The Deepest Grave

by Jeri Westerson

  ‘Wh-who is that?’ asked Shadworth, squinting and crooking his head this way and that. He gestured to a bailiff to bring the light closer, but it only threw more shadows onto his twisted features.

  Crispin stood with his hands behind his back. ‘It is Father Bulthius, the priest of this parish.’

  ‘What a dreadful thing!’ Shadworth could not seem to look away.

  Vaunere was not so enamored. He turned immediately and took several paces back, covering his mouth with his hand. He clearly hadn’t the stomach for such a job. ‘Have you … have you any suspects, Guest?’ he muttered to his horse’s flank.

  ‘Do you wish me to investigate, my lord? I have a fee.’

  ‘Pay his fee,’ Shadworth rushed to say.

  ‘I will not. Should I go filling the money pouches of every man who claims he can help? He’s the first finder in a murder. I should charge him.’

  ‘But this is what he does, Henry. I’ll pay him myself.’ He dug into his scrip and pulled out a money pouch, one far thicker with coins than Crispin expected. The sheriff seemed anxious to hand it over.

  Crispin took it but, with a flourishing gesture more suited to court than a graveyard said, ‘My fee is only sixpence a day, my lord.’

  ‘Keep it,’ said Shadworth with a careless wave of his hand. ‘I wager it will take many days and you will earn that.’

  He thanked the sheriff with a courtly bow, and stuffed the pouch quickly away. He felt slightly guilty that his pleasure at the coin pouch interfered with his somber thoughts of the brutal murder. But all he had to do was glance at the corpse again and he was back to pondering it.

  ‘If I may ask,’ said Vaunere, standing near the horses and away from the spectacle inside the casket, ‘just what are you doing here, Guest … and in such august company?’ He nodded toward the abbot.

  Abbot William, with wide eyes, deferred to Crispin. So it was Crispin who was required to lie, was it? He stuck his thumbs in his belt. ‘My Lord Sheriff, Abbot William, here, was meeting us at this parish to speak to Father Bulthius about some missing church endowments, when we found him thus.’ There. That wasn’t even too much of a lie. When he glanced at the abbot he could tell that the man was satisfied.

  ‘When did this happen?’

  ‘Well, Sheriff Vaunere, all of us attended a funeral he had given just this afternoon.’

  ‘Odd, though,’ said Shadworth, leaning close to the head sitting at the body’s feet. ‘Why should he be beheaded, do you think? Seems a lot of trouble.’

  Crispin stood beside him and studied the corpse objectively this time. ‘Yes, Lord Sheriff. I would agree. It does seem a lot of trouble.’

  Shadworth raised his face. He wore a beatific expression. ‘You don’t mean to say that I gave you an idea, Master Guest?’

  ‘John, for God’s sake!’ chaffed Vaunere. ‘Quit fawning over the man. Let him get on with it. You paid him enough. Guest, you might as well wait for the coroner. Else you’ll be fined all that money you just got.’

  Crispin bowed to the sheriffs. Shadworth seemed reluctant to leave, but he was probably more reluctant to let Vaunere get the better of him. They both mounted. The sheriffs instructed the bailiffs to remain, which was a blessing, for they were carrying lights.

  Instead of waiting outside, Crispin directed his party back toward the church and rectory, while the unhappy bailiffs awaited the arrival of the coroner outside.

  Jack entered the rectory cottage first and stoked the fire. Crispin admonished his companions from moving further into the room before he had a chance to look around. Jack cautiously followed him with a lit candle.

  ‘There is a conspicuous absence of blood,’ said Crispin.

  ‘Aye, sir. I was about to say. I also think that maybe he was beheaded after the fact.’

  ‘And why do you say that?’

  ‘Just so, sir. An absence of blood on the corpse. Oh, there was some, but it seems to me that the heart stopped beating before the head left the body. Else the coffin would be filled with it.’

  ‘Correct, Jack. I predict it would have happened outside on the grass somewhere, allowing the blood to be soaked up in the turf.’

  ‘We shall have to find that in the morning.’

  ‘Yes. Firelight is notoriously bad for such an examination.’

