The Hangman's Hymn

by Paul Doherty

  The other executioners were now taking ladders, placing them against the scaffold posts. They ran up these as nimble as squirrels and attached hempen ropes through the iron hooks on the end of each branch. The crowd was now restless. Pieces of offal, mud, dirt, even the corpse of a dead rat were thrown in the direction of the scaffold.

  ‘What did the men do?’ Simon whispered.

  ‘They are outlaws, poachers from the Forest of Dean. They stole the King’s venison.’

  Simon closed his eyes and muttered a prayer. He felt the friar nudge him.

  ‘Are you squeamish, Simon?’

  ‘I just think it’s a pity, Brother, that good men are hanged because they are hungry.’

  ‘Do you now?’ The friar raised his eyebrows. ‘Do you really, Simon?’

  ‘Yes I do.’

  The prisoners were being jostled towards the ladders when a strange thing happened. Simon had seen other men executed at Berkeley, both in the castle and outside in the village. They were usually strung up like rats, left to dance, their death throes sometimes seeming to last for ever. Their bodies were then daubed with pitch and tar and displayed in an iron gibbet as a warning to others.

  This, however, was different. White sacks were pulled over the condemned men’s heads, completely concealing their faces. Simon had heard of such a practice: an act of mercy so others couldn’t see the terrible contortions of death. Shadbolt treated the prisoners gently. Their bonds were cut and they were taken up the ladders. When they reached the top, one of the assistants, who had gone up before, placed a noose round each condemned man’s neck, pushing down the great knot just behind their left ear. Soon all three prisoners were ready. A city official walked forward. Pompous and fat-bellied, a ridiculous beaver hat on his head, he read the list of indictments then, with a flourish of his hand, shouted: ‘Let the King’s justice be done!’

  The chief executioner swiftly moved each ladder. The condemned men were launched into the air to dance and jerk. The assistant hangmen scrambled down the scaffold, grasped each of the felons’ ankles and pulled them down. Within a very short while all three hung silent, legs and arms loose, bodies swaying slightly at the end of the rope.

  Immediately the crowd broke up. The city officials wandered away, as did the archers. The hangmen, however, sat at the foot of the scaffold; pulling their masks up over their eyes, they shared a wineskin. Simon thought Friar Martin would go across and join them but he stayed where he was, his only gesture being to sketch a cross in the direction of the three dead felons.

  Once the crowd had dispersed, the ladders were put back, the hangmen climbed up and released the ropes. The corpses were placed in the carts and immediately covered with a tarpaulin sheet.

  ‘What now?’ Simon asked.

  ‘Well, they’ll be taken to Austin Friars cemetery near Southgate. There’s a piece of common land which stretches down to Goose Ditch, they’ll be interred there.’ Friar Martin dug into his purse and pressed a coin into Simon’s hand. ‘Just across there you’ll see Catskin Alley. Halfway down is a small tavern.’ He grinned. ‘The Hangman’s Rest. Once the corpses are buried we’ll meet you there. Go on,’ he urged.

  Simon walked away, still feeling sore and bruised after the attack the previous evening, his mind all in a whirl. He stopped and looked back at the gallows. He was in his twenty-fourth summer, the year of Our Lord 1388, and what did life hold for him? There was nothing for him at Berkeley. He had been raised by an aged aunt and knew full well the bitter dregs of poverty. He had been taught his trade by a local joiner, a master craftsman who had worked here on the Abbey of St Peter. But what else? He, Simon Cotterill, was not a member of a guild and had scarce received a warm welcome in Gloucester except at the hospital of St Bartholomew and from that little friar now climbing on to the death cart.

  Simon scratched where the tabard given to him at the hospital rubbed his neck; the harsh serge cloth had raised a small weal. He stared up at the sky. Autumn would soon give way to winter. He remembered what the master craftsman had told him, that life was like a greasy pole, you climbed or you slid back into the mud. Would that happen to him? Would he be forced to join the hordes of landless men who roamed the roads looking for work? He walked on, reached Catskin Alley and found the Hangman’s Rest.

