Marked to Die

by Sarah Hawkswood

  He watched the packmen load their beasts to head south to Worcester. They had the look of the condemned about them, in contrast to the carter and his ox leader, basking in the security of Baldwin de Malfleur’s men-at-arms. In normal circumstances such bully boys as they appeared to be, all swagger and arrogance, would be avoided by peaceable men such as the carters and packmen, but these were not normal circumstances. Already one had caused trouble by taking liberties with a wench in front of her swain, and drawn steel to ensure his inactivity. It did not bode well.

  A small crowd gathered. Women wept. He had seen more jollity at a hanging. The carters departed toward Leominster, with their ostentatious guard. The packmen left with every sign of reluctance, and the salt workers returned to their labours heavy-hearted.

  The sheriff’s officers and Jocelyn of Shelsley arrived almost as the packmen departed. A few resentful glances met them, but they could not escort every salt load out of the town, or pick out certain ones, seeming to show favouritism. Walter Reeve began his self-exculpation before they had even halted their horses.

  ‘I have no news, my lord, but unless it is brought to me, what can I achieve? I am at a loss. I do everything within my power, but in this I am helpless.’ He spread his hands.

  ‘Hopeless, more like,’ muttered Walkelin, under his breath.

  ‘But I shall expect you to send word to me if you do hear anything, anything at all, Master Reeve. We are heading north to Stone, but will pass through Wich this afternoon. In the meantime, we leave my lord Jocelyn here, who wishes to … pass the day in Wich.’

  Before the reeve could say anything, Bradecote had wheeled his horse, and the much relieved trio were cantering out of the town on the northern road. Jocelyn of Shelsley looked down at the worried reeve and smiled, which somehow worried the man even more.

  ‘How you kept from cutting out his tongue, I do not know, my lord,’ chortled Catchpoll, now riding abreast with Bradecote. ‘About as welcome as a dose of pox, he is. If that is what he is like of an evening …’

  ‘Oh, he varies between garrulous ale-sot, which, as you first noticed, Serjeant, is more act than reality, and seemingly solicitous guest who has the tongue of a snake and the poisoned fang to match. The lady FitzPayne finds him disturbing, and if I were a woman, I think I would be of her mind also. He has more faces than a pair of dice, and they keep changing to keep you from the man beneath.’

  ‘Your natural schemer, my lord, and not usually one who risks his own neck if he can send others to do so for him.’

  ‘Very true, very true. Let us dismiss him from our minds for a few hours at least, and concentrate on the identity of our archer.’

  The Archer’s fingers were cold. He blew upon them and rubbed them together. A roebuck, grazing by the side of the track, was alerted to the slight sound. It raised its head, ears twitching, and prepared for flight. The Archer smiled.

  ‘You are fortunate, my friend, for today I have other targets,’ he whispered, with a smile.

  The soft words were enough to send the animal darting into the nearest thicket. The Archer sighed. Venison stew would have been good in this autumnal weather. He settled back into silence, and waited. The men who were to steal the salt arrived with as little stealth as rampaging boar, and halted at his whistle. They concealed themselves in the undergrowth, after a fashion, but the Archer grimaced. True concealment was as he used, so that a man might pass within two handspans and not know anyone was there.

  The packmen were nervous. It was a woodland road and they knew they were vulnerable. They were trying to get the laden ponies to trot, as if the slight increase in speed would give them protection. The Archer took his first arrow, caressed the flights with a loving finger, and nocked it. He took aim, calmly, focussed entirely upon the path of its flight to the target. He loosed, and heard the arrow singing in its freedom before thudding home. Only as he reached for the second arrow did he become aware of the traveller coming from the opposite direction, a stout staff in his hand. The Archer took down the second packman and nocked a third arrow, but as he took aim he eased the tension. The stick was being swept before the man’s path, ensuring he did not trip over root or stone. The man had halted, and now cried out.

  ‘Who is there? God’s Grace be upon any who take pity on a blind man.’

  The thieves leapt out of the bushes, one brandishing a staff and clearly intent upon striking the sightless man.

