by Paul Doherty
‘Yes, yes, I’ve thought of that,’ Corbett agreed. ‘It’s a vision enhanced by the high hedgerows.’
‘That’s the work of the sheep farmers—’
Corbett opened his eyes. ‘What are you implying?’ he interrupted.
‘A poacher,’ she replied, ‘always stays within cover. He will, where possible, always scurry along a ditch or a hedgerow. It’s common sense. One side is protected and he does not want to be caught out in the open. Rabbits and pheasants do the same. The night Furrell disappeared, he must have followed the hedgerows down to a certain place to meet someone. He was probably killed there.’ She kept her voice steady. ‘And his poor corpse buried. Good, I thought, that’s where I’ll begin.’
‘But I saw you in a copse well away from Devil’s Oak?’
‘Patience,’ Sorrel murmured. ‘I mentioned one path Furrell would take but he also favoured the secret copse, the hidden clump of trees. I searched both places. In my first week, Sir Hugh,’ she tapped the skull, ‘I found this. It was behind a hedgerow down near Hamden Mere, a place Furrell had warned me to keep well clear of. I was curious. I dug, no more than a foot, and came across the grave, just a shallow in the ground, the remains tossed in. I noticed the ring, bracelet and piece of girdle. I was going to leave it there but my conscience pricked me. Here was I, searching for poor Furrell’s corpse yet I couldn’t give these pathetic remains proper burial. I don’t trust Blidscote, or any of those wealthy burgesses. I thought of going to see Parson Grimstone, but who’d believe me? I took the ring as payment, wrapped the skeleton in a leather sheet and brought it here.’
‘This was once the chapel, wasn’t it?’ Corbett asked. ‘In your eyes, a holy place?’
‘Yes. I later regretted my charity.’
‘Why?’ Corbett asked.
‘I found two more graves,’ she confessed.
‘What!’
‘I tell you, I found two more graves. That’s why I called the killer of those young women a weasel but . . .’ She paused.
‘What?’ Corbett asked.
‘How do we know these poor women were murdered? I’ve examined these bones. There’s no blow to the head. No mark to the ribs. Nothing!’
Corbett got to his feet. His fingers felt cold and he stretched out towards the warmth from the sconce torch. What do we have here? he thought, staring into the heart of the flame. Sorrel was an expert poacher. She knew the land around Melford. He’d met similar people on his own estates. They could tell if the ground had been disturbed, what animals had passed along which trackways. Furrell must have discovered these graves scattered around the countryside. Being shrewd and clever, he must have disturbed them, realised what he had found, covered them over and, because of superstition, kept Sorrel well away from them. She, in turn, when looking for his grave, sharp-eyed and remembering what she had learnt, had found one grave: out of respect or superstition, she’d then moved the pathetic remains to this ruined chapel. But were they murder victims?
‘What do you think, master clerk?’
‘They could be murder victims.’ Corbett spoke his own thoughts. ‘They could be the prey of the slayer of Elizabeth Wheelwright and the others but, there again, another killer could be responsible, years earlier. Look at the skeleton. The flesh and clothes have all decayed - nothing but brittle, yellowing bone. Indeed, these graves may have nothing to do with murder.’ He sat back on the floor. ‘In London, Mistress Sorrel, beggars die every night on the streets, particularly during wintertime. Their bodies are buried in the mud flats along the Thames, out on the moorlands or even in someone’s garden. Melford is a prosperous place,’ he continued. ‘Think of the young girls from Norwich and Ipswich, the Moon People and the travellers. A woman sickens and dies of the fever or, frail with age, suffers an accident. What do these people do? They leave the trackway. They don’t go very far but dig a shallow grave, place the woman’s corpse there in some lonely copse or wood. A skeleton does not mean a murder,’ he concluded. ‘We don’t even know when this poor woman died. Do you still have the ring?’
She shook her head. ‘I traded it with a pedlar for needles and thread.’
Corbett examined the bracelet. ‘It’s certainly copper, the damp earth has turned it green.’ He held it up against the flame. ‘But I would say . . .’
‘What, clerk?’
Corbett took out his dagger and tapped it against the bracelet.
‘It’s not pure copper,’ he confirmed. ‘But some cheap tawdry ornament. The same probably goes for the clothes and the girdle.’
