Marked to Die

by Sarah Hawkswood

  Bradecote indicated a bench and Catchpoll sat upon it, leaning forward with his now warm hands between his knees. Walkelin was not sure the invitation extended to himself, and so tried to stand in an ‘interested but not at attention’ manner.

  ‘Word came to my lord this morning from Wich. There have been two attacks on salt being taken from the town, in each case the packmen or drivers were killed by a single arrow. In the first case there was another death: Corbin FitzPayne, who owed fealty to de Beauchamp for at least one of his manors.’

  ‘Corbin FitzPayne,’ Bradecote frowned. ‘Yes, I met him on several occasions, though I would not say I knew him well. He was a big man, not young but not in his dotage, as I recall.’

  ‘Well, he won’t reach his dotage now, for certain.’

  ‘Would de Beauchamp not go himself for such a crime?’ Bradecote frowned. The murder of a vassal lord was an important matter.

  ‘He would but for a summons from Robert of Gloucester upon the Empress’s business. It irks him not to go, I can tell you, and of course he wants justice for his vassal, as well as security for those upon the King’s highway. This is one where we have to have someone to dance at the end of a rope, my lord, make no mistake.’

  Bradecote did not voice his vague disquiet lest the ‘dancer’ turned out to be some ne’er-do-well who was guilty of some other crime but not this one. He had learnt that Catchpoll did have a deep-rooted sense of justice, but he also knew he was the ultimate pragmatist, and if a man was needed for the gallows to keep the sheriff from making their lives a misery, well, if the killer was long gone, it was just possible Catchpoll’s gaze might alight on a miscreant thus far too slippery for the law to apprehend. The wily old bastard would not see the innocent hang, but might happily send a man ‘guilty’, by his judgement, of another capital offence. Bradecote’s own conscience would not go to that extreme, but then, Catchpoll had been ‘serjeanting’ from the time when his lordly superior had still been too small to use his grandsire’s sword. It warped a man’s view of society in the end. He wondered idly if it would come to warp his own.

  ‘He’ll want us up to Wich as soon as may be, but that will mean tomorrow now the light has gone. You are welcome in my hall to eat and take your rest, though you might have interruptions if you are light sleepers.’

  ‘I reckon as we can cope with that, my lord, and thank you for your hospitality.’ Catchpoll nodded his head in thanks. ‘As I reckon it, we will reach Wich before Mass if we set off betimes, and work from there, though the trail will be colder than I’d be wishing for. The reeve of Wich, pox on him, instead of sending to the lord Sheriff, sent to Robert de Bernay, as Earl Waleran’s man, and my lord de Bernay is out of the shire. FitzPayne and the other victims are shrouded and buried, and the first attack the better part of a week past. We are digging in cold, hard ground,’ the serjeant sighed, ‘but we gets what we is given.’

  Chapter Two

  They set off in the first light of an October morning, with a lethargic sun crawling reluctantly between wispy veils of grey cloud. There was little wind to rustle the remaining leaves, brown and gold, crisp and curled of edge, clinging doggedly to grey-barked twigs. The hoof beats were muffled by the damp leaf carpet beneath them, and the horses’ breath appeared as dragon smoke from their nostrils.

  It was not far to Wich, especially since they cut across country to meet the north road from Worcester, and they arrived as many of the businesses were opening their shutters in the main thoroughfare. They asked after Earl Waleran’s reeve, and an old woman pointed a bony finger in the direction of the reeve’s house. Walter Reeve, a man of thinning pate and stocky build inclining to the corpulent, was keen to be of service, and gave details of the finding of the five bodies and their bringing before him.

  ‘Two of the men were simple packmen, employed to take salt from the salt houses belonging to the Black Monks at Alcester, and two were carters taking salt to the House of the Cistercians at Bordesley. There are fatherless children and weeping widows, but the men themselves would not have attracted such a prompt response. The death of my lord FitzPayne is another matter entirely. I take it that is what has brought you so swiftly.’

  ‘You see the death of Corbin FitzPayne as important and yet you did not send immediately to the lord Sheriff.’ Bradecote’s voice had an edge to it. The reeve looked uncomfortable.