  ‘Hold there.’ The Archer’s words flew as urgently as his arrows. ‘If you so much as aim a blow, I’ll drop you where you stand. Be about your business and go.’

  ‘But …’

  ‘Where you stand.’

  The blind man, confused and frightened, stood stock-still.

  The cudgel-bearer drew back, and turned upon the calling of his name by one of his companions, to help cast the bodies into cover. With much noise, they led the ponies away. The blind man still stood, listening, unsure. A robin sang upon a bough as if what had just passed was unimportant. The Archer stepped from his cover.

  ‘Be at ease, friend, I mean you no harm.’

  The man turned to the sound.

  ‘What has happened?’

  ‘Nothing that need concern you. Be on your way, and pray for the souls of the dear departed.’ He reached out and took the man’s hand, pressing silver coins into the palm. ‘God go with you.’

  The man’s fingers closed upon the largesse, and he smiled bemusedly.

  ‘And with you also, friend.’

  Unlike Reginald, he heard the Archer depart.

  The sheriff’s men reached Stone before noontide. It was a small village, and they made their way to the manor hall out of courtesy. Giles le Gris was absent, but his lady, nervous but attentive, offered them hospitality and any assistance they might require. She looked too young to have known the old fletcher, and this indeed proved to be the case, but the manor steward was an old retainer, and he both recalled the man and could name those others who had had dealings with him and still lived.

  ‘We are trying to find out if any recall a lad who learnt the fletching craft from old Tostig.’ Catchpoll spoke with a degree of nonchalance.

  ‘His apprentices?’

  ‘No, probably not.’ Bradecote did not want to be taken down that path too early. ‘More like a young man who was good with a bow and wanted to fletch his own arrows.’

  The steward frowned, his thick grey brows forming a solid bar across his forehead.

  ‘Well, that would be more difficult, my lord, if they wasn’t with him all the time. There are always the young men who go after pigeon with their blunts, and some are quite able. Young Edwin, now he is a very good shot.’

  ‘You need to think back,’ Catchpoll saw the steward drifting from the point, ‘perhaps even twenty years.’

  ‘Let me see, now.’ The old man pursed his lips. ‘There was Turold, he was good … but he died three years back, coughing blood. And Aelward, though he was not from here. Good lad, came to live with an aunt after his father … died. But he went away years back, off to the Holy Land with the lord of Clent, and I would wager man, like master, died there. He has not been in the village these seventeen, maybe eighteen years, and his aunt is long dead now, poor woman. Dunstan is still here mind, though he is a wheelwright nowadays, with little time to nock an arrow. Would you like to speak to him about Tostig?’

  Bradecote assented, in no small measure just to avoid further rambles. The steward went off purposefully, if slowly, and returned some ten minutes later with a broad, well-muscled man with a deep bass voice. He made a stiff obeisance to the lady and, upon introduction, to Bradecote.

  ‘You wished to speak to me about Tostig Fletcher, my lord?’

  ‘Yes. Does this look like one of his arrows?’ Bradecote nodded to Walkelin, who withdrew the arrow from its wrapping. ‘We know it is newer, but is it his style?’

  ‘Bless me, yes. Uncanny that, to see one fresh after all these years. As if he were here this moment.’

>   The big man crossed himself, and looked unnerved.

  ‘Tell me, Dunstan,’ Catchpoll did not want another diversion into the supernatural, ‘did you know young Aelward, who learnt fletching from Tostig?’

  ‘Aelward from over Rushock?’

  Catchpoll looked to the steward, who nodded.

  ‘Quiet, he was. Used to go off on his own a lot, tracking the animals. Mind you, he learnt that from his father, of course. Came here when he was twelve after the business was over.’

  ‘What business?’

  ‘With his lord, Arnulf de Malfleur. Aelward’s father was a hunter, helped his lord whenever he went out to hunt, and a man like the lord of Rushock, well he needed help hunting. Aelward said he scared the game. One day he found his hunter had brought down a buck that was ailing, the eye was damaged and poisoned or some such. The hunter would have brought it for his lord, but de Malfleur found him carrying it, and decided it was theft. He put the man’s eyes out himself, then and there, and laughed as he did it. The poor man lived, but only a few months. The forest was his life and it was torn from him with his sight.’ Dunstan shook his head. ‘Cruel, and unfair.’

