The Golden Crucifix: A Matthew Cordwainer Medieval Mystery (Matthew Cordwainer Medieval Mysteries Book 1)

by Joyce Lionarons

  Life in Layerthorpe, the arguments with her father – it all seemed a lifetime ago, not two short years. Molly had humiliated the family, her brother had said again and again, the anger rising in his face; and now in York she had humiliated him in the eyes of his Master and the other journeymen. As if he thought his life were harder than hers! But despite her best efforts, and aye, the help her brother had grudgingly given her, the debt kept growing. Agnes took most of the coins Molly earned as her own, and then charged exorbitant rates for her food and rent. Molly wished she had done as her father demanded and married Aelfric, but there was no going back, not now. And she could not allow herself to believe in her brother’s plans, to hope again.

  Molly sighed and stared down at the reeking mess in the pot, then looked longingly at the narrow bed with its straw mattress and threadbare woolen blankets. This late, the dark streets would be covered in ice, and the night guard looking for folk out after curfew. Take it out now, she commanded herself. Twill stink worse come morning and with all the ale she’d drunk would likely overflow. She pulled her cloak from its peg and wrapped it around her shoulders, shoving her feet into her shoes but not bothering to lace them. She grasped the rushlight and held it carefully between two fingers as she picked up the brimming pot and gingerly negotiated the steep ladder down to the ground floor and out the door into the street.

  The night air smelled like snow, stinging her cheeks and making her breath come out in clouds of smoky vapor. A baby cried in a nearby house, and she could hear heavy snoring from across the street. The sounds echoed from the jetties, which blocked the sky and made the street a tunnel with but a thin strip of grey cloud above. Molly tried to make her footsteps silent. If she were caught fouling the public street, she’d be fined, even here in the Shambles where the ground stank of blood and offal and the water in the gutter ran red more often than not. She picked her way slowly across the frozen mud in the darkness, her eyes fixed on the dim circle of light the burning rush cast in front of her, intent on dumping the mess away from her own window. Two doors down, she knew, Jarvis Tanner had taken his family to his father’s farm in the countryside for the holiday. They couldn’t fine him.

  Molly bent to pour the contents of the pot onto the muck frozen in the gutter, taking care not to splash herself. With any luck twould be warmer tomorrow and twould all wash away in the meltwater. As she shook the last drops out and stood, one of the shadows in front of her moved and grew, looming over her. Suppressing a cry, she jerked herself backward, sliding on the ice and dropping the rushlight, which flared and sizzled out. A whining voice came from the darkness, drawing out the words: “Stinky, filthy, Molly.” Dear Mother Mary, she thought, tis just Osbert, poor soul. Her heart was pounding and she took a breath to calm herself.

  “You frightened me, Osbert,” she said, “Now I’ve dropped the light.”

  “Stinky, filthy!”

  “Hush, Osbert, you’ll wake the street,” she replied. “Go sleep farther down. Go on, move down the street.”

  As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she could make out a hunched figure wrapped in layers of rags shuffling slowly past her along the house front. A low muttering reached her ears, but she could no longer understand the words. He stinks worse than the pisspot, she thought; tis a wonder he can smell anything else. She watched him fade into the darker shadows. Tis better to be a whore than to sleep in the streets, she told herself. Twas a miracle Osbert did not freeze or starve.

  The encounter had jangled her nerves, and as Molly made her slow way back to the house in the darkness, she found herself peering into every shadow. An echo of footsteps sounded behind her. She twirled around and stopped, listening. The baby had quieted, but the snoring persisted, a slow rhythm in the night. A rat skittered past next to the wall; she flinched and stepped further into the street. Her mind conjured dark figures from piles of rubbish and someone’s firewood. Now you’ve let yourself be frightened of nothing, she thought, just because Osbert startled you. Tis your own steps you’re hearing, echoing back from the roofs above. Tis time to be in bed, aye, past time. Turning back towards her door, she took a few steps forward and stopped again, certain she heard someone following. A sharp, hissing indrawn breath sounded just behind her. She tried to turn as a strap went around her neck, pulled tight. The tin basin clattered as it fell to the street. Her hands went to her throat, struggling to find a way beneath the strap, her feet kicking as her attacker raised her by the noose from the ground. Her vision narrowed to a small circle of light and her lungs screamed for air. As the world went black, Molly’s last thought was that it had begun to snow.

