The Pardoner's Crime (10 page)

‘Pardoner! Prepare to pay for your crime!'

They all turned round, but saw no one on the road.

Then there was a whooshing sound followed by a chunking noise and the Pardoner shrieked.

As they all turned at the sound, they saw him slowly tumble backwards off his donkey to lie fumbling helplessly at an arrow that had skewered him through the throat. Blood was gushing from the wound and he was making dreadful gurgling noises, his eyes rolled up so that only the whites showed. Then, before anyone could dismount and reach him, his body convulsed once then he lay flaccid, his arms thrown out in a macabre cruciform position.

The Pardoner, Albin of Rouncivale was dead.

D
inner at the castle was a wholly different occasion from the previous evening. Richard supped at the high table with Sir Thomas, Lady Alecia and Lady Wilhelmina, while Hubert ate at one of the long tables with the castle servants and their families. The food was less varied but of an agreeable standard, served with aplomb by Pringle the butler and his staff, while the minstrels played in the gallery above.

‘You are a widower I believe, Sir Richard,' Lady Alecia stated, rather than asked.

‘I am, Lady Alecia. My wife died in childbirth less than twelve months ago. My son lived for a few days. May the Lord bless their souls.'

Sir Thomas grunted. ‘My wife lost two sons before we had Wilhelmina,' he said, sourly. ‘Although she has a mind faster than most men.'

‘Father, please!' Lady Wilhelmina protested.

‘Oh but you have, my dear,' said her mother. ‘And you have so many accomplishments. You can sing, play the harp, and speak French and Latin. And you can read and write like—'

Sir Thomas thumped his fist on the table. ‘Enough, Alecia! Are you trying to marry our daughter off to Sir Richard?'

Richard smiled inwardly. He knew that Lady Alecia had probably touched a raw nerve with her husband when she
had alluded to her daughter's literacy. He suspected that Sir Thomas had somehow managed to keep his own illiteracy from her with his overbearing ways.

Lady Wilhelmina gave her own spirited reply. ‘Father! Mother! You have embarrassed both Sir Richard and me. May I withdraw?'

Richard raised a hand to protest, but Lady Wilhelmina had already risen, studiously keeping her gaze averted from him.

‘Lady Wilhelmina,' Richard pleaded, ‘there is no need to feel—'

But it was too late. After curtsying to no one in particular she flounced out of the hall. As she did so, all of the other diners had either shot to their feet or were busily pushing back their stools in order to do so. Sir Thomas had said nothing to try to restrain her and he said nothing when his wife also retired after first giving her most profuse apologies to Richard. Once again the rest of the hall stood as the Deputy Steward's wife swept out of the hall.

Sir Thomas reached across the table for a jug and
replenished
his mug. ‘Women, eh?' he chuckled. ‘I fear that they do not understand much of the real world.'

Richard shook his head in disagreement. ‘Yet your daughter attended the Manor Court today. That implies to me that she is very interested in what is happening in the real world.'

Sir Thomas quaffed his ale and pursed his lips pensively. ‘She has a curious nature, Sir Richard,' he explained. ‘It is no more than that.' He leaned forward on one elbow. ‘Actually, I rather think she may have inherited that curiosity from me. I am very curious to know what you have learned about the murder of that villain Scathelocke?'

Richard was surprised by the question. ‘And how do you know that I have learned anything, Sir Thomas?'

The Deputy Steward laughed. ‘Perhaps you think that I am a complete simpleton, Sir Richard,' he said, fixing Richard with a less than friendly regard. ‘Let me assure you that I am not. I mean to be the true steward of Sandal Castle very soon.
Perhaps even Lord of the Manor of Wakefield in time. Suffice it to say that I know of all of your movements today.'

Richard felt his hackles rise, yet he restrained himself from showing any disquiet. ‘So you have had spies watching me, Sir Thomas? I am not sure that his majesty would take too kindly to having one of his Sergeants-at-Law interfered with when he is investigating the murder of one of his subjects. Remember that I am here under his warrant.'

Sir Thomas merely grunted and gulped more ale. Then he belched slowly. ‘Then if I were you I would be careful in your investigations. You don't want to discover a viper's nest. You know what an aversion his majesty has to snakes. Just think of what happened to Earl Lancaster.'

