by Paul Doherty
Peddlicott lifted his head. ‘Master bailiff, of your charity?’
Blidscote slapped him viciously on the cheek and walked towards the glowing warmth of the Golden Fleece.
Ranulf-atte-Newgate, together with Chanson, sat in the comfortable house of Master John Samler, which stood in a lane on the edges of Melford. Ranulf stared around. The rushes on the floor were clean and mixed with herbs. The plaster walls were freshly washed with lime to keep away the flies, and decorated with coloured cloths. Onions and a flitch of ham hung from the central beam to be cured in the curling smoke from the fire in the open hearth. Chanson sat on the bench next to Ranulf, hungrily eating the bowl of meat stew garnished with spice to liven its dull taste. Ranulf picked up a piece of bread, smiled at his host and dipped the bread into the bowl.
‘So, John, you are a thatcher by trade?’
His host, sitting opposite, eyes rounded at having such an important person talking to him, nodded. Beside him, his wife, pink-cheeked with excitement. Their children, supervised by their eldest girl, clustered on the stairs. They reminded Ranulf of a group of owls, white-faced, round-eyed. Ranulf felt uneasy. The thatcher was a prosperous man with a garden plot before and a small orchard behind the house. He had been so overcome when Ranulf knocked on the door, ushering him in as if he was the King himself, serving the best ale his wife had brewed.
‘You have five children, Master Samler?’
‘Eight in all, two died . . .’ The thatcher’s voice trailed away.
‘And Johanna?’ Ranulf insisted. He looked across at the children.
‘Yes, Johanna.’
‘I understand,’ Ranulf continued softly, ‘that Elizabeth Wheelwright was murdered a few days ago and your daughter Johanna earlier in the summer. Am I correct?’
Samler’s wife began to sob. Chanson stopped eating and put down his horn spoon as a sign of respect.
‘She was a fine girl,’ Master Samler replied. ‘She wasn’t flighty in her ways.’
‘And the day she died?’ Ranulf asked.
‘I was out working. Johanna was sent on an errand. She loved the chance of going into the market square to talk to her friends.’ He shrugged. ‘She went but never came back.’
‘Was there anyone special?’ Ranulf insisted. ‘Anyone at all?’ He lifted his head. ‘What’s your name?’ he asked the eldest girl.
‘That’s Isabella,’ Samler replied. ‘She’s two years older than Johanna.’
Ranulf studied the girl. She was comely enough, with flaxen hair coming down to her shoulders, thin-faced, sharp-eyed. Just a shift of expression betrayed her; perhaps she knew more than she had told even her parents.
‘And you know of no reason why she was killed?’
‘Why should anyone kill a young woman like Johanna?’ the thatcher retorted. ‘I have told you, sir, she had no secrets. Oh, she danced and she flirted but there was no one special, was there, Isabella?’
Ranulf smiled across at the young woman, who sat on the stairs above her brothers and sister.
‘But she was killed out in the open countryside,’ Ranulf insisted. ‘Down near Brackham Mere.’
‘I have told you what I know, sir,’ Samler retorted. ‘One afternoon she was sent on an errand to the marketplace and never returned.’
‘Will you catch him, sir?’ Isabella Samler called out.
‘Oh, we’ll catch him,’ Ranulf replied. ‘My master is like a hawk: sharp-eyed and swift. He’ll float above Melford and, no matter where the killer hides, be it the thickest bramble bush or the longest grass -’ Ranulf got to his feet gesturing with his hand. Isabella watched him - ‘he’ll swoop, wings back, talons out, and he’ll clutch your sister’s killer in his tight claws.’
‘You are only saying that.’
‘No, Mistress, I am promising it.’
Ranulf undid his purse and put a silver coin on the table. The thatcher made to refuse.
‘No, no, take it,’ Ranulf urged. He patted Chanson on the shoulder. ‘For you, your family.’
He walked to the door, gathered up his cloak and sword belt, then looked round. Ranulf felt a tug at his heart. They looked now like a group of rabbits fascinated by a stoat.
‘I mean you well, I really do. But you have nothing to say, eh? Nothing more to tell me about Johanna’s death?’ He glanced quickly at Isabella.
‘She was a comely lass.’ The thatcher’s wife spoke up.
