New Blood From Old Bones

by Sheila Radley

  In the castle yard, he found Jacob hissing through his toothless gums as he rubbed down a strange horse. It was near exhaustion, and white with sweat where Jacob had not yet reached.

  ‘Is Ned Pye returned?’ Will asked, half eagerness, half dread.

  ‘Aye, sir – he’s now indoors, eating and drinking his fill.’ The old yardman snuffled with amusement. ‘But I wager he’ll be standing up to do it, for he’s been a long time in the saddle.’

  Will ran to the house and in through the front door to the screens passage. ‘Ho there, Ned!’ he shouted.

  His servant appeared, making his way slowly and exaggeratedly bow-legged through the archway from the kitchens. He was chewing a mouthful of food and carrying a flagon. His chin was unshaven, his eyes were bleary from lack of sleep and his yellow hair clung to his forehead, darkly matted with sweat.

  Will beckoned Ned into the hall, occupied only by the old dogs stretched on the hearth in front of a smouldering bough. ‘You’ve done well,’ he said, clapping him on the shoulder. ‘Sit down and tell me your news.’

  ‘I’d sooner stand,’ said Ned ruefully. Grimacing, he rubbed his behind. ‘Mass, I’m as raw as a sliced onion!’

  He paused to swallow ale, and Will guessed that the pause foretold bad news. ‘You did not see Walter Bostock?’

  ‘No, Master Will. As you feared, he’s not at Bromholm.’

  The hall, with its heavily beamed ceiling and hazy window glass, was always dull when the sun did not shine. Under today’s overcast sky it seemed to gather gloom, foretelling a long dark winter.

  Ned drained his flagon before taking up his story.

  ‘I heard the news first from two disorderly monks, drinking at the sign of the Sun in North Walsham. They’d been sent – or so they said – from their priory at Bromholm to find whether the bailiff was on his way, for he was late. I rode on as far as the priory to make sure, but Walter Bostock had not arrived. On the way back I enquired wherever I stopped to change horses, but none of the innkeepers had seen him since last Michaelmas.’

  The news was no worse than Will had expected, but to hear it told was a grievous blow. He shook his head in dismay. ‘Now, good St Christopher …’ he muttered, invoking the aid of his favourite saint as he always did in time of trouble.

  ‘I doubt there’s much the saints can do to help,’ said Ned bluntly. His low opinion of the church had been reinforced by the Lutheran beliefs he had heard during their travels in Europe, though Will had observed that Ned was instantly devout whenever they’d had cause to fear for their lives. ‘This will go ill for your brother – unless you discovered anything to his advantage while I was away?’

  ‘All I found,’ said Will despondently, ‘were the murdered man’s own clothes, hidden on the river bank. The bailiff’s wife has yet to be shown them, for proof, but I’ve little doubt they were her husband’s.’

  Then he gained new hope. ‘But proof that the bailiff was murdered will not be proof that Gib was his murderer,’ he declared. ‘If my brother is falsely accused, I must clear his name. You stay here and sleep, Ned, for you’ve earned it. I’ll collect the dead man’s clothes, and take them to Sibbel Bostock.’

  ‘That’s the constable’s work, surely?’ said Ned.

  ‘True, in different circumstances. But if Gib is not guilty, the murderer must be one of the bailiff’s other enemies. From what I’ve heard, he was wished ill by all the tenants of the priory – and the constable is among them.’

  Ned Pye volunteered to postpone his much-needed sleep. Privately, having been cuffed about the ears by Gilbert Ackland without reason at their first encounter, he had no objection to seeing him condemned for murder, guilty or no. But just as it was his master’s duty to defend his brother, so it was Ned’s duty to support his master. And besides, preoccupied and seemingly unaware of her as Will Ackland was, Ned thought it unwise to leave him alone in the presence of Mistress Sibbel Bostock.

  As for Will, he concealed his pleasure at the prospect of his servant’s company by refusing to take him unless he first shaved himself. Leaving Ned grumbling, Will rode down to the river, beat his way along the southern bank, found the ash tree he had marked, and retrieved the dead man’s bundled clothes. By the time he returned to the market place he discovered Ned standing outside the Woolpack inn, where he had made the final exchange of horses. Clean-shaven, give or take a few bloody nicks, Ned was holding the reins of his own nag in one hand and using the other to raise a new-filled pot of ale.

