[Sir Richard Straccan 01] - The Bone-Pedlar

by Sylvian Hamilton

  ‘What?’ said Straccan, startled. He shivered slightly; it was damp and very cold in the hall.

  ‘They dug him up,’ said the reeve patiently. ‘They dug him up, they carted him back up there, and they dumped him by the stone, right where he’d been in the first place.’

  ‘Who did?’

  ‘Oh, the villagers, the buggers. I don’t know who, I don’t know which actual ones, but I know and they know and Sir Guy knows, and Father Osric, we all know! They think it was demons killed him, so they won’t let him lie in earth anywhere at all.’

  ‘What did you do then?’

  ‘Father Osric tried to make them see reason. He preached to them out in the churchyard and they listened like sheep, and then sexton took and buried him again. And the very next morning, there he was, gone.’

  ‘Back at the crossroads?’

  ‘Yes. And none the sweeter.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Sir Guy ordered a party to take what was left into the forest and bury it somewhere. Father Osric said that wasn’t right, but Sir Guy said he’d had enough, and he didn’t want to hear any more about it, ever’

  The smith was more than willing to give his waiting customer the creeps while he dealt with the grey horse’s shoe. With a dreadful relish, he described the corpse, the mutiliations in detail, and speculated righteously on the probable sinful causes of the stranger’s ghastly end.

  ‘I elped carry im down to the stable,’ he said. ‘All the bits. It was orrible. I seen dead men a-plenty, but never such a mess as that.’

  ‘I suppose you have trouble with wolves every year, so near to the forest,’ said Bane.

  ‘Wolves? Well, now and then, if winter’s ard. Then the lord sends is unters out. Goes imself sometimes, if e feels like it. Five shillin fer a wolf, you know, that’s what the king pays! Five ole shillin! But that wasn’t wolves. I seen what they do. I seen what they leave of sheep, and once when I was a boy they got an old woman. What they do ain’t the same. There’s demons in the forest!’ He looked hard at Bane to see if he was convinced. Bane looked suitably concerned. He paid the smith and went and sat on a bench outside the alehouse to wait for Straccan.

  Chapter 12

  ‘Any one of them could have taken the relic,’ Straccan said, trying to ignore the buzzing in his ears and the tiptoeing approaches of a headache. ‘The forester, the reeve, Father Osric, Sir Guy—but not his son—Sir Roger apparently didn’t even see the corpse. The reeve seems unlikely, too squeamish by half, and the only thing that bothered Sir Guy was that they would be late for the wedding. Father Osric seems too much a drunken sot for any sort of enterprise. Which leaves—’

  ‘The forester,’ said Bane with his mouth full of dinner.

  ‘Aye, the forester. So where do we find him?’

  They found him at home, at his ease and with his feet up, peacefully sewing rabbit-skins together to make a winter vest. His neat sturdy well-thatched hut was tucked away in a clearing just off one of the main forest paths. The door stood open and some hens scratched and crooned just outside where a scattering of crumbs and scraps had been thrown for them. The man looked up at their approach but did not move as Straccan dismounted giving his reins to Bane. As he did so he felt a spasm of nausea and the headache began to tread more heavily. Not now, God, please, he muttered, and aloud said, ‘Good day,’ through the open door. ‘Sir.’ The man laid his needlework down, one hand coming to rest negligently on the hilt of the businesslike knife at his belt. His face was as brown and seamed as bark, with a great dark ugly scar on the right cheek. His rolled-up sleeves showed arms welted with scars. An old soldier.

  ‘I am Sir Richard Straccan,’ said the knight, at which the man stood up—he knew his manners—but kept a hand on his hilt, for he knew his way around as well.

  ‘What can I do for you, Sir?’

  Straccan’s headache was getting hard to ignore, and the sunlight was too bright for comfort. ‘I need information,’ he said. ‘I’ll pay for it.’

  ‘Folks usually do, Sir,’ said the man easily. ‘A time-honoured custom. Won’t you come inside?’ He hooked a stool forward with one foot, and waited until Straccan sat before himself sitting down.

  ‘There was a man killed here a while ago. You found his body. At the crossroads.’

  ‘Oh, that. Friend of yours?’

  ‘No. Tell me how you came to find him.’

  ‘I was patrolling that way. I do random night patrols, so they never know where I might pop up. When I got to the crossroads, there he was.’