Ranulf put his hand on the latch and turned. ‘And she had no love swain?’
‘No,’ Isabella answered quickly. ‘Only those she laughed about.’
‘And a secret place?’ Ranulf urged. ‘Everyone has a secret place.’
‘The same as Elizabeth Wheelwright’s,’ Isabella blurted out. ‘They used to visit the copse on the hill overlooking Devil’s Oak. It’s not really secret.’
‘Could you show me the way?’
‘It’s dark,’ Samler replied.
‘No, no,’ Ranulf smiled. ‘I meant if Isabella could show us the lane back to the Golden Fleece.’
Samler’s daughter needed no second urging but grabbed her cloak from a peg on the wall. Ranulf made his good nights, as did Chanson, his mouth still full of food. They collected their horses. The lane was dark and muddy. Isabella walked ahead of them.
‘Just keep going straight on,’ she explained when they reached the end of the lane. She pointed to an alleyway. ‘That leads to the market square.’
Ranulf indicated that Chanson walk on.
‘You’d best go back then.’
Isabella watched Chanson lead the horses away. She drew closer and stared up at this strange, green-eyed clerk. Isabella Samler had lived a sheltered life. She’d never met a man like this before: tall, slim, smelling of horse, leather and fragrant soap. His white chemise was undone at the neck, allowing the glint of a silver chain, his sword-tip slapped against his boot. She felt frightened yet excited. He was dangerous. If his master was a hawk then so was he.
‘Will you really catch him?’
Ranulf chucked her under the chin. ‘If you tell me what you should, then it will be sooner rather than later.’
Isabella, in a mixture of fear and flirtation, moved a little closer.
‘Did your sister confide in you? Do you know why she went, whom she was meeting?’
‘We often lay awake in our bed loft. We’d frighten ourselves with stories about night-walkers.’
‘But there are no night-walkers in Melford, are there?’
Isabella swayed slightly side to side as if she was enjoying her riddle.
‘You’d be very surprised what walks the streets and lanes of Melford at night. Talk to Parson Grimstone. There’s more sin here, under the cover of darkness, than in your great city.’
Ranulf took a silver coin out of his purse and held it firmly between his fingers.
‘I gave one to your father but your sister had one, didn’t she? Is that why she left? Went out into the countryside? No, no,’ Ranulf smiled. He stroked her cheek with a gloved finger. ‘Johanna was a good girl but there’s not much money, is there? And the tinkers and the chapmen sell such pretty things: a ribbon, a brooch, a bracelet, perhaps a necklace of stones, all polished bright? So, are you going to tell me?’
Isabella looked at the coin and licked her lips.
‘My sister had no such coin.’
‘Then whom did she meet?’
‘I don’t know. Perhaps an admirer, perhaps the Mummer’s Man.’
‘Mummer’s Man?’ Ranulf asked.
‘It’s someone I’ve heard of.’
‘You’re telling tales?’
‘I don’t think so.’ Isabella stared at the coin. ‘I met a travelling girl once. She claimed to have seen a Mummer’s Man. He had a mask over his face and his horse moved like a ghost along the lanes outside Melford.’
Ranulf recalled the lonely country trackways they had ridden along on their way to Melford. He felt a prick of fear at this hideous vision of a masked man riding a sile
nt horse.
‘I tell you, sir,’ she clutched the front of Ranulf’s jerkin, ‘that’s all I know.’
‘Nothing else? This travelling girl?’
‘It was dusk. She couldn’t see much. I didn’t think much of her tale till after my sister’s death. I daren’t tell anyone; I was frightened of getting into trouble.’
Ranulf pressed the coin into her hands. ‘Then you’d best get back.’
She took the coin.
Ranulf grasped her wrist. ‘Don’t go out in the country lanes, and be careful of the Mummer’s Man!’
He released her and she ran off into the darkness.
‘What was all that about?’ Chanson came back leading the horses. ‘Ranulf, I’m tired and I’m cold. Despite what Samler gave us, my belly thinks my throat’s slit. My mouth is so dry it’s forgotten how to drink. Where’s Sir Hugh?’
