The Crediton Killings

by Michael Jecks

  It was the mother who opened it. She stood wiping flour from her hands while she surveyed them with the truculence born of poverty. Baldwin noticed that she was tall, and apart from the lines caused by worry and poor diet, would have been handsome. But the vertical slashes at either cheek, the bruises under the eyes and the nervous tic were proof of her mean existence.

  “You are the woman who looked after Rollo, Judith’s son, the night before last,” Baldwin said. It was more a statement than a question, and she stopped wiping her hands, suddenly still as she stared at him. He continued gently: “We are trying to find out what happened that night, to seek her murderer. Will you help us?”

  Slowly, holding his gaze, she nodded. She had heard screaming, and been too scared to go and find out what had happened. Some from the street had gone, and she had heard them muttering anxiously, talking about a body. That had decided her to remain safe indoors. She had heard footsteps, running away, and the arrival of a company, which Baldwin decided must have been himself and the others. Later there was a terrible sobbing, and, there being no other noise, she had dared to go out.

  Rollo had been standing alone, fists clenched, staring at the ground. From what she said, he must have been staring at the spot where his mother had lain. She had brought him home, but had been unable to get a word out of him. He had simply sat and wept silently, starting at every new sound, allowing her to feed him some thickened soup, and gradually he had succumbed to his exhaustion and fallen asleep in her lap.

  “I don’t see the man who took him away,” she finished suspiciously, her eyes going from one to another as she looked for Hugh.

  “He is with Peter Clifford. Tell us, how well did you know the boy’s mother?”

  “Judith? Not well. She was just always around, you know? Poor girl got herself pregnant when she was only eighteen or so, and that was that. The innkeeper, that’s old Dan, before this new one, was a hard man to work for. He tried to make the girls be friendly to the customers, but with Judith, he threw her out. Called her a slut; no better than a Winchester Goose.”

  Baldwin nodded. Prostitution was common, for there were few other ways for a woman with no man to look after her to survive. If she had not been fortunate enough to be trained for weaving or embroidery, and could not get a job working as a huckster on the streets, there was no other way to support herself. In London, all the prostitutes were forced to live within Cock Lane, part of the Bishop of Winchester’s lands; he benefited from the rents, and they were commonly known as “Winchester Geese.”

  “What did she do then?”

  “Lived up to his view,” she said shortly. “Or down to it. Nothing else for her.”

  “Did she have any friends? Family?”

  “If she had any family, she’d have had a chance, poor girl, but no. Lots of people knew her, but I wouldn’t say she had friends. Only a few of us who used to give her the odd crumb when we had something to spare. For her boy, mainly. Rollo was always hungry; the little fellow never had enough.”

  “Are you aware of any enemies she might have had?”

  “That bastard who put her where she was, the one at the inn. I hope he rots for what he did to her.”

  “Yes, but what about others? Were there many people who seemed to hold a grudge, or bear her ill-will generally?”

  She thought a moment. “Several wives. They always had something against Judith; whenever their husbands were late home they’d blame her. Usually it was just that the men had drunk too much and had to sleep it off for a while, or they’d fallen down in the gutter. It wasn’t Judith’s fault.”

  “Any in particular?” Baldwin probed.

  “I don’t know. Widow Annie, over at New Barton, she has always resented Judith, but that’s because she has a thing with the Constable, and Annie never believed him when he said he was late because of some other reason. Annie was always the jealous sort.”

  Baldwin thought of the widow—he had met her a few times—and shook his head. Annie was too respectable to think about murder, though her bitter tongue and taste for gossip and malicious rumors could shock sometimes. “Anyone else?”

  “Only—” She stopped and frowned. “Mary Butcher, I suppose. She was always spreading nasty tales about Judith. And you know what they say.”

  It was a confident comment, issued with a knowing look and prim wink, but Baldwin was lost. “No, I do not,” he said simply.

  “Oh! Well, this captain, the one who did that to Judith—they say he met with Mary too. Seems like it was that close…Could have been Mary, not Judith who was with child.”

  “Ah! Really?”

  20

  Later, as they made their way back through the dirty alley toward the welcome brightness of the road, Baldwin glanced thoughtfully at his friend. “Why would all the women hate her so much?”

  “I think it’s partly because of the chance that their husbands might bring home diseases, but also because prostitutes are seen to be evil. Why else would they not be permitted burial in consecrated ground? This poor woman will be buried out of the town somewhere. Everyone is a little scared of them in a small place like this, because they represent something different.”

  “Not that different, surely?” Baldwin was puzzled. “Many women must have understood that she had no other way to support herself.”

  “They would expect her to prefer to starve.”

  “Her boy as well?”

  “Yes. These people,” Simon said, stopping and staring about him, “have so many children, they place little or no value on an extra mouth. A death means more food for the survivors, and they can become quite hard about it. It is the way of the poor.”

  “I suppose so.”

  They had come to the street. Turning down it, they crossed over and walked to the butcher’s shop. The apprentice sat on the stool in the doorway, plucking chickens and stuffing the feathers into a small sack. He looked up as they approached. Picking up a knife, he broke the legs of the fowl in his lap and sliced round them before pulling the feet off, drawing the long, white tendons with them. Then he cut the head off and pulled the skin back to expose the neck.

