Thirsty again, Will closed his eyes for a moment, the better to breathe in a good draught. A small explosion of sound made him open them abruptly. The solitary heron had sprung into the air with a clap of its huge wings and was now circling, its neck drawn in and its long legs trailing behind, before flying further downstream.
Its sudden flight had surprised someone else. It seemed that while Will had been standing in the river, another man had been lying absolutely still, face down, on the low bank at the water’s edge. He was now half raised, one sleeve rolled high above a bare arm, his face turned away from Will and up towards the sailing bird.
He was wearing a dark garment, but he was not a monk for he had no tonsure; probably a lay-brother. And Will had no doubt about what he was doing there. He himself had once lain equally still on that very bank in the company of some idling monks, every one thrusting a bare arm deep into the achingly cold water as they competed to be first to tickle a trout.
His memory was sharpened by a numbing ache in his leg. He had been in the river long enough. And besides, he wanted to speak to the trout-tickler, who might well have caught sight of the murder victim’s saddle-bags as he gazed into the water.
‘Ho there, brother!’ he called pleasantly, raising an arm in greeting as he waded towards the bank.
Startled, the man turned his head, stared for a moment, and then scrambled to his feet. Will recognised him at once, for all that he had not seen him since they were both boys. There could be no mistaking that great head, the face pale under a shock of dark hair, and the squat body allied to those long spidery limbs. Jankin Kett’s widowed mother Miriam had been nurse to the Ackland children, and he had been brought up with them at the castle.
‘Jankin!’ cried Will with pleasure as he reached a shallow and limped out on to dry land, with water showering from his shirt and hose. ‘Well met! You know me your old playfellow, Will Ackland.’
But Jankin was staring at him with something like dismay. He had been a simple boy, and Will could not tell whether he knew him or not, but he was clearly not disposed to linger. Turning away he began to run clumsily across the meadow towards the priory, dodging among the dairy cows, his feet hobbling in ill-fitting boots, his long arms flailing, his thin legs pumping awkwardly up and down under his coarse knee-length tunic.
Hampered by his own numbed leg and his sodden boots, Will could at first do no more than stumble after him. For the moment he had forgotten his purpose, and was intent on nothing more than renewing his acquaintance with Jankin. Miriam Kett had died when her son was twelve years old, and Will’s father had placed the boy in the care of the priory for the rest of his life.
‘Jankin!’ he cried again, his pace quickening with use as he followed him, to the disturbance of the cows. But Jankin would not stay. He ran across one of the causeways spanning the narrow channel that carried a flow of water past the domestic buildings, and disappeared among the racks of drying linen on the laundry green.
There was so much linen, from church, guests and monks, that the racks were crowded with surplices, rochets, sheets, table-cloths, napkins, shirts, drawers and towels. Jankin was flailing about among them, evidently in a state of great agitation. Having caught up with him Will bided his time, with an eye on the laundry yard beyond. There, two lay-brethren were scrubbing out the great stone washing troughs, closely supervised by a brawny, red-armed laundress from the town.
Knowing that the office of priory laundress had been fiercely guarded by generations of women of her family, Will was not surprised by her roar of anger when she caught sight of Jankin among her clean linen.
‘Out, hog!’ she bellowed at him, her face ruddier than her arms. ‘You have no business here. Out of my yard this instant – out, out, you whey-faced loon, or the sub-prior shall be told!’
And then she saw Will, and her humour changed instantly.
‘Ho-ho – who have we here?’ she said with a throaty chuckle, allowing Jankin to edge past her with nothing more than an absent back handed swipe and a cry of hog! to encourage him on his way. She looked Will up and down, so entertained by the condition of his clothes that she failed to recognise him.
‘How now – are you soaked to the skin?’ she enquired with a lecherous twinkle in her eye. ‘Come into the laundry house, my fine young man, and I’ll soon strip off those wet garments …’
Will laughed. ‘I fear the task would prove too much for you, Mistress Harbutt,’ he said, and with a quick side-step he passed her and followed Jankin, leaving the laundress to stare after him with dawning, discomfited recognition.