After supper Hubert had gone for another stroll round the battlement walk. As he expected, Adam Crigg was on duty on the same section of wall as the night before.

‘Did that oaf grumble at you last night?' Hubert asked.

Adam gave a lop-sided grin. ‘He yelled a bit and tried to belittle me in front of the guardroom, but quite honestly, I don't give a witch's wart for him.'

They walked on, Adam keeping a constant watch on the approach to the castle.

‘What are the castle defences like?' Hubert asked.

Adam grinned again. ‘If you weren't the judge's man and a fellow soldier I might take you for a spy,' he joked. He turned and spat. ‘But the truth is that this castle would take a good siege now. It didn't before Earl Lancaster took it, but he shored it up and did a lot of reinforcements. With the
drawbridge
up it should be pretty damned impregnable. We've got an outer and an inner moat, machicolations above the main gate and on the barbican. And that barbican would defend the keep against an army. We've got three wells and plenty of food to last a few months.' He grinned again. ‘And plenty of ale and wine.'

Hubert tapped Adam's pike. ‘Your weapons seem to be well 
sharpened and in good condition. I suppose you've got an armourer to maintain everything.'

Adam clicked his tongue. ‘We did have a good one. Old Jomo was the armourer and castle blacksmith for twenty years. What he didn't know about ballistas, onagars, axes and halberds just wasn't worth knowing. And he could mend anything from a ploughshare to a church bell. It was him that I told you about last night. Earl Lancaster had him make new bells for his chapel in the west tower and for the Church of St Helens in Sandal Magna. And the Earl had him make all those other little bells that the Deputy Steward is so fond of.'

‘What happened? You talk as if he isn't here anymore.'

‘He isn't anywhere, friend Hubert.' He crossed his heart. ‘I just hope he's forging bells and angel arrows up in heaven, and not working on the Devil's forge down below. He died one afternoon about a year or so ago. He had a good breakfast, then just got ill straight afterwards. Master Oldthorpe was sent for by the Earl, but there was nothing he could do. By noon he had given up the ghost. Gideon Kitchen was bloody inconsolable for a week and thought that he must have poisoned him.'

Hubert shook his head sympathetically. ‘These things happen sometimes. An Act of God, maybe?'

‘Maybe. It was just fortunate that he had no family. Anyway, he's buried over the hill. I sometimes salute him when I hear the chapel bell ringing.'

Hubert patted the sword at his side. ‘It is a pity, right enough. I would have liked to get this faithful old fellow of mine sharpened.'

Adam looked at it with the eye of a professional soldier. ‘I'll take care of that for you, friend Hubert. For a mug of ale!'

‘Right willingly will I buy you one, or several. A good drinking session would go down well with me,' Hubert replied with a laugh. He looked about the walls, where two other guards were watching their sections. ‘Where is your sergeant this evening?'

‘Sleeping! The dozy clod. He is taking a party out at first light. Sir Thomas came back this afternoon huffing and puffing about your master. He says that he is going to capture Robert Hood.'

‘He does, does he?' Hubert mused.

‘Aye. But I reckon we might see pigs fly over this wall afore that happens.'

Richard had retired to his room in the North Tower after supper to rest and to get his thoughts in order. The murder of William Scathelocke bothered him. It all seemed so messy. And Richard did not like mess.

He lay on his bed staring at the ring of light cast on the ceiling by his guttering candle.

‘But damn me, I do like the look of that apothecary's wife,' he whispered to himself. Then he immediately felt guilty. Not so much because thoughts of cuckolding the apothecary had gone through his mind, but because he was not yet over the loss of his own wife and child. He pummelled his temples to force the thought of Emma Oldthorpe from his head.

As he did so, he fancied that he heard a footstep in the corridor outside his door. ‘Hubert? Is that you?'

There was no answer at first. Then he heard a feminine voice calling his name softly through the door.

He rose and threw it open. Despite himself he gasped at the sight of a cloaked and hooded figure standing in the shadows. His hand went to the dagger at his side, but he refrained from drawing it when the figure reached up and threw back the hood.

Lady Wilhelmina was standing there, a voluptuous smile upon her lips.

