The Bookseller's Tale (Oxford Medieval Mysteries Book 1)

by Ann Swinfen

  ‘Thirty is not old,’ I said, ‘but you work too hard. Perhaps we should get a girl to help you.’

  ‘We cannot afford a servant.’

  ‘A young girl would not cost much above her keep.’

  She shook her head. ‘I’ve no need for an untrained servant girl under my feet, as well as two children and a puppy, I thank you, Nicholas! Besides, Alysoun should be learning to housekeep soon.’

  I felt a stab of regret. ‘Not yet,’ I said. ‘Let her remain a child a little longer. And I intend to continue with her lessons.’

  ‘There is no need for a girl to be learned. I have learning enough myself to read and keep accounts, and that she may do already. There is no need for more. Why you think you should teach her Latin, I cannot imagine!’

  She threw up her hands in despair, and I laughed.

  ‘Elizabeth had some Latin. Alysoun may help me in the shop one day, as Elizabeth helped her father.’

  ‘That will be for Rafe to do.’

  ‘I hope that Rafe will attend the university. Already he makes good progress with his reading. In any case, we shall see. No need to decide yet.’

  I began to eat my supper.

  ‘At Master Stalbroke’s today I saw a very beautiful book of hours. You would have admired it.’ I grinned at her. ‘It was made by a woman.’

  ‘A woman!’

  ‘Aye, a nun at Godstow. A beautiful hand and remarkable illuminations.’

  ‘So that is what you have been doing all this while – admiring books written by women aping the occupations of men!’

  ‘Nay, that was merely in passing. My purpose in going there was both for business and to try to discover more about this strange murder of the boy William Farringdon.’

  I described to her just what I had done and heard on Bookbinders Island, and how Jordain and I had examined the key from William’s satchel.

  ‘This is a very unpleasant matter, Nicholas,’ she said when I had finished. ‘It may even be dangerous, if these men are the rogues Dafydd Hewlyn suspects them to be. I think you and Jordain should leave the matter alone. Let the constables and the coroner, or the sheriff – whoever it is who deals with such things – let them discover what has happened. It is not for you to interfere.’

  I was not quite sure why I felt so compelled to interfere, but I did my best to explain it to her.

  ‘It was I who found William’s body, Margaret, and Jordain was in a manner in loco parentis. I even employed William two summers ago, as you will remember. Moreover, we found those pages the boy had written, and I have identified the book he was copying, though how or why, I cannot say. Now it seems that the men who bought the parchment from Dafydd Hewlyn may well be the men seen with William. And he was afraid of them. Someone stabbed him to death. I cannot let it lie.’

  ‘I remember him, when he worked here,’ she conceded. ‘He was a good polite boy. He would not take his lunch at the tavern with Walter and Roger, but brought a bit of stale bread or an apple to eat at his desk.’

  ‘Aye, and you would bring him through to take his dinner with us.’

  ‘They do not feed them properly at Hart Hall. They always look half starved.’

  ‘They have no money.’

  I saw that she was softening, now that she recalled the boy.

  ‘Get you to bed, Meg.’ I stood up. ‘I am off myself. I will look in on the children as I go.’

  ‘Aye, they missed you. I shall just cover the fire, then I shall away to my bed.’

  As I climbed the stairs carrying a tallow candle, I realised how tired I was after my long walk and the heavy burden of parchment I had carried back with me. Lifting aside the curtain across the children’s door, I saw that Rafe had tried to climb into bed with Alysoun and the puppy again, but was now hanging over the edge of the bed, about to slide on to the floor.

  I set down my candle and picked him up. He muttered something and curled up in my arms like the puppy. I held him close for a moment. My son, who could so easily have followed his mother into the cold earth.

  His bed was a tangle, but I straightened it as best I could with one hand, then tucked him in, drew up the feather bed around his shoulders, and kissed the tangle of his curls. They needed cutting. My children were like unshorn sheep.

