The Girl in the Ice (A Stephen Attebrook mystery Book 4)

by Jason Vail

  “That’s what I said.”

  “Well, there is a problem with that.”

  “Oh?”

  “All beggar’s licenses for the market have been given out.”

  “Have they really?”

  “Yes. We carefully regulate the number we grant. Helps maintain public order, you know. The beggars don’t get in as many fights over the choice territory and the people aren’t bothered as much.”

  “Sensible. I am sure that you can help me, though.”

  Tarbent glanced again at the scribes. The one who had been beaten by now had climbed to his feet and resumed his place at a table, where he avoided eye contact with Tarbent.

  Tarbent barked, “Richard! Clarence! Go fetch some wood! Dry wood, understand!”

  “Right, sir,” both scribes said in unison as they went out.

  “If I grant this license,” Tarbent said when the door had closed and they were alone, “there will have to be an accommodation.”

  “Of course.”

  “I will require one quarter of the earnings. Paid promptly at the end of the day, before this fellow leaves the square.”

  “A quarter!” Stephen had been expecting to pay a bribe, although nothing as large as this. “That will leave me with practically nothing.”

  Tarbent smiled thinly. “I suspect it will leave your fellow with practically nothing.”

  “A tenth. Not a penny more. He always does well. People are always generous because of his injury. He will yield you plenty at that fraction.”

  “His personality offsets any sympathy he might receive due to his injury. A fifth. I shall go no lower.”

  “An eighth. You are taking advantage, sir.”

  Tarbent almost laughed because they both knew who was getting robbed and it wasn’t either of them. He said after a pause meant to indicate a desperate internal struggle, “I suppose that in this one case I can make do with an eighth — besides the fee, of course.”

  “You are a gentleman, sir.”

  Tarbent nodded, pleased at the courtesies Stephen had shown. He was from a gentry family, but a lesser son with few talents who had found no other place for himself but as town clerk of Ludlow. “You will have to straighten things out with the other license-holders by tomorrow. The bailiff will tolerate no disturbances among them.”

  “I will speak to them personally.”

  “Very good,” Tarbent said, as he gathered a blank piece of parchment and reached for a pen. “Oh, and there is a charge that must be paid immediately.”

  “You surprise me, sir. I thought we had concluded our business.”

  “Only just,” Tarbent said as he held out his hand.

  A chill wind whipped through Broad Gate, where Harry sat on the ground wrapped in a blanket. Whenever someone came through the gate, he pulled the blanket back to reveal his stumps and held out his cup with a miserable, suffering expression. How he was able to convey suffering with his face so covered by matted hair and beard was a mystery to Stephen. He must have managed to convince many a traveler, for he usually did all right at the gate, even with the regulars. Perhaps they enjoyed the show he put on.

  Other than for Harry, the gate was empty when Stephen arrived. Even Gip, the gate warden, could not be seen, as he was sheltering in the tower. He would not come out until a traveler arrived, depending on Harry to give the warning.

  “Ah,” Harry said as Stephen stooped beside him, “you wouldn’t by chance have brought me something to nibble on, have you? Edith wasn’t generous with breakfast this morning.”

  “Not exactly,” Stephen said. He held out a folded scrap of parchment.

  Harry’s hand snaked from under his blanket and accepted the scrap. He opened it and held it upside down. The ostentatious way he did this implied that he knew which way the letters ran, although he could not read. “Parchment’s hard on the digestion. What is this?”

  “A license to beg in the market,” Stephen said.

  “You’re going to beg at the market?”

  “No, you are.”

  “I am?” Harry squinted suspiciously. “What is this going to cost?”

  “An eighth to Tarbent after the fee.”

  “He always gets his cut, the robber. What’s yours?”

  “I want you to ask around about the robberies on the Shrewsbury road. Learn everything you can. I’m especially interested in anyone who has been robbed on the road within the last month or two and lived to tell the tale. If you find anyone like that, ask them to stop by the Shield.”