As a trained soldier Hubert had woken at the sound of the drawbridge being lowered and the portcullis being raised. A couple of candles illuminated the guardroom where he had been given a pallet bed, and by the darkness of the hour, the
deep snores of the off-duty guards and the size of the candle stumps he gauged that it was at east two hours before
cockcrow
. The cadence of horses crossing the drawbridge brought back the image of Adam's face as he told him of Sir Thomas's plan to capture the Hood. He grinned, then turned over and within seconds had fallen fast asleep again.

When cockcrow did come he was instantly awake and
immediately
alert. And extremely hungry. After using the communal garderobe and making his ablutions in the trough at the back of the guardroom, he followed his nose over the inner moat from the barbican to the bailey, heading in the direction of the bakehouse. Already the castle was coming to life as the grooms swept out the stables and fed the animals in the undercroft and the domestic servants bustled about emptying chamber pots, sweeping flagstone floors and replenishing rushes on the floors of the various buildings. The inevitable guards kept up a watch on the battlement walls and the air hung with the smell of wood-smoke, baking bread and cooking meat.

As he approached the bakehouse, where he could hear the merry voice of Gideon Kitchen issuing orders amid peals of laughter, the melodic sound of a lute caught his attention. As he passed the stairs that led up to the oriel gallery and the Great Hall he saw the lute-player sitting cross-legged atop a barrel, seemingly blissfully unaware of all that went on around him. He was a young man in his early twenties, clean shaven and smartly clad in red tunic and hose. When Hubert stopped to listen to him he looked up and abruptly strummed his instrument then stopped the strings vibration with the flat of his hand.

‘You play well, young Master—'

‘Alan-a-Dale,' replied the youngster with a smile of delight. He made a circular roll of his hand and inclined his head in a little bow. ‘Might I play you a song?'

Hubert grinned as he shook his head. ‘I would love to hear more, but I fear that the rumbling of my stomach might drown out any music you play. Later, perhaps.'

‘Of course, sir. I have had the honour of playing before your master Sir Richard.' He played a few notes, and then strummed again. ‘
A clever, clever knight
,' he sang. Then his fingers moved nimbly and he played a few more notes. ‘
And he will do well
.' He played another few notes. ‘
To show that he can do right.
'

Hubert was already striding off towards the bakehouse, but as the minstrel played another few notes, strummed loudly then stopped, he wondered whether Alan-a-Dale was being deliberately impertinent. If he was, he would box his ears. He wheeled round to demand what he meant.

But Alan-a-Dale had gone.

‘Where on earth—?' he began.

‘Where is what, Hubert?' Richard asked, as he walked across towards him.

Hubert told him of the minstrel's little ditty. ‘Should I go and find the fool, sir?'

But Richard shook his head and pointed towards the
bakehouse
. ‘It is no more than one can expect from a minstrel,' he said. ‘Now come, we shall see what Gideon Kitchen can offer us to break our fast.'

Hubert fell into step beside Richard. He said nothing, but he wondered why his master had suddenly coloured.

Gideon Kitchen was true to his word, in that he fed them a sumptuous breakfast of gruel, newly caught fried trout, and hunks of bread, all washed down with mugs of ale. And as they ate, he regaled them with many a jest.

‘I think that you have a jibe for every occasion, Gideon Kitchen,' said Richard.

‘I have to, Sir Richard. A happy eater is a contented eater, and a contented eater is another rung on my ladder to heaven.'

‘Well, no one will ever die from eating at your table, Master Kitchen,' said Hubert with a laugh.

The cook eyed him with a hint of suspicion for a moment, then burst out laughing again. ‘Nay, not unless he wants to 
get plucked, roasted and served up with the capons and boars at my lord's table.'  

Hubert wondered if he had inadvertently touched a raw spot with the cook, and remembered that Adam Crigg had told him how upset Gideon had been when the castle
blacksmith
had died. He made a mental note to tell his master about it later.  

As it was, it was put out of his mind, for, as they left the bakehouse they saw Sir Thomas Deyville come striding across the bailey courtyard from his chambers beside the gatehouse. His face bore an expression of grim determination and in his hand he swung the wooden flail of which he was so fond.  

‘Sir Richard!' he barked. ‘I need a word with you!'  

Hubert said softly under his breath, ‘He seems an angry bull this morning. Has something upset him, do you think, Sir Richard?'  

Richard also replied under his breath, ‘It looks like it. I think that it might be sensible if I meet with him on my own, good Hubert. Why don't you go and look to our horses in the stables?'