The Medieval Murderers - King Arthur's Bones

‘It is that,’ Baldwin said. Close to Crediton and not too far from Exeter, Sandford was a good location for a priest. Far better than some out-of-the-way chapel like Gidleigh, or one of the other churches over to the west of Dartmoor.

‘Where is he?’ the coroner asked.

‘He’ll be with the other men, tending the fields, of course.’

‘So he is a man of humility,’ Simon said.

‘Oh, I suppose so. Although he has a need for it.’

‘What do you mean?’ Baldwin asked.

‘He was the rector of a church in Axminster before he came here. Any man who came here from a minster must have been considered due for some humility, wouldn’t he?’

They soon left the old man and followed Simon down to the strip fields that supported the vill, and before long the three men were walking down the track towards the working peasants and freemen of the vill. It took little time to find the priest and Ulric, both leaning on their tools and watching as the three men approached.

Father William was of only middle height, but he looked taller with his shock of almost-white hair. It was a while since he had last seen the barber, from the way his stubble had thickened on chin and head. ‘You want me again? What, more note-taking? I have work to do, coroner.’

‘I know that,’ Sir Richard said. ‘But first I want to ask you a little more about the pardoner. Did you know he had bones? Apparently he was displaying relics as he went.’

‘Not until he got them out, no. Why should I? But I don’t care what he was doing. When all is said and done, he was only a pardoner.’

‘Who will care about a dead pardoner?’ Ulric demanded. ‘He shouldn’t have been here in the first place.’

‘He sold quite a few pardons, I hear,’ Baldwin said.

‘Aye. What of it?’ Ulric asked.

‘Did you buy one?’

‘No! I have no need of them.’

‘But many did,’ Baldwin said, looking at the priest.

‘Not I.’

‘The others who did must have felt that they had something to protect themselves against.’

‘Men will always think they have a need of protection,’ Ulric said. ‘If they have some spare money, and the pardoner gives a good tale, like this one did, then he will have people flock to him.’

‘They sell lies and deceit,’ the priest said uncompromisingly. ‘The Holy Father in Avignon has authorized some few friars and others to give indulgences, but men like this one are mere pedlars in people’s hopes – and fears.’ ‘You sound like a man who has cause to doubt such people, Father,’ the coroner said mildly.

‘I detest them. Yes, and I hate those who pander to the baser attitudes of the people in the vill. The good Bishop Walter has shown the way with these people, saying that they are not to be welcomed in any of his lands across his diocese, and I support his ban. What, would you have men think that they might commit any sin with impunity just for the price of a letter of indulgence from another man? The Pope may give such a promise, but a man like this dead pardoner? Why should he have the right? Why should any churl without the education of holy orders think himself able to offer God’s own forgiveness?’

‘The Pope has made the pardoner legitimate in the matter,’ Sir Richard said.

‘You find my attitude surprising? What arrogance is it to think that one man alone can appreciate the divine will? I say to you: the pardoners are wrong. They should not be saying that they can help souls. That is the task of priests like me, not secular fellows like that man.’

‘And what of you, Ulric?’ Baldwin asked. ‘Do you think he was as evil as the priest thinks?’

‘I think he was a dangerous man. Anyone who dabbles in pardons for sins which he cannot understand is dangerous.’

‘Where lies the danger? You mean that he will die like John last night?’ Coroner Richard snapped.

‘No. I mean that a fellow who seeks to sell an indulgence thinks that he knows God’s mind. And that itself is more dangerous than the devil. How can a man know God’s will?’

‘A good point,’ Baldwin said. He had noticed that the priest and Ulric had exchanged a look as the reeve spoke, and they remained staring at each other now. ‘The bones, though. They were here on view, I think? Where did they go? They were not there in his bags today, so somebody must have stolen them.’

‘You think so?’ the priest asked. ‘Perhaps they were taken by God, to save them from that man’s perverted, thieving hands.’

There was nothing more that they could, or would, tell him, so it seemed, so the three men thanked the two and returned up the path to the vill.

However, as they reached the market area, Baldwin saw a scruffy little lad, scarcely ten years old, barefoot and filthy, playing with a sling near the horses. As the three appeared, he shot to his feet, a ragged warrior, stuffing his sling into the rope that served him as a belt.

‘Masters, are you seeking the pardoner’s killer? I can help.’

His name, so he said, was Bar. ‘I was here yesterday when the pardoner arrived.’

‘Aye? And what did you see, boy?’ Sir Richard demanded.

The boy was standing, hands behind his back, facing the three men. Baldwin and Sir Richard sat on a bench, while Simon had an old stool at their side. It was an intimidating environment, but the lad seemed unconscious of the fact.

‘He saw me. I was out at the chapel trying to hit a magpie in the tall elm,’ he said, pointing, ‘when the pardoner walked up. He gave me a drum and told me to beat it to call people here to his “pardon”.’

‘He had no permission to beat it here, then?’ Baldwin said. ‘That may explain the priest’s animosity…’

He saw the lad staring uncomprehendingly.

‘Why the priest disliked him,’ Baldwin explained.

‘No, he saw Father William first. I saw him coming down here from the chapel. Father William approved.’

‘That scarce accords with the priest’s story,’ Sir Richard muttered. ‘Aye, so what then, boy?’

‘He sold his scraps of parchment while people knelt and kissed his licence, and he showed them his goose feather and his bones, and then people paid more. And then they left him.’

‘What did he do?’

‘He took me to the tavern here, and gave me two pennies. Silver ones. And he gave me a quart of strong ale, while the tavern-keeper gave him as much ale as he could drink in exchange for a strip of the parchment.’

‘So Hob had a pardon too?’ Baldwin said.

‘Yes, I think he needs it,’ the urchin said with a sly smile.

‘Why, boy?’ the coroner demanded. ‘In Christ’s name, the people of the vill here speak ever in riddles. Just give us some clear answers!’

‘Hob has been swiving the mistress of West Sandford.’

‘Does everyone know of it?’ Sir Richard demanded.

Baldwin smiled to see the expression on the coroner’s face. ‘No need to repeat that, lad,’ he said. ‘And what proof do you have of that rather inflammatory remark?’

‘It’s known all over the vill. The only man who doesn’t is her old man,’ the boy said. ‘She’s always with him – here or in Crediton. Everyone knows about him and her.’

It was all too common, Baldwin knew. So often the last person to hear of adultery was the cuckold himself. Simon was thinking the same thing, he saw. ‘The man Hob had a parchment in his purse, just like a pardoner’s indulgence,’ Baldwin said.

‘It would not surprise me,’ Simon said in answer to his look. ‘She was a comely woman.’

‘Hardly what I’d say about the tavern-keeper, though,’ Baldwin said.

The coroner glanced at him, then looked up at the inn. ‘So this good taverner has bought an indulgence for himself because of an amatory matter with the woman from West Sandford, then? I thought he said he had no such parchment.’