A Moorland Hanging aktm-3

by Michael Jecks

  Simon stirred. “You’ve got his body here?”

  “Yes, in an undercroft – it’s cool down there.”

  “May we see him now?”

  Shrugging, the knight led them back into the courtyard and up toward the kitchen area, leaving his son and wife behind. At the back of the building, near the wall closest to the river, he took them down a short stair and into a shallow, pit-like cellar. Here wine and ale barrels lined the walls, and when Hugh tapped one experimentally, it thudded dully, sounding comfortingly full. Up at the far end of the chamber was a large box; within it rested the corpse of the man who had caused so many problems to the landlord.

  Walking toward it, Sir William beckoned the others forward with a proprietorial gesture. Peering inside the box, Baldwin and Simon found themselves staring into the face of a man in his late twenties, slimly built and dressed in a rough sleeveless tunic of thick reddish cloth which left his arms bare.

  “Poor devil,” Simon heard Baldwin mutter, and he could easily understand why. Lank dark hair fell over one eye, almost covering it, but not hiding the unfocused stare. Bruther had plainly died from strangling. His eyes were wide and staring in the suffused face, his mouth open, tongue a blackened, bloated mass with a line of toothmarks where his jaws had closed in his death throes. Around his neck were the remains of a hemp rope. It was a light cable, of the kind used for lashing, not the type normally associated with a hanging, and was tied loosely. While the bailiff watched, Baldwin studied the body, his hands resting on the edge of the box while his eyes ranged over the figure. Copying his stance, Simon forced himself to stare down as well.

  Bruther’s was not like the other corpses he had seen. He was becoming familiar with death, having viewed men dead from burning and stabbing in the last two years, and all too often he had felt the need to vomit afterward. He had witnessed enough hangings, too, as a legal representative, and seen the results. To his mind, the bodies of those who had been hanged were less distressing than those of murdered people, probably, he knew, because he was content to see the guilty punished, but also because there was less overt violence visible. This one felt different from them because it was that of a man who had been killed for no good reason, without trial, in a violent crime. And Bruther’s end must have been horrific. It was as if the final terror of the victim managed to transmit itself to him, and in his mind’s eye he could imagine the group of men grabbing him, tying his hands, throwing the rope around his neck, hauling the kicking, choking victim aloft, and leaving him there while his face blackened and his eyes rolled. The thought made Simon shiver. He swallowed heavily and turned away.

  As usual, Baldwin appeared unaffected by the sight of death. Having finished his quiet survey of the body, he called his servant forward. Edgar had armed himself with a candle, and he held it near the dead man to the knight’s instruction, first next to the feet then slowly moving upward, halting at the hands and wrists, then on up to the face. Last of all Baldwin took the head in his hands and studied it, muttering to himself, not just the face but the scalp as well.

  Sir William shot a look of astonishment at Simon, who gave him a weak smile. “Do not worry, Sir William. My friend’s always like this.”

  “And lucky I am too!” snorted the crouching knight.

  “Right, Edgar. Now, near his neck while I look at the rope.”

  “But why?” The older knight tapped his foot impatiently, arms crossed over his chest. “Haven’t you seen enough? The man is dead, and there’s an end to it.”

  At this Baldwin glanced up, his face thrown into deep lines and shadows where the orange candlelight caught it. “I don’t know about that yet, sir.” He motioned to Edgar. “Cut the rope from him. Sir William, how can you say there’s an end to it when we don’t know who did it?”

  “But as my wife said, it must have been…”

  “The miners. Quite. However, I have little doubt that the miners will say it must have been someone else. Who knows – they might even say it was you, Sir William. Now, where did you say this man was found?”

  The older man stared from Simon to Baldwin, aghast. “ Me? They wouldn’t dare!”

  “Or one of your sons,” Baldwin continued cheerfully. “That is why we must study this body, to see whether there is any evidence about who really did kill him. So, where was he found?”

  “In… in Wistman’s Wood – a little wood some distance from here.”

