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

by Joyce Lionarons

  “How large is the debt?” asked Cordwainer.

  “Three pounds, ten shillings.”

  “What?”

  “Aye, tis well more than I earn in a twelvemonth,” said Bartholomew. “And the old bitch says now that Molly’s gone, I must pay or she’ll have the law on me. Can she really do that, Master Coroner?”

  “I’m not certain,” said Cordwainer. “I would have to find out what the law says.”

  “She’d best not try, if she knows what’s good for her. Tis that bitch as deserves to lie in the spital grounds, not Molly!” Bartholomew’s anger twisted his face, and his knuckles were white as he clutched the pewter goblet. “If she don’t watch herself, I’ll put her there, aye and let her burn in Hell for all eternity!”

  “Calm yourself, lad,” Cordwainer said, alarmed at the sudden ferocity of Bartholomew’s words. “Drink your wine and tell me what happened that night she was killed.”

  Bartholomew drained his goblet. The fury slowly faded from his face. “I went to visit Molly and to give the old bawd a shilling I had from my da’ for Christmastide. I wanted to give Molly summat, so I bought them mutton chops and wrapped them up, much good they did her.” Anger flashed in his eyes again. “I had to stand in the cold street till that fat butcher finished with her.”

  Cordwainer leaned forward. “Did you see anyone out in the street? Think hard.”

  Bartholomew’s thick brows furrowed, but he shook his head. “Nay. Twas late and dark. I always went after dark so none would see me visiting a bawd’s house. And we fought, Molly and me. May God forgive me, the last words I spoke to my sister were in anger.” He lifted the goblet to drink and saw it was empty. Thomas refilled it, and Bartholomew took a small swallow. “Afterwards, I stopped in at the Red Cauldron. Old Godwyn will let a man have a drink past closing, curfew or no. I ran back when I heard the hue and cry.”

  Cordwainer knew the answer to his next question, but he asked anyway. “Why didn’t you speak up, there or at the inquest?”

  “I were shamed, weren’t I? You heard them laughing at Warin at the inquest. A man don’t want to admit his sister’s a whore.”

  “Didn’t you want to take her body home to Layerthorpe to be buried?”

  “Nay. My da’ wouldn’t have her. When he heard what had come of her, he told me never to speak of her again.”

  “So it was you I saw at the funeral,” Cordwainer said.

  “What? Nay, tweren’t me. I didn’t see my own sister buried.” Bartholomew dropped his face in his hands and wept.

  Cordwainer waited silently, sipping his wine, until Bartholomew lifted his head and wiped his face on his sleeve. He wondered how much Molly had confided in her brother. “Bartholomew,” he said. “I was told that there was a man Molly refused to lie with even though he offered her the coin. Do you know aught of that?”

  “Nay, twould never have happened,” said Bartholomew. “If it had, she would not have been found strangled, but beaten to death by the bawd. Agnes wouldna’ allow her to do such a thing, not if a man had ready coin.”

  “Yet twas what I was told.”

  “Who said it?”

  “Tibb Shard.”

  Bartholomew barked out a bitter laugh. “Aye, Tibb. Molly turned him away right enough when he tried,” he said. “She knew he hadn’t the coin, and he slapped her for it. But Agnes backed her, for she knew well enough Tibb had nowt. Tis that he speaks of, I’ll wager. He hated her ever after for it.”

  Cordwainer nodded. “You’re probably right,” he said. “Bartholomew, where were you two nights ago?”

  Bartholomew’s heavy brows drew together. “Two nights ago? Where I am every night, at the White Ram Tavern on Fossgate. Nowt to do with my wages save drink, now Molly’s gone.”

  Cordwainer nodded. “I thank you for coming to speak to me. Tis hard when God takes a soul so young. I will pray for your sister.”

  Bartholomew stood, the sneer back on his lips. “My sister were a whore and died unshriven,” he said. “No prayer helps those in Hell.”

