King Arthur's Bones (28 page)

‘I didn’t wish to kill him,’ Huw said simply. ‘I was in his company, but . . . well, John was a most engaging companion. I did not want to hurt him too close to Exeter at first, and then I decided not to hurt him until I had seen the bones in his possession, and he didn’t get them out until he reached Crediton. And by that time it was too late.’

‘You mean you didn’t want to kill him?’ Baldwin said.

‘How could I? He was such a friendly, open, amiable man. I couldn’t willingly stick a knife in him. He was a real, flesh-and-blood man, while . . . they were only bones, when all was said and done.’

Baldwin looked at the coroner. ‘I believe him.’

‘You sure? He could easily have broken into the room at Hob’s. Anyone could, even a Welshman. And there’s the thing about the hand. Surely returning the favour, when he’d stolen the bones from the abbey.’

‘But if Huw did that, he would today be at Exeter or beyond. Why return here? And where are the bones he venerates?’ Baldwin asked flatly. ‘No. He is innocent. Which begs the question: who
was
responsible?’

‘Baldwin! Sir Richard!’

And Baldwin felt some of the burden of anxiety fall from his shoulders as he recognized the voice of his old friend Simon.

Agatha was keen to leave the vill and return to her home, but her curiosity wouldn’t let her go straight away. She passed her reins to her servant and dropped elegantly from her mount, making her way into the tavern. The serving maid was there, but Agatha went to Hob to ask for a pot of wine.

‘What’s happening here?’

‘Murder, mistress. A pardoner was killed here last night. The coroner and the Keeper are asking about him. It’ll cost us all a pile of silver.’

There was no need to elaborate. All knew how expensive a body could be. There was the fine for the death of a man who wasn’t known locally, the murdrum. An ancient fine, it was imposed at the height of King William’s reign, when the resistance to Norman rule meant that murder was commonplace. If a body was discovered and no one could assert its ‘Englishry’, it was assumed to be a Norman, and a crushing fine was enforced on the locality.

She winced. ‘What of that fellow they’re questioning?’

‘Him? He was friend to the pardoner, he says.’

‘He’s an unpleasant little man,’ she said. ‘He accosted me in the market yesterday. If it wasn’t for a few locals coming to my rescue, I don’t know what might have happened.’

As she spoke she peered through the window. The man with whom she had ridden here was greeting the two knights with enthusiasm.

‘Tavern-keeper, bring more ale!’ the taller, heavy-set knight, whom she knew only as the coroner, bellowed, and Hob hissed to the girl to hurry.

‘Has he seen you?’ Agatha said quietly when they were alone.

‘Don’t think so,’ Hob replied. He chewed his inner cheek fretfully.

‘Let’s hope, then,’ she murmured.

‘Hope what?’ Baldwin asked.

Agatha shot a look at Hob. ‘Nothing, Sir Knight.’

‘That is odd. You see, your maid just told us that she thought you had seen this man outside in Crediton, that he was being a nuisance to you.’

‘Yes, he was pestering a number of people, trying to sell his potions.’

‘Would you come out here, then? You could identify him, and that would be useful.’

‘Why?’

Baldwin lifted an eyebrow. ‘If you saw him in Crediton, that would begin to validate his story. If he was in the town when you saw him, perhaps we can find others who also saw him and who can vouch for his being there later. That would mean it wasn’t him who later came here to kill the pardoner, wouldn’t it?’

She reluctantly nodded and followed Baldwin outside.

‘Is that the man you saw?’ Baldwin asked.

‘Yes.’

Huw gaped. ‘I did nothing to the lady! I was only selling some medicines, and she and her companion refused even to listen. I only urged them to listen to my words, nothing more.’

She reddened. ‘I had no companion, churl. How dare you say such a thing?’

‘But—’

‘There was no one with me, other than my servant,’ she said with emphasis.

Huw followed her gaze to where the servant squatted on his haunches near the horses. It wasn’t the man he’d seen, he thought.

Baldwin saw his look and smiled. ‘Mistress, it is all too easy for a man to mistake one man for another when he meets different people all day, just as it is hard for a woman not to feel pressurized when a hawker is only trying to bring a new sweetmeat or pie to her attention. No doubt this man was only being polite in his own way.’

She nodded, and with a curt nod to Simon she left them, striding to her horse. Soon she was mounted, and she and her servant made their way from the vill.

