The Oath aktm-29 Page 12

  ‘You say he is dead?’

  Redcliffe nodded, and related the story of the Capons and Squire William.

  ‘I have heard many similar stories,’ Baldwin said. ‘Yet it is difficult to comprehend how someone could take his revenge on an entire family… that beggars belief. But I suppose if he had been cuckolded, knew that his father-in-law was denigrating him… There are many men who would find that difficult to swallow. He must have felt entirely betrayed.’

  ‘Oh, I can imagine a man killing when he realised his wife had betrayed him like that,’ Redcliffe said, ‘but not the other deaths. The wife, maybe, while in hot blood, but that case was not a hot-blooded affair. It had been carefully planned. He slew the family with a gang of his henchmen. They were so subtle and careful that they all escaped the city before the hue and cry. It was only when the poor dry-nurse recovered herself enough to raise the alarm that people realised anything had happened.’

  He shook his head, frowning slightly. ‘You know, Sir Baldwin, it helped me a little. I had not yet paid off the last of the money I owed him, and God’s body, but I had no reason to feel sympathy for him. Yet I do feel sorry that he died in that way. It was a hideous death. And the Squire was found in his manor near Hanham, denying that he had any part in the murders, the deceitful fellow.’

  ‘Men will deny their crimes,’ Baldwin said heavily. ‘Even when their lies are tested and proved false.’

  ‘As happened here,’ Redcliffe said. He glanced at Baldwin, who was turned in his saddle and now gazed over his shoulder at the way behind them. ‘You are worried, Sir Baldwin?’

  ‘There is one thing that concerns me,’ the knight admitted, turning forward once more.

  ‘You are worried that those fellows might follow us? I don’t think so. The way that you bested them in the bedchamber was surely enough to persuade them all to relinquish any ambitions against me. Hah! The bearded man would scarcely be able to walk with the prick you gave his side.’

  ‘No,’ Baldwin said slowly. ‘My thought was that, while you have been enormously lucky so far, and have travelled by curious routes, yet twice you have been discovered and attacked.’

  ‘I am surely the most unlucky of men.’

  ‘Or there is a man following you who has pointed you out,’ Baldwin said. ‘Someone so committed to his task that he is prepared to follow you for many leagues to rob you – or to kill you.’

  Third Monday after the Feast of St Michael [20]

  Near Hanham

  Robert Vyke was woken by a kick to his belly, and he curled into a ball, retching on his empty stomach.

  ‘Get your arse up, you bladder of piss!’

  Forcing himself onto all fours, Vyke managed to lever himself upright, taking tight hold of a metal staple in the wall. The pain in his leg was a fire that seared his soul, and the bruises from last night were sore and throbbing.

  ‘Let me speak to your Bailiff,’ he managed to croak.

  ‘Shut your mouth, or I’ll shut it for good,’ the man snarled. He was a big, bull-bodied fellow, short but incredibly strong, with a face that was red from cider, wearing a four-day beard of coarse black stubble. In his hand he held a short length of thick rope, that hurt like a cudgel when he swung it, as he had last night.

  Once more Robert Vyke had good cause to curse his miserable fortune.

  He had come here, to the nearest house, as soon as he had found the head. It was his duty and his responsibility to call up the posse to discover the perpetrator of this foul murder as soon as he could. The rule was that first finder must go to all the nearest houses, at least three of them, and announce that a body had been found. Then it was up to the local officers to demand that a Coroner be called, and that the jury gather so that the whole matter could be investigated and all pertinent details noted. All too often men who found bodies would run quickly in the opposite direction to avoid being attached, which meant you had to pay a fine to guarantee that you would come back when the Justices convened their court.

  ‘All I did was–’

  ‘You came to the wrong place if you thought you could kill a man like that and get away with it,’ the man spat.

  ‘I didn’t kill anyone!’ Robert said. His belly was a mass of anguish now, both from the beatings he had endured and from the hunger.

  ‘No one else here could have done it,’ the man said unsympathetically and swung his rope-end.

