Baynard's List (A Stephen Attebrook mystery Book 2)

by Jason Vail

  Stephen leaped forward, checked the man’s arm at the elbow as he struck, and drove the dagger into his neck. The man’s mouth opened in a soundless gasp and he sank to his knees.

  Stephen put the dying man between him and the other, who was climbing to his feet.

  It was now one to one, and the would-be robber didn’t like the odds. He turned toward Broad Street and ran to where the boy was helping the robber Stephen had kicked in the face. The three of them jogged toward the corner and disappeared in the direction of High Street.

  It was quiet again on Bell Lane, except for the patter of water from the eaves and the wet gurgles of a dying man, who fell silent with a few last soggy gulps and sagged backward, legs folded beneath him.

  Breathing hard, Stephen glanced up and down Bell Lane. There was the faint glow of a lighted candle outlining the shutters of the widow who lived across the lane from the Shield, Mistress Bartelot. But that was the only indication of human activity. Round the corner on Narrow Lane a dog barked, and a cat hissed angrily. No shutters banged open, no one called out, no one stirred.

  Stephen looked down at the dead man. It was a homicide, even if in self-defense, and there was always hell to pay under the law at a man’s death, whatever the reason. The killer had to answer and buy a pardon, which Stephen could not afford to do.

  “Shit,” he said. He bent to wipe his blade on the man’s coat. He dragged the body by the collar into the alley where the boy had waited to ambush him. He threw the man’s club down beside him.

  Then he walked on to the Broken Shield.

  Chapter 10

  The glassmaker’s apprentice found the body the next morning. He ran straight to the Broken Shield for Stephen, who was sitting down to breakfast.

  “Sir!” he cried, bursting with his news, “there’s a dead man in the lane!”

  The murmur of friendly talk that filled the hall died abruptly. Stephen put his hands in his lap so no one could see they were shaking slightly. He hoped his voice was composed, even bored. “A dead man? How inconvenient. Where?”

  “In the alley beside my master’s house.” The boy, who was no more than eleven, panted like a race horse. He had not been the lucky fellow who had discovered the last dead man in the lane, a month ago with the murder of Ancelin Baynard. But he was the center of attention now.

  “All right, then, I’ll be there when I finish. Run along and make sure nobody disturbs anything.”

  “Right, sir.” The child stood up straighter, bolstered by the importance of his mission, and raced out the door.

  Gilbert, who like everyone else in the hall couldn’t help hearing, hurried over. “Good heavens,” he said, plopping onto the bench beside him, “that’s two dead men in the lane in a month! Baynard and now this! We’re going to get a reputation.”

  “Bad for business, eh?” Stephen said, still trying to keep his voice under control.

  “Edith will say so. I’m sure she will. I just hope he wasn’t a customer.”

  With some effort, Stephen forced himself to speak lightly. “Good God, if he was, people might say you’ve been serving poison.”

  “I’ll thrash anyone who does,” Gilbert said stoutly, although it was hard to imagine the round little man thrashing anybody. He saw that Stephen was in no hurry to rise to the occasion, so he rose himself. “Well, I’ll summon the lads,” he said, meaning the jury. “They ought to be here by the time you’re done.”

  “Thank you, Gilbert.”

  Stephen ate slowly and carefully, conscious of the glances that were thrown his way by the guests in the hall. When the last of the bread and cheese was gone, he went out to face what he had done.

  A crowd of perhaps two dozen people had gathered at the head of the alley. When Stephen and Gilbert pushed through them, he found the boy importantly posted with his arms out, making sure no one got too close. Stephen wouldn’t have minded if they pawed over the dead man. As it was, he was glad to see their trampling about at the head of the alley had erased any sign that the dead man had been killed elsewhere and dragged to this spot.

  “Thank you, Oliver,” Stephen said to the boy. “You can go now.”

  Of course, the boy didn’t go anywhere except to the front of the crowd so he could gawk with everyone else.

  Stephen saw William Brandone and Thomas Tanner in the crowd, along with most of the other jurymen. “Anybody know this man?” he asked, gesturing toward the dead man, who lay on his back. He had been short and stocky in life with massive shoulders and thick brows. The top of his right ear was missing; it looked like an old wound.

