[Stephen Attebrook 10] - The Corpse at Windsor Bridge

by Jason Vail

“What do you know about the departure of Wyking, Kilwardby, Bill and their women?” Stephen asked.

  Henrietta licked her lips. “I heard them arguing, the men that is. Wyking said they had been found out and they had to flee for their lives. The other two, they didn’t agree. They thought things were fine.”

  “What do you mean, found out?”

  “It was you, sir, that set them off — when you tried to question that one girl, the red-haired one, about Father Giles. Wyking was sure you were on to their scheme or soon would be, what with all the questions you were asking. He said it was better to be safe than sorry, and convinced the others to go.”

  “What scheme was that?”

  “Gathering information from the soldiers who come here.”

  “You knew about that?” Rykelyng asked harshly.

  “I got eyes and ears, sir,” Henrietta stammered. “I can piece things together. Those girls, they asked an uncommon lot of questions. Stuff we working girls don’t usually ask about, like plans and numbers of men and where they’d come from and who their leaders were and the like.”

  “And you said nothing?” Rykelyng said.

  “I was afraid, sir,” Henrietta said. “They’re hard men, they are. They’d have killed me soon as look at me, if they knew what I thought.” She shivered. “That Bill, especially. He was a mean one.”

  “Let her go, Rykelyng,” Stephen said.

  “You believe me, don’t you, sir?” Henrietta implored.

  “I do,” Stephen said, although he had doubts. It could be Henrietta sympathized with the barons’ faction; many people in this area of the country did. But it was not worth pursuing her. “Now, tell me, did you see which way they went?”

  “I saw them turn their wagon south out the gate, sir.”

  Was she telling the truth? Stephen decided she was.

  Stephen said to Rykelyng. “If we hurry, we might still catch them.”

  There was, in fact, a back door to the Swan that opened into the fields to the west. Rykelyng and Stephen went through it. They ejected two of the soldiers from their horses, and led the rest at a fast canter along the backs of the houses until they came to a gap on Sheetstreet where they were able to get through to Morstreet.

  Sheetstreet diverged from Morstreet at a fork. The spies could have taken either fork. If the pursuers guessed wrong, there was no chance of catching them.

  But a set of stocks stood at the crossroad which was occupied by an elderly man whose long white hair stood out about his head as if driven by the wind, although it was an uncommonly calm and sunny day, the sky having cleared after last night’s rain.

  “Did you see a wagon bearing three men and six or seven women pass by here not long ago?” Stephen asked the elderly man.

  “Why, I could hardly miss them, could I, sir, save if I’d fallen asleep, which is a bit hard in this contraption,” he said.

  “Which way did they go?”

  “That way,” the old man said, pointing toward Morstreet.

  “Many thanks to you,” Stephen said.

  “Say, you couldn’t pause to put in a good word with the bailiffs, could you? I’d like to get out of here!” the old man called as the soldiers trotted away. “What’s the hurry!”

  Stephen took the lead and set a hard pace.

  The little village of Old Windsor, just a few hovels at a crossroad a couple of miles from the castle, quickly came and went. A pack of boys playing with a hoop in the street confirmed that a wagon with three men and a number of women had passed through a short time ago.

  Stephen pressed on, the others straggling behind, as the setting sun cast long shadows across the road and a pure golden light painted the fields and the billowing clouds above his head. There was hardly an hour of daylight remaining. Would the spies find a place to lay up for the night? Somewhere off the road and out of sight?

  A dense forest closed in on the road a short distance out of Old Windsor. The grey branches entangling overhead made for a gloomy ride.

  Stephen glanced into the forest on either side of the road, looking for signs the quarry had pulled off, since it was the time when any traveler stopped to feed and water the horses, and to set up what camp he could beneath his wagon. But there was no sign along the way that a wagon had pressed into the forest.

  A road loomed on the right. Sunbeams draped across the road like curtains, growing thicker and more substantial.

  Sunbeams depended on dust floating in the air. Stephen saw that dust suspended above the road, trapped by the overhanging branches even though the leaves had long since fallen.

  Something or someone had passed by here not long before and stirred up the dust.

  The dust grew ever thicker.

  And then ahead he saw it: a large wagon.

  “I think that’s them,” Stephen said over his shoulder. “Make ready.” He drew his sword and swung his borrowed shield off his back.

  He was no more than a hundred yards behind the wagon. He pressed the horse into a gallop and relished the surge as she bolted forward.

  Figures in the wagon spotted Stephen’s onrush. Voices shouted ahead. The figures scrambled for things in the bed of the wagon. The man astride the leading horse on the left side lashed the four-horse team into a gallop.

  Stephen was fifty yards away, forty, thirty ….

  The figures had resolved long since into two men and several women. Stephen recognized Bill and the other man, Wyking or Kilwardby. Their faces were intent and not frightened. Adeline was beside Bill.

  She and another woman raised crossbows at the same moment the men raised and drew bows.

  Time slowed down. It could only have been a brief span, but it felt as though it stretched for minutes, as Adeline squinted over the top of the crossbow and the men drew to the corners of their mouths.

  They loosed and the arrows flew.

