House of Shadows

by The Medieval Murderers

  Lawrence shot him a look but saw nothing in his eyes to indicate that the knight was a threat. In these days of butchery and random executions at the whim of a foul king who demanded absolute loyalty as a right and stole from all in order to enrich his atrocious lover, Hugh Le Despenser, a man was always best served to watch his tongue.

  Lawrence eyed the knight as they reached the other body. There, the monk looked down on Pilgrim, lying dead in a natural hollow in the ground.

  Simon reached the edge of the dip and peered over. It was sad to see someone so young with his life ended, and this fellow was clearly not yet twenty. Hair of a golden hue, worn long in the most fashionable style, was fanned about his head like the rays about the sun. He lay as though sleeping, with his arms on his breast, and Simon almost expected to see them rise and fall with his breath.

  All about him the water pooled black and oily, and the dark moisture had soaked into his clothing. Simon saw Baldwin reach down and touch the clothing, sniffing at his fingers afterwards. Blood had run from two wounds in his breast, both high, both capable of stabbing his heart.

  ‘This is clear enough, then,’ the coroner decided after a moment’s contemplation. ‘Surely this man wanted the girl, she refused him, and he chose to press his suit. To defend herself, she stabbed him, and then began to run away. Appalled by her homicide, the poor child took her own life.’

  Baldwin turned slowly to stare at him. ‘You seriously believe that this man, who was perfectly fit, strong, and taller and more powerful in every way than that young woman, you suggest that she was able to draw steel more swiftly and stab him twice without his being able to protect himself? And then what: she was so plagued by remorse for protecting herself that she returned to his body to prepare it as though for burial!’

  ‘I suppose some other person came by, found him and decided to settle him in this manner,’ the coroner said superciliously. ‘Perhaps a monk from the priory.’

  ‘Your confidence in the matter speaks volumes!’

  ‘Sir knight, I am not sure that you realize to whom you speak. I am the king’s own coroner here. I have experience of matters such as this.’

  ‘How many murders have you recorded?’

  The coroner glanced down at the body again. ‘Enough.’

  ‘I am sure you have often been taken up with other matters, coroner, but I have been investigating murders these last ten years with my friend Simon here. I am sure you have much experience yourself, but I would caution you against deciding too soon on any theory about this unhappy couple.’

  As he spoke, Baldwin was circling about the area, looking at the ground. There was little to be concluded. All about here there was a mass of prints. The soft, stubby grasses had recorded little that he could make sense of, and yet there was one indication that made him pause and crouch.

  In a direct line away from the two bodies, thus heading towards the river itself, there were a pair of parallel, scraped indentations. Where the grass was thinner, gouges had been made in the soil. Baldwin followed the trail for some little distance, until he came to a flat area that was a little more dry. Here he saw that there were more marks. Two or three pairs of feet had been here, and then he saw something else: a series of deep indentations. They were an inch to an inch and a half across, curious pockmarks in the soil. He could not understand them, but noted them as he looked about him. One thing was noticeable: this was higher ground.

  Making his way back to the others, he scanned the landscape.

  ‘I think he was killed over there and dragged here by one or two people. A little earlier, or later, the woman was killed over there. It is clear enough that she did not commit suicide.’

  ‘You are sure of this, I suppose?’ the coroner said.

  ‘Quite certain. There are signs of the man with others over there, and signs of his boots scraping up the earth from there to here.’

  ‘Well, it is an amusing theory. I look forward to learning what the jury makes of it tomorrow.’ The coroner smiled. ‘But for now I should like to know why a man should be dragged over here, when they could have rolled him into the Thames over there?’

  Baldwin cocked his head. ‘That is all? I should like to know why someone who hated him so much as to wish to kill him would then spend time settling his body.’

  Lawrence watched the coroner dismiss the question with a sneer and march off, discussing setting a guard about the bodies as he went. Then the cellarer took a deep breath. He couldn’t speak directly. It was too foreign to his nature. However, he did have a feeling that these two strangers were more interested in reaching the truth than most others, certainly more than that damned coroner. He wanted to tell them about the wedding. At least these men might make use of the information.

