Suddenly John remembered something. He found the head bailiff.
‘Someone said one of your men was dead and he didn’t look like he’d been touched.’
‘Aye, Master. Roger here.’ He pointed. John knelt and rolled the corpse on to his belly. There it was, a wound that pierced the padding on his jerkin, a small bloom of blood around the hole. Killed by the nalbinding needle. Roland was becoming almost as deadly as the pestilence.
• • •
At dawn there were thirty men ready and eager for the hunt. He’d see how they all felt after a few fruitless hours. One had a large hound that snuffled around, awaiting an order from its master. Before they met, John had been in the priest’s house, searching for something of Roland’s for the animal to smell. He found two small packs. Rummaging through them he discovered a shirt too small to belong to Malcolm. Now he held it in front of the animal.
‘We’ll need to start where the man was,’ the owner explained.
The garden of the priest’s house. In the light he could see the trampled grass and the dark patches where blood had soaked into the dirt.
‘Go,’ the man ordered his dog. It circled around for so long that John started to believe it was hopeless. Then it seemed to catch some scent and moved quickly, scrambling over the low wall and into the woods beyond as the hue and cry hurried to follow.
The dog seemed to lose the scent again, circling once more until it found a trail, then going more quickly, running through the undergrowth.
John stayed to the side, constantly glancing around. Whoever Roland might really be, he was a resourceful, fierce man. Certainly not an enemy to be taken lightly. And he was two hours ahead of them. That could carry a man a long way if he was running and desperate.
They continued for a mile, until they reached a stream a yard wide. The animal lost the scent. Nothing on the other side. Roland must have walked through the water and come out somewhere else. They tried both banks, upstream and down, for half a mile, but the dog couldn’t find any trace.
The men gathered around him. Like it or not, he was their leader here and they wanted instructions. He tried to think, to guess, knowing all eyes were on him.
‘Search all around,’ John told them. ‘Away from the banks on both sides. Keep your eyes open. We need a track to follow. And stay alert. He’s dangerous.’
He looked, hearing the others moving around and talking loudly. If he had any sense, Roland would be far away by now. And if he’d stayed close, the noise they were making would give him ample warning to stay clear of them.
An urgent shout made him turn. It came again and he began to run, clearing the stream with a leap. Deep in the trees someone had found a trail, the grass bent, a line that moved around through the woods.
‘We need the dog here,’ John said. ‘See if he can pick up the scent.’ A wait until the owner arrived, and then as the dog sniffed at the earth. But that was all it did. Whatever had made the track, it wasn’t Roland.
They stayed out until dinner. Sometimes he caught sight of Walter in the distance, working as hard as anyone else. But none of them managed to pick up on Roland’s trail.
They must have looked a mile upstream and another down from where the dog had lost his scent. John returned to the spot as if it might tell him something. Instead, the lulling burble of the water sounded like a mockery. He sat on a fallen tree and thought. If he was Roland, where would he have gone. Far enough to avoid the hue and cry. Somewhere he felt safe. Somewhere he could plan.
But he had no idea where that might be. The man might be wounded. He would need sleep and food, somewhere to dry out his shoes and hose if he’d run along the stream. A fire. No one had spotted smoke, though, no one had smelt it.
Finally he whistled them all in. They were wasting their time here.
‘Back to Chesterfield,’ he told them with a weary heart. ‘We’ll eat, and meet again at the church porch in an hour.’
The fruitless search had leached the blood lust out of their hearts. Now whatever they did would be a hard slog until they found a hint of Roland to hearten them. He walked in front, still going through all the possibilities in his mind and coming up with precious few.
‘John,’ Walter called on Saltergate, but he held up a hand and walked on. Food could wait a few minutes; he needed to see if de Harville was still alive.
The man’s wife was in the hall, staring out of the window as her son played in the garden with his nurse. A bailiff stood guard, leaning his back against a tree.
‘How is he, Mistress?’
