[Stephen Attebrook 10] - The Corpse at Windsor Bridge

by Jason Vail

  “At least I am the part owner of an inn,” he said to himself. “I can fall back on that and my garret room if all else fails and the money runs out.”

  These were unpleasant thoughts. He pushed them out of his mind by recalling what the old priest had told him. He tried to fit it with what he already knew about Father Giles and his death. People wanted the cross, not just the spies, but also this woman. It sounded like there had been a struggle. Giles could have killed in that struggle, but the cross was around his neck when he was found. So, he wasn’t killed over the cross at all, but for some other reason. Try as he might, he could not fathom what that reason might be. He wished Gilbert were here so they could talk it over.

  Gilbert, though, was likely snug in his bed, his stomach gurgling from supper. That’s where Stephen should be himself, in bed at least; supper was not a possibility at this hour. He pushed away from the wall and headed downslope toward Morstreet.

  Clouds were closing in, blotting out the stars, deepening an already dark night. His breath came in frosty jets. And quiet: his boots scrapping on the dirt and dislodging pebbles here and there seemed unnaturally loud. He heard someone moving on the parapet above and saw a man’s head in a crenellation.

  He came to Morstreet and turned down hill toward the river. The dark houses on either side, with the castle looming above to the right, reminded Stephen of canyons he had ridden down in Spain, although those were far more vast and impressive than any street in a little English country town. He experienced a pang of longing for Spain. He had been happy there with Rodrigo and his men. War had been a game, deadly to be sure, but a game he had felt he was winning, finding a good woman and building a fortune. But war was not a game, of course. That fact had come home when a Moor cut off his foot on the battlements of Rodrigo’s castle. He and his wife Taresa had been fortunate to escape before the castle fell and the Moors killed every man inside.

  The street flattened out and curved left toward the river.

  Stephen crossed the wooden bridge over the mill race and came to the Wily Minstrel Inn. It was dark and locked up tight, of course. It had to be midnight. No one was awake.

  He was desperately tired and sore from his fall from the horse and the walk back. He wanted inside more than anything. His palm was poised to bang on the door when a glimmer of light impinged on the corner of his eye. The glimmer reflected off a wooden post by the bridge that boatmen used to tie off their vessels. Someone had a fire going on the wharf.

  Which meant that someone was awake there in the middle of the night.

  Why would someone be awake on the wharf at night?

  Stephen’s hand fell to his side, the inn’s door unmolested and the innkeeper’s sleep undisturbed at the moment.

  His feet carried him limping to the path at the foot of the bridge and down to the wharf.

  The source of the fire was readily apparent: a campfire was burning just outside a shed. A small figure was sitting before the fire. He remembered seeing the shed before, and children within it.

  Stephen approached the fire and the figure, resolving into a boy of about twelve, climbed to his feet.

  “What you doing here, my lord?” the boy asked. The question was not politely made, the “my lord” rendered sarcastically.

  “I’m not sure,” Stephen said. “Mind if I share your fire?” He noticed that the boy had a large bell in his hand. He gripped it as if it was a weapon, although it wasn’t large enough to damage anyone even if hit over the head.

  “I don’t know,” the boy said. “That depends.”

  “On what?”

  “On what you got in mind. We don’t get many lords wandering down here this time of night who have good intentions in mind.”

  Stephen settled cross-legged by the fire. “I’m not a lord, as you can well see, and I’ve a mind only to ask a few questions.”

  The boy sat down too, but didn’t relinquish his grip on his bell. “You might be a lord for all I know. You were one of those with the prince when they found that dead man.”

  “Yes, he asked me to find out why he died, and who did it.”

  “You think it was us?” He seemed amused at this.

  “You don’t look big enough to toss a grown man in the river.” Stephen glanced in the shed. There were the forms of at least six children sleeping inside. “Unless you all got together.”

  “It weren’t us. You can bet on that.”

  “It’s a bet I’m not willing to take.”