  Three whirred by Stephen’s head. He heard shouts.

  But he could not pay attention to what damage had occurred behind.

  Adeline’s quarrel had struck Stephen’s horse. It reared and bucked, shrieking, and it was all he could do to stay on.

  The horse settled as Stephen dug into her sides, urging her forward before those in the wagon could shoot again.

  But he was not in time.

  He was almost close enough to strike those in the wagon when Adeline shot again, aiming for the horse.

  The quarrel slammed into the horse’s breast and this time she took two strides and went down as if struck upon the head.

  Stephen pitched forward as the horse collapsed. He watched the ground approaching. He threw up his hands to break the fall and rolled with the impact, the horse’s hindquarters slamming into the earth inches away.

  He rolled on down the road, striking his head hard on the ground.

  He lay still, his body a mass of pain, although it was a dull pain and not as great as he thought it might be. He waited for the greater pain to come, the pain that would tell him that he had broken something.

  Yet, no such pain arrived.

  He sat up and looked about.

  The wagon had vanished in the distance.

  Five horses were down, and another three had been wounded. Four men had fallen and were not moving. Two were getting to their feet.

  Rykelyng was one of those getting to his feet. Blood ran down his face from a cut over an eye. He knelt by one of the fallen men. It was his brother, Ernulf. He touched Ernulf’s face, then fixed his bloody eye on Stephen.

  “He’s dead, you stupid, reckless bastard,” Rykelyng hissed. “This is your doing!”

  Chapter 18

  Ernulf was the only man dead. Three other men were injured, one with a broken arm, another with a shoulder dislocation, and the third with a back injury that made it painful for him to sit up.

  They loaded the man with the shoulder dislocation and back injury on one of the horses and the dead man on the other, and walked back to Windsor.

  It was a couple hours after dark by th
e time they arrived. Rykelyng halted the men on the street before the church of Saint John the Baptist across from the Golden Swan.

  “We’ll put Ernulf in there until the morrow when he can be buried,” Rykelyng said.

  Stephen approached the horse carrying the corpse.

  “Not you,” Rykelyng snapped. “You’ll not touch him.”

  Stephen stepped back while two of the soldiers eased the dead man down. He followed them as they carried him to the church.

  But Rykelyng stopped him at the door. “Fetch the priest. Tell him we’ve brought Ernulf to be blessed and buried.”

  “Where will he be this time of night?” Stephen asked.

  Rykelyng spat. “He’s a house across the street on the back side of the church.”

  He turned away and entered the church.

  Stephen groped his way around the side of the church, the graveyard stretching away to the south, marked here and there by faintly seen stones. The night was dark, but clear and starry through gathering clouds, with no moon yet.

  A lane lined with houses lay ahead. It was impossible to tell which one belonged to the priest. Stephen chose a house at random and pounded on the door. The owner opened a window on the first floor above his head.

  “What the devil do you want this time of night?” the owner barked.

  Stephen backed up so he could be seen. “I’m looking for the priest.”

  “Two doors down. Can’t you see the sign?”

  “Why are people so stupid?” remarked a woman in the room overhead.

  “I don’t know.” The householder slammed the shutter closed.

  “I should have known that. Sorry,” Stephen muttered. He could just make out a white cross nailed to the post by the door of the indicated house.

  He repeated the pounding on the front door at the house with the cross. There was no immediate response, so he continued pounding until a small window in the door at the height of an ordinary man’s face, which is to say it was at the height of Stephen’s shoulder, opened inward. The wheezy voice of an elderly man inquired in weary, patient tones from within the opaque hole, “Who are you and what is your business?”

  Stephen bent to speak into the window. “I am Stephen Attebrook. There’s been a mishap on the road. A knight of the prince’s household has died. His companions have laid him in the church. The leader said I was to fetch you.”

  “Oh, dear. Of course. I shall be right there.”

  Some time passed before the priest appeared. He handed Stephen a tinderbox. “Would you mind carrying this? There’s such a good chance I’ll drop it in the dark.”

  Stephen accepted the metal box. It was warm from the coals within it even through the towel wrapped around it.

  “How long has the poor man been dead?” the priest asked as they negotiated their way through the graveyard.

  “Two hours, I’d say, give or take,” Stephen said.

  The priest sighed. “Too late for the Viaticum, I’m afraid. Well, I shall do what I can for him, poor man.”

  They reached the front door and stopped.

  “Would you be so kind, young man, as to fetch a candle from the rack?” the priest asked.

  “Of course, Father.”

  Stephen set down the tinderbox, slipped in and fumbled for the rack of votive candles by the door. He hesitated about taking one and fumbled some more about the rack for the jar that should be there with unused candles, but he could not find it. So, he gave in and reluctantly appropriated a used candle from the rack.

  “Who’s that?” Rykelyng called from within the church, which was so dark that neither he nor the other soldiers could be seen.

  “Just me,” Stephen said.

  “I told you not to come in.”

  No, you didn’t say that; although you may think you implied it, Stephen thought.

  He said, “The priest requires a candle. He’s waiting for it outside.”

  “Hurry up with it, then.”

