The Prophecy of Death: (Knights Templar 25)

by Michael Jecks

  Joseph glanced again at the Bishop, and then made his decision. ‘A king’s herald – he’s been murdered.’

  It took little time for him to guide them to the body. It lay a scant two hundred yards from them, further on into the woods.

  Baldwin felt no thrill of excitement as he approached the body. In the past he had been aware of that frisson as he found a corpse, knowing that the dead could always tell how he had died, and sometimes point to the murderer. Not today, though. This body was certainly over a week old, from the look of it. Decomposition had set in, and there were the marks of wild creatures all about it. The eyes were gone, pecked out, and fingers and belly had been gnawed, while ants had set up a trail to the wound in the stomach.

  ‘There is little we may learn from this,’ he said heavily, gazing down at the body.

  The man had been left at the side of the road, bundled into a small ditch. There was a thin covering afforded by some branches from nearby saplings, whose pale leaves washed with sunlight were so bright against the dead man’s dark tabard, stained filthy with blood, that they concealed him all the more effectively. The tabard was disturbed where animals had foraged, and Baldwin doubted anyone would ever be able to tell how the man had died, there were so many signs of animal attack.

  ‘I doubt his own mother would recognise him now,’ Simon said from some yards away. He had a reluctance to view older bodies that had always rankled with Baldwin. To the knight, any corpse was a challenge intellectually, to tell how the man had died, to evaluate clues; for Simon, a corpse was merely repugnant, a foul reminder of a man’s mortality. The scents and sights could always turn his stomach.

  Simon continued, his voice muffled by his sleeve, which he held over his nose to avert the odours, ‘Anyway, we know he must be about ten days dead. He was found by the outlaws who live here in the woods, perhaps, and they killed him for his purse.’

  ‘Perhaps, yes,’ Baldwin agreed. ‘Poor fellow – to be set upon and killed all this way from any help.’

  ‘Baldwin. His tabard is very filthy. Was that from a wound of his?’ Simon said. ‘Because if not, it could be the man who killed Gilbert.’

  ‘We know Gilbert was murdered on the night of the Monday after Easter … this is Thursday, so Gilbert died a week ago last Tuesday. It took us two days to arrive here, and one man on his own might have made the same distance a little more swiftly,’ Baldwin mused. ‘It’s possible, yes.’

  ‘That would be justice of a sort.’

  Baldwin nodded. ‘Away, dog!’

  His favourite dog from the Bishop’s stable had intruded its nose and was sniffing with some interest at the corpse at Baldwin’s feet. He gently pushed the animal away with his foot. ‘Perhaps we should seek for the oil here, then.’

  The Bishop called out, ‘Are you done? We may report this man’s body to the nearest vill so that they might call the coroner, but for now we must hasten.’

  Joseph nodded on hearing that. ‘I should be gone, too. I have urgent messages from the King to the prior at Canterbury. I have tarried long enough already.’

  ‘You may go, then. And when you see the good prior, please inform him that we have found this body, thanks to your help. It is possible that the thief and murderer is himself dead,’ Baldwin said.

  Joseph nodded, but with a confused expression. ‘This man’s a murderer?’

  ‘Yes. How did you see him, though, Joseph?’

  ‘I saw a glint of some sort as I rode past. And, well, I have seen money discarded in the woods before. I suppose sometimes a man is beset by outlaws and seeks to prevent them winning his money, so throws it away. Well, I hoped it was that. And then found him, instead.’

  ‘Do you recognise him?’ Baldwin asked.

  ‘Your companion’s just said, Sir, that his own mother wouldn’t know him now. I certainly wouldn’t.’

  Baldwin nodded, but insisted that the messenger lean closer. ‘You are in the King’s service too. This is probably a man you have met.’

  Joseph obediently wrapped a cloth about his nose and leaned down closer, wincing, and then shook his head. ‘No, I cannot say. His hair is unfamiliar, and so is his face. But that is a genuine King’s tabard for a herald. I do know that much.’

  Baldwin thanked him, and Joseph climbed into the saddle, whirled about, and then cantered off eastwards.