  He felt himself in a quandary. If he held his tongue, the fool of a coroner might well decide to take the easiest suspect and accuse him. There were so many down this way who would have no opportunity to defend themselves if he set his face against them. There was no justice for the poor.

  ‘Brother Lawrence,’ Baldwin said, ‘tell me: you appeared to be about to speak more when that fool arrived. This Pilgrim – did he have many enemies apart from this woman’s family?’

  ‘Well, Pilgrim was a young man, and who can tell what mischief he may have attempted? There could be someone somewhere who had cause to nurse a grievance against him. Juliet surely would not. She was an amiable, kindly soul. I always thought that she would make a good mother, although not with—’

  ‘Not with whom?’ Baldwin demanded.

  ‘I was forced to swear an oath of silence before I could do this thing,’ Lawrence said unhappily.

  ‘What “thing”? Marry her?’ Baldwin asked keenly, and Lawrence could do nothing but look away.

  But he was relieved. The secret was out.

  Timothy Capun had never been tall. He possessed the frame of a man who had suffered from malnutrition as a child, a permanent reminder of the famine eight years before. His face held evidence of the virulent malady that had caused his face to be pocked and marked with scars, so his appearance was not the most prepossessing.

  Entering the great hall and seeing his father seated on one of the benches near the middle of the room, close by the great fire that had been relighted against the damp cool of this unseasonal summer, his face grew morose, and he crossed the hall’s tiled floor to stand by Henry Capun’s side.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Father, I wanted to offer you my sympathy. We both loved her.’

  Henry looked up at his son. His face was twisted, but then his pain left his features and he could stare at his son with entirely blank eyes. ‘Did you do it?’

  ‘What, father?’

  ‘You know what. Did you kill your sister? Because even if it means I live the rest of my days in a gaol and depart this earth straight to hell, I swear if I learn you killed my little Juliet I’ll see your body swinging.’

  ‘Father, you don’t think I could hurt my sister? I loved her too.’

  Henry spat, ‘You have no understanding of the word “love”!’

  It was some little while later that Baldwin and Simon reviewed the monk’s words while sitting in a dingy, noisome tavern near the south side of the bridge.

  ‘I did not like that coroner,’ Baldwin admitted. ‘He struck me as too confident. A man who is that confident is a danger to justice. He ought to listen and gauge the evidence, not go rushing to assume only one solution to a problem.’

  ‘You were not keen on the monk, either.’

  ‘True,’ Baldwin admitted. He considered, at last grunting: ‘Ach – he is a monk from an order that holds to certainties in the same way as that coroner does. Cluniacs are so convinced of their place in the world and the security of their posts in heaven that there are rarely any chinks in their armour to allow even a small iota of doubt to enter. I do not trust men who never doubt themselves. Doubt seems to me to be an essential ingredient in an investigation. You doubt what each w
itness says; you question them because you doubt your own understanding; you have to doubt everything if you are to get to the truth.’

  ‘You mistrust him simply because he is a monk?’

  Baldwin nodded. ‘Aye. I fear so. Still, he was useful, was he not?’

  ‘We know that she was married, yes. Although to whom…to the dead lad?’

  Baldwin grunted. After letting slip that tantalizing detail, the monk had clammed up, claiming that the whole affair was secret and he had sworn to hold his tongue. He would not answer any more questions.

  ‘We must wait until tomorrow, anyway, to hear what is said at the inquest.’

  ‘I look forward to seeing the First Finder describe what she found,’ Baldwin said. ‘Those two bodies…they were strangely set out. The man, Pilgrim, had been dragged down to be concealed, and then laid out neatly.’

  ‘As though a monk had killed him and tidied him up?’ Simon said.

  ‘Possibly. But what reason could the monk have had for killing him?’

  ‘The girl was attractive. Could a monk have desired her, killed the boy from jealousy and then killed her?’

