The Medieval Murderers - House of Shadows

‘Ever since they were working down in that cursed place, in that cellar, and brought back-’

The woman stopped herself and put a hand to her mouth. Chaucer noticed that she was gap-toothed.

‘I don’t understand, Mistress Morton. What cursed place? Brought back what?’

‘They were down in the cellar last week. It is ghost-ridden. There are bones down there. Bad fortune comes to all those who go there. I wish I hadn’t picked out-’

Again the woman paused as if on the verge of saying the wrong thing. Then she went on: ‘My husband Simon has been afflicted with a fever and now you say that John is dead and, look, I scalded my arm only the other day.’ She rolled up the sleeve of her smock and displayed a stretch of raw, puckered skin. ‘The boiling water leaped out and took hold of my arm,’ she continued. ‘It has never done that before. And John is dead, too, God rest his soul.’

Geoffrey thought that, in her grief, the woman must be confused between an ordinary household accident and a violent death. By this stage some of the other women from the row had come bustling out, together with their children. There was a mixture of curiosity and pity on the faces of the adults, more curiosity than pity perhaps. All the same Mistress Morton stepped out from the shadow of the doorway and as if by instinct went towards her neighbours, who immediately surrounded her. There was a moment’s silence, which was broken by a babble of questions and exclamations.

Geoffrey was relieved. He reckoned he could leave it to the neighbours to comfort Mistress Morton, if comfort was what she required on hearing of her brother-in-law’s death. Nor was it his responsibility to stay and tell John’s brother, Simon. The sick man was surely incapable of understanding or, at the least, it would make the blow even worse to inflict the news on him in his current state. Simon Morton was well out of things.

Geoffrey began to walk back in the direction of the priory. He hadn’t gone far when he sensed someone behind him and felt a tug on his sleeve. It was Will, the dead man’s nephew. Looking at the smile on his freckle-filled face, Geoffrey grasped that the boy really was a little light in the head. He was all cheerfulness. It was as if he’d forgotten about the fatal violence he’d witnessed in the courtyard. Probably he had. He held out his clenched hands, the backs uppermost. He nodded at Chaucer, as if to say ‘you know what to do next’.

So Geoffrey tapped the boy’s right hand. Delighted, Will flipped it over to reveal a palm which contained nothing but grime. The boy put his hands behind him and, after a bit of fumbling, brought them round to his front once more. Wondering how much longer he’d have to humour the lad but unwilling to turn his back on him, Geoffrey tapped the clenched left hand, which the boy promptly opened. Chaucer had been half-expecting the left hand to be empty, either because Will had switched whatever he was holding to the other one or even because he wasn’t holding anything in the first place. So it was with a small thrill that he saw that Will had indeed been concealing an object.

Chaucer made no attempt to take it but bent forward to examine a ring, an old and dulled golden ring. It looked valuable.

‘Very good, Will. You had me fooled for a bit,’ he said. ‘You should take that back to wherever you got it from. Run along now.’

In the back of his mind was the thought that if the boy was caught with the ring he might be accused of stealing it. But Will seemed to have no intention of running along. His cheerful expression was replaced by a look of disappointment. He thrust the palm holding the ring towards Chaucer.

‘No, I do not want it. It’s not mine. It’s probably not yours to give away either, Will. Put it back where you got it, I say again.’

But Will would not budge. He stood opposite Geoffrey, insistently proffering the ring. Over the boy’s shoulder, Geoffrey could see the gaggle of neighbours still clustered about Will’s mother. He wondered whether the ring had come from the Morton house. It didn’t look like the kind of thing a mason’s family would have. He remembered that the sick man’s wife had said something about an item brought back to the house from…from where? The cellar she’d also referred to?

As if in confirmation, Will said: ‘Down among the bones.’

Once again he shoved his hand forward so that the ring was almost under Chaucer’s nose and repeated ‘down among the bones’ in a strange singsong, as if the phrase was part of a children’s rhyme. The simpler course would be to take the ring, Geoffrey decided. The odds were that it did not belong to the boy or to his mother or father. He could make enquiries inside the priory, without revealing how he’d come by the thing. He could pretend that he’d found it by chance (which was correct, in a way). He didn’t want to get Will or his family into trouble. Unless one of them really was a thief, of course.

Chaucer plucked the ring from the boy’s open hand, and the grin that split the other’s face told him he’d made the right move in the game they were playing. He slipped the ring into a pocket. Will moved a pace or two back, then turned and ran off in the direction of home.

Baffled, Geoffrey resumed his walk to the priory. Passing the lay cemetery, he reflected that his hopes for peace and quiet in this place had been destroyed and then rebuked himself: a man had just died, after all. His own hopes didn’t count for much against that. Passing through the outer gate he was unsurprised to see no sign of the hulking gatekeeper. With a murderer on the loose, the man had obviously decided to make himself scarce. The inner courtyard where the killing had occurred was empty too. There was still blood on the ground, already dried and fading in the sun. Chaucer noticed that his quill pen was where he’d left it on the block of stone. He didn’t imagine he’d be resuming a quiet morning of writing. He thought for a moment of his house in Aldgate and wondered what his family was doing.

He walked on past the cloister. Everywhere was deserted. It was eerily silent. His thoughts turning to the claw-handed man on the loose, he was startled to see a figure rounding the corner of the monks’ sleeping quarters.

But it was only Andrew coming towards him, the other mason. There was dried blood on his shirt from the cut he’d received as the killer escaped. Presumably he’d had the wound attended to in the infirmary.

‘Have they caught him yet?’ Chaucer asked.

‘I do not think so,’ said Andrew.

‘I have taken the boy home,’ said Geoffrey. ‘His mother knows now. Perhaps you can tell her more.’

‘Don’t know much more than you, Master Chaucer.’

‘What was the cause of the fight?’

‘It was no honest fight but a coward’s attack. Like I said, Adam was new to us. A surly bad-tempered fellow, out for trouble from the moment he started. Possibly he was bitter on account of his withered hand. He made fun of simple Will and then, when his uncle defended the lad, Adam turned on him . But if you ask me…’ Andrew’s voice tailed away.

‘Yes?’

‘…I can’t explain it, but it was as though Adam was looking for an excuse to go for John Morton. There’d been strong words before you stuck your head out of the window, Master Chaucer, and afterwards there was quiet for a bit while we got on with our work. Then Adam suddenly leaped on old John and did for him with a blow to the neck. With the chisel. I tell you one thing, though. No true mason would use his tools in that fashion. We masons are a peaceable bunch. He was no proper member of our guild.’

Geoffrey nodded. Andrew was right. You rarely saw a quarrel among the masons. Their work demanded skill and concentration and a kind of rhythm, a combination of head and hand. Perhaps the physical labour left them too tired for scraps and fights; perhaps the fact that they were frequently employed in building churches and other holy places sobered them. While Andrew was talking, a question had been running through Chaucer’s head. He decided to trust the other man and ask it.