by Mike Ashley
“That is just it, William. What I am looking for is something which, I suspect, is not there.”
“Riddles! Perhaps John Ball might hire you to write his sermons.”
I smiled. “I think not. I have no gift for rhyming.” At that moment, on the mild evening breeze, I heard the men at archery practice chanting “When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?” He had a talent for saying much with few words, did the people’s preacher. They looked cheerful, those archers, in their smocks and stout boots. The whole camp somewhat resembled a holiday fair – only the banners of St George, flying here and there, suggested a more solemn purpose.
Having spent a few moments in poor Richard Hunt’s tent – during which unpleasant time I noted amongst other things the wounds inflicted on his belly and hands – I returned to my prisoner, along the way collecting a roast fowl and a jug of beer. I untied Edmund’s hands so that he might dress himself and eat, tied them again when he had finished, and then said to him: “Tell me, Edmund Bull, why are we here, on this Heath far from home?”
“To protest against the poll taxes,” he said. “To put our grievances to the young King, so that he might set right that which is ill in the land.”
“I meant – how has this come about? That a people must rise up like this, in great numbers, and do violence against men and property, only so that our voice shall be heard, which should have been heard without the need for such measures?”
“The Death,” he said, his tone suggesting that anyone who did not understand that must be an idiot. “That terrible plague killed a third of the men in the entire kingdom. Thus, we have enjoyed twenty years in which the value of a man’s labour has risen and risen. Jakke Trueman and John the Miller have tasted power – power which the lords believe is rightfully theirs alone. Now, with their poll tax, and their Statutes of Labourers, and their enclosures, the lords fight back. So, this rising shall be kill or cure – at its end, we shall either be returned to the bondage known to our grandfathers, or else we shall have broken serfdom for ever.”
His words were unremarkable; similar speech might be heard in every cowshed, field or tavern in the country. Yet his manner of speaking struck me as oddly lacking in passion; as a child might recite a lesson from Scripture, which he has learned but does not yet understand.
“Our demands are just, Edmund, would you not say? No more serfdom, homage or suit to any lord. Each man to pay fourpence an acre rent for his land. No man to be compelled to serve another, except freely by his own will and on terms of regular covenant. The law to be enforced against the traitors who have stolen the young King from his people.”
Bull smiled. “Everyone to be free and equal.”
“A pretty dream, you think? Never to be reality?”
He met my eyes. “It is why we are here, Captain.”
“William found no dagger,” I said.
He was not thrown by my sudden change of direction. Without pause, he replied: “As you expected.”
“As we both expected. The sun is sinking, Edmund. Will you tell me the truth now? Has enough time passed for your friend to make his escape?”
Bull’s face became guarded, but his lips opened to reply – and at that moment, to my irritation, William entered the tent, and gestured urgently for me to step outside.
“What is it, William? I am sure Edmund was about to –”
“Time is running out, Captain. Word has spread around the camp that Bull will not talk – that he is playing for time. Most of the men believe that can only be because he expects rescue; that the Mayor’s soldiers are coming for us tonight.”
“I see . . . I see.”
“Therefore they demand summary justice for Richard Hunt’s killer – they want his head on a pole this hour. And then that we should be up, and march to Blackheath to join the Chieftain’s host.”
“Will the camp act against me?”
“They will not act against us,” said William, and I loved him well for that. “Not yet. But this matter must be brought to resolution soon.”
“I understand. Do what you can to calm the commons. I will put this to Bull.”
Back in the tent I saw by Edmund Bull’s face that he had overheard our conversation; my cousin’s whisper was louder than many men’s shout.
“So, Edmund?”
He nodded. “Very well. The truth. I killed Richard Hunt, but I had reason. He was a quest-monger.”
“Ah.” I had begun to suspect something of the sort. The evils of our bondage followed us wherever we went. The law was clear, though not always enforced: it was unlawful to leave a lord’s service without his permission, just as it was forbidden to receive a wage higher than that which might have been paid before the Death – this despite the great increase in the price of goods. “He was hired by a vengeful lord to find a serf who had affirmed himself free of serfage?”
“Just so. And the runaway was, of course, me. Indictment had been laid against me by jurors, and I was in my absence put in default. Richard Hunt – I don’t know truly who he was or where he was from – tracked me to this gathering, and confronted me. But he offered me terms. If I could pay him, he would leave me be. I told him that I had money, and would go to fetch it.”
“Instead you killed him.”
Bull said simply: “I had no money, Captain.”
“Any man in this camp would have only sympathy for such a tale, Edmund. Why did you not tell it at once?”
“I did not kill him in a fight. I killed him by subterfuge. This, I feared, might lessen men’s sympathy.”
“Yes,” I said. “And then, of course, there is this point: the man you killed was unarmed.”
At last, I had spoken words that surprised my prisoner! His mouth fell open in what could only be genuine astonishment. Then came understanding; until that in its turn was replaced by something more familiar – calculation. “What? Unarmed? No man in this camp is unarmed!”
“Nonetheless, no weapon was found in the victim’s tent. Not that which slew him – yours, presumably – nor his own.”
“As to mine, I threw it in the millpond.”