‘Oh, old Master Long Face.’ Ranulf took the reins of his horse. ‘He’ll be riding round the dark lanes, high in the saddle, cowl pulled across his head. He’ll be thinking. He broods a lot, does Sir Hugh, turning things over and over in his mind like a water mill. Oh, he’ll come back and he’ll sit in his chamber staring out of the window, moody and quiet.’
‘Is he safe?’ Chanson asked. ‘I mean, the Lady Maeve told him to be careful.’
‘He was attacked in Oxford,’ Ranulf replied. ‘Took an arrow high in the chest but the King’s physicians healed him.’
‘Does he love the Lady Maeve? Is that what he is thinking about?’
They reached the end of the alleyway. Ranulf stared across at the poor unfortunate clasped in the stocks. The marketplace was empty, the rubbish had been cleared. Only the occasional flitting shadows: people walking towards the light of the Golden Fleece. Now and again a door slammed, the cry of a child, a dog yapping in its kennels, all the sounds of the night.
‘Sir Hugh is a man of great order,’ Ranulf declared. ‘You serve me, Chanson. Serve me well and, one day, you may become a clerk like I am.’
Chanson quietened the horse, stroking its muzzle.
‘Could I really become a clerk, Master Ranulf?’
‘Oh yes, there are clerks of the stables, powerful men they are, in charge of the King’s horses. Anyway, I am describing to you the way things are ordered. I am a clerk of the Chancery of the Green Wax, next up the rung is Baby Edward and Sir Hugh Corbett’s daughter, Eleanor.’
‘And after that?’ Chanson asked. ‘Sir Hugh?’
‘Yes, Sir Hugh, then the King, then God.’ He grinned at Chanson. ‘And, right at the top, the Lady Maeve.’
Chanson looked narrow-eyed but the smile had gone from Ranulf’s lean face. In truth, the groom knew he wasn’t joking. Ranulf was frightened of no one, Chanson deeply admired him for that. A true bullyboy, Ranulf would swagger into a tavern, the girls would smile and Ranulf would take out his loaded dice and invite all comers. He was quick as a cat, slightly mocking of Sir Hugh. Ranulf, however, stood in dreadful awe of the Lady Maeve even though she was only small and her golden hair framed a face which reminded Chanson of a painting of an angel in the ancient church. Once in his cups Ranulf had confessed how Lady Maeve’s eyes frightened him.
‘Light blue they are,’ he’d slurred. ‘Quick and sharp, they miss nothing. Have you ever heard the phrase, “steel in velvet”?’ Ranulf had leant back. ‘That’s our Lady Maeve. I even think old Master Long Face is secretly frightened of her.’
Ranulf began to walk his horse across the cobbles.
‘And are you in love, Master Ranulf? I heard mention of a Lady Alicia . . .?’
Ranulf turned swift as a striking snake, lips curled in a snarl. Chanson jumped so much even his horse was startled, throwing up its head.
‘Hush now! Hush now!’ Chanson soothed it but kept a wary eye on Ranulf, still glaring at him. ‘I am sorry . . .’ Chanson muttered.
Ranulf relaxed. ‘Ah, it’s not your fault.’ He beckoned Chanson forward and put an arm round his shoulder. ‘I tell you this: I loved her and she left me. Gone to a nunnery, she has. Perhaps I’ll join her.’
Chanson stared open-mouthed. ‘I can’t imagine you in a wimple.’
Ranulf snorted with laughter and withdrew his arm.
‘No, no, Chanson, not a nunnery but into the Church. I’ve often thought of that. Can you imagine Archdeacon Ranulf, perhaps even Bishop Ranulf of Norwich?’
Chanson, who had seen these powerful prelates, repressed a smile. Ranulf-atte-Newgate, in gorgeous, flowing robes, wearing a mitre and carrying a crosier, processing slowly up the aisle of Westminster Abbey!
‘What was that girl talking to you about?’ he asked, changing the conversation.
They stopped at the trough to allow their horses to drink. Ranulf looked up at the sky, then once more at the smart front of the market square, its timbered buildings, lanterns and gleaming paintwork.
