The Medieval Murderers - Sword of Shame

All this seemed to point the guilty finger even more clearly at me. I had the sense that the household, whatever their differences, whether visitors or permanent members, was uniting in the face of an outsider. I shifted uncomfortably under their gaze and looked down at my feet. As I’ve said, I was standing by the chimney-piece which contained the remains of last night’s fire. A little heat still emanated from the remains. Because of the turmoil in the house, nobody had cleared them out or laid any fresh logs. The area in front of the fire-bare oak boards rather than the rushes which were strewn around much of the hall-was covered in a thin grey veil of ash. A backdraft must have blown the ash out of the fire. But what was most interesting to me was the image of a footprint, no a pair of footprints, in the dust. I squatted down for a closer look. They were small prints, like a child’s. The outline of a long toe was visible. Not only a child’s footprint but a barefoot child! There were no children in the house as far as I knew. There was Mr Grant the monkey, however. He had been out of his wooden cage at some point during the night. It was a cold enough morning but, even so, I felt colder within.

After a time, I was shut up in Elias’s chamber, with Andrew in attendance. A little while later, the gatekeeper, assisted by his jug-eared son and Cuthbert and Rowland Haskell, carried in the corpse and deposited it on the bed. It was the natural and inevitable place for the old man to be laid out but perhaps there was some idea of making me confront what I’d done, or what they believed I’d done. I was regarded with hostile looks. Davey was the only exception. The boy gazed at me with frank curiosity. Most likely it was first time that he’d clapped eyes on a supposed murderer.

When they left, I had the opportunity to examine Elias carefully for the first time, although this did not reveal much. There was a severe gash in his forehead, which would probably have been the blow to kill him. It was the kind of wound which should surely have bled heavily, yet there had only been spatterings of blood on the snow outside.

The three of us-Andrew, Elias and I-weren’t the only occupants of the chamber, of course. I haven’t forgotten about Grant the monkey. But one could have overlooked the fact that he was here, so quiet was he inside his cage in the far corner of the room. It was only by his smell that you’d have known he was still present. When the body of his owner had been brought in he had lumbered across and pawed at the dead man’s arm. But he had done nothing else, had uttered no cries or gibbers, had not attempted to climb up on the bed. I sensed that the others were impatient or fearful of the animal and were glad when he slunk back to his cage. For my part I was quite glad of his presence. His silence in the matter of Elias’s death seemed more eloquent than the probably hypocritical words of the Haskell cousins.

If not exactly a prisoner, I was no longer a guest. Accompanied by Abigail the housekeeper, Martha brought me some bread and ale and told me that, if the road to Cambridge was clear enough, the coroner or magistrate would be summoned to Ickleton to take charge. She had been weeping for her uncle and cast frequent glances at his corpse. Abigail divided her gaze between me and the dead man, looking with disapproval on both. As a mark of respect for her dead master she had changed into a black overdress. I looked to Martha for some indication that the young woman, at least, did not think me guilty of murder but she gave none. She would scarcely meet my eyes. This, and the fact that it might take a day or more for a magistrate to reach Valence, caused a black cloud to drift over my spirits. I knew that I was innocent, certainly, but to judge by the wary manner which even Martha was showing no one else did. I realized that you can be as innocent as the day is long and yet still be accused and tried and…

I’m well aware that this is not exactly a fresh revelation, that the innocent are sometimes accused and…all the rest of it. I should know. I’ve even been imprisoned, on false charges, before now. I know the way the world wags. This time I had the creeping sensation that things might turn out badly. With a hostile coroner or magistrate, or an incompetent one, things might turn out very badly indeed. Particularly as none of the individuals in Valence House, with the exception of Martha and Elias Haskell, had been well disposed towards me in the first place. And now one of the two was dead and the other must suspect me of having a hand in her uncle’s demise. As for the rest of the occupants, they either had some rank or they were local. How would a strange player from London be regarded? With suspicion even in the best of circumstances.

If I was going to be saved I would have to save myself. I cudgelled my wits to think of a way out of this predicament. I went over in my mind all the details to do with my discovery of Elias’s body. I thought back over the previous night when I’d been woken by that odd panting noise. I’d had no more than a glimpse of the figure standing in the yard but it had surely been Elias. Why was he outside? He was meant to have taken a soporific. Presumably he had not drunk it or it had been ineffective. Yet this was a minor point which didn’t explain his presence in the courtyard on a very cold night.

I’d assumed he was bed-ridden, but no one had actually said as much. It was evident from the way he’d held the sword or gripped his niece by the wrist that he still possessed considerable strength. So he must have risen from his bed and struggled outside. Yet he had been wounded in the head, plainly wounded. He could not have received the injury out of doors, otherwise there would have been signs of a scuffle, more footprints besides his. And more blood on the ground perhaps, although it was likely that the snow had had the effect of stanching the flow. So did Elias stagger outside, mortally wounded as he was? Was it possible, that an old, sick man could move even a few yards with such an injury? I knew from a good friend of mine who was also a member of the King’s Men and who had seen service many years ago in the Netherlands war that wounded men are capable of extraordinary feats in the heat of battle, even if they fall and die straight afterwards. So it must be that Elias had run out of the house to escape from someone. But that someone had not come after him, since there were no other tracks in the snow (apart from mine).

But somebody else had been down there in the hall. I knew this because I’d had to unbar the door in order to get outside. Which meant that a second person had barred it after Elias had left the house in the night. Had it been Abigail or Martha, making sure the house was secure and unaware that the body was lying in the snow, dying or already dead? But I’d heard sounds outside in the early hours of the morning, long after the rest of the household should have retired to bed, all doors and windows secured.

Or-and this seemed the more likely event-had the person who’d had a hand in Elias’s death stood by the entrance long enough to make sure the old man was good and dead before closing the door once again and barring it for the night? To leave a body lying on the ground was hardly satisfactory but to have attempted to remove it would have left even more traces in the snow. Perhaps the person, whoever it was, hoped that the death of Elias might be seen as accidental. And, except for the presence of the cursed sword (and a few blood stains), it might have been an accident. Men and women and children have died of cold on the London streets in winter. Why should it be any different in the wilds of Cambridgeshire?

But this looked like an unnatural death. How had it happened? I tried to think it through clearly.