The King’s Justice

by E. M. Powell

  The door swung open.

  A furious middle-aged woman, her sleeves rolled high on her arms, sweat coating her badly pockmarked face, glared at him. ‘What is it?’ She saw who it was and checked herself. Barely. ‘Sir?’

  Behind her, writhing on a straw bed, slumped a half-naked woman, huge belly quivering as she let out a scream as if from hell itself. ‘Oh, God release me from this. Now!’

  ‘Nothing.’ Stanton backed away, his face hot. ‘My mistake. Sorry.’

  ‘Sir.’ The midwife slammed the door in his face without waiting for an answer.

  Stanton let out a long breath even as another shriek rose again from behind him. His foolishness would be all over the village by this evening, he’d no doubt of that. Another mistake to add to Barling’s long list. He looked at the remaining cottages, tempted to turn his back on them and go and sit in Edgar’s stables for the rest of the day with his beloved horse Morel. He might as well for all the good he was doing. At least Morel wouldn’t laugh at him. But if Barling found him in there, it wouldn’t be laughing he’d have to worry about.

  Stanton squared his shoulders and went on to the next couple of doors. Still nothing.

  Morel and the stables beckoned again.

  He came to the last home, one set back from the road, with a separate sizeable, windowless building in its tidy grounds. As he walked up to the door, he heard clacking and soft thumping sounds from inside. They stopped at his sharp knock.

  The door opened, to another woman of a similar age to the midwife. A drawn, sour face sat under a tight coif, from which not a single hair dared to escape. ‘God save you.’ Her voice matched her look.

  ‘Good morrow, mistress.’ He produced the smile he knew brought a flush to the cheeks of older women.

  Not this woman.

  ‘And you.’ Her face didn’t change.

  Behind her, a man of her age sat behind a large loom, hunched over the half-woven cloth stretched before him. ‘Who is it, Margaret?’ His hands continued their steady work, the loom making a soft thump as it tightened the cloth.

  Stanton raised his voice. ‘It’s Hugo Stanton. The King’s man.’

  ‘And what can we do for the King’s man?’ The man carried on with his work.

  His wife folded her arms in a way that didn’t suggest help, either.

  ‘I wanted to ask you some questions,’ said Stanton. ‘About the murder of Geoffrey Smith.’ He made his tone as firm as he could. ‘And I’ll need to have your name.’

  The thump of the loom stopped. ‘It’s Peter Webb, sir.’ The weaver rose from his loom with a stretch – as much as his stooped shoulders would allow – and exchanged a glance with his wife.

  Her arms went tighter – her lips too.

  Webb came to her side. His unsmiling look could be a mirror of hers. ‘And this is my wife, Margaret.’ No invitation to cross their threshold. ‘You have questions, we’ll answer them.’

  ‘Did you see anything the night Geoffrey Smith was murdered?’

  Both Webbs shook their heads as one.

  ‘Sir Reginald asked the same question of us,’ said Peter. ‘Over and over. Our answer is the same to you, sir. We saw nothing.’

  ‘Nothing at all?’

  ‘It happened late at night,’ said Webb. ‘We’d been up working since the dawn, as we are every single day. First we knew was Agnes Smith’s screams.’

  ‘A different sort to usual, mind.’ Margaret sniffed.

  ‘Do you mean like when she was calling for Lindley to hang, mistress?’ asked Stanton.

  ‘No. I mean like when she’s out with her latest man.’ She shuddered. ‘Worse than cats mating.’

  ‘I see,’ said Stanton. Though he didn’t. That the obese thatcher Theaker could bring his betrothed to screaming ecstasy came as a surprise.

  Webb gave a dour nod. ‘A brazen, lustful girl. One that refused to contain her appetites. Geoffrey Smith would despair of her to me.’

  Stanton didn’t comment. Lindley had said he’d heard an argument between Agnes and her father. The outlaw must have spoken the truth about that.

  ‘May God keep poor Geoffrey’s soul,’ said Margaret.

  Another nod from Peter. ‘I ran to help when the hue and cry was raised. It was a terrible sight in that forge, I can tell you.’ His grey eyes met Stanton’s. ‘If you’d seen what I’d seen, you wouldn’t think twice about stringing Lindley up. Believe you me.’