‘Old Master Long Face will want to know what we’ve been doing. So, what do we have here, Chanson? A fat, prosperous town, where everybody makes a good profit. Lords of the soil, like Sir Maurice and Tressilyian the justice. Merchants, farmers, millers, well-fed priests. Look at Master Samler: a thatcher who does a good trade. He’s not prosperous but, in a few years, he’ll be sending his sons to the schools in Ipswich.’ Ranulf paused. ‘During the day the markets are busy, trade is good. Silver and gold change hands, but where there’s wealth, corruption, rich and stinking, also flourishes. People have more time on their hands. A man lusts after his neighbour’s wife. Secret sins begin to fester like weeds amongst the corn. Rivalries break out, grudges are nursed. All strange sights and sounds appear.’
‘What do you mean?’ Chanson queried.
‘Take Samler’s family. Notice the girls, young, plump and well fed. Time is on their hands, not like things used to be when an entire family worked from morning to dusk. They filled their bellies on watery ale and crusts of bread and slept like hogs until the dawn. All has changed. Now, into this little paradise steps a demon, a man who likes to rape and kill.’
‘Are there such men?’ Chanson looked totally bemused. He was terrified of women and would bask in the smile of the ugliest, greasiest slattern.
‘Go into London, Chanson, talk to the ladies of the night in Southwark. They’ll tell you about men who like to beat and hurt them, sometimes quite badly, before they can take them.’
‘You mean like a stallion has to be quickened before he can mount a mare?’
‘I couldn’t put it better myself,’ Ranulf said drily. ‘That’s what our killer is. Melford’s an ideal place for him: no walls or gates; there must be at least twenty or thirty lanes leading out to the countryside which surrounds the town with lonely meadows, woods and copses. It’s so easy,’ Ranulf continued, ‘for the killer to slip in and out.’
‘Even on horseback?’
‘You work with horses,’ Ranulf replied. ‘Tell me, Chanson, what if I wanted to dull the sound of my horse’s hoofs?’
‘Sacking or straw,’ the groom replied. He bent down and lifted his horse’s foreleg. ‘You can’t take off the shoe - that will hurt the animal, make it lame. However, if you took small sacks, filled them with hay or grass, then tied them over the hoofs like buskins, it would be fairly quiet. Why, has the girl seen someone?’
‘What she called the Mummer’s Man, masked, riding a horse.’
‘That would be easy enough,’ Chanson confirmed. He climbed into the saddle and gathered the reins. ‘If I put sacking on my horse’s hoofs, I could ride this horse across the cobbles and you wouldn’t know I was there.’
Ranulf grinned up at him. ‘But pretend I’m a comely maid. If I met you, Chanson, riding along a lane, wearing a mask, I’d run, flee for my life.’
The groom pulled a face and eased himself out of the saddle. ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’
‘In fact,’ Ranulf quipped, ‘mask or not, any country wench would take one look at you and flee for her life.’
‘I can’t help my eye.’ Chanson coloured. ‘It�
�s the way I was born!’
‘I was only joking.’ Ranulf patted him on the shoulder. ‘But think, Chanson. You’re the horseman. I’ll tell you what.’ Ranulf pointed across to the Golden Fleece. ‘You solve the riddle and I’ll buy you the juiciest pie and a tankard which froths and glitters as if it is full of angel mead.’
Chanson wetted his lips. ‘You’ll keep your word?’
Ranulf lifted his left hand. ‘As your horse has a tail.’
Chanson climbed back into the saddle, gathered the reins and stared hungrily around. Then, digging his heels in gently, he rode to where Peddlicott the pickpocket dozed quietly in the stocks. The groom dismounted, took the water bottle off the horn of his saddle and held it to the grateful man’s lips.
‘Listen,’ he said, opening his wallet. He took out a piece of dried meat and gave it to the astonished pickpocket to gnaw on. ‘Give me the name of a tavern wench.’ He gestured at the Golden Fleece.
‘Try Matthew’s daughter, Adela. She’s buxom enough.’
Chanson thanked him, left his horse and walked back to Ranulf.
‘So, you say I am ugly, Master Ranulf?’
‘Well, not in so many words,’ Ranulf laughed, ‘but I’ve seen prettier gargoyles.’
‘A tankard, a pie and a silver piece,’ Chanson threatened.
‘For what?’
‘That I can bring a comely wench out from the tavern.’
‘But they already know you,’ Ranulf retorted.