Edwin scribbled rapidly, the quill flying over the parchment with a harsh scratching sound. ‘We’ll find out,’ he murmured.
Hildegard was frowning. ‘Do you remember that argument over the number of people in the entourage? There was one more when they had a recount.’
‘So the chamberlain wasn’t wrong, after all. He was adamant there were only forty, as permitted. “I learnt to count when I was a babe in arms!” I heard him say.’
‘There were forty before we went into Mass,’ Thomas pointed out, ‘and forty-one when we came out. Someone – I mean, the murderer – must have rejoined us then.’
The kitchen clerk entered as soon as the page announced him. In contrast to his master he was a thin harassed-looking individual with a groove-line of worry down his forehead and a habit of biting his bottom lip. It was clear from his manner that he knew he was going to be questioned about more than an accidental death.
Before anybody spoke he waved a vellum roll and said, ‘It’s all down here. Anything you want to know, it’s here recorded. Who, where and when. That’s my job. And you’ll agree, Edwin, I know my job.’
‘Indeed,’ Edwin murmured. ‘But it can’t all be down there, can it?’
‘Everything that happened that was above board.’ He leant forward and mouthed, ‘So it’s true, he was done in?’
‘We don’t know. Why do you ask that?’
He looked confused. ‘Master’s said so just now. He’s still out there trying to get his breath back. He’s in a terrible state.’
‘Well, he is right, insofar as we do have a few questions to ask. As he may have mentioned, I have a report to make. More than that we can’t say.’
The kitchen clerk turned to Hildegard. ‘Domina, permit me to read it to you—’
Edwin broke in. ‘My gratitude, master, but that won’t be necessary.’ He eyed him as one professional to another. ‘We’d be more than grateful if you’d leave your written testimony to one side for a moment and tell us in your own words what you remember of the morning in question.’
With the wind taken out of his sails the kitchen clerk glanced at his records then reluctantly stuffed them back inside his jerkin.
‘You can let us have a look at them later. Pray proceed,’ Edwin encouraged.
‘Well, it’s like this …’ He paused as if at a loss now the written word had been forbidden him. ‘We get up at the usual hour.’
‘At what time?’
‘You know what time, Edwin. You were there yourself, overseeing the archbishop’s morning tisane as usual.’
‘It’s by his special request,’ Edwin came back with some asperity.
‘I’m saying nothing about it. I’m simply saying you were there. You must have seen everybody that came into the kitchens at that time.’
‘I certainly didn’t make notes. What about Martin? Let’s keep to the point. Did you see him then or not?’
‘He came in, yes. The bakers were just starting to bring their bread over. I remember breaking a piece off for you and you making some comment about not wanting the coals of hell in your gob. Anyway, Martin did come in. It was soon after you left.’
‘Was he alone?’ asked Hildegard.
‘Aye. Alone. He took a lump of bread and made no untoward comment.’
‘It had probably cooled somewhat by then?’ suggested Thomas, automatically spreading oil on troubled waters.
‘Aye, it would have. It would be not much later but enough for bread to cool.’ The kitchen clerk gave them all a pitying look at wasting time with the obvious. ‘Then the bread was loaded into wicker baskets to be stowed on racks in the sumpter wagon. Martin helped with that until I told him he didn’t have to.’
‘Why did he help you? Was it his job?’ asked Hildegard.
‘It wasn’t. But he was like that. He felt it was his duty to help whenever he could.’
‘A penance of some sort?’ Thomas queried.
The kitchen clerk looked surprised. He cleared his throat and seemed to have forgotten what he had been about to say.
‘And after you told him not to help, what did he do next?’ Hildegard encouraged.
‘I advised him to make sure he had everything with him he’d need for the journey.’
‘So he was to come with us, then?’ Hildegard asked just to be sure.
‘Aye. Somewhat reluctant, like. He didn’t want to leave his wife by herself.’
‘Was she ill?’
