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- Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
- Kategorie: Krimi
- Serie: Bradecote & Catchpoll
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020
The brutal murder of a woman with a past is a thorny investigation for Bradecote and Catchpoll July, 1144. The body of a woman is found butchered on an island a few miles upriver from Worcester - how did she get there, who killed her, and why? Uncovering the details of Ricolde's life and her past reveal a woman with hidden depths and hidden miseries which are fundamental to the answers, but time has cast a thick veil over the killer's identity. The lord sheriff 's men have a trail that went cold over two decades ago, and evidence that contradicts itself. Undersheriff Bradecote and Serjeant Catchpoll will need all their wits to solve this mystery.
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River of Sins
A Bradecote and Catchpoll Mystery
SARAH HAWKSWOOD
5
For H. J. B.
6
Contents
Chapter One
The Feast of St Mary Magdalene, July 1144
The woman moaned, very softly, as consciousness returned. Her head ached. She was moving, and in a boat, for she could hear the soft sound of water parting and closing as the paddles dipped. She was gagged and bound, and wrapped in some cloth which she felt she knew. Yes, it was the feel of the coverlet of her bed. She did not struggle, and part of her wondered why. For a moment she questioned whether this had been some form of kidnapping, to sell her to a foreign trader. It made no sense, but then none of it did. The boat seemed to glide through the water as though the world had no cares in it and was at peace. Her captor spoke not a word, beyond the occasional grunting breath as he rowed.
They did not go very far, she thought. She wished they had, for then she would have had more precious time. There was a scraping of wood, a splash and a muttered oath as a line failed 8to catch at the first attempt, then the rope tightened, and the boat juddered and stilled. She was more dragged than lifted onto dry land, and her aching head was bumped again. She was rolled out of the cloth onto dewy grass and found herself gazing up into a softly lit sky, just past the sun’s full rise over the horizon. A skylark was singing.
The gag was removed from her mouth, and she was pulled into a sitting position, but her hands were kept bound behind her. She looked at him, and at the axe in his hand. She ought to be afraid. She was not, and she thought that unsettled him. He wanted her to plead? Well, she would not, because she had seen men look like that before. They wanted to hear the pleading, and then do what they wanted anyway. Even at the last she would not give a man that satisfaction, whatever other satisfaction she had given men over the years.
‘Why? And why here? Where is here?’ she mumbled, her mouth still dry, and looked about her. They were on some small islet in the river, and it was familiar, but from long ago. She frowned as she dragged the memory from the depths.
‘Do you not recognise it?’ The voice was hard. ‘No, perhaps you were too young. You do not know why either, but I will tell you that. Your mother was found floating down the Severn, but that was just the end of it. This is where it happened, where he discovered her whoring. The other man escaped by diving into the water, but she did not. He had the right to punish her for her faithlessness, and you are as bad. It must be in the blood from her. He dragged her to the water, down one of the slopes, and held her under till she stopped struggling. Then he let her float away. Why do you think we left? Grief?’ 9
The headache was replaced by spinning – but spinning of thoughts. It was impossible, surely it was impossible? And if it was not … She felt sick then. There were some deeds too repellent.
‘No.’ She refuted the thought with the word.
‘Yes. I did not recognise you either, otherwise I would not …’ His face contorted.
‘But you have lived in Worcester all these past years and …’ She shook her head. Her memories were hazy, of a boy teetering upon the edge of manhood, about to change but still gangly of limb and indeterminate of voice.
‘Why should I link The Whore of Worcester with a little girl I last saw when she was a snivelling brat of five summers.’
She ignored the question. ‘When did he die?’ She wanted to know that at least, how many years the man she recalled as big and brutish, and always angry, had lived with a taken life upon his soul.
‘A year after we left. Some inflammation of the lungs took him. He had me apprenticed in a good craft, so I was secure. I worked hard, hard enough to earn the hand of my master’s daughter, and when he died, well, I had my own business.’
‘So he sort of drowned too.’ She was glad. ‘Fitting, I would say.’
He struck her across the face. It hurt, but what did it matter. Soon there would be no more hurt.
‘If I am like my mother, then you are like him, a bully who blames others for his own failings. You will kill me to take the “taint” of our sinning together from you, blame me, but it was you who came to my door, you who paid the coin.’ 10
Yes, as always, the man blamed the woman. It was the woman’s fault for tempting, the wife’s fault for not tempting enough. They thought themselves better, but they were simply bigger and more powerful. He was a nithing, a bully’s whelp, for all he held the axe.
