The Wayward Apprentice (A Stephen Attebrook mystery Book 1)

by Jason Vail

  Stephen went in, leaving the boy to linger in the doorway to watch.

  The smell of decay was strong, over-powering the musty aroma of old straw and dankness that always seemed to fill little stone churches like this.

  The fact Gilbert had chosen to bring the body in didn’t seem to sit well with the vicar Hamo, who looked distinctly distressed. The two workmen who had dug up the coffin and carried it inside stood nearby.

  Gilbert turned to him. “Ah,” he said, “you’ve arrived.”

  “Let’s get on with it,” Stephen said, his throat constricted.

  Gilbert gave Stephen a rag soaked with sour wine. He tied a wine-soaked rag of his own over his nose and mouth. Stephen did the same.

  “A moment, my son,” Gilbert said through the rag, his words muffled. “We’ll say a prayer for him first.”

  Stephen expected the vicar to lead it, but Gilbert didn’t wait for him. Instead, hands folded and head bowed, looking oddly more priestlike than the vicar, Gilbert launched straight into mumbled Latin. Stephen bowed his head but clasped his hands behind his back. Gilbert paused. He shot a glance at Stephen, then kicked him in the leg.

  “You may have abandoned Him, but He hasn’t abandoned you,” Gilbert said sharply. “I, more than anyone, should know about such things. Come on, now!”

  Not wishing an argument, Stephen pressed his hands together.

  Gilbert finished and looked up. “Well, then, that’s better, isn’t it? I suppose we should get to work.”

  The vicar went back to looking distressed.

  The two workmen leaned forward so they would be sure not to miss anything. It seemed there was entertainment value to be derived from a sight others regarded as gruesome and unpleasant.

  This irritated Stephen. Death stripped every man of his dignity, and to be dug up after burial, to suffer exposure to public view the corruption which inevitably followed death, was too much an added humiliation. Patrick probably hadn’t had much dignity in life, but he didn’t deserved such humiliation in death.

  “You three,” he said to the vicar and the workmen, “you can go. We’ll manage here alone, if you please.”

  The vicar looked relieved but the workmen seemed ready to argue.

  “Now!” Stephen barked.

  The workmen jerked at the tone of command, and reluctantly turned toward the door, followed closely by the vicar.

  “And you there,” Stephen said to the boy. “Out and close that door.”

  “Right, sir,” the boy peeped.

  “You’ve sent away our help,” Gilbert said, when they had gone.

  “You know how to pry out a nail, don’t you?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “Then let’s get this done. I can scarcely breathe.”

  “He is a bit ripe now.”

  “You’d be too after four days.”

  Gilbert attacked the coffin lid with one of the pry bars. The nails screeched as they came free. He pulled off the lid and set it aside. Patrick lay inside sewn into his linen burial shroud, the outlines of his face visible. But corruption had swollen the body so that Patrick’s arms strained at the fabric as if reaching out for something.

  “We’ll have to lift him out,” Gilbert said. He moved to Patrick’s head. “Come on. You’ll have to help me. I can’t do it myself.”

  The notion of touching the dead man made Stephen’s skin crawl, as if death could be transmitted by touch. He suppressed a shudder, though, and moved to Patrick’s feet. Together they lifted Patrick out of the coffin and placed him on the ground.

  Although the windows were open, it was dim in the church.

  “We’ll need a light,” Stephen said.

  “Good idea.”

  Stephen lit three votive candles at the rack by the door and set them on the coffin.

  “Mind you don’t knock one of them over,” Gilbert said. “We don’t want a fire.”

  “And roast poor Paddy? I’ll try to be careful.”

  Gilbert slit the shroud from head to foot and folded it back. Free from their linen restraints, Patrick’s arms sprang up as if to embrace Gilbert. Patrick had been dressed in what looked like his best clothes: a blue coat, a white linen shirt and green stockings, but no shoes. Decay made the body appear monstrously fat, and it strained at the clothing as if to burst out of them. The face was swollen and puffy, skin mottled with black patches, the mouth a gaping O displaying yellow teeth, a hideous grimace caught in mid-moan.

