The Anchoress of Chesterfield

by Chris Nickson

  As he drew closer, the man reached to his belt and drew a knife. John felt the prickle of fear up his spine. He gave a quick glance over his shoulder. No one behind him. That was something. He’d only have to face a single opponent. But it meant that nobody else was in sight to stop things.

  ‘God’s peace to you,’ he called. Still the man said nothing, but kept walking towards him, no expression on his face. Who was he? A thief? A robber? Or had he been sent to stop John finding Gertrude’s killer?

  He had no choice; he slipped his own knife from his belt, gripping the hilt tightly. The other man never slowed, never shifted his gaze.

  He didn’t want to fight. He’d never been one who relished anything like this. He’d seen too much death. All he wanted was to be home with his wife and family. But John had the sense that if he tried to run, the man would keep on coming, following at the same, steady pace, never wavering, never stopping, pursuing him all the way to Chesterfield. All the way to the grave. He was dressed in a tunic that was too heavy for the weather, stained on the sleeves, his hose loose on his legs.

  And still he didn’t speak, marching, growing closer and closer until he stopped, three yards away.

  ‘If you want to fight, we’ll fight,’ John said. ‘But tell me why?’

  Not a word. He didn’t appear like an outlaw or a bandit. He was more like an evil spirit, a demon, something not human. The man tried a feint to the left, hoping to catch John off his guard, then followed with a jab to the right. John didn’t try to counter. For now, he was content to keep out of the way. The man was clumsy and slow. His eyes showed what he was going to do long before he did it, and he was wild in his efforts. The type who thought silence and movement were enough to intimidate an opponent. But even someone like that could be lucky. A wound from him could be as deadly as a well-placed cut from an assassin.

  He made a few more swipes that only caught the air as John jumped back or twisted his body out of the way. The man was growing frustrated. Good. He made sudden moves, his face contorted in anger.

  John watched and waited for the right time. He parried a blow, pushing back hard to test the man’s strength. Powerful muscles; it was like hitting iron. Strength alone wasn’t going to beat this one. He needed something better. Something inventive. Something cunning. And something that would leave the man no choice but to answer questions.

  The chance came almost immediately. The man lunged, aiming for John’s chest, but not even close as he skipped aside. It left him stretched too far, off balance and easy prey. It was a simple task for John to use the man’s weight against him and send him sprawling onto his back on the dusty road.

  The knife had tumbled from his hand. As he tried to reach for it, John’s boot came down hard on his wrist.

  ‘I’ve no desire to kill you, Master. But I have a blade and you don’t. That gives me the right to ask you questions. What do you want with me?’

  The man shook his head. No words, but a faint smirk on his face. John pushed down harder on the wrist, grinding it into the dirt until finally the expression changed to a grimace of pain.

  ‘Are you going to tell me?’

  Still no answer. The only sound came from the birds in the trees and the rustle of the breeze through the branches.

  ‘No?’

  Silence.

  John couldn’t take the man back to Chesterfield. He had nothing to bind him, and there were still a few miles to walk before they reached the town. The man wore no scrip; there was nothing to indicate who he might be.

  ‘Why did you attack me?’

  The man stared up at the clear sky. John reached down and sliced through the muscle at the back of his thigh. Even then, he didn’t cry out, just clenched his jaws together and closed his eyes for a moment.

  It was self-preservation. If he’d done nothing and left, the man would have stood up and kept coming. John wouldn’t willingly take a man’s life, but this would stop him following, keep him crippled for a few months. The man would still be alive, but he’d pay a price. He’d hobble for the rest of his life. That much was justice.

  ‘Why?’ he asked one last time, holding his blade by the man’s throat. But there was nothing, no answer, and he knew he’d never have one if he asked until Doomsday. Finally, in disgust, he kicked the man’s knife into the long grass by the side of the road and left him barely able to crawl away.

  He was safe, he knew he was safe. But that didn’t stop him glancing over his shoulder every hundred yards. It was all too easy to believe the man had some dark magic that would help him spring up again.