  ‘Did you hear or see anything else? Wolves? Men?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How did the body lie? All in a heap or scattered?’

  ‘In a heap.’

  ‘Did you touch it? Move it at all?’

  ‘I kicked over the bit his head was attached to. To see who it was.’

  ‘Did you know him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What about the clothes?’

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘He was dressed, not naked?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What had he on?’

  ‘One boot—there was only one foot, we never found the other his leggings, tunic. All torn. Nothing worth the saving.’

  ‘Nothing else at all? Not even a saint’s medal round his neck?’ Straccan had to force his mind to think, his tongue to utter. He was feeling very ill now; there was no doubt his crusader’s legacy, the ague—Saladin’s Revenge, they called it—had chosen today to lay him low.

  ‘No.’

  ‘No jerkin? No belt?’

  ‘No.’ The man half-turned to swing his stewpot off the fire and set it in the hearth. Turning back, he looked hard at Straccan. ‘You look sick, Sir. Shall I call your servant?’

  ‘Did you find anything on him, man? I’m not here to inform on you. I’ve nothing to do with the king, or his justices, or the law.’

  ‘What might it be you’re looking for, Sir?’

  ‘He stole something from me. It might have been round his neck. A little metal case about this big.’ He showed a gap of two inches or so between finger and thumb and saw the uneasy shift of the forester’s eyes.

  ‘He had nothing round his neck. God smite me else,’ said the man.

  Straccan sighed and put both hands to his pounding head. He felt very cold and clenched his teeth to keep them from chattering.

  ‘You might find it,’ he said. ‘Perhaps it was dropped, and lost in the forest. If you should find it, I will be generous.’

  ‘I’m sure you would, Sir, if I found it. How generous, might I ask? I’m perfectly willing to look for it as I make my patrols, you know, if it’s worth my while.’

  ‘A gold piece,’ said Straccan, pulling one of Master Gregory’s nasty little coins from his purse and slapping it on the table. The forester stared at it and paled under his tan. ‘You’ve seen that stuff before, haven’t you?’ said Straccan. ‘You’ve seen these queer coins; he had them in his belt, didn’t he? I know he did, and you took ‘em. Bane!’

  Bane was off his horse and through the doorway as if by magic, with his sword’s point at the forester’s throat. ‘Take that knife off your belt. Drop it. Kick it out the door!’ The man hesitated, Bane jabbed slightly, and the knife skidded over the door sill scattering the hens outside.

  Straccan was holding on to the sides of his stool with both hands. ‘He knows where it is,’ he said hoarsely. ‘He had Pluvis’s belt.’

  As Bane stepped forward the forester stepped back, and back until he was against his hearth, and still Bane pressed forward. With a yelp the man fell backwards and for a moment sat in his own fire. He rolled screeching away from it, making a desperate grab at the hot stewpot—to throw—but Bane’s foot sent it flying, stew everywhere, and the forester lay in the corner, swearing dreadfully.

  As Bane raised his sword, the man cried, ‘Yes! I took his belt! There were two gold pieces in it, just like that one!’

  Straccan scooped his coin o
ff the table and flung it into the corner. ‘Now you’ve got three. You’ve been well paid so what about my thing?’

  ‘I never saw it!’

  ‘He’s lying,’ said Bane with an evil grin. ‘Let’s have a look at his lights. There’s truth in entrails, they say.’

  ‘No, don’t!’ The forester scrambled back against the wall and sat up in his corner. ‘Yes, all right, I had it! It was some sort of relic a bone, a bit of finger, nothing else—and a common little latten case, not even silver. Just a fake. I threw it away.’

  Straccan said earnestly and with effort, ‘I swear by God and his most Blessed Mother, we mean you no harm. Just tell me where it is …’ and pitched forward off his stool into a whirling fog of pain and cruel cold.

  Chapter 13

  First the shivering. Blue to the lips, blue to the fingernails, toenails; rigor after rigor. Hot stones, well wrapped, packed all around him, light soft warm coverings, these made no difference, the cold phase took its relentless course. There was a woman. She tended him with extreme gentleness; he was aware of her, a shapeless figure in grey homespun, a dark shadow moving between him and the light. There was the clean fragrance of herbs, the sharp smell of a bitter drink forced between his chattering teeth.

