The Medieval Murderers - The First Murder

‘Father Prior, now that we know the victim is his own nephew, this must prove the man Cudbert innocent. Surely he at least should be released. He has a wife and children to support.’

‘I see no proof of innocence,’ Prior Alan said sourly. ‘It’s been my experience that men are far more disposed to murder members of their own family than outsiders.’

‘But he seemed genuinely shocked to discover the dead man was Luke and not Martin. All three of the players did. Surely that shows they had no hand in the killing.’

‘Unless there were two murders,’ Will said. ‘We have a body, a head and a hand, but short of digging up the corpse, we can’t tell if they all belong to the same man, and even if we do, if the corpse is in the same state of decay as the other remains, it might be hard to be certain. Cuddy is just the sort of fellow who would’ve taken the law into his own hands and killed Martin in a fit of rage, if he learned that Martin had decapitated his nephew. You heard the threats that he made to Henry.’

‘Exactly so,’ Stephen said. ‘He accused Henry of killing Luke. He wouldn’t have done that if he knew Martin had committed the murder. Besides, he plainly didn’t know that his nephew was dead. He must have thought him fled with the rest.’

Prior Alan stabbed a piece of roasted duck with his knife and brought it to his mouth, then tossed knife and meat together back on the platter, clearly unable to bring himself to eat it. ‘So we now have two possible murders – Luke and Martin. But if the head does belong to our corpse, then Martin is not a victim but one of the murderers, fled with the other actors.’

He rose to his feet, wiping his hands on a linen cloth. ‘It seems to me the only thing we can be certain of is that the missing actors are in possession of the hand of St Withburga and they are hiding somewhere out there in the fens.’

He strode to the casement and stared out as if he could see right into the dark heart of the marshes. ‘I want every village and island out there turned upside down. Take the dogs skilled at tracking quarry. Recruit hunters from the fenland villages who know the marshes and the waterways. The fenlanders have no love for townsfolk or outlanders. They won’t hesitate to turn the actors in if the reward for their capture is big enough. Do whatever you have to, but I want those men found, and quickly.’

‘I’m not going begging,’ little Ben said furiously, blinking back the tears. ‘Father’d be as angry as a nest of wasps if he knew you were trying to make me.’

‘Well, your father isn’t here,’ his mother retorted. ‘He’s sitting around in gaol, and he hasn’t got to worry about where his next meal’s coming from. I dare say he won’t have been dining on roast goose, but at least the Priory gives their prisoners something to fill their bellies, which is more than we will have today if you don’t get out to that alms gate. If the monks are going to go around arresting innocent men and keep them from earning an honest living, the least they can do is provide their starving families with food. Why your father didn’t stick to pagging and loading for the boatmen down on the quay, I’ll never know. I warned him that play was cursed, but would he listen?’

‘But, Mam,’ Ben wailed, ‘my friends’ll see me there among all the cripples and gammers. They’ll torment the life out of me.’

‘A bit of teasing won’t do you any harm. You and that father of yours were getting far too high and mighty, lording around in that play as if you were the King’s minstrels. And it’s no use you sulking. If you hadn’t made up one of your stories about gold coins and set the men against each other none of this would have happened. Now you see you get to the front and don’t let the others push you aside. Be sure to tell the monk you’ve three little brothers and sisters at home all going hungry.’

She grabbed Ben’s shoulder and marched him out of the door, and with a light cuff around his head she sent him off in the direction of the hill that led up to Heyrow. Ben knew, without turning round, that she was standing in the doorway of the tiny cottage, her arms folded, watching him.

In the past, when his mother had sent him on a errand he didn’t want to perform, he’d run off to play instead, refusing to think about his mother’s wrath until he was finally forced to return home, but no such temptation entered his head now. Ben didn’t need his mother to remind him that it was his fault his father had been arrested. He’d been blaming himself ever since it had happened. He hadn’t made up that story about the half-noble. He had seen it, he had! But if he’d only kept quiet, the men would never have argued, he would still be performing the play and his little brothers would not be whining with hunger. Of course, he didn’t for one moment believe that his father had killed Martin. He couldn’t have. But suppose no one believed him? Suppose they hanged him anyway? That too would be all Ben’s fault. He swallowed the hard lump in his throat and tried desperately to think of something else.

By the time he had reached Steeple Gate, a large crowd of beggars were squatting on the ground before the thick wooden door. They were mostly cripples and the old and frail whose faces were as wrinkled as last year’s apples. One man, whose face was half covered in filthy bandages, gripped his crutches tightly as if he feared even these poor things might be snatched from him, while a young hollow-cheeked woman, with a grizzling baby, continually batted at the hands of a small girl to stop her picking at the yellow-crusted sores on her scalp. Ben attempted to step round the prone figures and edge his way to the front, but a hand shot out and caught his leg in a painful grip, dragging him back.

‘Here, where do think you’re going, brat?’

The man was crouching on a low wooden cart. He’d lost both his legs and the knuckles of his hand were covered with thick pads of brown skin where for years he had used them to propel himself along the ground. He might not be able to walk, but the muscles on his arms were harder than those of the paggers who humped loads down at the quayside. Ben wasn’t going to argue with him. He obediently crouched down where the man thrust him.

‘That demon will be hunting again tonight,’ the cripple on the cart said to the old man beside him. ‘You want to make sure you’re back inside your shelter long afore dark. Killed two already, but he must be getting hungry for some more by now.’

All the heads lifted as one, glancing apprehensively up towards the cathedral tower.

‘Two, is it now?’ The old man chewed on the news.

‘Aye, first was that fellow who played the angel, then that Ely boy, Luke. It’s his head they found up on top of the tower.’

‘So we’ve nothing to be afeared of then,’ an old woman cackled. ‘The monster’s only going for the tender, pretty ones.’

The beggars grinned, but their smiles quickly faded and their eyes kept swivelling back up at the grey skies as if they expected any minute to see the creature swoop down.

‘Luke,’ the old man said. ‘His uncle’s one of those they locked up. I knew his brother once, the one that ran off. He-’

‘Shouldn’t be keeping them locked up,’ a woman with a withered arm interrupted. ‘Speaking that cursed play. It’s them who’s to blame for calling up the demon. What they want to do is to hang them from the top of the tower and leave them there for the demon to eat.’

‘No!’ Ben yelled. ‘It’s not their fault. It was the monks that give them the cursed words. They’re written down, they are, on a scroll. The monks keep it hidden in the priory.’

‘Aye,’ said the women, ‘but a curse doesn’t work until it’s spoken aloud for all the imps of hell to hear.’