  Foolish. In his head, he knew that. It was impossible. The man couldn’t stand with an injury like that. But that didn’t stop him turning his head and holding his breath. He hurried, pushed on by all the fear.

  The squires and now this. Three attempts to murder him. To stop him. Someone feared him finding out the truth.

  The man might have been an outlaw. There were plenty all over the country. Masterless men had been roaming ever since the Pestilence, looking for easy pickings and lone travellers. But he hadn’t seemed like that. He was alone; robbers usually worked in packs.

  The determination… that scared him more than anything. It wasn’t human. It was… he didn’t possess the words for it. It was an attack to kill. John knew that. It could have been him lying on the road.

  Once he could see the spire standing in the distance his heartbeat slowed to normal and his breathing eased. Safety was close. A final glance behind him, then across the bridge over the Hipper and up Soutergate.

  He wanted to sit in his own garden, to hold his wife close and give thanks. But first he had to do his duty.

  Coroner Strong was sitting with his clerk, going over his accounts. His face darkened as he listened to John’s reports.

  He sent for the head of his guards, the one who’d first escorted John over to the church.

  ‘You’re sure you crippled the man who attacked you, Carpenter?’ Strong asked.

  ‘I know I did, Master.’

  ‘Where did it happen?’

  He told them everything he could remember. There were few landmarks, little to distinguish the place from anywhere else along the road.

  ‘Take two men with you,’ he told the guard. ‘Search the area and bring him back here. If he’s had the muscle cut, he can’t have crawled far.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  The coroner turned to John. ‘Do you think he was a robber or had someone sent him?’

  ‘I don’t know, Master.’ That was the truth. The man had said nothing at all. It could be either one.

  ‘You lead a charmed life, Carpenter. You go up against a man who wants to kill you and come back without a scratch after you cripple him.’ He took a drink from the mazer of wine on the table. ‘Yet you insist you’re not a fighter.’

  ‘I’m not, Master.’

  Strong snorted. ‘Then I’ll take ten like you behind me in battle any day of the week.’

  How could he reply to that? Was it a compliment or an insult?

  ‘And you decided to return to Calow.’

  ‘Yes, Master. The more I thought about everything, what they’d told me in Calow didn’t fit with everything else. It was too… complicated. I didn’t think the squires had brains that worked in those ways.’

  A nod. ‘It seems you’re right. But it would have been easier if they’d remembered everything properly the first time.’ He slammed his hand down on the table, but there was no force behind it. Exasperation, not anger.

  ‘They were scared, Master. The people cared for Gertrude. They were confused, nothing more than that.’

  ‘Maybe,’ the coroner agreed after a while. ‘And what are you going to do now, Carpenter?’

  ‘Go home. Eat and drink and sleep and see my family.’ An honest answer; it was all he wanted.

  ‘And tomorrow?’

  ‘I don’t know yet.’ He hadn’t considered that far ahead. He didn’t want to consider it until he was rested an
d able to think clearly.

  ‘Go,’ Strong said. ‘You’ve earned it. Remember, though, it’s not too long until the fair. My lord needs to know who wanted his daughter dead by then if you’re going to collect fifty pounds.’

  ‘I remember, Master. Believe me, I remember.’

  How could he ever forget? It might as well have been carved into his skin.

  CHAPTER NINE

  He tried to make light of it, but Katherine read the truth in his eyes. She said nothing until the children were all asleep up in the solar.

  She took a delicate sip from a mug of ale. ‘You’re a fool, husband.’

  ‘For fighting?’

  Katherine nodded. ‘You could have run. Never taken out your knife at all.’

  ‘He’d have kept coming.’

  ‘And he wouldn’t have caught you.’

  ‘If someone had sent him, he’d still have been there tomorrow or the day after,’ John said, but she stared at him.

  ‘Perhaps you simply wanted to prove yourself, husband.’

  ‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘I had no choice. Suddenly he was there on the path, coming towards me.’