  There were shakes of the head throughout the crowd.

  “No,” William said. “He’s a stranger.”

  “Well, you’ve seen what there is to see,” Stephen said. “Might as well get started canvassing the neighbors. They might have seen or heard something.”

  After the jury had split up to question the neighbors, a task made easier because most of them were here already, Stephen made an elaborate show of examining the ground around the body. Then he had the dead man carried back to the inn. Gilbert ordered a table set up just inside the doorway of the stable, where there was light enough to see well, and the body was laid out on it.

  A few curious stragglers lingered in the yard, hoping for more exciting views, and there were a few faces peering out of the windows of the inn.

  “Get out of here! Shut those windows!” Stephen shouted at them. “What are you gawking at!”

  “You’re testy this morning,” Gilbert said.

  “It’s that lumpy bed you’ve given me. I spent half the night awake.”

  “Probably a guilty conscience,” Gilbert said.

  Stephen’s heart skipped a beat.

  Gilbert went on, “We should see you in church more often. Confession is a tonic for lack of sleep.”

  “I’m not the confessing kind.”

  “It’s your loss.”

  Gilbert bent to examine the wound on the neck. “A stabbing,” he murmured. He took out his measuring stick and laid it alongside the wound, which was a little puncture in the man’s neck only slightly crusted with blood. “Two inches wide. Let’s see how deep it is.” He produced the slat of wood they used to measure the depths of wounds and held it out to Stephen. “Would you like the honors?”

  Stephen shook his head.

  Gilbert sighed. “Leaving the dirty work to me, are you, as always?” He fed the slat into the wound. When it would go no farther, he paused to mark the depth and pulled it out. “Eleven inches at least,” he said. “That was some knife. More like what a gentry man would carry than a common man.”

  “Yes,” Stephen said.

  “It’s made a nasty wound. Through the neck and throat and down into the chest. It could even have reached all the way to the heart. No way to survive that.” He shuddered as if thinking what it would be like to receive such a wound.

  “Probably not.”

  “The body’s stiff, too. And cold. What do you think it means?”

  “He’s been dead a while.”

  “Half a day, probably,” Gilbert mused. “Don’t you think?”

  “I suppose so.”

  Gilbert paced in the doorway, thinking deeply. He paused for a moment, hand on the door handles, and seemed about to close them when Harry approached from across the yard where he had been working the crowd in the lane.

  “Oh, hello, Harry,” Gilbert said. He was not pleased at the interruption, but since the stable was Harry’s home, he didn’t seem inclined to deny him entry.

  “You must be feeling better,” Stephen said, glad to have something other than the dead man to talk about.

  Harry grinned. Then he sneezed and blew his nose on a rag. “Can’t resist a crowd, especially when it’s right on the doorstep. Crowds are where money’s to be made, lads. Can’t let a little fever keep me from such easy profits.” He settled against the wall, clearly intent on watching.

  “Working on Sundays?” Stephen asked. “I�
�m surprised at you, Harry. It’s supposed to be a day of rest.”

  “I take my work as I find it,” Harry said. He nodded toward the body on the table. “Same as you.”

  Gilbert regarded Harry for a moment, then closed the door. He held out his hand. “May I see your dagger, Stephen?”

  Feeling suddenly as if he had been struck naked, Stephen handed him the weapon.

  Gilbert turned it over in and over, examining it closely. Then he held its hilt up to the wound. “Interesting,” he said. “Very interesting.”

  “What is?” Stephen said flatly.

  “The blade is the right width to have made this wound. And notice this bruise on one side of the wound. It matches the cross on your dagger exactly in length and width. Imagine that.”

  “Yes, imagine that.”

  Harry came away from the wall, intense interest on his face. “I thought dead men can’t bruise.”

  “Oh, they can,” Gilbert said. “They can. It’s not unusual when a dagger is rammed stoutly home that its hilt leaves just such a bruise. I’ve seen this kind of mark often enough.” He handed the dagger back. “At least you had the sense to wash off the blood. I thought you looked a little grim last night when you came in. I attributed it to your worry over Valence and your son. It seems you had something altogether different vexing you. Do you want to tell us what happened?”