  Not far from where Stephen sat, there was a pile of white feathers and a swan’s head and feet. The boy noticed Stephen’s glance and looked alarmed. The swans along the river belonged to the crown. It was a poaching offense to kill one. The softest penalty was the loss of a hand.

  “You should get rid of that,” Stephen said.

  The boy got up and collected the remains of the swan. He threw them in the river and then came back to the fire.

  “You going to say anything?” the boy asked.

  “No,” Stephen said. He plucked two feathers that clung to the boy’s coat and put them in the fire, where they flared and curled up. “I don’t care about a dead swan. What’s your name?”

  “People call me Alf.”

  “Do you live in the shed, Alf?”

  “I do.”

  “It doesn’t look too comfortable.”

  “It keeps the rain off. I’ve slept in worse.”

  Stephen smiled. “So have I.”

  He waved toward the fire. “Can’t sleep?”

  “Nah,” Alf said. “I’m working.”

  “Working?”

  “That’s right. I ain’t no vagrant. I’m a working man. We’re all working men. Or working girls.”

  “What do you work at?”

  “I’m a watchman, I am,” Alf said with pride.

  “Of what?”

  “Of the wharf! What else would I be watching from here? We get paid to keep an eye on the boats.” Alf toward the boats tied up not far away.

  “So, one of you is awake every night, all night?”

  “For a rich lord, you’re really quick.”

  “Thanks. I take pride in merely being a little stupid. There wouldn’t happen to be any of that swan left, would there? I missed supper.”

  “Nah, all gone.”

  “I thought that might be the case.” Stephen glanced over his shoulder at the bridge. “One of you would have been awake when that fellow went into the water.”

  Alf stirred the coals with a stick. He added a splint of wood. “That was me. I’ve got the midnight watch.”

  “What did you see?”

  “A fellow came down from the ferry. It sticks in my mind because he was carrying a stolen anchor. Those things are heavy. He could barely get along with it.”

  “Did you see his face?”

  “No.”

  “Was this a big man?” Stephen asked.

  “No, he was rather short, much shorter than you are, that’s for sure. And I thought he walked funny, although that might have been the anchor dragging on him.”

  “You didn’t raise the alarm at this theft?”

  “I didn’t know for sure it was theft. Anyway, I’m not paid to protect the ferry. What happens there is their lookout.”

  “How do you know the anchor was stolen?”

  “Because I heard people complaining about it and the loss of the rope the next day. Ropes and anchors aren’t cheap for ordinary folk. Not like you’d know that, though.”

  “I know about rope, but I’ve never had the occasion to price an anchor.”

  “Well, take my word for it.”

  “I will. What happened when you saw him?” Stephen asked.

  Alf shrugged. “He walked on by. The fire had died and I’d not fed it yet. He never looked in my direction, and I doubt he even knew I was there. At least he gave no indication.”

  “That’s all?”

  “Well, just a short time later, there was two men yelling at each other on the bridge.
”

  “What did they say?”

  “Damned if I know. They talked French. I don’t have no French. I’m an Englishman.” He frowned. “But it sounded like an argument, though. Loud and angry. If I had to guess, it sounded like one of them was making a demand and the other was refusing.”

  “That was all?” Stephen asked.

  “It went on until they came to blows.”

  “You saw them fight?”

  “It was too dark for that,” Alf said. “The moon was well down, and it was overcast, like tonight.” Alf pointed to the bridge. “You tell me if you can see the bridge and people on it!”

  “How do you know they were fighting?”

  “From the grunting and the pounding they were giving each other.”

  “How did the fight end up? Could you tell who won it?”

  “No. I heard heavy breathing, some thumping about. There was a bit of motion, something moving in the dark, you know what I mean?”

  Stephen nodded.

  “Then there was a splash,” Alf said. He threw up his hands. “That was it. That’s all I seen.”

