by Jane Adams
There was a second room downstairs which housed a couple of chairs and a television and from which could be seen a filthy kitchen. Rozlyn as usual declined the offer of refreshment. This room might have been almost liveable if it hadn’t been for the smell. It was a musky, musty, sour and choking odour that Rozlyn knew from experience she’d be hours getting out of her nose and clothes. The same smell clung to Mouse Man himself, emanating from him in waves of body heat.
Rozlyn stood in the middle of the room, trying not to touch anything, while all around in cages, stacked three high, squeaked and scrambled and stank a load of tiny, long-tailed, big-eared rodents, breeding and scrapping and squealing and now chewing on the handfuls of grains that Mouse man tipped into their cages.
“Look,” he said. “More little ones.”
He pulled his hand from the nearest cage and held it out to Rozlyn. His palm was filled with pink, writhing, grub-like creatures, naked and almost tailless.
“Nice,” Rozlyn said briefly, then regretted the need to speak as the foul air flooded into her lungs. “Mouse, this place stinks even on the outside. Don’t your neighbours complain?”
Mouse shrugged. “It’s my house,” he said defensively. “My mother left it to me, nothing owing. Nothing. Anyway, there’s no one lived next door, they moved out, told the landlord his drains must be blocked. And the old woman on the other side, she’s deaf as a post, so she never complains.”
He slipped the grub-like mouse pups back to their now frantic mother, leaving Rozlyn, her eyes watering, to wonder what being deaf had to do with a sense of smell. She had asked once what Mouse did with his charges when there were simply too many to fit in the cages. “Oh,” he had told Rozlyn happily. “I take them to the waste ground and I let them go.”
“You were going to tell me about Charlie,” she said.
“Oh. Oh yes.”
Mouse sighed, his now empty hands dropped to his sides and he stood quite still, looking lost and dejected as though now he had Rozlyn here he’d quite forgotten what to tell her. Their walk back to his house had been filled with Mouse jumping at every shadow and whittering about the big man following them, though Rozlyn had seen no sign. He had refused to talk about Charlie ’til they were ‘safe’, but now that they were, presumably, safe, he seemed at a loss.
“Charlie,” Rozlyn prompted him. “Charlie Higgins is dead, Mouse. Can you tell me anything about why that might be?” She paused, waiting. “Or am I wasting my time?”
The sharpness in Rozlyn’s voice seemed to jerk Mouse out of his reverie. ”Oh no, Inspector Priest, I wouldn’t dream of wasting your time.” He seemed to gather his thoughts, then glanced around again as he had done on the street as though afraid that someone might be listening. Then he moved closer to Rozlyn, his voice dropping to a confidential whisper. Rozlyn almost choked at the stench which seemed to emanate from the man like a dense cotton wool textured cloud, wrapping about her nose and mouth and amplified by the room full of rodents with whom he shared his pungency.
“They’ve got no bladders, you know,” he whispered and it took Rozlyn a moment to realise that he was talking about his mice and not Charlie. “So they’re . . . doing their little business all the time. People don’t understand that it’s not their fault, they pick them up and the poor little things dribble all over and they don’t seem to understand it’s not their fault.”
Rozlyn closed her eyes and sighed in exasperation. “Well don’t you learn something new every day.” she said. “Now what about Charlie. What did you want to tell me about Charlie?”
That seemed to agitate Mouse even more. He stepped away from Rozlyn and thrust his grubby hands deep into the pockets of his greasy trousers. “He knew what you thought about him,” Mouse Man said. “Charlie knew you didn’t think he was capable of nothing but he respected you, Inspector Priest, he really did. He reckoned you been good to him over the years, slipping him a fiver here and there, even when he didn’t have much to tell you. That counted for a man like Charlie. But he reckoned he got something really big to tell you this time, that he’d got an in.” He paused. Halted his pacing and swivelled round to face Rozlyn.