“Impossible. There was no time. The death scream was heard, and an instant later you were seen to leave the tent.”
His mask of confidence had returned fully now. “Not so, Captain. The scream was mine; a pretence. I first left the tent, supposedly to fetch Hunt’s payment, then re-entered stealthily and cut his throat from behind. He died at once, and without voice. Then I left his tent again, rid myself of the murder weapon, came back yet again to that horrible place, screamed and made my final exit.”
“Why come back when you had already got away?”
“I had been seen coming and going, more than once. Someone would have identified me later. But this way, without the knife, I knew you had no proof against me. This is no King’s Bench that will hang a man without proof. Besides, we march to London tomorrow to parley with the King. Thus, having failed to convict me overnight, in the morning you would either exile me from this band, or else let me march with you and take my chances in whatever may follow.”
No, I thought: this is not yet the entire truth. A man unused to murder would not behave with such cool subtlety in its aftermath. “What about Hunt’s missing weapon? You said yourself, such a man would never go unarmed.”
“He had a knife when last I saw him, a fancy one. Perhaps it was stolen by the men who seized me. In any case, I do not see its great significance?”
“Is this, too, insignificant: that we have spoken to men from Three Oaks, and they do not know you?”
“That means nothing. As men go searching for higher wages, the old, immutable communities are changeless no more. There are strangers everywhere these days.”
That, in 1381, was undeniable. In my own countryside, one man in ten was unknown to me. The England I had been born into was dying, one way or another. We lived now in a frightening land where one might not know the names of a neighbour’s children, thoug
h they lived but a mile away.
Which thought gave birth within my mind to another.
I rose. “Your story stands well to any questions my poor mind can conceive, Edmund. But you understand the mood of the camp – if I am to protect you, then I must ensure that all believe in your innocence. I will ask my cousin William if he has any more questions to put to you.”
I made one last visit to the victim, after which I would order him buried. Again, I inspected the wounds to his belly and hands. There was blood everywhere, but by washing gently with a cloth, I saw that his throat was intact. I fetched William and told him what I had heard, and showed him what I had found.
“William, is the victim’s name and home village known throughout the camp, as well as the manner of his death?”
“Probably not.”
“Then please see that it becomes so, without delay.”
“I will, but why?”
“Something that Edmund and I were speaking of.”
I walked a while in the gloaming, my eyes on the ground, not the heavens. After some time, William caught up with me. He had with him an old man who, when shown the body, was able to identify it as Richard Hunt of, indeed, Three Oaks.
“Haven’t seen him for a few years, Captain, but I’ve known his family all my life, and the resemblance is unmistakable.”
“Thank you, brother. Why have you not seen him in so long, if he is of your village?”
The sadness in his voice gave way to pride as he replied. “Richard was a man as did free himself. His lord didn’t like that, it lodged in his arse like a wasp, but there was little enough he could do about it, for Richard was gone and none knew where.”
The old man left, and I wept. William put a huge arm round my shoulder. “Do you weep for the dead, John, or . . .”
“For the dying,” I said. “William, go and find a stout rope.”
I untied Edmund’s hands.
“Am I then free, Captain?”
“No. This is so that you might pray. A man cannot make his last prayer bound like that, it is not seemly.”
After a long silence, he said only: “I see.”
Most lords in those days did not bother to chase after runaways. They might make solemn vows between themselves, to hold firm against the demands of the working man, but when a lord’s own fields stood ready for harvest, he would pay what wages he needed to pay, and to Hell with his fellow landowners.
Some, however, let their pride dictate their actions; or perhaps they were the far-sighted ones, who saw that if they did not stand together, they would lose their realm to merchants and freed workers. Sir Simon Burley, for an example, had been so determined to retake a fled serf, that his stubbornness had led to the rising in Gravesend, the sacking of Maidstone, the siege of Rochester Castle – and, in large part, to our own presence on the heights of London.
“Richard was no quest-monger,” I said. “It is you who are the informer, the man-hunter. Richard was your prey.”
He said nothing, as I had expected.
“His throat was not cut. You meant to cut it, I daresay, but he defended himself. It was indeed his scream that was heard. Much else, I think, is as you have said. You hoped that, with no weapon, no witnesses and no confession, I should have to acquit you come morning. If I dismissed you, you would make your own way back to the lord who hired you. He didn’t care whether or not you brought his man back alive, only that the rebellious serf was punished for his disloyalty. If I made you come on the march, then you would have slipped away at the first opportunity, to join the Mayor’s men.”
“Not necessarily,” said Bull, his calm manner having reasserted itself now that all hope had fled. “I have no love for mayors and archbishops, any more than for your own mad preachers and wild malcontents. It may be that I would have joined with Tyler and Ball – should they win, which perhaps they will. Though I must admit, I doubt it.”
I peered at him in the fading light. “Do you know something?”
He laughed. “Whatever it is, Captain, I shall take it to my grave. Now, is my tree ready?”
I could not but be saddened by such bravery, for it was not merely courage in a wrong cause – it was courage without cause. Bull laughed and jested, knowing himself minutes from death, and yet he had fought, and would die, for nothing more than a bag of coin.