  “Where is your master?” Simon asked as they got to the doorway.

  The boy looked up. “He’s out, sir,” he said, and bent back to his task, cutting quickly round the vent.

  “When will he be back?”

  “I don’t know, sir. He’s often out collecting beasts. Sometimes not back until late.” He pushed a finger inside the neck cavity, loosening the organs, then hooked two fingers in from the vent and drew the entrails free, dropping them on the roadside. “Today he’s delivering.”

  “What of his wife…Are you going to clear this mess away?” Baldwin could not help himself asking it; the flies were maddening.

  “She’s staying with her sister in Coleford. Left on Tuesday, sir.”

  “Tuesday?” Baldwin frowned.

  “Yes, sir. She had a blazing row with my master, and left just after.”

  “When will she be back?”

  “I don’t know, sir.”

  “You don’t know much, do you? Do you know that you are going to clear up this mess?” Baldwin said pointedly.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You ought to have all this meat in the cool, too. It’ll fester out here in this heat.”

  “As soon as my master is back, he’ll put it all in the store.”

  “Why don’t you put it there?” asked Simon.

  “My master thinks he’s been robbed recently. Some meat’s been disappearing. I think he blames me, because he’s locked the storeroom. I can’t get in.”

  “Well, when your master gets back, tell him I want to see him,” Baldwin said. “I will be at Peter Clifford’s house.”

  They left the apprentice languidly reaching for another chicken corpse, and made their way back across the road to the jail, silent as they mulled over the boy’s words. Tanner was awake this time, and stood quickly when he realized that they were going t
o enter.

  “How is he, Tanner?” Baldwin asked.

  “Fine, sir. Nervous, but that’s no surprise. You want to see him?”

  Cole had reduced. His frame, once so large and powerful, had shrunk, and his shoulders were bent as if from hard effort. The eyes which Simon had first been so impressed by were now sunken and had lost their glitter.

  Seeing his emaciated appearance, Simon shot a glance at the Constable, but the look of compassion on Tanner’s face showed that it was not caused by maltreatment; it was simply the effect of days of not knowing what might happen, the fear of pain and death.

  The knight recognized that look only too well. So many of his friends had carried the same unbearable torment etched hard into their features as they underwent the agony of watching comrades suffer torture, knowing that the same pressure would be brought to bear on them when the inquisitors lost interest in their present target. Baldwin had hoped never to see such anguish again.

  “Be seated, Cole,” he muttered. “We have some questions for you.”

  “Is this my trial?” The young man’s eyes flitted from one face to another, desperately seeking assurance.

  “No. We are merely continuing our enquiry. Have you heard about Judith?”

  “Who?”

  “Another woman has been killed.”

  “But I was here! I couldn’t—”

  “Be still! It might mean you are free from suspicion of the murder of Sarra, but it does not mean you are innocent of the robbery of Sir Hector’s silver. Just answer our questions honestly, and tell us all you know.”

  Cole nodded glumly. “I’ll tell you everything.”

  “Good. You joined the company on Sunday, yes?”

  “Yes. I found them there when I arrived in the evening.”

  “It was the Tuesday that you were attacked, and that night when we found you with Henry the Hurdle and John Smithson?”

  “Yes.”

  “What had you been doing that morning?”

  He screwed his face up. Of all the things he had considered during the long hours of darkness in the dank little underground cell, those few last, precious hours of freedom before the momentous event of his arrest had not been uppermost in his mind. He had concentrated on the afternoon. Now he tried to remember what had happened before. “I was awake early—Henry woke me—and spent some time with him after breakfast, learning what the company had in the way of weapons. Then he sent me to the stables to help with the horses. He said, ‘A good soldier always looks after his horses better than himself, especially when the horses are owned by Sir Hector.’ I was there almost all the time.”

  “You had no break?”

  “Yes, a couple. We had lunch just as Sir Hector was going out.”

  “Had he been out already?”

  “Eh? Yes. The first time he’d come back and had some words with Wat.”

  “Where were you when he left?”

  “In the buttery. I saw him leave.”

  “Did you watch him in the street?”

  “Only a moment.”

  “What did you see him doing?”

  Cole shrugged. “He walked out and went off toward the west.”

  “On his own?”

  “There were no soldiers with him, if that’s what you mean.”

  “No, it is not what I mean. Did you see anybody with him?”

  “As I said, I only watched him for a moment or two.”

  Simon cleared his throat. “What about the other soldiers? Were any comments made about him as he walked away?”

  “The usual sort, I imagine. I got the impression that he’s not the most popular man in the world.” Cole fell silent, then: “They were all saying how he’d beaten the serving-girl, Sarra. Most of them were not even surprised; it wasn’t something that upset them, it was just something to chat about, the way that the young girl had been thrashed.”

  “Did anyone say why she had been so poorly treated?” Baldwin pushed.

  “Someone said he’d found a new woman.”

  Their sudden stillness made him look up, baffled. Baldwin said, “Try to remember anything you can about this woman, Cole. Did anyone say who she was, where she came from, how the captain had met her, anything?”