  Despite its name the tavern was cheery, the taproom large and spacious. Hams, flitches of bacon and vegetables hanging from the rafters to be cured gave a sweet aromatic smell which made Simon’s mouth water. The tables were of good walnut, the stools three-legged and firm while the window seat was even cushioned with quilted cloth. A fire crackled in the hearth and from the kitchen came the clash and clatter of pots and pans. The rushes on the floor were green and supple. On the walls were drawings of gibbets, scaffolds and death carts. In one niche the skull of a man had been placed: underneath this, in a clerkly hand, a piece of parchment described the skull’s former owner as one ‘AEFULWULF, a monk who had fled his monastery and turned to robbery near the river crossings, before being captured and hanged in the year of Our Lord 1312’.

  The taverner came out of the kitchen, a tall, wiry individual dragging his left leg behind him as he walked. He looked Simon up and down.

  ‘You are not a beggar, are you, yet I can see your clothes weren’t made for you.’

  ‘I’m a friend of Friar Martin,’ Simon replied.

  The flinty-eyed taverner’s face remained impassive.

  ‘He wants me to work with him.’ Simon resented having to explain but he did not wish to be thrown out and have to kick his heels in the alleyway.

  ‘A new recruit.’ The taverner’s face creased into a smile. ‘I was once a hangman myself till I fell from the scaffold tree.’ He tapped his damaged leg. ‘A grisly profession. So, friend, welcome to the shadows between life and death!’

  Chapter 3

  In the mayor’s secret chamber above the Guildhall near King’s Cross, the two leading aldermen sat at the long, polished walnut table. They were waiting for their leading citizen, the mayor, to continue his deliberations. The mayor, however, seemed lost in his own thoughts. He stared at the great civic sword placed in the centre of the table, its blade unsheathed. The precious stones in the hilt caught the candle glow and shimmered in small flashes of light. Outside the lead-paned windows, darkness was falling. The casements were all shut, just in case voices were raised and those outside, eager to eavesdrop, heard about the horrors which had been discovered near the King’s city of Gloucester. On the shadowy stairwell outside, archers wearing the city livery, steel conical helmets on their heads, stood guard with drawn swords. Near the doorways below men-at-arms thronged, ready to support the bailiffs and tipstaffs against any disturbance of this important meeting.

  ‘My lord mayor.’ Draycott, merchant and alderman, scratched his grey, close-cropped hair and played with the guild chain round his thick neck. ‘My lord mayor,’ he repeated. ‘Why are we here at such a late hour? And where are the clerks?’

  He looked over his shoulder at the green-baized table where the scribes would usually sit, taking careful note of the important matters being discussed. The mayor, Sir Humphrey Baddleton, didn’t even bother to raise his eyes but kept running his fingers round grim set lips though, now and again, he would absentmindedly scratch his greying beard. He was fascinated by the sword, a symbol of his power. He would like to seize it, use the point to dig out the evil canker threatening the King’s peace and the harmony of the city.

  Sir Humphrey surveyed the opulently furnished chamber: the embroidered tapestries on the walls, the shields with their gaudy escutcheons; trunks, chests, metal-reinforced caskets; the shelves laden with silver, gold and pewter cups, the civic plate of the city. He stretched out and sipped from his wine cup then he leaned back in the quilted chair, resting his elbows on the arms, his fingers playing with the lion’s head carved at each end. The chamber was warmed by the capped braziers standing in each corner. A movement out of the corner of his eye made Sir Humphrey stare dow
n at the two pet white rabbits which he took everywhere. A small eccentricity which the mayor was proud of. He was wealthy, powerful and had the time and riches to breed a special type of rabbit as well as plump doves and pigeons for his dovecote. Yet, in his heart, Sir Humphrey knew this was all nonsense. Such playthings were not for these dark times.

  Draycott raised his head to intervene again but his companion, John Shipler the furrier, nudged him sharply. The mayor’s temper was short and quick; even on the merriest of occasions he did not take kindly to interruptions, and they would just have to wait. They knew something terrible had happened.

  At the far end of the table sat the mayor’s sergeant-at-arms, his principal officer. The man sat rigidly, now and again moving in a creak of leather and chain mail. He had arrived late in the afternoon, followed by a cart closely protected by archers, its contents a casket, hidden under bales of straw. The casket now stood in the small anteroom. They had glimpsed it when the mayor’s officers had ushered them up here, closing and locking the door behind them.

  ‘I am sorry.’ The mayor scraped back his chair. ‘I’m trying to find words to describe how all this happened.’

  ‘What has happened?’ Draycott demanded.

