New Blood From Old Bones

by Sheila Radley

  Will nodded wretchedly, having scourged himself with the same accusation often enough. ‘I do not deny it, sir.’

  In truth he had an argument in his own defence, with which he had sometimes tried to comfort himself. Too proud to put it forward now, he waited for the expected dismissal from his godfather’s house.

  But Lawrence Throssell’s demeanour had changed. His shoulders had lost their stiffness, and his face took on a wry smile.

  ‘It was Anne herself who saved you from my wrath. She told me she had agreed to your leaving. You were too spirited, she said, to stay buried in your law books when other young men were fired with the excitement of war. Loving you as she did, she would not persuade you to stay – for fear, she said, that you might regret it as you grew old.’

  Will felt reprieved, but no less guilty. ‘True, she consented to my going. But I was wrong to press for it, with Anne in her condition. I was a young fool, and had no thought of being wounded, nor of being away from her beyond a month or two. As for regret – God knows I have lived with that ever since.’

  ‘Ah, William –’

  Lawrence Throssell came close and reached up to embrace him again, this time with wholehearted warmth. ‘We have both suffered enough over our sweet Anne – let us not spoil our friendship any longer.’

  The old gentleman bustled about, filling two glasses. ‘Come, sit with me and drink a little malmsey wine. I’faith, we had all feared you dead in battle. Knowing you to be alive, and engaged abroad in the service of the Crown, was relief enough. And besides’ – his eyes brightened – ‘in your absence I have had the joy of visits from my granddaughter. She is a fine child.’

  Will smiled at once. ‘Indeed she is,’ he said proudly, ‘and more like her mother than like me, I thank God!’ Then he paused. ‘I do desire, sir, to see the place where Anne is buried.’

  ‘We shall go there before noon. And afterwards you shall join me at dinner – I have ordered your favourite dish of trout, fresh from the Nar.’

  Recalling his most recent sighting of the river, Will accepted with some caution. ‘I’ll dine with you gladly, godfather. But as for eating fish new-caught from those waters …’

  Lawrence Throssell chuckled. ‘You need not fear for your stomach – I gave orders that the trout should be caught well upstream of where the dead body lay! It was you who found it, so the constable sent me word.’

  ‘Not I, but a dancing bear. I merely sent to tell of it. Did the constable recognise the body – or was it some vagabond, drunk or dead of disease, as I thought from the rags?’

  ‘It was neither accident nor a natural death,’ said the justice. ‘The man was murdered, it seems. As to who he is, the constable knows not – and I thank God for that. I have feared these past few months that murder would be done in Castleacre.’

  ‘My sister Meg seemed to fear it too,’ Will agreed, ‘when I told her of the dead body. I talked last night with my brother, and I know what you both feared – that it was the prior’s bailiff who lay dead, and by Gilbert’s hand.’

  ‘True, true.’ His godfather sighed. ‘Your brother has brought dishonour on the Ackland name. He drinks too much, ill-treats his men, and abuses anyone who crosses his path. It’s well known that he has uttered threats against Walter Bostock, the bailiff. If Bostock were done to death, the whole town would name Gilbert his murderer without benefit of trial.’

  ‘Then I am thankful it was a man in rags who died,’ said Will. ‘A quarrel between vagabonds, do you suppose?’

  Justice Throssell frowned. ‘From what my servants have heard, there may be more to it than that. I have sent word to the constable to meet me at the mortuary at noon, so that I may view the body before burial.’

  The old gentleman hesitated, his authority less sure. ‘Go with me, Will, I pray you, and lend me your eyes, for mine are no longer as sharp as once they were.’

  Chapter Five

  Will had brought his godfather the gift of an Italian pen knife, a fine blade with a handle of carved ivory. Having admired it and given his thanks, Lawrence Throssell called for his cloak against the late September breeze. Then the two set out for the place of Anne’s burial, Will shortening his stride to suit the old gentleman’s trotting pace.