‘Well, you didn’t make a friend there, Master Triacleur,’ the coroner said, eyeing the two as they rode away. ‘So who could have stolen these bones, then? Someone who wanted to take on the pardoner’s trade?’

‘If it were only that, surely the thief would have taken the vellum as well? A pardoner is no pardoner who does not possess pardons,’ Baldwin said.

‘I must try to find them,’ Huw said. He sat, disconsolate, his face drawn into a picture of complete misery. ‘I should have knocked him down and taken the bones when I first found him, rather than trying to persuade him to give them up. If I’d just taken them, he could still be alive.’

‘Don’t waste your feelings on him,’ Sir Richard said kindly. ‘Worry more about yourself. While no other man appears, you are our most likely fellow for dancing a jig from a rope.’

Baldwin was more interested in Agatha’s reaction to Huw. ‘She was very certain that she was alone when you saw her.’

‘I don’t care what she says. There was a man with her in Crediton,’ Huw said.

‘Do not change the subject by accusing an honest woman of infidelity,’ the coroner said sternly.

‘You don’t understand. I saw him today at the inquest: it was the tavern-keeper.’

The coroner exchanged a look with Baldwin. ‘Well, adultery is not the same as murder,’ he said with a shrug. ‘What of it?’

‘It is one more thing to consider,’ Baldwin said. ‘No more, no less.’

It was a little while later, once Baldwin and Sir Richard had given Huw to a couple of sturdy peasants for safekeeping, that the three repaired to the chapel at the top of the vill to speak to the priest about the pardoner.

‘He’s not here, sires,’ the man in the church told them after they had all bent the knee and crossed themselves at the cross.

‘Who are you?’ Baldwin asked.

‘Me? I’m Peter the Pauper, lord. That’s what they call me, anyways. I keep the church clean for Father William.’

He was a little old man, wizened and with a skin that was tanned deep brown by the elements, with pale grey eyes set in a thin face. His right hand was claw-like from some ancient injury.

‘He is a senior priest for a chapel like this, isn’t he?’ Sir Richard asked, eyeing the altar speculatively. ‘Thought he looked quite an elderly man for such a posting. Why does a chapel this size merit his presence?’

‘Not all priests wish for ever larger congregations, I suppose.’ The man shrugged. ‘And some come to a place like this because it is convenient.’

‘It is that,’ Baldwin said. Close to Crediton and not too far from Exeter, Sandford was a good location for a priest. Far better than some out-of-the-way chapel like Gidleigh, or one of the other churches over to the west of Dartmoor.

‘Where is he?’ the coroner asked.

‘He’ll be with the other men, tending the fields, of course.’

‘So he is a man of humility,’ Simon said.

‘Oh, I suppose so. Although he has a need for it.’

‘What do you mean?’ Baldwin asked.

‘He was the rector of a church in Axminster before he came here. Any man who came here from a minster must have been considered due for some humility, wouldn’t he?’

They soon left the old man and followed Simon down to the strip fields that supported the vill, and before long the three men were walking down the track towards the working peasants and freemen of the vill. It took little time to find the priest and Ulric, both leaning on their tools and watching as the three men approached.

Father William was of only middle height, but he looked taller with his shock of almost-white hair. It was a while since he had last seen the barber, from the way his stubble had thickened on chin and head. ‘You want me again? What, more note-taking? I have work to do, coroner.’

‘I know that,’ Sir Richard said. ‘But first I want to ask you a little more about the pardoner. Did you know he had bones? Apparently he was displaying relics as he went.’

‘Not until he got them out, no. Why should I? But I don’t care what he was doing. When all is said and done, he was only a pardoner.’

‘Who will care about a dead pardoner?’ Ulric demanded. ‘He shouldn’t have been here in the first place.’

‘He sold quite a few pardons, I hear,’ Baldwin said.

‘Aye. What of it?’ Ulric asked.

‘Did you buy one?’

‘No! I have no need of them.’

‘But many did,’ Baldwin said, looking at the priest.

‘Not I.’

‘The others who did must have felt that they had something to protect themselves against.’

‘Men will always think they have a need of protection,’ Ulric said. ‘If they have some spare money, and the pardoner gives a good tale, like this one did, then he will have people flock to him.’

