Murder at Meaux

by Cassandra Clark

  ‘They hanged that pig for causing somebody’s death a few years ago,’ murmured Melisen, without conviction.

  Roger ignored this.

  Hildegard suggested they find out if Sir Bernard had a credible alibi around midnight when the dogs began to howl. ‘If not then maybe Osmund will speak out and someone else will come forth?’

  ‘An alibi around midnight? That’ll be easy. He’ll claim he was safely tucked up in bed with his lady wife and she’s not likely to be turning him in, is she?’ Roger frowned into the fire. ‘Meanwhile, where is Ulf hiding out, poor devil?’

  ‘I hope he’s got plenty of food,’ Melisen said.

  ‘And can we get to him before the bailiffs and the rabble do? That’s the point.’ Hildegard shuddered.

  11

  In York it was called ‘hand and horn’ when the town was called out to track down and apprehend a felon. Heaven help those innocents who through ill-fortune became the victims of such a mob. If it wasn’t a noose quickly thrown over the branch of a tree or a knife that meted out an unlawful retribution it might be a good kicking until the victim’s ribs were broken and he died in a pool of his own blood.

  Hildegard spent some time standing at the embrasure in the solar just staring down into the street.

  Micklegate was always busy. The great stone gate protecting the city walls to the west lay close by and from dawn to dusk there were queues of folk trying to get in or out. She imagined what Ulf might do if he felt he was not going to get a fair trial and had fled for his life and she wondered if he had managed to talk his way out through one of the gates.

  Where would he go, if so?

  There was the whole county, a massive territory of dales and towns and vills and open field strips and sheep runs and then the moors extending in gaping, treeless desolation all the way to Scotland.

  The recent battle with the Scots at Otterburn when they invaded as far down as Durham under their leader the earl of Douglas had resulted in no joy for either side. Douglas had been killed, no-one knew who struck the fatal blow, and his opponent, young Harry Hotspur, had been captured with a large ransom now being demanded for his safe return. Hildegard could imagine the apoplectic rage of his sire, the earl of Northumberland, when the news was brought to him. Harry’s ears must have been burning.

  Given all this it would be unlikely for Ulf to risk travelling north in the present uncertainty. Survivors of the battle from both sides would be roaming the countryside, hungry, maybe wounded, and certainly desperate.

  The ports, as Roger had pointed out, would be on full alert too. He might try for another town where he could pass unknown but the West Riding was a long trek and unless he managed to obtain a horse it would be a journey uncertain and a danger in itself.

  She envisaged places nearer home. It would be too dangerous to hang around his usual haunts as they had already agreed and she was convinced he would not put any of his friends in danger by foisting himself on them no matter how desperate his situation.

  And yet he had to be somewhere close, surely? Somewhere where he might lie low until he could escape to a safer region from where he might prove his innocence.

  She turned away from the window when Melisen came in.

  12

  ‘I’m going down to lady mass in the Minster,’ Melisen told her. ‘I can’t bear to stay here when poor Ulf may be roaming the streets in disguise, searching for somewhere to hide.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound like Ulf,’ Hildegard replied. ‘He’s too commanding a figure to adopt a disguise with any certainty of not being recognised. Shall I accompany you?’

  ‘Please do. I was about to suggest it.’

  ‘I expect we’ll walk past the silversmith’s in Stonegate on our way?’ Hildegard remarked.

  ‘You read my mind, dear Hildegard, as always.’

  13

  So it was the two women, Melisen attired in discreet finery and accompanied by two or three servants, and her companion, a sensibly attired town’s woman, strolled down Micklegate and crossed the bridge to Stonegate and were only brought to a halt by the crowd standing outside the silversmith’s workshop.

  ‘So what’s all this?’ demanded Melisen in a loud voice as if she had never heard a whisper of any murder.

  ‘It’s where that poor girl was done in by her brute of a husband,’ replied an old woman wrapped in scarves.

  ‘He’ll get what he deserves,’ another voice answered. ‘Mark my words.’

  ‘Has the fellow been taken into custody?’ Melisen continued.

