by Paul Doherty
Selditch rested back in his chair and spread his hands.
'A little and, as I've told you before, I can only judge by what I see. I have taken medicines to them – pots of herbs, ointments, a number of poultices.'
'And?' Monck glanced slyly at Corbett. 'Come, educate our new arrivals!'
'They seem God-fearing, quiet people. Their leader is Master Joseph, but the real organizer is Philip Nettler.'
'So, you agree with their creed?' Dame Cecily's tone made it clear that her question was important to her.
The physician shrugged and sipped from his goblet.
'It is, perhaps, different from yours, my lady.'
'But there's men and women together?' The prioress widened her eyes.
'In France,' Selditch replied, 'such houses are common. A group of brothers in one building, a group of sisters in the other.' He laughed and popped a grape into his mouth. 'Sometimes they meet and sometimes they don't.'
'They seem gentle enough to me,' Father Augustine interrupted. 'I have said Mass at the Hermitage on a number of occasions. The Pastoureaux dress simply in brown robes and sandals. They beg for alms and live on the donations given to them. For the rest, they seem to pray and talk a lot.'
'How many are there?' Corbett asked.
The priest pulled a face.
'The number changes as some arrive, some leave, but at any one time no more than fourteen or sixteen.' Corbett toyed with his wine cup.
'How long have the Pastoureaux been here?' he asked Gurney.
'About sixteen months. Master Joseph and his able lieutenant Philip Nettler came here at the beginning of autumn. They discovered the old Hermitage and asked if they could live there, promising to be no threat to me or mine.' Gurney shrugged. 'So I allowed them to stay. They grow their own herbs and tend a few chickens and pigs. I went there in the early days and saw nothing untoward. They have a makeshift chapel and a communal refectory. When the weather is good, they go along the highways and beg.'
'And the villagers?'
'At first they were suspicious. The Pastoureaux, however, particularly Master Joseph and Philip Nettler, proved themselves to be honest and hard-working, so the villagers accepted them. Some of the young men and women from the village have joined the Pastoureaux and travelled on-'
'Travelled on?' Ranulf interrupted. 'My lord, why should they travel?'
Alice answered him. 'They have a vision,' she said. 'They believe Christ's return is imminent. So, when they have been purified and prepared, they travel to Hull or one of the other ports from where they take ship to Outremer. According to Master Joseph, they are to assemble near the Mount of Olives, where Christ will soon come again in a chariot of fire.'
'And they believe all that?' Ranulf mocked.
'Why shouldn't they?' Alice said. 'I believe there are similar movements all over Europe?'
'But no one questions all this?' Ranulf insisted.
'The Pastoureaux also come to me,' Dame Cecily told him. 'We give them cloth, wine and food. In return they work on our estate, in our gardens and orchards, as they do for Sir Simon. Their community is a changing one, but the young men and women seem full of hope. They stay for a few weeks at the Hermitage, for what Father Joseph calls the period of purification, then he or Master Philip takes them to the nearest port. They are given money, a warrant, a change of clothing, some food, and off they sail.' She shrugged. 'They seem honest enough. They hold everything in common and anything they earn is put into the community treasury.'
She smiled at Ranulf and the manservant glimpsed the lechery in the prioress's eyes.
A hot one there, he thought, and smiled to himself – perhaps a visit to the good canonesses might not go amiss. Ranulf often boasted to Maltote, 'I was born a villain and I can smell villains'. Well, he had smelled them tonight and, as he held the prioress's glance, Ranulf fleetingly wondered what old Master Long Face thought of it all.
'And the women travel abroad as well?' Corbett asked.
'Why shouldn't they?' Father Augustine asked. 'What's a young girl's lot in a peasant village? Hard work, marriage to some lout? Half-dead with child-bearing by the time she's reached her twentieth summer. It's not much better for the young men, they're either chained to the plough or sent off to the king's wars in Scotland.'
'I don't like them,' Adam Catchpole interjected. He carefully placed his thick, muscular arms on the table top. 'I don't like Philip Nettler or even the saintly Master Joseph. They are both idle buggers! I come from a village something like this.' His harsh voice suddenly rose. 'I've seen these movements before! They tell the simpletons that Jerusalem is round the corner or over the brow of the next hill. It never is!' He stared at Corbett. 'And you know that, don't you, Sir Hugh? Otherwise you and Master Monck would not be here.'