  ‘Should we mark the body?’ Simon said.

  Baldwin was still gazing down at the dead man. ‘Yes. Yes, of course.’

  ‘What is it?’

  Baldwin leaned down and peered more closely. To Simon’s disgust, he took a hold of the body by the shoulder. A cluster of flies rose immediately, but Baldwin simply waved them away from his face as he stared at the body. ‘Just that it seems odd. His tabard is rucked up at the back, where he fell. And look: there is no hole in the tabard itself. Nor a mark on his throat.’

  ‘What of it?’

  ‘It is peculiar, that the man is dead, but his tabard is undamaged,’ Baldwin said with a frown.

  ‘Perhaps he was knocked on the head? Or struck by an arrow in his flank?’

  ‘There is no arrow,’ Baldwin pointed out. ‘And as for knocked on the head – perhaps, but if that was the case, surely if he was struck hard enough to kill, his head would show some sign of it. His skull would be broken.’ As he spoke, his fingers were moving over the man’s head. ‘No. No broken bones there.’

  ‘Then, what?’

  ‘I think he was killed, and then the tabard thrown over him.’

  ‘That is a large inference from so little, Baldwin.’

  ‘True enough. But it does at least suit the facts here,’ he responded.

  ‘What is the delay, Sir Baldwin?’ the Bishop shouted from the main roadway. ‘We have need of speed!’

  ‘I have a need to ensure that this body is marked well so that the coroner can find it, my Lord Bishop. Do you continue with the rest of the men and I and my friend here shall see to it and catch you up in a moment or two.’

  ‘Make haste, then, Sir Knight. Your duty is to me, do not forget. Not to a churl murdered at the wayside.’

  His tone was sharp. The Bishop was irritated to be thus held up, and he held Baldwin responsible. Baldwin nodded, but said nothing.

  As the two from Canterbury passed by, though, Simon saw John, the younger guard, grin and sneer at them, as though the death of one little man so far from anywhere was amusing. It chilled Simon’s blood.

  Chapter Twelve

  Jack watched the knight and bailiff with the body as he rode on past them. It was plain enough that the bailiff was less than comfortable in the presence of the corpse, but that the knight was relishing his task. He was a sick kind of fellow, in Jack’s eye.

  He had known a felon in France when he was first there, a short, ill-favoured man, marked with the pox, and who had a cast in his eye that made him appear still more foul. This man, Guillaume, took inordinate delight in torturing men slowly to learn whether they had more money or treasure hidden about them, or nearby. His favourite method was to slice open a man’s foot, and fill it with butter before setting it over a fire to roast. The screams of those who suffered under his care Jack could still hear in his dreams.

  However, there was at least good reason for that: the men all wanted to learn where wealth could have been secreted. No, it was the other damage inflicted which set Jack’s belly roiling: once his victim had died, little Guillaume would set about mutilating the body for fun. Once he had emulated the Scottish leader, Wallace, and flayed a man so that he could use the skin as a sword-belt. It hadn’t worked, though. The leather was poorly tanned, and soon rotted.

  Those days were black indeed. At the time Jack had been certain that his life would end soon enough. The effect of the famine and the death of all his family had served to destroy his faith in the world and in God. God couldn’t care for men if he could seek to destroy them in this manner. The loss of the Holy Land at the time of his birth showed that God had grown to despise His crea
tion. Why else would He have given the Holy Land to pagans? No, God had decided that it was time to end the world, that was what Jack had believed back in those grim days, and Jack was content to watch it happen. He had little enough to live for. All he sought was a means of feeding himself each day, and without work, often the only way meant capturing a man and making him give up all he owned. He would die, but at least Jack and the others would live for a little longer.

  Until he met his Anne-Marie. He had truly felt that with her, he could at last find some peace. The famine appeared to have ended, the cattle and the sheep began to wax fat on the grasses, and the people who had survived suddenly found that there was a superfluity of food for all. Men like Jack could return to little villages where their labour was desired and work for the good of others again, and in time perhaps forget that in harsher times they had been prepared to throw away their humanity and lower themselves to the level of beasts. But no matter how hard they tried, they would always find that the nightmares would return to them in sleep, and they would be forced to relive their past crimes and confront their victims once more.