  It caught Robert on the side of his jaw, and he felt blood begin to course down his face as the flesh was slashed open. Wordlessly, he stumbled forward, and almost fell into the hands of the men waiting outside.

  Blinking in the sudden sunshine, he tried to grab at something to hold himself upright, but his hand missed the door’s lintel and instead he found himself snatching at thin air. With a cry of despair, he tumbled to the ground again, stifling a scream of agony as his bad leg slammed into a stone.

  ‘Get up!’ his gaoler said again, poised to kick, but this time a sudden command made him pause.

  ‘Stop! I know you are as dull-witted as the sheep in the pasture, Halt, but you will not kick that fellow again. It looks as though you’ve been using him for a game of camp-ball as it is, man. Dear God, have you killed him?’

  ‘I just held him here, sir, until you could come to view him.’

  ‘You have misused him appallingly. Someone get a bucket of water and wash the poor devil’s face. If you seriously think that this man is a danger, when he has been so badly abused already, you are a bigger fool than I thought.’

  ‘Coroner, I–’

  ‘Haven’t fetched the water yet. Get to it, man, or I’ll have you gaoled instead of him. Understood?’

  Robert Vyke heard all this, but it was too much of an effort to open his eyes. He remained lying on the ground, his whole soul encompassed by the flames that rose from his wound. He wondered if the pain would cease when the leg finally burned away entirely, or whether the flames of agony would continue up his frame to engulf him.

  ‘Open your mouth, man. Drink this.’

  He did as he was commanded, and a blessed gulp of ale soothed his throat. A second gulp, and his eyes could open again, and take in his surroundings.

  There was a circle of faces about him. All scruffy fellows generally, with worn linen shirts and threadbare hosen, apart from the short, tubby clerk with black hair, who stood nearby, an anxious expression in his pale brown eyes. He held a reed in his hands, and was prepared to scribble notes on behalf of Vyke’s rescuer. The latter was a tall, dark-haired man clad in a crimson tunic and heavy brown cloak. He had blue eyes and a perpetual smile on his round, amiable face. He was standing with his legs spaced widely, thumbs stuffed in his war belt, and staring down at Robert.

  ‘Master, you have suffered a considerable amount in recent days. Did that cretin Halt cut your leg like that?’ he said.

  ‘No, sir, that was in a pothole.’

  ‘A hole in the road did that to you?’

  ‘There was a bent and damaged dagger in the hole, and it caused this cut.’

  ‘I see,’ the man said, and smiled kindly.

  ‘It is in my pack. The man Halt took it last night. It’s a good knife, with jewels in the hilt.’

  ‘Is this true, Halt?’

  Reluctantly, the squat man grimaced and went into his hovel to fetch Robert’s belongings. The dagger was separate, and he did not meet Robert’s accusing stare, merely passing it to the Coroner, who turned it over and over with a surprised look about him. ‘This is a valuable knife, masters. The man who lost this would have been seriously discomforted. And you say this was in the hole?’

  ‘Yes,’ Robert said, and told the story about his falling into the hole and then trying to bend the blade back into a straighter line and finding the body.

  ‘Where was this head, then, fellow?’

  ‘In the little shaw over there,’ Robert said. ‘I came here as first finder to report it.’

  ‘I found him in there, Sir Stephen, and knocked him on
the pate to hold him until you could get here,’ Halt said proudly.

  ‘Yes,’ Robert Vyke said, ‘this fool held me and beat me. He said I must have killed the man myself. I don’t even know who it is!’

  ‘Halt is a fool of the first order,’ the Coroner said. He turned to Halt and suddenly swung his gloved fist backhanded across the man’s face, hard. ‘That is a lesson to you. If a man comes and reports a crime, it is hardly likely that he is the criminal. The felon will be long gone. And a man who has such a wound as that leg deserves care, not a beating.’ He glared. ‘Besides, if you had a brain, you would have realised that the dead man has been here for days, if this fellow speaks the truth. You beat him before you bothered to go and view the body, didn’t you? That makes you the felon here.’

