‘No, Jack. I didn’t. On my honour.’
That was a commodity of little value, he had sold it so often. ‘Not a one?’
‘No! So, are you going to help me find that gold?’
‘What will you do?’
‘I am keeping watch over you, Jack. I am guarding you.’
I made a rude noise. ‘From whom, exactly?’
‘There are people here who are not all they appear to be,’ he said with a smile. ‘I have been following you to protect you from those who might decide to hurt you.’
‘Such as?’
He sighed. ‘Dick, if there is gold here, many people would wish to get their hands on it. Even a Queen’s Coroner might be tempted.’
‘The Coroner knows nothing of any gold!’
‘He is the dead priest’s brother, isn’t he?’
‘So?’
‘One brother may have a good idea of the other. He might easily learn that his brother had, say, a box of gold. And even a knight would not turn down a box of gold.’
‘You say that Sir Richard could have killed his brother for a box of gold? You are a fool! The only reason he’s here is to learn who killed his brother!’
‘You think so? Well, in that case it cannot hurt for you to seek the gold yourself.’
What could I say?
‘Oh, very well.’
I walked back inside. Sir Richard was at the fire, telling bawdy stories from his youth, it appeared, from the way that the men about him were laughing and hanging on his every word. The rest of the men had started to dribble away, and the room was growing quieter.
Watching Sir Richard, I could not believe that Dick Atwood was right. The knight was not exhibiting perpetual misery over his brother’s death, but that was not his nature. He was a man who lived every day to the full. His brother was dead, and Sir Richard would mourn him, but he was a knight. A man who was trained to fight and kill. He was used to death, still more so since his job required him to study many corpses every year. A man like him would quickly grow accustomed to death, even of a close relative.
Dorothy was not at her place. I guessed that she had fled when her tears took her over completely. In her stead, the innkeeper glowered about the room. His expression did not ease when he caught sight of me.
Sighing, I went over and placed my blackjack on the bar. ‘Another, please.’
‘So long as you won’t start getting loud and fighty,’ the man said.
‘I never get aggressive. I only ask questions when I need to.’
He was bending to the barrel’s tap. ‘Well, you can keep your thoughts to yourself here.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Leave Dorothy alone. You have upset her.’
‘I could say the same to you,’ I said with some heat.
He slammed my blackjack on the bar and stared hard at me. ‘Meaning what?’
‘Meaning there was no need to punch her and give her a black eye.’
He stared at me some more, and then, to my anger, started to laugh.
‘You think it’s funny to punch a woman, do you?’ I said, and would have thrown my ale over him, but if I had, I would have had no room for the night. Besides, he was used to lifting barrels of ale. He was quite strong. I decided not to provoke him further.
He lowered his head, the amusement slowly departing, until he was eyeing me with a curious firm and steady gaze. ‘You should be careful whom you accuse of things like that. I took her in, her and her boys, and I look after them and feed them.’
‘And thrash them.’
‘When they deserve it, yes. This is my inn: my home. If that little scrote clambers up my trees, I’ll whip him because he’s been told not to often enough. A man has to be master in his own house.’
Well, I couldn’t argue with that. Ben had been deliberately flouting the innkeeper’s laws. ‘But punching Dorothy, that—’
‘What?’
‘You punched her. Blacked her eye for her.’
‘That wasn’t me!’
‘Eh?’
He shook his head. ‘You have no understanding, do you? The poor woman’s lost her husband, and yes, I let her share my bed. But I don’t beat my women. She is there of her own choice, seeing as how her husband had deserted her. It was very troubling for her and the boys.’
‘So you added to their troubles, you mean?’ I tried to sound accusatory, but it came out as thoroughly confused and nothing more.
He saw my blackjack was not yet empty and filled a pot for himself. ‘Look, her boys were very upset when they heard that their father had left them, you understand? They were deeply unhappy. Hardly surprising. The older fellows, Ed and Walt, wanted to talk to him, and that was why the lot came here. But he refused to see them. The poor woman was at her wit’s end, so she asked whether I might have any work, and I took pity on her and them, but I have never raised my hand to her.’
