The First Murder

by The Medieval Murderers

  Cole shrugged. ‘I hoped I was mistaken.’

  ‘Well, I am sorry he transpired to be the villain,’ said Burchill. ‘You trusted him, and he betrayed you. Thank God we thwarted him, though: he was growing more reckless, and his tricks would have hurt someone eventually. You must dismiss him from your service.’

  ‘No,’ said Cole. ‘It is over now, and we shall say no more about it.’ He turned to Gwenllian. ‘We had better find Luci before he has second thoughts about confiding in us. He is not out here – our scuffle must have put him off – so we had better look in the hall.’

  The bailey was dark and quiet as they walked across it, although lights gleamed here and there as soldiers and servants settled down for an evening of storytelling around the fire, or perhaps an illicit game of dice. Gwenllian opened the hall door and stepped inside, Cole and Burchill at her heels. Then she stopped in confusion.

  Gerald, Foliot, Prior Dunstan, Robert and Archdeacon Osbert stood in a silent semicircle around someone who lay on the floor, leaking blood. It was Luci.

  Gwenllian started to move forward, to see whether Luci might be helped, but Burchill jerked her back roughly. Cole started to object, but spun round quickly at the distinctive sound of a sword scything through the air.

  It was Norrys, his face twisted with vengeful malice. Cole ducked away, and while he staggered off balance, Norrys struck at Gwenllian. He would have killed her had Burchill not thrown himself in front of her, raising one arm to deflect the blow. The old knight cried out as the blade bit, and fell to his knees. Blood oozed between his fingers.

  Cole drew his own weapon, but Norrys snatched up a crossbow. It was wound ready, and he grinned his satisfaction as he pointed it at Cole. Cole faltered. A sword was no match for such a device.

  ‘No!’ screamed Gwenllian. She started to step forward, to place herself between them, but Burchill reached up and grabbed her arm with his good hand, yanking her back again.

  ‘Wait,’ he murmured softly. ‘Assess the situation before acting.’

  Gwenllian felt like pushing him away, but she knew he was right. She tore a piece of cloth from her sleeve and tied it around his arm, although almost all her attention was on Norrys. He had indicated that Cole was to drop his sword and stand against the wall. With no choice but to obey, Cole did as he was told.

  ‘Here is our killer,’ said Norrys coldly. ‘He stabbed Luci, then went to collect his henchman, to help him dispatch the rest of you. I have just saved your lives.’

  ‘We know everything, Cole,’ said Robert gleefully. ‘Luci has been conducting his own inquiry into the murders, and was on the verge of exposing you. So you killed him before he could speak. And you intended to slaughter the rest of us so that this miserable tale will never reach the ears of the King.’

  ‘If you believe Norrys’s claims, you are a fool,’ said Gwenllian coldly. ‘You know he wants Symon discredited because he longs to be constable.’

  ‘It can be resolved easily enough,’ said Gerald. He turned to Cole. ‘Just tell us where you have been since the end of the play. And put that weapon down, Norrys, before it goes off and hurts someone.’

  ‘You will be safer if I keep it trained on Cole,’ said Norrys. ‘He is ruthless and cunning, and will seize any opportunity to escape.’

  Gwenllian felt sick with fear, knowing Norrys was going to kill Symon anyway. She would have run towards him, but there was no strength in her legs.

  ‘I have been with Gwenllian and Burchill,’ replied Cole. ‘And Iefan.’

  ‘His wife and two henchmen,’ sneered Norrys. ‘Hardly independent witnesses. He murdered Luci, and has spent the time since washing the blood from his hands and clothes.’

  ‘He is wearing the same tunic as earlier,’ said Gerald. ‘And it is unstained and certainly not wet. Moreover, your dogged determination to blame him makes me wonder whether you are the culprit.’

  ‘I have been with Prior Dunstan from immediately after the play until we came down to the hall together,’ said Norrys. ‘We were packing, ready for tomorrow. I could not have stabbed Luci – and that means I am innocent of harming Hurso and Pontius too, given that there can only be one murderer. The same is true for Dunstan.’

  Dunstan nodded slowly. ‘We were together when Norrys says.’

  ‘I have an alibi too,’ said Robert gloatingly. ‘I was talking to the townsfolk – hearing their accounts of what happened in the market this morning.’