She did the last thing she could do to show he did not have command of her; she laughed. Her laughter was a little ragged, and in her head were a jumble of urgent thoughts: she would be alone, without comfort, but she had always been alone all her life; better this sudden end beneath the blue heavens and with a skylark’s song in her ears than old and raddled and cold in the dark. Then there was the desperate rush of thought. She did not want to die, not yet. She prayed silently as he grabbed her by her dark chestnut hair, and the laugh grew shrill. Holy Mary, pray for us sinners … She was still laughing as the axe struck home.
The lad bringing the swine to the water’s edge had not seen much, thanks be to God, thought Heribert, the manor reeve of Bevere. It was enough to turn a grown man’s stomach, and his had turned as soon as he realised that crows were pecking at human remains. As he had rowed across the narrow channel where the Severn parted about the islet, he had been telling himself that it was some beast that had swum across to Bevere Island and died there, but no natural death would have left the raw and bloodied mess, and he could still see clothing. He coughed, swallowed hard and returned to shore, grim-faced. He strode with purpose to the manor, took the pony from the stable and rode with urgency into Worcester. Although it was 11but a few miles, the lord sheriff would expect to hear of this immediately, and four feet were much faster than two. He would have to tell Father Prior also, since the land was in the priory’s holding.
It was a solemn man, slightly out of breath and still with a sickly pallor, who presented himself in the castle. He was out of luck in seeking the lord sheriff, since William de Beauchamp was gone three days past to one of his outlying manors. He did, however, find the undersheriff, the lord Bradecote, who had come into Worcester to order new boots, since his lady told him that his complaints at the leaking of his old and very comfortable pair were as regular as the priest saying the offices, and that they were indeed beyond repair. He had spent a half-hour with the man recommended by Serjeant Catchpoll as the best in Worcester and was now back at the castle enjoying an exchange of news before departing for home.
‘The swine boy saw it first, my lord, crows fighting over something large on the island. Praise be he is not older and more curious. I took the boat across and’ – Heribert the Reeve shook his head – ‘I never wants to see the like of it again. A soldier might have seen such a sight upon a battlefield, but no peaceable man would …’ He wiped a hand, one that shook slightly, across his mouth. ‘There was blood, so much blood, and the body hacked about so that it looked like something from a flesherman’s block, and the face was … gone. I could not even tell you if it was man or woman, for I did not look close to try and find out. I came here, as fast as the pony would bring me, my lord. God in Heaven save us from whoever did this.’ He crossed himself devoutly. 12
‘You did the right thing, Master Reeve. You say there was much blood. Was it fresh, the corpse?’
‘Must be, my lord, for my boys was down at the bank opposite last evening, larking about at the water’s edge. It had been hot, and they had worked hard till an hour before sunset. What is on that island now would have been noticed.’
‘Is your boat always tied to the bank?’ Serjeant Catchpoll, who had been alerted by a guard that a man was come to report a body, had entered the chamber silently and was leaning against the wall by the doorway.
‘Aye, it is, in the summer months. It is brought out of the water come October, afore the winter rains and rising waters swell the channel.’
‘So, everyone in Bevere knows it is there?’ Catchpoll wanted to be sure.
‘In the manor and in Claines itself. There is no secret to it. I do as my father did before me and use it to take sheep across for the new grass in spring, though it does not take them long to crop it short, and I fish, when there is the time.’
‘Do any others use it?’ asked Bradecote.
‘Well, I would say as a good many young couples have “borrowed” it so that they might watch the sunset together without fear of disturbance, if you get my—’
‘Yes, we do.’ Bradecote had no time to listen to local courting customs. ‘We will come back with you to Bevere, and if we may borrow your boat, we will see what has happened for ourselves.’
‘And do I have to …’ It was clear that the reeve had no wish to return to the scene of bloodshed and gore. 13
‘No, you need do nothing except lend us the boat and some sacking, or covering, for the corpse.’
‘I can provide that, my lord.’ Heribert the Reeve sounded very relieved.
‘Then let us be on the move. Is Walkelin about, Catchpoll?’
‘Last saw him by the priory gate being shouted at by Mistress Longstaff for not finding her cat.’
‘We look for lost cats, Catchpoll?’
