Murder Most Medieval

by Martin Greenburg

  Visions whirled in Marian’s mind: ghosts and fire and blood and wonder. But one picture stood out starker than the rest. “Robin—you missed!”

  “What? No! I never miss!”

  “He didn’t go down!”

  “I never miss‘.”

  IT WAS HOURS BEFORE the outlaws dared peek. The moon was down, the common deserted, even the dead woman gone. The night was still, as if God had called home every man, woman, and child.

  Close together and casting every which way, Robin and Marian crept down the path to Rocana’s cottage. They had only starlight to see by, but they walked fast because they argued. They’d fought ever since coming to Skegby Moor, Robin reflected. What prompted all the anger in this village?

  Robin’s bow sliced the air as he whispered, “It’s necromancy! I’ll not have it, not mandrake! It goes against God’s plan! It’s criminal to put that—root up your—insides—”

  “Women have used mandrake for centuries! It’s in the Bible! Jacob’s wife Rachel was barren until she asked Leah to borrow her mandrakes—”

  “But plucking it under a corpse by the full moon!”

  Marian hissed, “This is our only hope! Maybe the old ways—”

  “You want the seed of a dead man? A living ghost? So you birth an imp or a changeling?”

  “That’s a man’s help for you! Forbid everything and offer nothing in its place!”

  “It’s dangerous! You could go mad from the mandrake’s scream! That priest was right about one thing! God’s wrath has descended on us! You saw that poor woman kill herself—”

  “That fool priest killed Willa, surely as if he plunged in the knife himself! Him and his wild accusations!”

  “It wasn’t the father, it was the witch! She duped that poor woman and the devil seized her! Retribution comes from crossing God’s ways!”

  “Oh, hush! You sound like these other ignorant sots! Men know more about breeding dogs than women!”

  “That witch causes harm! She has a goat for a familiar—”

  “A goat can’t be a familiar!”

  “Satan takes the form of a goat! Cloven hooves, a beard—”

  “Satan’s form is a man’t”

  “Oho! So it’s men who—Wboa!..

  Robin Hood spilled headlong over an obstacle across the path: a round springy mass of rustling leaves. Robin felt pricks along his arms and legs. “What the—These are holly—”

  “It’s the Jack!” Marian breathed. Now they could make out the shape, a long cone interwoven with leaves.

  Robin huddled close to Marian. “Christ, look where it lies!”

  Here the path split, one fork leading to Rocana’s cottage, the other down the hill toward the marsh, passing under the gallows elm.

  “Oh, Mother Mary…” squeaked Marian.

  Both were reluctant to touch the fallen icon, but Robin’s curiosity goaded. In the dark, he fumbled inside the wicker frame. “Nothing. Neither body nor blood. Nor arrow.”

  “It’d go through a ghost.”

  “A ghost couldn’t lift this frame.”

  “A dead man, then.”

  “Then the arrow would stick him! Let’s not talk of such things…” Robin sucked wind. “I’m going down the hill.”

  “I’ll go with you.”

  “No. See if Rocana’s returned. She might need guarding.”

  “Be careful.”

  “Oh, yes.”

  Crossing his breast, holding his bow foremost, Robin Hood wafted like a ghost down the path. In dead quiet, no night birds sang, no owls hooted. Robin crossed fingers on both hands.

  Straining, he recognized the widened spot under the elm tree. The noose still dangled in place. Ingram was gone.

  With a knife, the outlaw cut the rope’s shank and tugged it down. The hangman’s noose of thirteen turns was yanked almost closed. Robin Hood shuddered.

  Noose in hand, he dashed up the slope.

  The door of the witch’s cottage hung open. A rush lamp flickered on the worktable, and he was grateful for the light and life. But something made him stumble at the threshold, a bad sign, and he snapped his fingers to dispel ill luck.

  The place stank, he realized, rank and cold and brassy.