‘Oh, I suppose she accidentally fell into a door?’ I said. ‘I’ve seen that sort of injury often enough, Nyck, and it doesn’t come from tripping!’
‘I didn’t say it did.’
‘Oh!’ I suddenly realized what he meant. ‘You mean her husband did it? She pestered him so much that … no, he was already dead, and at his inquest there was nothing, not a mark on her.’
‘Not him!’ the innkeeper sighed, and rolled his eyes. ‘Ed! Her oldest. He may not look much, but he does have a temper. When he’s taken a half gallon of my ale on board, he can grow wild. And just now he’s feeling extra sensitive, what with his father deserting them, and him feeling that he’s the head of the household now, and has all responsibility for the family. That was why he punched Dorothy. Poor woman. I found her sobbing her heart out on the floor in a pool of ale she’d been carrying to a customer.’
‘Why did he punch her?’
‘He doesn’t like the fact she’s sleeping in my bed. He’s mostly a man, but he’s still a boy in a lot of ways, and he argued with her, saying they should leave here and go back to Ilford, especially now Peter’s dead. I can’t blame him. If I was his age, in their position, I’d feel the same, I’m sure.’
‘Will they go?’
‘Ed and Walt might. The others, well, they’ll stay with Dorothy, and for now she’s content to stay with me. She has work here, a roof and a bed, and I’m not demanding. Her children are safe enough. If the older fellows want to make their way in the world, that’s their choice. I won’t stop them, and I don’t think she will either. They’re welcome to go. But that little bastard Ben had best clean up his behaviour and learn to do as he’s bid, before I take the skin off his arse with my belt,’ he added.
‘The boys have been that badly affected?’
‘How would you respond if someone murdered your father?’
I couldn’t answer that. My own memories of my mother were somewhat hazy, because she had died when I was very young, and it was my father who had raised me – after a fashion. How would I have reacted if my sire had suddenly left me with her? Probably with great joy, knowing the vicious old brute as I did. Anyone less affectionate and thoughtful was hard to imagine. My mother was surely a kinder, more loving person. She must have been. I would have been happy with her.
‘So he decided to take his mother to task because she was sleeping with you?’
‘Of course. And obviously I gave him a slap, and knocked him into the middle of next week, but I felt a bit bad. I couldn’t blame the lad.’
I was unsure how to comment on that. Leaving the bar, I walked to a bench and sat. The Coroner was still bellowing a joke, and the guffaw he gave when he reached the final line almost made the actual point rather incomprehensible. I certainly couldn’t hear it myself. With his eyes turned to tiny slits, his great fist pounding his thigh in delight, Sir Richard looked like a Cardinal after a feast. He waved his pot of wine (he had changed from ale) as he began a fresh tale.
It was deafening in there, with Sir Richard telling his comic tales, and the audience tending to laug
h along with him – although whether at the sight of his delight in the telling or because even a single one of them actually managed to discern the story as he spoke, I don’t know. I know I could make no sense of them.
Still, it meant I had some time to think. I took my ale out to the room where I had spoken to Harknet the day before. I sat there with two other men who had the look of men who wished to find peace, and who believed it existed at the very bottom of their pots. One, from the sour odour, was drinking, or rather belching, cider, while the other was content with good ale like me. He was nodding, his head slowly leaning forward and then suddenly jerking upright. It was no surprise: the warmth from the fire in this smaller chamber was noticeable, and I could feel my own eyes growing heavy as we sat in there. It was hard to remain alert when the room was so well heated, and when the ale was so good and strong.
There was something at the back of my mind that was fighting to reach the front, but I couldn’t tell what it might be. At last, after trying to keep awake, but realizing that I was emulating the dozing man, I stood, yawned and walked outside. A little cool, fresh evening air would work wonders, I thought.
Besides, there was something I had to do.