  At least his old companion, Guillaume, was dead. Jack had seen his head removed. But this knight could have been his student, pulling and shoving at the body with enthusiasm. From this distance, it looked as though he was enjoying the exercise.

  Jack turned to the road ahead with his belly feeling uncomfortably hot, as though the acid was boiling and about to rise into his throat. He would watch out for this knight, too.

  As he turned away, he noticed John was staring at him fixedly.

  Jack truly did not like that man.

  Baldwin set the man back down. ‘This is very curious.’

  ‘What?’ Simon demanded waspishly. Watching his friend pulling the corpse about like that was deeply unpleasant. He kept expecting a decomposing arm to be pulled from the sack of pus and gas that was the torso.

  ‘There is no obvious mark on his head or throat. Nothing that could have killed him.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So, then, the wound must have been inflicted upon his torso to kill him. But in that case, you would expect him to have been marked through his tabard. Yet there is no such damage.’

  ‘Perhaps it was flying away in the wind? He was shot by an arrow underneath it while he was on a horse, and fell down here.’

  ‘Where is the arrow?’

  ‘The killer came here to get it, and in the process he found the man’s purse and other valuables. There! No wound on the tabard, a deadly blow that killed him, and it explains also why there is nothing of value about him.’

  ‘True enough. But if he was shot, surely the arrow would be broken as he fell,’ Baldwin wondered aloud. He broke off and studied the man’s hands for a moment. ‘Nothing to see there. He has been a man who has used his hands, but who hasn’t?’

  ‘When I’ve shot a deer, often it has fallen away from the direction of the arrow, as though punched by it,’ Simon tried. ‘The arrow remains uppermost.’

  ‘Yes. You are probably correct. Yes,’ Baldwin agreed. He strode to a nearby branch which had broken from its tree and lay on the ground nearby. Baldwin eyed it thoughtfully, then picked it up and set it over the body. He took the man’s tabard off, and fixed it to the branch with a leather thong he took from his pack, and then set the makeshift flag over the body, bound to the limb of a nearby ash.

  ‘That will do it,’ he said. Then he began to cast about him, studying the ground, carefully parting the grasses and weeds at the same time as prodding with a small stick into any deeper patches.

  ‘Do you think anyone will actually find his murderer?’ Simon said, gazing at the body.

  ‘The coroner will do his best to make a record, I’ve no doubt. When I found a dead king’s messenger in Exeter, I moved heaven and earth to find his killer and succeeded – but that was in a city. People are close, there. Here, in the wilds, anyone could have done this. That is the great fear of the countryside. A man may commit homicide with impunity, when he would be fearful of doing so in the town. In a town his offence will be more speedily noticed, and the perpetrator can be uncovered. In the countryside, his crimes may never be noticed. Finding this body was more by luck than good judgement. He said he saw something metal, didn’t he? I wonder what that was.’

  ‘So – what now, Baldwin? Shouldn’t we hurry to get back to the Bishop?’

  ‘Yes – in a while. But first I want to check about here and ensure that there is no sign of the oil. This fellow has been killed in some manner, but there is something odd about the manner of his death. It is not … right!’

  Simon grunted. ‘In what way is it not “right”?’

  ‘Do not use that tone with me, Simon,’ Baldwin said with a grin. ‘I know that long-suffering pitch too well. But since you ask, it’s as I said earlier; he does not look like a man who has simply fallen here.’

  ‘The tabard?’

  ‘That is one thing.’

  ‘If he fell, and then a dog or hog found him and hauled him along a short way by the leg, his tabard would ruck up, wouldn’t it? There is nothing necessarily suspicious about it.’

  ‘True,’ Baldwin said thoughtfully. ‘Except then his tabard would have dragged some leaves and twigs and soil under it, surely. There is little evidence of that. And the tabard would have brushed a swathe of the ground clearer, too. There is no sign of that either. No, I think that’s not right.’