  “You’ll have to cut him out of his clothes,” Stephen said.

  “I suppose.” Gilbert sighed. He went to work with his knife on Patrick’s coat. He began to hum a saucy little tune, something called The Merry Widow. “Hope his wife doesn’t find out we’ve done this. She’ll be upset that we’ve cut up his best suit.”

  “I won’t tell her Paddy’s going to arrive in heaven bareassed if you don’t.”

  “Just keep an eye on those windows, so somebody else doesn’t have the chance to do the same,” Gilbert said.

  Stephen strolled over and peered out each window. At one he caught the workmen lurking. “Get away from there!” he shouted, and the workmen scurried away.

  He turned back to Gilbert. “Should have charged admission.”

  “How stupid of us. We’re just not thinking.”

  “That’s why I’m so poor.”

  “You just haven’t married right,” Gilbert said. “That’s the trick. You’ll have to ask your cousin to find you a proper rich wife.”

  “It’s a little late for that,” Stephen muttered.

  “What?”

  “Never mind.”

  Gilbert sat back on his heels. “There. That should do it.”

  He reached for one of the candles and bent over to inspect Patrick’s chest.

  “There it is,” Gilbert said. He pointed to a barely visible slit of a wound about an inch wide on the left side below the heart. “Into the lung, I’d say.”

  “And the heart?”

  “Can’t tell just from looking. We’ll have to probe it — and measure.”

  Stephen’s stomach roiled.

  “I’ll get it,” Gilbert said. He had a short measuring stick with the inches marked off in blue paint. He wormed the stick into the wound as far as it would go, then pulled it out and held it up to the light. “Three inches, I’d say. Don’t think it hit the heart. The angle’s wrong.” He indicated that the penetration went diagonally into the chest rather than straight in. “Like someone thrusting at him slightly from the side, aiming for the heart, but landing a trifle wide and low.”

  He simulated a dagger blow with his right hand against Stephen’s chest.

  “He probably didn’t die right away from a wound like that, then,” Stephen said.

  “No, he could have walked some distance before he collapsed. That tallies with your observations — no other tracks but his at the ditch.”

  “In the village?”

  “Most likely.”

  “But nobody saw or heard anything.”

  “So they said.”

  For good measure, Gilbert turned Patrick over. He and Stephen inspected every inch of his skin, but saw no other wounds. They put Patrick back on his linen shroud.

  Gilbert stood up. “There should be a bowl of water around here somewhere. And some soap.”

  “I see it.” Stephen brought the bowl and cake over, and they took turns washing their hands, and then Gilbert cleaned off the little measuring stick.

  “Who’s going to sew him up?” Gilbert asked.

  “You don’t expect me to do it,” Stephen said.

  “Well, I cut his clothes off. I’d think it was your turn.”

  “My turn! You’re the clerk.”

  “Pulling rank, are you?”

  “Damned right. Besides, I’d just make a mess of it. Stab myself. Maybe even stab you.”

  Gilbert knelt back down. “Where’s Edith when I need her? She’s more handy with a needle and thread than I am.”

  “I can
imagine what she’ll say when I fetch her for you,” Stephen said dryly.

  “Ah, no, let’s not do that. I get enough of her sharp tongue as it is,” Gilbert said.

  In about a quarter hour, Gilbert had Patrick crudely stitched back into his shroud. He tossed the remains of Patrick’s clothes into the coffin. “Time to box him up and replant him.”

  They lifted the body into the coffin and replaced the lid.

  Stephen opened the church door with a jerk and found the boy crouching at the crack. The boy scuttled back, looking fearful. Stephen passed him and called for the workmen, who were skulking in the graveyard.

  The workmen renailed the lid and carried the coffin back to its grave.

  Stephen and Gilbert followed them into the morning sunlight.

  Gilbert gazed at his hands. “I could use another scrubbing.”

