The Anchoress of Chesterfield

by Chris Nickson

  ‘No, Master,’ he replied, and watched the coroner’s eyes widen in surprise. ‘I had luck, and God’s grace helped me.’

  Strong waved the words away and gestured at the cell.

  ‘Do you know who lived here?’

  ‘Gertrude the anchoress.’ Everyone for miles around knew about her. The goodwives all swore she was a holy woman. They’d walked out from Chesterfield to see her after she arrived, to inspect her and form their opinions. They’d been surprised to find such serenity and humility in someone so young.

  The anchoress sought a life of prayer and contemplation. She lived in solitude, walled away, a religious recluse. Food was provided through an opening and she talked to those who came to visit and offer gifts in return for prayers and advice. But she could never walk with them. She’d chosen to make the small cell her world. A slit between it and the church allowed her to observe services and receive the sacrament.

  Gertrude had only been there for twelve months; it seemed like nothing at all. Barely more than a girl, she’d taken the place of the previous anchoress who died of old age. And now her time had passed, too. John crossed himself.

  ‘What killed her?’ he asked.

  ‘Go inside,’ Strong ordered. ‘Take a look. Tell me what you see. I’ve been in there and for the love of Our Lord, I can’t find a cause.’

  Someone had prised away some of the stones, making a space just large enough for a man to crawl through.

  John had never come out here to see the anchoress for himself. Why would he, when she craved solitude and prayer? But even so, it was impossible to avoid the gossip about her that passed around Chesterfield. Her father was Lord l’Honfleur. A rich man who moved in royal circles. He had influence. He owned this manor of Calow, John knew that, and many others besides, probably far more than a poor man could count.

  ‘Go on, tell me what you think,’ Strong urged.

  With a quizzical look, John squeezed himself through the small opening and into the cell. He squatted on his haunches, letting his eyes adjust to the gloom. He inhaled and the stench hit him. He could feel the bile rising in his stomach and willed it down. A rank perfume of old vomit and shit filled the air as it stifled and clung. Decay, putrefaction. Death. He breathed through his mouth, then his ears picked out the constant buzzing of flies, a low, insistent drone. Slowly, very slowly, his vision began to clear. The main room was so small it was oppressive. Perhaps six paces long by four wide and barely tall enough for a man to stretch. He picked out the opening into the church along one wall. A small room stood in the corner. He opened the door. A jakes, with a bucket and seat for the anchoress to relieve herself. He turned back to the room. A window to the outside world in one wall, its shutter partly open. John stood and drew the wood all the way back to let the light flood in. Suddenly everything stood out in sharp relief. The pools on the floor were crawling with thousands of insects. He tried to brush them away, but it was an impossible task; they returned as soon as his hand had passed.

  A pallet sat in the corner, a rough-cut wooden frame topped with straw and a threadbare blanket. No comfort of any kind for the anchoress. There wasn’t even any space for a fire or a brazier to keep herself warm. Winter would have been a brutal season in here. Even now this place carried a damp chill that seemed to ooze out of the stone. He took another shallow breath. The young woman was slumped against the wall, her eyes wide with agony and fear. Her hair was hidden by a wimple that had long since lost its whiteness. Her gown was expensive, made from finely woven wool, but it had been worn to a threadbare shine in patches. John knelt by her, tracing the pale flesh on her hands and face, then looking at her body. He half-turned the corpse. The coroner was right. There was no sign of a wound or an injury. No blood. He sniffed the corpse’s mouth, but he couldn’t pick up any scent of poison. There was no sign of it, he thought; no discolouration of her lips or fingernails.

  Very strange. There was nothing at all to show the cause of her death. And certainly nothing to indicate it had been deliberate. No violence of any kind. But the pain that had contorted her face told its own story. Gertrude’s death had been terrible. John traced the sign of the cross over his chest and studied the room once more.

  A knife sat on a low wooden table, but the blade was too blunt to do any damage; it would barely be able to cut meat. The anchoress had knocked the plate from her final meal on to the floor. It covered the few scraps of food the insects hadn’t already carried away. He brushed the remnants back on to the plate then crawled out into the light.

