The Wayward Apprentice (A Stephen Attebrook mystery Book 1)

by Jason Vail

  Peter’s head snapped around. “Coming!” He said swiftly to Amicia, “I’ll see you again tonight. I’ll get away after dark.”

  “Oh, I shall count the hours!”

  Peter hurried through the church doors after Baynard.

  Amicia turned to Stephen. “Well, sir, shall we go in, or have you put down roots?”

  There was nothing you could say to a woman in a mood like this, so Stephen just followed her into church.

  Despite all the troubles and distractions, thoughts of Patrick the carter were never far from Stephen’s mind. He had mulled the man’s seemingly pointless death on the ride to Gloucester and on the return, had reviewed all the evidence in his mind, and had only the conclusion to nourish him that Johanna the brewer must know more than she was willing to tell. How to make her part with what she might know was a challenge for which he had no solution. Some men were clever at such things, but Stephen was not and he knew it.

  He thought about these things again when he went out to the stables after dinner. He passed Harry, who was sunning himself by the woodpile, whittling on a stick.

  “Don’t go there,” Harry said quietly without looking up from his whittling. At the corner, one had the choice of proceeding left to the latrine, or right to the stables.

  Stephen paused. He saw Harry had fashioned a rather clever little figure of a man at the end of the stick. The figure was holding his mouth with both hands and had a look on his face as if he had seen something ghastly.

  When Stephen didn’t promptly answer, Harry said, “I’ve dug a little hole round behind the stable. I don’t mind sharing.”

  “It would look odd, don’t you think?”

  “Don’t seem right. It’s bad enough we had to put him in the pit.”

  “Are you having an attack of conscience, Harry?”

  “I got no conscience.”

  “Good, because neither have I.” Stephen stepped around Harry and continued to the stable door, where he paused again. “Harry,” he called over the woodpile.

  “What? Have you no eyes, man? Can’t you see I’m busy?”

  “What do you know about Johanna, that brew mistress in Ludford?”

  “Not too much. I don’t get over to Ludford often, you know, owing to my situation.”

  “Well, you must meet Ludford folks coming in Broad Gate.”

  “Oh, sure, and they love to stop and gossip with me.”

  “Well, keep an ear open about her just the same, will you?”

  “Oh, yeah, I sure will.” Harry’s voice took on a high sing-song: “Oh, say, Mark, my boy, you remember that carter fellow what got killed at Johanna’s place over to Ludford way, don’t you? Right, heard he was sweet on her. Could she have taken another lover, then, you think — that’s it, a jealous lad, who didn’t take kindly to Patrick’s attentions. Don’t say. Think he slipped a knife in the boy’s ribs, then? Ah, I bet she’s covering up for him then, eh?”

  “Harry, you’ll have my place before long,” Stephen said.

  “And no doubt do a better job than you.”

  Stephen turned the mare into Broad Street. It was a warm Sunday afternoon, and Broad, like High Street a location for fashionable houses, had more than its share of strollers about seeing and being seen and getting in the way of a rider who wanted to go somewhere without interruption. One large crowd had gathered before the gate where the ground was level to watch a dozen boys playing football. Stephen had to maneuver the mare around the edges of the crowd to reach the gate, which stood open and unguarded.

  Beyond the gate the houses were smaller and more modest. Working people lived here, weavers and dyers, mostly. At St. John’s Hospital a friar sweeping the stoop glowered at him. Stephen waved at the friar, who made no reply and bent over his broom. Even though it was Sunday, it seemed there was no rest for the mendicant.

  The horse mounted the bridge at a slow walk, horseshoes clinking on the cobbles of the pavement. The rhythmic pace was soothing. Stephen let her set her own pace and admired the view from the top of the bridge. At this spot above the river, he felt as though he was a bird flying through the air. Only the heights at Whitcliffe revealed more beauty about Ludlow than this.

  Stephen’s eyes fell on the weirs off to the left. They consisted of banks of earth shaped like an arms of the letter V with the point aimed at him, stretching across the river, directing the river flow to the mills on either side of the stream.