  Will did not hurry him. Anxious though he was to hear Sibbel Bostock’s verdict on the clothes, he wanted to give her time to finish her buying and return home. But Ned had a prodigiously wide throat and was soon ready to mount, though he groaned loudly with discomfort as he lowered himself on to the saddle.

  Ignoring his complaints, Will led the way across the market place and along Priorygate. He looked about him as he rode, to ensure that they did not pass Mistress Bostock, and as he did so he realised that the townsfolk were no longer shunning him as they had done earlier.

  But on that occasion he was walking. Now that he was mounted, and could no longer meet their eyes, the townsfolk did not hesitate to stare at him, and nudge and whisper and point him out to each other. If he could not soon clear Gilbert’s name, he reflected grimly, he would feel no more welcome in Castleacre than his brother.

  Once clear of the town they cantered along Priorygate, meeting and passing carts that took produce to the prior’s tithe barn, or corn to be ground at the mill, or goods to and from the river wharf. The gates in the wall that gave access to the great barn stood wide today, and the two men were able to ride straight through and along the track that led to the bailiff’s farmstead, and the thatched house backed by the clump of oak trees.

  Fowls were scratching round the open door, and dogs gave warning of their arrival. Sibbel Bostock came out at once. She was still wearing her seemly gown, but she had removed her hood and loosened her undercap so that her long dark hair tumbled about her throat.

  ‘Master Will Ackland!’ she cried with pleasure. ‘I had not thought to see you again so soon.’ She gave Ned one glance, and dismissed him. ‘Will you not come in this time, sir, and refresh yourself?’

  ‘I fear that I’m the bringer of bad news,’ he said gravely. He dismounted, and unstrapped the bundle from his saddle. ‘I think it best that we stay outside, Mistress Bostock, so you can see clearly what I have to show you.’

  He undid the bundle, and Ned helped him to spread the garments out on the furze bushes by the farmstead gate. The clothes were stiff and dark from their long immersion, and still damp from having been rolled together. ‘Do you know these garments?‘

  ‘That I do not!’ she said with distaste, but Will urged her to look more closely. She turned them over, held them up to the light, saw the cuts in them and looked at him with puzzlement in her great black-polished eyes. ‘No,’ she repeated. ‘How should I know such rags?’

  Will’s errand was made more difficult by the conversation he had had with Sibbel Bostock only that morning. ‘These are not rags,’ he explained, to save her pride. ‘These were good garments, cut from a body found in the river three days ago. Did you not hear it spoken of in the town?’

  She drew away from them immediately. ‘I heard of the murder yesterday, from the miller’s wife. If the garments belonged to the dead man, what has that to do with me?’

  ‘The bad news I bring, Mistress Bostock, is that your husband did not reach Bromholm. He is missing. I am here to ask if these garments are his?’

  The glow of health drained from Sibbel Bostock’s face. ‘No!’ she protested, crossing herself fervently and invoking a litany of saints. ‘My husband cannot be dead! If he’s not at Bromholm he must be about the priory’s business elsewhere.’

  ‘I fear not,’ said Will.

  ‘But these garments are not his!’ Her voice, husky at all times, broke upon her tears. ‘Indeed, Master Will, I do not know them …’

&nbs
p; For his part, he did not know how to deal with her distress. ‘I must tell you,’ he went on, wishing he could have left this errand to the constable, ‘that I saw the body, and it bears a blemish that will serve for proof. Did your husband have a birthmark, Mistress Bostock? A patch of crimson skin on his behind?’

  Anguished, she had begun to take short, agitated steps this way and that, squeezing and plucking at her hands. Now she stopped abruptly, lowering her eyes in confusion.

  ‘Why – I – I cannot say,’ she protested. Her long full throat flushed as darkly red as the dead man’s blemish. ‘My husband the bailiff has always been a hard-working man. We go to bed when it is dark, and rise before dawn.’

  ‘But in summer …?’ Will persisted, intent on obtaining the proof he needed. ‘Surely in summer, when the nights are so short that a hard-working man cannot get enough sleep between dusk and dawn …?’

