The Medieval Murderers - The False Virgin

Grey dismounted and tethered his horse close to the track. ‘Stay here,’ he said. ‘We may have need of your wagon to move the body. Where is the nearest village?’ He gestured ahead down the track. ‘Is it that way?’

The wagoner shook his head. ‘That way leads to Newstead Priory. Leastways, it was the priory till the bastards thieved it from the Black Canons and gave it to one of the King’s fat lapdogs.’

Both of Grey’s men took a menacing step towards the wagoner, their hands reaching for the hilts of their swords, but Grey motioned them back. Much as he was in favour of cleansing England of the foul corruption of the monasteries, he did not like the way in which such lands were falling into the hands of the wealthy supporters of the King, men no less corrupt than the abbots and priors they were displacing. He could understand only too well the wagoner’s bitterness. Besides, it would not do to annoy the only man who had shown any inclination to assist him, even though Grey knew he would have helped the Devil himself if he were paid enough.

Leaving the wagoner, Grey and his men followed the path round until they came to the Hutt. Two men in forest wardens’ livery were sitting on a bench warming their hands over a small fire burning in a shallow pit. A third man was sitting on the ground, his back to a tree to which he was tightly lashed. He was a stout man, and a wealthy one too, judging by his fine clothes, but his face was drawn and pale, the flesh sagging as if he’d scarcely slept at all, although a night spent out in the cold had evidently not been sufficient to cool his temper.

‘I demand you release me at once,’ he barked the instant he caught sight of the three men.

‘Master Richard Whitney?’ Grey stared down at him.

‘If you know I’m Richard Whitney you must also know I’m Master of the Butchers’ Guild, and I am not accustomed to being trussed up like one of my own pigs and left to freeze to death in a forest. It’s a miracle I’m still alive after the way I’ve been treated.’

The forest wardens exchanged weary glances as if they’d been forced to listen to his protestations all night.

‘Coroner’s already inside if it’s him you’re looking for. It’s Sir Layton,’ one said, jerking his head towards the Hutt.

Grey nodded and pushed open the stout wooden door and peered into the gloomy interior. The Hutt was large enough to provide rough shelter for half a dozen men. Pallets and blankets were heaped in one corner, while in the opposite corner were several boxes and barrels of pickled pork and flour. A bundle of dried salt fish swung from a low beam. Deer antlers and goat horns were stacked up in a heap near the door. The thick stone walls were hung with spades, bows, bundles of arrows, coils of rope and mantraps, together with grappling hooks and long brooms for beating out fire. Between them, hanging in what little space was left, were the bleached skulls of foxes and wild boar.

Two men were bending over what looked at first sight like a heap of cloth, but as they straightened up Grey could clearly see it was a man who lay crumpled up on the stone floor in a puddle of his own dark congealed blood. His head was twisted to one side, revealing a gaping wound in his throat, wide enough for a man to put all the fingers of one hand through.

Growing up in a tanner’s yard strengthens a man’s stomach, and Grey didn’t flinch or avert his eyes, but found himself, as always, wondering what must go through a man’s mind as he takes the life of another.

He stepped forward and briefly introduced himself, and the coroner frowned.

‘Cromwell’s enforcer? What business brings you out here then?’

‘I believe Master Richard Whitney – the man you have tied up outside – to be in possession of a reliquary that he was trying to conceal. It’s that reliquary I’ve come for. I’ve no wish to interfere in your investigation into this death.’

‘Reliquary?’ Sir Layton shrugged. ‘You’ll have to ask the wardens about that. It was they who caught Whitney, red-handed too, in every sense. Gave a good account of what happened. Observant men, the wardens. Makes a change from most of the witnesses I have to question. Most of the halfwits wouldn’t notice if their own backsides were on fire.’

‘The wardens saw the murder then?’ Grey said.

‘As good as,’ the coroner replied. ‘They were heading to the Hutt through the trees last night when they saw a rider come galloping up the other way. He sprang off his horse and ran inside. Naturally, they ran towards the Hutt too, thinking it might be a poacher. Burst in to find Whitney kneeling over the body, his hands covered in blood. Soon as he saw he’d been discovered, he barged the wardens aside and ran out, but one gave chase and threatened to put an arrow between his shoulder blades if he didn’t stop. He had the sense to give himself up.’

‘So he’s admitted killing this man?’

Sir Layton gave Grey the kind of withering look schoolmasters reserve for particularly stupid pupils. ‘Have you ever known a man confess to murder except to a priest, and then only when he’s standing on the gallows? Naturally Whitney said what they all say when they’re caught with a corpse: that he stumbled over the body in the dark and was just feeling to see if the man was actually dead. But the forest wardens have slaughtered enough beasts to be able to tell how long a man’s been dead. They’re certain this man had only just been killed when they burst in.

‘According to them it was a clear night. Said they could see the walls of the Hutt glistening in the moonlight as they were coming through the trees. They’re certain no one went in, save for Whitney, and there’s only one door in or out.’ Sir Layton jerked his chin towards the small opening on the back wall of the Hutt, which served as a window. ‘A scrawny child might crawl through that, but not a grown man.’

The man who stood beside Sir Layton was evidently his clerk. He grinned broadly, showing a mouth full of blackened teeth. ‘Master Whitney doesn’t have to admit to murder. He’s been shouting his mouth off ever since we arrived about how he’s Master of the Butchers’ Guild. And you’ve only got to look at this poor sod’s throat to see it’s been slit the same way as a butcher would cut the throat of one of his beasts. Be second nature to a man like him to whip out a knife and draw it across a neck quicker than you can say “I fancy a nice piece of mutton”.’

Grey crouched down and peered at the gaping wound in the man’s throat. The jagged and torn edges of the flesh were beginning to peel back as the cut skin dried. There was no arguing that this man’s throat had been slashed. He straightened up.

‘Have you got the knife he used?’

Sir Layton shrugged. ‘Found one knife on Whitney, but that was clean. But a butcher would carry more than one – a knife for the table and another for slaughter at least. He doubtless hurled it into the undergrowth as he ran from the cottage.’ He nudged the body with the toe of his shoe. ‘But if you know the murderer, Master Grey, do you recognise his victim?’

Grey shook his head. ‘I hadn’t even met Master Richard until just now, though I knew he’d taken the reliquary, and I’ve not seen this man before.’

Sir Layton grimaced. ‘Pity. We need to identify the corpse and Whitney keeps saying he doesn’t know him, though I don’t believe him.’ He sighed. ‘But since we don’t know where the victim comes from, the only thing we can do is take the body back to the village where his murderer lives and see if anyone there can put a name to him. If the two men did know each other, it’s likely others will also recognise him.’

The body, wrapped in a blanket borrowed from the Hutt, was carried out to the wagon and the reluctant wagoner was persuaded, with the inducement of an even larger sum and promise of a bed in the inn, to drive the corpse back to Blidworth. Two horses had been found, one belonging to Richard, the other was assumed to belong to the victim. Both were tethered behind the wagon. Richard was hauled to his feet and had to be dragged to the wagon, for his legs were so numb from cold he could barely stand. He was forced to sit in the bottom of the wagon along with the corpse and the two forest wardens, despite demanding to be allowed to ride home on his own horse and insisting he would not be carried into the village like a common felon. But he was told firmly by one of the wardens that if he didn’t hold his tongue, there’d be a second corpse in the wagon before the journey’s end.