  ‘Then what is your suggestion, Baldwin?’

  ‘It is almost as though this fellow was killed, and then the tabard thrown over him to show he was the king’s herald. It makes sense, after all. If he got here, he would hardly have ridden all the way from Canterbury with a bloodsoaked tabard, would he? No, he would have taken it off. So I think someone killed him, found the tabard, and then put it over him to show who he was.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’ve no idea! Perhaps I’m wrong – a man could have come along later, found the body, and wanted to show that it was a man of some position, in case someone else came along who didn’t mind finding the body.’

  There was no need to explain why. All too often, a man who discovered a body would do nothing. The ‘first finder’ was required to appear at the subsequent inquiries, on pain of a fine. So many preferred to walk past.

  Oddly, it led to a small market in discovering bodies. Once a man had found one body, he would have to turn up to describe what he found to the justices. He would not be amerced again for the second body, so many took the pragmatic approach and would tell the man in the area who had already found one body, so that he could ‘discover’ any subsequent ones. First finders often had a monopoly in their areas.

  Clearly this man had not been found by anyone who knew a first finder.

  Simon eyed the body again. ‘You seriously suggest that someone killed him and threw his tabard over him before riding off?’

  Baldwin had conducted a careful examination of the ground immediately near the body. Now he stood and wiped his hands on his old tunic. ‘There is one thing for certain, old friend: whoever this was, whoever killed him, the oil is nowhere near. So the killer, or someone else, took it.’

  ‘Unless, of course, this fellow had nothing to do with the matter at all,’ Simon pointed out.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Fine. Now, let’s get back to the Bishop. This place makes me uncomfortable.’

  ‘Very well.’

  Baldwin was about to set off with Simon when something on the dead body caught his attention. Stuck in the fold of his shirt, hard by his neck, there was a gleam, and Baldwin bent to peer closer. He could see something shining there, and when he moved the head to the side, he could pull it free. ‘Aha! So this is what Joseph saw!’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘A necklace formed of pilgrim badges,’ Baldwin said, handling the lead badges with care. ‘They may help find the dead man’s identity.’

  ‘If we can find someone who knew a man who carried a string of bad
ges about his neck like beads,’ Simon said as they started to walk to where their horses were tethered, but then Baldwin stopped and glanced back.

  ‘When you said “uncomfortable”, you were right, Simon. And you saw how that messenger was affected by the woods. They are fearful, aren’t they? Just imagine how that poor man must have felt, riding in here, all alone, and then feeling the blow that killed him. All alone, and the one man in the world whom he didn’t want near him was there, and he killed him.’

  ‘And you call me fanciful and superstitious!’ Simon said.

  Joseph trotted much of the way through the trees, his eyes flitting nervously from one side to the other as he rode along, until he was close to the outside of the woods. There, a blackbird squawked at his horse’s hooves, and made the beast shy, while the blackbird pelted along an inch from the ground, calling out his warning song.

  It was enough for him. Joseph set spurs to his mount and burst from the woods and into the open in a flurry of dirt and dust, crouching low as though thinking that all the French host was after him.

  He hurried on for a long way, hardly taking any note of the distance, but when he reigned in, he found he was a long way from the edge of the trees. They stood some half-mile distant, looking like a ruffled green blanket, with the swirls of the treetops. They were almost beautiful.

  His heart was still thrilling, though. The thought of the dead man lying in there … that was enough to make his belly try to empty again. Those hideous eye sockets, the trail of ants to the wounds … he had to think of something else.

  There was smoke ahead. He was cautious, but it was possible that there was a cott up there through the trees. If there was a small house, a pot of ale would help him feel a little more normal.

  He could see it through the trees, a small, low, thatched property, built of crucks and with wattle and daub to fill the spaces. It would be warm, in the winter, and with all the wood about here, plentifully supplied with heating. There was a man, a shortish, thickset peasant, who was using his bill to split saplings for firewood. For an instant, Joseph thought he knew the man: something about the cast of his head, the way he swung his arms while chopping the wood …