“An in?” Rozlyn prompted him.
“An in,” Mouse confirmed looking suddenly triumphant. “On a job. He was going to be a mole, he said and give you the deal. The whole deal, right up to the when.”
“He told you this?”
“Oh yes, he told me. He was proud of it. This was something he could give that would be worth more than the odd fiver. Charlie reckoned he’d get rich out of it.”
Instead of which he’d got himself murdered. Rozlyn frowned wondering what the hell Charlie might have been up to. Charlie hadn’t had two brain cells to rub together and had had the subtlety of the average concrete block. The idea of him infiltrating anything but the nearest whisky bottle was one that Rozlyn found absolutely absurd. Absurd and pathetically sad.
But it explained, perhaps, why he’d wound up dead.
“What was going on, Mouse Man? Charlie tell you that?”
Mouse shook his head. “Something big, he said and something about stuff that was very old and very rare.”
“Antiques?” Rozlyn asked. “Some kind of antiques?”
Mouse shrugged. “Old antiques, Charlie said, like they have in the museums. Something really, really old.”
Antiquities, Rozlyn thought. The dig? Did this have something to do with the dig? She remembered what the constable had told her that the archaeologists didn’t expect to find anything valuable in the graves.
Had someone thought different and been wrong? Or had there been something there valuable enough to get Charlie Higgins killed?
CHAPTER 4
YEAR OF GRACE 878
Theading was about two miles ride from the manor by the ford, along a narrow track that led first through woodland and then onto a ridge of land forming the backbone of gentle hills.
This too was his land. On this eastern side of the manor there were fifteen hides between Boden’s wood and the river Pearce which marked the boundary of Abbey lands. Theading was his, as was the tun of Bearwell and the homesteads that lay between.
“Your first task,” he said to Hugh “will be a survey of the land and the appointment of tythingmen.”
“For that I’ll have need of local knowledge. I hope there are men you can trust in this vill of yours.”
“As do I . . . it’s likely the abbey has already done the work for you if the abbot is intent on claiming the land for himself. I’ll not believe that any of his kind would miss the chance to take a tything.” He said sourly. “No doubt Abbot Kendryk will be most upset to find us come just as the harvest is brought home.”
“And no doubt the villagers and ceorls will feel the same way,” Hugh warned him, “if the abbot has demanded a tything already in work done on the abbey fields, you’ll find men reluctant to give yet another to a Lord they do not even know.”
“Whichever season saw our coming would be difficult for some. Had we come Aerra Litha or Aefterra Litha, we would have been a far greater burden. That, I would have been loath to be.” June and July, those times just before and after midsummer, were the hungry months among the poor. The winter store had dwindled almost to nothing, the first harvest not due until Lammas, the loaf mass. It was a time of year when the Thegn’s duty would have been to support his people, not, as Hugh was pledged to do on the King’s behalf and Treven bound to support, to assess them for taxes.
The people of Theading had been aware of their coming. They came out of their houses to stare at the strangers, Hugh in his rich clothes, Treven, a linen shirt added to his outfit and his hair showing some effort with the comb and now accompanied by his three armed and mounted servants.
The vill consisted of a dozen houses scattered either side of the dusty road. Timber framed and thatched, many of the houses looked new and here and there were visible the burnt timbers and scorched land left from the earlier burning by the raiding army.
Women called their children back from the road. Some of the adults murmured greeting, but it was clear to both Hugh and Treven that these people were wary, untrusting of this stranger appointed by a king whose name they recognised but who had been so often in battle that they as yet knew nothing of him as a ruler, only as a warrior.