I walked from the village, out of the patches of light that glimmered and sparkled on the puddles in the roadway. The churned mud was treacherous, and I thought to myself how much harder it would be to bring a body up here, carrying it over the shoulders like a great sack, one arm clinging to the corpse’s arm, the dead man’s leg hooked by the other arm, trying to stagger out of the village. And then – what? To just reach the outer limit of the village’s territory and drop the body as though evicting the man, his corpse, his evil behaviour and every other aspect of him beyond the village’s responsibility.
A man who could do that was a serious fellow, I thought. If it had been the miller, he was a thoroughly dedicated fellow – and determined. The body I had seen was definitely that of a strong fellow who could pick up a body without much trouble, but Peter was still a fair weight. Bringing him all the way up the hill from the mill, through the village, and throwing him down there at the outer limit would have taken a fair effort. Even Dick would have found that hard work. Roger the sexton wouldn’t have been able to manage such a weight.
And then the man, the miller, went back to his mill and was killed there – possibly stabbed by his own daughter. It was a horrible thought. What had led him to such a death? Was it his own jealousy for the priest who was playing hide the thurible with his daughter, leading to his being so incensed that he had killed Peter? And that act had so enraged his own daughter that she had killed him.
But that was where my imagination failed. How could a young girl have picked up a man who was powerful enough to lift Peter? How could she have carried him to the grave she had scraped? It was surely too far for a young woman to bear a man. So she must have had an accomplice. Or someone else had murdered her and hidden her elsewhere. She appeared to have disappeared from the village and, indeed, the world. Were there two deaths here – or three? It was alarming in the extreme to think that there could be another body to be found.
I gazed along the road ahead. It was dark, the trees were rattling in the wind, although there seemed very little breeze down here where I was. Overhead, the clouds scudded across the sky at speed, concealing and then revealing the moon. It was beautiful, the grey clouds looking as though each was rimed with frost as the moon’s light made them glow, and then dimming. I turned and glanced up towards the church, and saw a pale light from within. I smiled: I knew what that meant!
And then I screamed aloud and threw myself sideways as a white, silent figure hissed past me. I instantly remembered young Ben’s words – the thin, pale form of the miller’s daughter, blood-beslubbered, the portent of death – and would have covered my eyes with my hands, had I not seen the wraith-like form move on along the line of the road before disappearing in among the trees that lined the way.
I stood, brushing the leaves and dirt from my legs. One shin had caught a stone and it hurt damnably now. Turning, I hobbled back to the inn.
Back home at Whitstable, the sight of an owl would not have been enough to unman me, but since I had been living in London, I had not seen a great white owl like that, and the creature gliding past me, silent as a ghost, had been enough to scare me to my core.
I needed another ale.
SIX
That night it was brought to my mind that other men can sleep through even a thunderstorm. At least, that was what it sounded like. There was a constant rumble, a crackle and then a whisper of the wind through the branches high overhead.
To put it another way, Sir Richard snored. And unlike those with more sensitive souls, he didn’t have the decency to wake himself.
I rose and walked out, away from that intolerable noise.
Out in front of the inn, I looked up the road.
The sun was a glow in the sky to the east, and I eyed it sourly. I have never been a fellow who enjoys rising early. It has been necessary from time to time, but so is an occasional blood-letting. It may be needful, but that doesn’t make it a joyful experience. It was out there that the girl’s ghost, supposedly, was seen by young Ben. I shivered at the thought. It is fortunate that I am a sober, unimaginative man. Others would have been struck by superstitious fear. I had a fleeting memory of an owl, but quashed it.
Looking along the road, I had to wonder: if it was the miller’s daughter whom the boy saw, what was she doing up here? Was she simply following her father as he came up here to drop off the body of her lover? Did she not trust him and sought to see where he was going? Perhaps her father had told her he was taking the priest to the church or somewhere similar? And she was smothered in blood, so Ben had said. Peter had died in her arms, and then she killed her own father. Well, at least it wouldn’t make her shift any more bloody than it already was.