  Stephen awoke in the shed with a stiff neck from the lack of a rest for his head. He sat up and rubbed his face, his beard rough and prickly under his hands. The fire was out and only one of the child watchmen was awake.

  Although the sun was up enough to provide some light, a fog so dense that Stephen could not see the opposite riverbank gave the world a closed, compressed feeling and the air a metallic smell. Two shadowy figures could be seen moving about the boats on the wharf. The little watchman glanced at them, unconcerned; they must be boatmen coming to work.

  Stephen rose and kicked ash over the remaining coals so that some might remain alive and the fire rekindled in the evening without trouble.

  When he turned around, Alf was sitting up.

  Stephen indicated the boats. “Which one of them has an anchor like the one you mentioned last night?”

  Alf glanced over the boats with a professional air. He pointed to one anchor, a stone circle with a hole in the middle for the anchor line. “That one.”

  Stephen squatted and picked up the anchor. It was heavy, all right, but he thought he could carry it some distance without too much trouble.

  A boatman a couple of boats down saw what he was doing. “Hey!” he called.

  “He’s all right, Herman,” Alf said.

  “What’s he up to?” Herman asked suspiciously.

  “Nothing illegal,” Alf said. “Just taking his morning exercise.”

  “That don’t belong to him!” Herman replied.

  Stephen put the anchor down. “Sorry. Lifting anchors helps crack my back. It gets stiff from sleeping on the ground.”

  “What you doing sleeping on the ground out here?” Herman asked, for he had seen Stephen come from the watchmen’s shed.

  “Argument with the wife,” Stephen said. “She kicked me out last night.”

  “You?!” Herman said, disbelieving since he had to look up to make eye contact as Stephen was much taller than him.

  “She’s a terror when she gets going,” Stephen said.

  He dug into his purse for a penny, which he gave to Alf. “Thanks for your help. Get some fresh bread for yourself and the others. Don’t gamble it away.”

  Alf smiled as he closed his fingers about the penny. “I don’t know what good I did you, but you are welcome just the same.”

  Stephen took a few steps, then turned back.

  “I was wrong,” he said to Alf. “There’s more you can do for me, if you’re willing.”

  Alf looked at the penny on his palm. “Like what?”

  “Can you swim?”

  Chapter 20

  Herman maneuvered his boat through thick fog to the spot where Stephen reckoned Giles’ body had been found. He remembered the place because it had been near a piling streaked with bird shit more than the others, but the fog, which at times even obscured the banks on either side of the boat, made finding it difficult.

  Herman steered the boat along the pilings until Stephen called out for him to stop. He thought this was it. The supports under the bridge and over that particular one were choked with old bird nests.

  “Here,” Stephen said. “I think we’re above it.”

  Herman turned the bow of the boat against the current and rowed easily to keep it in place.

  “Over you go,” Stephen said to Alf.

  Alf, stripped naked since he had no braises, threw off his cloak and shivered. He did not look enthusiastic. He tugged at the rope tied about his waist as a safety line and took up another length of rope.

  “How deep is it here, do you think?” Stephen asked as Alf put a foot on the saxboard.

  “Probably your height and half again,” Alf said.

  He took a great gulp of air and stepped into the black river.

  Alf resurfaced sometime later and clung to the side of the boat to recover his breath.

  Then he dived again.

  It took three more dives before Alf gasped, “I’ve got it! Haul away!”

  “You first,” Stephen said. He held out a hand and pulled Alf into the boat, then turned to the other rope.

  He hauled away. The rope was slack for a moment, then progress halted with a jar. There indeed was something heavy on the other end.

  Stephen reeled in the rope with great tugs of his arms, hand over hand, getting pretty wet, until the thing became visible in the dark water: a round stone anchor like the one he had lifted on the wharf.

  Another length of rope had been tied through the hole, and it had been cut cleanly after two feet or so.

  Stephen drew the anchor into the boat. It landed with a thud against the thwarts.