'In a way, yes,' Corbett replied quietly. He paused as a servant refilled his goblet. 'The Pastoureaux,' he went on 'originated in France. The name means Shepherds. They were organized some fifty years ago by a renegade monk called Jacob who assumed the strange title Master of Hungary.' Corbett sipped from his goblet. 'According to reports, Jacob claimed to have been told in a vision to organize the poor, like the shepherds of Bethlehem, and send them to the Holy Land to await Christ's return. Unfortunately, he attracted all society's human flotsam and jetsam – apostate clerics, prostitutes, thieves, murderers and wolfsheads. Jacob divided them into companies and, instead of marching to Jerusalem, they began to live off the land like mercenaries. Some who opposed them were cut down by the axe; others, particularly clerics, were stabbed to death or drowned in rivers. These Pastoureaux attacked the Jews and, within years, had decided that their principal task was to wipe out all clerics – priests, bishops, even the pope himself – and found a new Church. Then the movement spread across the Rhine to England. Each group of Pastoureaux is different. Some are violent. Others, like the group at the Hermitage, are peaceful – they lead a simple life and lift their hands against no man. However' – Corbett looked across the table at Father Augustine – the king is concerned. He does not wish to harass innocent people, but a similar group of Pastoureaux, at Shoreham in Sussex, organized an affray in which a royal official was killed.' He shrugged. 'Hence our arrival at Hunstanton.'
'I still think that those at the Hermitage are troublemakers,' Catchpole spoke up. 'Far too many strange things have happened in the area since they arrived.'
'Such as?' Ranulf asked in mock innocence, nudging Maltote, who had drunk so much wine he was beginning to fall asleep.
Catchpole was also drunk; his hard face was flushed and he beat his fist gently on the table top. 'Must I speak for everybody?' he asked. He thrust forward a raised hand, thumb up. 'We've had graves robbed, haven't we, Father Augustine?'
The priest nodded solemnly.
'What do you mean?' Corbett asked.
'Graves in our churchyard have been disturbed,' the priest said. 'Coffins buried for years have been dragged to the surface and hacked up, their contents strewn about like offal from a butcher's yard. God knows who does it! Perhaps witches, Lords of the Crossroads, Masters of the Black Sabbath or whatever they call themselves. Sir Simon and I have both organized watches, but the perpetrators have never been caught.' Father Augustine sighed deeply. 'I have warned my parishioners that, if we catch the blasphemers responsible, I will excommunicate them with bell, book and candle!'
'There've been other happenings as well,' Catchpole interrupted. 'I've seen ships coming close inshore at night, lanterns winking. Signals to someone, but God knows who.'
'Do you think the Pastoureaux are involved in that?' Selditch asked.
'In the autumn,' Catchpole continued, ignoring the question, 'when the evenings were fair, I went out on the headlands. I saw the ships, or rather their lights, but could see no answering signal from the land!'
'But the Pastoureaux never leave their enclosure at night,' Father Augustine asserted. 'These are smugglers.' He smiled apologetically at Gurney. 'No offence, Sir Simon, but the coast
is rife with them. Ships from Boston, Bishop's Lynn, Ipswich and Yarmouth. There's a thriving trade. Nonetheless Master Catchpole is right. Strange things do happen here,' – he looked slyly along the table at the prioress – 'such as the death of a member of your community, Dame Cecily.'
The prioress pursed her lips and looked down her nose, as if she did not wish to discuss the matter.
'One of your sisters?' Corbett enquired.
'Aye,' Monck added maliciously. 'It would appear that Dame Agnes, treasurer of the convent was accustomed to taking walks at night along the headland. Apparently she slipped and fell to her death on the rocks below.'
'And, of course,' Selditch interposed, 'there are the murders.' His flushed face and sparkling eyes showed how much he was relishing this litany of disasters. He might perhaps have said more, but at that moment the steward blew his silver horn and the servants brought to the table apples roasted in brown sugar, flavoured with cinnamon and covered with a thick, rich cream as well as plates of sweetmeats, comfits and marchpanes. As Gurney's other guests chattered amongst themselves Ranulf nudged his master. 'A pretty pottage,' he whispered. 'Who would think, Master, that such a collection of notables would have so much to hide?'