  As I picked up my candle I had a sudden sharp sense of that unknown woman, Mistress Farringdon, who must once have tucked her own young son into his bed and kissed him goodnight. And now her son lay in the cold and dark, alone in St Peter’s church. I would pursue his killer, whatever the cost.

  Chapter Five

  The following morning I was in the shop early, before my two scriveners arrived, for I wanted to set out enough work to keep them occupied all day. My intention was to collect Jordain from the Schools when he finished lecturing at eight o’the clock, and persuade him to come with me to Holywell Mill. I wanted to follow the Cherwell down to the East Bridge. There might be nothing there to throw any light on what had happened to William, but I could not rest until I had investigated every yard of the river bank.

  Roger had already made a start on preparing to create his book of tales, selecting enough sheets of matching parchment, preparing his quills and ink, and setting out a plan for the work on a scrap of waste paper. I smiled to myself. I was glad to see my suspicion that giving him the responsibility for the new book was already proving successful in encouraging him to take some pride in the work.

  For Walter, I had a novel suggestion, and when the two men arrived, I put it to him.

  ‘This is what I propose, Walter,’ I began. ‘I know that you have a great store of tales in your head. You have often amused Alysoun and Rafe with them, as well as Margaret and me. I do not know a better storyteller.’

  Walter looked embarrassed and shifted on his stool. ‘They are nobbut simple stories, Master Elyot. My mother – God rest her soul–’ he crossed himself, ‘she was a great one for telling us stories in the evenings, especially of a dark winter’s night, when we had no light but the fire and it was early dark outside, but too early to be abed. She had no book learning.’

  I nodded. Walter’s father had also been a scrivener, although crippled by a stiffening of his hands in his middle years. His mother had been a country woman, a farmer’s daughter, unlettered. Yet it is often amongst the unlettered that the old tales linger on, passed down from mother to child on such winter nights.

  ‘While Roger is preparing a book of stories about such famous folk as King Arthur and Robin o’Wood,’ I said, ‘I would like you to write down some of these tales your mother used to tell you. Not about great heroes, but other folk – Puck, Hob-by-the-Fire, the Green Man, the Lady of the Whispering Pool – all those stories you used to tell us in your turn.’

  There was no need for me to remind him how he had helped us through the dark days by drawing our minds away from the world that was dying around us. He had even lived with us for a time, having lost his own wife and child in the Death. The telling and hearing of the ancient stories had helped to keep us all from total despair.

  Walter was looking at me in alarm. ‘Write the stories, Master Elyot? I am no poet!’

  I laughed. ‘I am not asking you to write them in verse, Walter. Write them down just as you would tell them. That cannot be so hard, surely?’

  He shook his head. ‘I do not know. I should probably find myself in a proper tangle. I’d be blotting and crossing out. It would never make a book.’

  ‘Nay, I do not expect them to be perfect at once. Write them on paper first, and cross out as much as you need, but if you write them just as you would tell them, I think there will be little need for that. Then we can look at them together. When you are content, we will make a book of them. I would see your mother’s stories saved, and since we live in a world of books, that is the best way to preserve them.’

  He still looked very dubious, but he fetched a stack of the sort of paper we used for the peciae, and sat at his desk chewing the end of his quill.

 
‘I cannot think what to write!’ he said desperately.

  ‘Imagine that you have Rafe on your knee and Alysoun is sitting on her stool, listening to every word. You are going to tell them the story of Hob-by-the-Fire.’

  I tried to make it sound as though we were beside the kitchen fire in the evening, though it was difficult with the bright spring sunshine flooding in through the open window and the people of Oxford walking past in the street, but he closed his eyes, muttering to himself, then I heard the scratching of his quill as he began to write.

  With both Walter and Roger occupied, I thought I should step along the road to Edric Crowmer’s wine shop. It was time I reported to the constable some at least of the things Jordain and I had discovered about William, so that he could take word to the coroner. However, just as I opened the door to the street, the man himself appeared, hurrying along toward me with a self-important air.