  “That’s it?” Harry asked, astonished.

  Stephen nodded.

  “Why can’t you do this yourself?”

  “I would rather not be connected with the inquiry, openly at least.”

  Harry grinned. “You don’t want FitzAllan finding out that you’re on his tail, eh?” He had heard the story about how Stephen and Gilbert suspected FitzAllan and had been arrested and gaoled by him as a consequence.

  “Something like that.”

  “He’s the vengeful sort, that’s true.”

  “And rather lacking in scruples.”

  “Same as all lords. Out for themselves alone, and the rights of the little people be damned.”

  “They’re not all that way.”

  “When you find a decent one, you let me know.” Harry drew the scrap under his blanket. “Give a man a little power and what does he do? Enriches himself at others’ expense. Look at Tarbent. He’d be a pauper if it wasn’t for the graft.”

  He rubbed his hands together. “You won’t mind if I make a few pennies in the effort?”

  Stephen shook his head. “I expect that.”

  “Oooo,” Harry cooed in anticipation of his profits. Being able to work High Street on a market day was the most coveted beggar’s license in town. His brow curled in sudden concern. “One-eyed Mary, Toothless Dick and the Walnut won’t be happy about this.” These were among the other beggars licensed to beg the weekly market.

  “I’ll take care of them,” Stephen said.

  Harry pulled his beard. “How long’s this thing good for? Just the day?”

  “Forever,” Stephen said, “if you live that long.”

  Chapter 7

  Harry paused at the threshold of the stable and gazed with distaste at the churned up slush in the Broken Shield’s yard: nasty, cold and damp, puddles everywhere with a sheen of ice upon them. Once the sun got properly up, all would melt and the yard would become a pond. The market, broad and open as it was, would only be worse.

  “You’re going to make me sit in this wet?” he asked.

  “I’m not making you do anything,” Stephen replied with some impatience. “I’m offering you an opportunity.”

  “My normal working conditions are better than this,” Harry complained. “It’s dry under the gate. Although,” he conceded, “it does get windy and cold this time of year.”

  “So what? Sacrifices must be made. Think of your profits, man.”

  “If my stumps get frost bitten, there’s nothing left to amputate.” He added with some slyness, remembering his trip to church on Christmas, “There is our little cart.”

  “You can make it go yourself now?” Stephen asked.

  “No, but you could help.”

  “I will not.” Hauling Harry to church on Christmas had been humiliating for a person in Stephen’s position. He had been able to justify it as charity on the holiday and as an early Boxing Day. But those times were long past now. He had sunk pretty far since the heady days in Spain when it looked like he might become a lord with a manor of his own, but he was damned if he was going to sink any lower than Sir Geoffrey’s hired helper. There was some dignity in that, but not much.

  “Then I guess I’m not going.”

  “Damn it, Harry!” Stephen fumed. Why was it so hard to make people do even the simplest things? Then he realized, Harry was trying to manipulate him. It was working pretty well, too.

  Stephen spotted one of the stable boys on his way
from the woodpile to the kitchen. “Mark!” he called. “How would you like to earn a farthing.”

  “Sir!” the boy called back. “Would I! Just a moment!”

  Mark rushed into the house and returned to them. “Who do I have to beat up?”

  “You couldn’t beat up a bale of straw,” Harry said.

  “Be polite, Harry,” Stephen said. “Mark’s going to be your helper. Mark, Harry needs to go to the market this morning, and he would like some assistance. Namely, he is borrowing the handcart and he needs someone to pull him up the hill.”

  “That’s it?” Mark asked with distaste.

  “And Harry will pay you the farthing,” Stephen said. “From his earnings.”

  “Damn you, sir!” Harry protested.

  “Thank you, Harry,” Stephen said, charitably bringing over the cart.

  Neither Stephen nor Mark made a move to help Harry onto the bed of the cart. Harry gazed up at it, as if he expected such assistance. But when it did not come, he pulled himself up with surprising ease. “All right, then,” he said. “I’ll need some straw. This bed’s rock hard.”