  As soon as they left the house in Northgate street they could hear music and the buzz of enjoyment from the centre of the town. The solemnities at the priory church would have been completed by now. The great processional service of the Festal Mass would be over, and the bloodstained bones of St Matthew would have been returned to their shrine. The pilgrims, in high spirits after witnessing the holy miracle, would be flocking to the market place in search of earthly pleasures, food and drink and entertainment and gaudy things to buy. But Will and his godfather were going no further than the parish church, and they entered quietly by a small north door.

  Lawrence’s late father, John Throssell the clothier, had been a devout man and a good citizen. He had bequeathed money to build and endow the free grammar school for the education of poor boys of the town, and also to build and endow almshouses for twelve poor old men and women. But during his lifetime he had spent much of his wealth on the parish church, enlarging it with a new chancel and a south porch, building the lofty tower, and filling the great east window with a richness of stained glass.

  In the year 1495, John Throssell had built a chantry chapel at the east end of the north aisle. Here, in a plain marble tomb chest, he had laid to rest the mortal remains of his parents to await God’s judgement day. And he had given an endowment of land, to provide in perpetuity for a chantry priest to say a daily Mass for the souls of his parents, and in the fullness of time for his own soul and those of his descendants.

  Using the chantry priest’s door – when he was not at prayer in the chapel the priest taught the youngest of the grammar school children to read – the men entered a small outer chamber. From there, first crossing themselves with holy water from the stoup by the inner door, they entered the stone-vaulted chantry chapel.

  It was divided from the chancel of the church by an open archway. The glass of the east window above the altar-cross was plain, the better to show the paintings of the saints on the plaster walls, their vivid colours shining in the light of the candles that burned before them. One wall showed the folly of earthly vanity, with three kings sumptuously attired yet skeletal beneath their jewelled crowns. And every part of the chapel’s plaster without a painting was decorated with the green of leaf-tendrils and the red of Tudor roses.

  Will was familiar enough with the chapel, and with the older memorials. What he had come to see was the brass plate in memory of his dead wife, and her father quietly withdrew to let him see it alone.

  The engraved brasses of John Throssell’s parents were set on top of their tomb chest. Later brasses – including John’s own, with his wife, and that of his granddaughter Anne – were set in the stone-flagged floor. All of them faced east, as did the bodies beneath, to await resurrection.

  Will knew from his travels that the plates were not in fact brass but latten, an alloy, cast in Flanders and shipped to London for engraving. He knew, too, that the engravers could not be expected to produce a likeness of their subject. They had no means of knowing Anne’s appearance, and all they could provide was the figure of a lady of similar years, dressed according to her rank and the fashion of the time. Will was prepared for disappointment. Even so, he found himself staring down at the brass in dismay.

  The stiff figure standing with her hands together in prayer, with a fully dressed infant praying at her feet, was older than Anne by ten years. She was a wealthy London gentlewoman, dressed far too elaborately for Norfolk. Her face and nose were long and melancholy, quite unlike those of his sweet, smiling Anne.

  Will shook his head, unmoved except by regret for a wasted memorial. It gave him no sense of Anne’s presence. But then he began to read the words engraved beneath the figure.

  Here lyeth buryed ANNE ACKLAND, wyf of WILLm ACKLAND gen
t. of Castleacre, dau. of LAWRENCE THROSSELL, Justice of the Peace in the County of Norfolk. She dyed ye 18 of May Ao Dni 1526 aet. suae 20

  His eyes had become unaccountably dim, and he went down on one knee the better to see what he was reading.

  IN YOUTHFUL YEERES I WAS BEREFT OF BRETH.

  THE DEVINE POWER, OF ME DID SO DEVISE

  THAT I IN GRAVE SHOULD LIE A LINGERING

  SLEEPE

  TILL SOUND OF TRUMP DOE SUMMON ME TO

  RISE

  Will felt a thickening in his throat. To see the facts engraved on cold metal was to re-live his anguish. That Anne should have been bereft of breath at the age of twenty – and on the eighteenth of May, the sweet o’the year …

  But that was four years ago, and much had happened since then. He swallowed, dashed the back of his hand across his eyes, and slowly got to his feet. Then he lit a candle, said a prayer for the repose of her soul, and went outside to join his waiting godfather.

