The Pardoner's Crime

by Keith Moray

  ‘He does, does he?’ Hubert mused.

  ‘Aye. But I reckon we might see pigs fly over this wall afore that happens.’

  Richard had retired to his room in the North Tower after supper to rest and to get his thoughts in order. The murder of William Scathelocke bothered him. It all seemed so messy. And Richard did not like mess.

  He lay on his bed staring at the ring of light cast on the ceiling by his guttering candle.

  ‘But damn me, I do like the look of that apothecary’s wife,’ he whispered to himself. Then he immediately felt guilty. Not so much because thoughts of cuckolding the apothecary had gone through his mind, but because he was not yet over the loss of his own wife and child. He pummelled his temples to force the thought of Emma Oldthorpe from his head.

  As he did so, he fancied that he heard a footstep in the corridor outside his door. ‘Hubert? Is that you?’

  There was no answer at first. Then he heard a feminine voice calling his name softly through the door.

  He rose and threw it open. Despite himself, he gasped at the sight of a cloaked and hooded figure standing in the shadows. His hand went to the dagger at his side, but he refrained from drawing it when the figure reached up and threw back the hood.

  Lady Wilhelmina was standing there, a voluptuous smile upon her lips.

  As a trained soldier, Hubert had woken at the sound of the drawbridge being lowered and the portcullis being raised. A couple of candles illuminated the guardroom where he had been given a pallet bed, and by the darkness of the hour, the deep snores of the off-duty guards and the size of the candle stumps he gauged that it was at least two hours before cockcrow. The cadence of horses crossing the drawbridge brought back the image of Adam’s face as he told him of Sir Thomas’s plan to capture the Hood. He grinned, then turned over and within seconds had fallen fast asleep again.

  When cockcrow did come, he was instantly awake and immediately alert. And extremely hungry. After using the communal garderobe and making his ablutions in the trough at the back of the guardroom, he followed his nose over the inner moat from the barbican to the bailey, heading in the direction of the bakehouse. Already the castle was coming to life as the grooms swept out the stables and fed the animals in the undercroft and the domestic servants bustled about emptying chamber pots, sweeping flagstone floors and replenishing rushes on the floors of the various buildings. The inevitable guards kept up a watch on the battlement walls and the air hung with the smell of woodsmoke, baking bread and cooking meat.

  As he approached the bakehouse, where he could hear the merry voice of Gideon Kitchen issuing orders amid peals of laughter, the melodic sound of a lute caught his attention. As he passed the stairs that led up to the oriel gallery and the Great Hall, he saw the lute-player sitting cross-legged atop a barrel, seemingly blissfully unaware of all that went on around him. He was a young man in his early twenties, clean shaven and smartly clad in red tunic and hose. When Hubert stopped to listen to him, he looked up and abruptly strummed his instrument then stopped the strings’ vibration with the flat of his hand.

  ‘You play well, young Master —’

  ‘Alan-a-Dale,’ replied the youngster with a smile of delight. He made a circular roll of his hand and inclined his head in a little bow. ‘Might I play you a song?’

  Hubert grinned as he shook his head. ‘I would love to hear more, but I fear that the rumbling of my stomach might drown out any music you play. Later, perhaps.’

  ‘Of course, sir. I have had the honour of playing before your master, Sir Richard.’ He played a few notes, and then strummed again. ‘A clever, clever knight,’ he sang. Then his fingers moved nimbly and he played a few more notes. ‘And he will do well.’ He played another few notes. ‘To show that he can do right.’

  Hubert was already striding off towards the bakehouse, but as the minstrel played another few notes, strummed loudly then stopped, he wondered whether Alan-a-Dale was being deliberately impertinent. If he was, he would box his ears. He wheeled round to demand what he meant.

  But Alan-a-Dale had gone.

  ‘Where on earth —?’ he began.

  ‘Where is what, Hubert?’ Richard asked, as he walked across towards him.

  Hubert told him of the minstrel’s little ditty. ‘Should I go and find the fool, sir?’

  But Richard shook his head and pointed towards the bakehouse. ‘It is no more than one can expect from a minstrel,’ he said. ‘Now come, we shall see what Gideon Kitchen can offer us to break our fast.’ Hubert fell into step beside Richard. He said nothing, but he wondered why his master had suddenly coloured.