  “A bath would be more like it,” Stephen said. He felt soiled.

  “Not a bad idea. You paying?”

  Stephen felt generous after making Gilbert sew up the shroud. He said, “Least I can do for a grave robber.”

  “Speak for yourself.”

  Chapter 6

  The Wobbly Kettle had the ill luck to be across the street from St. John’s Hospital. A prime service of bathhouses was prostitution, and this put the place at odds with the hospital when a particularly strict abbot took over. The abbot preached a sermon against prostitutes one Sunday and, at his urging, the friars pelted the front of the house with gobs of mud. Certain employees of the Kettle paraded before the hospital and, when the friars came to the windows to condemn the commotion, they uplifted their skirts to show the friars what they were missing due to their lives of contemplation and denial. A fight broke out in the street between whores and friars, with the friars getting the worst of it. Eventually, the parties reached a settlement that provided that the ladies of the house would not solicit business on the street in view of the hospital, nor service its patients or churchmen.

  “Doesn’t that include you, then?” Stephen asked innocently as they reached the door.

  “No,” Gilbert said. “I’m in minor orders now. Doesn’t count.” He pointed to the top of his bald head. “See that? God made me that way, not some friar’s razor.”

  It was a slow day and an attendant escorted them straight to the rear of the house, where the baths were in a large shed-like room with eight round tubs, four in a row on a side and separated from each other by curtains on which hunting and fishing scenes were embroidered. Most of the curtains were drawn, so Stephen could not see who occupied the tubs within as he made his way back to a tub that was free.

  The attendant drew the curtain for Stephen and left. Steam rose from the surface of the water. Stephen tested it with a finger. It was hot to the touch and when he climbed in and sank to his chin, he gasped with the impact of the heat. A servant entered with a cup of wine. He put the cup on a board that lay across one side of the barrel-like tub.

  Stephen sipped the wine, feeling as though he could melt in the heat.

  Presently a girl came in. She held a round, rough looking sponge and a cake of brown soap. “I’m Kate,” she said. “I’ll scrub you for a halfpenny.”

  Stephen grinned. “All right.” A halfpenny was pretty steep for a scrubbing, but having received his shillings only yesterday from Baynard, he felt almost rich.

  Kate unbuttoned the front of her dress and slipped out of it. She was naked underneath, and thin, as if she didn’t get enough to eat. She had small breasts and a narrow waist. Stephen couldn’t help staring at her.

  Kate climbed in the tub and settled behind him, straddling his body with her legs. Her thighs, where they brushed against his body, were silky, and her breasts, which pressed lightly into his back, felt soft and delicious. He wanted to turn around and grab her, but instead he closed his eyes and hung his head. She soaped his shoulders, wet his hair, and soaped that too. She applied the sponge, which was scratchy, but she had been doing this enough not to use it too hard. Then she kneaded his head and shoulders with surprisingly strong fingers as if he was a lump of dough. Stephen sighed deeply. She rinsed him off with another pitcher that had hung out of sight on a hook on the side of the tub.

  “Would you like the full services of the house?” Kate asked.

  Stephen nodded. Kate shifted around so that she straddled him on his lap. “Don’t be so tense,” she said. “Relax. It won’t take long. Never does.”

  “All better now?” Kate asked when they finished, and she climbed out of the tub.

  Stephen felt like sinking beneath the water. He didn’t care if he drowned.

  Kate found a towel on the sideboard and dried herself off. She slid back into her dress. “Got your pennies, love?” she asked.

  Stephen waved at his clothes, which hung on a peg. She opened his purse and counted three half pennies for herself.

  “Bye now,” she said, parting the curtain.

  “You’re a true artist,” he managed to say.

  “I don’t mind going all out for a handsome one like you,” she said.

  Stephen wondered if she’d say that if she had seen his stump.

  She turned away and was gone.

  Only then did Stephen realize that she’d got as much as a workman earned in almost two full work days. He’d spent more than four times what he had intended when he entered the Kettle. Yet, he couldn’t complain that he’d been robbed.