  ‘It was growing dark,’ Halt said. His lip was bleeding where it had been smashed into his teeth. ‘I couldn’t go out and–’

  ‘Shut up. You have nothing to say which can help us in any way. The only saving grace you possess is that you would not have sent for me if you had killed the fellow yourself. Has anyone else seen the body yet?’

  No one had, from the way that the people all about suddenly began to shuffle their feet and murmur about their fields, and how busy they all had been.

  ‘Good, so the vill shall be amerced for that. You do know that you are supposed to send a man to guard the body from the moment of its discovery to the moment your Coroner arrives?’ the man asked the assembled men rhetorically. There was another shuffling of feet.

  Robert Vyke eyed the Coroner closely. He wore his dark hair very closely cropped, and with his bright blue eyes, at first glance he looked as though he was smiling all the time, as if genuinely happy and contented. He had crows’ feet at the corners of both, and his mouth seemed formed specifically to grin. But Robert knew enough knights to be aware that any initial impression could easily be false – he didn’t need to look at Halt’s broken nose and bloody lips to remind him that knights obeyed only those laws which appealed to them.

  Back at home in his own vill, the lord of the manor was a knight who looked rather like this one: a man called Sir Hector who seemed equally amiable. But when you looked carefully into his face, you could see the cruelty in his eyes, a disdain that encompassed all who were not of his rank. It was no surprise to Robert to learn that a knight could be guided by the power that his status gave him. They were trained to kill and maim from an early age, so it was scarcely to be wondered at that they would turn to violence as a first resort rather than a last.

  The jury appeared to know the man, from the way that they all avoided his gaze. And yet there was no proof of this knight’s viciousness. Thinking about it, Robert Vyke was unwilling to hold the blow at his gaoler’s mouth against the knight. That, he felt as another twinge of pain shot up from his shin, was entirely justified.

  As all were herded off along the lane to the place where he had been struck down again, Robert Vyke had the support of a young peasant who, although he smelled strongly of sheep, was possessed of a strong arm. And then they arrived at the place where the head still lay upon the branch. The knight stood here and stared around him as though dazed. There was no cruelty in his eyes here, only sadness. ‘This,’ he said slowly, ‘is terrible.’

  The head was much deteriorated now, with the flesh falling away, the eyes… well, he couldn’t look at them again. They had haunted his dreams for too long. Instead Robert gazed about him at anything else, rather than the face – and that was when he saw a fresh horror.

  On the ground, a few yards away, lay a torso, presumably belonging with the head. One arm was almost removed, while the other, the left, was hideously marked. The palm of the hand was scored with great cuts and slashes, and insects and small animals had nibbled and worried at the loose flesh. The belly had been opened, and animals had gorged on the corpse’s entrails. For all that, the victim had been wealthy, from the look of his clothing. A rich scarlet material covered his upper body, and his cloak was of good quality – a thick, emerald-coloured item that had fur at the edge of the collar.

  ‘You did not notice this, Halt?’ the knight demanded, his face twisted into a rictus of disgust at the smell.

  ‘I haven’t been this way in a week or more,’ Halt said whiningly. ‘Been working out the fields and hedging with everyone else, these last few days.’

  ‘Oh, really?’ the Coroner said unsympathetically.

  The inquest was brief enough. Standing in the midst of the shaw, the Coroner gazed about him, announced fines for the people there, declared that the body had been slashed and stabbed twenty or more times, and the head removed. Then he asked who the dead man was.

  There was a renewed bout of nervous coughing and shuffling before someone admitted that they had no idea. It was not a local, they said. He must have come from some distance, because a man clad in such rich clothing would no doubt be famous to people for many miles about his hall.

  The Coroner nodded to himself pensively as they said all this. ‘Yes, very interesting. But I happen to know him. It is Squire William of Hanham, who lived little more than three leagues away, I think. So the vill is fortunate. You will not be fined the murdrum, since you can present Englishry, but will only be fined for the death – and for not reporting it properly. However, because you are not a rich vill, I doubt you will manage to pay it. Which means I shall have to return, no doubt, and seize what I may in order to pay the King’s fee. I am very sorry for all this, but it is the law.’

  ‘Squire William, you said?’ the clerk confirmed.

