The Anchoress of Chesterfield

by Chris Nickson

  ‘You were good,’ he said. ‘Dangerous. That means they’ll think twice before sending anyone after you.’

  ‘They?’ John asked.

  ‘Whoever is behind all this.’

  ‘Do you still think it’s Roland and Gwendolyn?’

  He shrugged. ‘It might be. Truth to tell, John, I don’t know anymore. That’s an answer that seems to follow, but… killing her sister, attacking her father. Would anyone really do that?’

  ‘People have. Isn’t there a story in the Bible about one brother killing another?’

  ‘Cain and Abel.’

  ‘And some brothers selling another into slavery?’

  ‘They may be—’

  ‘People do worse things than we can believe. That’s my point.’

  ‘How do we find out?’

  John shook his head. They were quickly running out of time. The fair would start soon. ‘I wish I knew. We need a way to shake things up.’

  ‘There is one,’ Jeffrey said eventually.

  ‘How?’

  ‘We pass the word that I’ve found some evidence and I’m going to give it to my lord.’

  ‘No. Why would you let word slip out before you told him? I can’t imagine anyone falling for that.’

  ‘People believe what they want to believe. Give them some hope they can stop things before the truth comes out and they’ll be running to keep me quiet.’

  ‘And you don’t know how to defend yourself. You told me that.’

  ‘I’m a man of numbers, not the sword,’ Jeffrey admitted with a smile.

  ‘Then we can’t put you at risk.’

  He straightened his back. ‘Isn’t it my choice? I’m old enough to make that decision. Wise enough, too. Some people think so, at least.’

  ‘Katherine and the children like you. They’d never forgive me if I let something happen.’

  ‘I’m flattered to hear that someone would miss me. But tell me, John, do you think they’ll give me any peace if I encourage you to risk your life? That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it? I can see it in your eyes. You want to make yourself the bait.’

  ‘Yes.’ It was true enough; the thought had probably shown on his face. ‘But I know how to use a knife.’

  ‘There has to be a better way, my friend. A safer way.’

  ‘How?’

  Jeffrey gave a slow shake of his head. ‘I don’t know that yet.’

  ‘The fair starts very soon. My lord needs this solved by then.’

  ‘I haven’t forgotten. If I could, I’d solve it with a snap of my fingers and put the money in your hand. We’re two men with brains. We have to think…’

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  A shout made them turn. The head of the coroner’s men, holding his scabbard as he tried to run. Red-faced and waving, attempting to draw their attention.

  ‘I’ve been looking all over Chesterfield for you, Master. Your wife didn’t know where you’d gone.’

  ‘What’s happened?’ John asked.

  ‘You saw old Adam out at Whittington, didn’t you?’

  He felt a chill run through his body. Was he dead as well?

  ‘Yes,’ he replied.

  ‘Sir Mark would like you out there as soon as you can. You know where to go?’

  ‘I do.’ He nodded as the man loped away, still panting heavily.

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ Jeffrey said.

  ‘There’s no need,’ John told him. ‘The dead never look handsome.’

  ‘I’ve seen bodies before.’

  They kept a quick pace, even on the sharp rise up to the village. The house lay a little farther away. Its neighbour, where Oswald the forager had lived until he was murdered, already looked neglected and abandoned. Soon this would be exactly the same.

  The coroner was in the garden behind the rough cottage. Whatever Adam had grown had all been harvested and the earth dug over. He was sprawled across the ground, a hoe on the path where it had fallen from his right hand.

  No doubt about what had killed him. The blood from the wound to his neck had soaked into the ground, a wide, dark patch. There’d have been no chance to save him.

  Strong stood close to the body and next to him, a woman John had never seen before. She looked to be close to forty, her face lined and craggy, staring down.

  ‘What do you think, Carpenter?’ Strong asked, and the woman lifted her head. Her eyes were blue; they seemed to pierce his skin, trying to see what lay beneath. Her hair was carefully gathered under her wimple. Not even a strand showed to give away the colour. A homespun, undyed kirtle over her smock. Rough hands with short nails. Except for her gaze, she could be any woman in any village around here.

