by E. M. Powell
‘Our lord not good enough for you?’
‘Hell’s teeth, sir!’
‘Have a bit of respect, man!’
‘God save Sir Reginald’s soul!’
Barling did not respond, or even flinch. Instead he carried on. ‘And Stanton and I will look in every dwelling.’
Now the jeers became howls of protest.
‘He questions our word!’
‘Lindley’s not in our homes!’
‘While the real outlaw is still taking lives!’
Stanton got ready to pull Barling inside, put a hand on his arm.
But Barling shook him off to try to shout over the crowd again. ‘Wild pursuit has not served us well up to now!’
‘For the love of God, compose yourselves!’
Stanton looked around as the rector walked out to face the crowd.
‘My uncle has been murdered. Lies dead in this hall. There should be prayers, not a riot.’
His words brought a simmering silence.
‘Thank you, sir priest,’ said Barling. ‘I shall conduct my search as I read the law. Not in fits and starts, but in order. Line by line by line. A proper search may well yield vital information. I am going to start now, Stanton with me.’
‘And me also,’ said the rector. ‘My uncle’s soul is already in Paradise, I have no doubt of that.’
Stanton did.
The rector continued. ‘Now I wish to find who sent him there.’
‘So if you are not coming with us,’ said Barling to the villagers, ‘go to your homes. It is one or the other.’ His gaze met Stanton’s. ‘Are you ready, Stanton?’
Osmond’s demand for composure had worked at first but the quiet hadn’t lasted long. Every stop at every home brought new calls of protest from the men outside and the women within.
Stanton also couldn’t quite believe that they were wasting time like this, but he had no opportunity to try to talk Barling out of it.
The clerk had even brought one of his wax tablets with him to list names and dwellings, to more howls of derision every time he read from it or wrote on it.
Their checking of the empty home of Bartholomew Theaker brought the worst insults of all. The body of its owner had gone, but all else was the same, except the blossom tree, its petals now shed and lying on the ground like snow.
They moved on, from door to door, Osmond’s insistence on blessing every home once they’d finished checking adding to their slow pace.
Stanton heard every word of barely muted insult. A few times his cheeks burned and he knew Barling must be able to hear it all too. Yet the King’s clerk stayed as aloof as if he sat on the dais like the judges at York.
Then they came to one house that Stanton knew well.
‘This is the Webbs’, Barling,’ he said.
‘Peter and Margaret Webb?’ Barling looked at his list.
‘Correct.’ Even Stanton was tempted to smack the tablet out of his hand. He knew who the Webbs were.
‘Knock on, Stanton.’
Stanton did as ordered, the warm planks in the sunshine and the noise so different from the dark and the quiet of the night he’d been pounding on it.
No answer. He frowned.
‘Sir!’ Peter Webb’s sombre face was one in the group of village men.
‘What is it, Webb?’ asked Barling.
‘Margaret’s with John in the fulling shed, sir. He was bad this morning, so we agreed she should stay in there.’
‘Very well.’
Stanton crossed the yard with Barling and Osmond, Webb following them. Webb opened the door to the shed to the sharp, foul stench of the stale urine used in the fulling work. Stanton coughed hard, Barling also recoiling, as the rector clapped his linen kerchief to his own nose.
A loud report echoed out.
John, of course, treading in the dark.
‘I can’t see Margaret,’ said Stanton to Barling.
‘You can’t?’ Webb frowned. ‘Margaret!’
No answer.
Only John’s steady steps and splashes, a creature in his own dark world with no understanding of what was going on.
‘Margaret!’
‘Check the cottage, Stanton. Now.’
Stanton ran the few yards back to the cottage, Webb behind him, older, slower, calling for his wife.
He hauled open the door.
No jeers, no catcalls now.
For on the floor of the Webbs’ cottage was the still form of Margaret Webb, lying face down on a pile of newly woven cloth, her white coif a bloodied mess of scarlet.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
A stunned-looking Peter Webb staggered past Stanton to his wife, and then John was in too, hollering and crying.