  2

  Cordwainer sat thinking long after Bartholomew had left. If it had truly been himself that Tibb had been talking about, then despite his denials he was even more suspect in Molly’s killing than Cordwainer had thought. He had been with Maeve on the night of the murder, but might have slipped out while she was sleeping. He was tall enough and while thin, he looked wiry. Aye, twas possible. Perhaps Molly had not stolen the crucifix. Might Tibb have taken it after seeing it on the Prioress’s rosary that night? Again, twas possible. He had no trouble imagining Tibb as a thief. Tibb had been on Grope Lane two nights ago, and he knew about Nelly’s purse. But if he were in Agnes’s house the night Molly was killed, why carry the crucifix outdoors to do the murder?

  Then again, Bartholomew had admitted to fighting with his sister and he clearly had a violent temper. Could he have waited in the streets a second time, feeding that anger, only to have it boil over when Molly appeared outside? The two had needed money to pay off Agnes. Had Bartholomew seen the crucifix on the Prioress’s rosary during the procession and found a way to take it? Twould have paid Agnes’s debt ten times over at least, aye, and provided a nice dowry for Molly someplace far away where no one would ever know what she had been in York. Even if he had been in the White Ram on the night of Nelly’s killing, he could have gone to Grope Lane after. And Cordwainer had noticed one more thing: when Bartholomew drank his wine, he picked up the goblet with his left hand. He tried to think which hand Tibb had used to drink his ale, but try as he might, he could not remember.

  3

  Thomas rinsed the goblets Cordwainer and Tibb had used in warm water and left them on the rack to dry. He picked up a log to put on the kitchen fire, remembered that the woodpile in the garden was low, remembered … God’s blood, he had forgotten to visit the woodsman, how many days ago was it? Had Agytha come this morning, she would have noticed. He opened the kitchen door and looked at the sky. If he hurried, there was just time to find the woodsman and be back before the gate at Bootham Bar closed. Perhaps he could even be back in time to make a supper for Cordwainer. He grabbed the old cloak he kept by the kitchen door for use when he chopped wood or visited the privy, opened the door, and ran, sliding on the ice.

  4

  “Thomas!” shouted Cordwainer. “Thomas, I need you!” He waited, but there was no sound. Pushing himself from his chair, he pulled a log from the small pile by the fireplace and placed it on the fire. “Thomas?” He walked through the door to the back of the house and peered into the kitchen, then turned and rapped on the wall by the curtained alcove that was Thomas’s tiny bedchamber. Hearing no answer, he pushed the curtain aside, then let it drop with a snort. Where in the name of God was the lad?

  He walked back into the kitchen and propped his stick against the wall. The flagon Thomas had used to pour the wine sat on Agytha’s worktable, and he took a goblet from the rack to pour himself a cup, sipping it as he studied the room. No pots hung by the fire and no food sat out on the worktable or the shelves that he could see. As he began to rummage in the low cabinets, the door behind him opened and Thomas came rushing in wearing his old cloak. Cordwainer straightened and turned. “Where have you been? Tis suppertime, and I’m hungry.”

  Thomas hung his cloak on its peg. “I went to order firewood,” he said. “The woodsman said twill be here in the morning.”

  “But you just ordered some. Agytha said you did when I saw twas running low.”

  Thomas blushed crimson. “I … I meant to. But I visited a friend on the way, then forgot. Tis all right now. Go sit at the table, and I will bring you your supper.”

  Cordwainer blinked. “But you never forget,” he said. “Who was the friend?”

  Thomas turned yet redder, and for a moment Cordwainer feared he was ill. Then with a deep breath Thomas said, “Emma. Emma Pomeroy.”

  “Emma … Ralph Pomeroy’s daughter? However did you meet her?”

  “Twas the night I saw Adam.
He was stopping by to speak to Master Pomeroy, and Emma invited us both in.”

  Cordwainer sighed. Twas clear the lad was smitten, but why could he not fall in love with a girl of his own station in life? “Does her father know of this?”

  “Nay,” said Thomas. “He would not approve.”

  Nor should he, Cordwainer thought. He will marry her to wealth, as is always done. Thomas knows that well enough, aye, and so does Emma. He considered forbidding Thomas to continue the affair, but remembered in time that he had promised himself to treat the lad as an adult. “Tis your business,” he said. “What is there for supper? I’m half-starved.” Taking his stick from the wall, he walked to the front room and sat at the table.