  ‘You are to come at once, Master Elyot,’ he said. ‘The inquest is called for this morning and you are distrained to appear, as finder of the body. You are already to be reprimanded for not summoning a hue and cry.’

  ‘That is an ancient law,’ I said, stung by his superior air. ‘There is no point in summoning a hue and cry when a man is long dead and no sign of an attacker. You thought yourself that it was suicide.’

  ‘The victim has now been viewed by the coroners,’ he said pompously, ‘and it has been ascertained that he was stabbed.’

  So it would not be necessary for me to draw attention to the fact, I realised with some relief. I had begun to be worried because I had not reported it at once. I decided to keep silent on the matter, and would warn Jordain to do likewise.

  ‘Where is the inquest to be held?’ I asked.

  ‘The coroners have ordered the hall of St Edmund’s to be taken over. It will start when St Peter’s bell strikes eight o’the clock. As usual, the four neighbouring parishes are summoned – St Peter’s, St Mary the Virgin, All Saints, and, since he was found beyond the wall, St Frideswide’s.’

  Clearly Crowmer had been bustling about the other parishes, for he now wiped his sweaty face on his sleeve.

  ‘You must present yourself to the coroners at once. And I must find Master Brinkylsworth, since the victim was a member of his hall and under his care.’

  ‘He will be lecturing in the Schools until eight o’the clock,’ I said.

  ‘Then he must stop. I shall send a servant to fetch him out.’

  Crowmer bustled off. Jordain would not be pleased to have his lecture curtailed, I thought, but there was nothing I could do about it, so I turned left and headed down the High to St Edmund’s.

  As I shouldered my way into the hall, I saw a number of familiar faces amongst the crowd, including some of the gawpers who had watched us carry the body up from the river bank to the road. Men from all four parishes would have been summoned to make a judgement on the manner of William’s death – natural, mischance, suicide, or murder. As finder, I would need to declare the circumstances which had led to my discovery, and I hoped there would be no need for me to take any further part in the proceedings. In this avid crowd of townsmen, eager for anything sensational to be found against a member of the university, I felt uneasy for the boy, and for his family.

  Suddenly I was convinced that I should say nothing about the pages hidden under William’s mattress, or what I had learned from Dafydd Hewlyn. I looked around for Peter de Wallingford, thinking I should warn him to keep to himself for the present what he had told me about the men he had seen speaking to William, but there was no sign of him in the crowd. He was probably attending a lecture. Indeed the only member of St Edmunds’ I could see was the Principal, looking anxious and somewhat angry at this occupation of his domain by the town.

  People were still thrusting in behind me, and I saw Crowmer, with Jordain by the elbow looking flustered and annoyed. I began to work my way toward them. To my relief Crowmer, having captured his prey and delivered him to the inquest, was now conferring with more of the constables from the various parishes. I pulled Jordain into a corner and put my mouth close to his ear.

  ‘I do not like the look of this crowd,’ I murmured. ‘They are off after the rumour of a university scandal, like scent hounds after a stag. If we want to protect William’s name as much as is in our power, I think we should say nothing about what we have discovered. For the present, at least.’

  ‘Aye,’ he said, with some vehemence. ‘Curse them! Do you know, that fellow Crowmer sent one of the servants of the Schools, a ruffian, to drag me away from my lecture without so much as a by-your-leave? I shall be a laughing stock.’

  ‘Nay, I do not think so,’ I said, wanting to calm him. ‘Your students will understand, once they know the truth of it.’

  ‘But now my whole course of lectures is disrupted,’ he grumbled. ‘I shall need to repeat this one, so how am I to finish before the end of term?’

  This seemed to me to be of minor importance at the moment, but I merely gave a sympathetic smile.

  ‘I am supposed to report myself to the coroners, Crowmer said. I did not know there was more than one here.’

  Jordain pointed to the front of the hall, where two elderly men in long gowns were speaking to St Edmund’s Principal. ‘I have been making enquiries earlier this morning. It seems we have two coroners active in Oxford. Do you suppose we have more sudden deaths than other towns? And they conduct their inquests together. They are William de Whatele – he is the tall man – and Richard de Eynesham, and it seems they know their business, for they have been in office this dozen years, at least.’