There were remnants of palisade surrounding the vill, close up against the forest edge, though much of it was broken down and also showed clear signs of burning. In places this gave way to bramble thickets and mixed hedging. The Hall stood beside a great pond. It had been a natural feature, Treven guessed, and a small stream on the forest side could be seen emptying itself into a natural dip in the landscape, but he guessed also that it had been deepened and widened by generations of owners and stocked, most likely, with food fish, as the abbeys did. It was a feature that spoke of a time of prosperity and labour to spare. Treven wondered idly how long ago that had been and if the large building standing by the water had once been the Manor of Theading before the now ramshackle but more substantial house had been built closer to the ford. The hall was old and strongly built, though the rear of the building showed signs of new lime wash that did not quite conceal the repaired timbers. The thatch too had been patched, new straws showing golden against the grey aged bundles. That it had survived at all told Treven that it had been in use, perhaps as a base or storehouse for the Heathen army before being reclaimed and repaired by its owners. At the rear stood a new building, long and low with smoke indicating hearths at either end. The cookhouse, Treven guessed. Another sign of hoped-for prosperity, that this should be housed in a separate building. Other small outbuildings close beside the palisade suggested privies and stores and a half dozen fattened pigs grunted happily in a wooden pen.
The doors of the great hall stood wide atop three wooden steps.
Two men and a woman emerged and came down the steps to greet Treven and his company. The men looked alike enough to be brothers, dark haired and heavily built, their shoulders and arms muscled and the close fit of the woollen breeks showing well-formed thighs and calves. Men used to hard work, though not fighting men, Treven thought; they were built for the plough rather than the sword.
The woman was of a different order. Dark also, but more delicately made and with bright blue eyes. Her undershirt was of good linen cloth and the russet of her dress was meant to be that colour, not faded from red like Treven’s cloak. A leather thong hung about her neck from which was suspended a shallow, pierced spoon designed for straining beer as it was poured from jug to drinking vessel. A symbol of her position in the household, she touched this lightly with her fingertips, as though it were an unfamiliar object.
Beside him Hugh drew a swift breath. “Things improve by the moment,” he whispered. Treven cast him a disapproving look but had time for no more as the older of the two men stepped forward.
“Lord, my name is Edmund Scrivener. We had letters concerning your arrival, but my servants tell me you came last evening to Theadingford. Had I known, you would have had better welcome.”
“We made faster time than I had hoped,” Treven told him. “My servants had the camp prepared. It is of little matter.”
Edmund bowed his head slightly in acknowledgement. “This is my brother, Eldred,” he said, “and his wife, Cate.”
Cate smiled shyly, but Eldred, Treven noted, was tight faced and his eyes held no greeting.
“This is Hugh de Vries,” Treven told him. “The King, in his wisdom, has appointed him Shire Reeve for this Hundred and those bordering on it . . .”
“Shire Reeve?” Eldred sounded outraged. “My father has served these past five years as Steward and as Shire Reeve. What justice appoints another over him?”
Treven looked sharply at the younger man. “The king’s justice,” he told him. “Your father will be paid his dues.”
“Dues!” Eldred began, but his brother silenced him.
“Eldred. Enough. These men are guests in our father’s house. Would you shame him?”
His brother fell into a reluctant silence and Edmund continued. “Our father is unwell. He gave word that you should be welcomed as if he were able to do so himself. Come inside. If your men take themselves to the cookhouse out back, they will be fed and watered.”
Treven and Hugh followed the brothers into the hall. The interior was dim, with narrow windows, covered with oiled and scraped vellum only at the farthest end and even those were set high into the wall so that shafts of filtered light fell, sharply angled, into the room.
A loom had been set close to the doors to take advantage of the morning brightness. On it was a length of half-worked cloth, the threads stretched tight with weights of baked clay. Beside that a carved chest acted as shelf for rush baskets of wool, skeined ready for plying, dyed the same shade as the green of the woven cloth. It was intended for winter wear, Treven guessed. A mantle for one or other of the men. Treven remembered the long hours he spent as a child, sitting at his mother’s feet, his hands outstretched until they ached, as though he’d spent all day handling his wooden sword, while she wound skeins of wool into balls and then plied the yarn ready for the winter weaving. A single winter cloak took the wool of a half dozen sheep and many hours of women’s work.
