The Medieval Murderers - King Arthur's Bones

Baldwin and the coroner walked out to stand near the tree where their horses had been hitched. A trio of young boys were rubbing their horses down and seeing to their water and feed. Baldwin had paid them earlier. His training as a Templar had taught him always to see to the comfort and health of his mount before his own. He walked over and patted his old beast, muttering to him as he gazed along the road at the approaching riders.

They drew up in the market area, and Reeve Ulric clambered down, yanking his prisoner forward. ‘Here’s your man, Sir Baldwin, Sir Richard. A Welshman ,’ he added, spitting the word.

Before Baldwin or Sir Richard could comment, a priest appeared, striding down the lane from the church. ‘Is this the man? Is this the killer?’

‘We don’t know it,’ Baldwin said coolly before turning to the man again. ‘What do you say?’

‘I am innocent, Sir Knight. These men found me on the road coming here. They saw me and brought me, but I don’t know why.’

‘You say you don’t know what’s happened to the pardoner, eh?’ Ulric snapped.

There was a flash of fear in the man’s eyes, Baldwin saw. ‘I don’t know what happened to my friend.’

‘You call him your friend?’ Hob said. He was behind Baldwin, and now he stepped forward. ‘Sir Keeper, this man was no friend to the pardoner. The pardoner told me last night that this fellow, who had walked with him all the way from Wales, had said he would see the pardoner in hell before the week was out. They argued, and the pardoner had hoped that they might make amends to each other, but now it’s obvious what happened. This Welshman broke into my tavern to murder my guest in his sleep.’

Baldwin looked at the man they were all accusing. He was a tatterdemalion, it was true. His hosen were beslubbered with mud, his coat stained and marked, his cloak ragged where thorns had tugged at it – but a man’s appearance after a long journey could be deceptive.

He cast a glance up. The sun was hidden behind clouds, which hurried across the sky with a smooth urgency, but there was no sign of serious bad weather. If anything, it seemed warmer. He looked across at the coroner.

‘Do you wish to open your inquest?’ he asked.

‘May as well, I suppose,’ Coroner Richard said, amiably enough. ‘You, man. Yes, tavern-keeper, you. What’s your name? Hob? Fetch more wine. Priest? You’ll have to clerk for me today. I’ve lost my normal ink-dribbler. Ulric? Gather the freemen of the vill here. Come on, man ! I don’t have all day even if you do!’

Sir Richard cast an eye around and shot a look up at the sky ‘Bring me a bench,’ he said. ‘We shall begin our inquest here.’

Baldwin ordered that the man’s hands should be unbound as soon as the coroner and he were sitting. There was no need to worry about Huw escaping from here, for he clearly would have little chance of outrunning the men of the vill. Instead, Baldwin allowed him to rub his wrists where the hemp rope had chafed, and let him take his stand near them both. Ulric stood near at hand, watching the triacleur suspiciously and hefting his billhook, while two men went and fetched out the body. They stripped it naked, before rolling it over and over in front of all the freemen of the vill so the wounds could be noted.

The coroner called out a list of the injuries, examining them closely, pulling the head back to show the depth of the wound in the throat, lifting the arm to show where the hand had been cut away. Letting it fall, he turned to the prisoner.

‘Well, Master Welshman, what do you have to say?’

‘I can give no story at all, good Knight, for the simple reason that I’ve no idea what had been done to my old friend. All I can tell is, I was in Crediton last afternoon, and there were many saw me there. One fool had a loud shouting match with me, demanding to know what I was selling, and saying I was selling poisons. That’s why I’ve no bag with me now. I was forced to run and lost all my wares. It was not a good day.’

‘Where did you go after that?’

‘I found a hayloft over near the church. I don’t know whose.’

‘Did anyone see you there?’

‘How would I know?’

‘What of this morning? Did any man see you rise and leave?’

‘I was careful no one did! What would they do to a poor pilgrim of the roadway like me?’ Huw demanded hotly, staring about him at all the grim faces. ‘A stranger and foreigner in a strange land is always suspected, no matter whether he be innocent or guilty. Foreigners are easy to blame, Sir Knight.’

‘That may be true. The guilty are also easy to blame, Triacleur,’ Baldwin noted. He chose not to comment on the fact that a man with so sour a face might expect to be viewed with suspicion.

‘He is the murderer,’ Reeve Ulric said. ‘Listen to him! You can hear the guilt in his voice.’

‘I hear nothing of the sort,’ Baldwin said. ‘Only a man in fear of his life. A justifiable fear, I have to say.’

‘Slipping into a room in the middle of the night – that’s a Welshie trick,’ the reeve persisted.

‘You have experience?’ Sir Richard said at last. He had been sitting with his chin on his fist, elbow on his knee, eyeing Huw with a wary lack of enthusiasm, as he might study a rabid hound.

‘What?’

‘You sound like a man who speaks from experience. Were you in Wales?’

‘I fought there for the last king, God save his memory! Edward the First took me and seventeen others from about here with our lord.’

‘You fought, eh?’

‘We fought much, yes. Pacifying that country was hard work. But we did our duty, although only seven of us came home again.’

‘A shame. I have been involved in battles too.’

‘Sire.’

‘Do you tell me that none of you would slip into a tavern at night to take a swig?’ the coroner asked with a grin lifting one side of his beard. There was a twinkle in his eye as he spoke. ‘You’d be the only men-at-arms ever to be sober, if so.’

‘Perhaps some did take some ale or wine when they may.’

‘Sometimes I’ve known men take more than just a little ale too,’ the coroner reminisced. He looked over at Baldwin. ‘Once one of me own boys took a set of plates from a wealthy merchant’s town house. That was a goodly haul! Too good for that damned churl. Took it meself. Gave him a little coin for it, of course. Damned fool spent it inside an hour at a tavern, I expect.’

‘Aye,’ the reeve agreed, stony-faced. ‘There were some made themselves rich out there. Happy days, for them.’

‘So you admit Englishmen were capable of the same thievery, then, and that you have experience of it. So, then, Reeve, am I to think you did this thing? You wandered in there last night, killed the man and slipped out again, putting into practice all the expertise you built up during your war career? No? Then don’t be so damned keen to blame another man, eh? Now, then.’ He sat upright, glaring about the gathered men with an expression that could have turned ale to vinegar. ‘Did anyone see this man about the vill yesterday or yestere’en? Come, now! All you are happy to accuse the man, but has any man a shadow of evidence? Will any man say they saw him?’

There was no response to that challenge, and Baldwin felt an unaccountable sense of relief. He had no cause to think that the man was innocent, after all, and by his own admission he had argued with his companion. But Baldwin was a renegade Knight Templar. He had seen the punishment meted out to so many of his comrades on the basis of evidence they never saw. It was the foundation of his own loathing of injustice.

The Templars had been arrested and accused of crimes, but not allowed to know what the offences were, when they were committed, how they were committed, nor even who accused them – nothing – and yet were tortured until they ‘confessed’. They were burned, broken and cut without understanding why. Some had their feet roasted until the flesh fell away, and they still did not know why. The experience had taught Baldwin that in the absence of a lawyer there was no justice.