  The worktable was bare. Pottery shards and herbs littered the floor. Ashes were scattered like snow. The stools were knocked over. The back door hung at an angle. Marian sat on the hearth, tears on her cheeks. Hard by the fireplace lay the squat shape of Rocana. Deep blue fingerprints marred her throat.

  Wordlessly, the outlaw held up the noose. By rushlight they saw the tiny noose was foul with grime and sloughed skin.

  “So it’s true!” Marian breathed. “Ingram came back—”

  “Hist! Don’t say his name! You’ll call him hither!”

  Marian rose to shrink against her husband’s chest. “The hanged man, then, the poacher! He got down off one tree and climbed into another! He donned the Jack to dance again! To take revenge on the village! The dead taunting the living! Oh, sweet Lord!”

  Reaching under Robin’s arms, Marian made the sign of the cross at the doors. “So much death in this village. It’s in the air, like contagion. Maybe we should leave.”

  “Yes. With the dawn.”

  YET THEY STAYED, FOR with the sun came work to be done.

  Father Alwyn refused to administer last rites for Rocana, or to hold a vigil, or to bury her in the chapel graveyard. Pagans could rot, he said, as offal for dogs. And he had Willa’s funeral to minister. So Robin and Marian sank Rocana in the garden she’d loved, and entwined a wooden cross with yellow cowslips.

  Warned off by the priest, most villagers stayed away. The few women who came crossed themselves as they talked. They’d all seen the abandoned Jack. They guessed dead Ingram murdered Rocana because she’d berated him for fathering bastards. And the dead resented the living. Ingram killed Rocana the same as he’d died, by strangling. At every Mass, Alwyn preached that “one sinner had fetched away another.” No one, they reported, ventured out after dark.

  Each night, as Robin barred the doors, he cut a fresh cross in the wood.

  Ducks winged in, and Robin needed meat, so for days the archer netted and hooked and shot birds, then dressed them, smoked their breasts over a low fire, and packed them. The birds’ numbers dwindled as the flocks nested in summer grounds farther north.

  In spare moments, Robin returned to the common, to sight, pace, and crawl with his nose to the ground. Finally, he discovered his arrow buried in dirt lengthwise. It lay yards from where he’d shot it. When he plucked it free, he learned why. It lacked a red hen feather.

  Back at the cottage, he showed Marian. “See? I didn’t miss. This arrow passed through something that skinned off this fletch. That made it hook sharp to the right.”

  Marian pricked a chicken strung over the fire. “I see, Rob. I was wrong to think you’d missed. Yet the villain inside the Jack was dead. No arrow could stop him.” She crossed her breast.

  Robin grunted, but added, “Still, I didn’t miss.”

  “Here. I’ve found something queer, too. I tried sorting herbs and seeds, but without Rocana’s knowledge, they might as well be oak leaves. Yet I discovered this.” She fetched a small stone crock that held a pale yellow dust. “Mandrake root.”

  “So?”

  “Mandrake’s rare, Rob. It only grows in the Holy Land. Rocana, may she find peace, claimed to have only a single whole root that she never cut. Yet here’s a handful ground fine.”

  “Why would she lie?”

  “I don’t know. We all have secrets. Wash your hands.”

  They sat down to chicken roasted with sage and onions and a pitcher of goat’s milk. “Drink up. It’s the last. The bailiff collected the heriot and the mortuary, the death taxes. The best goat went to the lord and the second-best to the priest. We get the cat.”

  “She’ll hardly make a meal.”

  “At least we don’t need the milk. Serle hasn’t returned for his bowlful since the wi
tch died. He must scent death, like a dog.”

  “Or else he misstepped in the marsh and sank. Or was also killed by the vengeful dead man.” Robin stopped chewing. “Do you suppose Serle might’ve killed Rocana, may she rest in peace? A madman can do anything.”

  “Why should he harm her? She fed him milk every night at the stoop. Even mad, he’d remember kindness.”