  “Careful, there,” Herman said. “You might knock a hole in her and we’ll all go swimming then.”

  “And I’d owe you for a boat,” Stephen said.

  “Come to think of it, I wouldn’t mind getting a new one, sir.”

  “Some other day, perhaps,” Stephen grinned. “Let’s get to shore.”

  Stephen lugged the anchor to dry land when the boat reached the wharf, getting soaked to the knees as he clambered up the bank.

  Gilbert and Ida were waiting there.

  “What have you been up to?” Ida asked. “I was so worried when you didn’t come back last night. Then we heard your voice from the window. Where have you been? Have you been out on the river?”

  “Look what I found,” Stephen said.

  “I see it,” Ida said. “Why are you carrying an anchor?”

  “It’s what held Father Giles down so that he died.”

  “Oh?” Ida seemed less interested in the anchor than in Stephen’s disheveled state. “Come on, we need to get you cleaned up. You are a mess.”

  Herman, meanwhile having secured his boat, stared openmouthed at Ida. The top of her head came barely to Stephen’s shoulder and her face, visible in the deep hood of her voluminous cloak, was sweet like that of an angel.

  “This is the wife who kicked you out?” Herman burst out.

  “You said I kicked you out?” Ida asked Stephen ruefully.

  “I, er, well, yes,” Stephen said. To the others, he added, “She is more than she appears.”

  Ida smiled at Herman. “He has a tendency to misbehave. I am working on that.”

  “I wish you success, my lady,” Herman said. “I’ve not had much to do with your husband, but he does seem to have a capacity for mischief. Begging yer pardon, sir.”

  “That is truer than you know,” Ida said.

  Cleaning up had to wait, however.

  Alf fetched the owner of the stolen anchor from the ferry, a transplanted Dutchman named Henrik.

  Henrik identified the recovered anchor as the one taken three weeks ago, from a mark carved into one side, ¥.

  “Getting it back has to be worth something to you,” Stephen said as Henrik bent to fetch it away. “That water’s cold and dark. It was not an easy thing.”

  H
enrik hesitated because Stephen was right.

  “Three pence should do it, don’t you think?” Stephen asked.

  “Three pence!” Henrik howled as if he had been wounded. “It cost me five new!”

  “Come on, Henrik,” Herman said. “You know you can’t get a decent anchor for less than eight. Give the boy three. Otherwise, he gets to keep it.”

  “But it’s mine!”

  “You lost it because you can’t take care of your goods. The boy found it, at great cost to himself. Look — his lips are still blue! Finders are keepers. And you should make that four. You owe me one for taking him out there.”

  Henrik fumed but gave in. “All right. But what I don’t get is how you knew it would be there.”

  Alf pointed a thumb at Stephen. “It was his lordship’s idea.”

  Henrik shot an inquiring look at Stephen, who shrugged.

  “Just a guess,” Stephen said.

  Seeing that this was all the explanation he would get, Henrik handed over the money and left with his anchor in the direction of the ferry.

  Herman put Alf’s share in his hand.

  Alf regarded it with disappointment. “I’d have sold the thing for more.”

  “We have to keep the peace on the river, boy,” Herman said. “It don’t do to have rivermen angry with each other. What if you’re out there one day and get in trouble and Henrik’s the only one around? Do you want him to just sit by and have his revenge?”

  Chapter 21

  Stephen, Ida and Gilbert climbed the hill amid a stream of carts and people on foot headed to the Saturday market, which seemed to have got going late because of the fog.

  Stephen left them at the pillory in the market so that Ida could wander about seeing what was for sale, and generally amusing herself, with Gilbert for companionship. His initial worries about the possibility of trouble with the FirzAllan men had subsided a bit. As long as they stayed in the market surrounded by people and didn’t wander into some alley, they should be safe.

  His objective was to question Isabel Gascelyn further. He crossed to the barbican and announced his name to the gate warden. He walked on after he did so and was surprised when the warden hurried to get in front of him.