  Stephen retreated to the doorway with his candle. He knelt and applied the wick to the glowing coals within the box. He shielded the flame from any breeze that might try to extinguish it, and handed it to the priest.

  “There you go, Father,” Stephen said.

  “Thank you, my son.”

  The priest shuffled in.

  Stephen shut the door.

  The breeze freshened, bringing with it the delicate aroma of a pig sty.

  He heard voices within the church, but the door was thick wood and the walls solid stone, so he could not make out what was said. One voice, which sounded like that of the elderly priest, predominated, though. He could have been saying prayers — Stephen thought that the ritual of Prayers for the Dead was most likely.

  After a long while the door opened and priest came out, followed by Rykelyng and the others. No one paid attention to Stephen but the priest, who touched Stephen’s arm.

  “Would you mind seeing me home, young man?” the priest asked.

  “Certainly,” Stephen said.

  Rykelyng and the soldiers went toward Morstreet while Stephen took the tinderbox in one hand and the priest’s elbow in the other so he might not trip in the tall grass as he had almost done on the way to the church.

  “Father, do you remember a chest being found in the church about three weeks ago?” Stephen asked. “It would have been a Sunday, the day after the Conception of the Virgin.”

  “I do, indeed! There was a robbery at the Golden Swan that night! Someone broke into the strong room and made off with several chests of valuables. It caused such a scandal.”

  “There was only the one chest here, though?”

  “Only the one.”

  They swerved around a gravestone.

  “Nothing in it?”

  “Picked as clean as a Christmas swan.”

  “The church was open, as it was tonight?”

  “I never lock it. I like to leave it open for people who might have a need.”

  “You don’t worry about the vestments? The cups and pitchers?”

  “All the valuables are kept in my house.”

  “Did you happen to check on the church that night?”

  “No, I usually have no reason to poke around after dark. Anyway, I like to get to bed early. I have a habit of waking in the night. Does sleeplessness trouble you?”

  “No, not really.”

  “You are a lucky man.”

  “Did you waken that night?”

  “I waken practically every night. It is a heaven-sent night if I sleep through it.”

  “Did you happen to hear or see anything unusual that night?”

  “If you’re talking about the robbery, no.” The priest was silent as they reached the lane and stepped into it. “There was only one thing. It had nothing to do with the robbery — just some discourse between a man and his wife. Or at least I took them to be man and wife, although in this town, you can’t always be sure about a couple out at that hour.”

  “What hour was that?”

  “Very late. The moon was down by then.”

  Stephen looked up at the sky. The moon, still not visible, would rise later as a thin waning crescent. Three weeks ago, it would have been not quite a quarter and waxing, which meant it set about four hours after sunset this time of year.

  “It was nothing then?” Stephen said.

  “Well, it was unusual in that the man was crying — at times sobbing almost hysterically. He sounded so troubled that I started to get dressed. He needed comfort.”

  “And the woman? How was she dealing with this?”

  “Not well, to my way of thinking. She kept saying, ‘You must do it. Think of the child. They will tell even after this. Getting it back won’t stay their tongues. If he finds out, he will kill it. It’s the only way.’ It was all very odd. Not comforting at all. Don’t you agree?”

  “What did the man say?”

  “He said, ‘I know.’”

  “That’s all you heard? ‘I know’?”


  “Well, there is one more thing. The woman said, ‘Give it to me. You must. It cannot be found.’ The man replied, ‘I will not part with it.’ He was very heated about it, anguished even.”

  “Anything more?”

  “No.” The priest put his hand on his door latch. “Except that the woman demanded again that she must have it. There was the sound of a scuffle for a moment. They spoke no more that I heard after that.”

  Chapter 19

  When Stephen reached the end of the lane, where the town gaol sat across Peascod Street from the barbican, Rykelyng and his men were calling at the gate to open and let them in. Not wanting to be seen by them and having to face Rykelyng’s wrath unnecessarily, Stephen hung back until they vanished inside. There was no use courting trouble if it could be avoided.

  He wondered what Rykelyng would say to Prince Edward. Nothing favorable, of course. There was no doubt that Stephen was responsible for Ernulf’s death and the loss of the horses. The truth was, his charge had been a reckless and foolish thing to do, a man had died because of his mistake, and the spies had got away. There was no getting around it.

  Stephen leaned against the corner of the gaol, thinking about this for some time.

  After a while, his thoughts drifted to the problem of Hafton. This pretend marriage hadn’t solved the problem; it had only put off the reckoning. It either came to him or went to Ida. If he seized it, she would be cast out without means or property. Such a girl was unlikely to find a husband; no one wanted a poor gentry girl. He imagined her ending up like Mistress Bartelot, born of a gentry family, the last of many daughters, sent off to marry a merchant because no one would have her, and who had died leaving her penniless. Could he do that to Ida? He had promised Elysande, her mother, he would provide a good dowry, but the truth was, the manor hadn’t much surplus to spare for it. This was the main reason he had not pressed his claim through the courts. He had dithered, hoping that the problem would solve itself. But of course, problems like this never did.

  On the other hand, if he allowed the manor to fall to her, she became a king’s ward again whom the king could marry off to anyone he chose.