‘No. She was new. What’s that Latin word? Uxorious, aye, that’s the one. Martin was still at the uxorious stage. Been handfast less than three months. Tried to persuade the steward to allow her to come with us. “What! A woman in a retinue of menfolk? I hardly think so!” You know the steward, Edwin,’ he turned to his counterpart in the inner household.
‘So did he leave you then to go and get his things?’ Hildegard asked, her status as a woman clearly in abeyance.
The kitchen clerk’s face was suddenly set in stone. ‘He left. I don’t know where he went. That’s the last time I clapped eyes on the poor devil.’
‘He left alone, presumably?’ asked Edwin for neatness.
The kitchen clerk nodded. ‘Quite alone. He went out by way of the lay brothers’ refectory, if you’re asking.’
Edwin’s glance sharpened. ‘I was just about to ask you that. Why would he go out that way? He must have known there would be nothing to eat in there that morning. His dormitory lies at the opposite end of the building, adjoining the kitchens on the other side.’ He turned to Hildegard and Thomas. ‘I should explain that there are quarters for our married laymen in a wing leading off the lay brothers’ dormitory. Martin’s wife worked as a laundress for us.’
The kitchen clerk was frowning now. ‘You know, at the time I thought it unexpected but I assumed he was maybe going out through yon door to fetch some herbs from the enclosure. I thought maybe that was his intention,’ he frowned, ‘but we’ll never know now, will we?’
Edwin was again scribbling furiously and broke off with a muttered curse to sharpen his quill with a little penknife.
‘Just for clarity’s sake,’ murmured Hildegard. ‘This back door leading out of the refectory into the herb garden near the bakehouse – is it inside or outside the enclosure wall?’
The kitchen clerk looked mystified. ‘It’s just inside. There’s a door in the wall leading out to where the gardens are.’
‘Thank you.’
The kitchen clerk took his sheaf of notes from his jerkin and placed them on Edwin’s writing tray. ‘Look after them. I must be getting on if that’s all, masters, Domina.’ He inclined his head towards Hildegard. ‘Work to be done. People never stop eating.’
‘Thanks, Cedward,’ Edwin barely looked up. ‘Tell us if you think of anything else.’
‘You can count on it. I want this sorted as quick as you do. I tell you, nobody’s going to dare walk alone when this gets out.’
The door closed softly behind him.
There was a long silence. ‘From the murderer’s point of view the safest time was when everybody was busy loading the wagons. Then he could slip back to join us afterwards, probably when we were all in church.’ Thomas let out a sigh. ‘Sadly it’s no good asking me who I saw in there. Not with all that incense and my eyes streaming with tears.’
‘So was anybody else likely to be in the kitchen gardens at that time in the morning, Edwin?’
‘Gardeners?’
‘But it was scarcely light at that point,’ she reminded.
Edwin sniffed. ‘Always pottering at unlikely hours, aren’t they?’ He threw down his quill. ‘Let’s call one of them.’
‘Good idea,’ agreed Thomas. ‘But how? Surely they’re all still in Bishopthorpe?’
‘You’ll find out. We’ll have something to drink while we wait for him to scrape the mud off his boots.’
Not much later, and energised by a jug of something from the bishop’s cellar, they were confronted by the man in charge of herbs and spices
. ‘Confronted’ being the appropriate word in Hildegard’s opinion.
He strode in with a determined manner and folded his arms across his chest before subjecting each of them to a penetrating stare from beneath black brows. Afterwards his glance returned to Edwin.
‘I’ve nothing to tell you,’ he began without invitation. ‘I don’t know why I’ve been brought here.’
‘I’ll tell you why,’ replied Edwin with youthful dignity, outfacing the older man. ‘It’s because, as you’ve probably heard by now, one of our friends and respected servants has died and we intend to find out how. Anything and everything that happened the morning of his death is of interest to us and will shortly be known to us. You can count on that. Now give us your version if you’ll be so good.’