Behind the laundry house was a maze of cobbled alleyways that connected the various domestic buildings. Will paused. Of Jankin there was no sign, until he erupted fearfully from a doorway amid a volley of cabbages and onions, oinking noises and shouts of Out, hog, out!
He glanced back the way he had come, saw Will, and stumbled on down an alley at the back of one of the great buildings of the priory. The alley led out to the open, giving a glimpse of scythed grass and an oak tree beyond. No sooner had he set foot outside than he stopped abruptly, turned round in a flurry of elbows and knees, and ran back blindly into Will’s restraining arms.
‘Friend Jankin – I mean you no harm,’ said Will, trying to calm him. But the man’s eyes held a dumb animal’s fear. He resisted strongly at first, for his shoulders had far more power than his skinny limbs suggested. But then, as Will continued to reassure him, he stopped struggling and glanced back towards the end of the alley.
‘Leave me be!’ he begged, in a deep, hooting voice. His flat white face and tousled hair were damp with sweat, and his snub nose drooled like a child’s.
‘Come, you know me,’ said Will persuasively, though he still gripped his thin arms. ‘We were boys together. We used to tickle trout in the pool above the stepping stones – remember?’
Jankin took another anxious look over his shoulder. ‘Leave me be! Let me go, Master Will –’
‘I have one question for you,’ Will persisted, ‘and then you shall go. When you first saw me, I was searching the river for a pair of saddle-bags. Have you seen them – in or out of the water?’
‘No, Master Will, no! God’s blood, I’ve seen nothing.’
‘Think, Jankin! I need to know, for a foul murder has been done and my brother Gilbert may be falsely accused.’
But Jankin was beyond listening. Pleading, he began to struggle again.
Will would not let him go. ‘You remember Gib – and my father,’ he coaxed. ‘And Meg, who was always kind to you. We had some merry times when we were young together, and your mother, God rest her soul, was our nurse. We are your family …’
Jankin’s eyes were screwed tight, and tears began to roll down his moon-flat face. But he would only shake his head.
‘The priory is my mother,’ he hooted mournfully. ‘The sub-prior is my father.’ And with a sudden wrench he freed himself from Will’s grasp and fled blindly through the doorway from which he had been ejected. What impelled him was the rapid approach of a monk, tall and thinly forbidding in his all-black habit, who hissed with authority Back to your work, both of you! as he came gliding near.
Chapter Twelve
The monk’s cowl was over his head and Will could not see his face, but he wore at his breast a plain wooden cross suspended from a thong of leather. There were two members of the Castleacre chapter, men of learning, who had been ordained priest before taking their vows. One was Prior Nicholas, who was now growing old, and the other was sub-prior Arnold.
The sub-prior was responsible for discipline within the priory. Sternly obedient to the Cluniac rule himself, an ascetic where the prior was not, Arnold was held in awe by the servants from the town – and in fear, so it seemed, by the lay-brethren.
Glancing down at his own shirt and hose, not only sodden but stained and torn as well, Will could take no offence at being mistaken for the meanest servant. After all, he had made the same mistake with Sibbel Bostock. But he did
not intend to let it pass.
‘I am Will Ackland, Father Arnold,’ he said courteously, ‘younger brother to your tenant at the castle.’
‘Indeed?’
The sub-prior spoke in a dry, austere voice. He pushed back his hood sufficiently to give Will a direct glance. His dark eyes burned deep in his gaunt, high-cheekboned face, betokening long hours of prayer, little sleep, and much fasting. ‘Then your father was one of our many benefactors. We remember him daily in our prayers. But I must tell you, Master Will Ackland, that the rule against laymen entering the priory precincts holds good for gentlemen as well as others. What brings you here? And why were you detaining one of the lay-brethren?’
Anxious to avoid trouble for Jankin, Will repeated that he had been searching the river for a pair of saddle-bags washed downstream from the ford. He had trespassed on the priory precinct, he said, thinking that one of the servants might have caught sight of the bags in the water. ‘And then, seeing Jankin Kett, whose mother was my old nurse, I followed him and put the question. He tried to avoid me, and that was why I detained him – he was not at fault for speaking to me.’