‘They sell lies and deceit,’ the priest said uncompromisingly. ‘The Holy Father in Avignon has authorized some few friars and others to give indulgences, but men like this one are mere pedlars in people’s hopes – and fears.’ ‘You sound like a man who has cause to doubt such people, Father,’ the coroner said mildly.

‘I detest them. Yes, and I hate those who pander to the baser attitudes of the people in the vill. The good Bishop Walter has shown the way with these people, saying that they are not to be welcomed in any of his lands across his diocese, and I support his ban. What, would you have men think that they might commit any sin with impunity just for the price of a letter of indulgence from another man? The Pope may give such a promise, but a man like this dead pardoner? Why should he have the right? Why should any churl without the education of holy orders think himself able to offer God’s own forgiveness?’

‘The Pope has made the pardoner legitimate in the matter,’ Sir Richard said.

‘You find my attitude surprising? What arrogance is it to think that one man alone can appreciate the divine will? I say to you: the pardoners are wrong. They should not be saying that they can help souls. That is the task of priests like me, not secular fellows like that man.’

‘And what of you, Ulric?’ Baldwin asked. ‘Do you think he was as evil as the priest thinks?’

‘I think he was a dangerous man. Anyone who dabbles in pardons for sins which he cannot understand is dangerous.’

‘Where lies the danger? You mean that he will die like John last night?’ Coroner Richard snapped.

‘No. I mean that a fellow who seeks to sell an indulgence thinks that he knows God’s mind. And that itself is more dangerous than the devil. How can a man know God’s will?’

‘A good point,’ Baldwin said. He had noticed that the priest and Ulric had exchanged a look as the reeve spoke, and they remained staring at each other now. ‘The bones, though. They were here on view, I think? Where did they go? They were not there in his bags today, so somebody must have stolen them.’

‘You think so?’ the priest asked. ‘Perhaps they were taken by God, to save them from that man’s perverted, thieving hands.’

There was nothing more that they could, or would, tell him, so it seemed, so the three men thanked the two and returned up the path to the vill.

However, as they reached the market area, Baldwin saw a scruffy little lad, scarcely ten years old, barefoot and filthy, playing with a sling near the horses. As the three appeared, he shot to his feet, a ragged warrior, stuffing his sling into the rope that served him as a belt.

‘Masters, are you seeking the pardoner’s killer? I can help.’

His name, so he said, was Bar. ‘I was here yesterday when the pardoner arrived.’

‘Aye? And what did you see, boy?’ Sir Richard demanded.

The boy was standing, hands behind his back, facing the three men. Baldwin and Sir Richard sat on a bench, while Simon had an old stool at their side. It was an intimidating environment, but the lad seemed unconscious of the fact.

‘He saw me. I was out at the chapel trying to hit a magpie in the tall elm,’ he said, pointing, ‘when the pardoner walked up. He gave me a drum and told me to beat it to call people here to his “pardon”.’

‘He had no permission to beat it here, then?’ Baldwin said. ‘That may explain the priest’s animosity . . .’

He saw the lad staring uncomprehendingly.

‘Why the priest disliked him,’ Baldwin explained.

‘No, he saw Father William first. I saw him coming down here from the chapel. Father William approved.’

‘That scarce accords with the priest’s story,’ Sir Richard muttered. ‘Aye, so what then, boy?’

‘He sold his scraps of parchment while people knelt and kissed his licence, and he showed them his goose feather and his bones, and then people paid more. And then they left him.’

‘What did he do?’

‘He took me to the tavern here, and gave me two pennies. Silver ones. And he gave me a quart of strong ale, while the tavern-keeper gave him as much ale as he could drink in exchange for a strip of the parchment.’

‘So Hob had a pardon too?’ Baldwin said.

‘Yes, I think he needs it,’ the urchin said with a sly smile.

‘Why, boy?’ the coroner demanded. ‘In Christ’s name, the people of the vill here speak ever in riddles. Just give us some clear answers!’

‘Hob has been swiving the mistress of West Sandford.’

‘Does everyone know of it?’ Sir Richard demanded.

Baldwin smiled to see the expression on the coroner’s face. ‘No need to repeat that, lad,’ he said. ‘And what proof do you have of that rather inflammatory remark?’

‘It’s known all over the vill. The only man who doesn’t is her old man,’ the boy said. ‘She’s always with him – here or in Crediton. Everyone knows about him and her.’