A wave of panicked yells came from outside as well, some men fleeing back to their own homes to check on their loved ones.
‘Stay calm, stay calm, good people!’ came Osmond’s useless call.
‘Margaret?’ Webb stared at his wife’s body, one hand clutching at his chest.
‘Stanton!’ Barling’s order rose above the din. ‘Remove that wild boy. At once.’
Stanton looked to Webb to help. No use. The man appeared about to pass out.
He grabbed for John’s jerkin, hanging on as the man twisted and yelled.
‘Get him out, Stanton.’
‘Out, come on.’ Stanton went to wrestle John out, but the man flung himself back to his mother, breaking from Stanton’s grasp and sending him to the floor.
He landed hard on one hip.
‘Stanton.’ Barling’s sharp rebuke.
Stanton went to clamber back up, grabbed for John again. Got him.
Then he saw it. The tiniest twitch of one of Margaret’s fingers.
‘Barling, she’s still alive!’ Stanton thrust John from him, pushed the suffocating wool down to give Margaret the best chance for air.
‘Oh, Margaret, Margaret!’ Webb was on his knees next to him, still clutching his chest, his breathing ragged.
John had retreated to the corner, slapping his own head hard, and carrying on his sudden shouts.
As Stanton did what he could, Barling’s crisp orders came echoing in while Osmond loudly proclaimed a miracle.
‘Fetch somebody who can dress her wound. Then I want her taken back to the lord’s manor under constant guard. I do not want her to be vulnerable to any further attack from Lindley.’
Stanton had done his best in freeing Margaret’s mouth and nose. Doubt bit at him now. She hadn’t moved since that one – that only – tiny twitch. Her eyes were still closed.
‘If you’ll excuse me, sir.’ He looked up to see the midwife, Hilda Folkes. ‘I shall see to Margaret now.’
‘Of course.’ He went outside, his legs like he’d been running far and fast.
Barling gave him a firm nod as Webb came out behind him, the weaver’s grip firm on a quieter but still moaning John.
‘What happens now, Barling?’
A rude shout from the crowd. Caldbeck.
‘We carry on our search of every home,’ Barling replied.
Something niggled at Stanton when he said that; he didn’t know why.
‘Then may God protect us.’ Osmond quailed and blessed himself.
A storm of protest met his answer, with shouts that it was a waste of time, that it was useless.
Barling wasn’t having it. ‘Do I really have to point out that Margaret Webb would be dead by now if we had not searched the village first? The search goes on.’
‘A lot of folk would still be alive if Nicholas Lindley had hanged!’ Another rude shout from Caldbeck.
‘Sir, if I may.’ Webb had got a little colour back in his lined face, much to Stanton’s relief.
‘What is it?’ asked Barling.
‘I, for one, want to continue to help hunt for the man who did this to my wife. Can my boy go with her, with Margaret, to the manor?’
‘Of course.’ Barling signalled to a reluctant pair of the late Edgar’s servants to escort
John.
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘As I say, the search goes on,’ said Barling.
‘If God wills it.’ Osmond looked petrified.
Barling started to list whose home would be next as the calls of protest went on.
‘Are the dead ones still on your list?’ Caldbeck. Again.
And then Stanton understood the niggle. Smoke. Homes with no one living in them, like Theaker’s, had no smoke rising from the thatch. But the living did. Except one. No smoke rose from the roof of the Smith family’s cottage. Dear God, Agnes could be at death’s door too.
‘Barling!’ He grabbed at the clerk’s arm. ‘Forget the list. There’s one that’s more urgent. I fear Agnes Smith has been set upon.’
‘What! Why?’
‘Come on.’ He gabbled out his reasoning as they ran, Osmond huffing along with them as the crowd of village men surged behind in a shouting mass.
‘Agnes!’ Stanton hammered on the door.
Silence.
He tried to open it. ‘It’s locked!’
Barling clicked his fingers at one of Edgar’s men. ‘Break it down. Now.’
A couple of swift axe blows had it open.
‘Agnes!’ Stanton forced his way in through the damaged planks. ‘Agnes!’