  ‘Well?’ the coroner asked. ‘What did you see?’ But John ignored his question. He was studying the food. The answer had to be in there. That had to have been what killed her. But what was it?

  It took him a few moments. Then he understood. A faint memory grew sharper as it took on form in his mind. The pieces of mushroom had been cut very fine. Only the sickly yellow colour and the sheen on the cap gave it away.

  ‘That,’ John said. He pointed, careful not to touch.

  Strong stared. At the plate first, then at him.

  ‘Why? What is it?’

  ‘People call it the death cap mushroom. That’s what killed her.’ Most people out here would have known about its danger and kept away from it, he thought. Unless they wanted to kill.

  The coroner didn’t look convinced. ‘How can you be sure?’

  ‘I know,’ John replied, ‘because I saw someone eat one once.’

  It came roaring back into his head. He was just nine, orphaned for a twelvemonth by the plague and simply trying to stay alive as he travelled through a land that the pestilence had laid waste. He’d been with a small group of starving men, tramping their way along the road from Ripon to Knaresborough. They’d been going slowly. Half of them were too weak to walk more than a mile without resting. Their tunics and hose were all filthy, the soles of their shoes battered and worn all the way through by time on the highway. One of them, Seth, had spotted the mushrooms, deep in the cool shade of a tree where he was resting. So desperate for anything at all in his belly, he’d started to eat them before anyone could stop him.

  John didn’t understand. He couldn’t. He was too young to know. He didn’t see what the man had done that was so wrong. Seth was hungry, he’d seen food, he’d eaten it. John’s father had never told him that some mushrooms were deadly. The plague had taken him before he could teach that lesson. Him and so many others. In the end, it was the hard, toothless man leading their party who explained it all to him.

  They struck up a rough camp and waited for the death. Someone trapped a coney and they roasted it over the fire. He could still remember the warm grease running down his chin as he gratefully chewed a scrap of meat and sucked at the bones.

  Seth took a day and a half to find God’s peace. He was in pain the whole time, but there was nothing they could do to ease it, no plants that might take the agony away for a while. John could still hear the cries. Seth suffered, screaming into the air, his body beyond his control, even when there was nothing else left inside. The silence when his breathing stopped had brought a sweet relief, and then guilt. They buried him. A shallow grave was the best they could manage, piled high with stones to keep the animals away from the corpse.

  ‘Are you positive?’ Strong asked him now.

  ‘Yes.’ He had no doubt at all. It was one lesson he could never erase. ‘It would have taken her a long time to die.’

  ‘How long?’ a voice asked.

  John turned. He hadn’t heard the man approach, coming around from the other side of the church. Lord l’Honfleur. Dame Gertrude’s father. He wore his wealth very easily and naturally. A light silk surcote dyed a deep, rich blue, cut to fall flatteringly around his body. He was well-barbered, his cheeks clean and still pink from the razor, and his grey hair was cut short. He had a fighting man’s padded jerkin that reached down to his thighs, and high, shiny boots of supple leather that sat snug against his calves, over blue hose.

  ‘God speed, my lord
,’ John lowered his head. ‘A day at least.’

  ‘I see.’

  The grief bowed the man down like a powerful weight he couldn’t support.

  ‘I’m sorry, my lord,’ John said. ‘May God’s light be on her now.’

  The man nodded absently and took a deep breath. He started to pace around, clenching his fists then opening them again.

  ‘Why?’ he asked. A small word, a simple question, but none of them could answer it. ‘Why? Why would someone do that?’

  John looked at the coroner, then said: ‘I don’t know, my lord.’