  Stanton couldn’t imagine and didn’t want to. Without Smith’s ruined body, the scene was bad enough. With it, it would’ve been horrific.

  ‘Margaret!’ A call came from up the street.

  Stanton looked around. It was the midwife from earlier, looking worried.

  She went on. ‘I fear that the baby’s turned. Can you come and help?’

  ‘May I, Peter?’ Margaret asked her husband.

  ‘Have you finished with us, sir?’ said Webb to Stanton.

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ said Stanton.

  ‘Then you must do your duty to our neighbours, Margaret,’ said Webb. ‘Go and help Midwife Folkes.’

  ‘Give me a few moments, Hilda,’ called Margaret.

  The midwife waved and hurried back to her charge as Margaret set about grabbing a shawl and putting clean linen into a basket.

  ‘But I need to speak to others,’ said Stanton. ‘It’s very quiet here in the village. Has everyone gone to the fields?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Webb. ‘They’re all about their work, as all honest folk are. You’ll have to go to the quarry too.’ He pointed past Stanton’s shoulder. ‘It’s over yon.’

  ‘Excuse me.’ Margaret stepped out past Stanton, then paused. ‘Remember this: when you do find Agnes Smith, your questions won’t get good answers. Like all whores, lies trip from her sinful tongue.’ She didn’t wait for a reply but started up the street.

  ‘If you’ll excuse me as well, sir.’ Webb gestured to his loom. ‘I’m behind in my work as it is.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Stanton. ‘Good day to you.’

  ‘And you, sir.’ Webb shut the door as he spoke.

  Above the lintel, a bird flew from the damaged thatch, startled by the noise.

  Stanton wondered if Lindley had secretly climbed this thatch, as he had the Smiths’, in his search for nests with eggs. If Lindley had, Stanton suspected he wouldn’t have heard arguments.

  Along the street, Margaret Webb had almost reached the cottage where the birth was taking place, her spotless white coif gleaming in the sun above her rigid shoulders, small clouds of dust puffing up from every one of her steps as she marched along. From inside came the regular clack and thump of Webb at his loom.

  Both Webbs were united in their hard work and their hard virtue.

  Just as they were united in their desire to hang Nicholas Lindley.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Stanton made his way along a deserted track that led back to the village from the farthest fields, the high bushes catching the heat of the afternoon sun but allowing little of the breeze to find its way down here. He shook his leather water bottle. Almost empty, curse it. He should have used Morel today, not done it all on foot. He’d had no idea that Sir Reginald Edgar’s lands stretched so far.

  True, the lord had boasted about them to Barling on the slow, dull ride to Claresham, but Stanton hadn’t believed a word by then. Edgar’s long, long list of his own achievements had overtaken even the King’s, and still the lord had yammered on.

  Had Stanton been a gambler like his fellow court messenger Nesbitt, he would have put money down that the bumbling bully Edgar’s land claims were false.

  Just as well Stanton didn’t like a bet. Well, not much. He palmed the sweat from his face.

  So many miles he’d walked today, for so many hours, asking the same questions over and over. Barling had said his, Stanton’s, questions wouldn’t matter. The clerk had been right.

  Do you know anything about the murder of Geoffrey Smith? Did you see Nicholas Lindley that night? Di
d you see anything?

  Asked first of the lone man working in the small quarry.

  ‘No.’ The stone hewer, a man who went by the name of Thomas Dene, with heavy muscles and sharp, handsome features that looked carved from stone too. ‘No.’ His answers were matched with a powerful strike of hammer on chisel, splitting a stone more easily than Stanton could split wood. ‘No.’

  Dust and powder filled the air, making Stanton’s eyes sting and his lips and mouth dry. ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Sure.’ Another hard strike.

  ‘Did you hear anything that night?’ The Webbs might have been long tucked up in bed. Maybe this man had still been awake.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Not even Agnes’s screams?’ Stanton frowned. ‘Other folk in the village say she woke them up.’

