He used her name, and it thrilled her as much as his touch.
She sighed, and pulled away, turning towards him.
‘I understand. I shall not … be weak, not yet.’ Her voice was low, not sad but resigned.
They left the stable, decorously apart. He followed her across the courtyard and up the steps into the hall.
In the light he could see a weary sorrow on her face.
‘You must be tired, truly.’
‘Yes, it has been … a tiring day, my lord. You know, I thought I would feel pleased that Corbin’s horse was home, but I just feel rather numbed by it.’
He went with her to the solar door and opened it, bowing to let her pass, and wished her a good night’s rest. She thanked him with a smile, and when the door closed behind her, leant against the solid oak, took a long breath, and closed her eyes, the smile remaining.
Chapter Thirteen
Bradecote arose to a frosty morning, conscious that the day was likely to be marked by the confirmation of more deaths, and yet far from heavy-hearted, which gave him a twinge of guilt. Catchpoll’s twinges were more physical, and he complained of how the cold got into his knees something wicked, nearly all the way to Wich, warming the air with his colourful language. Bradecote smiled wryly, and recommended what his father had sworn by, which was a bran poultice just the same as he used on his horses if they came up lame.
They kept to a steady trot to keep warm, and pulled their cloaks about them. Walkelin sniffed as the cold made his nose run. The ground was hard, jarring through the horses’ legs, and once Bradecote’s grey stumbled in a frozen cart track. Walkelin’s mount, which seemed to find trotting far too much like hard work, had to be kicked in the flanks and sworn at for lagging behind and dropping to a walk at every opportunity. Walkelin’s comments, about how he wished the sheriff would feed the beast to his hounds, did not even make it twitch its ears.
The sun, low upon the eastern horizon behind them, gave no warmth, just a sparkle to the frosted leaves, and the woodland beside the road had an eerie silence to it, bar the odd scamper of a roebuck or flapping pigeon. Wich had a similar silence, but not from any slowing of the season, but rather as if the town already mourned its new dead. The glances they received were wary and glum, if not downright unfriendly.
‘Cheery lot,’ murmured Walkelin.
‘Not surprising, after the number they have buried this month,’ Catchpoll responded. ‘Let’s go and find more to make them miserable.’
It was a sombre company that set out from Wich upon what should be a festive holy day. The feast of St Luke was not going to be marked by any celebration, though as many as could went to the church to pray for deliverance from the affliction upon the town. The idea of something supernatural was taking greater hold, though the very solid reality of the arrows in the bodies should have dispelled it. The sheriff’s men, accompanied by several of the packmen, who knew every yard of the way blindfolded, trotted off upon the road south to Worcester, a small cart with them for the load they expected to carry upon their return. The local knowledge of where would give most wayside cover aided the search, and within two hours there came a shout from the undergrowth as Walkelin, and a stocky individual who wheezed a lot, plunged into the foliage to the east of the track.
‘Bodies, my lord, two of them.’
Walkelin emerged, looking a little pleased with himself, though his companion was ashen. Undersheriff and serjeant, who were casting about a little way further along, came to view where the corpses lay. There had been no attempt to rob them of clothing, indeed one still had a scrip containing a few pennies, and they appeared to have been cast into the bushes with some haste. What had alerted Walkelin was a booted foot sticking out.
‘You get the feeling this was somehow interrupted, my lord?’ Catchpoll scowled thoughtfully at the first corpse.
‘Yes, Serjeant, but the last man who interrupted such an attack ended up in the heap of bodies.’
‘Could it have been a body of men?’ queried Walkelin, and received a raised eyebrow. ‘Er, no joke intended, my lord.’
‘And tell us, Walkelin, why this “body” of men did not ride, or indeed run, into Wich, only two miles away, shouting about the foul crime they saw committed?’ Catchpoll was scathing. ‘That one gets past me.’