  Gideon was true to his word, in that he fed them a sumptuous breakfast of gruel, newly caught fried trout, and hunks of bread, all washed down with mugs of ale. And as they ate, he regaled them with many a jest.

  ‘I think that you have a jibe for every occasion, Gideon Kitchen,’ said Richard.

  ‘I have to, Sir Richard. A happy eater is a contented eater, and a contented eater is another rung on my ladder to heaven.’

  ‘Well, no one will ever die from eating at your table, Master Kitchen,’ said Hubert with a laugh.

  The cook eyed him with a hint of suspicion for a moment, then burst out laughing again. ‘Nay, not unless he wants to get plucked, roasted and served up with the capons and boars at my lord’s table.’

  Hubert wondered if he had inadvertently touched a raw spot with the cook, and remembered that Adam Crigg had told him how upset Gideon had been when the castle blacksmith had died. He made a mental note to tell his master about it later.

  As it was, it was put out of his mind, for, as they left the bakehouse they saw Sir Thomas Deyville come striding across the bailey courtyard from his chambers beside the gatehouse. His face bore an expression of grim determination, and in his hand he swung the wooden flail of which he was so fond.

  ‘Sir Richard!’ he barked. ‘I need a word with you!’

  Hubert said softly under his breath, ‘He seems an angry bull this morning. Has something upset him, do you think, Sir Richard?’

  Richard also replied under his breath, ‘It looks like it. I think that it might be sensible if I meet with him on my own, good Hubert. Why don’t you go and look to our horses in the stables?’

  Hubert bowed and withdrew, although there was something about his master’s manner that had stirred his curiosity and he would rather have hovered about nearby.

  ‘I am at your service, Sir Thomas,’ Richard said, with a bow. Despite his apparent calm, he was inwardly dreading this meeting with the Deputy Steward.

  But to his surprise, when Sir Thomas reached him, his bearded face broke into a grin. ‘I think that it will be me who is doing you a service this day, Sir Richard. I am expecting before long to have apprehended that wolfshead, Robert Hood and his snivelling band of fellow outlaws. I had my men leave in the hours before cockcrow, to set a trap.’

  They had started walking towards his private quarters when one of the sentries on the battlements called out, and a series of yells culminated in the bell in the gatehouse block being rung.

  ‘A rider approaches, Sir Thomas!’ the gatekeeper called.

  Sir Thomas momentarily grinned triumphantly at Richard, and then he turned as the gatekeeper appeared from his post. ‘Well let him in, man! Let him in!’

  A few moments later, the drawbridge was lowered and the portcullis clanked upwards. A rider galloped across the wooden bridge, entered the castle and reined to a halt in front of the two knights.

  It was Ned Burkin, the Warrengate Constable. He looked to be a worried man.

  ‘Your pardon, Sir Richard and Sir Thomas. I … I … bring news.’

  ‘Out with it then!’ barked Sir Thomas.

  Ned Burkin dismounted and swallowed several times, as if he was having difficulty getting his tongue to articulate words. He directed his reply to Richard.

  ‘It is the Pardoner, sir. He was murdered last night. By a hidden archer.’

  Both Sir Thomas and Ri
chard were taken aback at the news. As the Deputy Steward opened his mouth to bark a command, Richard put a restraining hand on his arm.

  ‘I think it would be best if we were to listen to the constable’s tale in the privacy of your chamber.’

  And so, a few minutes later, in the office of Sir Thomas’s chambers Ned Burkin recounted the death of Albin of Rouncivale.

  ‘So we did not dare return to Wakefield last night,’ he explained. ‘The killer could have picked us all off at his leisure. We went on and stayed the night at Kirklees Priory as had already been arranged. This morning at first light I travelled here.’

  Sir Thomas had been prowling the room like a caged animal. He stopped and abruptly thumped the table with a fist, scattering maps, bells and an empty mug. ‘That wolfshead Hood! My men should have snared him by now. By thunder we shall have him hanged by sundown!’

  Richard eyed him dispassionately. ‘If he committed a murder, and if it can be proven, then he will certainly be sentenced to death — but definitely not by sundown today. The law will move appropriately and not with undue haste.’