The sub-prior, standing erect and still with his hands folded within the sleeves of his habit, gave him an uncomfortably piercing look. It would go hard, Will reflected, for any monk, lay-brother or servant who tried to conceal anything from him.
‘Do you suggest that these saddle-bags had been stolen?’
‘No, I do not,’ said Will, firm on Jankin’s behalf. ‘There was no question of theft. I believe the bags were thrown into the river, upstream from here, to hide the evidence of a crime. Had they been found within the priory precinct, it would be by chance. Nothing more.’
The sub-prior made a fractional inclination of his head, by way of acknowledgement. ‘Then this crime has naught to do with the priory?’
‘Not to my knowledge,’ said Will. Certainly the priory would be involved if its bailiff should prove to be the victim. But without that proof it was better to say as little as possible.
The sub-prior gave him another piercing look. ‘And Jankin Kett – had he seen the saddle-bags you seek?’
‘No, he had not.’
‘Then be assured that they are not within the priory precinct, Master Will Ackland, and trespass here no more. Follow me, and I will show you the way to the outer gate.’
The sub-prior drew his cowl over his face, turned and swept away down the alley. Will followed, still dripping river water but holding his head high. When they emerged from between the walls, he found that they were out in front of the fine range of buildings that formed the best of the priory’s guest houses, and the prior’s own imposing lodging.
The whole of this area, fronted by the expanse of shorn grass and the single oak tree, was walled to give the prior and his guests privacy. A stone gateway led to the wide space in front of the priory church, which towered over all the other buildings.
Outside the prior’s lodging, departing guests of high rank – a nobleman and his lady, by the richness of their garments and accoutrements, and the number of their attendants – had just mounted their horses and were taking their final leave. The sub-prior motioned to Will to wait, and they stood back with deference while the prior, uncowled and white-haired, raised his hand in a farewell blessing.
Will remembered Prior Nicholas as a large man with a commanding presence, proud but not haughty. Much of his time in earlier years had been spent in travel on affairs of the Order, and occasionally – because of his family connections – in the service of the Crown. But advancing age had confined him to Castleacre, where he delighted in entertaining guests. These were chiefly the high-born and wealthy, who could be expected to increase the priory’s endowments, but he also sought the company of anyone who could bring him news of church and state.
‘Ah, Father Arnold,’ he said, pausing as he made his way back to his lodgings on the arm of one of his household attendants. His black habit, in contrast with the sub-prior’s, was made of the finest cloth expertly tailored, and his priest’s cross was heavy with gold.
The prior’s greeting had been civil, but no more; the deep bow over folded hands that the sub-prior made in return was a formal acknowledgement of obedience. There was, it seemed, no amity between the two monks.
Since Will last saw the prior his long Plantagenet face had drooped into heavy jowls that were reddened with good living. His nose was still narrow as an eagle’s, but his eyesight was evidently poor. Glancing at Will, he failed either to recognise him or to notice his dishevelled appearance.
‘Is this a guest of your own, Father Arnold?’ he continued, the remembered boom of the lordly voice now somewhat muted. ‘A rare event, indeed.’
The sub-prior lifted his head to answer, tightening his thin lips. ‘This is Master Will Ackland, Father Prior,’ he said reluctantly.
‘Richard Ackland’s son?’ Interested at once, Prior Nicholas extended his ringed hand, and Will approached and made a reverence.
‘Good, very good! You are welcome here, Will Ackland,’ the prior announced, displeasing the sub-prior still further. ‘Your godfather told me, when last I saw him, that you were on your way home from your travels.’
As boys, Will’s father and godfather had learned their Latin at the priory in the company, among others, of Nicholas de la Pole. He had later been sent away to Eton College. But when eventually he returned to Castleacre as prior, he had renewed acquaintance with his early schoolfellows.
‘You were lately in Rome, so Lawrence Throssell told me!’ The prior sounded both envious and eager. ‘He shall bring you to dinner with me before you return to London, for I must hear all.’
Will thanked him, and he turned at once to the sub-prior. ‘And as you are acquainted with Master Will, Father Arnold,’ he said graciously, ‘you must join us.’