  ‘Possibly. And yet Brother Lawrence was convinced that the girl’s family had a hatred for Pilgrim. They would think that their little girl had married beneath herself. Perhaps they sought to punish both?’

  ‘I would like to speak to them.’

  Baldwin eyed him. ‘These are the very ones who have asked for Bishop Walter to enquire into the death.’

  ‘It would hardly be the first time that the guilty were those who demanded the greatest efforts. And in any case, if they are innocent they may still be able to help us with some aspects of the girl’s life. Any information can be useful.’

  ‘True!’ Baldwin said. He finished his drink. ‘And yet I dare say that of all possible suspects this family is the one that is least likely.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because if one of the corpses was to be set out neatly, surely any father would lay out his own daughter, rather than the bastard who’d ravished her – married or not?’

  They found the Capun house with ease. London was a huge city, but men as wealthy and powerful as Henry Capun were not common.

  Simon had never heard of the man, and he was comfortably certain that neither had Baldwin, but it soon became obvious that Henry Capun was a renowned man in London, and when they caught sight of his house Simon for one was daunted by the size of the place. He was perfectly used to seeing large houses, and he had himself participated in the questioning of noblemen and others – but that had been different. It had been in his own county of Devon. Standing here in the street they called the Strand, just outside the city’s walls, not too far from the bishop’s own hall, Simon was overwhelmed by a sense of his own insignificance.

  If he had been alone, he would have left there and then, but fortunately it appeared that Baldwin suffered fewer qualms about questioning the man. The knight rapped sharply on the timbers of the porter’s door and curtly demanded to be shown to the banneret.

  Henry Capun looked as though he had been drinking too much for too long. His features were flabby and choleric. He had a circular face, with a neck that was thick from excess, and his paunch was like a barrel slung low over his belt. Simon privately thought that this was one of those men who wore his soul on his sleeve for all to see. He was an insipid fellow, weak and ravaged by the least setback.

  His initial impression was to be quickly destroyed.

  ‘Who are you?’

  While Baldwin introduced them, Henry studied them minutely, Simon saw. Then he jerked his chin at Simon. ‘You’re a bailiff from Dartmoor? You knew Abbot Champeaux?’

  Simon nodded. ‘I worked for him these last eight years or so.’

  ‘I knew him. A good man, and a damned hard one to win a bargain from. Aye, I knew him. He’ll be missed.’ He turned back to Baldwin. ‘Not as much as my daughter will in this house, though. Bishop Stapledon told you to find her murderer, I hope?’

  ‘He did.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘We have just come here from the place where she died. The inquest will be tomorrow – someone has told you of this?’

  ‘Yes. The coroner was good enough to send a man to tell me when I may go to hear about her…her death.’

  His voice dropped for those last two words, and his head sank on his shoulders as though its weight was insupportable. But then he rallied and fixed Baldwin with a stern gaze. ‘I want the murderer found. I don’t care who it is, how rich he is – I want him found and hanged.’

  ‘Then you can help us. We are new to this city. My friend and I arrived only yesterday. What can you tell us about your daughter?’

  ‘Juliet was a good, dutiful child. Always was. I adored her. Perhaps I spoiled her, but after her mother…There was a feeling…I suppose I saw much in her that I had loved in her mother.’

  ‘Her mother died?’

  ‘She fell pregnant too soon after Juliet’s birth and died in the birthing. Perhaps it was natural that Juliet should be my most favoured child.’

  ‘She was your only child?’ Simon asked.

  ‘I have a son as well. Her younger brother, Timothy. He is some compensation to me.’

  Simon wondered at that. It was a curious turn of phrase and sounded odd from this man’s mouth – but much of his tone and appearance was entirely out of keeping with Simon’s first summing-up. Clearly this man was more mentally rigorous than he would have thought.

  ‘We have heard – Sir Henry, I am sorry if this rakes up sadness for you, but I have to ask – we have heard that she formed a close liaison with a fellow.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Do you know of a man called Pilgrim?’

  ‘William de Monte Acuto? That little shite? Yes, she knew him.’