  ‘Was he an outlaw?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ He shrugged. ‘I keep thinking about it. He could have been anything at all. He wouldn’t say. He never spoke a word, even when I cut his leg.’

  ‘You think it’s connected to Gertrude?’

  ‘It might be.’ He sighed as he looked at her. ‘I wanted him to tell me, but he didn’t say a word. It’s all a guess, wife. But if it weren’t, the coincidence would be strange. The coroner’s sent men out to search for him.’ He took hold of her hand. ‘We might as well go to bed. We can talk all night and never find the truth.’

  • • •

  Strong’s guards hadn’t found the man.

  ‘We were in the right place, I’d swear to it.’ The head of the guards turned to John. ‘It was just as you described, even that large oak on the hillside. We searched all around, a good half a mile in every direction, but we didn’t see him.’ He looked at the coroner. ‘I swear it, Master. We did.’

  Strong nodded and dismissed the man.

  ‘You said you’d hamstrung him.’

  ‘I did,’ John said. ‘I cut him. I saw the blood.’

  The coroner glowered. ‘But he still managed to get away.’

  How could anyone do that? He must have crawled, on his hands and knees, for a mile or more. He’d have been in constant pain. It seemed impossible. But so much about the man who’d attacked him was unlikely. Otherworldly. Yet he was human; he’d bled when the knife sliced his flesh.

  ‘I have no idea what else to say.’ He could make no sense of it.

  ‘What now, Carpenter? My lord will be asking when I see him this morning.’

  ‘I don’t know yet.’ Last night he’d been too weary to think properly, falling into a welcome, dreamless sleep as soon as he pulled up the blanket. This morning he’d had little chance to dwell on it. Richard was unwell, and they’d had to decide if they could afford to send for the apothecary. It would take every spare farthing they had, and it would do no good. They’d already been told there was no cure. But they couldn’t bear to see the boy in pain, and finally he’d gone through the streets to call on the man. Gertrude’s death hadn’t come into his mind until he walked past West Bar on his way here.

  ‘He won’t like that. He’s paying you to find his daughter’s killer.’

  No, John thought, l‘Honfleur wasn’t paying him anything at all. The coroner was paying him, four pennies a day. There would be no reward from my lord unless he succeeded.

  And he truly didn’t know. Everything he’d learned brought him back to the two squires. But they were both dead, and with them any chance of learning more.

  ‘I’ll find something, Master.’

  • • •

  There was a chill to the air, a note that autumn was close. Leaves were falling, along with the fruit of the horse chestnuts for children to break open and play with. The greens of summer were giving way to browns as the world edged towards winter.

  John crossed the marketplace, reaching into his scrip in the faint hope there might be another coin hidden away, when a voice hailed him. He looked up sharply, seeing Jeffrey of Hardwick loping towards him with a smile on his face.

  ‘You were miles away, John. That was the third time I shouted your name.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I was distracted.’

  ‘I saw the coroner last night. He told me what happened to you.’

  ‘That was yesterday.’ He didn’t want to think about it again. Simply consign it to the past along with the curious, unlikely man who’d attacked him. ‘I need something for today.’

  Jeffrey’s eyes twinkled. ‘Perhaps you need someone to help you. I’m free all day, at least until our shipment of leather arrives, and no one seems certain when that will be.’ He rubbed his hands together eagerly. ‘What did you have in mind, Master?’

  ‘Nothing yet.’

  ‘Then we need to find something.’ His enthusiasm was infectious, almost enough to make John forget that he didn’t have any path to follow or that at home his son was dying by degrees.

  In the alehouse on Low Pavement, Jeffrey took out the money and paid, not even noticing it. For a moment John resented him. But the man seemed so young, so eager. It wasn’t his fault he came from a family where he didn’t have to think hard about every penny.

  ‘I heard about Calow and that priest who was the first finder. You were a busy man.’

  ‘More than I’d like,’ he agreed ruefully.

  ‘I’ve never had someone try to kill me,’ Jeffrey said. ‘Nothing more than raised voices.’