  ‘You can see it for yourself, Master.’

  ‘This is Dame Eleanor,’ the coroner told him. ‘Adam’s daughter. She came to look in on him. He’d been growing forgetful since his friend’s death and she was worried.’

  ‘Mistress,’ John said with a small bow. ‘You found him like this?’

  ‘Yes.’ Her voice was a tight croak, scarcely able to form the word. ‘Yes.’

  ‘How long ago?’

  She blinked and glanced around, as if the house or the garden or the trees might be able to tell her.

  ‘It must have been near dinner,’ Strong said. ‘She asked someone to come for me. After I took a look at the body I ordered one of my men to find you.’

  Afternoon now. With dinner at ten or eleven in the morning, that seemed right. He squatted and lifted the old man’s arm. The skin felt hard and waxy, the muscles and joints were stiff. He’d been dead for some hours, well before the woman discovered him. It had probably happened early in the morning. It was just luck that Adam had been found at all.

  ‘Mistress,’ John said softly, ‘forgive me. I know it’s difficult, but I need to ask you some questions.’

  She stared at the coroner for a moment, then nodded her agreement.

  ‘Did you come to see him every day?’

  ‘No.’ The harshness remained in her voice. She coughed and it eased. ‘No. It was every two or three days. He said he didn’t want anyone fussing over him, he could look after himself, although it wasn’t true.’

  ‘When were you last here?’

  ‘The day before yesterday.’ She wiped at a tear that had started to trickle from her eye.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mistress,’ John said. ‘I know this must be hard for you. Did your father say anything about seeing any strangers near the house?’

  ‘No, nothing at all. He told me he’d talked to you, but that was a few days ago. Not another soul that he mentioned.’

  ‘You haven’t seen anyone.’

  ‘I live on the far side of the hill, Master.’ She pointed her hand towards the distance. ‘I wouldn’t see anyone around here.’

  John thought for a moment, then glanced at the coroner. Strong nodded, placed a hand on Eleanor’s elbow and gently led her away, speaking softly.

  Good. It gave him time and room to examine everything. So much of the ground had been trampled and churned by the coroner’s men that it wasn’t likely to tell him much. But there might still be one or two hints he could find.

  ‘What can I do?’ Jeffrey asked.

  ‘Take a look in the house. See if there’s anything he could have dug up and put in there. Whatever catches your eye.’

  The garden ended in a tangle of grass and weeds that gave on to woods. John stood, eyes searching. As he saw a path pushed through it all, he smiled to himself. Had the killer arrived that way? Or was that how he’d escaped?

  The trail was easy enough to follow, through the undergrowth and the trees to a clearing. The imprint of horseshoes was still clear in the dirt and the dust. A track passed close by and he began to follow it, until he saw where it joined the road, just below Whittington village.

  At least he’d learned something.

  Jeffrey was waiting in the garden, saying nothing as John checked the body’s hands, especially the fingernails.

&n
bsp; ‘What are you looking for?’

  ‘I’m trying to see if there’s any skin under there. He might have fought with his attacker and scratched him. But there’s only dirt from where he was working.’ He looked up and sighed. ‘What did you find?’

  ‘Some carrots and greens on the table,’ Jeffrey said. ‘They’re fresh. I’d guess that he picked them and came back out to hoe the ground. Look at the rest of the garden, everything’s neat.’

  That was true; he hadn’t even noticed it. Every strip and bed and border perfectly aligned. The few plants still in the ground grew in straight lines. Adam had been a precise man in his gardening.

  ‘His attacker must have been waiting for him when he came back out.’ He explained about the clearing and the track. ‘We need to ask if anyone in the village saw a rider. Any stranger at all.’

  There was one last thing to do. He grimaced as he took hold of the body and rolled it slightly. Where it lay, the ground was damp, the dew on the plants. Elsewhere, it had burned off in the sun. Adam had been killed early.

  The coroner was still with Dame Eleanor. He excused himself to hear what the two men had discovered, nodding his approval.