The man was unfazed. ‘I have no version. I wasn’t there and I know nothing.’
‘Where weren’t you?’ Thomas asked quietly enough.
‘There,’ he snarled in response. ‘In the brewhouse where the body was found.’
‘Did you see the body?’ asked Hildegard.
‘No. I did not.’
‘Then how do you know where it was found?’ Edwin demanded.
The herberer let his arms drop to his sides and then refolded them. ‘Am I deaf? Everybody knows.’
‘And you weren’t there. What is your name, my friend?’ asked Edwin, moving on. ‘I need it for my records.’
The man eyed the clerk with antagonism and looked as if he would refuse to have his name recorded, but then, seeing the three of them staring him out, he muttered, ‘Jarrold.’
‘Jarrold of … ?’
‘Kyme.’
‘Now where in the world is that?’ asked Edwin in a pleasant tone.
‘South of Lincoln.’
‘So we’ll be passing your home territory as soon as we’re back on the road? You’ll be stopping off to visit your kinsfolk, no doubt?’
‘Not likely.’ Jarrold the herberer plainly thought as little of his kinsfolk as he thought of his questioners.
‘Well, Jarrold, if you’ll be so kind, tell us where you were on the morning in question. You’ll have heard when that was, won’t you?’
Sarcasm didn’t bring out anything helpful.
Grudgingly he told them that he left the lay brothers’ dormitory to get a bite to eat in the adjoining kitchens with everybody else, then returned to the dormitory to fetch his gear. He then went down into the kitchen yard to find out which wagon to put it in and then he’d hung around just like everybody else until it was time to leave.
‘And were you present when the papal envoy did his head count?’
‘I was.’ He stared straight ahead without blinking.
‘And was this before or after we went into church?’ Hildegard asked.
He gave her a startled look and mumbled, ‘Same as everybody else.’
‘And did you notice anybody missing in the yard whom you expected to see present?’ Edwin leant forward watching him intently.
Hildegard turned at this unexpected line.
The herberer was already shaking his head. ‘I didn’t notice Martin being there, if that’s what you mean, but nor did I notice he wasn’t there neither. I wasn’t especially looking to see who was there. It was all the usual crowd. And it didn’t matter a tinker’s cuss who they took. It was all one to me. Except I was more likely wondering whether I’d be the one to be left behind when the Pope’s man said we were one too many.’
‘Why would you wonder that?’ Hildegard queried.
‘Last in, first out,’ came the retort.
‘Explain.’ Edwin dipped his pen in the inkhorn and glanced up.
‘I only joined the household a while back. Yorkshire folk here, aren’t they? I’m a Lincolnshire man myself.’ He paused and insolently added, ‘As I’ve just told you.’
‘Do you thereby feel excluded?’ asked Thomas in an interested tone.
Jarrold looked at him as if he were mad and didn’t bother to reply.
‘What is your function in the household, exactly?’ Hildegard asked him.
‘I’m an outdoor-indoor servant. I’m an expert on herbs. I oversee the ones grown and check that the right ones get given to the cooks.’
If Martin had been poisoned, here would be their prime suspect, she thought, a man with all the shiftiness and ill-humour you might expect in someone evil enough to kill a man in cold blood. But Martin had not been poisoned. ‘So did you go into the herb garden that morning to pick herbs for the journey?’ she asked.
‘I told you what I did.’
‘We’ll take that as “no” then, shall we?’ Edwin scribbled something in his notes and looked up. ‘You might beg the domina’s forgiveness for your tone.’
Jarrold stared at the floor and made an almost imperceptible movement of the head that seemed intended to mollify. Edwin dismissed him with a shooing motion.
When the door closed Thomas turned to him. ‘What do you think?’