  ‘Aye, but he escaped, didn’t he?’

  ‘Nothing proves his guilt more than that,’ someone else averred.

  ‘So what will happen to this pretty little workshop?’ Melisen went on. ‘I do declare, if it closes down I shall have nowhere to buy my silver.’

  ‘Sir Bernard will keep it open if he knows what’s to his own advantage,’ somebody told her.

  ‘Do you mean Sir Bernard of the Guild of Merchant Adventurers?’ she asked with convincing innocence.

  ‘Aye, and Coroner, more to the point. He had to examine the body. His own niece! Imagine! Poor fellow.’

  ‘Shurrup! He’s here,’ said a voice sotto voce just as some horsemen rode up with a small retinue of foot-followers.

  Hildegard, out of habit, pulled her head scarf further over her face and Melisen turned as if to leave but instead nudged Hildegard towards a cleft between the houses.

  They watched from there as one of the riders dismounted and a servant rushed to lead his horse into the yard. If this was Sir Bernard he was a short, strutting little fellow, well into his fifties and showily dressed. He wore a velvet liripipe wound on top of his head – to add height, judged Hildegard – and, heavily dismounting from an ambler behind him, came the woman who was presumably his wife by the way he reached for her arm and ushered her through the crowd as if, vast though she was, she was made of glass.

  ‘Is that Avis?’ Hildegard mouthed in surprise.

  Melisen nodded. ‘I met her at some dreary guild celebration on their saint’s day last time we were up.’

  ‘What are they doing here? Visiting the scene of the crime?’

  ‘Let’s go nearer and find out.’

  ‘Wait, he’s stopped, he’s addressing the crowd.’

  Indeed, Sir Bernard, confident and smiling although with a too player-like wiping of his eyes, thanked the crowd for their support and vowed to bring the murderer to justice – for the safety of his own dear citizens as much as for the sake of justice on behalf of his beloved niece and the upholding of God’s law.

  ‘He’s very glib.’ Hildegard had taken against him as he began to speak and had to remind herself that one and all are God’s creatures, mellifluous in speech and insincere as they might be. With a brief flourish he ended his oration and entered the yard.

  ‘Let’s follow,’ suggested Melisen. ‘I can always say I’ve come to offer my condolences.’

  ‘Does he know Ulf is Roger’s steward?’

  ‘I can talk my way round that.’

  Together they slipped through the gap made by Sir Bernard and more especially his wife and followed him into the yard.

  14

  They were not the only ones. Some of the crowd who had been lurking about the street went in as well, avid to gaze on blood-stains or pieces of ripped flesh or other ghoulish evidence of murder.

  They must have been disappointed. The entire place had been swept clean since Hildegard had been there earlier that morning. Well-groomed horses poked their heads over stable doors. Within, the racket of the dogs, however, started up as soon as Sir Bernard’s voice was heard.

  Hildegard was close enough to hear Avis say, ‘We’ll have to get rid of that lot. Can’t our kennelman get his knife out?’

  ‘Patience, dear heart.’ Sir Bernard, the smile never leaving his face, patted her plump arm.

  ‘What are they doing?’ Hildegard murmured to Melisen.

  ‘It looks as if they’re tak
ing over,’ she replied. ‘Look, they’ve brought furnishings with them.’

  A troop of servants, following at the tail-end of the retinue, were just now entering the yard carrying a few footstools, some assorted boxes and a chest or two. They disappeared with them into the house. Sir Bernard was briefly seen at a window. His wife, poking about among the herbs in the little plot outside the kitchen, lingered before going in, aware of being the focus of the crowd’s attention.

  ‘Go and talk to her,’ suggested Hildegard just as Melisen started to push her way through the onlookers. She stayed back, close enough to overhear but not enough to draw attention to herself.

  Melisen greeted Avis with convincing respect. ‘My dear Lady Avis,’ she said in her carrying voice. And then they murmured together for a while.

  Avis, in a low cut gown that revealed her ample cleavage to anyone who cared to gawp, was not what Hildegard had expected from Osmund’s dismissive remark that she rarely left her house.