  “Fetch some straw, will you Mark?” Stephen asked.

  “A farthing, you said,” Mark said.

  “A whole farthing, payable at the end of the day. After you fetch him back.”

  Mark pursed his lips and disappeared into the stable, returning with an armload of straw which he dumped beside Harry. “You can make your own bed,” he said.

  “Thank you, Mark, my boy,” Harry said with exaggerated courtesy. “You are too kind.” When, of course, he had not meant to be kind at all. Like most people, Mark looked down on the deformed and crippled as lesser people.

  Stephen handed Harry his blanket. “Off you go now.”

  Despite his misgivings, Mark got between the traces and dragged the cart toward the gate, as Harry waved his good-bye to Stephen. “And careful not to stick yourself with that thing!” he called out, meaning the arrow thrust into Stephen’s belt. Then he also waved to Edith, who regarded him from the side doorway with some suspicion since the cart belonged to the inn and no one had asked permission to take it.

  “It’s just for the day!” Stephen called to Edith as he entered the stable to saddle one of his horses.

  “Carts cost money!” she shouted at his back. “Make sure it returns in one piece and unfouled.”

  “Harry!” Stephen said when he passed the cart just before it reached Broad Street. “Edith says you may not piss in the cart.”

  “Well, damn,” Harry said. “That’s really going to ruin my day. There’s nothing like a piss in an old cart to make a man feel better.”

  Ludlow had four main gates and three smaller ones. Only locals who were absolved of the toll were allowed to use the smaller ones, which opened onto lanes outside of town where the town’s suburbs lay. Everyone else had to use the main gates. Since the girl in the ice was not a local, she had to have come in one of the main gates. It couldn’t have been the one at Broad Street, for Harry’s usual spot was within the Broad Gate tower. He was a sharp observer and he would have remembered a girl as striking as she had been. So that left the Dinham, Corve and Galdeford Gates.

  Stephen climbed Broad Street, wishing for better weather: warmer or colder, it didn’t matter. But this in between, with slush and ice everywhere was torture. Because of the muck and the danger the mare might fall, he led the horse up the hill on foot. His boots were immediately soaked through and his remaining toes had begun to complain before he even reached the top of the hill despite the fact he had stayed at the edges of the road and out of the stream that had already begun to flow down its middle. The only people in view were a half dozen small boys who had launched twigs and blocks of wood into the stream and were chasing them down hill, followed by three barking dogs.

  “Careful you don’t fall in!” Stephen called to the boys. “You could be swept to your death!” The tendency of Broad Street to develop a torrent down its middle during winter melts and storms was a subject of jokes that were very old and often repeated, although most people never got tired of them.

  “Not bloody likely!” one of the boys shouted back.

  At the corner he had a view all the way along High Street to the castle. Normally this early on a market day, there was a good mob of vendors in the middle of the street. But today there might have been only a dozen or so, most of them standing about clutching their arms against the chill in puddles of water, looking miserable. They seemed to be local people with surplus grain hoping to sell to folk from the countryside whose stocks had been destroyed or carried off. There were in fact more sellers than buyers picking among the offerings and the air was oddly quiet, without the usual calls from sellers about the extraordinary value of their wares. It was altogether a very sad spectacle. But then there was really little to be happy about in any winter, and with the Welsh having despoiled a good bit of the country about the town, there was even less. And there was still February and March to look forward to, when food really got scarce.

  Stephen did not linger here, but continued eastward past Draper’s Row where a certain draper’s establishment lay empty and as yet without a tenant as a result of the owner’s untimely death last fall to the crossroads where High, Old Street, and Galdeford Road came together. This was the Beast Market on another day, but there were no beasts in sight. Nor, apparently was anyone interested in commerce. The windows of the cooks, bakers, tailors, and smiths whose shops occupied this place were down and the shops open, but there were no customers in sight.