  ‘You don’t want it,’ John told him. ‘Please believe me on that.’

  ‘Oh, I do. I’m quite content to only use my knife for cutting the meat on my trencher.’ A smile and a gentle laugh. ‘What do you know, and how can you find out what you need?’

  He was not weighed down by life and responsibilities that slowed and coloured his thoughts. Most of his ideas were no more than bubbles floating to the sky. But a few had substance. They sat and talked them through.

  ‘My cousin the coroner wants me to help, and I’m glad to do anything I can. I know there are places you can’t go, John.’ He blushed at the truth of it. ‘But I can, if you tell me what to ask.’

  Long ago, when the coroner had been a man named de Harville and John had been pushed into looking at deaths, he’d had help from Katherine’s brother, Walter. Now he was married, with a family of his own, and a business carrying messages and small parcels across the entire area, from Sheffield down to Ripley and across to Bakewell. Men and boys worked for him and he was becoming wealthy. But he worked so hard that most of the family never saw him. He’d bring his wife and children into town for the fair. Everyone would be here for that, Katherine’s sisters, too; it was too important to miss. It would be good to see them all again.

  When John investigated, Walter had been another pair of hands and a set of eyes. People said he was slow, but he’d never been that. He was sharp; he’d proved them all wrong.

  Sitting here, talking to Jeffrey, he felt that he had someone to work with again. He wouldn’t have to do it all himself.

  ‘Won’t your family resent you taking time to do this?’

  Jeffrey shook his head. ‘How could they? The coroner is kin, my lord is distant kin. I told you before, John, we’re all related. What I’m doing here aids the family. You know I can help; I can talk to people you could never approach.’

  John stayed quiet for a long time, swirling the ale in the mug. It was cloudy, maybe from the bottom of the batch.

  ‘The father of the squires,’ he said at last.

  ‘He’ll be mourning his sons,’ Jeffrey answered. ‘They were the only two boys he had.’

  ‘Do you think he’d be willing to talk to you?’

  Jeffrey grinned. ‘He has a daughter of marriageable age. He’ll be loo
king for suitors to wed her. My family has money…’ He spread his hands on the table. He’d be welcome in the household.

  ‘Out to Edale… it’s a distance to walk.’

  ‘I ride, Master.’ He looked up at the sky to judge the time. ‘Almost dinner. It’s too late to go there and back before dark. But if I have an early start in the morning, I can bring you some answer by evening. Now, what do you want me to ask?’

  • • •

  He felt hopeful as he walked home for his dinner. Each moment brought less time to find the person behind Gertrude’s murder, but Jeffrey’s eagerness had infected him. The young man was filled with hope; he believed they’d be able to discover the answers.

  ‘A good morning?’ Katherine asked as she served up dinner. A bean pottage, with more vegetables added to the small cauldron over the fire. A poor man’s meal and he was grateful for it. The girls ate, not even noticing what they were putting in their mouths.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I think it was. Is Richard sleeping?’

  ‘I went up and looked at him earlier. He was resting, he didn’t look like he was in pain.’

  The hurt was there behind her eyes. Lately it showed more and more; she couldn’t hide the way she felt. But John knew that the sorrow showed on his face, too. He loved his son. When the boy was born, he’d felt such joy when the baby reached out and grasped his thumb. However much he cherished his daughters, it was nothing compared with that moment, the sweetest he’d ever known. But Richard was going, inch by inch. Soon enough his soul would be with God. No Purgatory, surely; he hadn’t spent enough time on this earth to commit any sins.

  He was going, and there was nothing they could do to stop it. They were powerless before heaven, the way they were powerless down here.

  ‘God be praised,’ he said, and crossed himself. Soon they’d be grieving for Richard. For now, though, he was grateful for every day the boy was still with them.

  • • •

  The light faded in the afternoon and the sky darkened from the west. An hour passed and the clouds grew thicker and thicker until the air felt moist and the first heavy drops of rain began to fall.