  ‘Yes. And I think his death may be fortunate,’ the Coroner said musingly. ‘He was responsible for the murder of the Capons, and there could have been trouble in the city, were he found there again. We don’t want the folks of Bristol falling into chaos and disorder.’

  ‘But who would do this to him?’

  ‘To dismember and behead a man… it implies a punishment for treachery. Perhaps because he killed his own father-in-law? I wonder if the family left any heirs.’

  ‘Shall I note all that?’ the clerk asked.

  ‘If you wish, John. Perhaps you would like to see me prosecuted for my behaviour, eh? I do not think it will happen. There are more pressing matters for the King to be troubled by without his concerning himself over my affairs. Right, you, Halt: is there a spare horse or pony here?’

  ‘No one has any animals to spare, Sir Stephen.’

  ‘Then I shall require one that you cannot spare. This first finder is coming with me. I will not have him left here to expire from lack of care by you and the others in the vill. Find him a pony or ass, or I will increase the fine on you for contumacy.’

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Fourth Tuesday after the Feast of St Michael [21]

  Chepstow

  It was another miserable day, Sir Ralph of Evesham thought as he listened to the rain splashing outside. The clouds were all low and rimmed with black, and the views were of greyness in every direction. It was hard to remember a time when the sun had shone, he sighed as he mopped at the back of his neck with a square kerchief. He had been out to squat, his bowels playing merry blazes after too many days and nights with poor food and lodgings, and got a soaking in return.

  They had been here in Chepstow for a couple of nights now, and in that time they had heard several reports about the progress of the Queen. It was enough to make a man weep. All were going to her, none coming to support the King.

  ‘More wine?’ enquired Bernard, his squire, holding up the wineskin.

  ‘Why not?’ Sir Ralph said, lifting up his cup.

  They were seated about a fire in this little chamber. They had not stolen anything, but the owners were not around. As so often happened, the moment a force of men arrived, many householders fled. It was natural enough. No man wanted to wait in order that his daughter could be raped. Troops were always an untrustworthy mob at the best of times, and these were not the best of times.

  ‘You heard about the Queen’s pr
oclamation at Gloucester?’ his squire asked, poking their fire with a stick.

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s all over the camp. She has said that the King isn’t at fault, she’s not here to harm him; her argument is with Despenser, and she’s come to remove him from her husband’s side for the good of the realm.’

  ‘That’ll wash well with the people,’ Sir Ralph said.

  ‘Aye. But it won’t work.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘If she is serious about getting rid of Despenser, she’d have to kill him. The King exiled him before, didn’t he – and how long did that last?’

  Sir Ralph nodded. Sir Hugh le Despenser had been forced from the realm, but he didn’t go far. Instead, he based himself on the South Coast of England and preyed on the shipping in the English Channel, acting the pirate. To this day the French King had a price on Despenser’s head for the French ships he had robbed, so if he were to appear in France, he would be executed on sight. Then, as soon as the King felt strong enough, he had invited his most favoured adviser back to his court, and launched a war on those who had thwarted him. No, he would never willingly give up Hugh le Despenser, and it was equally unlikely that his Queen would believe him if he promised to do so.

  ‘There’s a story going round about London, too,’ Bernard added.

  ‘Oh yes? London has rebelled has it?’ Sir Ralph said dully, staring into the flames and playing with the cloth in his hands.

  ‘They’ve killed Bishop Stapledon,’ Bernard said quietly. ‘I heard they cut off his head, threw his body in a ditch, and sent the head to the Queen. She received it in Gloucester.’

  ‘God’s blood!’ Sir Ralph looked up at that. ‘Stapledon? He was a good man. Christ’s pain, but the country’s falling apart. It’ll be a wonder if we any of us survive,’ he breathed, shaking his head.

  There was a shout, then a rattle of armour – the sound of many men hurrying.

  ‘Alarm!’ Sir Ralph hissed, and grabbed his sword. Bernard darted to the back of the chamber, calling for Pagan and Alexander, snatching up his own sword-belt and buckling it as he went. In short order all four were outside, running towards the tumult, and then, as they drew nearer, they all began to slow.