  The wheelwright had everyone’s attention. Catchpoll already felt that this Aelward was their man, if he wasn’t bleached bones in the desert.

  ‘Go on, tell us about Aelward and Tostig.’

  Bradecote sounded eager.

  ‘Not that much to tell, my lord. He was a good archer, I will say that, even when a stripling, but he was … odd. I never saw him kill for sport, if you see what I mean. As lads we would have a try at all sorts – fox, pigeon to eat, even fish in the stream. But Aelward only ever wanted the true shot, and to eat. He said shooting fish was a shame on the archer’s skill, beneath him. He was, well, like the difference between the average man who goes to Mass and the man who takes the cowl.’

  ‘And he would make an arrow like this?’ Bradecote had to be sure.

  ‘Oh yes, my lord, as I would, as any man would who learnt from Tostig.’

  ‘And he went away?’ Walkelin wanted the end of the tale.

  ‘Yes, for his skill was seen by the lord Ivo, Ivo of Clent, a mite west of here. He took him as his own hunter, and then when he went on to the Holy Land, Aelward went too. S’pose he must be dead now. Ivo of Clent was killed, oh, was it three years back?’

  ‘It was four years, my lord,’ murmured the lady le Gris, softly. ‘Killed his poor mother, did the news.’

  ‘And nobody has seen Aelward here since? You are sure of that?’

  ‘If he came, my lord, I reckon as I was nearest he had to a friend, so he would have found me out. I would swear an oath on that.’

  ‘Then tell us what manner of man was Aelward to look at, when you saw him last.’

  ‘Oh, Aelward was your average sort of fellow, would have been the skinny sort if he had not the build from his archery. He was proud of the fact he could manage a man’s draw weight long before the rest of us.’ Dunstan grinned. ‘Not that I would have much problem matching him now.’

  The wheelwright flexed impressive biceps, and strong forearms, but then coloured. Walkelin, at least, showed admiration.

  ‘Sorry, my lord. Yes, well, as I said, he was the sort of lad who blended in, be it in the forest or in a crowd. You could lose him in an instant. He was of a common height, straight, rat-brown hair, good teeth, I will say that, very even. When he smiled, which wasn’t often, he had a smile that maids would, well, not stay maids long for.’

  ‘Did he use that?’ Catchpoll wondered if the archer might be in ‘comfortable’ lodgings with some woman. ‘Was he popular with the wenches?’

  ‘Aelward!’ Dunstan laughed. ‘Bless me, no. Very shy he was with anything in a skirt. Lost his mother very young and never really learnt anything about them, how they think, you know, until he came to his aunt. Took some getting used to on both sides, but she was genuinely fond of him. If Aelward found himself a woman,’ he shook his head, ‘it would be a thoughtful one who could understand his need to be alone a lot.’

  There was a silence. Dunstan considered a man he had known half a lifetime ago, and the sheriff’s men tried to envisage the man for whom they were hunting.

  ‘That would be about all I could say, my lord.’

  Dunstan, having said all that he could do upon the matter, wanted to get back to the secure peace of his wheelwright’s workshop, where the only unknown was whether he should have left his apprentice to fit the felloes on the new wheel for the Widow Thorn’s barrow. He was glad to be dismissed, with thanks from the undersheriff.

  Lady le Gris provided them with ale and meat, clearly keen to be able to report to her lord that she had been the model of hospitality to the sheriff’s representatives, and heaved a sigh of relief at their departure.

  There would be no moon, so the three men took part of the way at an easy canter, giving themselves more chance to reach Cookhill before total darkness. Walkelin’s ungainly mount was leaving him sore in places he would rather not discuss, and he was glad when they slowed for a space. In between considering his aching body, Walkelin had been considering the advance they had made.

  ‘What I cannot see, my lord, is how much use this is to our catching the salt thieves.’ He spoke confidently. ‘We know, or at least have a good guess at, the name of the archer, but we cannot trot up and down the Salt Ways calling his name and telling him to give himself up to the noose.’