Walkelin bit his lip, unable to come up with an answer. Bradecote knelt by the stiff corpses. Rigor mortis remained, abetted by the cold, though it was beginning to wear off. There was a ghostly rime of white upon the pale, blue-tinged faces, with the eyes that Bradecote could not but feel accused him of failure. Each had fallen to a single well-placed arrow. There was almost something clinical about it. He looked up at Catchpoll.
‘This has to stop, and stop soon.’
‘I know, my lord,’ he spoke very quietly, lest the packmen, now huddled miserably upon the road, overheard him, ‘but it is the devil of a job seeing how, from what we have, we can find our culprits. You find a corpse warm, or at least where it fell, and you can learn from them. These poor bastards can tell us little we did not know already.’
‘Then let us take them back to Wich, and a decent burial. We will remove the arrows,’ Bradecote murmured, closed the staring eyes with some difficulty, and stood up slowly. ‘It is marginally less distressing for the bereaved.’
Their arrival back in Wich was greeted with the grim acceptance of folk expecting the worst. They brought the cart before the little church, where those most involved had remained, receiving what comfort the priest could offer. Despite the inevitability, one woman collapsed, and another turned angrily upon the shrieval officers.
‘How long must we suffer this? Why should my children go fatherless because you cannot track a killer? Go on, tell me if you can.’
A voice at the rear of the group mumbled something about men only being able to track the living, and the woman snorted. Not for her the idea of a ghost.
‘Fool that you are, do you think spirits would kill with weapons you can see and touch? If they were found with no mark upon them, then I would cross myself and pray, as a good Christian soul, but my man was murdered by another man, and upon the King’s highway. Justice is what I seek. Justice is what I demand.’
She sounded belligerent, and if some feared her tone was dangerous to one as powerful as the undersheriff of the shire, many agreed with her. There were murmurs among the crowd.
‘Mistress, we are doing everything we can, but there were no witnesses to this crime, and …’
‘My lord? Was this upon the Worcester road, and the day before yesterday?’ The voice belonged to someone hidden at the back of the crowd, by the church door. ‘I may have seen something.’
The crowd parted like the Red Sea before Moses, revealing a man in tattered clothing, seated against the church wall and with a begging bowl between his knees.
The momentary elation that Bradecote had felt, plunged to his boots.
‘Seen? But you are a …’
‘Blind man. Yes, my lord, but the blind see without eyes.’
‘Do you not travel with a guide, perhaps, friend?’ enquired Catchpoll, catching at a thread of hope.
‘Not always, though it is a help to me. But blind is not blackness, not for all. I cannot see the hand before my face as anything but a dark shape, everything is through a fog impenetrable, but with my stick and in full daylight, I can manage a little way, and I was heading here from Hussingtree, where the good folk did not wish to be generous in their alms.’
‘What can you tell us then, that you saw,’ Bradecote asked, ‘“without eyes”?’
‘I was less than three miles south of Wich. I turned a bend in the road and there was something going on. I heard a man, a clumsy sort of fellow, come out of the bushes at some speed, as if chased by a boar, possibly. I was nervous, and cried out that he might know I was sightless. Being knocked over is a likely peril of one who cannot avoid things. Then there was a voice, a clear voice that shouted to hold still. I did not know wheth
er that was to me or the other man, so I stood still. I think the other man had evil intent, for the voice, an angry voice, cried that he should be about his business and if he struck, he would be dropped, I assumed with an arrow. The noisy man was called by another.’
Catchpoll pounced upon the chance.
‘Was he called by name, friend?’
‘By the name Morcar. He drew away from me, and picked up something, something heavy, for he grunted as he did so, and I heard twigs and branchlets break at the roadside. Then he and the other men, for from the footfalls I would think there were three, departed with their ponies. I wondered if the man who had leapt out had been relieving himself and perhaps been surprised, and acted from instinct.’ The blind beggar paused. ‘It was very still for a minute or so, but I knew I was not alone. Then my rescuer came forward, and he was a quiet man, and he bade me be not disturbed, because he meant no harm to me. I asked what had happened, and he said nothing that I need worry about, and I should be on my way. Then the archer placed silver pennies in my hand and told me to pray for the souls of the dear departed, which I did in this church upon arrival and upon this holy day of St Luke. Then he left, with a blessing on his lips.’
