The Holywell Dead

by Chris Nickson

  The boy was feeling his way into his true nature. How long before Alan went from being his pupil to his competitor? Was there enough work around Chesterfield for two carpenters? Never mind. Never mind. So much could happen before that. They might all be dead.

  His hand slipped forward just as Alan was about to use the chisel.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘There’s an easier way. Let me show you.’ He took hold of the tool and demonstrated. That was good; at least the boy still had plenty to learn.

  • • •

  ‘In the last twelve months, John?’ Walter frowned. They were sitting out in the garden behind the house. Katherine had been busy planting, and in the warm weather plenty of shoots were coming through. She kept her young sisters weeding, out with the hoe each day so the earth looked dark and rich. He knew nothing about plants, happy to leave it to her and eat the food she grew.

  ‘Since the start of summer last year when Father Crispin arrived.’

  In the long silence John took a sip of ale. The nights were still comfortable enough for sleeping. If this weather stayed, though, come high summer they’d all be sweating and turning uncomfortably in their beds. Those who remained alive, anyway. Another two cases of plague confirmed that day. A shoemaker on Soutergate and his wife. A cross had been painted on their door. Their three children, in there with them, hadn’t been affected yet. Which would be better for the little ones, he wondered? To live on or to die? Live, he decided. Whatever happened, they could learn how to survive. And in life there was always hope.

  ‘I can think of four,’ Walter announced finally.

  ‘Who are they?’

  ‘Richard the Salter, William of Hull, Henry the Mason, and Hugh the Carter.’

  ‘No one else?’

  ‘No, John,’ Walter told him. ‘I’m sure.’

  He trusted the lad; if he was certain, then it was right.

  He’d seen all the men around, even spoken to William and Henry. Richard had moved here from somewhere in the west, a man who brought salt over from the mines in Cheshire and distributed it across the area. He’d bought an empty house out towards Brampton.

  William had leased Martha’s home on Knifesmithgate and moved in with his wife, three children and a servant. He was a merchant from the east coast, he claimed, and travelled often. If he ever said what he bought and sold, John had forgotten. He’d chosen to live in Chesterfield because it was more central, he claimed, easier to reach most of the places he visited. The man seemed polite enough: well-to-do but rarely even in the town, it seemed. Had he even been here when Crispin vanished?

  Like John, Henry had worked on the church when it was being built. But he’d moved on once the job was complete. Henry had come back because he liked the place too much and had been sweet on a girl. They’d married and found an abandoned house that he’d rebuilt. Now he was scraping a living from small jobs around Chesterfield.

  Hugh the Carter. Another man with a family. John had only exchanged a nod and a greeting with him. Hugh had a family, lived by West Bar, but that was all he knew.

  ‘Tell me about Hugh. What do you know about him?’ he asked Walter.

  ‘He came here from Lincoln. That’s what someone told me.’

  ‘Lincoln?’ He sat up straight. The city where Crispin had served after his ordination. The bishop’s seat. That was interesting, and a point worth pursuing.

  ‘Did you ever see him talk to Father Crispin?’

  ‘No, John, I don’t think so.’ The lad blinked. ‘Why?’

  ‘I just wondered.’ He smiled. ‘Thank you, that’s helpful.’

  He had information. He had names and the start of a plan. Now he needed to talk to them all.

  • • •

  ‘Lincoln,’ the coroner said, once told of Hugh the Carter.

  ‘That’s what I wondered,’ John agreed.

  ‘What do we know about him?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  De Harville looked at the monk. Robert seemed to be a small, fragile figure in the corner, wrapped in his habit, slowly withering away.

  ‘Brother? Can you tell us anything?’

  ‘Not really. I’ve seen him at service and in his cart. His wife is a very modest woman. I’ve noticed her in church and in the marketplace.’

  ‘Find out about him, Carpenter,’ the coroner ordered. ‘Those others, too.’