The sub-prior said nothing, but his bow conveyed stiff displeasure.
‘Oh, fear not, fear not,’ said Prior Nicholas, with what sounded like an outburst of pent-up irritation. ‘I shall not require you to eat. Mortify your own flesh if you will – but do not spoil my pleasure in offering my guests good food and wine, in return for congenial company.’
By the time Will had squelched through the town to the farrier’s, collected his horse and ridden it back to the castle, his clothes were beginning to dry on him. His doublet was still on his saddle, where he had left it while he searched the river. With his thoughts on nothing but the likelihood of his brother’s involvement with the murder, he rode through the gatehouse in stained and crumpled shirt and hose, and still-sodden boots.
He was taken by surprise to find that all was bustle and importance within the castle yard. As at the prior’s lodging, departing guests were being bidden farewell. Meg, with Alice beside her, stood outside the door as they mounted their horses to wish them Godspeed.
The castle guests, a man and a young woman, had none of the trappings of nobility. Even so, they were evidently persons of some consequence. They were dressed in riding clothes that befitted a rank higher than that of gentleman, they had fine horses, and they were accompanied by two grooms and a servant.
‘Master Will – Master Will!’ hissed old Jacob excitedly from where he stood within the gatehouse, treading from foot to foot in his anxiety to be of service, but with nothing to do. One of the grooms was bending to offer his linked hands to his master as a step up to the saddle, while the other held a horse at the mounting block so that his young mistress could settle herself side-saddle and arrange her gown.
‘’Tis Sir Ralph Corbyn!’ continued Jacob, taking Will’s reins in shaking hands as he dismounted. ‘He’s been here a good hour – thinking to see you, or so I hear. Master Ackland’s been away all day, no one knows where, and Mistress Meg is displeased by your absence …’
Will himself was displeased that he had missed an hour of his visitor’s company. Sir Ralph, a knight whose family had long held lands at Oxmead, to the south of Swaffham, was a member of Parliament for th
e county of Norfolk. He was an old friend of Lawrence Throssell, who had taken his godson with him to Oxmead on several occasions in the past.
Will strode to greet the knight as he eased himself into his saddle. ‘Your pardon for my absence, Sir Ralph,’ he said, inclining his head as a mark of respect. ‘Had I known you were here …’
‘Ha, Will! Well met,’ said Sir Ralph, dismissing the apology. ‘I am glad to see you back in England,’ he added, bending down to offer his hand. He was some ten years younger than Justice Throssell: a wiry man of medium build with a close-clipped greying beard, fierce springy eyebrows and a sharp pair of eyes.
‘I called on Lawrence Throssell on my way home from Lynn, and he told me you were here. You must give me the latest news from Westminster, Will, for Parliament has not sat these nine months. Come to dinner at Oxmead – tomorrow!’
‘Gladly, sir,’ said Will. But then a woman’s voice intervened, young but pleasantly low.
‘Not tomorrow, father, for we are bidden to dinner at Cressingham. The day after …?’
‘Ha, I had forgot Cressingham. What good fortune, to have a daughter to remind me!’ Sir Ralph turned in his saddle and beckoned her to ride forward. ‘You remember Julian, my youngest child? No doubt you’ll find her grown since last you saw her.’
Will recalled her as a plump, high-spirited girl – agreeable in appearance, at twelve years old, but no more – whom he had teased and chased in the Oxmead garden. But the slender young woman now nearing twenty, who sat her horse with an easy grace as she approached, had grown in beauty. He made to doff his cap, and discovered to his chagrin that he had lost it somewhere by or in the river. Bowing instead, he glanced down at himself and saw with dismay that his appearance was little better than a vagabond’s.
Julian Corbyn was dressed as became her creamy-pale skin, in a green velvet riding cloak. She wore a hooped head-dress, set well back from her forehead in the French fashion that Anne Boleyn had introduced to the Court, so that her hair was revealed at the front instead of being hidden in the English way under a close cap and a gabled hood. Her features were delicately formed, and her hair and eyes were the bright brown of sweet chestnuts newly emerged from their green husks.
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