‘Archer?’ Bradecote could not keep the urgency from his voice. ‘How do you know he was an archer?’
‘Easily, my lord. He pressed the coins into my palm. Any man knows the calluses upon an archer’s drawing fingers.’
The blind man smiled.
‘Can you describe this archer?’
Catchpoll ignored the looks that members of the crowd gave him.
‘He was about my height, for he spoke neither down to me nor up. His voice was not of a youth nor yet an old man, but one in his prime of manhood, and he was a man of this shire, though something in the voice was odd, as if he had travelled, had heard other voices, if you understand.’
Catchpoll nodded, caught himself doing so, and then acknowledged in words.
‘And this man expects to be obeyed when he commands.’ The blind man chuckled. ‘No doubt of that.’
‘You mean like a lord?’ Walkelin joined in, sounding incredulous.
‘Bless you, no. I would swear he had nothing but the English for a start, and what lord would be horseless, and an archer? No, he has been where men obey, in a company of men, perhaps, and besides, his bow makes him a man I reckon as none who saw would defy.’
‘You made no mention of this to anyone upon your arrival here.’ Bradecote did not accuse, but was interested. ‘Why was that?’
‘Good, my lord, who is there to listen to the blind beggar? And besides, I thought I had avoided a beating through a kindly deed, not that there had been evil done upon the road, I swear. The archer, he sounded – except when he called out to the man, Morcar – very calm, even weary, not like a man who had been engaged upon a crime at all. There were no nerves, no edge of excitement.’
‘You have aided us, my friend, and indeed the blind have seen more than the sighted.’ Bradecote dismounted, and went to take the man’s hand, which he shook and into which he quietly pressed coin. ‘And you can tell I am no archer,’ he whispered as he did so.
The blind man murmured blessing and thanks, and the undersheriff turned to find Walter Reeve at his elbow, frowning.
‘You have some new piece of information for us today, Master Reeve?’
The reeve caught the irony in the tone and coloured.
‘I, er … not as such, my lord. I just … no, nothing new.’
The man’s worried demeanour had become permanent, decided Bradecote, and shook his head. It felt awkward, standing among people who all knew the dead, the dead they had been unable to save, and seeing the accusing eyes. The sheriff’s men, seeing no use in remaining, mounted and returned on a long rein to Cookhill, where they tried to make the blind man’s information the key to making an advance rather than fragments of interest. They failed, and it made all three rather morose.
Walter Reeve was indeed a worried man. He had lived, secure in his own self-worth, for years. He knew who he was, and had the pride that went with his position in the town, a position, it seemed to him, that nobody would challenge. He had the confidence of Earl Waleran, and ensured the tolls and taxes of Wich were paid in good time. He had taken what was his due for the collection, and but so little more as none might notice or begrudge. Yet in these last two weeks his world had tumbled about his ears. He was beleaguered by townsfolk who looked to him for leadership and guidance that were beyond him, and it had turned now to animosity. He felt the eyes that followed him, angry, frightened, and accusing him of incompetence, for all that he was trying so hard. He tossed and turned at night, so that his wife humphed and turned her shoulder upon him, and his dreams were tormented by a shadowy figure he only saw from the corner of his eye, but who laughed, mocking him. What was worse, the nightmare always ended the same way, with the sound of an arrow in flight and the sensation of falling. Small wonder that he drowned his sorrows of a night in the tavern, and the ale muddled him all the more.