  ‘She was always her mother’s favourite.’ L’Honfleur started to speak as if he hadn’t heard him. He was tracing a path backwards through the years. ‘Gertrude was the youngest, she was the one most like her.’ He closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again, a tear began to roll down his cheek. He let it fall, not even aware it was there. ‘After my wife died, Gertrude found comfort in prayer and the church. In the priest and the sister who was teaching her.’ A brief, wistful smile of remembrance. He didn’t want an answer; maybe it was enough for him to know they were there, that someone would hear what he needed to say. ‘I was urged to make a good marriage for her. I was already discussing it with a family, but she begged me to let her become a nun. Begged me. Nine years old and the only thing she wanted was to leave this world behind her.’ He shook his head in wonder. ‘My wife had always been a friend to the convent. How could I refuse? The vocation was plain in her eyes. The need.’ He took a few more paces. ‘And then she craved more and more solitude. When the old anchoress died last year, she pleaded with the Mother Superior to let her take on this task.’ He breathed very slowly and seemed to return to the present. He stood, legs slightly apart, shoulders back. ‘Who are you, anyway?’

  ‘John, my lord. John the Carpenter.’

  L’Honfleur raised an eyebrow in surprise. ‘What kind of carpenter knows about death?’

  ‘He did some work for the old coroner,’ Strong said. ‘You remember him – de Harville.’

  The man nodded. His eyes peered into John’s face, examining it for truth and honesty. ‘Yes, I think I recall your name now. You’re the one who has the gift for finding murderers.’

  ‘Not really, Master. And all that was a long time ago.’ He stumbled over the words. The very last thing in the world that he wanted was to have l’Honfleur demanding his services.

  ‘But you were able to identify the mushroom.’

  ‘True enough, Master.’ He could hardly deny that.

  L’Honfleur sighed. ‘Tell me this, Carpenter: do you believe my daughter’s death was an accident?’

  What kind of answer could he offer? A lie that might ease the man’s heart? That wouldn’t give the girl in the anchorite cell any justice. Once the truth eased out, and it surely would in time, would l’Honfleur come after him? Honesty was painful, but it was better. It could burn and cleanse. Anyone who gathered mushrooms should know to avoid the death cap.

  ‘No, my lord,’ John said after a moment, ‘I don’t think it was.’ He hesitated, weighing his words as if they were gold. ‘It’s possible that someone made a mistake. But my belief is that this was done deliberately.’

  Who would want to kill a young nun? How could she have done anyone any harm in such a short life, especially alone out here? He thought of the pain and fear crowded together on her face. What had she gone through, hour after hour, on her own? What reason could someone possess for doing that to her?

  L’Honfleur began to pace once more, hands clasped behind his back. This time he walked all the way to the treeline before turning and coming back. Strong and his clerk remained silent, staring at the cell. John waited, silently cursing the coroner for demanding that he come out here.

  ‘Carpenter,’ l’Honfleur said when he returned, ‘I want you to find the person who killed my daughter.’

  ‘My lord—’John began. For the blessed love of God, not that.

  The man rode roughshod over his protest. ‘You’ve done it before. You used to have a reputation for it. You can’t deny that.’ His voice softened and there was a plea in his eyes. ‘I’m asking you to do it again. For me.’

  It might have sounded like a request, like begging, but it was an order. And one he dare not refuse, not when it came from a man with l’Honfleur’s power. A word would be all it took to ruin a life.

  He bowed his head. ‘Yes, my lord.’

  ‘Succeed and I’ll pay you fifty pounds.’

  John shook his head. He frowned in disbelief, in shock. He’d misheard. He must have. That or he’d slipped deep into a dream. Fifty pounds? Fifty pounds? It wasn’t possible. No one would offer that much, certainly not to someone of his status. It was more than he could dream of making in more than ten good years as a carpenter. Plenty of wealthy merchants with their servants and their beautiful clothes earned far less than fifty pounds in a year. It was enough to repair both his houses and leave ample to keep his family comfortable until he was old. He glanced at Strong and the clerk. Both of them were staring at l’Honfleur with their jaws wide.

  ‘Fifty pounds, my lord?’ John’s voice was a croak. He was afraid to ask, in case the man realised his mistake and took back the offer.

  ‘Fifty.’ He nodded towards the other men. ‘You have witnesses, Carpenter. I’m a man of my word. Fifty pounds if you find the killer by the time the fair starts. What do you say?’

  ‘Yes, my lord.’ He agreed. But there was never a choice, and l’Honfleur knew it as well as he did.