  Saturday, January 7, 1273

  Matthew Cordwainer, King’s Coroner of York, woke to the sound of heavy knocking on his front door. Jesus help us, he prayed, let it not be a death. But what else would it be at this time of night? He pushed the heavy bed-curtains aside and gasped as the frigid air outside the bed filled his lungs. The banked coals of his fireplace glowed dimly, but did little to warm the cold room, nor did they give light enough to see. He swung his feet to the rush-covered floor, wincing as his bad hip protested the sudden movement, and groped for his stick, cursing loudly when it eluded his grasp and slipped into the rushes. He strained to hear the voices below, but could not make out the words. “Thomas!” he shouted. “Thomas, a light!”

  Hearing no answer, he sank to his knees by the bed and swept his hands through the herb-scented rushes in widening arcs. His fingers brushed the stick and he grasped it with relief. With one hand clutching the stick and the other braced on the wooden bed frame, Cordwainer hoisted himself to his feet and crossed to the hearth. Holding a rush against the embers until it flared, he hobbled back across the room to light the heavy wax candle sitting on his chest by the bed just as a tow-headed lad of about sixteen years arrived at the door carrying a lantern. “You’ll set the room on fire doing that,” Thomas said. “Best wait for me, Master.”

  “If I waited for you, twould be judgment day before I had light,” grumbled Cordwainer. He sat on the bed and began pulling his heaviest woolen hose over his feet. “Who was at the door?”

  “Twas Rolf of the night watch. He’s below stairs now,” answered Thomas as he set the lantern on the chest next to the candle. His nose was red from the cold despite the warm tunic and leggings he wore, and the pale fuzz on his cheeks shone golden in the candlelight.

  “A death, then. Where?”

  “In the Shambles,” said Thomas, helping Cordwainer first with his long linen shirt and then a heavy woolen gown slit almost to the knees over it. He knelt to pull leather boots over his Master’s feet.

  “Have Matins rung?”

  “Aye, perhaps an hour ago. Careful on the stairs, Master.”

  “I always am, Thomas.”

  In the front chamber, a burly, muscular man with a dark beard cut in the Norman fashion waited by the fireplace. He nodded to Cordwainer and shook his head. “Tis colder than a witch’s tit out there,” he said, watching as Thomas draped a dark green cloak over his shoulders and pulled a shapeless hat of the same green onto his head. Cordwainer wrapped himself in his own cloak and hung a leather bag, something like a pilgrim’s scrip, over his shoulder. He nodded once to Rolf and the three men set out into the darkness of Saint Martin’s Lane. Rolf walked ahead with a large lantern held high in front of him. Cordwainer and Thomas followed, the wiry old man taking long strides despite his use of the stick, the younger man trotting next to him with his smaller lantern, watchful lest his Master slip in the new-fallen snow. The trio hurried up Micklegate and over Ouse Bridge, Rolf raising a hand to the bridge guard as they passed. They could smell the Shambles as they crossed the Pavement to Saint Crux, the mingled odors of a thousand slaughtered animals having impregnated the abattoirs and butchers’ shops beyond redemption. Once past the church, Cordwainer could see a flare of torchlight in the darkness. Two men stood huddled by a figure on the ground, one short and fat, the other taller and slender. Both were blowing into their h
ands and rubbing them in the cold. Their breath smoked in the night air.

  “Did you raise the hue and cry?” Cordwainer asked. “And only two responded?”

  “There were six or more when I left,” said Rolf. He raised his voice and called out: “Where are the rest of you?”

  “We t-t-took it in turn to watch her till you came back,” replied the short man as they approached. He shivered and stuttered. The taller man holding the torch nodded emphatically, adding, “Tis so cold, Master Godwyn said the others could wait in his tavern.”

  Even as he spoke, several men emerged from a building up and across the narrow street and hurried towards them. One wiped his mouth on his sleeve as he came. Cordwainer snorted, then turned his attention to the body lying on the snow-covered ground. He crossed himself and dropped to one knee by the crumpled form. “Who is she?” he asked.

  “Tis a maudlyn, Molly’s her name,” said the tall man. “She’s dead, God bless her.”