  Stephen felt so sorry for one baker, who sat alone at his window with his head in his hands, that he bought a bun he could not afford, as he had a weakness for honeyed sweet buns. On impulse, he showed the girl’s picture to the baker. The fellow marveled at the picture, and at how accurate a likeness it was, but he denied having seen the girl before she had been displayed in the church.

  “I’ll tell you,” the baker said as Stephen returned the picture to his pouch, “I’d sure remember a girl like that.”

  “You’d think so,” Stephen said. “But nobody seems to.”

  “It’s as if she just popped out of the ground — or out of the sky,” the baker corrected himself, as the reference to the ground suggested she had come from an unsavory place.

  “Yes, but girls can’t fly.”

  “Well, she’s a saint, after all.”

  “I think that has yet to be determined.”

  “I wish they’d hurry up.”

  “The Pope has something to do with that. I hear he takes his time about it. Centuries, even.”

  “That isn’t going to help the town. Anyway, the girl doesn’t need the Pope’s permission to work her miracles.”

  “If only she really could,” Stephen said, turning away and finishing his sweet bun, wishing he had a whole tray of them. “I need one now.”

  As he trudged up toward the Galdeford Gate contemplating the possibility of miracles, he reflected that he had in fact given himself an impossible task — no, two impossible tasks. It was bad enough that he felt compelled to give the girl a name, but it was far worse that he had taken someone’s money for a job that he never would be able to fulfill. It was dishonest. There was no getting around that. I am as bad as those killers on the road, he admitted bitterly, hating himself for his weakness.

  None of the wardens at Galdeford Gate had seen anyone resembling the girl in the drawing, so Stephen continued to Corve Gate. It was the oldest in town, distinguished by its square towers rather than the rounded ones found at the other gates. The gates stood open and the two wardens on duty were warming themselves by a fire set in a metal grate that rose above the sodden ground just inside the gate. They shared a bench while the beggar licensed for this spot, Clemmie Paddlefoot, squatted on a stone with one of her children.

  Stephen showed the drawing of the girl in the ice to the two wardens, who shook their heads that they had not seen her except in the church.

  “What abo
ut the boys upstairs?” Stephen gestured toward the towers looming overhead. Most of the wardens were bachelors who were given beds in the towers as partial payment for their service.

  “They’da said something,” said one of the wardens whose name was Tim.

  Clemmie snorted. “The boys wouldn’t notice if she had run up and kissed ‘em. Let me see that thing.”

  “Would have,” Tim the warden said.

  “Bullshit.”

  “Watch your tongue.”

  Clemmie stuck out her tongue. “You watch it. I know you just want to suck on it.”

  “I wouldn’t mind if you’d take a bath once in a while.”

  She cackled. “This from the man who likes to take sheep to bed!”

  “Well,” the warden said, laughing, “sheep are more fun than you anyway.”

  Clemmie winked at Stephen. “Look what I’ve got to put up with.”

  “You poor dear,” Stephen said, handing over the drawning.

  Clemmie studied the drawing. She handed the sheet of paper to Stephen, and only then did he notice for the first time that her middle finger was missing. “I seen her,” Clemmie said.

  “Have not!” It was Tim’s turn to snort.

  “Have so!”

  “Why’d you never say nothing?”

  “You wouldn’t have believed it.”

  “I don’t believe it now.”

  Clemmie looked slyly at Stephen as if she was considering demanding a contribution. Stephen waited with crossed arms. Evidently concluding that there was no reward, nonetheless, she said, “It weren’t here. I seen her down by the Trumpet. Just a glimpse, mind you. But I think it was her.”

  “Not bloody likely,” Tim said.

  “It could’ve been.”

  “What were you doing down there anyway?” Tim wanted to know. The Trumpet was a modest inn in Dinham Lane, which was on the other side of town just below the castle.

  “None of yer damned business,” Clemmie said.

  “When was this?” Stephen asked, returning the drawing to his pouch.

  “A month ago, maybe.”