The Scandal of the Skulls

by Cassandra Clark

  ‘And now you’re saying he murdered his best friend to cover up something that might have been considered an accident?’ Before he could comment she continued, ‘It’s obvious someone must have been up in the tower to work the windlass and if it wasn’t any of your men it must have been somebody else.’

  ‘Young devils from the town. That’s who. Prove otherwise.’

  Hildegard spoke in a steady voice. ‘Master, might it go back four years to the Parliament held here in Salisbury?’

  ‘You think you know about that, do you?’ He towered over her with his fists bunched. ‘What I think is you’d better get out! Now! Leave me be. There’s the door! Walk through it!’

  Hildegard rose to her feet. ‘I’m sorry I’ve upset you. I know you’re fond of Frank. An innocent life is worth saving anyway but especially the life of one held in some regard. It must be hard to find him under suspicion - ’

  ‘Get out!’

  The master mason rose in fury from his chair. He was a big man. His face was purpling with rage.

  TWENTY THREE

  Hildegard stood in the street outside the house. She wasn’t visibly shaking but her emotions were awry. Master Gervase was taking things badly, understandable in the circumstances, but he had only confused the issue. She did not understand him.

  First he claimed that Robin’s death had been the result of horse-play, an accident, although for some reason he denied the involvement of his two winchmen, and now his anger seemed to suggest that he was convinced like the rest of the town that Frank was guilty of more than a jape that had gone wrong. He had murdered Robin for some personal reason and then murdered an accomplice in order to keep his own name out of it. That was the story. That’s how it looked.

  But it made no sense. He was clearly reluctant to believe that Frank had plotted Robin’s death and been able to carry it out with help from his brother masons. To admit such a story would undermine his faith in Frank whom he clearly favoured, and it would also lead to accusations against the rest of the brethren. Hildegard could understand his confusion. All she had done was try to make him admit what he knew and offer some clue to what had actually taken place.

  The way he shifted in his seat when she mentioned the two men working the windlass puzzled her. There were two of them. At least that had been established.

  They must have something interesting to say, if only she could persuade them to talk.

  She paid a visit to the lodge after stopping for a bite to eat on the way. Work was still proceeding at ground level, she noticed. Blocks of stone, cut to size, continued to be worked. The piece Frank had been sculpting stood on a plinth with a piece of sacking over it.

  The foreman sprang forth to greet her at the gate as soon as he saw her and when she asked who had been in the steeple the night of Robin’s murder he gestured quickly over his shoulder.

  ‘You’re not the first. Them serjeants have been round here day and night. Can’t shake their story though.’ He shrugged. ‘Schedule’s all to pot. It’ll be May Day soon and we’re supposed to knock off by then. Job done. Master’s breathing fire and brimstone. I’ll be glad when they rope Frank in and we can get back to normal.’

  ‘So long as they rope in the real murderer and not some scapegoat?’

  He looked down at his hands. ‘Obviously.’

  He called two men over. Short, stocky, with muscular shoulders and over-developed calf muscles they looked well able to take care of themselves. For a moment Hildegard wondered if she was on the wrong track. These two would take some scaring.

  Gold, then?

  Or had they been there all the time and were in it up to their necks?

  ‘Hail, fellows. Mind if I ask you a few questions about the trouble here?’

  ‘Go on. We’ve been asked and given our answers till we’re blue in the face. But you might as well have a go as well.’

  ‘And you are?’

  ‘Godric, domina.’ He looked slightly shame-faced at the manner of his greeting. ‘This here is Ulric.’ He nudged his companion forward. He was a straggle-haired young fellow with an engaging grin.

  She gave them both a hard look to show she could not be charmed. ‘So you’re tired of being asked questions?’

  ‘We are.’ Godric spoke for them both.

  ‘Then I’ll try to vary my questions from the usual. How much were you paid to leave your work early the night Robin was murdered?’

  ‘You what?’ Godric bunched his fists.

  His companion blanked his expression and turned away.