  She had assumed she didn’t come out due to modesty, or a devout nature that shunned the world, or because Sir Bernard wished to keep her from the public eye, but now she considered it might be more to do with her massive girth. It must simply be too difficult to get about. Her horse must have the strength of ten.

  The woman’s backside was almost as wide as she was tall. Not that she was tall. She would have been a contender to reckon with at the May Day bare-knuckle fights if so. She was squat, like her husband, but must have weighed ten times what he did.

  In Outremer she would have been a distinct capital asset to her husband as, so Brother Egbert had told her, women were valued for their weight rather than their brains or beauty. She imagined Lady Avis sitting on a gigantic pair of scales with the gold piling up and up to balance her weight.

  Hildegard crossed herself. Forgive my uncharitable thoughts, dear Lord, pray forgive me.

  The woman was now inviting Melisen into the house. In order to while away the time Hildegard crossed over to the workshop and put her head inside. Osmond, at his work bench, was drawing out some lengths of silver in long, fine threads like the hairs on an angel’s head, but he glanced up when she greeted him.

  ‘Back again so soon?’

  ‘Just to warn you that Lady Melisen is visiting.’

  He smiled wanly. ‘Then I beg you keep her away from here. I’m still engaged in making filigree in order to finish her crispinette.’

  ‘I wanted an excuse to ask you something.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘On the night of the murder are you sure the dogs barked later around midnight?’

  ‘They woke me up. Of course I’m sure.’

  ‘Would they bark like that against anyone else?’

  ‘As you’ve probably just heard, they reserve that particular greeting for Sir Bernard.’

  ‘And his wife?’

  ‘She never visits alone.’

  ‘Have you told the bailiffs that you heard the dogs?’

  ‘They brushed the information aside. At least, two of them did. The third was interested but was over-ridden by the other two.’

  ‘Paid, were they?’

  He shrugged. ‘Meet them. See what you think.’ He jerked his head up suddenly. ‘You’re asking a lot of questions for somebody apparently engaged in doing nothing more interesting than going to market.’

  ‘I am. I’m curious about what happened that night. I told you, I know the steward. He would never murder anyone. I can’t bear the thought of him being hanged.’

  Osmund came towards her with his eyes darting back and forth over her shoulder to where the crowd was still milling about hoping to see something. Quietly he said, ‘Find out where Sir Bernard was at midnight. See if he has an alibi.’

  ‘I wondered about that. But how on earth am I to find out?’

  ‘Ask his servants. They won’t tell me anything. They’ll guess I suspect him. They’ll warn him. I’d last as long as it takes to slit a man’s throat in a back alley. But you, just an idly interested woman wanting a piece of juicy gossip –’

  ‘I can see I will easily fit that role.’ She gave him a long look. ‘Where is his house?’

  ‘It’s over the other side of town near Coppergate. By the Merchant Adventurers’ church, All Saints. It’s easy to find. Anybody will direct you.’ He gave her a crooked glance. ‘You’re not from round here, are you?’

  ‘From not far off,’ she replied.

  ‘Hm,’ he grunted before turning back to the bench. ‘God be with you, Mistress York.’

  15

  It wasn’t long before Melisen reappeared. She was carrying a small nose-gay of fresh herbs. ‘To ward off the stink of unwashed citizenry,’ she told Hildegard, ‘in the words of Lady Avis. Shall we go on?’

  When they were at a distance from the silversmith’s and out of ear-shot of the crowd still hanging round the yard Melisen nudged Hildegard and said, ‘All I got was the line that Ulf was a brute and that Avis, dear lady Avis, had been worried for some time about her niece’s safety. Can you credit it? This is Ulf! Despite being big and tough he’s as gentle as a kitten!’

  ‘They’re doing all they can to blacken Ulf’s name. Even if he were to appear in court opinion would already be against him. He would have no chance of justice.’

  ‘Did you see her rings?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I counted at least twenty, two to a finger, and those bracelets!’

  ‘I heard those.’

  ‘She was decked out like a goldsmith’s whore.’