  • • •

  The place to begin was the alehouse on Low Pavement. At dinnertime it was busy to overflowing as men took a rest from their work. He found Henry the Mason there, arms and hair covered in stone dust, supping from a mug of ale. Tiny scars from stone chips covered the back of his hands and holes the size of pinpricks dotted his hose.

  ‘It looks like you’ve been working.’ John sat on the bench across from him. ‘Keeping busy?’

  Henry laughed. ‘These days I’m just grateful there’s so much poor craftsmanship that needs repair. Between the churches and the grand houses I’m making enough to get by. How about you?’

  ‘Steady.’

  ‘I hear you’ve taken on a boy to help you.’

  ‘He’s a good lad, has the feel for it. How often do you find someone like that?’

  Henry nodded; he understood how important it was. ‘I’d consider an apprentice myself, but who knows what’s going to happen?’

  There was no need to say more. They both had families. They both felt the constant fear within. And they were both powerless.

  ‘Did you know Father Crispin at all?’

  ‘The priest?’ Henry frowned. ‘Why would I?’

  ‘No reason. I’m trying to find out more about him.’

  ‘That’s right, I’d forgotten. You do some work for the coroner.’

  ‘For my sins.’ John smiled and drank deep.

  ‘I never talked to Crispin. Never had cause. All I knew were his services on Sundays and I didn’t understand a word of those.’ He leaned forward. ‘Who’s the other one that was killed? No one’s saying.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ John answered honestly. ‘It’s nobody I’ve ever seen before. Have you noticed any strangers around?’ He described the armed men who’d visited the priest’s house and vanished again.

  ‘No.’ Henry shook his head. ‘I’d best get myself home. These days she worries if I’m gone too long.’

  That was something any man could understand. John drank up and returned to his own family.

  • • •

  In the morning, before he called for Alan, John visited Martha’s old house. He was hoping for the chance to talk to William the Merchant. But he wasn’t there.

  ‘He’s been gone these ten days, Master, and no word,’ the man’s wife told him, ‘and I’m worried sick.’

  He could see it on her face. She had deep smudges under her eyes. A few strands of lank hair peeked from her wimple and she seemed drawn, on the edge of exhaustion.

  ‘When did he go, Mistress?’

  ‘Two days before the priest was killed,’ she answered. ‘He was supposed to be back by now.’ He could hear the children moving round up in the solar and the reproving voice of the servant. ‘I’m scared for him.’

  ‘I’m sure he’ll be home and safe soon.’ They sounded like empty words, but what else could he offer her?

  • • •

  By day’s end the new door was hung. He’d shown Alan how to join and seal the boards, and the tricks involved in making sure it sat flush, then opened and closed freely. Small things, but all useful for the future. Finally he was satisfied, tousling the lad’s hair.

  For once, they cleaned the tools together. It felt like too long since he’d done it, letting the film of oil cover the metal, feeling it on his fingers before rubbing it away again. There was no pitting or rust on the metal. For years he’d looked after them like the treasures they were. He passed a chisel to Alan to sharpen on the whetstone. All these things had lasted him for so long. Handling them could bring memories of better times. Safer times. But now there was precious little safet
y for anyone. High-born or low, they all took their chances now. No doors could stop the pestilence.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  John looked at his wife.

  ‘None today,’ she told him and he exhaled slowly. Men and women might be dying, but plague still hadn’t taken a firm grip on Chesterfield. By now he would have expected the list of the dead to be long. But maybe this was how it would be with this visitation. Stalking and selecting its victims instead of going after them all, like a cat toying with a mouse.

  He held her for a long time, her body so familiar in his arms, the smell of her so comforting.

  ‘Juliana?’

  ‘She spent the day in the garden.’ Katherine smiled. ‘I had to keep stopping her from trying to pull up my onions. As soon as I turned my back she’d be at it.’

  ‘Where is she now?’

  ‘With Martha.’ Her face softened. ‘We did the right thing, you know, bringing Martha to live here.’

  He’d never doubted it. John had been the woman’s lodger when he first came to town. She’d been kind, generous. A rare woman, she was family even before she settled in the room off the buttery.