  “And he was hanging from a tree?”

  “Yes. My men saw something swinging as they passed by. When they looked, they found his body.” Sir William was still wide-eyed with shock.

  “Thank you. I think it might be interesting to see where this was, if you don’t mind. Could you ask one of the men to take us there?”

  “Yes. Yes, I suppose so, if that’s what you want. I’ll arrange it.”

  “Good. Now… ah, thank you, Edgar.”

  Taking the heavy cord from his servant, Baldwin studied it carefully. It was strong hemp. Edgar had cut it from the neck, preserving the knot so that the interwoven threads could be studied in one piece. While Simon watched, Baldwin tested the noose, pulling at the knot so that it ran up and down the rope easily. Then the knight threw a glance at the body. Simon held out his hand, and Baldwin wordlessly passed him the rope. He was concentrating on the figure again, oblivious to the others in the room.

  Simon had always had a squeamish side to him which the knight found either endearing or infuriating, depending on his mood at the time. For Baldwin, who had experienced warfare and seen death in many forms, there was a certain fascination in a new corpse. He was driven by a pure curiosity, not to prove a principle, but merely to find truth. Each time he saw a new body, he wanted to study it, and discover the reasons behind the death, as if the corpse could explain to him if he would but listen and observe. And he was determined to give each the time it needed to tell him.

  Long ago he had realized that when a man or woman died in a specific way, the signals were roughly the same for others dying from a similar cause. From experience, then, it was clear enough that this man had died from hanging. That was plain from the marks on the face. Baldwin had seen them often before in hanged men, and he nodded to himself as he noted them dispassionately. The skin of the head and upper neck was a dusky color; the eyes had small red hemorrhages in their whites; the cheeks and scalp, when he pulled some hair aside, showed even more. No, he had no doubt that this man had died of being throttled.

  He stood back and surveyed the body. One thing was niggling him. When he studied the neck wound itself in more detail, he could see something that looked odd. The rope had lain across the neck, and a thick mark was visible where the skin had been pulled away in places. It was, he decided, a little like a long blister, as if a thin scraping had been peeled away to leave the weeping, exposed flesh. Logically, he considered, it must be a kind of rope burn. But what confused him was the second mark. Underneath the heavy scar was a narrower line, stretching from one side of the throat to the other. He took the candle from Edgar and held it closer.

  “Is that all? Or do you want to stay here all afternoon?” said Sir William, fidgeting irritably. “It seems clear enough to me. Bruther is dead from the rope – what more do you want?”

  Baldwin frowned, then picked up one of Bruther’s hands and stared at it, examining the wrist. Letting it drop, he slowly straightened and smiled at the master of the house. “Yes, of course. Now, if you could take us to the men who found the body, sir, we shall leave you in peace.”

  Sir William stomped up the stairs which led to the kitchen, waiting for his guests before marching out into the yard. He gave orders to a guard, who eyed the strangers suspiciously before strolling off to fetch their man. In a few minutes, Samuel Hankyn appeared, looking to Simon like a starving ferret, he was so thin and sharp-faced. He was dressed in russet-colored wool with a leather jacket. Looking enquiringly at his master, he managed to glance at Simon and Baldwin from the corner of his eye as Sir William exp
lained what they wanted.

  Before long they were on their way. Judging from the position of the sun, they had a good three hours before dark, and as none of them wanted to be stuck out on the moors when night came, they struck a brisk pace which made conversation difficult. Samuel was out in front, while Simon, riding behind him, felt stiff, his muscles protesting at so much time spent in the saddle. After a half-hour, they turned off northward in a broad valley between two low hills.

  “This wood,” Baldwin said when they caught sight of greenery up ahead. “Isn’t it the one we passed the other day?”

  Simon peered ahead. “Yes, it’s Wistman’s,” he said, and something in his voice made the knight look at him.

  “I suppose now you will tell me the man was killed because he upset the wish-hounds!” he said lightly.

