The Medieval Murderers - The Tainted Relic

Nor Andrew either, he reminded himself.

He looked a fool, Moll thought. Sitting there so forlorn, like a child who’d lost his mother. Telling lies like that was stupid. The Keeper might not know him yet, but as soon as he asked anyone else, he’d learn that Rob and his brother were close confederates of Will, and then where’d he be? In the shit, that’s where. He’d already told them he was in the Rache.

She’d not tell them , mind. She had enough problems with the law without courting more trouble from felons like Rob and Adam. No, better that the Keeper learned all he wanted from others.

Not that she could help much. She’d been upstairs with that poor bastard when Rob had knocked, and it was only when she saw the state Rob was in that she realized she could have been protecting a killer. References from past clients were all very well, but if this fellow was a killer…still, he’d run out like a scalded cat, and she was safe when he was gone, so that was that. Rob, though, he was different. If he wasn’t careful, the Keeper would put two and two together and realize Rob had been here earlier and found the body in the middle of the night.

He didn’t believe me, Rob told himself.

Christ, save me! When he’d run over that mess last night, he’d almost emptied his own bowels. His foot had stuck on something, and when he looked down he thought it was a lump of pig’s liver, until he realized it came from no pig, and that was when he collapsed and threw up. He couldn’t think straight.

It was like being in a trance. The First Finder always woke the neighbours to witness the death, and they raised the hue and cry together. Last night he’d banged on Moll’s door first because he recognized it.

Shit, she’d scared Rob! She’d had the door open in a flash when he banged on it, and a man pelted into him, running off into the night almost immediately. She told him the sod was nothing to do with this, he was a well-paying bedmate, but it’d embarrass his wife if she learned he’d been here, so Rob agreed to forget him.

Moll was clever. She took charge: he was drunk, as she said, and it would be better if he ‘found’ the body in the morning. Men had been executed for less than being drunk in the presence of a body, and if the city’s sergeants found an easy answer, they’d stop looking for a killer.

Now he thought about it, the man was curious. Strange for him to be up and bolt from a whore’s house just because someone knocked. If he feared his wife finding him, why didn’t he just hide and let her open the door? Rob wondered who the man was. All he’d seen was the shadow of dark cloak. He’d worn a cowl that covered his face; not that it was needed in the gloom of the alley.

Wandering here today, the previous night had seemed dream-like. Andrew missing, Will dead…he came back hoping it was a dream, but there was Will, so he raised the neighbours, and the hue and cry.

Not that it was much help. The neighbours were here now, shivering in the cool morning air. An old candlemaker and his woman, a dyer and a tawyer with a daughter. None of them sharp witted, none of them heard the attack. All denied hearing anything.

Neither had Rob, come to that. And he couldn’t have been far behind Will when whoever it was did this to him. The bastard was still warm when Rob fell over him.

Simon drew a small knife and hesitated before running the blade along the splinter’s path. It stung, but he inserted the point and levered it out, listening as Baldwin asked his questions.

It should have been the new coroner, Sir Peregrine de Barnstaple, investigating this, but he had left for Topsham after the Gaol Delivery hangings because of a brawl between sailors: three of them had died. In his absence, it was only natural that the Keeper should take over. The Keeper had the right to order the posse and lead it to find a felon.

Even now Simon was sure that Baldwin doubted Rob’s evidence. Something had caught his fancy about the ostler, although now he was squatting and frowning at the pooled vomit. Simon left him: he was more intrigued with the young woman.

This Moll was an auburn-haired woman of maybe three-or four-and-twenty, with a dumpy figure but a face that would have been pretty, in a soft, pale, round sort of a way, but for the calculation in her eyes when she looked at a man. From this Simon was convinced she was a prostitute, maybe one of those who inhabited the cheap taverns and alehouses along the South Gate road.

While Baldwin left the puke to talk to the neighbours, Simon wandered to her side. ‘What do you think really happened?’

‘How should I know? I was safe in my bed.’

‘All alone?’

‘Why-you jealous?’

‘Could be! Did you know this man?’

‘Never seen him before,’ she said, but her eyes moved away from Simon.

‘Who was he?’

‘Don’t know what you mean.’

‘Did he try something on? You called your pander to pull the bugger off you, and he took offence at the fellow’s cheek? If your pimp killed him, there’ll be no blame attached to you.’

She smiled at him with quick contempt. ‘You think my pander would do something like that? He’d shit himself at the thought. It’s only women he bullies.’

‘Then you’re protecting someone else? Who? Why ? Whoever did this could attack again. Such frenzied butchery-it must be a madman. He could strike again, maid. Maybe he’ll attack you next.’

She eyed him a moment. ‘No. I think I’m safe.’

When they released him, Rob ran all the way from the alley to the place up at the old Friars’ Hall, and then ducked down another alley and waited, heart pounding savagely. He’d almost been caught, and his terror was only increased by the sudden approach of heavy feet. It sounded like the city’s bailiffs, and he closed his eyes. At any moment the Keeper’s voice would rasp out an order for his attachment. He’d be hauled off to the gaol until he could be brought before the justices and hanged. He just knew it. Why had he ever…

The steps passed by the alley and on down towards the West Gate, and he felt his breath leave him in a sharp gasp, as though it would be his last.

It was awful. He was lost, confused. His brother was gone, Will was dead…who could he trust? There was only Annie, no one else. He must tell her what had happened.

He shot off up the lane past the priory of St Nicholas, and on to the shanty town. Once this had been the abode of Franciscans, but recently they’d moved away. In the space of two years nine of the brethren had died because of the foulness of the location, so they’d moved to a new six-acre site outside the walls.

In their place a series of huts had been built. Bays were made from scraps of timber lying about. Wattles were thrust between them and smeared with daub, and thatch was thrown on top to keep out the rain.

None was strong; none was proof against more than a mild wind or shower, and yet people flocked here. It was proof of the misery of life in the outlying areas that so many were keen to come to this place, which was already known for its malodorous air and the illnesses the foul air caused. The friars had been driven away, yet others more desperate were happy to live here.

The place he wanted was up near the northern walls. It was a scruffy place, the daub falling from the walls while the thatch was worn thin and penetrated in many places where birds had made their homes, or stolen the straw for their nests. What remained was green and little use in a storm, but neither was the rest of the house. The door was an old blanket, which fluttered and moved with every breeze.

Rob hesitated, then cleared his throat. ‘Annie? Are you there?’

‘Of course I’m here. Where else would I be?’