  The Deputy Steward grunted, picked up one of his handbells and vigorously shook it. It was answered almost instantly by the serving boy Richard had seen when he arrived at the castle, who came in bearing a jug of ale.

  ‘Where is the body?’ Richard asked.

  ‘Still at the priory, Sir Richard,’ Ned Burkin replied nervously. ‘I thought it best to obtain your instructions before I moved it to Wakefield.’

  ‘Good thinking, Constable,’ Richard replied. ‘And are the prioress and the nun’s priest still there?’

  ‘They are awaiting your visit, Sir Richard.’

  ‘Excellent. Then my man Hubert and I shall ride back with you straight away.’ He turned to Sir Thomas. ‘Will you come too, to see the body?’

  Sir Thomas gulped a mouthful of ale and shook his head. ‘I have no need to see the wretch. Besides, I have a live fish to catch. I will wait to see my men bring in the outlaw and his rabble.’

  Ten minutes later, Richard and Hubert were preparing to follow Constable Burkin across the drawbridge on their way to Kirklees, some ten miles west of the castle. But before they had actually mounted their horses the gatehouse bell rang out again, followed by a yell from the sentry on the battlements above.

  ‘The men are back, Sir Thomas,’ he hailed. ‘But they … they…’

  ‘They what?’ bellowed Sir Thomas.

  In answer, a motley line of men on foot appeared as they crossed the drawbridge. They were not only horseless, but weaponless and devoid of their chainmail and their helmets.

  ‘What in the name of hell?’ Sir Thomas cried, his face suffused with fury. ‘Where? How? What? Explain yourselves!’

  ‘We … we were ambushed my lord. There must have been a hundred or more of them,’ the sergeant muttered, hanging his head in shame and quaking with fear, as he saw the Deputy Steward’s knuckles whiten on the wood flail in his hands. ‘They took — everything. They said it was all part of their toll.’

  ‘Toll?’ Sir Thomas spluttered, his face almost apoplectic.

  ‘Their toll for using their forest, sir.’

  While Sir Thomas cursed and shook with rage, Richard mounted and signalled for Constable Burkin and Hubert to do likewise.

  ‘I shall leave you to this, Sir Thomas,’ he said. ‘We shall go to investigate this murder.’

  Lady Alecia and Lady Wilhelmina came out of the Deputy Steward’s chambers as they were passing. Richard touched his forehead as he passed.

  Hubert did not fail to notice the sparkle in Lady Wilhelmina’s eyes and the instantaneous colour that appeared on her cheeks as they passed.

  The journey to Kirklees Priory was uneventful, and they did not meet anyone on the road except for a couple of drovers and a meagre herd of cattle, and a group of what seemed to be professional beggars. They were able to travel quickly on their fresh mounts, yet warily in case of outlaws.

  Eventually they came to a small valley. It was a fair sized Priory of the Benedictine order, consisting of the usual buildings: a chapterhouse, church and bell tower, dormitory, hospital and cloisters. They were met at the gatehouse by a young novice, who immediately arranged for an ostler to take their horses while she scuttled ahead to take them to Lady Katherine’s office, where she and Father Daniel were waiting.

  ‘This is an evil business, Sir Richard,’ the prioress said, wringing her hands, from which her rosary dangled. ‘Can I offer you refreshments after your journey?’

  Richard declined for all three of them. ‘Murder is always evil, Lady Katherine. Pray let me see the body in the first instance, then we shall talk.’

  Without further ado, Father Daniel led the way out along the cloister towards the far end of the quadrangle where the hospital block was sited. He opened the door of an outhouse and stood aside for Richard to enter.

  The body of Albin of Rouncivale had been laid on the floor and covered with a blanket. Richard knelt and gingerly lifted the blanket to reveal the corpse, lying on its side with a bloodstained arrow through the throat.

  ‘We left the arrow in him,’ Constable Burkin explained, as he took the blanket from Richard. ‘I thought you might want to see how he had been killed.’

  Richard nodded approval. Ned Burkin had seemed to him a hard-drinking sot, yet he felt that he showed potential. He returned his attention to the body.

  Hubert leaned closer and scrutinized the dead man’s purple-mottled face. ‘He almost seems to be smiling,’ he observed drily.

  ‘But the poor fellow hardly had anything to be happy about, did he?’ Father Daniel queried.