  ‘I sent straightaway to my lord the Earl’s man in Worcester, my lord, knowing the Earl Waleran himself is away in his foreign holdings.’

  ‘But this is law business, and the law should be informed,’ declared the undersheriff, with an official tone which Catchpoll could not have bettered, ‘at once. I would also say the murder of three men, of whatever rank, required swift action. Had we been told straightaway, perhaps the second attack could have been prevented and there would be fewer widows and orphans in Wich.’ He did say it was only a possibility.

  ‘My lord, I am sorry, but in the aftermath, what with the bereaved and every salt worker in the place demanding answers to questions I had not even thought of, and the general air of panic, well I sent to Earl Waleran’s man, expecting him to set the law upon it.’

  ‘For your information, Robert de Bernay has not been about Worcester for over a week. He does not spend his entire existence loitering in Worcester awaiting messages.’

  ‘I did not think.’ The reeve hung his head, showing the pink skull shining through the steel-grey hair. ‘There was so much going on trying to placate the townsfolk. But when the second attack was reported, I did send straight to the sheriff.’

  ‘Better late than never, eh,’ grumbled Catchpoll, with an ostentatious sniff that showed his opinion.

  ‘I can only say I am sorry, and that there was no intention of keeping the sheriff from—’

  ‘Do you know who found the bodies?’ Catchpoll set himself on the scent and was no longer interested in the reeve making long expressions of dutiful regret. ‘We need to speak to him, or them.’

  ‘Oh yes, they are local men. William Tanner and his son, Edric.’

  Bradecote groaned inwardly. His last visit to a tanner’s had left him with the stench in his nose far too long.

  ‘I saw Edric but a few minutes ago. Here,’ Walter Reeve grabbed a passing youth, ‘find me Edric, son of Willam Tanner, and bring him to me straightaway.’

  The lad went immediately upon the command, thus showing the reeve’s importance to his visitors. He returned some five minutes later, breathless, and with an anxious-looking young man at his heels. The tannery stench clung as a memory of something revolting, although Edric had been at pains to conceal it, for he was trying, as the reeve had explained, to woo a glover’s daughter in the town. Bradecote wondered if the courtship were advanced enough for her to be already no longer aware of its odour.

  ‘You had need of me, Master Walter?’

  ‘Edric, this is the lord Bradecote, the undersheriff, and Serjeant Catchpoll.’ The reeve ignored Walkelin in the background. ‘They need to know as much as possible about the finding of the bodies on the Feckenham road.’

  The young man’s pleasant, open face clouded, and he shook his head, crossing himself devoutly.

  ‘A foul thing, my lord, foul indeed. I knew Thorold quite well, and him with a second on the way.’

  ‘Could you show us exactly where you found them if we took you out upon the road, and describe to us everything you saw?’ Bradecote thought they did not need details of the personalities and circumstances of the dead at this stage.

  ‘Aye, my lord, for I am not like to forget such if I lives to be fifty years.’

  ‘Walkelin, take him up behind you. Master Reeve, we will return when we have looked at the scene and will wish to speak again. Where can we find you by noon?’

  Hugh Bradecote was showing that ‘The Law’ had arrived, and was active.

  The tanner’s son gave them directions, and they set off, with Walkelin’s horse looking even less pleased than normal. The site of the attack
turned out to be less than two miles from the town. Edric dismounted and led them to the north side of the road and into bushes. Catchpoll frowned.

  ‘How come you found the bodies if they were concealed, Edric?’

  Edric grimaced and said but one word. ‘Crows.’

  ‘Ah. And when you found the bodies, other than the crows, what state were they in?’

  ‘They looked like sacks, all lumpen, except of course they were flesh – cold, stiff, greying flesh.’ Edric crossed himself again.

  ‘Had the bodies been stripped, then?’ Bradecote had a feeling more flesh than mere hands and faces had been visible. ‘Stripped bare?’

  ‘Not quite bare, my lord, shoes and cottes and cloaks were gone, and the lord of Cookhill had no boots, nor outer raiment at all, indeed not even a linen undershirt, just his chausses.’

