Cathedral of Bones

by J G Lewis

  “Those are symptoms of arsenic poisoning. And why was I not called?”

  “Master DeVere was in attendance. He’s a physician to the king and highly respected. He tried all kinds of draughts and potions to no avail. I was so distraught with grief, and so caught up in managing my children’s distress, that the idea he might have been the victim of foul play didn’t occur to me until the day of his burial. It hit me like a thunderbolt—and the reasons for it—while we all sat there in church.”

  “And you never said anything?”

  “I’m saying something now.” They rode along at a slow walk, speaking in hushed tones. “As you know I am literally never alone. I’m always surrounded by soldiers from the garrison, servants, officials. I have to be very cautious with my words.”

  His brows lowered. “So why are you telling me now?”

  Why indeed? “My conscience goads me. I poured my righteous anger into seeking justice for Katherine Morse, but satisfaction eludes us and now I wonder if I’ve failed my husband by not seeking justice for him.”

  “You have a suspect?” Haughton’s keen interest shone in his eyes.

  “Not one I can name aloud in public.”

  His stare almost penetrated her skin. “A person of importance?”

  She decided to let her silence speak for itself. She spurred her horse back into a trot. She still hadn’t decided whether she trusted Haughton with her suspicions. What if he, unbeknownst to her, was an agent of De Burgh told to follow her movements and report back to his master?

  The sight of the farm was a welcome distraction. “This is Dawson’s place.” This time Dawson himself was outside in his farmyard, seated on a crude wooden stool, hammering at the metal tread on a cart wheel. She didn’t see the rest of the cart. He was a scrawny, dark-haired man with pinched features and ruddy skin. Two of his children were chasing each other through a flock of chickens.

  He looked up, then rose to his feet, leaning the wheel carefully against a shed wall as she approached and pulled up her horse.

  “Richard Dawson?”

  “Yes.” He looked suspicious and not a little hostile. He clearly had no idea who she was and probably didn’t much like the idea of an imperious mounted female riding into his farmyard.

  “I am Ela of Salisbury, here in my capacity as sheriff. This is Giles Haughton, coroner. We’re here investigating the deaths of two of your neighbors.”

  His shoulders dropped as he visibly relaxed. What had he thought she was here for? Did he feel guilty of something? Maybe he was a poacher worried she’d find parts of a butchered hog from the king’s forest salted away inside his hut?

  This job made it hard to think the best of people.

  And having two murders to investigate made it hard to know where to start. Starting at the beginning was probably best. “I presume that you saw Katherine Morse almost daily at the dairy.”

  He frowned and scratched his neck. “I wouldn’t say that.” He looked at the nearby hillside, covered with his grazing cows. “We weren’t there at the same times.”

  “But did you have a chance to form an impression of her relationship with her husband.”

  He squinted at her. “That’s between a man and his wife.”

  Ela sighed. “Did you ever see signs of violence on her? Bruises, a blackened eye?”

  “Can’t say I did.” His face had an expressionless look to it that almost passed for arrogance.

  “Would you say she seemed—intimidated or cowed by her husband?”

  “No.” He tilted his chin. “If anything, I’d say he seemed to be the one under her thumb. She were a bit of a shrew if you ask me.”

  Ela stared. This was new information. “Katie Morse was bossy and demanding?”

  “Aye, from what I heard. Always after Nance for a better share of the profits and even talked of opening her own dairy in the new town. We all laughed at her, but she just rolled her eyes and said she’d have the last laugh.” He let out a sigh. “She was wrong now, wasn’t she?”

  Ela felt indignant on Katie’s behalf. Somehow it hurt more that a woman of ambition and drive should be cut down so cruelly and left to rot in a river.

  Of course, being a woman of ambition was dangerous in these times. As it was in most times. She’d be a fool not to acknowledge that.

  “Her…domineering behavior might give her husband cause to be angry with her?” She peered at Dawson.

