The Medieval Murderers - House of Shadows

‘What has this to do with anything, though?’ said Geoffrey. Then an idea occurred to him. ‘Are you saying that Simon Morton wanted to harm his brother because of his wife’s infidelity?’

‘He wouldn’t have the guts to do anything himself,’ said Osbert. ‘Little shrimp of a man who could only sire a half-wit. Could’ve been her, couldn’t it?’

‘Why would Mistress Morton want to get rid of her brother-in-law?’

‘Perhaps she got tired of his great hands wandering all over her-’

At that moment a monk came out of the gatehouse door. It was Brother Philip, who had official charge of the outer gatehouse. He dipped his cowled head on seeing Chaucer. Osbert had the grace to look uncomfortable. He said to Geoffrey: ‘And a good day to you, too, sir.’

Chaucer went through the shadow of the gate and turned right towards the artisans’ dwellings. He pondered over what he’d heard from the gossipy, lascivious porter. He wondered whether Osbert was telling the truth about what he’d witnessed behind a bush on the river bank. Chaucer recalled something revealing that Mistress Morton had said when he had brought the news of John Morton’s death. She’d referred to ‘my John’. So was this whole business to be explained by domestic jealousy? Was that what Osbert was hinting at? Had Simon Morton discovered that his wife was carrying on with his brother (‘He could smell it on her’) and, lacking the nerve to take action himself, did he persuade…suborn…bribe someone else to do the job for him? Adam of the crooked hand? How would a poor mason have paid for such a desperate task? With a valuable ring, perhaps? Or was it Mistress Morton, trying to get rid of an importunate lover? She’d find it easier to pay Adam, and not with a gold ring either.

Geoffrey tried to get the sequence of events clear in his mind and almost straightaway dismissed the hypothesis. Because Adam had not been taken on at the priory until after Simon fell sick.

But wait: hadn’t Michael the cellarer said that Adam had earlier approached him in the quest for work and been turned away? Was it possible that at some point before he fell ill Simon had gone to Adam and urged him to assail his brother, perhaps even to kill him? Andrew the mason had claimed that Adam seemed to be looking for an opportunity to go for John Morton. But if Simon – or even his wife – had hired Adam, then the murder had been carried out in a strangely public manner. Perhaps Adam had intended to provoke an attack, to pass the whole thing off as a brawl with unintended, if fatal, consequences.

This string of hypotheses seemed too vague. And anyway, they would never know the truth of it now that Adam was dead.

Geoffrey had mentioned to the insolent gatekeeper that he was planning to visit a grieving house. The idea hadn’t entered his head until he’d spoken the words. But now he found himself re-passing the lay cemetery on the far side of the priory church. The somnolence of an afternoon in mid-summer extended itself across the scene. The far shore of the river was obscured in the heat haze. There were no boats visible nor was anyone there to observe his progress towards the door of the Morton dwelling. He knocked but did so gently, mindful of the sick man within. The door was unfastened and gave slightly under his hand.

Chaucer peered around the corner. The fire smouldered in the centre, a thread of smoke twining up towards the hole in the roof. The interior was hot and airless. It smelled of the sickroom, and of something else besides. The large bed contained the diminished figure of Simon Morton. Of Mistress Morton and Will there was no sign.

Geoffrey pushed the door further inwards. He called out, but in a muted way. There was no word or movement from the bed. But then Simon was a sick man, a feverous one. He must be asleep, still. Yet Geoffrey feared the worst. He advanced across the uneven floor of the chamber. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he could see Simon Morton lying on his back, outstretched beneath a thin, patched blanket. Whether he looked peaceful and at ease, as the dead are sometimes said to look, Geoffrey would have been unable to say. For the great bolster that he’d noticed earlier was now lying crosswise over Morton’s face. That someone had deliberately placed it there and then held it down was shown by the deep indentations on either side. Chaucer wondered how long it would take a man to die under such circumstances. Not long, probably, given Morton’s feeble state.

Geoffrey lifted the bolster off Simon Morton’s face. It was heavy enough almost to stifle a man by its own weight. Morton’s mouth gaped, but otherwise he did look as though he might have died in relative peace. Geoffrey was glad at that. He’d never seen Simon at close quarters, but he would have known him for John’s brother by the prominent stripe of his eyebrows. The man had been murdered. There could be no question of suicide here.

Chaucer’s first thought was that this deed might have been carried out by Susanna Morton. Easy enough to kill a weakened man, and with the nearest weapon to hand, the great bolster. Somehow this seemed too obvious an explanation, like the self-killing of Adam. Yet, if it had not been Mistress Morton (or her simple son), then it must have been an outsider. And if a stranger had come through the door, he surely ran the risk of being observed by someone from the other dwellings. There was no other way in.

But, Geoffrey suddenly noticed, there was another means of access to the Mortons’. In the back wall was a low entrance, covered by a piece of sacking that shivered slightly in the afternoon air. He had to stoop to make his way outside. At the back of the house lay a strip of land, planted with a few vegetables wilting in the heat. Each dwelling in the row had a similar patch of ground, no doubt tended by the women while their menfolk were off working.

On Geoffrey’s right hovered the bulk of the priory church. As he was gazing at the central tower, the bell rang. He had lost track of the canonical hours. There was no one in sight on the patches of land, which were roughly delineated from their neighbours by rows of sticks or a few rags of washing.

A raised path ran along the back, parallel to the line of dwellings. It would not have been difficult for someone who knew which house they were searching for to gain access from this side, once they’d checked that the coast was clear. The Morton house was easiest to find since it stood alone.

Chaucer was reluctant to enter the dead man’s house again. He did not need to gaze on Simon’s gaping mouth for a second time. Nor did he want to emerge by the front door like a regular visitor. Instead he walked past the flattened stems of leeks and battered cabbages and turned eastwards on to the path, with the priory at his back. He was gripped by the desire to get away from this place. He regretted that he’d ever come here. For peace and quiet, ha! There had been two – no, three – suspicious deaths in the course of a few hours. An air of gloom and menace seemed to hang over all.

The area beyond the houses was flat and empty, save for a few clumps of trees and the odd, even more ramshackle hut or hovel. The tide was coming in, and the river seemed to be on the verge of spilling over on to the adjoining land. Geoffrey wondered who had taken the decision to site the Cluniac house here all those hundreds of years before. And why. Because of the remoteness of the spot? For its closeness to the river? Or was it for the great expanse of sky, which might inspire pious thoughts?

He saw two figures walking along the river foreshore. They were hand in hand. A young couple, he thought at first, but as they drew closer he recognized Mistress Morton and Will. The mother was leading the lad. They must have been out fishing, for the boy was carrying a kind of net attached to a pole, which he toted on his shoulder. In her other hand the mother was grasping a bucket, perhaps to hold whatever they’d caught or scavenged on the foreshore. Cockles or winkles perhaps. Tuneless sounds were borne through the air. The boy was singing.