  ‘Was there any sign of violence beyond the arrow wounds?’

  ‘Oh no. No cudgel or stick marks, if that is what you mean.’

  ‘What sort of men were they, in size?’ Walkelin had been chewing his lip, ruminatively. ‘Could you have moved them easily on your own?’

  Edric suddenly panicked, fearing he was being implicated.

  ‘I only moved them to our cart, and father helped with that. You can’t say as I killed them, poor souls, you can’t.’

  Catchpoll gave Walkelin a look that both showed approval of his thought process and disbelief at his technique.

  ‘Now then, nobody was accusing you, young Edric.’ His voice was calming. ‘We just wants to get some idea as to whether they were put out the way by a man on his own or several.’

  Edric breathed an audible sigh of relief.

  ‘I would have said it would have been much easier with two or more, unless he was very big. The lord, and Master Reeve knew who he was, was a big, strong man, for a start. I could not even have dragged him on my own, and the way they was all lying looked more as if they was tossed, I reckon, for Thorold was on his front underneath the others and the arrow shaft had snapped off.’

  Bradecote and Catchpoll exchanged glances.

  ‘Did you take up the broken shaft, Edric?’

  ‘No, my lord. What use was it?’

  Without being asked, Walkelin was already ferreting about in the undergrowth like a pig rooting for beechmast. A few oaths indicated that the bushes contained a fair number of briars.

  ‘Oh aye, there’s brambles that cut about something wicked.’

  ‘Oh dear.’ Catchpoll smiled wryly. ‘Oh dear.’

  This was followed by a cry, not of pain but of victory, and Walkelin emerged from the foliage with the broken end of an arrow, the flights bedraggled but still in place.

  ‘Good lad. Did the other bodies have arrows in them with similar flights, Edric?’

  Edric nodded.

  ‘A man who is good with a bow would not hand his arrows around. Makes me think one man did the killing. And if he was good at his craft he might well make his own.’ Catchpoll slid a finger and thumb along a barred feather, easing it back into shape. ‘Can you tell us where the arrows had struck?’

  ‘In the body.’ Edric blinked at them.

  ‘Yes, but where, Edric?’ asked Bradecote, patiently.

  ‘I … well, I do not remember exactly except for Thorold, because I knew him so well. I suppose I noticed more, and there was no shaft. The arrow stuck out of the base of his throat about an inch before it was broken off. The other two, well the lord was hit in the middle of his body and Edwin Pack over the heart.’

  ‘Lucky shots,’ murmured Bradecote, frowning.

  ‘Not for them, my lord.’ Edric sounded rather shocked.

  ‘Or “good” ones,’ Catchpoll muttered, and did one of his ‘thinking faces’, at which Edric stared quite openly. ‘I would dearly like to know where the other victims were struck.’

  ‘You mean there could be similar wound patterns from the second attack also.’ Walkelin nodded, his mind, now set upon a course, ploughing a straight furrow.

  The undersheriff was thinking on a different tack, wanting confirmation for this one.

  ‘Your father, would he have seen anything more than you did, Edric?’

  ‘I doubt it, my lord, for sure, since it was I who pulled the bodies out, but perhaps …’ He faltered under the undersheriff’s gaze. ‘I do not know.’

  ‘Then I will have Walkelin ride back with you to Wich and he will ask these questions of your father, just to be certain.’ He looked to Walkelin. ‘You are to go thereafter to the reeve’s house, and meet us there or carry on to wherever the reeve may tell you we have gone.’

  ‘As you wish, my lord.’ His face betrayed just a twinge of regret in case he missed out upon some excitement. He was like a child sent to bed before the bear had danced. ‘Immediately?’

  ‘I think so. We will follow on and see the reeve.’

  Catchpoll watched the retreating figures and smiled knowingly at his superior.

  ‘Stomach couldn’t take a tannery again, eh, my lord?’

  ‘No, it could not, unless it was vital, and it is unlikely that the father will have seen much more than the son. Consider it part of Walkelin’s training, Catchpoll.’

  The death’s head grin broadened.

  ‘I will, indeed. And what are we going to do here, if anything other than give young Walkelin a head start?’