  Saturday, January 13, 1273

  1

  Paul Ulfsson lowered the wick into the hot wax again, long practice making it easy to dip, raise, let the wax cool just enough, and dip again without really thinking about it. The slow rhythm relaxed him and allowed him to consider what he could do now that Owen Hywel was jailed and likely to hang. Living on what he earned as a chandler was not an option in the long term, not with the debts he owed throughout York. Hywel’s gold coins had paid some of them, but the coins were almost gone now and he would need coin to pay for the little luxuries he had become accustomed to over the years and was loath to live without. With no Hywel to buy what he stole, he would be hard pressed to enjoy them, at least until another smuggler rose to take Hywel’s place in York. If only he had found the novice, or whoever had taken the Clementhorpe crucifix, and sold it on before Hywel had been arrested! That would have bought him time to find someone else to sell to, but there was no helping it now.

  He had made his winter store of candles in summer, working in the tiny garden area behind the shop. Enough, he had thought, to keep the shop stocked till spring, and if not, twouldn’t matter. Now, with no prospect of funds coming in from his arrangement with Hywel, he was reduced to making candles indoors, with smoke in his eyes from the coals and no chance of letting them dry evenly in good warm sunlight. He could not risk running low, not when every copper had to last. If worse came to worst, he could try his hand at cutting purses again, but that was risky, far riskier than gliding smoothly into a jeweler’s or goldsmith’s while the Master was busy and slipping out again before his face was seen. They never suspected, not when he was in again a minute later buying a trinket for a few silvers.

  He finished the candle and hung it carefully to dry, reaching into the basket of long dried rushes for another wick. He wasn’t sorry the Welshman was locked away, though. Remembering that scene with Philip still gave him the shivers. Those black eyes with no soul behind them boring into a man’s heart like twin awls, the knife under Philip’s eye. The whoreson was half-mad, had to be to treat a Sheriff’s man like that, despite what he paid him. The Welsh were all half-mad, to hear the stories. He wouldn’t be surprised if twere Philip who had Hywel arrested; twould serve the whoreson right. He’d heard tales of what could happen to a man questioned in the Castle -- more than a cut beneath an eye, far more. He shuddered at the thought, trying to remember what the men had said at the tavern the night before. Nay, twas something about a maudlyn being murdered, nothing to do with Philip. Aye, he could see Hywel killing a maudlyn.

  Perhaps the novice John Plankett would find him, as Hywel had said. He had a few extra gold pieces tucked away safe, not to be touched, and along with what he had from his candles, they might just be enough for the crucifix if Plankett didn’t bargain, as he hadn’t for the jewels. Tuck that away for a year or so, and he’d find someone to buy it and send it south. Maybe he’d go south himself, live where it was warm all winter. A second candle was finished; he hung it next to the first and fed a few small pieces of wood to the fire, waiting for the wax to regain the proper consistency. As he fished another rush from the basket, the door of the shop opened and banged shut again.

  Ulfsson stood, thankful that the customer had come in before he had started dipping the third candle. He wiped the wax from his fingers onto his apron and pushed back the curtain that hid his workroom from the shop, a welcoming smile on his face. Two bailiffs rounded the shop counter, pinning him against the wall. Twas Ham Sutton with a younger man Ulfsson didn’t recognize. He and Ham had been through this before, and they’d never found a thing. “Paul Ulfsson,” said Ham, “you are under arrest for receiving and selling stolen goods.”

  “You’ll find no stolen goods here,” said Ulfsson with a grin. “You may search all you like.”

  “Nay, we need neither search nor find aught,” the younger bailiff replied. “Seems your old friend Owen Hywel has named you as the supplier of stolen items found in his possession. You’ll be questioned in the Castle.”

  Suddenly, everything the men drinking in the tavern had said about questioning in the Castle came back to him. With a low whimper, he fainted into the astonished bailiff’s arms.

  2

  Cordwainer had not slept well that night. He had started by worrying about Thomas and wondering if he should not have done something to discourage him from continuing to see Emma Pomeroy. No matter what happened, Thomas was certain to have his heart broken; perhaps twas better sooner rather than later. Nay, twas the lad’s business. The young need to make their own mistakes, or they will never learn not to make them. Twas just that he would hate seeing Thomas hurt.