‘Still with us, praise God.’ The dark circles under her eyes were testament to the anguish and the sleepless hours.
‘May the Lord let him recover.’
‘That’s in His hands, Master.’ She looked him up and down, the dirt, the cuts from brambles on his hands and face. ‘Has the hue and cry found the man?’
‘No,’ he admitted. ‘We’re going back out as soon as the men have eaten.’
‘Then you should go and rest while you can.’
‘What did the wise woman tell you, Mistress? Will he live?’
‘No one seems willing to say.’ A brief, sorrowful smile crossed her face. Her hair was hidden under a crisp wimple and she wore a simple gown of silk the colour of a summer sky. ‘When people don’t offer opinions that’s always a sign things are bad. Don’t you agree?’
‘I don’t know.’ But inside he knew she was right.
The woman seemed to gather herself. ‘No matter. It will be whatever God wills. All I can do is pray and see they treat him well. And wish you luck, of course.’
‘Thank you.’
• • •
At home they crowded around for details, although Walter had already told them everything. He barely had time to eat and gulp down a mug of ale between answers. Then he returned to the church with Walter.
Fewer had come out this afternoon but he’d expected that. Men were too easily discouraged when success didn’t come quickly, he’d learned. They found other things to do. But he still had ten of them, enough to split into two groups. He sent one with Walter over the river to look in the area where they’d discovered de Harville after Roland had taken him.
‘What about the rest of us, master?’
‘You’re with me.’ They’d search around Malcolm’s house near Unstone. In truth, he knew that wherever they looked they were grasping at straws. He had no idea where Roland could be and the man was clever enough to stay ten paces ahead of them. At least they were doing something to try and find him.
There was no point in trailing through the woods; they were loud enough to rouse a herd of boar. Quicker to march along the road. The ground was dry and they kicked up a cloud of dust. The sun was hot; by the time they came close to the building he was sweating.
‘You and you, go round to the back and wait for my call.’ They left without complaint. If Roland was here and came out fighting they’d have no chance, but they were willing and ready.
John gave them time, then nodded to the others and began to walk. He took out his knife, feeling the dryness in his throat and the fear in his heart. In a swift moment, he drew in breath and kicked at the door. It gave, swinging wide, and he gave a piercing whistle, the sign.
They roared, yelling, shouting, ready for battle. But there was no enemy. If Roland had ever come here, he’d long since gone. As the men wandered about, muttering and grumbling, John sought any sign that the man had stopped here.
The ashes of a fire, still with faint signs of heat. That was enough.
‘Go and ask people in the other houses if they saw anyone here near dawn,’ he ordered. If only he’d considered the possibility earlier they might have stayed hard behind him. But hindsight never paid the bills. It had happened; they needed to make do with what they had. Unstone lay north of Chesterfield. If Roland had continued he’d be in Sheffield by now and they had little chance of ever finding him.
A villager had seen a stranger walking quick
ly along the road four hours earlier, someone who kept looking back over his shoulder. Roland. It had to be, although there was no description.
They could search all day and the next and they’d never catch him. The men began the march back to Chesterfield. Quieter this time, dispirited, knowing they’d failed. But there had never been much hope of catching Roland. He was quick, he was smart, and he was as cunning as Reynard.
But questions kept nagging at him as he walked along the road. Why had Roland and Malcolm stayed in Chesterfield? What unfinished business did they have here and who was it with? What was the thing that could damn them and had they ever found it?
No answers. He had no need to find them. He’d done all he could by leading the hue and cry. He felt as if he’d let de Harville down, but there was no shame in not finding Roland. He’d go to Brother Edmund and have him send letters around the country to detain Roland for murder and return him to Chesterfield. It would do no good if he had the protection of a powerful lord but his duty would be complete.
The men went to the alehouse on Low Pavement. John gave this thanks, took his leave and returned to the coroner’s house. He could sense the hush around it, a pall of sorrow, even before he knocked on the door.