Silence. The hearth was dead. The floor mercifully empty. No Agnes lying there as Margaret had been.
‘She’s not here, Barling.’
Barling stepped in behind him, Osmond too, gasping from his run. ‘We always need order.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Stanton. ‘I should have followed your plan.’
The first angry shouts broke out.
‘What the devil is going on?’
Barling sighed. ‘Stanton, go out there and placate them, or at least as much as you can. Let Osmond and I continue.’
Stanton did as he was ordered, though he had no idea what he was supposed to say. He held up a hand to get silence. ‘We are searching Agnes’s cottage,’ he began.
‘No, you’re standing outside of it!’
A roar of unpleasant laughter met the call from the ploughman.
‘You know what I mean, Caldbeck.’ Stanton tried to be heard over the din. ‘You all do.’
His words had no effect, with the mocking chorus continuing.
But then the laughs stopped dead. Turned to gasps of horror.
Stanton looked around to see Barling walk out with an ashen-faced Osmond.
The clerk held a long-bladed knife high in one hand, the metal dulled with the stain of dried blood. ‘I found this hidden in the log basket.’
Stanton didn’t follow. Nothing was making sense.
But Barling went straight up to one of Edgar’s men. ‘Do you recognise this?’
‘God save us.’ The man nodded, his lips white. ‘That’s one of the knives from Sir Reginald’s hall. His lordship always had Geoffrey Smith put a special stamp in the metal. Said it would stop people thieving.’
The weapon used to slay Edgar. Stanton closed his eyes as realisation began to dawn. Agnes. No. Opened them again.
‘I believe we have found our monster,’ said Barling. ‘But we were too late. Far too late. She has slipped away.’
Osmond’s mouth set in a thin line. ‘Slipped away with her murdered father’s hard-earned money. I know where Smith kept it from collecting the tithes and it is gone.’ He shook his head. ‘Such wickedness.’
‘Agnes Smith is an outlaw now,’ said Barling. ‘The King’s reach extends over the whole of the land. She will be brought to justice and she will hang.’
A huge roar met his words, every voice and face eager to witness justice at last.
‘And may God have mercy on her,’ said Osmond. ‘For no one else will.’
Stanton’s gaze fell on a stunned-looking Caldbeck. For once, the loud-mouthed ploughman had nothing to say.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
‘I trusted I would be lord of Claresham one day,’ said Osmond. ‘If God was good enough to spare me.’
Stanton sat to his right at the long table in Edgar’s hall, Barling opposite, a lit candle holder on the table bringing light to their faces but leaving the rest of the hall in shadow.
From outside came the clatter of hooves dying away in the distance, the last of the pairs of messengers dispatched by Barling with hastily scrawled letters to alert people for miles around.
Stanton wished he’d gone too. Anything was better than sitting here looking at what rested on the tabletop in front of them: a bundle of cloth containing the knife Barling had found in Agnes’s cottage.
‘As I knew, it would take the sad death of my uncle for it to be so.’ Osmond put his head in his hands. ‘But I never thought it would be in such heinous circumstances.’ His gaze went to the bundle and his mouth turned down in revulsion. ‘For the love of God, take that thing out of my sight.’
‘Stanton, perhaps you could dispose of it.’ Barling reached out and pushed it over to Stanton.
Stanton took it from him, the hairs on his neck rising from having in his hands the object that had taken the life of a man. As to what he should do with it, he had no idea. ‘How best should I do that?’
Barling glared at him. ‘Not now,’ he mouthed.
‘If the world had not gone mad,’ said Osmond, ‘you could ask Geoffrey Smith to melt it down. It was his hands that would have fashioned it, that had fashioned so much else. But you can’t.’ He gave a snort of disgust, for all the world like the late Edgar. ‘Because he’s dead.’
Stanton placed the bundle in his satchel, hoping Barling would tell him as soon as possible about what he should do with it. He hoped he could leave it wrapped when he did and not have to look at the sickeningly stained blade.
‘Murdered just like your unfortunate uncle, God rest him,’ said Barling. ‘And it was Geoffrey’s own daughter who killed him.’