  ‘You have heard about the disappearances?’

  His two companions looked puzzled.

  ‘For the love of God!’ the mayor barked. ‘Young women, in and around the city, have disappeared.’ He clapped his hands. ‘Like puffs of smoke!’

  ‘Tavern wenches,’ Draycott intervened. ‘Alehouse girls, daughters of peasants.’

  ‘Aye, Master Draycott.’ The mayor’s bulbous eyes glared back. ‘They were someone’s daughters.’

  ‘But . . . but . . .’ Draycott stammered. ‘My lord mayor, it’s well known, these girls are, well, they are loose in their ways, they go hither and thither . . .’

  ‘Who said they were loose in their ways?’ Sir Humphrey retorted. ‘And what has happened, Master Draycott, that suddenly, within a few months, aye, no later than the feast of Pentecost, these young wenches take it into their minds to disappear? Well, you are wrong!’ He snapped his fingers. ‘You’d best come with me! I hope your stomachs are not tender.’

  He walked into the anteroom. This was usually a place where manuscripts and ledgers were stored. Now it had been cleared. A coffin lay across two trestles covered by a black pall. Once his colleagues were assembled, the mayor dragged this off and, without a word of warning, moved the lid to reveal the corpse of a young woman. Her throat had been cut, and the body almost drained of blood, lay white and lifeless. The red hair made the liverish mottled face only more gruesome.

  ‘Oh my God!’ Shipler, hands to his mouth, ran out of the chamber.

  Draycott stared in horror. ‘By the rood!’ he exclaimed. ‘And by all the saints! What has happened to her eyes and mouth?’

  The smell from the corpse was now beginning to fill the chamber. The alderman hurriedly took a pomander from his wallet and pinched his nostrils. The mayor nodded at his sergeant-at-arms who, using his dagger, turned the face so they could see the full horror of what had happened. Flame-haired Meg’s eyes and mouth had been stitched with thick, black cord.

  ‘You’ve seen enough.’

  The coffin lid was hastily replaced, the black pall thrown over it. The mayor crossed himself, his companion followed suit and they both walked back into the council chamber. Shipler was crouching over a pot he had taken from a shelf. He rose, his face white, dabbing at the corner of his mouth with the edge of his cloak.

  ‘Master Draycott.’ The mayor smiled thinly. ‘We have no servants here, so perhaps you could serve us all wine?’

  Draycott nodded hastily. Once the goblets were full the mayor tapped the table.

  ‘Since the feast of Pentecost,’ he began, ‘we have had a number of young women disappear in or around Gloucester. Young wenches. Some served in taverns, a few followed more nefarious occupations. They had one thing in common. They travelled in and out of the city. Accordingly, both I and my sergeant-at-arms believe that they were abducted from country lanes.’

  ‘Abducted?’ John Shipler the furrier spoke up.

  ‘Abducted,’ the mayor repeated. ‘Well, that’s the best I can think of. Now, there’s been no trace of them but the wench whose poor corpse you have just viewed worked in some alehouse and was last seen leaving the city a few nights ago. Her family live in a hamlet a few miles down the Barton Road. She never reached home. Her father, a tenant farmer, came in to make enquiries both at the sheriff’s office and with the coroner. Neither they nor the girl’s former employers could provide any information as to her whereabouts.’ Sir Humphrey took a sip of wine. ‘In the normal course of events her disappearance would have been unmarked and unnoticed. However, yesterday afternoon, two foresters out with my Lord Berkeley’s hunting dogs crossed Rushdene Brook in the Forest of Dean. One of the dogs, inexperienced, ran off and the foresters, with the help of verderers, went looking for the animal. It was young and in its prime, much prized by its owner. The dog was being trained as a limner, to smell out game for the hunt. They tracked it deep into the forest and found it in an open glade, digging at the soil beneath a rock. The foresters were curious. The dog was muzzled and leashed, then they dug a little more themselves, and that’s what they found.’

  ‘But why?’ Draycott asked. ‘Who would kill a poor girl in such a way?’

  The mayor looked at his sergeant-at-arms. The soldier coughed and cleared his throat.

  ‘The highways and byways,’ he said, ‘are often plagued by wolfs-heads and outlaws.’

  ‘Aye, we know that,’ Shipler broke in. ‘And I’ve sought better protection from the sheriffs.’