  Hildegard waited patiently for one of them to answer.

  Her stillness made Godric move forward and lower his voice. ‘Who’s saying this?’

  ‘Naturally I guard my sources most carefully. It’s only fair. I extend the same privilege to you.’

  ‘What about the serjeants?’

  ‘What about them? I’ve nothing to do with them.’

  ‘Then on whose say-so are you questioning us?’

  ‘On behalf of certain parties who wish to discover the truth. No retribution is in mind. Just an honest answer for their own safety.’

  ‘And no blabbing to the serjeants?’

  Ulric swung round and muttured, ‘Your answer’s a matter of life and death to us, domina.’

  ‘Aye, it is,’ agreed Godric. ‘We don’t want to be hauled in for something we didn’t do. What about master Gervase? What’s he been saying?’

  ‘I have nothing to do with the master.’

  ‘Then who would want to know whether we were there or not?’

  ‘I do.’

  Godric turned away with his face in his hands. When he turned back he had an odd look in his eyes. ‘Come on, tell me, who’s spreading this story.’

  She tried a stab in the dark. ‘It’s around, isn’t’ it? Is this the first time anybody’s mentioned it to you?’

  He scowled. ‘Around? The two-faced devils. Who is it? If this gets back to the serjeants - ’

  ‘It won’t get back through me. If you have anything to tell them the best thing is to go to them at once. You can’t be punished for helping them.’

  ‘You’re that nun I’ve seen around with the monk from Outremer.’ It was Ulric.

  ‘I won’t deny it.’

  He turned to Godric. ‘A stout fella, one I reckon we can trust. What do you say?’

  ‘I’m saying nowt.’ Godric walked away. His broad back expressed complete defiance.

  ‘It must have been a large sum,’ she remarked to Ulric.

  ‘Nothing much compared to the trouble we’re in.’ Scarcely moving his lips he said, ‘It was only for a short while before matins. This fella comes up. Complete stranger. “Go down. Have a drink on me,” he says handing over some coin. “And don’t come back.” Course we said no. He said he was playing a joke on some lads down in the Close. Give ‘em a fright just for laughs.’ He bent his head. ‘There now, domina, is that what you wanted?’

  She said, ‘My gratitude.’ She paused. He stared back at her. She asked, ‘Do you think Frank knew what was going to happen?’

  ‘Course he didn’t. Somebody’s trying to fix him.’ His stare did not waver.

  ‘The stranger in the steeple?’ She watched him.

  ‘It’s anybody’s guess.’ With a slight nod he turned away.

  As he moved off she called, ‘So long as he doesn’t try to fix you.’

  She, too, walked away.

  Softly came after her his voice, scarcely audible. ‘I drink at the Hawthorn Bush, domina.’

  It was easy to see how they must have delivered their story to the serjeants when first questioned and had subsequently been unable to change it without unwanted consequences. It would seem safer to them to persist in the original lie.

  The question now seemed to concern the identity of the man who had climbed the steeple at dead of night and paid them off. If it could be revealed it would put them in the clear and exonerate Frank too. Horse-play. Nothing more. Unless it could be shown
that Frank himself had sent a stranger up there with an offer of gold.

  Whatever the answer only one thing was clear. It must surely be a man of calculation who had plotted Robin’s murder then silenced someone who had had the misfortune to be a witness.

  She longed to see Brother Gregory riding into town so he could accompany her to another of these back street ale houses. The Hawthorn Bush. A dive, if she remembered correctly. For a quite different reason she longed to see Hubert de Courcy riding into town too.

  With both of them unaware of her wishes she had to make do with Sister Elwis when she returned to her lodgings.

  ‘My dear,’ exclaimed the little nun as she bustled through on hearing Hildegard at the door. ‘It is good to see you back again. Come into my parlour. Mistress Treadwell told me you visited her early on. That was most kind of you.’

  When they were seated on either side of a comfortable fire Hildegard admitted that she had visited Robin’s mother from more than mere kindness.