  ‘More than that? Did she know him well?’

  Henry Capun’s face darkened, and a flush rose from his neck. ‘What are you saying, that my daughter was unchaste – even a whore? Do you think to insult her memory here in my house, Sir Knight?’

  ‘Sir Henry, I speak only what I have been told. Did you know that she was married?’

  Henry Capun gaped. He took a stumbling step backwards, a hand reaching out wildly for a chair. Hurriedly Simon ran to his side, grasped a stool and thrust it behind the banneret. Capun half fell into it, his hand gripping Simon’s forearm as though it was the only thing to maintain his sanity. ‘She…no!’

  ‘This man Pilgrim was also murdered. His body lay only a short distance from your daughter’s. She was married at the end of November last year. I have spoken to the man of God who witnessed the ceremony. Her marriage was fully legal.’

  ‘My God! The bastard! If he had left her alone, none of this would have happened!’

  ‘Do you think she may have married this Pilgrim?’

  ‘I don’t know…my God!’

  ‘Well, can you think of anyone who would have had cause to harm them both?’

  ‘Only that murderous son of a whore William de Monte Acuto, the boy’s father!’

  ‘Why should he want to kill them?’ Simon blurted.

  ‘Because he and I are enemies. I’ll have nothing to do with him, nor he with me. Christ’s bones, if he’s killed my little Juliet, I’ll have his heart!’

  ‘Explain, please.’

  Henry scowled. He had recovered from his first shock, but he was still shaky as he reached out for a mazer of wine on the table. ‘When we were younger, William and I were friends. We were of a similar age, had similar backgrounds, and we were keen to do all we could to advance ourselves. But then I did better than him and started to win honours and money, and we lost contact. I think he blamed me for his own lack of opportunities, and that led to bad feeling. It was nothing to do with me, though. I treated him in the same way as I ever had. The trouble is, William has a lousy temper. He always did have.’

  ‘How did your lives change so greatly?’ Baldwin murmured.

  ‘William soug
ht to advance himself early on, and he allied himself to men in the early days of the century. When the king was still a prince, William did all he could to curry favour. Meanwhile I concentrated on money and left politics alone. When I had money, I was noticed by powerful men, and they advanced my cause for me.’

  Which meant that he was able to bribe the powerful to achieve what he wanted, Baldwin reckoned, while his erstwhile friend and companion languished. ‘You were allied with those who are still in power, then?’

  Henry’s mouth twisted. ‘I can count the young Hugh Le Despenser as a friend. William was allied with Piers Gaveston.’

  Gaveston, the king’s companion, was so detested by the barons that he was captured and hanged like a common felon in the fifth year of the king’s reign.5 Baldwin began to understand the depths of the jealousy William de Monte Acuto might feel for this man – especially since as Gaveston’s star waned the Despensers’ waxed full mightily.

  Simon was frowning. ‘You say that this man de Monte Acuto might have killed your daughter – but that hardly makes sense. Why should he kill her when the only effect of her liaison with his son was to annoy you? And why kill his own son?’

  Henry looked at him for a moment. ‘Because, bailiff, he would look on any alliance with me as being a betrayal of his own honour. He hates me for all I have done.’ He looked away, closed his eyes and shook his head. ‘You see, there is one last thing I didn’t mention. The woman I married, my poor wife Cecily, I won from him. He was wooing her when I snatched her away. He has never forgiven me for her death.’

  And neither have I, he added to himself.

  Thursday Next after the Feast of St George the Martyr 6,

  Bermondsey Marsh

  The next morning was bright and clear, with only a few clouds sitting stationary over the city. Baldwin and Simon rose early, and after a light breakfast they crossed the bridge and turned left to go up to Bermondsey again.

  The space about the two bodies was filled with people. There was huddled a jury of men, for the most part grim-faced at the stern duty before them, although one or two of those who were only twelve or thirteen were anxious at the sight of the coroner. People here were used to seeing the rich and powerful, but few enjoyed the sight of those who could fleece them unmercifully for any infraction.