  Then the hot phase. She wiped his face with cold damp cloths that smelled of rosemary; his skin was uncomfortably hot to her touch, dry, burning as the fever soared.

  He was burning. He could see and feel the desert sun, the pitiless sun of Palestine, a vast white-hot glowing disc that filled the sky and boiled the blood in his veins. They had got him, the infidel dogs, staked him out for the sun to fry his brains, while somewhere behind him, out of sight, they watched and laughed. Or was he already dead, scorching in hell? His clothes were on fire, he could see them shrivelling and browning, then blackening, with wisps of smoke … He struggled to break free, but there were chains, red-hot chains holding him down. His world shrank to a tiny inferno. He called for Bane, for Marion his wife, and for his daughter. Something had happened to Gilla; she was lost; he must find her, he must escape from hell and find her …

  The sweating stage broke suddenly and violently. It seemed impossible that so much water could come from a human body, and keep coming, pouring from him, drenching the straw mattress beneath him, sour and acrid. He heard voices—he tried to open his eyes, but the leaden lids would not lift—Bane’s voice and another man’s. Strong hands lifted him, laid him on a fresh straw pallet while the saturated one was taken away. The smell of herbs again, and savoury cooking smells. Devils had ceased using his head as an anvil. Cool hands raised his head, holding a cup against his lips, a hard cold pressure, the same bitter taste.

  ‘Marion?’ he said.

  ‘Hush now.’

  ‘Gilla! I must find her—’

  ‘Don’t talk. Just sip. You’ll be better soon.’

  He was as weak as a new lamb, no, weaker, for they struggle to their feet, and he was barely able to raise his head or move his hands. Conscious at last, fully awake, he was aware that a curtain hung between his bed and the rest of the room, and that firelight showed through a small rent. Now and again a woman moved between the light and the curtain, casting her shadow on it. Hands raised to her head, she shook loose the plaits which tumbled down over her shoulders; unwinding them, combing with quick strokes before re-braiding and tying their ends. She unfastened her girdle and reached up to hang it on the wall. Then, still in her gown, she moved out of his sight. He heard the rustle of her mattress and the creak of a box bed.

  He opened his mouth to speak, to ask who she was, where he was, how came he there; but while he was thinking about it he fell asleep, and once again he rode the nightmare: another evil violent dream. They had troubled his nights for weeks now, leaving him weary and sickened on waking; their ugly memories swimming up in his mind during the days, so that he had begun to dread sleep.

  When he woke in the morning the curtain was drawn back and tied against the wall. The door was open, letting sunlight stream in. No one was there, but on the table a cream-coloured kitten sat washing itself. Straccan began to sit up but a wave of diziness made him pause, resting back on his elbows until his head cleared. He heard Bane’s voice outside, and a moment later his servant I came in, carrying a leather bucket full of water. Seeing Straccan, he smiled. ‘She said you’d be better today.’

  ‘Who did? What’s this place?’

  ‘It’s Mistress Janiva’s house.’

  ‘Janiva? Is that the woman who’s been looking after me?’

  ‘Aye. That Tostig, the forester—you remember? Him and me brought you here when you passed out. He said she’d put you right. I told him if she didn’t I’d cut his throat and throw his liver to his hens.’

  ‘That must have made him very helpful.’

  ‘Yes, well, he was all right once he knew we really weren’t friends of Pluvis, or spies for the Justices. That Pluvis was even nastier than we thought, and it wasn’t wolves killed him.’

  ‘Nor demons,’ said Tostig, coming in with a huge bundle of dead branches and sticks, which he dumped noisily by the fireside and clumped out again.

  ‘Nor demons,’ Bane agreed. ‘It was the men of the village. Cunning bunch of buggers! Never does to underestimate us common folk. Seems Pluvis made away with one of their little uns, a girl, five or six years old.’

  The nails of Straccan’s clenched fists cut into his palms as a cold horror struck through him. Bane went on, ‘Cecily, her name was. The other children said he’d been talking to her, gave her a ribbon. He walked away and left them, but presently she was gone. So they reckoned it was him.’

  Straccan found he was shaking and lay back again to let the weakness pass. Cecily, he thought. Five or six years old. Please, God, Lord of Pity, no! Not Gilla!

