Hostage to Fortune

by Sarah Hawkswood

  The barn showed evidence of having seen human habitation, and it was clear that this had been the gang’s refuge the previous night.

  ‘Well, we know where they were, but not where they have gone,’ grumbled Catchpoll.

  ‘If men, about twenty in number, wanted shelter near here, where would they be?’ Bradecote wanted all options laid before them.

  ‘They’d cross the Teme by Powick, and head for Cotheridge or Broadwas, or keep west and south of the river, cross the brook at Leigh and ask shelter of the brothers at Knightwick, for the grange is this side of the river loop. That would be some five miles west of here, and the closer. No, wait. The grange there has nobody living there at this moment, for one of the poor brothers slipped and broke his arm last week, and his companion brought him through here on the way back to Worcester. There is not much to be a doing there this season, and with the weather so bad I doubt the monks will send replacements this side of Candlemas.’

  They thanked the reeve and took up the trail, which at first seemed clear enough. Bradecote was, however, turning over a problem in his mind.

  ‘We are asking where there is shelter.’

  ‘Aye, my lord, of course.’

  ‘But the kidnappers do not wander into a village, asking for the best place to stay. Either they are in company with someone who knows this area well, or they are simply coming upon habitation, and scouting for anywhere that might suffice them. We are assuming they are heading for Knightwick because we know it is unoccupied, whereas they are very unlikely to have this information, and may not even know Knightwick exists. It is also heading away from Powick, and that they will know.’

  ‘Well,’ Catchpoll sucked his teeth. ‘First off, my lord, we are taking this path because this is where their track leads us. Mind, I agree with what you say. We were being perhaps too clever in our leaping to conclusions. It is not beyond the bounds of likelihood, though, that they have a local man with them, for why else come this side of Severn. Perhaps their leader himself comes from these parts, and if they knew of the grange, well I doubt the presence of a couple of brothers would worry men like these.’ He was frowning the more now. ‘Trouble is, the path is less obvious here, the ground being so hard and a bit more open. There are fewer twigs to break, or briars to catch a hair from a horse’s tail, and the light is bad, mortal bad for details.’

  ‘You want us to go back to Malvern for the night, Catchpoll.’

  ‘Aye, my lord. We would be best to do so. The trail is hard here, but almost certainly leads the way to Knightwick. If we make a good pace to Leigh …’ He paused and called Thomas Wood to confirm his thought, then continued, ‘As I thought, there is a good track back to skirt the Hills and to Malvern. We know they have to be about near Powick bridge tomorrow, so the worst case is we send a couple of men to look out for the man the kidnappers send to scout for them. Since they are almost certainly spending the night in,’ he grinned, fleetingly, ‘Knightwick, what we do is head out there just before dawn, when we can use the trackway, while going across country would be hard. We catches them after they leave their shelter, and we don’t want them holed up in it. At Leigh, we should have a good chance of finding if they have crossed the brook coming back towards Powick, and if not then we wait in ambush.’

  ‘There is a chance they will have crossed the Teme at Knightwick itself and come to Powick bridge from the north, though, isn’t there?’

  ‘A slim one, my lord, but it is hillier ground and they would have to make a far better pace than they have thus far to guarantee being near to their man at the bridge, so I doubt it.’

  Bradecote saw the logic of Catchpoll’s reasoning, and he certainly wanted to take the kidnappers in the open when, whatever the lord Sheriff’s priorities, he would be looking out for Christina. Abandoning the hunt for the night was logical, but riding away from where she must be was hard.

  ‘You are right, Catchpoll. Leigh it is, and then best pace to Malvern Priory, where we can present Prior John with your “findings”.’

  ‘Though our luck may mean it is too late to cook the venison, my lord, and I have this nasty fear that we will not go back to Malvern tomorrow, since we are like to make our capture. Pity.’