  ‘How is she?’

  ‘No more spells. I’ve been keeping an eye on her.’

  ‘Pray God they won’t return.’

  • • •

  The day dawned cloudy, with just enough coolness to make him smile. A new job, replacing the floor in the solar of a house. It was tricky work, and removing the old boards needed more strength than Alan possessed at eight years of age.

  Concentration, that was what it took. For a short while, at least, while he could forget about plague and murder and simply think of the job in front of him. He set Alan to smoothing the new boards so there would be no splinters to pierce bare feet. When he finished they were as smooth as skin.

  In the end it took them almost three days. The coroner didn’t come calling, there were no new cases of pestilence, and the bell only tolled twice. He’d arrive home with questions in his eyes, then stand in the garden and pour cold water over his flesh to wash off all the sawdust, happy to be alive.

  William the Merchant hadn’t returned yet. Both Richard the Salter and Hugh the Carter were away. Those two men had been here when Crispin died, though; he’d learnt that much. He’d see them once they were home.

  • • •

  On the fourth morning the coroner came. He wore a crisp linen shirt with a deep red surcote, boots glistening in the warm morning sun.

  ‘God be with you, Carpenter.’ There was no joy in his words; he was frowning.

  ‘And with you, Master.’

  ‘Come with me.’ He began to walk away, not even waiting. John had to hurry to catch up.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  But the man didn’t answer, simply continued with long strides, out of town and to the Tapton road. The marks remained on the hillside where they’d dragged the body up from the riverbank. Why were they here, he wondered?

  A poor soul passed them, baskets of this and that on his back to sell at the weekday market. He touched his forehead in a salute to the coroner and moved away silently.

  ‘I have a name for the man we found here,’ de Harville said, looking down the hill.

  ‘Who was he? Someone from Chesterfield?’

  ‘No. His name was Guy. He was the steward of a manor.’

  ‘A steward?’ John asked in disbelief. He wasn’t like any that he’d ever met. His clothes were too rich and those hands had never seen any hard work on the land.

  ‘That’s what they told me.’ De Harville shrugged. ‘I don’t believe it, but that hardly matters.’

  ‘Where’s he from? How did you find out?’

  ‘A note that arrived last night. He lived on a manor near Conisbrough. The description fitted him perfectly. He vanished last week. His master believed something must have happened and sent messengers around to try and find word of him.’

  It seemed like odd behaviour, to go to such lengths for a steward. But then, dead Guy obviously hadn’t been any ordinary steward.

  ‘What else did the note say? Any more than that?’

  ‘No. But I talked to the man who delivered it. It seems that Guy had been a king’s soldier before he left the royal service. He arrived as steward five years ago, although it’s others who do everything on the manor.’ He gave a wry smile. ‘He wasn’t well regarded by the men there.’

  ‘Five years?’ John said. ‘That’s when Crispin left the King’s service and was ordained.’

  ‘It’s a curious coincidence, isn’t it?’ De Harville’s tone was dry. ‘I tried to discover more but the messenger didn’t know. I’ve arranged to return the body.’ His face hardened. ‘I thought I’d travel with it. The lord there might be able to shed some light on all this.’

  John held his breath, expecting the coroner to demand that he come along. But the words didn’t arrive. Instead he turned and began the walk back in to Chesterfield.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why?’ De Harville’s voice flared. ‘Two corpses, Carpenter. One of them a priest. And here, where my writ from the King runs. We need to find out who. How much of a fool do you think I’ll look if I can’t sniff out the killer? It would be an ideal excuse to give the job to someone else.’

  The anger was there, and hidden beneath it, the fear.

  ‘Maybe you can find the key to the puzzle,’ John said.

  ‘Maybe so. I want you to think about this, Carpenter – why was Guy left here? It would have been simpler to murder him and leave the body close to the manor. This took planning. It was deliberate.’

  But John had realised that long before, as soon as no one knew the corpse. Someone was trying to deliver a message of some kind.