  ‘At the risk of being snagged on the thorns, I think we also make a survey of the surrounding area. Pity that the weather has been damp. I do not suppose we will find clear marks of anything untoward.’

  They tethered their mounts and tried to be thorough in their assessment. They had little or no hope of finding any tangible evidence, although Catchpoll did find where boot heels had scraped a slight furrow at the edge of the track.

  ‘Just confirms what we, and indeed Edric, thought. This would have been FitzPayne’s body being dragged to the undergrowth. So it looks like stealing his boots was almost an afterthought.’

  ‘Or they stripped the corpses off the road in case anyone came along.’

  ‘True, my lord, that is a possibility.’

  ‘I suppose we might get confirmation about the other wounds from the reeve.’ Bradecote did not sound particularly hopeful. ‘He seemed efficient enough, but then Earl Waleran would not tolerate inefficiency. At the same time he did not look the sort to remember details.’

  ‘Children are best for that, my lord. They look at the world differently from adults, and I do not just mean literally. You get a child of eight or nine, old enough to speak true, and they can “see” things we miss. I once investigated a killing where the only information I had on the man who did it was that he was of average height and dark-haired. That was from a woman who saw him briefly. The child at her skirts then piped up and said he was a bear, which nearly earned him a clip round the ear, but he was so adamant. When I got him to open up a bit it turned out he meant the man was very hairy. He had black hair quite thick upon the backs of his hands and tufts sticking out of his ears. Made the hunt a lot easier.’

  ‘Then I suppose we hope a wide-eyed child saw the bodies. Let us go and see Walter the Reeve again.’

  They returned to Wich at a gentle pace. The reeve had termed it a town, and it certainly deserved the title, but it was odd, being largely based upon a single product, the salt made from the brine in the earth. The eight salt pits, the salt springs, gave up the salinae, the shares of brine, which were reduced to salt in the many salt houses, damp places where shallow lead vats of brine were heated over stone wood-fired furnaces. The steam evaporating from the bubbling liquid condensed upon cold walls, and wicker baskets of the salty sludge dripped into trays as the salt dried and provided both the final product, the precious salt crystals, and the ‘seeding’ for the next vat of brine. Here was a centre of salt making that sent the vital commodity far beyond county borders, perhaps seventy miles. There were salt pits to the north in the Earl of Chester’s palatinate, which were nearly as important, but no other places we
re so exclusively centred upon salt production from the earth. Toll was paid upon every load leaving the town, unless it was the property of a person or religious community owning one of the salt shares and houses. The Benedictines of Shrewsbury salted their fish with the product of their Wich salt house, as did monks in Gloucester. Everyone would always need salt, and Wich was comfortable, even a little smug, in the knowledge. It had a busy, industrious air and, on a cold October day, men without even a cotte to cover them laboured, skimming the impure froth, pouring, ladling, carrying, shovelling.

  Walter the Reeve was not in his house when they arrived, and they were greeted by his wife, bobbing an embarrassed curtsey and offering bread and ale. Her husband, she explained, had gone out only briefly, and when he entered, still in the process of tying the fastenings of his breeches, and turning red of face, Catchpoll had to bite his lip not to laugh. The reeve’s position was important, and Walter a self-important man who would not enjoy being discovered on return from a very basic act.

  Hugh Bradecote caught his serjeant’s expression from the corner of his eye and understood its cause. He accepted the hospitality with thanks, for, after all, they had not eaten since dawn. He turned then to Walter Reeve.

  ‘We have seen the place of the attack, and Edric has told all he knows. We would like to know what happened when the bodies were bought here. Did they come straight to you?’

  ‘Aye, my lord, and a fair to-do it caused and no mistake. There was one went to tell Thorold’s wife he had been brought in dead, and she came half fainting and screaming fit to set her off in childbed, and the family of Edwin Pack came to take him for shrouding. My lord FitzPayne I recognised, of course, as did a brother from Bordesley Abbey. My lord was a patron, his youngest brother being one of the original brethren as came from away over at Garendon to build the place. The brother said he would arrange for the body to be given a respectable burial in the abbey church, and well, it seemed fitting, so he took the corpse.’