Beside the left-hand wall was propped a trestle table, dismantled until required and a long oak bench. A second bench rested against the opposite wall. A small table stood just inside the doorway, laden with cold meats and apples, a flagon of ale and — an especial treat for men used to coarse fare — a loaf of wheaten bread with dishes of preserves and honey.
Cate poured weak ale into leather flagons. It was the small beer from the third brewing, suitable for drinking throughout the day whereas the stronger ale was kept for the evening meal. She strained the residue from the dark liquid with the pierced spoon and wiped it clean on a piece of old linen. She then lifted the cup to her lips before giving it to Treven.
“A health to you,” she said. She spoke softly and found it hard to meet his eyes.
“And to you, lady,” Treven told her. “I thank you for your hospitality.” Though it was, if he were to be honest, of the bare minimum that courtesy allowed. And he sensed that Cate thought this also, that their welcome, although polite, was frosted with suspicion.
Hugh seemed beset by no such thoughts. He made a point of brushing, as though by accident, the slender fingers of the lady as she handed him the cup. The touch might well have gone unnoticed, but she flinched away as though his fingers stung and Eldred bridled like a badly handled horse. He would have spoken, Treven thought, but Edmund caught his look, warning him off with a stare that would have frozen all but the most foolhardy of men.
“Eat, please,” Edmund urged them. “Sit, there are chairs set beside.”
Treven sat down in one of the two carved chairs that were more usually for the brothers’ use. Edmund pulled up a tall three-legged stool and began to carve the meat. Cate stood hesitantly for a further moment and then with a word that might have been excuse, slipped off to her weaving. She stood side on to the group of men and Hugh’s gaze strayed her way far more often than could be considered proper. Eldred paced restlessly, like a man whose energies are too pent up for rest.
A chamber with a curtained door occupied one end of the hall, divided, Treven assumed, by a partition of wood to give some semblance of privacy to the married couple. He wondered about Edmund. Strange that the younger son should have a wife and yet there be no evidence of Edmund being wed. The straining of the ale was something the lady of the Hall would
do, the wife of Edmund’s father, or of the eldest son. Cate, wed to the younger and, now he had looked at her more closely Treven had seen her to be barely more than a girl, seemed young to have such responsibility.
“Your father has been Steward to my estates?” Treven asked, when he had eaten enough for courtesy and conversation could be allowed to turn to business.
“Steward, yes, though he’s had no time to maintain the hall at Theadingford. The vill has twice been burned. It seemed more fitting to house those who’d lost homes than upkeep a building with no master and no use.”
“I’ve no argument with that,” Treven told him, “though I’ll need men now at least to make it safe and weatherproof before winter. Come spring it can be taken down. I’ve plans for the rebuilding of it.”
Edmund hesitated before he spoke again. “We’ve few young men,” he said. “Not enough to spare for work that doesn’t bring in food for their families or fodder for the kine.”
Treven’s eyes narrowed. “I could order it,” he said. “Edmund, whatever position your father and your kin hold here, I’ll not be gainsaid if I require a thing done.”
“And I’ve not gainsaid you,” Edmund’s voice raised in mild annoyance. Then he recovered himself. “Forgive me, it’s long since any assumed control over this land and, though my brother put it ungraciously, he was right in that if my father had not taken power and led our people through these times, many would have died and the land been ruined into the bargain.”
“What my brother refrains from saying,” Eldred interrupted, “is that we have little faith in any king’s peace or any king’s men. Where was the king when our vill was razed, not once, but twice in the space of as many years? When our women were raped and the old folk forced to flee with the children into the woods. The winter was bitter that year and they dared not return. There were men camped here, in this house until past the Christmastide. We buried five out in the woods. Cate’s mother among them and children too. Cold and sick with no shelter and fire only when we dared to risk.”