  ‘We still don’t know enough. All we can do is guess.’

  The coroner snorted. ‘Any word on the carter and the salter? Or the merchant?’

  ‘They hadn’t come back yesterday; I asked.’

  ‘I want you to talk to them as soon as they’re in Chesterfield. You’re certain the mason had nothing to do with it?’

  ‘Henry worked on the church here. What would he be doing as an assassin?’

  De Harville pinched his lips together and gave a short nod. All his suspects were slipping through his fingers like sand.

  ‘When are you leaving, Master?’

  ‘Within the hour. The coffin went at first light, but I’ll catch up with them soon enough. If you discover anything, tell Brother Robert.’

  But John had his own work to fill his time. He’d refused one job at the fulling mill down on the river. It was too close to where the plague had begun. The air was always damp there and the stench from the mill enough to make a man gag. Every day alive was a risk but he could do a little to help himself.

  The owner of the mill had sighed. ‘I can pay six pence a day, Master,’ he said, the most generous offer he could afford to make, but John had shaken his head. It was tempting, but some things were more precious than money.

  ‘Once the plague has passed,’ he promised, and the man sighed once more before he reluctantly nodded his agreement.

  • • •

  The coroner returned on the Saturday. The market in the square had just finished and John was preparing to walk home. More people with items to sell this time. But there had been only a handful of plague cases during the week; folk would be thankful, and ready to go out, believing the danger was passing. Or perhaps they simply needed the money. The stalls weren’t as busy as they had been in the spring, but the traders were smiling, full of laughter, describing everything they sold as a bargain.

  John saw de Harville lead his horse along the High Street, looking dust-worn and weary.

  The groom was taking the beast to the stable as he entered the yard. The coroner was removing his gloves, turning at the sound of boots on the cobbles.

  ‘Well met, Carpenter. What news here?’

  ‘Only two more with plague,’ he replied, and the man nodded. �
�What did you learn in Conisbrough?’

  De Harville didn’t answer immediately, just led the way into his hall, pouring himself a glass of wine from a jug.

  ‘A thirsty ride.’ He looked out of the window, watching the nurse playing with his son in the garden. ‘But well worth the trip.’

  ‘What did you find out about Guy?’

  ‘Patience. He was a steward; that much is true. But it was only in name. The lord was away somewhere, but I was able to speak to the man who owns the neighbouring manor. Guy arrived there about five years ago. Yet he travelled a great deal and dressed more like a noble than a steward. The neighbour said he was only in Conisbrough a month or two out of the year.’ He snorted in disbelief.

  ‘Did he tell you how Guy came to be steward?’

  The coroner shook his head. ‘He didn’t know, and thought it was better not to ask. It appears that Guy was very friendly with his lord. They’d sit up drinking together, more like equals.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘Can you imagine that, Carpenter?’

  ‘No,’ John answered honestly. Society had its ranks and they faithfully kept their distance.

  ‘Guy would practise with his sword when he was at the manor. Out there in the yard for an hour every day. And he owned a good horse. Tell me, Carpenter, does that sound like any steward you’ve ever known?’

  ‘Not at all.’ It sounded more like a soldier.

  ‘But no armour,’ de Harville continued. ‘I asked. Sword and dagger, a good quilted jacket, jerkin, and a heavy cloak.’

  There had been none of that when they found him. A stout leather jerkin and a well-padded coat might have kept out the needle.

  ‘What else did you find, Master?’

  ‘Precious little. Guy kept himself to himself. He didn’t have a woman on the manor. He didn’t seem bothered. He wasn’t local, everyone knew that. He boasted that he’d lived in France and London before.’

  ‘French?’ John asked.

  De Harville shook his head. ‘English. What do you make of that, Carpenter?’

  He didn’t know. Guy was a soldier of some kind, that was obvious, and he’d arrived on a manor at the same time Crispin was ordained in Lincoln. Five years. More than coincidence. He strained his mind to think if anything important had happened then.