‘Hello.’
‘Sweet Mother of …’ I nearly jumped out of my skin. ‘Humfrie, don’t do that!’
‘What?’
‘Walk up on me when I’m not expecting you!’
‘You asked me to come here and meet you.’
‘Since you are here now, did you have any luck?’
You see, having experienced some danger since I arrived here in St Botolph’s, it had occurred to me that I might be well advised to have a friend on hand and available, who could assist me in case of trouble. I had asked him to follow me about the place. Oh, and there was one other thing I had asked of him: the box.
He pulled a face. ‘I went up to the church, like you said, and opened the chest, but it only held vestments for a priest. The long robes, a scarf and some other items. Nothing of any value.’
‘So you left them all there.’
‘I don’t approve of robbing a church.’
His long face told me as much.
‘So that is that,’ I said.
‘Yes. Although …’
‘What?’
‘It is probably nothing, but while I was there, I thought I might as well take a look about the place.’
‘And?’
‘When I went up the tower, there was a place where some dust had lain in an alcove. It was a sort of square shape in the dust. I did wonder whether there could have been a box.’
‘But it was not still there?’
‘No. There was no sign of it apart from the mark in the alcove. I didn’t find it in the church itself. If it is there, it has been hidden very well. I looked most of the night. Up in the loft, over the screen, in the vicar’s private chambers … I have to say, almost anyone could have broken into those rooms. The locks are ancient, and could be opened by a child.’
‘Only a child with your sort of experience,’ I said.
‘Perhaps.’
He gave me the rough dimensions of the box, if box it was, and I took a careful note. Apparently, it was some ten inches by a foot, but there was no indication how tall it would be, of course. Only the outline of t
he base. ‘I need to get my head down,’ Humfrie said.
‘Yes, of course,’ I said. He had been up all night, after working the previous day as well. ‘The inn here has some chairs that are comfortable.’
He nodded. Then, as he was about to turn away, he shot me a look. ‘You were going to ask about the man who was raping his own daughter?’
‘Yes. That is confusing, I know. We found nothing about him in London because he’s here. Someone killed him.’
‘Oh,’ he said, and he grew thoughtful.
‘What?’ I said.
‘Only this: you asked about the cart, and there was a cart that week. A man and a woman from around these parts. They stabled the beast and sold the cart.’
‘A man and woman? They had nothing to do with this matter, then.’
‘I suppose not,’ he said, and yawned. ‘And now I must get my head down. Hmm. Once I could go three days and two nights without sleep. I was younger then. Now I suffer if I don’t doze after lunch.’
He stifled a yawn as he made his way to the inn’s door. Soon, I guessed, he would be adding his own snores to those of Sir Richard. His could hardly be more loud or disruptive, I thought.
In the east the sky was glowing golden, and clouds on the sky’s edge were lit as if from within by a flame. It was a glorious sight, and I stood there, entranced for some minutes, my mind completely empty, but for the joy of God’s creation as shadows appeared, like pools of dark water left behind as the light took over the ground. And I knew a strange peacefulness. I was at one with the world, calm, content, satisfied and at ease.
The inn was waking, with the noise of grooms preparing for their fresh day, a lad in the inn’s hall preparing a fire for the guests, dogs barking along the road, cockerels crowing, birds twittering and chattering in the branches overhead, a rat scurrying across the road in front of me, shoulders hunched as if ducking to avoid detection.
It was strange, I felt. The rat was moving like a man, hunched and alarmed, evading any glances. It was almost as if he knew I was there.
That brought a fresh thought: if the miller’s daughter was there, why had she been so happy to be in plain sight? If she was following her father, appalled at his murder of her lover, why was she not bent, following her father with caution, trying to avoid being seen? In fact, why was she there at all? Could she have been there to help her father, rather than remaining concealed from him? Why bring him up there, anyway?
The Dead Don't Wai Page 22