Despite this there was something, something whispering in a dark recess of his mind, and it disturbed him as he went about the town, vainly trying to look in control of matters. It told him he was connected with all the deaths, in a way he could not fathom. What had been borne home to him by the undersheriff was that whoever organised the attacks and killings had information on departures. Of all men in Wich, he was the man who could be guaranteed to know those, because of the toll. He had mumbled as much the night before last, when he had stumbled out of the tavern into the cold night air. It had hit him like a blow in the face, and sent him reeling, only for him to be helped upright by a friendly soul, who offered to help him home. This Good Samaritan had soothed him with soft words, and told him that his worry was an unfair burden to carry. He himself, said the calming friend, had knowledge that there was a wagon of salt heading west the day after St Luke’s. At that, Walter Reeve had hiccoughed and giggled, and promptly vomited in the gutter. Upon recovery, he had disabused his companion of that error. The salt heading towards Hereford did not depart until the second day after the holy day.
‘You see,’ he had said sadly, slurring the words, ‘it is always me who knows.’
The reeve stopped dead in the street, and a woman walking behind him, who was carrying a chicken destined for the pot, cannoned into him and cursed him in less than genteel language as she dropped the bird and had to chase after it, much to the delight of several children. They laughed openly, and encouraged the chicken to make its bid for freedom.
The man accompanying him that night had laughed, and something in that laugh now sent a shiver down the spine of Walter Reeve. He tried to think, think beyond the befuddled state in which he so often ended up in the tavern, and slowly, slowly, a horrible truth presented itself to him. He leant against the dank daub of a salt-house wall to steady himself. No, he had never seen the man who had helped him that evening, not before the attacks started. He cudgelled his brain to recall what manner of man he was, but the stranger always sat in a gloomy corner, a listener not a talker, a quiet individual who drank, thanked the host courteously, and departed. He was thin and tall, Walter remembered that much. He must tell the undersheriff. Then he shook his head. No, he had told the lord Bradecote so much that what he said carried little weight. Well, it would be different when he, the reeve of Wich, caught the man who was in part responsible for the killings, and presented him before the undersheriff for interrogation. Then his neighbours would look upon him with respect again, and Earl Waleran would send him commendation.
He wondered if the man would be around this evening. He headed to the tavern, and asked the host, as tactfully as possible, about the tall stranger in the corner. The tavern keeper frowned.
‘I know who you mean, Master Reeve, but for the life of me I could not tell you aught about him. Odd, that. I would have thought if he had come to stay in Wich we would have seen him about the place during the day, upon some task.’ He shrugged.
‘Oh well, perhaps he will come in tonight, and you can ask him yourself where he is living.’
If Mistress Reeve found her husband distracted at the evening meal, it was no more than she had come to expect these last days, and she accepted his monosyllabic answers without comment. He frowned over his meal, which displeased her, since she had been particularly careful to boil the pig’s trotters just as he liked, but he seemed to come out of his daze at the end, and actually complimented her upon her cooking and kissed her cheek, as he declared he was going out. She glared at him, for he did not have to say where he was going.
‘Now, not that face, wife, for tonight I am going to do something that will make you proud, and my name will be upon everyone’s lips on the morrow.’
With which, he kissed her cheek again and was gone, leaving her perplexed, and vaguely ill at ease.
The tavern was not a hive of convivial jollity these days, more men drowning their sorrows. Whilst those who worked in the salt houses were not directly at risk, they all felt the cloud of misery that hung over their town and trade. Voices were muted, and few looked up as the reeve entered. Those that did barely more than grunted acknowledgement. Tomorrow, thought Walter, all will be different. I shall be the hero of the hour.
He nodded to the tavern keeper, who, with a jerk of his head, indicated a table in the least lit corner of the room. Walter Reeve approached, with forced bonhomie, and feigned surprise.
‘Why, it is my good friend from the other night. I give you a good evening, and would buy you ale, in thanks for your kind deed.’
Reginald eyed the reeve suspiciously.
‘No need. It was hardly an act of great charity, since I was heading that way myself.’
‘Ah yes,’ murmured Walter, in what he hoped would sound a casual tone, ‘and where might it be you are living, for you are not much known hereabouts?’
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