  ‘They got in at his window,’ Bane said, ‘when he was asleep, and half-throttled him. Gagged him, tied him up, dragged him out, and packed him on the priest’s mule. Osric was dead to the world, that was one thing they could count on, he wouldn’t hear anything. Somewhere in the forest they’d taken their oxen, four oxen. When they got him there, they threatened to castrate him unless he confessed. So he sang. Like a linnet. Told them he’d flung her in the river. They found her a few days later, eight miles downriver at Cubberswick. He told them a mark she had, a little red mark on her belly. That was true. Offered them gold! So they put away the knife and he perked up, reckoned they were going to spare him, started to grin and say now they were seeing sense. He hadn’t realised what the oxen were for.’

  Bane’s voice went on, soft, almost a monotone. They had tied him, arms and legs, each limb to an ox. When he began to scream, someone shoved a wad of sheep’s wool down his throat. He struggled, jerking and plunging madly, his face blackening, and the noises he made behind the gag were dreadful. They drove the oxen forward. The beasts took a few steps and the ropes pulled taut; they hesitated but their drivers coaxed them on. There was a sound, not very loud, like wet sticks breaking. The great placid beasts lurched, steadied and stopped.

  ‘How did Tostig come into it?’ Straccan asked.

  ‘He was patrolling. He came on them as they were dumping the bits at the crossroads. They told him the story. He agreed to keep his trap shut, for a consideration.’

  ‘The money belt.’

  ‘Right. And the relic was in it as well.’

  Straccan was silent. The only sounds were the crackling of the fire and outside the soft patterings of a sudden squall. He drew a deep breath, pushing away with great effort the ugly remains of last night’s dreaming.

  ‘They’ve got away with it, too,’ he said, groping for the solidity of here and now. ‘No one will ever talk and no single man is a murderer: they didn’t kill him, the animals did. God’s Mother! If anyone guessed!. All the men of the village would hang, the manor would be fined out of existence, the beasts forfeit that brought about a man’s death. Sir Guy would have a sticky time of it too, when the Justices got hold of him. The who
le thing is his responsibility, ignorant or not. So no one will ever let this cat out of the bag!’

  Bane agreed. ‘Tostig won’t, because he pinched the money belt. And the lord doesn’t want to know: all he wanted was to sweep the whole affair under the mat and get on with the wedding. The village will hold together as solid as rock. And as far as the manor records show, one village infant was drowned in the river and one stranger, passing through, was killed by wolves.’

  ‘What about Pluvis’s men?’

  ‘Sir Guy let em go. They asked the quickest way to Altarwell.’

  ‘Where’s the relic?’

  ‘Tostig did think it was a fake. Well, it doesn’t look like much, does it, in that cheap little case? He gave it to Mistress Janiva, thought she might have some use for it.’

  ‘Who is she?’

  ‘I think she’s some sort of wisewoman,’ Bane said. The fact obviously disconcerted him; he looked and sounded astonished.

  ‘She lives here alone?’ Straccan was no less surprised.

  ‘She’s looked after,’ Bane said. ‘Someone from the village comes morning and evening to see what she needs. They think a lot of her. She looks after them when they’re sick. And Tostig, he comes by every day, brings her rabbits and wood, and stuff. He thinks the world of her. No—’ seeing Straccan’s questioning eyebrow—‘nothing like that! He’s got a woman of his own in the next village. But a year or so back, he got in the way of a boar you saw the hole in his face? He says he was near dead when his woman fetched Mistress Janiva. She healed him.’

  ‘God healed him,’ said the woman coming in just then. ‘I nursed him.’

  Bane jumped up and bowed. Straccan said, ‘As you have nursed me. I thank you, Mistress. How can I repay you?’

  ‘I need no payment, Sir. You’ll be abed today, and still weak on the morrow. But perhaps while you remain here you may do me some service, if you will.’

  ‘Gladly.’

  He was staring. He had expected her to be old. She was less than twenty. Her face was oval, lightly tanned, slightly freckled, the skin very clear and smooth as an egg. Reddish-brown hair in two plaits wound with green wool. Brown deer-lashed eyes, neat eyebrows. Tall, and under the baggy grey wadmal gown, slim and long-legged. Her tanned hands, marked with many little scratches, were clean and cool on his forehead. Her presence somehow was as refreshing as spring water. ‘No more fever,’ she said. ‘Did you sleep well?’