  ‘You go and ask your questions. One of my men will escort her home. Is there anything else you need here?’

  ‘No, Master.’

  ‘Very good. I’ll be around the village for another hour if you learn anything important.’

  • • •

  The goodwives had more questions than he did. They wanted to know every little detail, something to chew over like gristle. John watched their faces as he spoke, as eager as hungry children being fed sweets.

  But they had little to offer in return. None of them had seen a rider early that morning. One woman believed she might have heard a horse, but that was all.

  ‘It’s quiet here,’ one of the women told him. ‘The only traffic is to Chesterfield, Master. We used to have a few who’d come and buy from Oswald the forager, but he’s dead now.’ She crossed herself.

  He believed them. They’d have noticed any horseman. But it meant that the killer knew the ground all about the village: where to turn off the track, where to leave the horse and find his way through to Adam’s house.

  ‘Who’d have that knowledge?’ he asked Jeffrey as they strode down the hill, heading back towards Chesterfield.

  But they couldn’t find an answer.

  It was the shank of the afternoon, the warmth gathering on the ground. Yet there was a hint of change in the air, that the weather would soon be turning its face to winter.

  ‘What can we do now?’ Jeffrey asked.

  ‘We think. Have you watched anyone play chess?’

  ‘I can play the game. Not well,’ he admitted, ‘but I know how.’

  ‘And how many moves ahead do you look?’

  ‘Not enough,’ Jeffrey said. ‘That’s why I always lose.’

  ‘Someone here keeps thinking five or six moves into the future. I don’t think poor Adam knew more than he’d already told me. But killing him makes certain he can never be a witness in court. And the whole thing was very carefully done. It was planned.’

  Careful, yes, but perhaps not careful enough. Someone had thought of Adam long after the fact, a loose thread to be cut. John ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth.

  ‘Why now?’ he asked.

  ‘Why kill him now, you mean?’ Jeffrey looked at him.

  ‘Yes. It’s been a few days since Oswald was killed and Adam gave his information.’

  ‘Maybe it’s what you said, making sure there’s no one to offer evidence.’

  ‘Maybe that’s all it is.’ But the idea niggled and worried at him.

  • • •

  There was pottage in the pot, warm and filling, with a few scraps of bacon hidden among the beans and the vegetables. Enough to feed Jeffrey, too, who spooned the food into his mouth with thanks as Katherine and the children sat close. He’d interrupted the story he was telling Richard and Juliana to eat, giving a vow that he’d finish once the food was gone.

  He was true to his word. When he put down the bowl and the spoon, he followed them up to the solar, sitting and finishing his tale in a low voice. Martha was already up there, asleep.

  John cleared away the dishes and watched as Katherine scoured and rinsed them clean.

  ‘He needs children of his own.’

  ‘I told you that the other day,’ she reminded him with a gentle smile.

  ‘You did.’ He lifted the back of her wimple and kissed the nape of her neck. ‘He has a sharp mind.’

  ‘Clever, kind, and plenty of money,’ she said. ‘I’m surprised his family never arranged a marriage.’

  ‘There is someone. He told me. But I think he’s in no hurry after losing his wife.’

  Katherine turned her head, eager to hear more.

  ‘That’s all I know.’

  ‘Men! You don’t have any curiosity.’ She paused and stacked the bowls on a shelf. ‘I heard there was another body in Whittington.’

  ‘The old man who lived next door to the forager. The pair of them had been friends for years.’

  ‘How many now?’

  ‘Four. Six if you include the two squires. Too many.’

  ‘Do you know who’s behind it all yet?’

  ‘There’s one small possibility.’ He poured himself a cup of weak ale, took a sip and swirled it in the mug. ‘But I still don’t see how we can prove it.’

  ‘Then what will you do?’

  He sighed. ‘Admit defeat when the fair begins and make plans to sell the house on Saltergate.’

  She dried her hands on a square of rough cloth and he held her close. Defeat. It was an awful word. He’d told her the truth, but until the time it happened, it was better to banish the thought from his mind.