  Sibbel Bostock would not look up. ‘Sir,’ she said with modest dignity, lifting one hand to her throat, ‘I do not know the ways of gentlemen. My husband the bailiff is not of yeoman birth, but the son of a poor husbandman. How else should he go to bed, at whatever time of year, but in his shirt?’

  Will heard Ned Pye give a snort of suppressed laughter, and glanced at him with a scowl.

  ‘I shall not add to your distress, Mistress Bostock,’ he told her. ‘I must have an answer, but I will seek it from the bailiff’s own family. He has an aunt in Swaffham, you said …?’

  She looked up instantly, her eyes wide with unease, her fingers entwining the lustrous strands of hair that hung at her throat. ‘You have no need to trouble yourself, sir! I – I was made wretched by your news and tried to disbelieve it. In truth, my husband had just such a mark from birth. And now – may God have mercy on his soul – I must accept that he is dead.’

  Chapter Fifteen

  Leaving the bailiff’s widow lamenting, Will and his servant escaped at a gallop. They did not stop until they had passed the tithe barn and regained the road.

  Ned burst into laughter as soon as he had breath for it. ‘Ha – a modest, virtuous wife indeed! Why, a man going to bed with Mistress Bostock would need no shirt to warm him, however icy the weather … If her husband didn’t know she’s a whore, he was a fool.’

  Will agreed. But it was a matter that gave him cause for concern rather than amusement.

  ‘I have been blind, Ned! I was sure it was anger against the bailiff’s exactions that led to the murder. But now I can see there was jealousy in it.’

  ‘You were slow to recognise her for what she is,’ said his servant critically. ‘I knew what kind of refreshment Mistress Bostock offered as soon as we first clapped eyes on her.’

  ‘You should have told me, then, for you knew I had matters of more importance on my mind.’ Will raised an eyebrow at him. ‘Or did you hope to take up her offer yourself?’

  ‘I intended to!’ said Ned, denying the memory of the ringing box on the ear she had given him. ‘All that prevented me was your sending me straight off to Bromholm.’

  But Will was still vexed by his own failure to see that Sibbel Bostock herself could well have been the reason for the murder. ‘Only this morning,’ he recalled, ‘when she told me she had ordered a new cap for her husband, I believed it a sign of fondness …’

  ‘A salve for her conscience, more like!’

  ‘True. And now she knows he’s dead, she needs to appear modest and grieving or rumour may spread through the parish.’

  They turned their horses towards the town, riding at walking pace.

  ‘What was it that opened your eyes?’ Ned asked with a grin. ‘Mistress Bostock’s repeated offer of refreshment?’

  ‘No – it was her sudden modesty. It did not suit so bold a woman. When she gave me a glance from under her lowered lids, I knew she was merely playing the virtuous wife.’

  A cart laden with grain was approaching, on its way to the tithe barn, and they moved from the crown of the road to let it pass. The carter was well known to Will, who raised a hand in greeting. But the man drove past with a covert stare as his only acknowledgement.

  Will frowned, but not against the carter. ‘What troubles me is that this only goes to prove the case against my brother. When we first called on Sibbel Bostock, she’d already heard of me – and from whom, if not Gib? There was also something he said when I first came home. We were speaking at supper of the King and Anne Boleyn—’

  ‘King Henry’s black-eyed whore,’ said Ned with a chuckle. ‘She and Mistress Bostock are alike in more ways than one …’

  ‘Yes, for they can both bewitch men. My brother took the King’s side: If a man can have no satisfaction from his wife, he said, he’s entitled to seek it from another. And where has Gilbert been, when he’s absented himself these past nights and days, if not in the arms of Walter Bostock’s wife? He has a motive far stronger than mere resentment of tithe for wanting the bailiff dead.’

  ‘So he has. But just as he’s not the only tenant with cause to hate the bailiff,’ Ned pointed out, ‘I’ll wager he’s not the only one to fall under the spell of Mistress Bostock.’

  They rode on past the priory gatehouse and were immediately slowed by an oncoming crowd of beggars, the wretched poor, the lame and the blind, all scuttling early to the priory for the midday dole. The sight of so many battered faces stirred Will’s memory.