  A figure stepped out of the foliage on the town side and trotted across the weir. Stephen recognized the boy as Patrick’s son, Edgar. As Edgar reached the Ludford side, a girl came out of a thicket to meet him. Stephen realized with a bit of a start that it was that tavern girl, Pris. The couple clasped hands and ran into a stand of trees by the burned mill.

  Stephen passed the peak of the bridge and began the descent toward Ludford. Within moments he would be mounting the slope and then within a few moments more he’d be at the doorstep of Johanna’s brew house, and he had no idea what he was going to say to her or how he was going to make her open up.

  He heard a clattering of hooves on the bridge pavement. Gilbert’s head and that of his mule bounced into view. Gilbert saw him and waved. “Stephen, stop!”

  Stephen reined in and waited for him at the foot of the bridge. Gilbert trotted up, holding tightly to the saddle, looking anxious.

  “What is it, Gilbert?” Stephen asked.

  “There’s been another death,” Gilbert said. “The hundred bailiff wants you to come immediately. There is a crowd and he’s afraid of things being disturbed.”

  The dead man’s name was Bernard Gilley, and there could be no doubt that he had broken his neck. He lay sprawled beside a tumbledown cottage on Broad Linney, a street that ran north from town almost as far as the River Corve, surrounded by a crowd of as many as sixty men, women, and children. Everyone there had a story to tell about Bernard and how and why he died, and they were so eager to talk that they couldn’t be encouraged to wait for the assembly of the coroner’s jury. It was enough to try even Gilbert’s prodigious memory.

  It seemed that Bernard had not been right in the head for many years. He lost his job as a saddle maker and lived with his mother. He began to neglect himself so that he was as filthy as the meanest beggar. He had intense conversations with invisible people. At first, these conversations were whispered and furtive, but eventually he was often seen on the street waving his hands and shouting, as if he was followed by ghosts only he could see. Once he attacked a girl in her yard and beat her rather badly before her brothers drove him off. Only the fact that he was cracked saved him from prosecution and a fine, and even so, his mother had given the girl’s family a share of milk from the family cow for three months to make amends.

  Day before yesterday, Bernard attacked the family cow with a knife and wounded it — a serious matter because the cow was the mother’s only source of income. His mother came to the cow’s rescue and drove Bernard away with a stick. He retreated to the roof of the cottage, where he was heard shouting things in which only a word or two could be made out now and then.

  Bernard had been tolerated as generally harmless, even after the incident with the girl, and largely ignored whenever possible, but his latest escapade attracted considerable attention. Because Friday and Saturday were workdays, only young children had gathered to watch at first. The children were ready with piles of rocks, which they threw at him.

  Bernard did not come down after dark, even when the children had all gone home. Bernard’s mother had got over the attack on the cow when it appeared it would live, and she implored him to come to supper and bed, but Bernard was too busy with his conversations.

  On Sunday, being a day off, a large crowd gathered after terce mass to witness the spectacle. It was alleged that a number of people threw rocks at Bernard. But no names were mentioned and no one owned up to being a guilty party. Everyone present was very firm on the point that the rock throwing had nothing to do with Bernard’s end.

>   The unanimous opinion was that Bernard met his fate by accident. He began pacing along the peak of the roof from one end of the house to the other. To the encouragement of the crowd, Bernard sang and capered more intensely. An improvident step, a stumble, and then a tumble brought Bernard to the ground, where he landed on his head, to shocked silence. Everyone had wanted a little fun, but not this.

  Making sense of it all took several hours. Then Stephan had Bernard carried into his house and laid him on the dinner table, where they stripped the corpse and gave it a thorough examination. Although there didn’t seem to be any doubt that the fall had killed Bernard, Stephen wasn’t about to cut corners after what had happened in the Patrick Carter case.

  It was twilight when Stephen and Gilbert rode slowly back up Broad Linney to town.

  “I wonder what’s for supper,” Stephen said, glad to be relieved of thoughts of death.