  • • •

  As he stepped out on to Knifesmithgate and closed the door behind him, John was all too aware of time passing. He felt it in his belly, a tightness that gripped at him. A breeze that scattered the falling leaves along the street. Autumn already. A group of children scavenged horse chestnuts, good for food and for playing. He had a faint flash of memory, of his father pushing a needle through one of the nuts and tying a piece of twine. A conker so John could compete against the other boys. A moment and it had gone again, blown away by the breeze.

  As he crossed the marketplace towards West Bar and the coroner’s house, he saw a group on horseback. A man and a woman, plumed like peacocks. She rode side-saddle, her horse walking slowly, pointing out this and that to the man. Behind them, a pair of bored, armed retainers. Swords in their sheaths, bows slung across their back. Hired men, not servants; he’d seen them escorting other people.

  The woman had a hard face, the type who looked as if she gazed at the world and always found it wanting. Glittering eyes and a pinched, sour mouth. Everything neat, good clothes and a wimple of brilliant white to cover her hair. The man with her appeared cowed, as if she always dominated him and he’d given in to it.

  A strange pair. He’d never seen them before, he knew that; they were a couple who would have stuck in his mind.

  ‘Did you see them?’ Strong asked. The rushes in his hall has been replaced; the new ones had handfuls of rosemary, the scent tricking the thoughts back to summer as he crossed the floor.

  ‘Who, Master?’

  ‘Sir Roland and Lady Gwendolyn. They must have ridden past you as you came out here.’

  ‘With two armed men to guard them?’

  The coroner nodded. ‘Arriving like they own the place.’

  ‘Where were they before this?’

  ‘Roland inherited a manor in the White Peak, close to Tideswell. His family made their money from lead mining, but the seam ran out a generation ago. They’ve probably been up there.’

  ‘How far is it from here, Master?’

  Strong pursed his lips and thought. ‘Fifteen miles, maybe a little more. Why?’

  ‘I just wondered.’ Beyond the n
ame, he didn’t know the place. Not too far, a day’s walk for a man, no distance at all on horseback. It was one more thing to consider.

  ‘What brings you here, Carpenter? You don’t look like a man brimming with answers.’

  ‘We asked around Whittington. None of the goodwives noticed any strangers.’

  ‘This man is clever,’ the coroner said with a long, exhausted sigh.

  ‘He knows the area very well. First with Oswald and now this. I don’t know what that means, Master.’

  ‘Nor do I.’ He ran his palms down his cheeks. ‘I was out well into the night. A drowning in the Rother. Nothing to do with this. A child, not even four years old. It’s the kind of thing that breaks your heart.’

  ‘I can imagine.’

  ‘What are you going to do now?’

  ‘Talk to Jeffrey.’ It was a sudden decision. He didn’t even know what good it might do. But he had nothing. Together, they might come up with some plan that didn’t involve one of them as bait.

  ‘I’m glad you find him helpful.’ Strong smiled. ‘He’d be a success if he ever wanted to settle to anything. He’ll start something, last a few months and go on to something else. It’s no way to make a life. But the family is wealthy, he doesn’t need to work at all.’

  No need to work, John chuckled to himself as he left. He couldn’t imagine himself in a position like that. A man defined himself by his work. It was how people knew him. He was John the Carpenter. He loved what he did. Even as he thought that, his hands began to itch, missing the feel of wood under his palms.

  Today Alan should finish fitting the glazed windows. He needed to make time later to go and inspect the work then make sure the householder paid in full.

  He found Jeffrey at the Guildhall, nodding and smiling as he talked to Gilbert the lawyer. He’d come back from London to take over his father’s practice two years before, then watched the old man go into a swift decline and die. A lucrative business, perhaps, but one where words and truth seemed to end up in a tangle across the courtroom and nobody grew rich beyond the attorneys.

  Jeffrey spotted John, said a few quick words to Gilbert and came hurrying across the room.

  ‘I was about to go searching for you. Come with me, we’ll walk out to Whittington.’