  Hildegard raised her eyebrows. ‘Sir Bernard is a generous husband then.’

  ‘Or she’s a nag with a love of show.’

  ‘She’s not at all what I expected.’

  They had reached the Minster Gates by now and Melisen, true to her alleged intention, walked through with a couple of servants at her heels.

  ‘I won’t stay long,’ Hildegard told her. ‘I’m going to find their house and have a chat with whoever wants to talk.’

  ‘I’ll go back to Roger afterwards then and see if there’s news of Ulf’s whereabouts.’ She gave a shiver. ‘I shall pray he’s somewhere safe.’

  They parted as soon as Lady Mass was over, both hoping their prayers would be answered. Hildegard made her way across the town she well knew, despite not being, as Osmond said, from round here. If he only knew I was a Cistercian, she pondered. What would he think then?

  16

  It was a substantial dwelling, several storeys high, with a stone arch leading into a cobbled yard, a demesne suitable for a successful merchant adventurer and a town coroner. Although the latter role was unpaid it had prestige.

  A few servants scurried about. Hildegard stood undecidedly outside but before she could light on a strategy for getting into conversation with any of them a stable-hand began to lead a skittish young colt to a trough of water close to the entrance. Professing admiration, an easy task as it was a handsome creature, she sauntered over.

  After admiring the animal she asked, ‘I expect your mistress is out at present, is she?’

  ‘Strange you should say that,’ the stable-hand remarked. ‘You’ve just missed her. She’s left but shortly with Sir Bernard for the house of that poor young bride.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ remarked Hildegard, crossing herself. ‘You mean...?’

  He nodded and looked solemn.

  ‘I heard about her...What a terrible thing.’ She leaned closer to pat the colt. ‘If only your master had been present when that husband of hers arrived with his evil intentions!’

  ‘Missed him by a half hour or so, he told us. As fate and God would have it.’

  ‘Did he not return to the house later to find it in darkness? I heard he had a premonition that something was wrong.’

  ‘No chance. We were kept busy ourselves. It was a night all right. Who would have thought two such terrible things could happen together, like. But that’s towns for you.’

  ‘Two? What do you mean?’

  ‘Why, the
fire of course!’

  ‘I’ve been on a visit and only just come home,’ Hildegard told him, vague but not entirely at variance with the truth of her situation. ‘Was there a fire?’

  ‘I’ll say. Nearly burned down every stick and stone in Coppergate.’

  ‘I see no sign of it.’ Hildegard glanced round.

  ‘That’s because Sir Bernard managed to marshal the lads to put it out before it caught hold. Look! See over there?’ he gestured towards a small house further along. ‘See that thatch?’ He had no need to say more. The thatch was indeed half-burned, a blackened confusion of ash and burned wheat straw.

  ‘When did that happen?’ she asked.

  ‘Round midnight. The bell had just rung for matins. Sir Bernard’s man, Rufforth, came bellowing into the yard about a fire, yelling at the top of his voice, he was. Sir Bernard rushed down in his night-shirt, saw what was what, and got us organised.’

  ‘Were you there, yourself?’ Or, she wondered, is this another rumour?

  ‘I was here. Asleep over yonder.’ He shot a glance towards the stables. ‘His quick thinking saved the whole street from certain destruction.’

  ‘Did it take long to put out?’ she asked.

  ‘It didn’t seem like it but he kept us on alert to douse the rest of the roofs with water so they didn’t catch. Then he made us keep watch. He was a whirlwind. Without him I doubt I’d be standing here talking to you now.’

  ‘Quite a hero,’ Hildegard murmured. ‘It’s difficult to believe that such a thing could happen on the same night as that poor young bride being murdered.’

  ‘His niece she was, poor old fellow. Tragic. But he’s bearing up.’

  ‘Have you worked for him long?’ she asked out of sheer curiosity.

  ‘I don’t work for him. I’m here to bring up this young fellow from the country and see him settled in.’ He gave the colt a hearty slap on the withers. ‘I come up with him three days ago. As soon as he takes the bit I’m off back to Ryedale.’