  “Poor dead Willa, may she rest easy, was his wife. She must have fed him when they were wed, but that didn’t spare her beatings.”

  “I’d offer that Alwyn, the priest, killed her out of spite!” Marian threw chicken skin to the cat. “ ‘Like people, like priest,” and he’s the most hateful man in the village!“

  “Why should Alwyn kill her?” The outlaw plied his knife. “They feuded, but that went back years. And Alwyn wouldn’t have wrecked the cottage.”

  “He’s almost mad as his brother. The whole family’s cursed by bad blood. And Alwyn has a temper. Once he saw that mandrake root, he turned vicious as a mad dog! He struck Rocana and bellowed about women birthing demons! The filthy hypocrite! Remember how he accused Rocana of bedazing women to be ravished?”

  “I think so.” Robin scratched his beard with a knife point. “He ranted about many things.”

  “What do you always say? ”A man accuses others of what he practices? A thief is quickest to say he’s robbed, a cheat to say he’s cheated‘?“

  “So… you think the priest bewitches women and ravishes them?”

  “No, I think he promises Heaven and threatens Hell until they lie down.”

  “A woman shouldn’t listen to a man,” the husband mumbled. “Some reckon it’s no sin to sleep with a priest. Some women think it’s lucky!”

  “How long has Serle been afflicted mad?”

  “Hunh?” Robin’s mouth was stuffed with chicken.

  “More than a year, according to Rocana.” Marian waved a drumstick. “Yet Willa bore only seven months. Serle didn’t get her with child. And neither did mandrake root.”

  “So… wait. The priest bedded Willa? Christ on the cross, he can’t do that! She’s his brother’s wife! That’s incest!”

  Marian nodded. “Another sin that he laid at Rocana’s feet. He accused her of luring father to lay with daughter, and brother with sister, and mother with son.”

  “While Father Alwyn was lying with his sister-in-law!” Robin shook his head. “Pitiful Jesus, an incestuous priest! What would a bishop do? Castrate him?”

  “Nothing. No one would tell. This village is like a family. It keeps it secrets close.”

  “Hang on. Everyone knows Alwyn fathered his brother’s wife’s child?”

  “All the women know. ”Who’s the father?“ is the first question a woman would ask.”

  “Incest?”

  “It’s thick as fleas in this village, Rob. See you, how they all look alike? See the harelips and webbed toes and simple minds? Poor Willa, may she rest in peace, thought a dark angel visited her by night. Rocana, may she lie quiet, let her believe it.”

  “Still,” Robin sighed, “men need a priest, same as they need a king.”

  “Men, yes. Women, no.”

  “Marian!”

  “It’s true! Men need a priest to absolve them of sins, but what can they do for women? When a woman’s screaming in childbirth, can a priest put a knife under the bed to cut the pain or brew a broth of asparagus and chestnuts and fennel? Men work women harder than oxen. They kill them slowly with too many babies. The graveyards are full of three wives for every dead husband. Women cherish the old ways, because women don’t need God! They need other women!”

  “Jesus, Marian, you’ll draw down lightning! I’ll agree if you wish’t. But a priest should tend spiritual matters and the witch secular ones. A wise woman shouldn’t interfere in God’s plans—”

  “It was God who made me barren! And with Rocana dead, I’ll stay that way!” Suddenly, Marian was sobbing. Robin reached to comfort, but she pulled away. “Just… leave me alone…”

  Robin took his bow outside. The moonlit sky was strung with wisps blown from the north. “One way or another, we each dig our own grave.”

  DAYS LATER ROBIN SLOGGED knee-deep through tea-colored water after a dropped pintail. He stumbled against something lodged in duckweed.

  A dead man bubbled up, gurgled, and belched gas. He had no head, just a gnawed stump tipped with the white dice of a spine.

  Retching, Robin Hood slopped from the water and stumbled up the hill. The hell with ducks. He wanted out of this ghastly village. He and Marian had sought new life and found only death.