  “There are some things you can’t laugh at, especially out here on the moors, Baldwin. Strange things can happen, it’s not like other places. Take this wood: all the trees are shorter than they should be. Crockern looks after his land the way he wants.”

  Baldwin was about to say something when Samuel pointed. “That’s where he was,” he said simply.

  Up ahead was a wall of moss-covered trunks. A small breeze made dry leaves rustle, chilling the men as it cooled the sweat on their backs. They paused and stared. Beneath one, which stood a little taller than the others, was a large rock, and beside this lay an untidy coil of the same hemp they had recovered from Peter Bruther’s body.

  “He was hanging off that branch there,” Samuel continued, a finger indicating a heavy bough directly above the stone.

  The knight nodded, then dropped from his horse and walked over to the tree. The hemp had been sliced through, he saw. He stared hard up at the oak, then below at the stone. “You cut him down?”

  “Yes, sir. When I came back with the other men.”

  Baldwin clambered up on top of the rock. It stood some two feet above the ground, and when he was on it he could just reach the branch overhead with his arms stretched upward. He gripped the branch and stared at it for some time, then let it go and sprang down, studying the ground all round while Simon observed him. He had seen his friend like this before, searching for any hints like a dog seeking a spoor.

  Samuel grunted to himself and kicked his horse, moving out of the wind into the shelter of a rock. Hugh went over to join him and offered him a sip of his wineskin. The guide nodded to him gratefully and took a long pull of the cool drink, passing the skin back and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

  Jerking a thumb at the knight, who was now squatting and moving twigs and leaves aside as he examined the ground, Samuel asked: “Is he always like this? He looks like he’s searching for roots.”

  Hugh burped quietly and stoppered the flask. “Often enough. But he seems to see things sometimes which you’d never have expected,” he explained, with a certain grudging respect. “What he’s looking for now, though, I can’t imagine.”

  “There’s nothing to look for. Men came here and hanged him, that’s all.”

  “He lived out here, did he?”

  Shrugging, the man inclined his head slightly northward. “A little way off north of here. Most of the miners live out in the open, but this one was nearer the middle of the moors than the rest. Must’ve been mad. Anyone who’s been out on the moors for any time at all learns to stay away from the middle.”

  “Why?” Edgar had ridden closer, and now sat easily and clearly comfortable a short way from them.

  “Because no one who knows the moors wants to tempt him,” Hugh muttered, and the guard nodded sagely.

  “Tempt who? What are you on about?”

  “Look,” Hugh said, “this area, it’s Crockern’s, all of it. The spirit of the moors. He doesn’t like people trying to take from him. Even the miners know that, that’s why they all stick together, more or less. They keep to their villages, and leave most of the moors to the old man. Otherwise…” His voice trailed off as he caught sight of the cynical, raised eyebrow.

  “Come on, Hugh. Otherwise what?”

  “There was a farmer, not far from here. He had a good living, earned enough to feed himself and his family, but he got greedy. He wanted more. So he started increasing his land, taking more and more from the moors. Well, Crockern doesn’t mind people living here as long as they don’t hurt his country, but as for taking over bits they don’t really need, he doesn’t like that. So he stopped anything from growing on the new fields – thought that would stop the farmer. But it didn’t. The fool kept trying to increase his lands, draining and hedging and ditching, planting more and more all the time, until Crockern had had enough and decided to put a stop to it. The farmer found his animals died, all his plants withered, not just the ones on the new land, but on his old fields too, and then his house burned down…”

  Samuel interrupted. “House? No, it was his barn.”

  “House or barn,” Hugh amended diplomatically. “Anyway, he lost everything, and he was ruined. And that is Crockern. If you upset Crockern here on his own territory, you see, you’ll be destroyed by him.”

  “And that’s what happened to this miner, you think?” Edgar was amused. Having spent most of his life in great cities he felt able to treat the superstitions of country folk with scorn. “He tried to take too much from the land, so the old man of the moors killed him?”