  ‘In that case there is probably no need for any evidence we can provide. I’d best make myself known as the finder. It seems I am to be reprimanded for not raising the hue and cry.’

  ‘But there was no one about, so you said. Not until those two lay brothers appeared. How could you have raised a hue and cry?’

  I shrugged. ‘Pettifogging lawyers will have their say.’

  I presented myself to the two coroners with a bow, and explained that I was the finder of William Farringdon’s body.

  Richard de Eynesham, who was a small man, with shrewd eyes, said, ‘And why did you not raise the hue and cry, Master Elyot?’

  ‘There was not a soul about when I found the victim’s body floating down the Cherwell,’ I said. ‘My main concern was to pull it from the river before it was swept away. It was only as I was nearly at the bank that the two lay servants from St John’s Hospital appeared. Even then there was no one else to be seen. There was certainly no sign of any attacker who could be pursued. I sent at once for a constable and stayed with the body until I had it moved to safety. It was already growing dark.’

  He frowned and gave a snort, which might have been of disbelief, but William de Whatele was calling the company to order and the boy’s body was carried in. I supposed it must have remained in St Peter’s until brought to the inquest, for it was still covered with the old altar cloth, which was now removed so that the jurors, eight from each of the four parishes, could examine it and state what evidence they could detect.

  The coroners required me to recount in detail my finding of the body, and Jordain gave his opinion that William Farringdon was of good character and sound mind. In view of the clear evidence of stabbing, there was no longer any suggestion of suicide.

  A surgeon from the parish of St Mary’s gave his opinion that the victim had been struck by a thin-bladed knife some twelve inches long, and a blacksmith from All Saints declared that such a knife would have a value of one groat. This was recorded, so that, should the murderer ever be caught, he would be required to pay one groat to the Crown, which always had a financial interest in such cases.

  The whole proceedings of the inquest were hurried through, and the jurors, after a brief discussion, gave their verdict that the victim had been unlawfully killed with a knife by some person unknown. Deprived of any exciting revelations, the onlookers, who had been standing throughout and crowded
together with scarce room to move, began to drift away.

  Near me one old man with a tailor’s measure draped about his neck, turned to his neighbour in disgust. ‘In the old days, there would not have been this haste to dispose of such a case. Was it town or gown? The coroners seem not to care who killed the student or why. Since the pestilence it seems no killing matters any more.’

  ‘Aye,’ his friend grunted, then added shrewdly, ‘they’ll not want folk to think ’twas one of our town lads, or the students will be after blood.’

  ‘If ’twas one o’ their own, they will cover it up, that’s certain sure.’

  Still muttering about the university’s ability to hide the crimes of its members, they wandered out into the High Street, the brief excitement of their day over.

  Jordain was talking to the rector of St Peter’s, so I joined them.

  ‘The rector wonders whether he is to bury poor William in the churchyard. It will be some days before I can hear from his mother what she would wish us to do.’

  ‘And the weather–’ the rector ventured delicately.

  ‘Aye, it has grown warm these last few days,’ Jordain said. He was looking tired and distressed. ‘I suppose we must give William temporary burial at least. If you can have his body returned to the church for now, I will make arrangements for a coffin and for the funeral to take place tomorrow.’

  With this agreed, they parted, and Jordain and I made our way out into the street.

  ‘That was a shabby affair!’ he burst out, when we were barely beyond the hearing of the coroners, who had followed us out.

  I nodded. The whole business had seemed rushed and callous, as though William’s body were some valueless object and not the mortal remains of a talented young man. I felt gloomy and sick.

  ‘Before all this came up,’ I said, ‘I had planned to ask you whether you would come with me out to Holywell Mill. I want to examine the stretch of bank from there to the bridge.’

  ‘Aye, I should be glad to get away from the town for a while,’ he said. ‘May I leave my lecture notes at your house?’