  And nightmares that repeated. In back of the cottage, the madman Serle raided his smoking racks. The outlaw barked, “Hoy, get away!”

  The madman clawed hair from his eyes and croaked, “I’m hungry! A man’s got a right to eat!”

  Robin stopped cold. Serle was filthy and ragged, but upright, pouty, and arrogant. His old self. “You’re sane!”

  “What of’t?”

  Marian came to the doorway. Serle turned. Robin plucked a fleck of red from his coarse smock. “My hen feather! It was you in the Jack! You bent over and ran with it, so my arrow skinned your back! Why’d you do it?”

  “The Jack saved Rocana from the trial by ordeal.”“ Marian was breathless. ”Was that why, Serle? Because she’d been kind to you?“

  “Hardly!” retorted Robin. “He dumped the Jack on the path to her cottage! My, God! You killed her!”

  “I din’t kill no one!” Dizzy and dazed, Serle sputtered. “I din’t-

  Something flickered on the path to the gallows tree that caught Robin’s eye. He saw Alwyn drop a sack and run. Wondering, Robin fetched the sack and found bread, cheese, and a jug of ale.

  “ The guilty flee where none pursueth.” “ Robin ran after the priest. Marian caught up, loping like a deer.

  Robin yelled, “That Alwyn is a two-faced lying hypocrite! That night, when everyone scattered before the Jack, he went searching for Serle and found he’d strangled the witch! He couldn’t let his brother take the blame, so he dragged the Jack across the path to the gallows tree. He ripped down Ingram’s body—popped the head right off!—and stuffed him in the pond to make him disappear! Then he shooed Serle into the marsh to hide! He’s been taking him food, which is why Serle doesn’t come sniffing for milk at the stoop. Alwyn blamed Rocana’s murder on a dead man!”

  They found the chapel barred and shuttered. Villagers clustered around twittering. Marian nodded at the door. “Break it down.”

  “What? A church?”

  “Quickly, Rob.”

  Robin Hood handed Marian his bow. “Some men put faith in God, others in their wives.” He ran shoulder-first and smashed the door, backed and bashed again until the bracket tore free.

  Inside, Robin and Marian gasped. Another hanged man dangled, but this one wriggled and writhed.

  Marian thrust the longbow at Robin. “Shoot him down!”

  Alwyn, parish priest of Skegby Moor, swung by his neck. His hands clawed at a hemp rope sunk deep into his throat. A wooden cross lay tumbled on the dirt floor where he’d jumped off the altar.

  The greatest archer in the England nocked, drew, and loosed. The arrow sliced the jerking rope. The priest crashed with a bone-jangling jolt. Robin and Marian knelt and tugged loose the noose, yet Alwyn remained blue. His hands flapped. Robin cursed. “His windpipe’s crushed. He’s finished.”

  “Strangled same as Ingram, same as Rocana.” Marian called loudly, “Alwyn! You’re dying! You needs confess! You killed Rocana, didn’t you?”

  The priest’s eyes bugged at the ceiling, or Heaven beyond. He nodded.

  “What?” Robin barked. “He killed Rocana?”

  “And has hanged himself as punishment. Serle could tell the truth now. Alwyn made Serle hide in the marsh because Serle witnessed Alwyn strangle Rocana! But why did you kill her?”

  “She drove—” a harsh whisper “—my brother—mad with— her witchments! Plucked—man
drake—when he was—nearby! The scream—drove him mad!”

  “But now he’s sane again!” I—saw.

  From the doorway where villagers gaped, the scruffy brother shuffled up. Crying, he said, “Wyn…”

  The childhood name tugged tears from the priest. His lips formed the word. “How?”

  Marian began to cry. “It was mandrake root that drove Serle mad, but not by its scream. By milk. Women sip drams of mandrake when birthing because it fogs the mind and dulls pain. Rocana ground some root fine and fed it to Serle in goat’s milk. One strong taste masks another. The potion banished Series reason.”