  Offended by the bantering tone, Hugh was silent, but the man-at-arms stared at Edgar, his dark eyes pensive. “I wouldn’t laugh if I’s you. Crockern may not like it, not here on his land. Who’s to say why Bruther died? For all I know he might have killed himself, but I’ll tell you this: as far as I’m concerned, that boy’s as likely to be Crockern’s corpse as the victim of the miners hereabouts.”

  “If that was the case, why were no other miners hurt? Surely Crockern wouldn’t want to differentiate between them, would he?”

  The man-at-arms studied his face carefully, then motioned southward. “You know what that hill’s called?”

  Edgar glanced round, back the way they had come. There was a hill, but from where they sat it was impossible to see more than the flanks. He shook his head.

  “That’s Crockern Tor down there, where the miners all meet for their parliament,” Samuel said slowly. “And Bruther, well, he lived close. Too close, maybe. Crockern doesn’t like his bones being disturbed.”

  “You can’t believe that!” Edgar scoffed, but the man ignored him and, kicking his horse, meandered a short distance away. When Edgar turned to Hugh, he noticed a speculative expression on the servant’s face. Hugh looked almost as if he was wondering whether a bolt of lightning might strike Edgar down at any moment.

  6

  The knight had finished his study of the ground and remounted his horse, frowning thoughtfully. “Simon,” he said softly, “I think this will be an interesting matter before we’re done.” He swung his leg and settled, grasping his reins, staring back at the tree. “There’s something strange about this death.”

  “What’s that?”

  “First, the land hereabouts. What was Bruther doing over here – fetching wood or something? There’s no axe. Then there’s his body…” He lapsed, glowering at the tree as if expecting it to answer his thoughts.

  “His body?” Simon prompted after a few moments.

  “Yes. If you were going to lynch someone, what would you do to him first?”

  “I don’t know – gag him, I suppose.”

  “And?”

  “Well, it would depend on how many men were with me, how powerful the man was, lots of things.”

  Baldwin shot him a look. “One of the first things you’d do would be to tie him up, surely?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “So why wasn’t Bruther tied?”

  “I suppose the men who cut him down must have unbound him…”

  “No, Simon. He was not bound. If he had been, his wrists would have been bruised. They weren’t. I checked.”

  “Coul
d he have been unconscious? Maybe he was knocked out before they strung him up?”

  “Possibly.” His voice was noncommittal.

  “There you are then. He was attacked and knocked cold, then someone threw the rope over that branch, tied one end to his throat, hauled him up, and fastened the other end to the tree to hold him there.”

  “I suppose so,” Baldwin said dubiously. He still wondered about the thin mark on the dead man’s neck, but did not want to discuss it in front of the man-at-arms. He wheeled his horse to face the others.

  “Hey, you!” Simon called out, and their guide came forward. “You found this body with another man from the Manor, is that right?”

  He nodded. “Yes, I was with Ronald Taverner.”

  “Why were you all the way up here? It’s miles from Thomas Smyth’s place, and I understand you went there with Sir William.”

  Samuel explained about their decision to go for a drink, and about their circuitous route homeward after seeing the two miners on the road. Baldwin listened carefully as the man spoke. His story rang true, but he seemed reticent on one point.

  “I don’t understand why you came all the way out here,” Baldwin probed. “Isn’t there a nearer tavern or inn? Surely there’s one on the way to Chagford?”

  “John and his knight went there. I didn’t want to be with them.”

  “Why not?” asked Simon.

  “Because…” He stopped and stared at the ground.

  “Come on, Samuel. It will go no further,” said Simon reassuringly.

  “John can be a hard man,” he muttered.

  Baldwin nodded. From what he had observed he felt sure that the young squire could be a cruel master. After all, he was being tutored by Sir Ralph of Warton. Mercenary knights like Sir Ralph were all too common, and none were noted for kindness or generosity of spirit.

  “So you went all the way out to the alehouse near the Dart and drank there,” Simon stated. “And on the way back you left the road because of some miners. What were they like?”