  He shrugged. “Might do, I suppose. I think he were just glad to have a wife and to have her do most of the work. Lazy sod himself.” Ela got the feeling he’d never have dared say such a thing to Morse’s face—Morse was much larger than Dawson—but felt emboldened by his neighbor being accused and imprisoned.

  She decided to scare him a little. “Your farm adjoins his, I suspect.”

  “Aye. Along the eastern boundary. He and I had a legal dispute over it a few years back. I won.” His dark eyes shone with a hint of remembered triumph.

  “So you might have motive to want the Morses out of the picture so you could buy their farm, perhaps?”

  Suspicions crowded her brain like devils. She shifted in her hard saddle.

  Dawson looked appropriately horrified by her suggestion. “Nay, nay, never. I never thought of such a thing.” He looked around, shifting as if mice gnawed at his privates. “You think I have coin to buy another man’s farm on top of my own? I can barely maintain my own herd and support my family.”

  Ela let him stew for a moment. “Do you have any suspicions about who might have killed Katherine Morse?” She’d given him motivation to come up with some.

  Dawson opened his mouth—which had unnaturally thin lips—as if to speak, then apparently thought better of it. He glanced behind her at the soldiers on their horses. “Nay. I don’t know why anyone would want to kill her.”

  “What about John Brice? Who would want him dead?”

  “Morse, from what I heard. Because he tupped Morse’s wife.”

  “And do you believe Morse killed Brice?”

  Now Dawson sneaked a look at Haughton. “I don’t know. It ain’t my business.”

  “It is your business.” Ela readjusted her reins. “The sheriff and coroner of Salisbury are calling upon you as a witness to your neighbor’s behavior. Don’t think you can’t be called to appear at the assizes as well.”

  “Do you think Elizabeth Brice capable of killing her husband?” asked Giles.

  Again Dawson looked reluctant to embroil himself in the local drama. “I suppose it’s possible.”

  “Do you think she knew her husband was sleeping with Katie Morse?”

  “No!” He made a half guffaw that startled Ela’s horse. “Definitely not. She’d have killed him before now if she did.”

  Ela looked at Giles. “Motive and method.”

  He nodded.

  “So if the only surviving Morse and the only surviving Brice are going to hang, what will happen to their farms?” Dawson asked, his weasel face taut with curiosity.

  “They shall go to their heirs and assigns,” said Ela.

  “The Brice brats aren’t old enough to run a farm.”

  “Then a wardship can be arranged, but that is none of your concern,” said Ela curtly. Those poor children! Were they still with Elizabeth’s sister? Did they even know their father was dead? And now their mother being sought by soldiers for murder! She couldn’t imagine how distressed and worried they would be. She looked at Haughton. “Do you have any further questions?”

  “No, my lady.”

  “Then we’ll bid you adieu. May God be with you, Master Dawson. His presence is much needed in this valley right now.”

  “Aye.” He didn’t nod or even murmur “my lady.” Ela scolded herself for expecting such niceties.

  She and Haughton rode out of the yard, the soldiers following. “I must make sure arrangements are in place for the Brice children.” She couldn’t believe she’d forgotten them until now. She’d paid more attention to their herd of cows.


  “Poor mites, losing both their mother and their father in one night.” Giles sighed.

  “They’re with Elizabeth’s sister. I hope she’s willing to care for them.” She sighed. “If their home were a great manor, friends would be clamoring to take the children on as wards and claim the profits from their lands in the meantime. But the Brice farm likely won’t generate profits at all if paid labor is used to run it.” She shook her head.

  “Aye, such farms rely on subsistence labor. Would make more sense to sell it and put the profits into supporting the children. Perhaps the eldest sons are old enough for apprenticeships?”

  They rode on grimly. Ela thought it was cruel that the Brice family might have worked and saved for generations to buy their land, and now a disaster such as this could turn their children and descendants back into landless serfs overnight.