  There was no point in concealing anything. The three of them shared the knowledge of a secret death, which involved a body disposed of in the former latrine pit only fifty feet from where they stood. Stephen recounted the attack tersely, but spared no details.

  When he was finished, he could practically hear the dust drifting in the shafts of sunlight that pierced the cracks in the stable’s wooden walls.

  “Well,” Gilbert said, distressed.

  Harry spat fiercely. “Had to’ve been Nigel FitzSimmons, the bastard. He’s got no honor.” Only last month, Stephen had been in a private feud with Nigel FitzSimmons, Earl Simon de Montfort’s chief spy, provoked by Stephen’s killing of FitzSimmon’s cousin. The dead man in the latrine had been one of FitzSimmon’s agents, sent to kill Stephen, but who had died instead. Ultimately, Stephen and FitzSimmons had fought a duel across the river in Ludford on Michaelmas and Stephen had won. That should have put an end to the affair if FitzSimmons was a man of honor.

  “It would seem so,” Gilbert said. “It’s hard to believe ordinary robbers would have been so persistent.”

  “But what if it wasn’t?” Stephen asked suddenly. Although FitzSimmons was an enemy, he didn’t want to believe he had violated his oath to end the feud. Honor meant keeping your word and dealing fairly and honestly with people. It was the glue that held society together; without it there would be nothing but unchecked greed and chaos.

  “What if what wasn’t?” Harry asked.

  “What if it wasn’t FitzSimmons.”

  “It had to be him. Who else wants you dead? You can’t trust those gentry bastards,” Harry snorted. “All that honor stuff is crap. They speak it while they indulge in robbery and plunder and take whatever they want.” He squinted at Stephen.

  Stephen’s mouth twitched. He could feel anger rising. “Your opinion doesn’t count.”

  “Oh, course it doesn’t. I’m just a farm boy with no legs. A person like that’s not allowed an opinion.”

  “Enough!” Gilbert’s voice cracked like a whip. This display of command was so unexpected and out of character that Stephen and Harry gaped at him. In silence that followed, Gilbert rubbed the bald dome of his head and said, “Do you want the whole inn to hear? Let’s back up and deal with first things first. Stephen, you’re sure no one saw or heard anything?”

  “As far as I know.”

  “Then the jury should learn nothing. We can put this death down to homicide, assailant unknown. The jury won’t need any coaxing to make such a finding, particularly since this fellow isn’t a townsman. There’s no one to care about him and make a fuss over his death. His bandit friends surely won’t say anything. The next thing is, what do we do to keep you safe?”

  “I’m safe enough.”

  “No, you’re not. The next time you might not be lucky. And whoever it is, FitzSimmons or not, there is bound to be a next time. Since they failed once, they’ll be sure not to fail again. All the care in the world is not proof against attack.” Gilbert let out a deep breath. “You’ll have to leave.”

  Chapter 11

  “It’s for your own good, really,” Gilbert implored. “You must go.”

  Stephen shook his head. “Where? With what? I spent my last penny last night getting back in the town.”

  “Sir Geoff has been slow with our wages,” Gilbert admitted. “But you’ve got three horses. You could sell one of them.”

  “No. I won’t do that.”

  “Well, then, surely your cousin the earl will give you shelter now, when you explain the danger.”

  “Run to Eustace? His hospitality wasn’t warm when I turned up before. He couldn’t wait to get me out of his house and into this lowly position.”

  “Lowly!” Gilbert said, a bit stung.

  “I could hardly get lower than this if I was shoveling manure.”

  “I had no idea you thought that way. Goodness, what you must think of the rest of us.”

  Stephen suddenly realized he had insulted Gilbert, which he hadn’t intended. “Sorry. I didn’t mean that.”

  “I think you did. I really think you did. Well.”

  “He’s just bitter,” said Harry. “He used to be rich and now he’s poor and stumping around on a game leg, and he can’t get used to it.”