  “I can see that,” Cordwainer replied, “as well as you can.”

  He began to brush snow from the body, uncovering a faded red dress newly embellished with gaudy embroidery, worn over a linen undershift dirtied at the hem, unlaced shoes and a thin cloak. At her feet lay an empty tin pisspot. Gesturing to Thomas to hold his lantern closer, Cordwainer leaned forward to wipe the snow from her face and winced as he examined the swollen, protruding tongue, the bulging eyes laced over with broken veins, the purple bruise across her throat. Chestnut hair wet from the snow formed a dark halo around the ruined face. God save us, he thought. He had seen the girl before, of course – it would be impossible to live in the city of York for sixty-two years without having seen most of its residents at one time or another – but he hadn’t known her name. She had been pretty, he remembered, prettier than most of the maudlyns in the city, with bright blue eyes and a trim figure. She would never be pretty again.

  Cordwainer reached out and tried to close the now-dull, staring eyes. It was not until his living hands had warmed the thin, frozen eyelids that he succeeded. He said a prayer for her departed soul, then raised himself upright with his stick and turned to Rolf. “What did you see when you found her?”

  “Nowt,” Rolf replied. “No one else were out of doors this time of night, unless you count old Osbert, shaking and shivering a few doors down, raving about the devil stalking the streets.”

  Cordwainer snorted. “Twas a human devil did this,” he replied. He surveyed the men around them. “I’ll need a jury for the inquest. You, Rolf, of course, and you, Bartholomew Weaver,” pointing his stick at a surly-looking young man with thick dark eyebrows, “and you, John Wetherby, you, Peter Fisher, Godwyn Taverner... Oh, God’s bones, I’ll need all of you. Did any of you hear anything? See anything?”

  The men looked at each other.

  He let out an exasperated breath. “Do any of you know where the poor girl lived? It must be nearby, if she was out here emptying her pisspot.” Cordwainer glared up at the building next to them, from which the wail of an infant could be clearly heard.

  The fat man had been staring mournfully at the body. At Cordwainer’s question he looked up, wrapping his cloak tighter. His double chins quivered as he raised a hand and pointed further down the street. “There,” he said. “In Mistress Agnes’ house.”

  “And who are you?” asked Cordwainer. “I don’t know you.”

  “Warin Butcher,” the man whispered. “My shop is two doors farther down.”

  Cordwainer grunted and led the way to the house the butcher had indicated, a wattle-and-daub structure with the paint peeling from its wooden door and shutter. He raised his stick and pounded twice. The door was opened immediately by a middle-aged woman wrapped in a lavishly embroidered crimson cloak. Her brown hair showed only traces of grey and her face retained much of its younger beauty, but her eyes were cold and hard and her mouth was drawn into a thin line. Two young women in their early teens stood directly behind her wearing night shifts with shawls drawn around their shoulders, their hair tousled as if wakened from sleep. The first seemed more child than woman, tiny, with smooth white skin and pale hair curling past thin shoulders nearly to her waist. The other was taller and freckled, her hair flaming red in the torchlight. A thin man with black hair hanging in greasy clumps to his shoulders hugged the red-haired woman close to his side, his eyes shifting constantly from the women to Cordwainer and back. His face was creased from lying too long on one side, and his stubbled chin looked dirty in the lamplight. Cordwainer suspected that the group had been standing by the door since his arrival, hoping to hear what had happened.

  “Mistress Agnes,” Cordwainer said. “You have a girl working here named Molly.” It was not a question. “She’s been found dead – strangled -- in the street. When did you see her last?”

  A giggle burst from the lips of the thin man as the two young maudlyns gasped. Cordwainer glared at him. “Who are you?” he asked.

  “Tibb – Thibault Shard.” He shuffled his feet. “I live here.”

  “Nay, you do not,” said Mistress Agnes, her eyes never leaving Cordwainer. “You stay here when Maeve allows you to.” She seemed unfazed by the revelation of Molly’s death. “I saw her this evening,” she said to Cordwainer, her lips pursing into a knowing smirk. “Twas just after dark. She had a … visitor come to call, and they went up to her chamber for a bit of privacy.”

  “And who might that visitor have been?”

  “That’s him, there.” The bawd pointed. “Warin Butcher.”