  And another situation gnawed at her heart. Ela was painfully aware that she’d half-confessed her suspicions about De Burgh and piqued Haughton’s curiosity. Sooner or later he’d come back for more details. At least he had the discretion not to press her in front of the soldiers.

  They rode on to the Lesser farmstead. Their thatched farmhouse was neat and well maintained, with a fresh coat of whitewash and a tidy farmyard. A small woven pen contained two young pigs, and the chickens were similarly contained in a low fenced area where they pecked at the ground. Two of the Lessers’ children were busy pulling weeds from the fenced kitchen garden near the door, where perennial herbs put out new shoots and dark, rich soil was turned for seeding.

  The children rose to their feet with alarm as Ela and her entourage rode in. “Are your mother and father about?” She tried to make her voice sound gentle, but the sheer volume required made it sound like a command.

  “Mama is cooking inside. Papa is turning the ground in the back field.”

  It was busy planting season. Or at least time to prepare the soil. Scrubby patches of weeds were being plowed all over Wiltshire right now. “Could you please tell them that Ela of Salisbury is here to speak with them?” She attempted a smile. She was coming to understand that her arrival was cause for fear and misgivings and she could hardly expect a welcome.

  The Lessers’ barn was new and even larger than Morse’s, with sturdy wood beams and neat wattle. To one side of it she could see a wide humpbacked field where the herd grazed on the new spring grass. “Nice farm,” murmured Ela to Haughton.

  “Yes, I wonder how they feel about Morse walking to and fro in the light while they’re stuck in the darkness half the year?” Haughton muttered under his breath. Ela looked at him with surprise. Was he seeing murder plots wherever he looked?

  He’d been in this job enough years to have born witness to most of man’s follies.

  “This farm is in between Morse and Brice. By getting rid of both of them they could own quite a manor,” she said softly, half-joking.

  Haughton raised a brow. “I see you grow as cynical as myself.”

  “It’s hard not to.”

  Mistress Lesser emerged from the house, wiping her hands on her apron. “My children tell me—” She seemed struck dumb by the sight of the armed soldiers in her yard.

  “God be with you, Mistress Lesser,” said Ela. “We are here seeking insight into the deaths in this neighborhood.”

  Mistress Lesser crossed herself. “’Tis terrible. Poor Katie Morse, such a sweet girl and so hardworking. And now John Brice as well, I hear! I’m afraid to sleep in my own bed at night.”

  Ela climbed down from her horse. She didn’t like the idea of looming over this good woman while talking to her. One of the soldiers came forward and took her reins and guided her horse out of the way. “Do you have any suspicions about who might have murdered Katie Morse?”

  She looked perplexed. “Why, her husband, of course.”

  “Really?” Everyone was so quick to put a noose around Alan Morse’s neck. “What has he done to make you think he would kill her?”

  “Well, I’m sure you heard that Katie was creeping around with another man.” She spoke in hushed tones, presumably to spare the children.

  “Yes, but he claims that she married him knowing he was unable to give her children. There’s even a possibility that the Morses planned to get her pregnant by another so they could have a child.”

  Mistress Lesser’s eyebrows shot up. “And they’d choose their nearest neighbor for that?”

  “I doubt Katie Morse had the opportunity to meet men outside of this hamlet.”

  “She went to New Salisbury often to visit her father and to sell butter and cheese she made herself.”

  “Why would she make her own butter and cheese when the Morses paid the dairy to do that for them?”

  “She said they took too much profit, and if she could manage to build up a market of her own, they could keep more of their earnings.”

  “She brought milk back home with her from the dairy?” Ela couldn’t see how such an unwieldy operation would work.

  “Oh, no!” Mistress Lesser laughed. “She kept two or three of her own cows that never went to the dairy. I doubt old Nance even knew they existed. She’s been making her own butter and cheese for some years and started selling it when she’s in town visiting her father.

  “Oh.” Ela couldn’t see how this impacted on the murders, except for giving Morse even less motive to kill his industrious and forgiving wife. “Do you know how her husband felt about this side business?”