Brother Edmund was alone in the hall, his head bent in prayer.
‘Brother?’
The monk raised his head, a sad trail of tears on his cheek. ‘He died an hour ago, Master. His wife is up in the solar with him.’
John crossed himself and said a prayer for the dead. To commend his soul to God. De Harville had never been a likeable man, but he deserved better. He’d died trying to complete his duty. Surely that had to mean something?
‘I need you to send some letters.’ He explained what he wanted. It was even more important now, with the coroner’s death.
‘Yes, Master.’ He seemed relieved to have some task beyond grieving. ‘Will they send me back to the abbey, do you think?’
‘I imagine they will,’ John said gently. ‘Why, have you acquired a taste for Chesterfield?’
‘It’s a pleasant place,’ Edmund said, then the stir of guilt crossed his face. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. Not now.’
‘We all have to live, Brother, as long as the good Lord lets us.’ He paused. ‘The coroner’s son will need a tutor. Brother Robert taught his father. It’s a thought for the future, perhaps.’
‘Yes.’
He left the family to mourn. The news of de Harville’s death had echoed around the town. He saw it in the shocked eyes of people on the High Street, on Saltergate. For one day, at least, the plague had receded to nothing.
His family was eating supper, Walter wolfing down the food, his head lowered over the bowl. Katherine looked at her husband, sadness in her eyes.
‘How is his wife?’ she asked.
‘I didn’t see her.’
‘The poor woman. Poor boy, too,’ Martha said, and what could he do but agree? The coroner knew the risks of what he was doing. It was his job and he’d tried to do it in the best way he could. If nothing else, there was honour in his death. But what use was honour when your flesh was feeding the bones, your family was bereft, and a killer walked free? None that he could see.
‘No sign of this Roland?’ Katherine asked as she placed a bowl of pottage in front of her husband.
‘A sign, perhaps, but it doesn’t do us any good.’ He ate but he barely tasted the food. Men lived, men died, he told himself. Some ended this life violently. ‘Life will change here. There’ll be a new coroner.’
‘Pray God it’s one who leaves you alone.’ Katherine softened her voice. ‘I know I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, but he used you, John, whenever it suited him. You’ve almost died because of him.’
‘I know.’ He could feel the tiny pinpricks of a knife on his neck and smell the foul breath in his face. ‘I know,’ he repeated. ‘Tomorrow it’s back to work. I suppose the choir bench will be the town’s memorial to de Harville now.’
In a curious way he’d miss the man. He was demanding, he was pig-headed and arrogant – but somewhere, deep in his heart, there had been a rod of honesty.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
He approached the bench solemnly. Even more than before, he felt the responsibility of making it lie heavy on his shoulders. One side was complete. He eyed it again, smoothing a little here and there before measuring for the mortise holes and drawing them on the wood in charcoal.
‘These need to be exact,’ he reminded Alan, although the boy hardly needed it. Each job he undertook was the most important he’d ever done. He took great care every single time. It made John proud to watch him.
They made swift progress. By dinner Alan was working on the tenons, the tongues from the bench that would fit in the holes he’d made. Slow, cautious work, but he kept at it with hardly a break as John carved the outline of the other end. There was still a long way to go, but already he could picture the bench standing near the altar, polished to a deep sheen.
‘Come on,’ he said finally. ‘I’m ready to eat.’
The cookshop was full of gossip and speculation. Some said that de Harville’s killer was really a demon who’d made his escape to hell. Others joked that the hue and cry couldn’t find a blind man in an empty field.
He chewed a pie that was hot enough to burn the roof of his mouth. It was just talk, he told himself, men passing the time, but still it angered him. Alan’s hand on his arm made him look down. What’s wrong? the fingers wondered. John took a breath and smiled.
‘Nothing,’ he answered. ‘Not really.’ How could you explain that to a child? ‘It doesn’t matter.’
