The Medieval Murderers - The Deadliest Sin

As for the Raths… they were not aloof and they didn’t put on airs like the Carters. On the surface, they seemed friendly enough. Alfred Rath was a small man with a round face and cheery manner, though there was a streak of malice in him and he had a wandering eye. His wife, Joan, was a plain woman and strong in her own fashion. She knew her own mind. While her neighbour Alice Carter gossiped in a way that some might say was mean-spirited, Joan looked out for the goodness in people, even when there was very little goodness to be found. Joan Rath had a cousin who was a doctor of physic, Thomas Flytte, and you could say that he is central to the story, because of what happened.

But before I say anything about Flytte, I need to tell you of the incident that turned the hostility between the Carters and the Raths into hatred. It happened towards the end of a wet, gusty market day in the village. Business had finished early on account of the rain – it was always raining then, remember – and the stall-holders were in the alehouse drinking away their meagre takings. There were quite a few of the villagers there as well, including William Carter and Alfred Rath. They were on opposite sides of the room, of course. Didn’t even acknowledge each other’s existence.

Suddenly, a woman burst in and announced to the world that she had lost her purse on the outskirts of Wenham. She said it was missing from her belt. Missing, not stolen, because she’d been walking alone and no one had been near her. The spot where it probably happened was at the junction of Nether Way and Church Lane, where she’d had to jump aside to avoid a great pool of water. She’d gone back to look for it but without success. There wasn’t much money in the purse, but it had value for her because it had been her mother’s. All this news came out in a single gushing flow, like the rainwater pouring off the eaves of the alehouse. She was obviously in distress, but nobody cared much. I don’t know whether she expected the alehouse to empty out while its occupants went into the rain to help search the place where the two lanes met but, if so, she was to be disappointed. Nobody moved and there were more shrugged shoulders than expressions of sympathy.

After a moment, Alfred Rath remarked in a casual voice but one still loud enough to be heard by everyone in the room that he was sure he’d seen his neighbour William Carter earlier that morning standing at the corner of Nether Way and Church Lane. Perhaps William could help in this matter? William Carter looked startled but didn’t deny he’d been there. As I’ve said, there was a streak of malice in Alfred Rath and, realising he had the advantage, he started to add colour to his story. Yes, he said, scratching his head as if to aid his memory, he had definitely seen his neighbour stooping and peering as if in search of some item that he’d dropped. Furthermore, he’d witnessed him pick something up and put it in his pocket.

The woman made for Master William, relief on her face. ‘Oh, do you have it, sir? I shall be eternally grateful if you do,’ she said. ‘It was my mother’s purse, hinged it is, and made of wool and silk. You can have the coins inside as reward but I would dearly miss that purse.’

William Carter looked uneasy, as though he was indeed guilty of picking up the woman’s purse. He hadn’t denied any part of Rath’s account, not searching the muddy ground nor slipping something into his pocket. Spots of red glowed in his cheeks. He glanced round at the ring of faces, all waiting for an explanation. It was obvious that he had to say something. He cast a glance of pure hatred in the direction of Alfred Rath. Eventually, he fumbled under his cloak and brought out from beneath it… a short length of rope.

‘Here you are,’ he said, and there was a mixture of anger and embarrassment in his tone. ‘This is what I picked up at the corner of Nether Way and Church Lane.’

He held up the pitiful fragment of rope so that everyone in the alehouse might see it. There were titters and sly comments. Someone said the rope was too short even for a noose. Indeed, it was too short for any practical purpose. The whole piece would have been used up by the act of tying a knot in it. It must have been cut from a longer length for tying a bale or leading a packhorse, and discarded in the road as worthless. But most people were aware of William Carter’s hoarding habits. He couldn’t help himself. He’d bent down for the rope and tucked it under his cloak out of instinct. And now that instinct was making him look miserly and petty in the eyes of the villagers. With another furious glance at Alfred Rath, he strode out of the alehouse, flinging the length of rope to the floor as he went.

A few of the more thoughtful customers might have felt a little sorry for Carter. Even I felt sorry for him, a boy, not daring to show my face but tucked away out of sight in a corner of the alehouse. He wasn’t a thief – unless picking up a useless bit of rope makes you a thief – but he was something that is almost as bad: a laughing stock. And a proud man like William Carter feels such an insult, feels it strongly, especially when he’s brought it on himself. Even Alfred Rath looked less eager now and he did not join in the general amusement that he’d caused. Perhaps he knew he’d gone too far. Too late for that, though.

From that day on, there was bitterness between the Raths and the Carters, and especially between the men of the households. Oh, and what about the woman’s purse, you ask, the keepsake from her mother? When she returned home she discovered that she’d never taken it with her in the first place.

Where was I? Yes, the physician. As I said before I started on the story of the rope and the purse, Thomas Flytte was a cousin of Joan Rath’s. He came from a village a few miles away, Woolney, but he’d soon shaken the dust of that place off his feet and gone in search of a better, wider life. He was a learned man, Thomas Flytte. He talked about his studies in Oxford and Cambridge and famous cities across the seas. He’d travelled and lived for long periods away from England, even going as far as the East. He said some of the greatest physicians and writers had come from there. He casually referred to the noble men and women who had applied to him for help – never by name but as the prince of this or the duchess of that – and no one would have thought to ask at the time whether he was inventing these people or whether they really existed.

He made a point of mentioning the elaborate preparations he’d concocted for those great men and women who lived in foreign lands. One, I remember, was a medicine made up not only of gold and silver leaf but of tiny fragments of precious gems like sapphire and garnet, all mixed in a honey or syrup. Obviously, you must be very wealthy indeed even to think of having your physician offer such remedies. Master Thomas had all the answers at his finger-tips too. If you were to ask him why gold was good for the heart, for instance, he’d say that the heart was under the influence of Leo, which is the House of the Sun, and that gold is the metal of the Sun. His talk often turned to the subject of gold.

So what was he doing back in a straggling village in a corner of England staying in his cousin’s house? Something had gone wrong, that was obvious, even if Thomas Flytte never talked about it. Perhaps one of those foreign princes or duchesses had died under his hands, when he’d promised a recovery, or perhaps he had been involved in some dispute with a more powerful physician in a royal court and come off the worse. Or maybe there was not much truth in his tales of travel and noble patrons, and he’d never gone further than Southampton, casting waters for the wives of shipmasters and town burghers.

If Thomas the doctor of physic had had money once, he did not seem so well off now. Looked at close to, his purple surcoat was so threadbare that you would see through the fabric in places, while the ermine trimming his hood was yellow rather than white and bright. Even a child could see this. Especially a child. Joan Rath persuaded her husband to lend him a mantle against the bad weather. She said it was the least he could do after what the physician had done for them… Well, I’ll come to that in a moment.