He crouched down beside the skeleton and examined it carefully. Sorrel was correct. None of the ribs was broken, nor could Corbett detect any fracture of the skull, arms or legs. He examined the chest, the line of the spine: no mark or contusion.
‘The effects of the garrotte string,’ he murmured,
‘would disappear with decay. How many more of these graves did you say?’
‘Two more and the bodies are no less decayed than this.’
Corbett, mystified, replaced the bracelet. He rearranged the bones back on to the board, covered them with the cloth and slid them back into the recess. Sorrel replaced the bricks; Corbett helped her. He tried to recall his conversations with his friend, a physician at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London.
‘You found no string? Nothing round the throat?’ he asked.
‘No, I didn’t.’
Corbett was about to continue his questioning when he heard a sound. He got to his feet and moved to the window.
‘You have sharp ears, clerk.’ Sorrel remained composed.
‘I thought I heard a horse or pony, a rider . . .’
‘I told you, someone I wished you to meet,’ she explained.
Corbett, one hand on his dagger, stood by the window. He heard the jingle of a harness. Whoever had arrived had already crossed the bridge. An owl hooted but the sound came from below. Sorrel went to the window and imitated the same call. She grasped Corbett’s hand.
‘Our visitor has arrived.’
‘The Moon People?’
‘They got tired of waiting,’ Sorrel explained. ‘They watch the hours as regularly as a monk does his office.’
Corbett stared up at the night sky. Aye, he reflected, and I watch mine. What time was it? He had left the church with Sir Louis and Sir Maurice about an hour before nightfall. It must be at least, he reckoned, three hours before midnight and he still had other business to do: Molkyn’s widow to speak to for a start! He heard a sound. Sorrel, holding the sconce torch, was standing in the doorway.
‘Come on!’ she urged.
They reached the cobbled yard. Sorrel’s visitor was standing in the middle. Corbett made out his shadowy outline.
‘I stood here deliberately.’ The voice had a strong country burr. Corbett recognised the tongue of the south-west. ‘I didn’t want to startle you.’
The man stepped into the pool of light. He was tall. Raven-black hair, parted down the middle, fell to his shoulders; sharp eyes like a bird, crooked nose, his mouth and chin hidden by a black bushy moustache and beard. He was swarthy-skinned and Corbett glimpsed the silver earrings in each earlobe. He smelt of wood smoke and tanned leather. The stranger was dressed from head to toe in animal skins: the jacket sleeves were of leather, the front being of mole’s fur, with leggings of tanned deerskin pushed into sturdy black boots. He wore a war belt which carried a stabbing dirk and a dagger. Bracelets winked at his wrists, rings on his fingers.
The stranger studied Corbett from head to toe. ‘So, you’re the King’s clerk?’
‘You should have waited,’ Sorrel accused. ‘I would have brought him.’
The man’s gaze held Corbett’s.
‘I did not want to meet him,’ he replied insolently. ‘I don’t like King’s officers, I don’t like clerks. I only said I would see him because you asked. What I’ve got to say isn’t much. You said you’d bring him to see me if you could.’
Corbett glanced at Sorrel and
smiled. He was intrigued by how much this woman had planned what had happened this evening.
‘You find me amusing?’ the man asked dangerously.
‘No, sir,’ Corbett replied wearily. ‘I do not find you amusing. You are the leader of the Moon People, aren’t you?’
‘One of its clans.’
‘You came here, not because you’re tired of waiting, but because you did not want me in your encampment?’
The man’s eyes flickered.
‘You don’t like court officials,’ Corbett continued, ‘because they stride amongst your wagons like the Lord Almighty. They steal your goods, bully your men, harass your women. They take your horses and accuse you of crimes you did not commit. They will only go away if you offer silver and gold. Do you think I am like that, sir? I tell you, I’m not!’ Corbett undid his purse and took out two silver coins. ‘You come here out of friendship to Sorrel. Go on, take these for your pains!’
The man took the coins.
‘You are an ill-mannered lout!’ Sorrel exclaimed. ‘This clerk’s no Blidscote.’
The Moon man extended a hand. ‘My name is Branway. I’ve come to tell you something.’
Corbett grasped his hand.
‘I’ll tell you what I want, here under God’s sky. In that way you know I am telling the truth. I belong to the Moon People. We travel from Cornwall to the old Roman wall in the north. We have our carts and our ponies. We have coppersmiths, seamstresses, carpenters and painters. We buy and sell and, yes, when our children go hungry, we steal. We know the King’s kingdom better than he does. We arrived here two days ago and we’ll be gone tomorrow morning.’