  Gilbert looked thoughtfully at Harry. “Be careful what you say, Harry. You might inflame him even more.”

  “I said I was sorry.” It felt odd to apologize to someone outside his own class. As a rule, the gentry never thought it had to justify itself or to make amends to commoners. But Stephen truly was sorry he had offended Gilbert.

  “Apology accepted. Let’s get back to business. The earl. Why not go to him?”

  “You forget he gave my son to Valence. What good is he to me now?”

  “But after this? Won’t he change his mind? Your life’s in danger. You son’s life could be in danger. What if these killers strike at the boy if they can’t get to you?”

  Stephen was startled. He hadn’t thought of that possibility. “You really think they might?”

  “Men so vicious as to stab you in the back in the dark would not hesitate to strike down a child, if it suited their purposes.” Growing excited, Gilbert forgot that none of the attackers had drawn a blade.

  Stephen frowned. He said, “Valence won’t give the boy up or let me go. He wants the list too much.”

  “Ah,” Gilbert said. “There is that problem, isn’t there.”

  “There is something I want to do, though. But I’ll need your help. It will be a lot to ask of you.”

  Sunday’s first mass of the day took place just after dawn at the hour of Prime. Edith, in deference to her husband’s desire not to be roused so early on the week’s day of rest, felt it proper that the couple attend the second mass, which occurred two hours later, at Terce. There was still time to make that ceremony, if they hurried, and Edith hustled Gilbert out into the street and there was nothing Stephen could do to save him. Stephen made the mistake of following a bit too closely, and Edith paused so he could catch up. She took him by the arm, as if he was a misbehaving son, and forced him to walk with them up Broad Street. But when the three reached High Street at the top of the hill, Stephen managed to break free. He left a peeved Edith standing there, hands on her hips. Then she linked her arm with Gilbert’s and they crossed the street to St. Laurence’s, merging with groups of town citizens flowing to the parish church. Terce was the most popular Sunday mass and the best attended.

  Stephen continued up High Street to the castle. As usual, the gate was open and he went through, nodding to the guard, who was leaning against the wall ju
st inside. Normally, the gate guard had at least a stool to keep him company, but owing to the fact that Valence was still in residence, Henle the castellan had banned stools since Valence thought they contributed to sloth. Stephen himself opposed sloth in soldiers because it meant they were lazy, and lazy soldiers were on the road to defeat, but Valence carried his enmity to extremes. Stephen was glad to see that Valence was still here. His plan would be far harder to implement, if not impossible, had Valence gone back to his chief manor, which lay more than ten miles outside town.

  But to be sure, Stephen said to the guard, “I’ll bet you’ll be glad when his worship is gone.”

  The guard spat and smirked. They knew each other from mornings together in the practice yard. “The bastard’s taken over. Henle’s about ready to pull his hair out. He can’t tell anyone what to do without his worship interfering.”

  “It makes you wish you were out collecting taxes, doesn’t it.”

  “I’d rather be doing anything than standing here.”

  Stephen crossed the vast outer bailey, which was deserted. Although the sky had cleared and the rain had stopped, the horse herd in the huge paddock to the left looked bedraggled, like beggars waiting at a palace gate for alms. The aroma of wet horse, manure, and mud hung in the quiet air. To the right, where the castle vegetable garden lay against the north and east walls, a pair of pigs were pulling at a slat in the garden fence. The pigs looked at him like a pair of conspirators who had been caught at their mischief. But when he did not reprimand them, they turned back to their work of trying to break through the fence.

  Passing through the narrow gate into the inner bailey always seemed like entering another world. Everything was clean and neat, the timbers of the hall freshly painted black and the plastered squares between them as white as a nun’s linen. Things always seemed to glow here with understated prosperity and wealth. This was where Henle lived, and like most lords he valued his comfort.

  The inner bailey was small and gave off a compressed feeling, as if everything was squeezed together. The huge circular bulk of the inner chapel to the right, which took up much of the little space there was, compounded the feeling. It loomed there so out of place that it often seemed to Stephen that the castle had been built around it, although he knew the castle had come first.