  ‘You mind your ways and words, young Walkelin,’ Catchpoll growled. ‘That sounds too much like you setting yourself up on a par with your betters.’

  Walkelin coloured to the roots of his ginger-red locks.

  ‘I am sorry, Serjeant, my lord. It was not my intent, I …’

  ‘No matter, Walkelin. What you say is true.’ Bradecote sighed.

  ‘In a way, my lord, it does tell us that hunting for him is a waste of time.’ Catchpoll had clearly been thinking without recourse to his facial contortions. ‘I had wondered if we should follow a few salt wagons at a small distance, close enough to hear anything untoward, but I doubt not our archer would melt away.’

  ‘It would save life, just as paying de Malfleur does,’ sighed the undersheriff.

  ‘Yes, my lord, for a while. But we cannot do this without end. If they did not die now, they would die in a week’s time. Only by catching these men do we halt this.’

  ‘The archer, Aelward, is a lone hunter, not a pack wolf, yes?’ Walkelin stuck to his line of thought.

  ‘That is what the wheelwright said, yes, Walkelin.’ Catchpoll looked suspiciously at the man-at-arms, as if he might say something dangerous. ‘So that leads you to what?’

  ‘It leads me to wonder why he associates with the others.’

  ‘He could not take the ponies or the carts alone, wiltbrain.’

  ‘Ah, but why take them at all, Serjeant?’ Walkelin ignored the insult. ‘I said it earlier and say it again. This man has a skill for which lords pay. Why take to this life if he is not already outside the law? And even if that is the case, why not kill wealthy travellers encountered upon the road, rob them of coin and possessions? He only attacks the salt trade. So where is all this salt going? And why?’

  Catchpoll smiled slowly. It was the sort of smile that could mean many things. On this occasion it meant that Walkelin basked in the glow of Catchpoll’s approval.

  ‘I knew I was right picking you for the craft, despite the hair.’ He watched his protégé grow pink, the hair clashing with the colour of his cheeks. ‘You think clear, not in a rush, but clear. Now you just learn to think mean, meaner than the people you are after, and you will do well,’ he paused, ‘in a few years.’

  Bradecote was only listening with half an ear. What Walkelin had said was true. There seemed no sense to stealing the salt. Indeed, where were they putting it? They had stolen from the bodies, but with the exception of Corbin FitzPayne they were men not worth stealing from, so why them? He voiced his thoughts.

  ‘Why does it seem such
a tangle?’

  ‘My lord?’

  ‘None of it makes any sense. We know the man who is probably responsible for the deaths, but he has no motive. We have the salt, which is important because only the salt trade is attacked, but there is no gain in stealing it. The attacks are premeditated, but the only people who know when the salt leaves are the people most vulnerable, and now the most scared. Everything we know counters what we know, and none of it fits together.’

  ‘That can be the way of it, my lord, sometimes. We have to look at it from another way, and also hope our culprits make a mistake,’ Catchpoll said, sagely.

  ‘Preferably before the death toll depopulates Wich.’ Bradecote bit his lip at Catchpoll’s words. ‘So, if we look at it from a different point, what do the thefts and killings achieve? Fear.’

  ‘And perhaps wealth,’ Walkelin added, ‘if the salt is sold elsewhere.’

  ‘But most of the people who use the Wich salt would not need more and the supply has not ceased, lad.’ Catchpoll was sceptical.

  ‘Ah, but what if the salt was going where it did not usually go, Serjeant, where we would not follow it?’ Walkelin’s eyes grew bright. ‘Wales. Remember the lord de Lasson sells salt in Wales.’

  ‘And word has not reached us of a sudden salt shortage there so …’ Catchpoll did not like the idea.

  ‘Ah, but if he offered it more cheaply, there are places that would buy from him. After all, he would not be thought a criminal.’

  ‘Walkelin has a point, Catchpoll. Yes, I know you do not like it, and nor do I, for without good reason we would have to go and hand this over to the Sheriff of Hereford, who is on good terms with the man, and will call down curses upon our heads for a start. But, there is a possible motive. He could use his own men and employ the archer. He could even increase the price because he is having to “protect” his salt. By that token, though, de Malfleur has a motive.’