‘What do you mean?’ Corbett asked.
‘We have to use these roads,’ Branway explained, ‘and we can’t help passing by Melford on our way to the coast. But you’ll find none of our women wandering the lanes. Over the years some have disappeared.’
Corbett took a step closer. ‘You mean disappeared, not run away?’
‘Oh, I know what you are thinking, clerk. We have taken into our care some of the poor wenches who flee from your cities and towns. Our women do not run away. It’s common talk amongst the Moon People how, over the years, six or seven of our women have disappeared: in the main, young girls stupid enough to wander out, intrigued by what the market holds. They left and never came back. We searched but did not find. I’ve heard the same amongst other travelling people. That’s all I can tell you.’
‘But surely you’ve gone to the Guildhall?’
Branway threw his head back and laughed. ‘And get beaten for our pains! No, master clerk, we just avoid Melford, whilst our women are kept within the encampment.’
‘And have you seen anything amiss?’
‘I’ve told you what I know: no more no less.’
The man nodded at Corbett, kissed Sorrel on each cheek and walked off into the darkness.
Corbett watched him go.
‘I must leave too. I thank you for what you’ve told me.’
Corbett nodded at Sorrel, bade her good night, collected his horse and crossed into the water meadow. For a while he paused and looked up at the sky, reflecting on what he’d learnt.
‘True,’ he whispered into the darkness, ‘this is a place of hideous murder!’
Chapter 7
Walter Blidscote was having nightmares. He wasn’t asleep but he wished to God he was. After he had met that terrifying clerk in the crypt beneath St Edmund’s Church, Blidscote had strode off wielding his staff of office. He had walked quickly, pompously, with all the authority he could summon up. Once away from prying eyes, he’d slumped beneath a sycamore tree and allowed his fat body to tremble. Sweat had trickled down his back whilst his stomach squeezed and winced so much he had to retreat deeper into the trees to relieve himself.
Blidscote had been petrified.
‘I am living in the Valley of Ghosts,’ he’d whispered, staring round. He believed he could see shapes amongst the trees. Or was it just the branches in the curling mist? Blidscote felt he was being haunted. He recalled the words of a preacher: how a man’s sins, like hungry dogs, can pick up the scent and come howling down the passage of the years. Blidscote’s mind trailed back. He couldn’t forget the day of Sir Roger’s execution: Chapeleys standing on the cart, the noose round his neck. He’d protested his innocence, shouting that one day he would have his vengeance.
Blidscote stared at his hands. Were they covered in blood? Or was it just dirt? He wiped them on his hose and felt the cold mud beneath him. What happened if that keen hunting dog of a clerk started to dig up the bones of the past? This was not some local matter. The King had intervened. The great council at Westminster had issued warrants under the Great Seal. Blidscote knew something about the law. Sir Hugh Corbett may stand in his dark clothing and travel-stained boots but he represented the Crown. He could go anywhere, see anything, ask any questions. God and his angels help any who tried to impede him! Blidscote had so much to hide. Sometimes he sought consolation in being shriven, in confessing his secret sins in church, in vowing repentance, in lighting candles, but still the burden on his back grew heavier.
Blidscote became so frightened, he got up and walked back into the town for company. He’d visited a dingy alehouse. Now he was sickened at what he had drunk so quickly from the polluted vat and the dirt-encrusted, leather tankard. He had enjoyed a quick fumble with a greasy potboy in one of the outhouses but the ale fumes were now dulled, his sense of pleasure replaced by remorse. Blidscote stumbled along the lanes, making his way towards the square and the Golden Fleece. Guilt perched on his shoulder like a huge crow. He’d ignored Corbett’s request to visit the families of the victims. They would tell him nothing. Images came and went like fiery bursts in his befuddled mind. Blidscote was a boy again, snivelling-nosed and ragged-arsed, standing before Parson Hawdon, the old priest who had served St Edmund’s Church long before Parson Grimstone ever came.
‘Do not lie, boy!’ the old parson had thundered. ‘A lie echoes like a bell across the lake of Hell and the demons hear it.’