  Abbot William sat slowly in a chair, arranging his robes around him. ‘I have to agree with Sheriff John Shadworth. You are a most interesting man to follow. And the two of you together, why …’ He shook his head.

  ‘It’s all a matter of practice, m’lord,’ said Jack. ‘Master Crispin and me, we’ve seen a lot of corpses. A lot.’ Jack placated him after observing Abbot William’s horrified expression. ‘Not that that’s a good thing, sir. Of course not. God bless them, sir.’ He crossed himself vigorously.

  ‘The abbot gets your meaning, Jack.’ Crispin rubbed his chin. He had expected the room to be in a state and was surprised to find it as if the priest had just stepped out. The fire in the hearth had been banked with ash and had come back to life easily. There was a loaf of broken bread on the table on a wooden plank. A silver candlestick sat on the table, which was covered in a fine linen cloth. But there was nothing on the mantel but the tinderbox. Crispin noted circles untouched by dust where two somethings had been. He suspected more candlesticks. So at least he hadn’t really lied. Church goods were missing. The question was when had they disappeared?

  ‘I need to examine the body,’ he said suddenly, and before the others could object, he hurried out the door again and into the chill night. The bailiffs were momentarily startled but Crispin announced himself and knelt by the corpse to have a look at the head.

  He’d been beaten. It was hardly recognizable as Father Bulthius. If not for his clothes and luxurious dark hair, Crispin might not have known him at all. Had he been beaten to death? Perhaps the head had sustained a blow. He reached into the casket and grabbed the top of his head, even as the bailiffs gasped. He slowly turned the heavy object, grimacing in distaste for the squelching sound it made as raw, bloody flesh and bone scraped on the coffin’s wood. But even as he moved it, he did not see any sort of indentation; any other bloody show that would indicate a blow.

  He stood and looked at the body. It was hard to see it at first, what with the ragged flesh and blood on the neck, but there looked to be a wound that wasn’t accounted for with a beheading. He surmised by the flushed nature of the skin around it that this was the fatal blow – a slash – and Jack was right. The head was taken off after the blood stopped flowing.

  He examined the priest’s gown. As expected there was blood present, but on closer inspection it appeared to have been deliberately smeared there, instead of being the result of a flow from his throat being slit. He delicately pulled the gown away from the ragged flesh of the headless neck. It should have been soaking with it, but there was no blood to speak of on the collar. Had the murderer been sorry there hadn’t been more blood on show? Why else add blood where there had been none?

  But, more importantly, when his throat was slit, there would have been blood on the collar of the gown and on the shift beneath.

  He couldn’t help it. He hated to leave it for later. ‘May I borrow one of your torches?’ he asked the bailiffs. They exchanged glances, and one of them handed over the pole.

  ‘Bring it back,’ said the bailiff forlornly, looking about the dark churchyard.

  ‘I shall. Much thanks.’

  He held it aloft and scoured the grass like a hound on a scent. It wouldn’t have been near the grave, he thought. The grave was visible from the road. It would have been behind the church between the church and the rectory, where all was sheltered. He turned the corner of the stubby little church and held the burning coals as close to the ground as he dared. There. A patch of grass, bent and dark and wet. He reached down and swept his finger through it and pulled it back to look at it properly under the light.

  Red.

  Glancing over his shoulder, he looked tow
ard the gravediggers’ shed. ‘Where have they got off to?’ Leaving the gore behind, he hastened toward the shed. It was all dark within. He pounded on the door. ‘Ho there!’ He knocked again.

  The bailiffs peered around the corner of the church at him.

  With no answer, Crispin worried that someone had also dispatched the gravediggers when he heard a shuffling within. The door creaked open and the older man, Tom, hair in disarray and eyes squinting, looked up. ‘Aye?’ A strong smell of drink came with that breath.

  ‘Did I wake you?’ asked Crispin.

  The man rubbed his hair. His eyes were groggy and unfocused. ‘Aye. ’Tis night.’

  And you’ve been drinking to excess, he mused. There was a time not too long ago that Crispin did so himself, trying to forget his ills. ‘Did you hear anything earlier? Anything that might have sounded like an altercation?’

  ‘Oi, you’re that Tracker fellow.’

  ‘Yes, Crispin Guest.’

