at Huw. ‘He’s a bit past your medicine now, you Welsh git.’

‘Who is? Friends, I don’t know what you mean,’ Huw said, his hands held up in a placatory manner. ‘I stayed overnight in Crediton, and have only just been in a position to set off to meet John.’

‘Who, you say? Your mate, the pardoner. You killed him.’

‘John is dead? It was nothing to do with me!’

‘Tell it to the Keeper!’

To Baldwin’s secret astonishment, the coroner sank three quarts of Hob’s best ale before sitting at the table, belching gently and patting his belly. ‘Ach, there’s nothing so good as a fresh ale on an empty belly. Nothing except a haunch of meat on top of it anyway,’ he added, eyeing the capon roasting over the fire.

‘Do you never suffer from an indigestion? Liverishness? A sore head?’ Baldwin enquired rhetorically. He had never seen the vaguest indication of Sir Richard feeling out of sorts.

‘Me? What do you take me for? Some milksop youth? Eh?’

Baldwin smiled to himself. ‘What do you think of this killing, then?’

‘The entry is clear enough. A man slid himself inside from under the eaves.’

When they had looked about the chamber, the hole at the rear of the room was immediately plain. The cob had fallen away a little, and the thatch pulled apart to leave space for a man to enter.

‘He was so drunk he probably never heard his killer enter,’ Baldwin said. ‘Hob and Ulric both said he was well in his cups and had to leave the room before they went home.’

‘So someone entered afterwards and killed him, before cutting his hand free,’ the coroner said, and belched.

‘Yes,’ Baldwin said.

‘Come along, then – why burn his hand?’

‘I have no idea.’

They had found the hand, scorched and blackened, like some wizened relic, lying in the furnace under the copper.

Coroner Richard grunted. ‘If he thought a little fire like that would do more than singe the hair from the fingers, he was a thoroughgoing idiot,’ he concluded.

‘No man would think a little fire like that would have destroyed the hand. It wasn’t thrown there to be destroyed, not on a little fire of twigs and shavings. No man would think it would work for that,’ Baldwin said.

‘So why put it there?’

‘I can hear horses,’ Baldwin said, climbing to his feet.

They had sent the reeve and some men in the direction of Crediton on horseback to see if any news could be discovered about the triacleur, but that was only a short while ago. There had been no time to ride all the way to the town, let alone enquire. And yet here they all were, riding at a trot, with a bedraggled man hurrying behind, his hands bound with a stout rope that was gripped in the reeve’s own hand.