  “Whatever it is, I’m in a hurry to get it,” Gilbert said. “Investigating works up a hunger.”

  Stephen glanced to the west, where the sun had already set. “We’d better hurry. They’ll be closing the gates soon. I haven’t enough money left to get us both in.”

  Stephen asked for a canter and his mare surged forward.

  “By all means,” Gilbert replied to Stephen’s back, “we must bustle.” He thumped the mule’s sides but with perhaps too much vigor.

  Knowing it was pointed in the direction of home and eager for its own supper, the mule burst into a furious gallop. It quickly swept by Stephen, with Gilbert clutching the pommel. He bounced and swayed so much that Stephen feared he’d take to the air and land on his head. It would be bad enough having to explain such a mishap to the coroner’s jury — but to Edith? Stephen shuddered.

  He dashed in pursuit when it was obvious that the mule had no intention of slowing down. Linney Gate, which pierced the town wall at the foot of Broad Linney street, was still open, but it was so narrow and low that a prudent mule ordinarily could be expected to check its speed to get through. Not this mule. Gilbert had so encouraged his mount that the prospect of the gate had no effect, and it careered through into College Lane with Gilbert bent low to avoid losing his head on the lintel.

  “Oh, damn,” Stephen muttered, as he pushed the mare to maintain her gallop.

  He shot through the gate, nearly colliding with a figure emerging from Baynard’s house who threw himself out of the way.

  Stephen, thinking he had almost trampled Peter Bromptone on his way to Amicia, shouted an apology as he raced by, but he couldn’t spare an instant for more civilities if he was to catch the mule before Gilbert fell off.

  He finally apprehended it at the corner of High Street, and managed to bring it to a halt.

  “Well,” Gilbert said, “that was exhilarating.”

  “Perhaps you should walk the rest of the way.”

  “Why, sir, I am in complete control — just keep hold of my bridle for a moment while I catch my breath. That’s a good lad.”

  They crossed High Street at a more sedate pace, where a moon only slightly over half full hung over the castle. Then they were heading down Broad, on the home stretch, with warmth, comfort, and a meal waiting for them at the house on Bell Lane. Stephen tried to wiggle his missing toes to still an itch that wasn’t there, thinking with anticipation of cabbage soup. Poor Bernard wouldn’t be eating anything tonight, and he wondered about the man’s mother in that cold cottage with only the cow for company now. The world was full of hardship.

  The gate at the inn was shut but not barred, and all Stephen had to do was push it open with a foot. He hopped off to bar it, then led the mare back to the stable yard, where Gilbert had already dismounted and was stretching off the kinks from their little ride.

  “I’ll take care of the animals,” Stephen said. Gilbert was as likely to feed a horse’s ass as its head.

  “Thank you,” Gilbert said and tottered toward the house. “I’ve had enough of mules. What have I ever done that he should be so disobedient?”

  “You ride him,” Stephen said.

  “Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do with mules?”

  “Not the way you do it.”

  “Well,” Gilbert harumphed, drawing himself up to his full height, which wasn’t very impressive, since he stood only as tall as Stephen’s chin. “I’ll have you know I’m an excellent rider of mules. That mule is eccentric.” He continued into the house.

  Stephen had just fed the horse and mule when he heard two men shouting at each other in the street before the inn.

  Abruptly the argument broke off. Stephen thought the matter concluded. He reached for a pitchfork to put down hay when he heard a frantic voice call: “Come out! Out! Felony!”

  The hair on his neck tingled. It was the distinctive call of the hue and cry, summoning all within hearing because a crime had been committed.

  Stephen threw up the bar on the gate, and ran into the street. Other men were coming out of their houses along Bell Lane to see what was the matter, while a group had collected in a knot before an alleyway across the way. Stephen crossed to them, since that seemed to be where the crime had taken place.

  A few people recognized him and made way so he could pass to the center, where a body sprawled on the ground face down. The dagger scabbard on the body’s left hip was empty. The dagger that should have been in it protruded from the back to the left of the spine, exactly where a man’s heart should be. Stephen knelt and shook the man’s shoulder. He did not respond. Stephen felt the man’s neck for a pulse. There was none.