‘Insolent bastard. But that doesn’t make him our man. We’ll have to see if anybody can vouch for him.’ He pushed the plug into the inkhorn to stop it from spilling, replaced it in its notch in the tray and closed the whole thing up. ‘I expect you’ve both got to attend the next office. Let’s stop now and reconvene. We’ve already got a few questions for the constables at Bishopthorpe. If Master Jarrold or anybody else was near the brewhouse at that time somebody must have seen them. It’s just a question of combing through their depositions and finding a discrepancy.’
Thomas gave a hollow laugh. ‘Finding a needle in a haystack might be easier.’
Hildegard reminded Edwin to ask about the weapon that had battered the back of Martin’s head in. ‘I wonder what happened to his travel bag?’ she asked as they got up to go. ‘Do we know whether it turned up here with all the others? Or didn’t he get around to fetching it from his chamber on the morning?’
Despite their efforts, speculation was rife. An air of suspicion prevailed. Word was out that questions were being asked and no one would be exempt.
It was disturbing to everybody to suspect that they were harbouring a murderer in their midst. The ambush on the road had startled many of the staff into a state of fear. With word out about this new danger, the killing of the wolf was seen as an omen.
It distracted them from the threat of invasion, despite the fact that the castle garrison was on full alert. Previously the knowledge that they were staying in a garrison town had given everyone a feeling of security: groups of armed militia on duty at the perimeter of the bishop’s enclave, archers visible on the battlements of the castle. With the view from the keep stretching for miles over flat country to the south there would be no element of surprise should an army come marching up the shire from that direction. Lincoln would be impossible to take.
Even so, with a murderer within the enclave, the mood of the men from York became volatile. Scuffles broke out. Old vendettas were revived. Eating knives sharpened as if the meat in Lincoln required it. Some people stopped speaking to others altogether. Suspicious cliques stood around in the belief there was safety in numbers.
Martin’s bag, packed for the journey, was discovered in one of the wagons. The contents looked pathetic as they were tipped out onto a table – a clean tunic, some woollen hosen, and a trinket wrapped in a piece of cloth, presumably a memento from his wife – not much as the sum of one man’s life.
‘No clues there,’ murmured Edwin as if he expected an incriminating note as he sifted through the things.
During the rest of the day Master Fulford’s other kitcheners were called in to give an account of themselves.
It was as the master cook had told them. Everything was on the record – he had waved his clerk’s parchments to prove it – but with such a lot of coming and going it was impossible to know who had been able to slip away without being spotted. The brewmaster confirmed what the cook had told them, the cook’s account was confirmed by the chamberlain, the steward’s by the sub-steward, an
d so on. What was clear was how the chamberlain had arrived at a figure of forty in his first head count and the Pope’s man at forty-one in the second. The extra man was the murderer.
Archbishop Neville was given a full account of what they had discovered – precious little, Edwin complained – and one of his pigeons was dispatched at once with a message seeking additional information from Bishopthorpe: had anyone been working in the herb garden at any time that morning, was anyone at all seen near the garden or on the path under the infirmary windows?
The baker and his clerk were recalled but could only repeat their story. The murderer had to have entered through the garden. But neither Martin nor anyone else had been noticed around there. In the confusion of departure everybody had been too busy to notice anything exceptional.
The herberer was not mentioned because there was nothing to report other than a dislike of his manner. In none of the accounts did anyone say they had seen Martin other than in the yard helping to load wagons.
Now resigned to staying in Lincoln until more information turned up, the three of them went separate ways: Thomas to the scriptorium to talk shop about the chronicle of Meaux his abbot was planning, Edwin to continue his duties on behalf of his lord, and Hildegard to have a look at the famous vines in Bishop Buckingham’s garden now there was a break in the rain.
She plunged her hand in among the wet leaves and tugged at the roots. They came up easily. Short and straggly. Wet earth clinging to them. A herb of some sort, perhaps.
The woman she had seen just now had collected an entire scripful before hurrying back up the garden to greet a young man just coming out of the bishop’s hall. The leaves were clearly useful for something.
A Parliament of Spies Page 5