  CHAPTER TWO

  ‘You made the right decision, Carpenter.’

  L’Honfleur had remained at the anchorite cell, making arrangements to have his daughter brought to the church for her burial. John and the coroner’s clerk were trudging back to Chesterfield, while Strong rode alongside them, looking down on the world from the saddle of his horse.

  ‘Did I have a choice, Master?’

  ‘No, you didn’t, and it would have been unwise to try and refuse. What do you know about him?’

  ‘Very little.’ What did he know about any man with titles and lands? About as much as he knew about the countries beyond the Middle Sea. The rich were there; they existed in a world far removed from his own. They had money. It built a wall around them, left them warm and kept everything at bay. They were the ones who ran the country, who looked after the grand affairs. But none of that really touched his life, or anyone he knew. He lived among the small people, running around like ants and trying to avoid being crushed under the soles of those who controlled everything.

  ‘He’s a very powerful man. Twelve manors across Derbyshire and Yorkshire.’ The way Strong spoke, it was supposed to impress him. Instead it made the man seem like someone who could part with fifty pounds and never notice it had gone. ‘A man who has the ear of Alice Perrers, the King’s mistress.’

  And what did that matter, unless it was some sort of threat? He hadn’t wanted to do this, but with little choice, he’d agreed to look into Gertrude’s death. The money was meant to tempt him and keep him going, and he knew that it would. Now he had to hope he succeeded and earned the reward. It was the only thing about the whole business that made sense to him.

  ‘I shall need some help.’

  ‘What do you want?’ Strong asked. They’d crossed the bridge and were climbing up Soutergate towards the church with its towering spire.

  ‘Men,’ John told him. He was certain the coroner would agree; he’d want to please l’Honfleur.

  ‘Let me know when you need them and how many. I’ll make sure they’re available.’

  ‘And I’ll need to be paid.’

  ‘But my lord said…’

  ‘That doesn’t feed my family while I’m looking into this,’ John insisted. ‘I can’t do my own work, so I need to earn.’

  The coroner eyed him suspiciously. ‘I thought you owned two houses.’

  ‘I do.’ There was no need to give the man the full truth; the rumours would si
mply fly all over Chesterfield. ‘But when you hire a labourer, you pay him for his work.’

  ‘Very well,’ the man agreed with a grudging sigh. ‘Four pennies a day. But he wants this complete by the time the fair starts, Carpenter. I hope you’ll remember that.’

  ‘I will, Master. All too well.’

  • • •

  John counted out his four pennies from the Guildhall on the table in the hall.

  ‘I’m glad you remembered to collect your pay,’ Katherine said. Her voice was chilly. ‘Especially when you had more important things to do.’ She bounced Martha on her knee, and the child smiled. That sweet, easy grin which caught his heart every time.

  Juliana was off somewhere, probably playing with her friends in the churchyard, and Richard was likely asleep in the solar. Ever since his birth he’d been a weak, sickly child, so close to death a few times that the priest had administered the last rites. Rest seemed to help him, but they both knew he would probably leave this world before too long. The knowledge hurt; it was like a knife forcing its slow, agonising way into his heart. But it was God’s will, something beyond his control. All he could do was accept it when it happened.

  ‘You know I didn’t have a choice. I had to go.’

  Her eyes flashed. She wasn’t giving an inch.

  ‘And what else does the coroner want you to do?’

  He hesitated before answering. ‘Not him. My Lord l’Honfleur. They body belonged to his daughter Gertrude, the anchoress. He wants me to investigate her death.’

  ‘No!’ She slapped her palm down hard on the table and shouted the word loud enough for all of Chesterfield to hear. With Martha crying and squirming in her arms, she stalked off through the buttery, down to the end of the garden to stare at the wall.

  John waited. But she didn’t return. Instead, she stood by the apple tree, running her free hand along the bark. They’d picked the last of the fruit only a week before. Richard had felt strong enough that day to climb up in the branches and toss the apples down into a basket as they all laughed and sang. A day to cherish when times grew dark.