  ‘Hush! Hush!’ the mayor intervened. ‘Now is not the time for criticism and back-biting. Continue now . . .’

  ‘The girl was apparently taken from the Barton Road,’ the sergeant-at-arms continued sonorously. He did not like these fat merchants and resented their criticism and muted accusations. ‘She received a blow on the side of her head and must have been taken four or five miles deep into the forest. Her throat was cut, her eyes and mouth sealed in that barbarous way.’ He paused, tapping the table, letting the truth sink slowly into these merchants’ thick heads. ‘Can’t you see?’ he continued mockingly. ‘If she were to be ravished it would have happened near the trackway but her gown was never removed. There is no mark or bruise upon her except for her throat being slit and her eyes and mouth horribly disfigured.’

  ‘What the officer is saying,’ Sir Humphrey added, ‘is that this young woman was abducted, knocked senseless, taken into the forest and used for some nefarious rite.’

  ‘Witchcraft!’ Draycott exclaimed.

  ‘Yes, Master Draycott, witchcraft! And this is no petty trick or spiteful accusation. We know the Forest of Dean is often used by those who practise the gibbet rites. We have often heard of fires glimpsed there at the dead of night. Of bizarre scenes. Yet these are usually dismissed as fanciful notions.’

  ‘But why were her eyes and mouth sewn together?’ Draycott asked.

  ‘I’m the Mayor of Gloucester, not a warlock!’

  The answer provoked smiles and muted laughter.

  ‘From the little I know,’ Sir Humphrey continued, ‘the practitioners of the black arts need a blood sacrifice. The eyes and mouth are closed in such a barbarous way to prevent the soul leaving, so the sacrifice is complete, body and soul, for the demons they worship.’

  ‘But what can we do?’ Draycott moaned. ‘It would take a king’s army to scour the Forest of Dean. And even then . . .’

  ‘Even then they wouldn’t find anything,’ the mayor concluded. ‘Now, this is not just a matter of the church spiritual. Gentlemen.’ Sir Humphrey paused. ‘Fellow merchants . . .’ The last two words were deliberately emphasised. ‘Can you imagine what will happen if the news becomes common knowledge? God knows the truth is bad enough, but when the rumour-mongers, the gossip collectors, the whisperers on the wind, publ
ish the story, well, if it’s news in Gloucester tomorrow, by the time the bell tolls for the Angelus, they’ll know it all in Bath and Bristol. Who would want to come to a city where warlocks and wizards can sacrifice young women and practise their rites? People will become frightened to go here or there. To put it bluntly, trade will suffer.’

  Sir Humphrey picked up his wine goblet and rolled it between his hands. Now he had their attention. Murder, disfigured corpses, was one thing, a fall in profits was much more serious.

  ‘And then, of course,’ he continued, ‘we’ll have the perjurers and liars pointing to this person or that. Old grudges and grievances will surface. Fingers will be pointed. All of us here serve as justices. Can you imagine how busy we will become?’

  ‘So, what do you propose?’ the sergeant-at-arms asked.

  ‘The same as I do, sir, when there are mice in my house! I don’t go looking for them! I bait a trap and wait for them to come to me. Now listen . . .’

  In the Hangman’s Rest, Simon Cotterill was making the acquaintance of his new colleagues, Shadbolt, Merry Face and Flyhead. Shadbolt was straightforward enough. A veteran of the King’s wars: grizzled-headed, scar-faced, a man of few words but of undoubted authority. Merry Face, so-called because of a disfigurement to a muscle in his right cheek, which made him look as if he was always smiling, cheerfully confessed to being a former cleric, forced to leave his benefice in Leicester because, as he put it, of certain misunderstandings regarding a miller’s wife and the contents of the offertory box. A youngish man, Merry Face, despite his disfigurement, was bright-eyed and quick-witted. Flyhead was older, a lean, vicious man, his teeth no more than black stumps. He was given his name because his bald pate was covered in black blotches which looked as if he were hosting, as Merry Face put it, a council of flies. Friar Martin, who was with them, quietly informed Simon that Flyhead might have been a priest.

  Tankards of ale were ordered; bowls of diced chicken and pewter plates containing soft, white bread, a mixture of vegetables and the tavern’s delicacy, grilled veal in a herb sauce, were placed beside each of them.