  ‘I remember you. Hear anything? No, no. I had me ale and then went off to bed. Digging graves is hard work for an old man.’

  ‘And where is your younger companion?’

  ‘Off with some maid, no doubt. He comes back late. Long as the priest don’t see him and give him a hiding, I don’t make no nevermind what a lad gets up to.’

  ‘And you both dug the grave for Master Horne this afternoon?’

  ‘Aye. And helped to bury him in it.’

  ‘A usual burial?’

  His eyes widened. ‘He … he didn’t go off and walk out of his grave, did he? Oh Lord!’

  ‘It’s worse than that.’

  They both turned, just as the sound of the coroner’s cart came up the road.

  TEN

  The coroner, John Charneye, glared at Crispin as if the corpse were his fault. Crispin stoically accepted the coroner’s unrelenting scrutiny, but he made certain that Charneye was aware of the slash to the corpse’s neck.

  ‘Are you gainsaying me, Guest?’ he sneered.

  ‘Not at all, my lord. Simply making you aware of something that your assistants might miss. Such a cut would be easy to overlook under the circumstances.’

  ‘And before you say anything, I had my clerk mark where you pointed out the blood in the grass.’

  ‘Of course, my lord.’

  Charneye stewed for a moment longer before he asked, gruffly, ‘Any ideas, Guest?’

  Crispin had settled in to think about the problem. And he was damned if he was to consider a walking corpse as the murderer. ‘I do not yet have all the facts, my lord.’

  ‘I didn’t ask for facts, I asked for ideas.’

  ‘No ideas … as of yet.’

  ‘What of those gravediggers? They look to be a menacing duo.’

  ‘One was drunk and asleep, and the other was absent, purportedly engaged in immoral pursuits. Either would have been covered in considerable blood had they been involved.’

  ‘Are you certain that they had nothing to do with it?’

  ‘No. But killing the priest would most certainly result in their being unemployed. It doesn’t seem a wise course.’

  ‘Men have engaged in such before without a view to the consequences of the hangman’s knot.’

  ‘True. But such an endeavor as to beheading the man seems somewhat more advanced for these two.’

  The coroner turned and ran his gaze over them again. ‘Yes, I see what you mean.’ He folded his arms over his chest. ‘Well then, what’s to be done? This is intolerable.’

  ‘Yes. It shall be a challenge.’

  He slid his gaze toward Crispin and clucked his tongue. ‘By the saints, you enjoy this, don’t you?’

  ‘“Enjoy”, my lord? I would not go so far as to say that. But the challenge is … an exercise for the mind.’

  ‘The devil it is. Well, I’ve enough of this. I’ve got your statement. You can go.’

  ‘What of the other matter, my lord? That of the wounds on John Horne’s back.’

  ‘If I were a suspicious man, I would say you engineered this whole scene just so I could take a second look at your corpse.’ His brow was raised high. ‘But since I am not, let us call it a convenient happenstance. I’ll amend my report. That doesn’t mean that boy didn’t stab him in the back as well.’

  ‘No, but it adds to the tale.’

  ‘What’s that Walcote situation to you, Guest? Hired you, did they?’

  ‘Yes, my lord. And I would not see a child hang.’

  ‘Even if he’s guilty?’

  ‘I do not believe him guilty.’

  The coroner huffed. ‘It’s too late in the evening to argue.’ He yawned. ‘I’m tired. I’m going home. I recommend you do the same thing.’

  Crispin was more than happy to comply. He bowed as Charneye turned his back on him. Crispin moved to gather Jack and Abbot William. ‘I have something to check before we depart.’

  ‘Check?’ said Jack.

  ‘Out in the meadow.’

  ‘Then I’m going, too!’

  ‘What of Abbot William? Would you leave him alone?’

  ‘Well, I …’

  The abbot shook his head, a placid expression fixed on his face. ‘I need no guarding, Crispin. I am content in the Lord that His shield shall guard me.’

  Crispin exchanged a look with his apprentice, and they headed out toward the meadow, Crispin picturing in his mind where he had seen glowing lights before. He was certain there had been a cottage of some sort at the farthest edge, but he could see no lights now, no smoke reflecting moonlight.