William brought the rope, and we walked a way across the Heath to the tree that he had chosen as suitable for our work. As my cousin and some others made their preparations, I stood aside with the condemned man. Softly, I said to him: “Was it your son?” He said nothing, so I continued. “You must have had a confederate, to take the dagger away with him – and, unthinkingly I suppose, to take also Richard Hunt’s knife, which he had lost during the struggle. This confederate then made his escape from the back or side of the tent, while you, making sure to attract attention to yourself, appeared from the front. And for you to act so, this confederate must have been someone close to you. A son, I thought, or perhaps a brother?”
Edmund nodded, and smiled once more. “My nephew, Captain. My only living family, and a reluctant if loving lieutenant in this business. He is long gone, and need trouble your thoughts no more.”
“Then you would have me hang the murderer’s accomplice, yet leave the murderer to go free?”
Fear. In an instant, his eyes filled with fear. And fear for another – which is the worst kind. “What do you mean?”
“The fatal knife-work was your nephew’s, not yours.”
“Why do you say so?”
“You told me you had cut Richard’s throat – yet, as I have said, his throat was intact. Perhaps this is how it was: you sent your nephew into the tent first, to hold Richard’s attention. You would then enter quietly, and slice your victim from behind, silencing him and killing him with one action. But at the crucial moment, you were distracted, perhaps by a noise from without. You turned, peeked from the tent-flap to see that no one was approaching – and when you turned back, at the sound of Richard’s scream, it was to discover that your nephew had done the job for you.”
Bull said nothing, but stared at me, as if trying to make me out from afar. I continued.
“He was eager to please his uncle, no doubt. To prove himself to a man he loved and admired. In any case, you did not witness the killing itself – only its aftermath, which was bloody and indistinct. The corpse lay on its stomach. You did not know that your nephew’s blade had entered poor Richard by the belly, not the throat.”
He placed a hand on my arm, gripping it with the passion almost of a lover, or an assassin. “Captain, I beg of you – don’t search for the boy too hard. And in return I shall do you a kindness, with these words: do not go to the parley tomorrow.”
“What do you know?”
“Only this, that people who have power never in history have ever parleyed honestly with those who have none.”
Was he murderer or murderer’s accomplice? It was likely I would never know, nor ever know if it mattered.
“That is hardly a kindness, Edmund – to set me tossing and turning, torn between my duty and my skin, all through what may well be my last night on earth.”
I hanged him instantly thereafter, not wishing unpleasantly to prolong the business.
The next morning we marched to Blackheath, to join the great mass of our fellows, and the rest is known to all, I suppose. That Wat Tyler, our lovely chieftain, was murdered; that not only the King’s men, but our young King himself, betrayed us; that hundreds of honest men died in the months that followed, their crime being only a dream of freedom.
And this too is known, I hope and trust: that the great lords thought they had defeated freedom for all time, and that slowly they were taught that they had not.
Heretical Murder
Margaret Frazer
Margaret Frazer started out as the pen name of two co-authors, Mary Margaret Pulver and Gail Frazer, but since 1996 the name has been used solely by Gail. Starting with The Novice’
s Tale (1992), they created the character of Dame Frevisse who has appeared so far in eleven novels and several short stories. Both authors have contributed several stories to my anthologies and I was delighted when Gail received the Herodotus Award for the Best Historical Mystery Short Story of the Year from the Historical Mystery Appreciation Society for “Neither Pity, Love Nor Fear” from Royal Whodunnits (1999). The following is not a Dame Frevisse story, though it is set in the same period, in 1431, and introduces us to Sire Pecock, who went on to later fame and notoriety as Bishop Pecock. Reginald Pecock was born in Wales and became both a priest and a fellow of Oriel College, Oxford. In 1431, he was in his early forties, and made the rather bold move of leaving the scholar’s life of Oxford to become Master of Whittington College in the heart of London. He was there for the next ten years, turning his learning towards convincing heretics of the error of their ways through the use of Reason. This made him unpopular with a great many people but he was nonetheless made Bishop of St Asaph’s in 1441 and, in 1450, Bishop of Chichester. He continued his writings, became more unpopular, and in 1457 was falsely and illegally charged with being a heretic himself. In keeping with his teachings, he bowed to the verdict made against him by the Church, most of his writings were burned, and he died imprisoned and in obscurity a few years later.
The bright rain spattered down, silver in the sunlight, its thin cloud barely casting a shadow as it swept over London on a warm breeze, taking the rain shower with it that mid April morning in 1431. Barely dampened, young Dick Colop dodged out of College Hill Street into narrow Paternoster Passage and along it toward the hardly wider yard at its end closed in by St Michael Paternoster’s Church and churchyard on one side and Master Whittington’s Almshouse on the other. Richard Whittington, three times Lord Mayor of London and dead these ten years, had left money for charities and among them was the building and endowing of this row of almshouses and the keeping in comfort there of thirteen poor men and women for all time to come. To oversee them and tend to their souls and pray for the souls of Master Whittington, his late wife Alice and others, a college of five priests had been founded with the Almshouse and built across the churchyard from St Michael Paternoster that had been given over to the good of the College and the Almshouse together.