  Chapter Nine

  Walkelin was struck almost dumb with awe when he realised that he was to conduct the interview with Geoffrey, son of Herluin, the next morning, under the critical gaze of the lord Sheriff himself. Geoffrey initially looked blankly at both de Beauchamp and Serjeant Catchpoll’s protégé. A certain amount of rough persuasion, and the threat of permanent damage to his person, did elicit the information that he had been approached by a man with a proposition he could not refuse, because if he did so, his life would be forfeit. He strenuously denied the drowning of Osbern’s journeyman, saying that the poor man must have been observed by the shady emissary, and that it was the emissary who had committed the murder. He made much of being an honest man under duress, which made the sheriff’s eyes narrow, as he pondered, but not for nothing had Walkelin attended to Serjeant Catchpoll over the months, and he regarded the plea with open scepticism.

  ‘You see, my lord Sheriff,’ Walkelin addressed William de Beauchamp whilst holding Geoffrey by the throat, ‘this “man under duress” has just said he did not “drown” Edmund the Journeyman, which sounds fair enough, until you recall that we never told how the man died, and that we never actually called it murder.’

  The sheriff growled at Geoffrey, angry that the man’s lies might have left him looking foolish before a subordinate.

  ‘It was known he drowned,’ offered Geoffrey, his words in a rush.

  ‘Liar.’ De Beauchamp accompanied the word with a swipe with the back of his hand. Geoffrey licked the blood from his split lip. ‘But I care not whether you dangle for murder or your other crimes, as long as you dangle.’

  ‘Why did this other man come to you, if you are so honest, Master Moneyer?’ Walkelin was now thinking upon a trail of his own.

  ‘Chance, I suppose, or because I had no journeyman, nobody else to reveal what we were about, and I am good.’

  ‘Depends at what,’ snorted the sheriff.

  ‘He made no mention of anyone, then, nor gave his own name?’

  ‘No, most tight-lipped he was.’

  ‘Then why did you believe him?’ Walkelin sprang his question like a trap on a stoat. ‘Why agree, honest man that you are, to this crime?’

  Geoffrey stiffened, and de Beauchamp gave Catchpoll’s ‘Apprentice Serjeant’ a look of approbation which, had he not been concentrating on the prisoner, would have done the young man’s self-esteem the world of good.

  ‘All right,’ conceded Geoffrey, ‘this man selected me because he had heard of me through my cousin, Mauger, the wheelwright’s son out of Stoulton. He went to the bad, did Mauger, and was outlawed in ’35, for sheep stealing. Any man he consorts with cannot be good, and is most like to slit your throat if you disagree. This man was one such.’

  ‘Describe him, then.’ De Beauchamp knew that they now had a trace to follow, but it would be unlikely to be anything but a cold trail.

  ‘Careful, clever, the sort of man you forget easily because he wants you to do so. He has brown hair and a close-cropped beard, and acts like he commands, though he was not the leader of the gang I was to work for. He mentioned “my lord” several times.’

  ‘And he had no name, nor gave a clue as to this lord?’

  ‘He gave me no name, but once mentioned the “lord Reginald” or Raymond or Raybald − some such name. I cannot be sure.’

  ‘So what I am left wondering,’ commented Walkelin, almost conversationally, ‘is why this “nasty lord beginning with R” has not, on hearing of your capture, simply sent in this crafty bearded fellow to slit your throat, nice and quiet, down here, and found himself another moneyer.’

  Geoffrey paled, but made a recovery. He even managed a small smile.

  ‘That would be because I know where the other dies are hid, and the hoard of s
ilver. In fact, I would guess they will do everything to get me set free.’

  The silence was all he could have wished. His interrogators stared at him for a full minute, taking in the import of what he had just said.

  ‘The other dies? Have you taken copies of the other moneyers’ dies in Worcester?’ De Beauchamp found his voice first.

  ‘Not all, my lord. They provided dies from shires as far away as Sussex. I could produce coin that covers half of the minting towns south of the Trent.’

  ‘But why? You would need a huge amount of silver to make that worth doing, since it must have taken quite a time and risk to get them, and why not just use the silver to be coined as usual?’

  ‘Why? Because he can, I think, and his silver is in foreign coin, which would have to be re-minted here, with a loss on each pound in weight. This way, stand fast my payment, he gets more than the weight of the silver, and makes mischief at the same time.’