Dame Cecily was straining her ears to overhear them so Corbett simply shook his head in reply. But I am not surprised, he thought, staring across the table. Wherever there is wealth, power and the human heart you will find all sorts of crimes, misdemeanours, and sordid affairs. At the king's court high-born wives sold themselves for favours and high-ranking clerics hid in their love-nests a sweet girl or a fresh-faced boy with soft hands and plump buttocks.
At last the servants withdrew. Gurney tried to divert the conversation by asking Corbett about the progress of the war in Scotland, but Selditch, full of wine and mischief, steered the conversation back to the recent murders.
'The murder of the baker's wife,' he said challengingly, 'is a mystery that will tax even you, Sir Hugh.'
'I shall advise Sir Hugh about that and the other deaths in my own time,' Lavinius Monck warned quietly.
'Tush! Tush!' said Selditch. 'It's a macabre mystery. Here is the good wife, a pretty young thing – flaxen-haired and full-bosomed, with generous hips and a mouth like an angel's. She slips out of the house at dusk, leaving her husband behind, saddles their one and only horse and rides out along the headland. The next morning her corpse is found dangling from the old gallows.'
'Giles, stop it!' Alice commanded.
'No! No!' Selditch held up his hand. 'The mystery, Sir Hugh, is that, although the ground beneath the scaffold was wet and muddy, no hoof prints were found of a horse other than her own. And villagers saw the lady riding back to the village, though only the horse made its way all the way home to the baker's shop.'
'Is that correct?' Corbett asked.
'Yes, yes.' Monck snapped. The evidence seems to show that the baker's wife went out to the scaffold and hanged herself and then, somehow or other, rode her horse back to the edge of the village.'
'Then there's the death of your man,' the physician added slyly.
'Ah, yes, poor Cerdic' Monck gave a sour smile. 'He left here late in the afternoon. The next morning his decapitated corpse was found on the beach, his head impaled on a pole. Again there were no footprints or hoof marks and no signs of violence.'
'Enough!' Gurney rapped the table top and looked warningly down at Selditch. 'Hugh, you left the king at Swaffham?'
'Yes. He and the court were to move on to the Virgin's shrine at Walsingham.' 'And afterwards?'
'The king may stay in the area or he may travel on to Norwich or Lincoln.'
Catching the pleading look in Gurney's eyes, Corbett turned the conversation away from the murders and on to the gossip of the courts. But Selditch, however, was not so easily put off. Ranulf made the mistake of commenting on the physician's ink-stained fingers. Selditch held them up admiringly.
'Oh, yes,' he said. 'I am more of a scholar than a leech. I seek learning' – he preened himself – 'rather than gold.' He smiled coyly at Corbett. 'The king should be careful in these parts,' he said.
Monck sighed in exasperation.
'Why is that?' Corbett asked.
'Don't you know your history, Sir Hugh? The king's grandfather, John, crossed these lands with his army. He was fleeing from his barons with his treasure loaded on sumpter ponies. He attempted to take a short cut across the Wash near the river Nene, but the tide came in rapidly. The king and his lords escaped but the treasure was lost together with its guards and all the sumpter ponies.'
Corbett smiled. He could tell by the look on the faces of the others that Selditch's airing of his knowledge was a constant source of vexation.
The meal drew to an end. Dame Cecily apologized but said she had to return to the convent and Gurney offered servants to escort her. Father Augustine accepted an invitation to stay the night. Alice withdrew with the thanks and plaudits of her guests ringing in her ears. Gurney escorted Dame Cecily out. The rest pushed back their chairs, accepting the servants' offer to refill their cups. Corbett whispered to Ranulf that he should take the now sleeping Maltote up to their chamber. Once they'd gone, Monck grinned sourly at Corbett.
'A penny for your thoughts, Sir Hugh. Or shall I tell them for you, eh?'
Corbett glanced across the table at Father Augustine, then at Selditch, who sat in his chair cradling his cup like some fat, cheerful goblin.
'Tell me,' Corbett murmured.
'A pretty mess.' Monck replied.
'Why was your servant killed?' he asked directly.