  The water had grown tepid. Stephen climbed out, got dressed and returned to the front of the house. Gilbert had not finished, so he bought a pitcher of wine and settled onto a bench to wait. He heard voices in the hall and, thinking it was Gilbert, he poured another cup. Instead, Clement, Baynard’s bailiff, emerged from the tub room. Still feeling lightheaded, Stephen waved him to take a seat.

  “Do you need a refill?” he asked Clement.

  “That would be nice,” Clement said. He extended his cup and Stephen filled it.

  They didn’t have much to say to each other, so they sat in silence for a while, until Clement burst out, “Fine weather we’re having, after that storm.”

  “Yes.” Stephen sipped his wine.

  “Heard you were up in Ludford this morning. Any trouble up there?”

  “No, it was old trouble.”

  “What old trouble, if you don’t mind my asking.”

  Stephen didn’t feel like talking, but he said, “It was about Patrick Carter’s death. Seems it wasn’t an accident after all.”

  Clement looked startled. “Really.”

  “Yes. Someone slipped a knife in him.” He paused and added, “Missed the wound the first time around.”

  “How can you be certain?”

  “We dug him up.”

  Clement regarded Stephen as if he had gone mad. “You don’t say. That’s a bit unusual, isn’t it?”

  “Very. But, duty, you know. Unpleasant chore.” Stephen wrinkled his nose at the memory.

  Clement drank and asked, “Any idea who did it?”

  Stephen shook his head. “Nobody seems to know anything. Have you heard anything?”

  “Oh, no.” Clement paused. “Might’ve been robbery, you know. Patrick may have looked the poor carter but he always had money about him. Not much, mind you, but enough to tempt the desperate.”

  “That’s been suggested. But no money was taken. He had two half pennies in his purse when we found him.”

  “Ah. Maybe someone scared them off.”

  “Could be.”

  “You don’t think so?” Clement studied a girl descending the stairs. She raised her eyebrows in a question and he shook his head.

  “I don’t know what to think. All I know is, I’ve a murdered man on my hands, and no idea how or why he died.”

  “That must be frustrating. It isn’t often you don’t know who’s done murder. What are you going to do?”

  “I suppose I’ll have to make inquiries until I learn something.”

  Clement rubbed a water stain on the table. “What led y
ou to suspect murder?”

  Stephen told him about his meeting with Molly, Patrick’s widow.

  Clement swirled the wine in his cup. “Got to be going,” he said abruptly.

  Then he fumbled in his belt pouch. His fist emerged clutching a rolled parchment, which was sealed with wax and a ribbon. “I forgot. I’m supposed to give you this.” He held it out. “A writ of attachment for debt. Master Baynard asked me to have you serve it when you find Peter.”

  Stephen prodded the roll with a fingertip. The writ would allow Peter’s arrest. Serving it was not part of their arrangement — ordinarily, there was a separate fee for that. “I was not engaged to serve writs. I was engaged to find someone. How you get him back is your affair.”

  Clement’s mouth worked. “That’s not our understanding.”

  “Well, it’s mine. Your master asked to find the boy, and found is what you’ll get.”

  Clement’s anger gave way to calculation and perhaps a trace of contempt. “So,” he said, “you’ll want extra money.”

  Stephen was beginning to feel soiled. He didn’t want the trouble entailed in capturing and forcibly returning Peter when he was found. If anything, Stephen’s sympathies lay with the lost apprentice. But he hated to admit to himself that he wanted the money, although it put off the prospect of ruin just a little bit further.

  “How much?” Clement grated.

  “Another six shillings.”

  “Done.”

  Stephen was surprised Clement agreed so easily, and with his master’s money, too.

  Stephen asked, “Did you know Peter?”

  “Certainly. I know all the apprentices.”

  “You knew, of course, that Peter had married?”

  Clement said, “I heard that.”

  “You knew the girl also?”

  “It was hard to miss her when she came around.” Clement grinned salaciously. “They were like a pair of doves.”