  ‘Don’t live in the village.’ Dene straightened up from his work, his full height a head and a half above Stanton. He raised a forearm to wipe his face, smearing the stone powder coating it. ‘Not from here. I’m from the town of Hartleton, over thirty miles away. This is where I lay my head for now.’ He nodded to a neat hut nearby made from rough-hewn planks. A circle of rocks next to it held the smoking remains of a fire, above which a metal pot swung from a tripod. ‘I’m only here for a few weeks. The rector wants new stone for his church floor and that’s almost finished. Wants a new mantel carved in his hall as well. Once that’s done I’m off.’ He bent to his work again. ‘Shame what happened to that man Smith.’ A blow that opened the stone as if it were pages of a Bible. ‘But I didn’t know him.’

  Nothing from the quarry. Then nothing from the fields, either.

  The many, many fields. Many faces and voices: young, old, men, women. A number, like the young ploughman driving the pair of plodding oxen, he recognised from the angry crowds in the village. Almost all, to his huge relief, were polite, even friendly. He got a couple of unexpected smiles.

  The one exception was the ploughman Simon Caldbeck, the one who’d contained Agnes as she railed in the street. The man didn’t even halt as he followed his lumbering ox across the fallow field, his wiry strength making the guiding of his animal and the control of the heavy plough look easy. His pointed features reminded Stanton of a watchful weasel as he gave his surly replies.

  ‘No, I don’t know what’s going on here. And I don’t care. I’m working to buy my release from this place.’ He spat hard into the furrow next to him. ‘The life of a poor villein is no life. Spending my life and my strength working Edgar’s fields and putting food in the barn of that nephew of his. Soon as I get my chance, I’m off to a town. Have a real life.’

  Stanton didn’t respond. Though he wasn’t here to hear Caldbeck’s resentments, he could at least understand them. Stanton too was in the service of a man he despised. Instead, he asked about Geoffrey Smith. ‘Did you hear or see anything the night he was killed?’

  ‘Nothing at all. It was a pity about Geoffrey Smith all right. But I was no friend of his. And we all have to leave this life sometime, don’t we?’

  Yes, Caldbeck’s remarks had been unusual but still boiled down to the same thing. No matter how it was said or who said it, the answers were still the same: No. No. No.

  Stanton opened his water bottle, tipped his head back to get the last warm mouthful.

  ‘Thirsty work, asking questions, is it?’

  He looked round at the sound of the loud voice. Agnes Smith’s voice.

  She walked behind him on the sheltered path, long skirt moving with her strong stride. He didn’t know how long she’d been there: the grassy path made her boots as silent as it did his.

  ‘You could say that,’ he said.

  ‘I just did. Hugo.’

  No ‘sir’ from her. He didn’t expect it. ‘You did.’ He waited for her to catch him up.

  ‘And did you get your answers? The ones that told you Nicholas Lindley was pure as snow?’ Her face was flushed from the sun, and her linen shift hung open at the neck, showing smooth, white skin that he knew would taste sweet and warm.

  Same as the skin on his beloved Rosamund’s throat had the last time they’d lain together.

  Stanton pushed the memory aside. And he wouldn’t respond to Agnes’s goad. ‘I got answers.’

  She walked beside him on the path now but didn’t slow down, so he had to match her long stride. Her long hair fell without its usual springy curls and he could see that it was soaking wet. ‘But not the ones you wanted. Good. I’ll be right in front of Lindley when he’s in the noose, watching until he takes his last cursed breath.’

  As she turned to him with a humourless smile of triumph, her shift gaped more, and he glimpsed the swell of a breast. She saw his glance but made no move to close her clothing.

  ‘Like what you see, do you?’ she said.

  His body did, his flesh surging hard and unbidden. He held her gaze now. He had to. ‘You’re promised to another, Agnes.’

  ‘Promised with all my heart to another.’ She gave an odd little sigh as she pulled her clothing to again. ‘The man who killed my father is going to hang, isn’t he? You can tell me.’

  ‘I can tell you nothing. My enquiries are for mine and Barling’s ears. Nobody else.’

  ‘That fussy little clerk?’ Agnes rolled her eyes. ‘All robes and rolls and show. His mouth reminds me of my cat’s rear end.’

  Stanton tried to hold in his laugh. Couldn’t. Her picture of Barling was too good. ‘You can’t say that about the King’s clerk.’ He shook his head. ‘I’ve heard you were brazen. That’s one correct answer I got.’

  ‘Oh?’ Her dark brows arched and her full lips pursed. ‘Who says that about me, Hugo?’

  ‘Never you mind.’ She’d already wormed something out of him. He couldn’t let her do it again.