  ‘It is the murder of her son that bothers me. I cannot simply stand by and watch while they pursue the wrong man.’

  ‘Frank does not have many champions. He’s seen as too hard, too ambitious and too friendly with Master Gervase. Sucking up to the master. It’s not liked.’

  ‘I can see that. But it does not mean he is a murderer, does it?’

  ‘I agree with you. Have you had any new thoughts while you’ve been away?’

  ‘One or two.’ Hildegard remembered her promise to the windlass men that what they told her would remain with her.

  Sister Elwis was giving her a thoughtful scrutiny until eventually she said, ‘Robin was not all he seemed, you know. I could not say this in front of his mother but he was a tearaway. Knew no law but his own. A chancer, I believe the word is. Idonea has been saved from years of marital unhappiness.’

  ‘I gather he was implicated in the death of two of his friends?’

  ‘The similarity by which he met his own death has not been lost on some folk given to that kind of speculation.’

  ‘No-one seems inclined to tell me how it came about.’

  ‘Then I’ll tell you.’ She drew a breath. ‘It began some time back when these boys were no more than children, thirteen, fourteen, that age. The Great Rising, the hurling time as some call it, had taken place when they were scarcely out of their cradles but seven is an impressionable age. They heard about it from their fathers and brothers, of course, the great heroic days when the ordinary man and woman made their voices heard - many were involved, even down here, some taking to the woods to escape punishment in the savage retribution that followed.’

  ‘Wild days, the hurling time. Much injustice was perpetrated against the rebels.’

  Sister Elwis nodded. ‘Naturally, by the time the boys were fourteen they saw themselves as rebels. There was a group of them. Apprentices. Brought together by their yearning for change and by their membership of the guild with its secrets and all that men’s talk that fires them up to fight.’ She sighed. ‘Nothing seems to change the violence of men, does it? However, Robin and several of his like-minded friends were involved in some small rebellion of their own when parliament came to town. They shouted sedition. Created mayhem for a day or two. Then they were hauled before the Justice.’

  She leaned back with a look of immense sorrow crossing her features and closed her eyes. When she opened them they were moist.

  ‘The two older lads were of an age where they were deemed man enough to know what they were about and they were sentenced and hanged. Robin, the youngest, though in some quarters seen as the ring-leader, was freed after a spell in Winchester jail. This is seen by many as a great injustice.’

  ‘And where does Frank come in?’

  ‘He separated himself from the law-breakers. He’s a stickler for rules, is Frank. Play by the rules. Live by the rules. He has principles. It makes him harsh in his judgments. He thought Robin should have paid the penalty along with his friends. He felt he lacked honour. He has never forgiven him. He sees his actions as a great betrayal.’

  ‘That’s harsh. Would he have paid the penalty himself?’

  ‘He would never have put himself in that position from the first.’

  ‘But where does he stand in terms of affinity?’

  ‘In those days he was with the rebels. At least, he plotted rebellion, not that it came to much. They were children even if they did see themselves as men. Now?’ She shook her head. ‘He’s a dark horse, is Frank. He appears to have become respectable.’

  ‘Which is why he wants a marriage alliance between his master and his sister?’

  ‘That would put the seal on it.’

  Sister Elwis got up to go when the bell sounded from the entrance. ‘Are you coming across for nones?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘I’ll walk with you. Give me a moment.’

  The nun went out and Hildegard thought over what she had been told. It didn’t look good for Frank. The question was how far might he have gone to attain the respectability he apparently craved? Robin stood in his way. To avenge his comrades and clear his own path, two good reasons for getting rid of him. But surely Frank could not imagine murder was the right way to further his ambition?

  She began to wonder if the story was true that things had merely got out of hand? A way to give Robin a kicking, as a warning to lay off Idonea, or as a reminder that the past was not forgotten? But that did not explain the presence of a stranger in the steeple except to put the winchmen in the clear and bolster the view that it was an accident. It certainly clouded the issue. His presence seemed quite accidental. Who was he? A stranger in town would stand out. Someone must have an idea who he was.