  From there he had progressed to worrying about his investigation into the maudlyns’ murders. The inquest into Nelly’s death would be Monday, but he would learn nothing there. Rolf would testify to finding the body, Edyth would identify her, and the jurors would give a verdict of murder. He would question the maudlyns again, but doubted they knew or had seen anything. Twas a dead end unless the killer was the same in both murders and he was able to find out who killed Molly. Tibb or Bartholomew, twas one of the two, he was certain. The crucifix was the key. If he knew which of the men had taken it, he would know Molly’s killer. But what if the monks were right and Brother Ambrose had taken it after all?

  Perhaps he should follow Stefan’s advice and turn the crucifix over to de Bury. If the Sheriff knew where it had been found, his investigation into the theft might solve the murder as well. Cordwainer worried that if he kept the cross too much longer, de Bury might end by suspecting him of taking it himself. Yet he feared that if the crucifix were safely restored to the Abbey treasury, de Bury would look no further for the thief, and he would be missing a crucial piece of evidence. He tossed and turned in his bed until the feathers in the mattress had bunched to one side and the blankets were twisted round his legs. By morning he had resolved to let Thomas sort out his own affairs. He himself would make at least some effort to find and speak to Brother Ambrose before surrendering the crucifix. Thursday was market day in the city, but a smaller market was generally held on Saturday. Some folk, at least, would be at the Pavement today. He would begin his search there. With nothing to go on, it was as good a place as any.

  At dawn a cart rumbled up Saint Martin’s Lane, and Thomas and the carter trudged back and forth carrying armloads of thick logs around the house and into the garden. Agytha, arriving with fresh loaves of bread and apologies for having stayed home a day because of the ice, grumbled loudly about the length of time it took for wood to be delivered these days, but the carter merely shrugged and neither Thomas nor Cordwainer said a word. When the carter was gone, Thomas spent two hours splitting and chopping the heavy logs and replenishing the stacks of wood by the fireplaces. Despite his work, the woodpile in the garden seemed undiminished.

  Thus it was that by the time Cordwainer and Thomas entered Pavement Market – a triangular space dominated by All Saints Church on its southwestern side and Saint Crux on the northeast – it was already crowded with vendors, most from the city itself, as those who came in for the day from the countryside would have sold their wares on Thursday. Cordwainer snorted at the number of folk filling the area, remembering his lonely walk through the deserted space two nights ago. The finest
of the vendors had elaborate stalls with large displays and braziers burning to keep the customers warm; the poorest had only a woolen blanket spread on the wet cobblestones to show their wares. All were calling out to the crowd, hawking fish and mutton, linens and leather goods, onions and turnips, needles and soap. Live animals were sold from pens full of squawking chickens and jostling sheep. The pillories were fully occupied, and young boys – some not so young -- were throwing snowballs and stones at the malfeasants. After a day kept inside by the ice storm, the residents of York were out in force. The entire population of the city seemed crammed into the narrow lanes left by the stalls for pedestrians, but there was neither a novice nor a monk in sight. The cobblestones that gave the market its name were covered in slush, and at times Cordwainer felt that the only thing keeping him upright was the press of the crowd.

  As he and Thomas pushed and chatted and eavesdropped their way through the market, they learned not only that word of a novice having run away from the Abbey had spread throughout the city, but also that the loss of the crucifix was common knowledge. So much for the Abbot keeping it quiet, thought Cordwainer with another snort, as he listened to a city gossip telling her neighbor that the novice must have stolen the cross, as if she were the first and only one to have thought of it. Brother Ambrose would hang for the theft whether he took the crucifix or not at this rate. All seemed to agree that the novice was tall and thin with dark hair, although where this information had come from was unclear.

  At midday they left the market and stopped in a tavern to eat. Over ale and a trencher of fish stew, they agreed that no more was to be learned from idle chatter, so they decided to try their luck along the rivers, reasoning that the novice might have attempted to leave the city by boat. As they made their way towards the quays, Cordwainer stopped and sniffed. Crouching almost to the mud of the street, he stared hard at a large bundle of rags crammed into the space between an ironmonger’s and a sailmaker’s shop. He braced himself against the stench emanating from the rags and edged closer. “Osbert? Osbert, come out from there. I need to speak with you.”