  “A candle!” Stephen barked. “Fetch me a candle.”

  One of the neighbors procured a candle from his house and came forward, shielding the little flame with a palm from the night breeze.

  Stephen held the candle close to the dead man’s face, which was veiled by a curtain of hair. Stephen pulled the hair aside.

  It was Ancelin Baynard.

  Chapter 13

  The coroner’s inquest convened on Monday afternoon in the council room of the town’s guild hall.

  As the presiding officer, Stephen sat at the end of the hall by the big fireplace, occupying the high-backed chief alderman’s chair with its pillowed seat. Before him the twelve jurors sat on benches facing each other. The brown, burnished wood of the floors, walls and supporting pillars added to a sense of gloom that pervaded the hall, unrelieved by the glow from the fire or the candles on Gilbert’s writing table.

  The hall was packed with spectators. Normally, the jurors investigated the circumstances of the death and reported them at the inquest. But a fierce storm had blown up during the night that made that job difficult. The witnesses had come to report to the assembled jury. Because Baynard had been well known, if not well liked, a large number of citizens had shown up too, and the din of conversation almost made Stephen’s teeth rattle.

  “Quiet down out there,” Stephen called out as the jurors finally settled onto their benches. “We’ve work to do and we can’t do it with all that noise.”

  When the clamor died down, he turned to Gilbert. “Call the first case.”

  Gilbert intoned first in French and then in English, “Hear ye, hear ye, we are here to consider the unrightful death of Bernard Gilley, the honorable deputy coroner Stephen Attebrook presiding,”

  Since Stephen and Gilbert had already investigated Gilley’s death and had taken statements from the witnesses, Gilbert presented the report to the jurors for their judgment.

  The crowd had not come to hear about Gilley and did not care about the death of a mad man. Laughter broke out when Gilbert recounted Gilley’s capering and singing, which led to his fatal plunge. A wave of conversation grew.

  “If there isn’t immediate silence, I’ll have the hall cleared,” Stephen snapped, “and you won’t get to hear what you came for.”

  The threat brought swift compliance, and in the ensuring silence, the panel made short work of the case, finding that Gilley’s death was an accident and assessing the b
undle of roof thatch on which he stumbled at a quarter penny.

  Gilley’s mother collapsed at the verdict. For a moment Stephen was impatient with her grief, but then he thought about his own loss and how difficult it was to let it go. He had only lost a wife, who in theory was replaceable. This woman had lost a son who was not.

  Stephen handed Gilbert a quarter penny, which he had received from the bailiff of her hundred, who were responsible for the fine. “Here is the amount in fine,” he said. “Mistress Gilley, you have my profound sympathy and that, I’m sure, of all those who are assembled here. Do you have friends who can care for you in your distress?”

  Mistress Gilley did not respond. Two neighbor women took her arms and led her through the crowd to the main doors, which opened to admit steel gray light and a chill wet blast of wind that sent the spectators crouching and threatened to extinguish the candles. Then the doors closed and the hall fell dark again.

  “Next case,” Stephen said.

  “The matter of the unrightful death of Ancelin Baynard,” Gilbert announced.

  The crowd stirred in anticipation, but immediately fell silent as Stephen leaned forward with a thunderous scowl.

  “Who will be the first witness?” Stephen said.

  A little bald man in the front row raised his hand. “Your honor, if you could hear my mother first, it would be a great kindness. She’s tired from the standing.”

  “Bring her forward.”

  The little bald man led out an old woman.

  “Your name?” Stephen asked.

  The woman squinted in his direction, then looked around. She whispered, “What was that, Alric?” Her voice was thin and reedy.

  “He wants to know your name, mum.”

  “Well, why don’t you go ahead and tell him. It’s rude not to introduce a person.”

  “Her name is Jermina,” the bald man said.

  “Jermina,” Stephen said, “please tell us what you know about the death of Ancelin Baynard.”