  ‘The sardonic smile of death is common enough,’ Richard commented. ‘The muscles go rigid after death and pull the mouth into this leering grin.’

  ‘You don’t think that he could have been smiling at the moment of death, do you, Sir Richard?’ Hubert asked. ‘Could he have recognized his killer?’

  Richard shook his head and straightened up. He turned to Father Daniel.

  ‘Why did you just say that he had nothing to be happy about?’

  The nun’s priest shuffled uncomfortably from one foot to the other. ‘I … I merely meant that he was in a quandary. He was accused of rape and on his way to an ecclesiastical court. And now look at him. Murdered like that.’

  ‘The constable here says that he claimed that he was innocent just moments before he was shot. He said that he called out to you and that he was explaining what the Pardoner had told him when it happened. Is that correct?’

  ‘Just so. But I never heard him, for the killer struck at that moment.’

  Hubert clicked his tongue. ‘But surely it is not unexpected that he would claim to be innocent before the trial?’

  ‘Except that he had already confessed to the crime when he surrendered himself to Constable Burkin,’ Richard replied.

  Constable Burkin held the blanket out, as if ready to re-cover the body. ‘Have you seen enough, Sir Richard?’

  Richard shook his head. ‘I need to see the body unclothed.’ He turned his head to Hubert, who bent down to help.

  ‘Wait!’ Richard said, as Hubert started to tug at the Pardoner’s tunic. ‘We shall cut the clothes off.’ And, drawing a double-edged hunting knife, he inserted the blade under the neck of the garment and, while Hubert exerted traction, he cut all the way down. Then they peeled the clothing aside. Once the body was unclad, he ran his hands over the stone cold torso with its corrugated rib cage and over the limbs, testing for muscle rigidity and for any other abnormal signs.

  ‘He looks a pitiful sight,’ Father Daniel said. ‘Not too well fed. And there is a vulnerable look about him. Something almost virginal, I think.’

  Richard chewed his lip pensively. ‘Indeed, I think that you are right, Father Daniel.’ He ran his fingers over the dead man’s face and jowls. ‘No beard at all. I fancy that he has never shaved in his life, although he must be in his thirties.’

  ‘And no h
air on his body, except for that lank yellow stuff that hangs down over his shoulders like a girl’s,’ said Hubert.

  Richard still had his knife in his hand. He pointed the tip at the Pardoner’s small exposed penis. ‘And this is like a young boy’s member.’ He slipped the blade under the penis and lifted it up so that he could feel the shrivelled scrotum. ‘And there are no balls in his sac.’

  ‘So what?’ Hubert asked.

  Richard stood up and sheathed his knife, before wiping his hands on his breeches. ‘It makes it highly likely that he was telling the truth about one thing.’

  ‘I am afraid that I do not follow you, Sir Richard,’ said the nun’s priest.

  ‘It is simple enough,’ Richard replied. ‘This man is like a gelded horse, or like a mare. It is unlikely that he would have been able to rape a woman. Or that he would even have the desire to.’

  Hubert snapped his fingers. ‘Of course!’ Then he frowned. ‘But why did he confess to the crime?’ He shook his head. ‘And so the poor sod was murdered because the killer thought he was guilty.’

  Richard frowned. ‘If I had not given him the benefit of clergy, then he would still be alive.’

  The others could see by Richard’s expression that he was troubled by this, as if he felt in some way responsible. But then he exhaled deeply and turned his attention again to the body.

  ‘Which brings us to this arrow. Unless I am much mistaken, it is the twin of the one that killed William Scathelocke.’

  The bells tolled, calling the nuns to Sext, the fourth of the six services of the day. While Lady Katherine and Father Daniel went to take the service, Richard and Hubert sat and ate bread and cheese and drank some of the watered-down ale that Lady Katherine permitted the fourteen nuns under her care to consume. Constable Ned Burkin and his two assistants had already started back with the Pardoner’s body in a cart, with a message for the bailiff John of Flanshaw to alert the townsfolk about a special session of the court that Richard intended to hold on the following morning. He impressed upon them that they were to tell only the bailiff about the murder of the Pardoner and that he was not to give anyone the reason for the court session. Further, they were to take the body directly to the Tolbooth and keep it concealed as they did so.