  “She was local. I know that much, because one of them said he’d seen her the time before when they’d stayed at the inn. One of the others laughed, and muttered something, but I couldn’t hear it. Then somebody said she was married to a man in town, and he winked, and the others all guffawed.”

  “She was a married woman?” Simon pressed him, his dark eyes intent. “You are sure of that?”

  “Yes. They seemed convinced. And…one of them said she didn’t like the meat she got at home—she preferred steak to bacon.”

  Baldwin studied him. As before he was struck with the impression of honesty. “One last thing. We have heard you argued with Sarra. What was that about?”

  Cole reddened. “She wanted me to perjure myself. Henry and John had upset her, and she wanted me to swear that they were plotting against Sir Hector.”

  “You refused?”

  “Of course I did! I’d not seen anything to suggest they’d been planning Sir Hector’s downfall. She wanted me to lie so that she’d find her way back into his favor, and I said no.”

  While Tanner put the prisoner back in his cell, the three stood huddled near the open door, staring at the butcher’s shop. The apprentice still sat unperturbably plucking chickens, small clouds of tiny feathers whirling occasionally as the breeze caught them, floating and spinning until they touched the damp soil of the street and stuck, soaking up the mire and becoming part of the road’s surface.

  “What do we do now?” Edgar asked.

  Simon cocked an eyebrow at him. “We find out where the butcher’s wife has gone, that’s what we do.”

  “But how?” Baldwin gazed up the road toward Coleford and the west. “Edgar, you seem to know many of the women in this area. Can you find out where she originally came from?”

  His servant cleared his throat. “I suppose so. Mind, Tanner might know more; he comes from that way himself.”

  “Ask him, then. Meanwhile, we shall return to Clifford’s house to get our horses. The weather looks good, and it is time we had some exercise,” Simon said.

  Tanner did know Mary’s family. They owned a smallholding which they had won from their demesne lord some generations ago when an ancestor had provided some useful service. It was, as Tanner explained it, a mixed blessing, for the others in the locality were still villeins, owing their livelihood to their master, receiving food and guaranteed work in exchange, while the free family sometimes suffered, having no protection or support when the harvest was poor. Many thought they would have fared better if they had remained villeins like their neighbors.

  The road climbed a short rise after the town, and Simon enjoyed the ride. His bay rounsey was a good, solid horse, built for covering long distances, and had a pleasant, mild temperament. Baldwin, he noticed, was on his Arab, a beautiful white animal with a high-stepping gait and what to Simon seemed an incredible turn of speed.

  As they crested the first hill and dropped down the other side, the sun broke through the clouds. All at once the sky showed clear and blue in the gaps, and the men began to feel the warmth. Here, on the western side of the town, the trees were thick and covered much of the landscape, except to their left where Simon could see the blue-gray mounds of Dartmoor crouching on the horizon. Above it were thick storm-clouds, and from the mistiness the bailiff was sure that it must be raining hard. He never could understand why the moors had their own weather, and today he was glad to be away from it.

  As the sun touched the soil and heated it, it gave off a refreshing scent. The smell was of vigorous, healthy earth, rich and loamy, filled with rotted vegetation. It was impossible for Simon not to compare it with the desolate plains where he was bailiff. There the earth was so filled with moorstone and peat that only stunted trees and the poor grasses
could survive. This part of Devon was where he had been raised, and here everything seemed full of vitality and energy. Even the very color of the soil was different. On the moors it was almost black, while in other areas, he had been surprised to see how dull and brown it looked, especially during the hot weather, when it appeared anemic.

  Here, near Crediton, it was a uniform bright red, hearty and bursting with goodness; plants absolutely thrived on it. No matter whether they were trees, vegetables or herbs, all grew and blossomed with a vitality that was rare in other parts even of England.

  After three or four miles, the lane curved round to their left, and started down the long, gently-sloping hill into Coleford. Simon remembered it as a pleasant little vill, with four or five cottages and houses on the busy road from Exeter to Plymouth. Some monks had a place there, too, he recalled, and would offer sustenance to travellers, but today they were not going so far as the vill itself. At the top of the steeper part of the hill, they turned off left to a small hamlet, and here they found Mary Butcher’s sister.

  Ellen, who was married to Hal Carpenter, was a happy-looking, chubby woman in her late twenties. As the three men rode along the lane and into her yard, scattering the chickens and making her goat bleat in irritation, she was kneeling by a large stone, kneading dough. Hearing them, she sat back on her haunches, wiping strands of hair back under her cap as she surveyed her guests.

  As Simon smiled and dropped from his horse, she stood and smiled back. “Are you lost, sirs? This isn’t the road for Plymouth.”

  “No, we are looking for Ellen Carpenter.”

  “That’s me,” she said, and gave him a smile so welcoming, he felt as if he had known her for years. “Can I offer you something to drink? I have ale.”

  When she had fetched a jug and three wooden cups, they squatted with her round the stone while she continued kneading. Her children, of whom there were five that Simon counted, though they moved around so much there may have been more, peeped round tree trunks at the three important guests.