  Lawrence Throssell took his arm for a moment. ‘Is the memorial well done?’ he asked, looking anxiously up at him.

  Will cleared his throat, and gave the older man the reassurance he sought. ‘I thank you, yes – it is well done.’

  They walked round the tower of the church and came to the south side. Here in the sun, with the noise and colour of the market place before them, Will lifted his head and breathed more easily.

  ‘Tell me,’ enquired his godfather, spying up at him shrewdly, ‘have you any thought of marrying again?’

  ‘No, I have not!’

  ‘Come – you are too young a man to forgo it.’

  Will paused. ‘I do not deny some dalliance, in France and Italy,’ he said. ‘But as for marriage – I could not marry where I cannot love, and I cannot love except with heart and mind, as it was with Anne.’

  ‘Well, well.’ Lawrence Throssell smiled benevolently. ‘I have married thrice, and loved all three women in good measure. I would have you know, son-in-law, that when you desire to marry again, you will have my blessing. And now we will say no more on ‘t.’

  The church bell had already rung the noonday hour and there was no sign of the constable. They returned to the northern side of the church, where the low, stone-built mortuary stood among the grave-mounds, shadowed by a great yew tree.

  In the far corner of the churchyard a new grave was in process of being dug. No one was in sight, but earth was being heaved up by the spadeful as though some great mole was working in the depths. And from the depths, between heavings, came a cheerful whistling.

  ‘Are you there, master sexton?’ called Justice Throssell.

  There was a scrambling from below and presently an earthy countenance, as hairy as a mole’s, peered at them over the mound of excavated soil.

  ‘Good morrow, sirs!’ cried Hob Pulfer merrily. An empty flagon, lying on the grass beside his mattock and cast-off jerkin, no doubt accounted for his good humour.

  ‘A fine day to be out in the air! Eh, master?’ he added, addressing a skull he had brought up with him from the grave, and then tossing it to one side for reburial. Other bones he had left half-embedded in the soil, for the churchyard had been well used over the centuries and there was no ground that had not already been occupied more than once.

  ‘Are you come to see the murdered corse, sir?’ he asked Justice Throssell. He grinned, his stump-toothed mouth as dark as the grave he was digging. ‘I warrant you’ll find him a mystery!’

  ‘You do not know him?’

  ‘Nay! And nor would his own mother. Not only was he stabbed, sir, he was beaten about the head. But I know this about him –’ The sexton tapped his nose with one earth-caked finger. ‘Whoever killed him,’ he said, nodding sagely, ‘wanted him well dead.’

  Chapter Six

  The sexton’s son, another Hob, as squat as his father and almost as hairy, came hurrying round the church tower from the direction of the market place. He was carrying a filled flagon, which he tried to hide behind his back as soon as he saw Justice Throssell.

  ‘Give you good day, sirs,’ he mumbled. And to his father: ‘The constable’s now coming.’

  ‘Then we are required to attend the corse,’ said the sexton importantly. ‘Lend me a hand out of here, boy – and do not spill the ale, for I have need of a draught of it. Master Justice Throssell knows full well that grave-digging’s a thirsty business.’

  Will and his godfather were already on their way towards the mortuary, whose narrow window-slit revealed the flickering light of a candle.

  ‘I shall have the corpse brought outside,’ the justice was saying. ‘Nothing will be served by our peering at it by candlelight. I must convince myself of the constable’s belief that it’s a stranger’s.’

  ‘Is John Perry still constable?’ asked Will.

  ‘He died of the pox last year. Thomas Gosnold of Southacre had already served as juryman, and I gave him the appointment. Such a substantial yeoman farmer will not be likely to take bribes, nor perjure himself, for fear of God and the honour of his descendants. And if public order is threatened, Thomas has servants of his own to quell unrest.’

  ‘A substantial man indeed,’ Will agreed. ‘Thomas Gosnold has by far the biggest acreage of any of the priory’s tenants. His flock of sheep is five times the size of my brother’s.’

