The Medieval Murderers - The Tainted Relic

He took Andrew’s money and divided it equally between them, then put the box in its wrappings on the table beside him. ‘If Andrew gets here, he can have it.’

‘No!’ Rob protested. ‘I’ll look after his stuff. Give it to me!’

‘What if he doesn’t come back, Rob?’ Will said easily.

Rob blurted, ‘He’ll be here soon!’

But even he did not believe it.

A woodsman found the body some little while later. Old Hob was out with his dog, and while crossing the common on the Exeter side of the ford, his dog ran off, then stopped dead in a clump of brambles, and growled, low and menacing.

This was no cattle dog, it was a good rache, a hunting dog that could chase its quarry by smell, and the woodsman knew better than to dispute its sense. He hurried after it, wondering whether there could be a deer hiding away there, hopeful that a good blow with his axe (without a witness) could result in food for some few days.

‘Sweet Jesus!’ he breathed when he saw the face staring at him from among the bushes. The face of a dead man, blue-grey in the twilight, with his throat cut from ear to ear.

Much later, Will belched and grabbed hold of the doorway as he left the alehouse. It was dark already, and the city was all but deserted, but there was a man being smothered by Moll the whore at the street’s corner as Will stood on the threshold and peered up and down the street.

Adam thought he was clever, but it was Will’s brain which was going to lead them now. It was obvious enough even to Rob that his precious brother wasn’t going to come back, and now it was up to Will to take over. He already had his plans, and it wouldn’t take him long to implement them.

He’d never asked for more. Rob was an old woman when it came to planning and choosing a target, but Adam was reliable enough. His only problem was, he tended to believe, touchingly, that he had a brain. He didn’t. As far as Will was concerned, Adam had less intelligence than a stook of wheat.

Take his reaction tonight. As soon as he had been faced down by Will, he went into a sulk, and it was only later that he recovered his equanimity, when he’d beaten several barrels of crap out of that poor sod at the bar. Who was it? Oh yes, Tad. ‘Tad the Bad’, they called him, because of his flatulence, but tonight he was ‘Tad the Trampled’. Yes, Will thought with a cheerful gurgle. Tad the Trampled. That was good. He’d been so thumped by the infuriated Adam that it was a miracle he was still able to whine and crawl away.

Will wouldn’t have done that. He had no argument with Tad. No, if Adam had insisted and tried to take the box, Will would finally have let him have it. But then, later, he’d have made sure that Adam never crossed him again. That was the trouble with a small band like theirs. It was impossible if there was a second man trying to get to the top. Will was the top man now, and he wasn’t going to let anyone, let alone a shite-for-brains moron like Adam, take his position.

Shame that Rob was so upset. It was his brother, but in God’s name, even brothers had to separate some time. And there was no shame in Andrew dying at the hand of a knight. That was plainly what Rob would think, that the man on the horse had ridden his brother down.

Will set his jaw. The trouble was, if the knight was about the city now, it would be possible for him to cause some problems. Who could have foretold that the bastard would hang back and reappear at the gallop only when the pathetic little cleric had already been taken care of? No one could have foretold that that would happen, but if Will had been in charge, he’d have set one man to keep an eye on the cleric, and left the other three watching and waiting to catch the knight, pull him from his horse, and kill him as well. Still, Andrew wouldn’t make that mistake again. Or any other, for that matter, the cretin.

He paused. The knight had been too far away to get a good look at any of them, hadn’t he? Could he have caught a clear view of their faces? Not Will’s, surely. Will had been over the other side of the clearing. He could have seen Rob, though, or maybe Adam. If he had, that was their problem, not his.

Most importantly, the box was nice and safe. Adam had tried to grab it, but Will had kept it. Later he would take it to a man he knew behind Exeter’s Fleshfold, above a small butcher’s shop, who would sometimes deal in little trinkets. Judging by the box, it must be valuable, although why a splinter of timber in a vial should be, Will didn’t know. He suspected it might be a relic, which was why he had pulled it out, in case it brought him luck, but there was no magical tingling in his fingertips as he handled it, no spark of excitement in his belly or fire in his bowels. It was just an old chip of wood. Probably sold to some gullible trader with more money than sense. Well, with any luck, Will could find another one with a purse bigger than his brains. He wondered fleetingly what the two pieces of parchment had been, but the idle thought was soon lost as he lurched down one alley, then turned into a narrower one.

This wasn’t his way home, but Moll lived down here, and he had some business with her. She’d been all over that man like a cheap tunic, and Will had a sudden urge to know who he was. There was something unpleasantly familiar about the man. When she came home, Will would be waiting for her.

It was late when the outlaw finally managed to sleep; the body in the alley haunted his thoughts, and as he settled himself he would see again that appalling face, the spilled guts, all that, and his sword befouled with gore and blood. Although he was used to bloodshed-Christ’s bones, he’d been a warrior for too long not to be accustomed to it-yet the murder made him feel tainted, as did his furious attack on the corpse.

Marching through the alleys afterwards, he came to his inn. It was a poor place, this, but it had one attribute: the master and his wife were uninterested in him or anyone else. All they wanted was the money that people brought. They didn’t care what men might have done. It was all the outlaw could have desired.

He gave them a curt nod as he closed the door behind him, and the pair eyed him silently. They were sitting at their fire, a mean thing in the middle of the room impounded within a ring of stones like stray sheep.

‘Are you staying in the rest of the night?’ the old woman demanded.

The outlaw looked at her. She appeared little better than a beggar, and her husband had the appearance of a cur who had just been whipped. ‘Why? Do you wish to follow me about my business?’

‘No, Lord, no!’ the man interrupted hastily. ‘Just…the watchmen will be about, and you could be hurt.’

‘I’ll not be at risk,’ the outlaw said softly, but with menace in his tone. He walked to them quietly, his soft Cordovan leather boots making little sound on the earthen floor, until he was standing before them, his hand resting on his sword hilt. ‘I am not in danger here, am I?’

‘Of course not, master,’ the man said.

The outlaw’s eyes weren’t on him, though, they were on the vixenish features of the man’s wife. She was the sort who’d cut a man’s throat without thinking, the bitch. A man couldn’t trust a woman like her. Any man who had been celibate all his life could see the type: one who would lead her man into danger for the gratification of her own lusts. Women always hankered after money or things. The outlaw had been warned of their wiles while he was a monk.

‘I’ll stay here, then,’ he said softly.

She had set out a palliasse for him on the floor near the fire, but he ignored it and walked out behind the bar. There was a small cellar out there, and he peered about him with satisfaction.

‘What do you want in here?’ she demanded, following him.