Blidscote paused, wiping the sweat from his unshaven face. He always did have an awful fear of the church: those gargoyles which grinned down at him from the pillars; the wooden carvings, depicting the realms of the dead, the dancing skeletons . . . Blidscote felt so hot, he wondered if it was the glow from the fury of Hell. He paused and leant against the plaster wall of a house, mopping his face with the hem of his cloak. He was about to walk on when he felt the touch of cold steel on his sweaty neck. Blidscote tried to turn.
‘Stay where you are, bailiff of Melford!’
The sharp steel dug in a little closer. Blidscote couldn’t stop shaking. The voice was low, hollow, muffled, as if the speaker was wearing a mask. Blidscote forced his head round. It was a mask, ghoulish and garish like the face of a demon. Blidscote closed his eyes and whimpered. Was he having a nightmare? Had he died? Was this one of Hell’s scurriers sent to fetch him? Yet he recognised that voice from many years ago.
‘Well, well, Master Blidscote, we meet again.’
‘I have kept faith,’ Blidscote muttered. ‘And a still tongue in my head.’
‘And why shouldn’t you, Master Blidscote?’ came the cool reply. ‘What can you do? Confess all to the King’s justice or seek private words with the royal clerk? Will you tell him the truth? You can hang for perjury, Walter.’ The tone was now bantering. ‘Or haven’t you heard the news? How the King’s parliament at Winchester have issued a new statute? Perjury is now treason’s brother. And do you know what happens to a traitor?’
Blidscote just whimpered.
‘Then let me tell you, master bailiff. For we are all alone in the dark. That’s what we are, aren’t we, creatures of the night? Scurrying rats with our horde of secrets?’
The sword was quickly withdrawn.
‘Stay where you are!’ the voice hissed, and the demon figure melted away.
Blidscote did. A beggar was coming up the lane, trundling a
small barrow heaped with rags and other rubbish he’d collected from the town midden heap. The small wheelbarrow creaked and clattered on the cobbles. Blidscote turned. He would have loved to have run but he knew his tormentor was still lurking in the shadows on the opposite side of the lane. The beggar man drew closer. He recognised Blidscote, put his barrow down and grinned in a display of rotting gums and fetid breath. Blidscote flinched, waving his hand.
‘Good evening, Master Blidscote.’
‘On your way! On your way!’
The man was about to protest but Blidscote gripped him by the shoulder.
‘Get you gone or I’ll have you in the stocks for vagrancy!’
The beggar took up his barrow and almost ran down the lane, muttering curses about unchristian bailiffs.
Blidscote took a step forward but the razor-sharp steel nicked his neck.
‘The Golden Fleece will wait,’ the voice whispered. ‘I was telling you about the penalty for treason and perjury. You will be taken to London and lodged in Newgate. Then you’ll be fastened to a hurdle behind a horse and dragged all the way to Smithfield. They’ll put you up a ladder and turn you off. Your fat legs will dance, your face will go black as your tongue protrudes. Afterwards they’ll cut you down, half dead or half alive. Does it really matter? They’ll quarter your sorry trunk, pickle it, dip it in tar, fix it above the city gates. Ah, travellers will comment, there’s Master Blidscote!’
‘I hear what you say,’ Blidscote gasped. ‘I have told you. I keep a still tongue in my head and will do so till the day I die.’
‘I like that, Master Blidscote. So, tell me now, Molkyn’s death and that of Thorkle . . .?’
‘I know nothing. I tell you, I know nothing. If I did—’
‘If you do, Master Blidscote, I’ll come back and have more words with you. Now, look at the wall. Go on, turn, look at the wall!’
Blidscote obeyed.
‘Press your face against it,’ the voice urged, ‘till you can smell the piss and count to ten five times!’
Blidscote stood for what appeared to be an age. When he turned, the shadows were empty. A light to the mouth of the alleyway beckoned him forward. Blidscote shook off the horrors of the night and ran. He reached the market square, the cobbles glistening in the wetness of the night. The place was quiet. The houses and shops beyond had their doors and windows closed but lights and lanterns glowed, welcome relief to the darkness and cold. Blidscote realised he had lost his staff. He ran back down the alleyway, collected it and returned to the marketplace. The shock of the meeting with that demon had sobered him. He adjusted his jerkin, pulling the cloak around his shoulders, and strode purposefully across the marketplace. He stopped at the stocks where Peddlicott the pickpocket had his head and hands tightly fastened in the pillory: sentenced to stand there till dawn.