  ‘My brother,’ he remembered, ‘came home yesterday evening bearing all the marks of having been in a brawl … Merely a drunken one, perhaps – but I noticed that he did not go out again at night.’

  ‘Aha – a quarrel with a rival for Mistress Bostock’s attention?’

  ‘I shouldn’t wonder,’ said Will, his hope renewed. ‘If we look for another man – probably a tenant – with recent injuries, we may yet find something to brother Gib’s advantage.’

  At the market place, they parted. Will told his servant to wait for him outside the Woolpack inn, and to keep his eyes and ears open. He himself turned left into Northgate street, for the time had come to inform Justice Throssell of his findings.

  As soon as Will was shown into the hall of his godfather’s house, Lawrence Throssell came hurrying in long-gowned dignity to greet him. The old gentleman tumbled out anxious questions, interspersed with pressing invitations to dinner and – when Will declined – instructions to his servant to bring malmsey wine and ginger cake to the parlour.

  ‘But what of the prior’s bailiff, godson?’ he asked for the third time, pausing on this occasion to listen to the answer.

  Will gave him all the information he and Ned had gathered, but made no mention of their opinion of Sibbel Bostock. They had already agreed that they would speak of this to no one. Adultery and fornication were offences against church law, and if the churchwardens were to suspect her they could summon her before the archdeacon’s court. Will had no wish to call down any punishment upon her. After all, with church law extending far into the unswept corners of everyday life, which man or woman was not at some time guilty of one offence or another?

  As Justice Throssell listened, he had been nibbling absently at the ginger cake that he loved for its hotness in the mouth. Now, his authority in no way diminished by the crumbs of brown dough sprinkled on his sparse white beard, he made his pronouncement.

  ‘It grieves me to say this, Will, for the love I bear you and the Ackland family. But my duty is clear. The constable tells me that your brother was already suspected throughout the town of having murdered Walter Bostock. Now you have brought me proof of the corpse, I must issue a warrant for the suspected offender’s arrest. The constable must bring Gilbert Ackland before me to answer the charge.’

  ‘Sir,’ said Will. ‘I understand your duty. But will you allow me, for the sake of my family’s pride, to bring Gilbert before you myself without need of a warrant?’

  Justice Throssell was wary. ‘Do you think he will come?’

  ‘I’ll make sure he does, sir.’ Will was less confident than he sounded but he c
ontinued boldly, for Meg’s sake rather than for Gib’s. ‘And if you should remand him for trial at the next Quarter Sessions, will you allow me to stand surety for him, instead of committing him to the town gaol?’

  The justice slowly shook his head. ‘In truth, Will, if you were a man of substance I would gladly do so. But murder is a grave charge. What surety can you possibly offer to weigh against it?’

  ‘Neither property nor land, sir, as you know. But when I travelled in the service of a nobleman, I saved my salary to pay for my final year of study at Gray’s Inn. It’s not a great deal – but it’s all I have, and it means as much to me as a fortune to a wealthy man.’

  ‘Well, then – you may stand surety for your brother if you wish. But I hope for your sake,’ Justice Throssell added in warning, ‘that your trust in him is not misplaced. I can show you no favours. If Gilbert should flee, your money will be forfeit.’

  Will swallowed his unease. ‘Sir,’ he agreed, rising to his feet. ‘I’ll go and find him now.’

  Justice Throssell trotted beside him to the door. ‘Bring your brother before me as soon as you can. But mark me, Will – if you have not persuaded him to come within two hours, I’ll have him fetched by the constable’s men. And if he’s already fled, I’ll authorise a hue-and-cry and have him hunted down, Ackland or no.’

  Prising Ned Pye away from the Woolpack, where he was teasing the hostess with flattery in the hope of being quietened with a free refill of ale, Will returned with him to the castle.

  ‘Is my brother at home?’ he called to the yardman, as they clattered through the gatehouse amid the usual commotion of dogs and fowls.

  ‘Aye, sir’croaked Jacob, taking their horses as they dismounted. ‘Master Ackland’s been about the yard in an evil humour all morning. He stamped off not so long ago in the direction of the old keep.’