  “He was happy to spend the money from it. That’s how he built his new barn.”

  Ela remembered how much finer the Morse’s barn was than the house. Did his wife feel resentful of the expenditure when their house was so mean? With this new knowledge Ela wondered if perhaps Katherine Morse also enjoyed the barn more than the house.

  “We’ve heard that Morse beat his wife.”

  Mistress Lesser shrugged. “I couldn’t say.”

  A man beating his wife was, sadly, not unusual. “Do you think he would kill her intentionally, or that she might have accidentally died during an…altercation.”

  Mistress Lesser shrugged and glanced over her shoulder. Her children were nowhere to be seen. “I wouldn’t know. But who else would kill her? It has to be him.”

  “Her lover might have motive to kill her when she spurned him,” said Haughton. “Could you imagine John Brice taking her life?”

  Mistress Lesser stared at him like he was demented. “John Brice?” She laughed. “That man couldn’t drown a kitten.”

  “But he must have killed and butchered cows routinely,” said Houghton.

  “Ha, that’s what you think. If anything got butchered on that farm, his wife did it.”

  A chill slithered down Ela’s spine. She hadn’t mentioned that they now thought Mistress Brice had murdered her husband. Haughton caught Ela’s glance.

  “Who do you think murdered John Brice?” asked Ela, as if the last exchange hadn’t already answered the question.

  “Morse again, no doubt about it. A big man, angry and resentful, maybe went over there to have words with him about bedding his wife and things got out of hand the way they do.”

  Again, she was quick to be judge, jury and executioner where Morse was concerned. Ela glanced back at Haughton, but he still stared at Mistress Lesser. “Why are you so quick to pin the blame on Morse?” he asked.

  She looked a bit put out. “Well, it had to be him, didn’t it? Or am I a suspect?” She laughed, a piercing cackle with more than a hint of nerves in it. “Where’s that husband of mine? I sent the girl to fetch him.”

  “We can ride out to him,” said Ela. She remounted her horse, and they headed to the field behind the house. Mistress Lesser hurried to open the gate for them. “Do try not to trample the ground too much, if you please. It’s such hard work to loosen it.”

  Ela felt a twinge of guilt as they headed across a freshly plowed strip. Lesser was still down the far end of the field, guiding a plow pulled by a sturdy pony. This time she rode up to
him, glad to look imperiously down on him from her saddle. “Did you not hear that we wish to speak with you?”

  “My wife can answer your questions.”

  “We seek opinions and you have your own, I’m sure.”

  “A man and his wife should be of one mind.” He was a flat-faced man who probably looked impassive even when he wasn’t trying to be obtuse.

  “Then you suspect Elizabeth Brice of murdering her husband?”

  His eyes widened. “What? No! It was Morse.”

  Ela didn’t want to tell a lie about what his wife said, but she let the possibility sink in. “Would that be inconvenient? Perhaps you’re hoping that the Morse property will come on the market cheap and you can buy it to expand your holdings.”

  “Never!” Now he showed some feeling. “I have more land than I can manage right now.”

  “So even if the Morse property did come on the market, you can guarantee that you would never, at any time in the future, seek to purchase it?”

  He mashed his lips together, drew in a breath, then tugged at his tunic. “Well, I wouldn’t say never. One can never tell what good fortune might come a man’s way, if the Lord permits.”

  “Indeed,” said Ela dryly. Master Lesser was a broad-shouldered man who would likely have little difficulty dispatching another man to meet his maker, especially if there was an element of surprise.

  Ela’s saddle felt harder than ever. “Where were you when Master Brice was murdered yesterday evening?”

  “Caring for my cattle.” His face settled back into flatness. “The evening is a busy time. They need to be settled in the barn with hay and water for the night. The fields aren’t dry enough for them to be out full time, yet.”

  Ela doubted his words. His fields were on a hill that looked well drained, but she knew that hidden springs could make a field damper than expected so she said nothing further on that subject. “Why did you not come when summoned?”