  Norrys shot him a look of pure hatred, and Gwenllian suspected that the foolish Robert had just put himself in considerable danger. Norrys would certainly not want those tales repeated in Canterbury.

  ‘Well, I went to visit William and Tancard in the castle cells,’ said Gerald. ‘And the guards will testify to that fact, if you ask them. I, too, am innocent.’

  ‘Why would you do such a thing?’ demanded Dunstan. ‘Or am I to report to the archbishop that you consort with rabble-rousers?’

  ‘You may tell him that I care for the sinners in my See,’ said Gerald loftily. ‘They are stupid men, but not wicked ones. I went to hear their confessions, and they told me quite a tale. You have a lot to answer for, Norrys.’

  ‘That means Foliot is the culprit,’ said Gwenllian quietly, knowing that Burchill would not have taken the blow intended to kill her if he had been the guilty party; his act of heroism had exonerated him, too. ‘There are no other suspects left.’

  There was silence in the hall after Gwenllian had made her announcement, and she saw Norrys’s crossbow waver slightly. Her claim had planted a seed of doubt in his mind. Meanwhile, the two Austins nodded to say they had known it all along, Gerald and Osbert gaped, and Foliot himself went white with shock.

  ‘How can you say such a terrible thing?’ he asked, once he had found his voice. ‘I have an alibi too. I was with Osbert.’

  ‘It is true,’ said the archdeacon. ‘He was.’

  ‘There is blood on your arm,’ said Gwenllian, pointing. ‘You washed your hands, but it is messy stuff, and I can see a smear of it on your wrist. There are also spots on your habit.’

  ‘I cut myself,’ said Foliot, pulling down the offending sleeve. ‘On a nail.’

  ‘Then show us,’ she said simply. ‘Where is the cut?’

  ‘It is personal,’ said Foliot, licking dry lips. ‘I will show Osbert, but no one else.’

  Gwenllian struggled to tie facts together, easier now she knew the identity of the culprit. She addressed the others. ‘Foliot murdered Pontius too. It is obvious now I think about it. Do you remember how he spent his first day here?’

  ‘Being shown around the castle by Iefan and Cethynoc,’ supplied Cole promptly. ‘Cethynoc is a mason, and knows all about stones and mortar.’

  ‘Precisely!’ said Gwenllian. ‘Cethynoc told me today that he knew there was an unstable stone in that particular bedchamber, and that he had mentioned it on his tour, as Pontius would have been able to attest, had he still been alive.’

  ‘But stones do not drop out of walls to order,’ said Cole. They had everyone’s attention now, although Foliot was shaking his head. ‘So it stands to reason that Pontius was killed by someone in the same room as him. And I know how Foliot did it.’

  ‘You do?’ asked Gwenllian uneasily, hoping he was not about to destroy their case by claiming something ridiculous.

  ‘He chipped the stone loose, and wedged it in place with a pebble. The pebble was tied to a piece of twine. One jerk caused it to fall. The culprit could only be Gerald or Foliot, because they were the only two in that chamber when it fell.’

  ‘But I am injured,’ said Foliot, one hand to his shoulder. ‘I cannot climb walls!’

  ‘Of course you can,’ said Cole scathingly. ‘You are long past the stage where your bruises will incapacitate you. Your intended victim was Gerald, of course.’

  ‘No,’ cried Foliot. He appealed to the bishop elect, who was regarding him uncertainly. ‘This is all a lie – I would never harm you. He wants me blamed so Norrys
will let him go.’

  ‘Open your scrip,’ suggested Cole. ‘I wager anything you like that it will contain twine.’

  ‘Of course it will,’ said Foliot, backing away when Robert, his youthful face alight with spiteful glee, tried to take it from him. ‘I always carry twine when I travel.’

  ‘But you did not have any when you arrived here,’ said Cole. ‘You had used it all up by mending broken reins after the ambush in Trecastle. Gerald asked you for some when I broke the lace on my boot, if you recall.’

  ‘I bought some more,’ said Foliot desperately. ‘It proves nothing.’

  ‘From which merchant?’ pressed Cole. ‘We shall send for him immediately.’

  Foliot looked sick. ‘I cannot recall,’ he whispered. ‘And he may not remember me . . .’

  Robert made a lunge for him, and there was a brief tussle, which the youngster won. He took the purse to a table and upended it. Among the items that tumbled out was a length of thin twine that had a loop tied in one end.