  Walkelin was thinking through this.

  ‘Foreign coin? You mean from Normandy?’

  ‘From Normandy, Anjou, France. From Outremer too, I doubt not. I think he had, shall we say, a profitable time abroad.’

  ‘A man does not go to Outremer to make profit, if he went that far. It is for the good of his soul.’ De Beauchamp frowned.

  ‘Well, whatever his motive for going, that is how he returned. Now I think of it, the bearded man still had that touch of weathering to the face that you see on men who have seen a deal of sun, day in, day out.’

  ‘And if he wanted the money minted here, is it because he knows this area, has manors here?’ Walkelin wondered, half to himself.

  ‘I know the manorial lords of this shire who have been on pilgrimage, aye or with the Templars and Hospitallers,’ William de Beauchamp shook his head, ‘and none recently returned have a name beginning with “R”, nor sound like this man. He must be some renegade, cast from a high-ranking retinue for misdeeds.’

  ‘The next question, then, is where have you hidden the dies, and where is this hoard?’ Walkelin smiled at Geoffrey, in what he hoped was a fair imitation of Catchpoll’s death’s head grin, though the lord Sheriff wondered if he was suffering from indigestion.

  Geoffrey eyed the lord Sheriff and his minion, considering the risks of revelation against the risks of keeping quiet. He had little doubt that the lord who was commanding this ‘enterprise’ would be already making plans for his release, and if the man found out that he had revealed everything to the sheriff of the shire, his life would not be worth a single coin of his own forging. Yet at the same time, the immediate threat to life and limb stood before him. They were unlikely to kill him out of hand, however much they intended to see him hang, but he remembered the words of Serjeant Catchpoll as he brought him in. That miserable old bastard had told him there were worse things than dying, and he said it as if he knew just what they were. For some reason he was not involved today. With luck, thought Geoffrey, malevolently, he had the bloody flux.

  Perhaps the best course was to reveal just enough to keep the lord Sheriff from hanging him by his thumbs, but not so much that he could not find an excuse for it to the man who would be seeking his release. He therefore, with a suitable show of reluctance, gave up the details of the two places where he had secreted dies. He omitted telling them there were two other sites as well. Let them feel pleased with themselves over their success. The hoard was a more difficult problem. He had boasted that he knew where it lay hidden, so that denying it was impossible, and yet if it were discovered, there would be no mercy from the lord who had accumulated it. Geoffrey began to sweat, and de Beauchamp eyed him with grim satisfaction. He could almost read the dilemma in the prisoner’s head. He did not see the moment of revelation when the man realised his way out of the coil. Geoffrey sighed, apparently with resignation and defeat, though in fact it was with massive relief. He moistened his lips, and described a place off the road to Evesham, with a dead tree between whose roots the silver was buried.

  William de Beauchamp smiled, slowly. He had supreme confidence that no man would actually lie to him, not in the situation Geoffrey found himself. He and Walkelin left the prisoner to commune with the walls of his cell, and returned to the seeming glare of pale winter sunlight in the bailey.

  ‘According to the message from Warwickshire, Fulbrook, who has hopefully got the injured brother with him, should arrive by late afternoon. You are therefore to take two men and fetch the dies back here. It will be interesting to see whence they come. I may have to send to sheriffs elsewhere to discover whether these were obtained by deception, and copied, or whether there is a trail of dead moneyers through the realm.’

  ‘Would that not have been noticed before, my lord?’ queried Walkelin, cautiously. He had no wish to be seen as challenging the lord Sheriff’s judgement.

  ‘No,’ de Beauchamp shook his head, ‘particularly not as things stand. England is broken, in some ways. It is seen in the loss of authority even within the King’s Exchequer. A sheriff keeps his shire, and I have good contact with my neighbours, but I would not vouch for having seen the Sheriff of Kent, for example, these two years past. He would investigate a murder in Thanet, but have no reason to send to the Sheriff of Berkshire to mention it. No, if done without a trail, town to neighbouring town, and no more than one in each shire, this would be undetected.’