  All the men turned to stare. Bartholomew Weaver seized Warin roughly by his woolen cloak, although Cordwainer thought the fat butcher looked more likely to faint than flee. “Then here’s our killer,” Bartholomew announced, pushing Warin towards Cordwainer. “That’s simple enough.”

  “Nay!” cried the youngest maudlyn. “Warin Butcher wouldn’t hurt Molly! He’s kind. He’s good to all of us.”

  Warin blushed scarlet, and his chins quivered as he looked wildly around at the men surrounding him. “She were alive and well when I left,” he quavered. “I swear she were! God help me, I left her in her room, alive and well.”

  “And when was that?” Cordwainer asked gruffly.

  “About two hours ago,” he said. “Before it began to snow.” He struggled to pull his cloak from Bartholomew’s grip.

  “Let him go,” Cordwainer said. “He’s not going to run away.”

  The weaver scowled, his dark eyes squinting in the cold. He held on to Warin a moment or two longer, looking around at the others for support. Tibb nodded and winked at him, but the rest of the men looked away. Bartholomew pushed Warin roughly toward them, sneering as the fat butcher slid in the snow and would have fallen if Godwyn Taverner had not steadied him.

  Agnes stalked out of the house to where Molly lay and stared down at the body. The youngest maudlyn, heedless of the snow soaking through her woolen house shoes, followed, crossing herself. After a moment, the red-haired girl Maeve disengaged herself from Tibb’s arm and stepped after her. Tibb remained where he was, slouched against the doorjamb. “I can tell you who killed her, right enough,” Agnes said. “Tweren’t Warin. Twere that bastard Owen Hywel, may he rot in Hell. I told him not to be sniffing around my maudlyns again, not after what he done to Gylfa. Show him, Gylfa, show the King’s Coroner your tit.”

  The young girl stepped forward, tucking a strand of her soft blond hair behind her ear and looking at Cordwainer with large brown eyes. She shrugged off her shawl and with a defiant lift of her chin opened the front of her night shift in front of the men. On the nipple and left side of her small breast were several dark bruises.

  “Hold that light closer,” commanded Agnes.

  Thomas stepped forward with his lantern, blushing in its light as he looked at Gylfa’s breast. The illumination clearly revealed bite marks within each bruise, some scabbed over where the teeth had drawn blood. “And that’s just the least of it, God help us,” said Agnes. “Her back and legs are striped where he w
hipped her! But I’ll not be having her strip naked for you in the street. I told him never to come around my girls again, and he laughed. Said he’d swyve them with his knife if he’d a mind to.” Bartholomew, who had edged up close to Cordwainer, took in a hissing breath as Gylfa pulled her night shift closed and wrapped the shawl tight around her shoulders.

  “Did you make a complaint to the Sheriff?” asked Cordwainer.

  Agnes sniffed. “As if the Sheriff would care a copper what happens to the likes of us.”

  Rolf scowled and opened his mouth to speak. “I will question Owen Hywel, Mistress Agnes,” Cordwainer said, cutting him off. “You can be certain of that. He will be summoned to the inquest to answer. But right now, I want to see Molly’s room.”

  The bawd glared at him, then shrugged. “Tis above stairs, just to the right.”

  Thomas led the way with his lantern, pushing past Tibb into the cold house. God’s bones, thought Cordwainer as they entered, tis not steps, tis a ladder. He placed his stick carefully on the hard-packed dirt of the floor next to him and grasped the sides. Half-pulling himself to avoid placing too much weight on his bad hip, he climbed to the floor above, then stepped through a curtained doorway into a tiny bed chamber. Mistress Agnes crowded in behind, the floorboards creaking beneath her feet. No wonder the girl was emptying her pisspot in the middle of the night, thought Cordwainer. In a room this small, the stink would be suffocating. A narrow, uncurtained bed filled most of the chamber; a scratched and scarred bench ran along the wall, and a small, three-legged stool was shoved into the back. Two pegs by the doorway held brightly colored dresses, a third stood empty. On the bench a clay pitcher sat in a tin basin next to a dish for holding a rushlight, along with three carved wooden combs decorated with bits of colored glass. A few copper coins lay next to a partially unwrapped cloth package, revealing two raw mutton chops.