  ‘True – and there’s the rub. He’s always occupied about his farm, and an unpaid office is burdensome. Thomas is as honest a constable as I have known, and yet he will do no more than he has to. It will suit him well if the murdered man is a stranger, for then there is naught we can do but give him a Christian burial.’

  A heavy horseman had come cantering up to the northern gate of the churchyard. Dismounting hurriedly, and flinging his reins to one of the boys who had run behind in the hope of earning a penny, Thomas Gosnold strode between the graves to join the justice of the peace.

  ‘Your pardon for my lateness, sir,’ he cried as he approached, wiping the sweat from his brow with the sleeve of his workaday jerkin to emphasise his haste. He was some ten years older than Will, every inch as tall but as solid as a barn door, with bristling reddish hair and beard, and small blue eyes in a heavy, florid face.

  ‘And Master Will Ackland!’ he continued with guarded courtesy. ‘I am glad to see you safe home from your travels – but I had not thought to see you here, sir.’

  Will held out his hand in greeting. ‘I do but keep company with my godfather, master constable,’ he said.

  ‘Aye … but—’

  Justice Throssell intervened, an edge of sharpness in his voice. ‘I have bidden my godson to dinner,’ he said, ‘and we are already late. Shall we proceed? Have the sexton bring the corpse into daylight, master constable, so that we may view it more clearly.’

  ‘No need for that, sir! The dead man was naught but a vagabond. Candlelight will show you he’s beyond recognition.’

  Justice Throssell, half the constable’s size, looked up at him sternly. ‘Outside, if you please.’

  ‘Sir –’ The constable still hesitated. He glanced from one to the other.

  ‘I fear the corpse will quite destroy your appetites. ’Tis my duty to show it to you, Master Justice Throssell – but Master Will has no need to endure the sight.’

  ‘Endure it? I have been a soldier,’ Will reminded him, impatient on his godfather’s behalf, ‘and have seen many a bloody corpse on the battlefield. And caused some of the deaths, too. Have done, master constable, and proceed as Justice Throssell bade you.’

  Frowning, Thomas Gosnold clamped his lips and beckoned to the sexton and his son. The three of them entered the mortuary and presently emerged, the two Hobs hefting between them a humped board covered by a piece of coarse woollen cloth that would later serve as a shroud. The constable followed carrying a pair of trestles. There was some muttering from all three of them as they endeavoured to set the trestles squarely on the uneven ground, and the weighted board on the trestles, but at last it was precariously achieved.

&nbs
p; The constable plucked up one corner of the cloth. ‘’Tis as I warned you, sirs,’ he said, almost with relish. And then he threw back enough of it to reveal the head of the corpse.

  The noonday sun, mellow as it was, lit up an injury as violent as any Will had seen. The murderer had used some heavy object to batter his victim’s face, and as the constable had told them it was beyond recognition.

  The sight was not a bloody one, for the corpse had long been immersed in the river and all the blood had drained. What was left, mingled with silt and strands of water-weed, was a pulp of grey-white flesh, splintered bone and smashed teeth, together with a single fearsomely displaced eyeball. The whole was topped by a ragged slime of hair.

  Justice Throssell drew in his breath sharply, and they all crossed themselves. Then, his high voice steady, he told the sexton to remove the cloth entirely.

  The man was of short-to-middling height and sparely built, and the few sodden garments that clung about his body seemed to be too large for him. His feet were bare, and he wore only a shirt and a pair of hose, both ragged. Now that the corpse was uncovered, flies were beginning to buzz about and gather on it.

  ‘Have you not had the body stripped, master constable?’ said Justice Throssell.

  ‘Nay, sir – for fear o’the pox.’

  ‘But the sexton told me the man had been stabbed. How did you know that, Hob Pulfer?’

  Taken aback, the sexton opened and closed his hair-fringed mouth, then opened it again. ‘Why, sir – the constable told me!’

  Thomas Gosnold shot him a frown. ‘I did but turn back the vagabond’s shirt, sir.’

  ‘And found no disease? Then be so good, master sexton, you and your son, as to strip the corpse completely. Vagabond or no, he’s a Christian soul and must be accounted for as best we can. If we’re able to tell nothing from his face, we may do so from his body.’