'I don't know,' Monck replied. 'But I blame the Pastoureaux. Cerdic was not the most talkative of men but he was eager as a ferret in searching out gossip. One thing I have established is that he visited the good sisters at the convent. Dame Cecily says that it was only a courtesy call and that Cerdic left just before dusk. Where he went then, or how his decapitated corpse came to be on the beach, I simply don't know.'
'What happened to his horse?' Corbett asked.
'God knows! We never found it. But Father Augustine is right. This countryside is a nest of thieves, smugglers, horse-copers and tricksters. Perhaps we should recommend to the king that he send his justices in Eyre to turn over a few stones and squash whatever crawls out.'
'Is that really necessary?' Selditch snapped. 'Sir Simon is a loyal subject of the Crown. He maintains the king's peace on his lands, but he cannot be held responsible for every one of his tenants or, indeed, for the Pastoureaux.'
'He allowed them to settle here,' Monck jibed.
'And they have done no wrong,' Selditch replied flatly.
'The baker's wife?' Corbett tactfully intervened. 'What was her name?'
'Fourbour, Amelia Fourbour. The poor thing now lies buried in our churchyard, though whether she's allowed to rest in peace is another matter.'
'Did you view the corpse?' Corbett asked Selditch.
'Yes, I did. She died by hanging.'
'No mark of any other violence.'
'Such as?'
'Was she struck on the head? Were her hands pinioned?'
'No.' Selditch smiled sadly. 'She was brought to the death house and I examined her. Some of the villagers believed she committed suicide. They said a stake should be driven through her heart and she should be buried under the scaffold.'
'Harsh words for a poor woman,' Corbett observed.
'Amelia was not local born, she was pretty and she had her airs and graces. And tell me, Sir Hugh, have you ever met a popular baker?'
Corbett smiled and shrugged.
'Fourbour's no different,' Selditch continued. 'What he makes others have to buy. With a pretty wife too he was hardly the most popular man in Hunstanton.'
'Could it have been suicide?' Corbett asked.
'Perhaps. I viewed the woman's corpse from head to toe. I examined the back of her head but found no contusion. And I found no sign of any opiate or poison.'
'Nonetheless you think it was murde
r?'
'I don't know, of course,' Selditch said. 'But why should a pretty young woman hang herself? Father Augustine asked the same question of his parishioners and, thankfully, Amelia now lies buried in God's acre.'
'Yet,' Monck interrupted, 'no one else was at the scaffold. No marks of violence, no hoof prints of another horse or boot marks, were detected.'
Selditch stirred in his chair. 'That is true. But if it was suicide why should someone ride a horse back to the edge of the village, sitting sidesaddle as if it were poor Amelia?'
'You think it was the murderer who rode the horse back? ' Corbett asked.
'Yes, I do.'
The physician's eyes narrowed and Corbett realized that, despite his bluff manner Giles Selditch was a shrewd man, and one not easily swayed by popular opinion.
'Who saw the horse return?' Corbett asked.
'Two villagers. They recognized the baker's horse. The rider was sitting sidesaddle. Of course, it was dark and the villagers stood aside, lowering their eyes because, as I have said, neither the baker nor his wife was popular in the village.'
'Where was this?' Corbett asked.
'On the trackway just outside Hunstanton. But, before you ask,' Selditch continued, 'by the time the horse entered the village the mysterious rider had disappeared. That's why we think it's murder.' Selditch smiled at the priest. 'I thank you for your support, Father. If it had not been for you, those ignorant buggers would have desecrated the poor woman's corpse even further.'
'Don't be so harsh,' the priest said. 'Hunstanton is an isolated place and its people live in each other's pockets. What happens in one house is soon known in another. But they are a close and secretive people. I have been here, oh, almost two years, and I am still not fully accepted.'
'So, you are not from these parts, Father?'
'No, no, I am not. I was born and raised in Bishop's Lynn.' The priest smiled sourly. 'His Grace the Bishop of Norwich has sent me here for my sins. Now, I really must retire…'
Monck got to his feet. He stretched till his muscles cracked and yawned loudly. Father Augustine rose also. Corbett, heavy-eyed, bade both of them good night and went up to his own chamber. Ranulf and Maltote lay on their beds snoring blissfully. Corbett pulled a rug over each of them then went and stood by the window. He stared out into the misty, cold night.