Osmond shook his head. ‘The she-devil. What drove her to such evil?’
‘Agnes Smith was something which is of more advantage to a killer,’ said Barling. ‘She was clever.’
‘Bold too.’ Stanton had thought that desirable. Knowing what it truly meant now sickened him.
‘Indeed.’ Barling nodded. ‘Agnes claimed to me that she was attacked in the woods before she found her father’s body. No one else saw either of those events, neither the attack nor her father’s murder. Worse, she used those lies to put the blame on another. It was late at night. She had plenty of time and opportunity to kill her father with the branding iron.’
‘But why?’ asked the rector. ‘I mean, Geoffrey Smith was hardly a saint. Why, he confessed to me once that he—’
‘Sir priest, you cannot be referring to what you have heard in the sanctity of the confessional.’ Barling looked at him askance.
Osmond raised a hand. ‘Forgive me, I’m not thinking clearly in my shock.’
‘As to why Agnes would want to kill her father,’ said Barling, ‘her father had promised her in marriage to Bartholomew Theaker, a man who physically repulsed her. Agnes was the stonecutter Thomas Dene’s devoted lover, and by killing Theaker she thought she was then free to marry Dene.’
Stanton nodded. ‘Little did she know that he was already married, with a flock of children.’
‘Dene was merely taking advantage of her,’ said Barling. ‘He was happy to spin her any story to satisfy his lust. But for Agnes, it was more than lust. She had given her dark heart utterly to him. She told me how they were planning a life together. She was utterly consumed with passion for him. Dene, realising that with Theaker’s death Agnes was now free to marry him, had to come clean about his existing marriage. Her murderous rage was now unleashed at the lover who had let her down.’
‘God’s eyes,’ said Osmond.
‘Ambushing and trying to kill Stanton was a futile attempt to keep the truth from coming out,’ said Barling.
The rope. The road. His horse. Stanton stared into the moving light of the candle, trying to banish the images, t
he sounds from his head.
‘And,’ Barling continued, ‘I believe she had another purpose in attacking you, Stanton. It made her lie to me about being attacked by a hooded figure in the woods that much more credible.’
‘But could a woman have done what was done to my animal?’ asked Stanton. ‘The strength of . . .’ He swallowed, didn’t want to say the words. ‘It all.’
‘From my experience in such matters over the years,’ said Barling, ‘pure rage, that most dangerous of emotions, gives a person, man or woman, strength way beyond what one might expect. It also makes a soul blind to the implications of committing a mortal sin.’
‘Surely Agnes did not love my uncle, Barling,’ said Osmond. ‘Why should she be driven to kill him of all people?’
‘As lord, Edgar had to agree to all marriages of villeins,’ he replied. ‘Geoffrey Smith was a freeman, so he could have given Agnes in marriage to another freeman. But Theaker, though comfortably off, was a villein and so needed the lord’s permission to marry. Edgar clearly had given it, as Theaker and Agnes were betrothed.’
This explanation puzzled Stanton. ‘But she had already found out that Thomas Dene was married, had killed him. Why would she have bothered to murder Edgar?’
‘A question well worth asking, Stanton,’ said Barling. ‘Remember, when I questioned Agnes, she said that Dene would use her betrothal to Theaker as a barrier to their being together. Dene even said to her one day how much happier our lives could have been without the hand of Sir Reginald Edgar. She acted upon that. I suspect she had already decided to do so. In her lust-fevered mind, he’d been a barrier to her happiness. Even if Dene was dead, in her twisted mind, Edgar still had to be punished for daring to deny her her desires.’
‘I suppose so.’ Stanton could still hear the uncertainty in his own voice.
‘The throes of youth bring not only unstoppable passions,’ said Barling, ‘but passions which defy all logic. Again, I have seen it many times. It can make one blind to anything except the object of one’s desire and its pursuit.’
Stanton fixed his gaze on the candle again. Barling could be looking into his own grieving heart.
Fortunately, the clerk was in full flow and seemed not to notice.