  ‘This may well have been knotted around a pebble,’ reported Dunstan, inspecting it closely. ‘There is grit caught in it that says it has certainly been somewhere dusty, such as hanging from a wall that has had mortar scraped from it.’

  ‘It is not mine,’ shouted Foliot, panicky now. ‘Someone put it there to see me accused.’

  ‘But you never leave your scrip unattended,’ said Gerald, his face full of hurt confusion. ‘because it contains money. No one would have had the chance to plant evidence there.’

  ‘And all to ensure that Gerald is not made bishop,’ Gwenllian went on. She glanced at Cole, sensing he was readying himself to attack. She shook her head slightly, to tell him to wait. There was doubt in Norrys’s face, and she began to hope that the situation could be resolved without Cole risking his life in a wild lunge. ‘It was your second attempt, the first being in Oseney, with a jug of poisoned wine.’

  ‘The stuff that killed Canon Wilfred?’ asked Robert, wide-eyed. ‘Lord! I saw Foliot hovering over it, but then he left, so I filched it for my master. Thank God I did not drink any myself!’

  ‘I did not!’ cried Foliot. ‘Poison indeed! Is that what you think of me?’

  Gerald’s hurt had turned to contempt, and he regarded Foliot with such iciness that even Gwenllian winced. ‘You were late coming to our room the night Pontius died, and I had doused the candle, so it was dark. You expected me to be in the better bed, but I had given it to Pontius, because he had complained of backache.’

  ‘I would never—’ began Foliot.

  ‘It is all clear now,’ Gerald went on, cutting across him. ‘The stone was the fourth time you tried to kill me, not the second. You arranged ambushes in Brecon and Trecastle, too – although they misfired and you were the one who was injured. But God protected me.’

  ‘Is that what you thought, Foliot?’ asked Gwenllian. ‘That God was with Gerald? So when the ploy with the stone failed, you opted for other tactics – namely to have him accused of murdering Hurso?’

  ‘You certainly made us willing to believe it,’ said Dunstan. ‘None of us missed the suspicious glances you kept shooting in Gerald’s direction. How very clever!’

  ‘This is all nonsense,’ cried Foliot. ‘Tell them, Osbert!’

  ‘He is right.’ Sweat beaded on the archdeacon’s hairless pate. ‘Because there is only one killer, and if it was Foliot, then it means he killed Hurso, too. But he did not: he has an alibi for Hurso’s death, and for Luci’s, too, he was with me both times.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Gwenllian softly. ‘Because you are his accomplice.’

  ‘Osbert plotted against me too?’ asked Gerald, shocked. ‘But I barely know him!’

  ‘Of course not!’ cried Osbert hoarsely. He fixed Gwenllian with reproachful eyes. ‘I have been your archdeacon for years. How can you say such wicked things about me?’

  ‘Because I have proof. Hurso fought his attacker hard enough to break his fingernails. You refused to don your costume for the play yesterday because to undress would have revealed the scratches on your arms.’

  Robert made a lunge for Osbert’s hand and pushed up the sleeve to reveal marks.

  ‘It was easy for you,’ said Gwenllian, disgusted. ‘You live here, so you knew exactly where to kill Hurso without being seen. Foliot gave you an alibi—’

  ‘But Osbert was not wet,’ said Foliot triumphantly. ‘Hurso was killed in the rain, and you said yourself that his killer would have been soaked. I was damp, because I had been to the latrines, but Osbert was dry. And if he is innocent of killing Hurso, then so am I.’

  ‘Osbert is bald,’ explained Gwenllian. ‘His head is easy to wipe dry, unlike one with hair. He divested himself of his sodden cloak and pretended he had been indoors all afternoon. And you stabbed Luci, because he was on the verge of exposing you both.’

  ‘No.’ Osbert swallowed hard, and his denial was unconvincing. ‘I never did.’

  ‘You planned it from the moment you and Foliot met,’ said Gwenllian in disgust. ‘Prior Dunstan asked to stay in your house, but you ensured they all came here, knowing trouble would follow. You have been friends for years, and you conspired together like—’

  ‘We did what we thought was right!’ cried Osbert suddenly. Foliot closed his eyes, disgusted by the capitulation. ‘Gerald should not be Bishop of St Davids. He will try to make it an archbishopric, which will earn the wrath of the King, Canterbury and Rome. He will be a disaster, inflicting misery and hardship on thousands of people . . .’