  ‘It was Margaret Webb, wasn’t it?’

  ‘No.’ A relief to give this girl a truthful answer, though she’d come very close. Peter Webb had been the one to claim she was brazen.

  ‘I know it was.’ Agnes tossed her damp hair. ‘The sour-faced old witch. She called me brazen the other day for wearing my hair loose. Calls me a whore too. All the time. She hates me for being young and not a dried-up husk like her. Suits me. I despise her and her nasty tongue.’

  Stanton opened his water bottle again. Nothing left. He stuck it back in his belt.

  ‘Looks like you’re a dry one now as well, Hugo.’

  He wouldn’t bite. ‘Have you got any water? I’m plagued with thirst.’

  She shook her head. ‘No. But there’s the reed pond down this way. You can’t drink from it, but you could use the water to cool off.’

  ‘I should get back. Barling will be waiting for me.’

  ‘Oh, not him again. Come on, Hugo. It’ll only take a few minutes.’ She ran her hand through her hair. ‘I’ve been bathing. You’ll feel much better if you can wet your face, if nothing else.’

  ‘Show me, then.’

  He followed her down the side path, even more overgrown than the one they’d been on.

  Under his feet the path got boggier, despite the heat, and buzzing, whining flies thickened the air.

  Ahead, he glimpsed the dull gleam of the still pond through thick leaves. A wide area to the right of the path had been cleared, with cut reeds tied in tight bundles and neatly stacked to dry out in the sun until they were ready for thatching.

  ‘There you are.’ Agnes held a hand out as she reached the edge of the pond. ‘It’s muddy. But it’s cool and wet.’

  Stanton didn’t need telling twice. He knelt down at the pond edge, scooped water over his face and head. ‘That’s better.’ He straightened up.

  ‘Hugo.’ Agnes’s voice dropped. Not brazen now. At all. ‘What’s that?’

  He stood up, following the pointing of her shaking finger. At the next curve of the pond, half-buried in the tall weeds, was what looked like a large man. Lying down. But face down. Arms and hands down. In the water.

  ‘God’s eyes.’ Stanton set off at a run, Agnes b
ehind him, a stupid idea in his head that he could save this fellow. But he knew, he already knew, from the stillness, the position, that this man was dead. Still, he had to try.

  He dropped next to the body, breathing hard. The huge body. The obese body. He knew who it was. He looked up at Agnes.

  She knew too. She stood there, eyes fixed on the corpse of her betrothed. Her hands went to her mouth.

  ‘Bartholomew,’ she whispered. ‘No.’

  ‘Wait, Agnes, wait.’ A miracle, maybe a miracle. Stanton put his hands to the clothing that strained against the fat shoulders of Bartholomew Theaker and hauled. No good. He couldn’t budge him. Not only was Theaker huge but his limbs had stiffened. He tugged at one shoulder instead, pulled, pushed, to turn the man’s head over, to get his face out of the water.

  Agnes hunkered down beside him. ‘Get him out. For God’s sake, get him out.’

  Together they tugged, pulled.

  And Theaker’s body rolled, his face and one of his rigid arms out to the air.

  ‘Saints protect us.’ Stanton staggered back to his feet as Agnes sat down hard on the boggy ground.

  Theaker’s face might be out. But it was the face of one dead many hours, hours in which the blood had pooled into it as he lay head first in the water, his flabby rolls of skin now an obscene dark purple in colour.

  ‘Oh, Bartholomew.’ Agnes’s lips had turned white in shock. ‘To drown alone like this? If only you’d had somebody with you.’

  Stanton steadied his breathing and bent to put a hand to her shoulder. ‘Agnes, I’m so sorry. We can’t help Theaker now, but we need to move him.’ Stanton helped her to her feet. ‘And we can’t do it by ourselves. We need to fetch others.’

  ‘You go. I’ll stay with him.’ Her voice was calm and her eyes held no tears.

  Her reaction disturbed him. A short while ago, she had been proclaiming such love for the man she was promised to. ‘I don’t think that’s wise.’

  ‘You can think what you like.’ She folded her arms. ‘I’m staying. There’s nothing for me to fear here.’

  Stanton glanced down, looked away again, ashamed of his own revulsion. ‘Then I’ll be as quick as I can.’