  Walkelin nodded in understanding. With his instructions and men ‘under his command’, a secretly proud Walkelin set off to find the stolen dies. William de Beauchamp was left waiting, which did not improve his mood. This was made even worse when he was waylaid by the constable, though he tried not to look as irritated as he felt. Simon Furnaux had sent the message calling him back to Worcester, for which he was grateful, but not when Furnaux made so much of his action. After a couple of minutes he was desperate to escape, and when, rather later than he would possibly have wanted, a servant came to inform him of the arrival of a lord from Fulbrook to have speech with him, he absented himself with speed.

  Robert of Fulbrook was alone, which made de Beauchamp frown, but he explained that he had taken the ailing brother straight to the infirmary in the priory, and thought that they could speak to him there.

  ‘He is far from well, my lord Sheriff. Very weak still, and possessed of a fearful headache.’

  ‘But is he lucid?’

  ‘Oh yes. You need not fear that his thoughts wander now. He will answer your questions well enough, though he is much fatigued by the journey. I thought that the infirmarer might give him some draught to make him feel better before you spoke with him.’

  ‘I do not suppose you have slaked your own thirst. How about some ale and cold meat before we go to see the monk? You can tell me the background as you know it.’

  De Beauchamp, made convivial by the thought of food and the absence of the castellan, clapped the surprised but flattered Robert of Fulbrook upon the back, and led him to the hall. His guest, much junior in both years and status, and having heard of William de Beauchamp as a gruff and unapproachable sort of man, launched into what he knew with more speed than clarity.

  De Beauchamp had, however, learnt all about the discovery of Brother Bernard, and the monk’s early ramblings, by the time a messenger from the Sheriff of Warwickshire was announced. The man handed over a vellum roll, and de Beauchamp sent for a scribe. Waving away Fulbrook’s offer to withdraw, he listened as the clerk relayed to him, in a dry monotone, that having been informed of the assault upon a monk, the lord Sheriff of Warwickshire had now discovered the brutal killing of two lay brothers in a grange some five miles from the initial attack.

  ‘He informs me of this?’ de Beauchamp wondered. ‘Why does he think he ought to do so?’

  ‘I sent to tell the lord Sheriff of my shire that I was bringing the brother to you, my lord, because of his meanderings.’ Robert of Fulbrook explained, and then blinked. ‘Do you think these attacks are connected?’

  ‘As I was telling you, the kidnap of Father Samson has been marke
d by brutality. How can this not be another instance of it? No doubt they used the grange as shelter.’

  ‘But it is an even more heinous crime, treating godly men so, and in cold blood, as it must have been.’

  De Beauchamp raised his thick eyebrows at the younger man’s naive innocence.

  ‘You lead a sheltered life, my friend, if you do not realise that there are men who care not one used horse nail for that.’

  The lord Sheriff dismissed the clerk, finished his ale, and ‘suggested’ that they go to see Brother Bernard. Fulbrook gulped and choked upon the last of his drink, and followed obediently in his wake.

  The infirmary of the Priory of St Mary was warmed by the heat from braziers glowing red at each end of the chamber. Most of those within were elderly monks, rheumy of eye, and congested of chest. A novice was rubbing goose grease upon the bony, white chest of one old man, who wheezed loudly. There was a smell of herbs and embrocation. In a cot at the end of the room lay a much younger Benedictine, his head bound, and his face pale.

  Brother Hubert, the infirmarer, recognising Robert of Fulbrook as the man who had brought the brother to him, came towards them, and smiled beatifically upon them.

  ‘My lords, our brother is rested a little, and can answer your questions, but not for long, since he has been severely concussed, and his head broken.’

  He ushered them to Brother Bernard’s bedside, nodded encouragingly at the invalid, introduced the lord Sheriff to him in Latin, and went about his tasks. The hard winter weather made this the busiest season of the year for him.

  ‘You feel a little restored?’ asked Fulbrook, smiling down, reassuringly, at the injured religious.

  Brother Bernard inclined his head, slowly.

  ‘Good,’ remarked de Beauchamp, rather bracingly, the Warwickshire lord thought. ‘Now, Brother, what can you tell me about the attack upon Father Samson’s party?’