  She was frowning as she walked beside Sister Elwiss across the Close. It would have been possible for Frank to have an accomplice up there but then surely the windlass men would have known him? Was his accomplice in fact one of them? Godric? Ulric? Did they set the windlass going? The stranger might be an invention to keep themselves in the clear. But were the two of them capable of driving the windlass by themselves? Did they have the strength of four men? Did it really need four to haul one man part way up the tower?

  If the windlass men had left their posts that night as they claimed then she had to find this stranger who had lured them to break the rules of the guild and leave work in the middle of a shift. It was obvious she must grit her teeth and pay a visit to the Hawthorn Bush.

  Before she could set off after the service to search out Ulric, she noticed Friar Jonathan near the high altar. When the choir began to file out he happened to glance over to where she stood beside Sister Elwis.

  He gave a sort of nod like a sign he wished to speak to her so instead of walking back across the Close with the nun she made an excuse to stay behind. She didn’t have long to wait.

  ‘Domina, warmest greetings. I haven’t seen Brother Gregory for some time. Is he well?’ He gave a bright smile.

  ‘I trust so. He had to see kinsmen on the other side of the Forest.’

  ‘I could have gone with him and shown him the way.’

  ‘Would you be allowed?’

  ‘Friary matters?’ he smiled.

  ‘Well, I’m sure it won’t be long before he’s back. Did you want to speak to me about anything else?’

  He frowned. ‘You know Frank has gone missing?’

  ‘I discovered that when I tried to come in this morning - ’

  ‘From Clarendon?’

  She avoided the question. ‘I had to stand in line and risk having my possessions purloined by the constable on duty.’

  ‘That’s their way,’ he responded easily.

  She was about to broach the possibility that he might come with her to the Hawthorn Bush when something stopped her. Instead she asked, ‘When you say Frank has gone missing, what do you mean exactly?’

  ‘Vanished,’ he clicked his fingers. ‘Like thistle down on a summer’s breeze.’

  ‘Do you have any idea
where?’

  ‘Not I.’

  ‘Have you asked any of your friends?’

  ‘They’re as confused as I am. They can’t believe it’s because he’s guilty. Nobody wants to believe that. But it stands to reason, doesn’t it? Why else would he run for it?’ He shrugged. ‘It’s the talk of the town.’

  ‘Does he have friends he could go to?’

  Jonathan stared at the ground. ‘You may as well know what they’re saying because you’ll hear it anyway. They say he’s gone to join the outlaws in the Forest. He won’t last long. They’re brutes. Wild fellows, living rough, knowing no restraint of law nor decency. Godless.’ He turned to her with a half-smile. ‘Can you imagine Frank living in the woods? Who would press his clothes?’

  ‘Not Idonea. What does she say?’

  ‘She says she never wants to see him again.’

  ‘So where do you think he is?’

  ‘I?’ He looked wildly round. ‘What can I know about it? I know nothing. I’m sure they’re right. I was never close to him.’

  ‘Were you friendly with the same gang of youths when parliament met here four years ago?’

  ‘Of course, I mean, I had nothing to do with any of that. Me?’ He threw his head back with an unconvincing laugh.

  She changed tack. ‘Surely someone has come up with an explanation for his disappearance?’

  ‘Not that I’ve heard. No, this is one rumour that must be true, unlikely though it seems. It’s a gift for the serjeants. They’re saying they need look no further for their double murderer.’

  He left Hildegard then, quite abruptly, and for a moment she watched him follow the choristers through a door at the far end of the cloister before she turned away.

  His manner struck her as odd. He seemed almost exultant at Frank’s escape. It seemed an unkind response, as if he delighted in the fact that Frank was now in deeper trouble than ever. Of course, he might simply be glad his friend would not hang - so long as he could keep one step ahead of the law for the rest of his life.