  ‘Yes, but murder,’ said Dunstan in distaste. ‘It—’

  Suddenly, Foliot snatched a knife from the table and ran towards Norrys. The knight tensed, but the crossbow bolt trained on Cole did not waver.

  ‘You cannot shoot Cole and leave witnesses, Norrys,’ said Foliot urgently. ‘Yet you are eager to see him dead. So you, Osbert and I will set this hall alight and lock everyone else inside. We three will be the only survivors.’

  Norrys stared at him for a moment, and then his face broke into a slow, savage grin. ‘An excellent solution. However, Cole has an uncanny ability to slither out of dangerous situations unharmed, and I should not like him to escape. I need to be certain he is dead.’

  He aimed the crossbow and loosed the mechanism. There was a sharp click and Cole slumped to the floor.

  Gwenllian stared at Cole in mute horror, and took an unsteady step towards him, but Burchill grabbed her hand, and held her fast.

  ‘The baby,’ he whispered. ‘Think of the baby.’

  But Gwenllian could only think of Cole. She could see he was breathing, but for how long? Norrys had grabbed a second crossbow, already wound, and was toting it in a way that said he would be delighted to claim another victim, so that although Dunstan and Gerald had taken several steps towards the door, both faltered. Young Robert was rooted to the spot in terror.

  ‘I shall set the rushes alight,’ said Foliot. ‘They are dry and will burn well. Osbert, get ready to open the door – not too soon or servants might see the flames.’

  ‘And I will shoot anyone who tries to escape,’ Norrys warned his prisoners. ‘So move at your peril.’

  ‘Osbert!’ cried Burchill. ‘You are not a bad man – you cannot do this evil thing! You know Lady Gwenllian is with child. Do not let Foliot lead you down a dark path.’

  ‘It is good advice,’ said Gerald sternly. ‘Your immortal soul is in grave danger, because if I die, I shall ensure you never join me in heaven. And that is a promise.’

  Osbert’s expression was agonised, and for a moment, Gwenllian’s hopes flared. But Norrys brought the hilt of his dagger down on the archdeacon’s head, and he crumpled. Foliot touched a torch to the floor, and there was a crackle as the rushes caught.

  Norrys laughed wildly as flames licked towards his victims, but then stopped and stared at his chest in surprise. A knife was embedded in it, and Cole was racing towards him. Cole knocked the astonished Hospitaller from his feet, felled Foliot with a well-aimed punch
, and yelled for servants to bring water.

  As he held regular fire drills, no one needed instructions to form a line and pass buckets from hand to hand. It was an efficient operation, and the flames were out before any real damage was done. Shutters were thrown open to dispel the smoke, and the singed rushes were hauled out into the bailey. It was not long before the crisis was over.

  Iefan, who had worked as hard as anyone, carried Luci to the chapel, but dumped Norrys’s body next to the spoiled flooring. Then he escorted Foliot and Osbert, the latter nursing a very sore head, to the castle cells. Gerald, Dunstan and Robert agreed a truce and repaired to the chapel together to give thanks for their deliverance.

  ‘I thought you were dead,’ said Gwenllian unsteadily, burying her face in Cole’s shoulder. ‘Norrys shot you without hesitation.’

  ‘He missed by a mile,’ said Cole dismissively. ‘He was a wretched warrior. Burchill knew I was unharmed, of course. It was why he warned you to think of the baby.’

  ‘To prevent me from risking myself needlessly,’ said Gwenllian in understanding. ‘He almost lost his sword arm defending me too. I was wrong to suspect him: he is a good friend – to both of us.’

  ‘The best,’ said Cole with a smile.

  III

  Life soon settled back to normal in Carmarthen. Gerald rode west towards St Davids and Dunstan rode east towards Canterbury. The merchants set their prices at a more reasonable level, and the citizens continued to complain about them anyway. Luci and Norrys were buried in the churchyard, and Cole escorted Osbert and Foliot to the Austin priory, to be incarcerated there until their fates could be decided.

  ‘I do not care what happens to them,’ Cole said to Gwenllian when he returned. ‘Just as long as they leave my town.’

  ‘They caused all manner of trouble,’ agreed Gwenllian. ‘They thought their actions were justified, and perhaps they were – Gerald will be trouble if he is bishop – but to commit murder to achieve them . . .’