Back at work his mood slowly brightened. He could let the wood talk and fill his blood with its words, washing out everything he’d heard over dinner. The men who’d spoken hadn’t been on the chase; they knew nothing.
He finished an elaborate curlicue and it was done. John stood back, inspecting his own work. Every plane and angle looked right, just as they should be. He placed one end over the other, lining up the edges to compare them. Two small changes so they matched each other perfectly. Then he marked where the tenons would be and sat back on his heels.
‘Your job now,’ he told Alan with a smile. ‘I can just watch you.’
Before the end of the day he’d finished. In the morning the lad could craft the mortises. Then they’d fit all the pieces together and hope the joints were tight. If not, he’d add a small shim here and there. Once that was complete, the polishing could begin. Long, wearying, but necessary for the piece to be worthy of a church like this.
Alan oiled the tools, rubbing patiently with the cloth and applying the whetstone to the chisels. John knelt by the steps to the altar and said a prayer for de Harville. Maybe it would help speed him through Purgatory.
No new cases of plague; that was the word as he escorted Alan back to his house. A blessing, he knew, but his mind was still too full of the coroner’s death. John had only been here a few years, he was still a stranger in the eyes of many, but he understood that this marked the end of an era. De Harville’s family had held some power around Chesterfield from a time before anyone could remember. But the son was too young to walk in his father’s footsteps yet.
The murder of a man appointed by the Crown, who carried the King’s writ, was a crime against the country. What happened from here would show just how much protection Roland had. By rights he should be declared an outlaw, there for any man to kill, with a price on his head and shunned by everyone. But if the lord behind him had the ear of King Edward that might conveniently be forgotten. Chesterfield meant little in London, after all. And de Harville was a very minor official, so easily overlooked and left to oblivion.
He was still thinking about it all as he turned the corner on to Saltergate. Brother Edmund was striding quickly towards him with a look of grim determination.
‘Brother,’ John said. ‘God wish you well.’
‘And you.’ He stopped. ‘I was just at
your house. I wanted you to know that the funeral will be tomorrow morning. The priest from Clay Cross is arriving tonight to be ready.’
‘We’ll be there.’
‘I hope the whole town will be. He served bravely and honestly.’ Edmund shook his head. ‘I must go, I need to pass the news.’
‘Brother?’ John asked, and the young man cocked his head. ‘How are his wife and son?’
The monk was quiet for a long moment. Then he said, ‘Broken.’
• • •
It was a sad, sober supper. No one was in the mood for idle chatter. Walter ate then left again without saying a word. John glanced at his wife but she simply shrugged and pursed her lips. No knowing where he’d gone. Martha entertained the girls with a story, but even that was hushed; no squeals of excitement, no hands clapping with pleasure.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The weather mocked the day. A clear sky as blue as it could be, the sun balmy and warm. It seemed wrong for the occasion.
As the bell began to toll they left the house. John carried Juliana, the girl squirming in his arms to try and take in the numbers of people arriving at the church. Every soul in Chesterfield, it seemed, and plenty from the land beyond. There were many he didn’t know.
They squeezed into a space close to the porch. Katherine fanned herself as the heat grew during the service. The priest was unstinting in his praise of de Harville’s qualities. His mercy and compassion, his wisdom and patience; things John had never seen. But let it be.
Juliana’s face was hot, blotches blooming on her skin. He raised an eyebrow at his wife and carried the girl outside where the air felt cooler and refreshing. He let her down slowly, then watched as she ran a few short paces, turned and laughed.
It was what he needed, a sense of life to be lived among all the death. He squatted and she toddled back to him, arms outstretched. He picked her up again and began to carry her around the churchyard, stopping in the shade of the oak tree where the wood for the bench lay.
Setting her down again, she began to stroke it, tentatively tracing the outline of the end pieces with her tiny fingers. Maybe she had his feel for wood, he thought with a smile. A pity for her if she did; she’d never be able to do anything with it.
The Holywell Dead Page 20