  ‘Where are we going, master?’

  ‘There is a house out there.’

  ‘Out there?’

  ‘I have seen it in the daytime.’

  ‘What has it to do with this business?’

  ‘Maybe nothing. But I saw bobbing lights out here and thought they might have something to do with it.’

  ‘Unless them lights are spirits.’

  Crispin didn’t answer. He moved on, stepping over knolls and skirting brambles. He paused when he stepped on a patch of sticks. Kneeling, he examined them, their position, their broken ends, the swaying stalks of the bushes beside them. One stem appeared to be deliberately stripped of its leaves.

  ‘What is it, master?’

  ‘Not certain.’ Rising, he moved on until they reached the cottage. All was dark. As Crispin suspected, no smoke rose from its chimney. He pressed his face to the seam of the shutter and peered in. No one there.

  ‘What’s this?’ said Jack, lifting the edge of a white rag tied to the front door latch.

  Crispin joined him and looked it over. ‘No idea.’

  Jack shivered and rubbed his arms over his coat sleeves. ‘I’d like to return home, master. If you’ve seen all you need to.’

  ‘Yes. Let us gather Abbot William.’

  They returned from the meadow and joined the abbot, who seemed to be standing immobile, perhaps in contemplation of a prayer.

  ‘May I offer you lodgings with us tonight, my Lord Abbot?’

  He blinked and glanced up at him. ‘That would be most obliging, Crispin. I’m afraid I’ve forsaken all my prayers this night. I must rise especially early to do my utmost to amend that.’

  ‘You will find comfort in my chamber,’ said Crispin, walking between the abbot and Jack.

  ‘Then you shall have mine, master.’

  ‘Don’t be absurd, Jack. And leave your wife lying on the floor? No. I can make myself comfortable downstairs in the hall.’

  ‘But sir!’

  ‘Don’t argue with me, boy.’

  Jack fell silent. In fact, none of them spoke as they made their way through London’s dark streets back to the Shambles. It had been a long day and a longer night.

  When they got in, Isabel was waiting for them by the fire. She, too, tried to insist that Crispin take their bed. And, at another time in his life, he wouldn’t have thought twice about accepting it. I’ve grown soft, he thought with a huff. Instead, he motioned for Jack to
help the abbot and ready his chamber, while Isabel pushed his chair before the fire. She made sure his footstool was there, the one Jack had acquired for him, and got him a woolen blanket from the ambry.

  She offered to help him off with his cote-hardie, but he somehow felt ill at ease with the suggestion and waved her off.

  ‘Go to bed, woman. You’ve a babe to care for. Get some sleep. The abbot says he’ll be up early for his prayers and you’ll need to heat the water and such.’

  ‘Yes, Master Crispin. Goodnight, sir. God rest you.’

  She slowly ascended the stairs and closed her chamber door. Jack peered down from the top of the landing. ‘Is all well, sir?’

  ‘Go to bed, Jack.’

  ‘Aye, sir.’

  The chamber door closed him in, and Crispin listened to the soft murmurings of their conversation, no doubt discussing the strangeness of their unusual master.

  Crispin rose and unbuttoned his cote-hardie, laying it across the chairs at the table. In his stocking feet, he rested them on the footstool and tucked the blanket about him. Had it all really happened in one day? Had he met with Philippa once again, held her in his arms, kissed her … and met her son … their son? His body was weary but his mind raced.

  She loved him still. Even after all he had seen and heard today, it was that single thought that pushed away everything else. She loved him. And she had borne his child and named him to something as close to his name as she dared. She loved him.

  He lay his head back and sighed into the rafters. And, dammit, he loved her. And if he were any other kind of man, he would steal into her chamber when the husband was away, and do his will on her. And how he wanted to.

  But … he wasn’t that kind of man.

  Sleep, Crispin, he admonished himself. It took a while, but even while reliving the moments of kissing her, he must have found his rest sometime in the night, for when he opened his eyes again, there was sun streaming in from the shutter and Isabel was creeping about as quietly as she could, warming water and slicing cold meat.

  He stretched and yawned, and when he rubbed the sleep crust from his eyes, she was looking at him with a kind expression. ‘Good morn, Master Crispin.’