‘No, my lord, assuredly we do not, but the old woman thinks we should.’
‘Then I am sure he will be delighted to leave Worcester and come to help us.’
‘Help us, my lord?’
‘He can row.’
‘Ah yes, now that is a very good use of an apprentice serjeant.’ Catchpoll gave a fleeting grin, but then his face settled into its usual grim and wary lines. ‘I am already thinking that whatever was used to hack the body is on the river bottom.’
‘Unless it was something needed by the killer every day. Wash it clean in the river and walk away with it in clear view as any man might with an axe over his shoulder or a knife at his belt.’
The reeve, whose colour had gradually been returning to normal, went pale again.
‘No. I will not believe it.’
‘Believe what, Master Reeve?’
‘Would not hurt a soul, not him.’
‘Who?’ cried undersheriff and serjeant in near unison.
‘Edmund, son of Gyrth. Bit slow he is, but gentle with 14things. I saw him with an axe over his shoulder this morning, and he said as he was taking off a branch of the elm that was lightning struck last week and looks like to fall.’
‘Which he might well have done. We are not saying any man with an axe is the killer.’ Catchpoll often wondered how his fellow men could jump to conclusions. ‘As the lord Bradecote said, let us be on our way.’ He ushered the reeve out, and, as Bradecote came abreast of him, muttered, ‘If he saw two frogs in a puddle, he would be one to think it had rained frogs.’
It did not take long, at the easy canter of a horse, to reach the river by Bevere Island. The manor, little more than a cluster of dwellings about a wooden palisaded enclosure, was in view but not so close that anyone by the river would be distinguished. They left the horses there, collected some sacking and went the last part on foot, with the reeve showing every sign of being a reluctant member of the party.
‘My lord, my boat is for your use but … You are sure I do not have to …?’ The reeve still wanted assurance.
‘No. We will not need you upon the island, but would speak with you again, so remain here.’
‘Yes, my lord, of course.’ The man’s relief was audible, and he stood upon the bank, looking downstream rather than at the islet and the dark shape upon it.
The crows, in attendance like hungry mourners, flapped away with caws of annoyance as the little craft nudged into the bank, and Bradecote, rather more nimble than Catchpoll, jumped ashore. He tied the end of the painter to a sprawling willow bough, and they climbed the bank, noting the bare earth 15which had been long trampled into shallow steps. The smell assailed their noses as they drew close, the smell of butchered meat, but no animal carcase ever wore clothes. The ground was dark where the blood had pooled, and the flies were not so easily disturbed as the birds of carrion. What lay before them was obviously human, but beyond that not instantly identifiable. The head was nigh severed from the torso, and where there had been a face there was a face no more. The body had been hacked, more in a frenzy than an attempt to dismember, and with such force that the broad, pale curve of a pelvic bone, visible through the gore, was split in two.
‘Sweet Jesu, he was right. You can’t even say if it was a man or a woman,’ Walkelin muttered and crossed himself, swallowing hard.
‘A woman,’ responded Catchpoll, without hesitation.
‘But how, just glancing at that … mess?’
‘You do not need to look at the obvious to tell you man or woman, Walkelin. Look at the ankle, the foot. The lower legs are untouched. That is a female’s leg most like, and the feet are small too. Not final proof, but it pushes you one way. I imagine the hands are under the corpse and tied behind the back, for there are no parts of a hand you can see, and if a person has their hands free they naturally raise them to protect themselves against a blow, even if it will not save them. My guess is the hands will be small too. See also what is visible of the gown cloth looks as if it is a long gown, not a youth’s tunic, and the hair …’ Catchpoll’s frown became intense, and he crouched to lift the end of a hank of dark chestnut hair that had not lain in the pooled blood. 16
‘God forfend,’ he whispered, almost to himself.
‘The body has been hacked about to prevent us knowing her identity. I mean, you could not recognise the face even if you were blood kin.’ Bradecote’s features contorted in distaste.
‘I think that was not the first purpose, though, my lord.’ Catchpoll was still crouched beside the body, drawing knowledge from it even in its mangled silence. ‘This was an odd killing, because there was planning to its start, bringing her here, but then the killer gave vent to hate, to a rage like some bloodlust of battle. I have never seen the two together. Most killing is in hot blood, some in cold. This …’ Catchpoll sucked his teeth.
‘Well, we may not be able to give her a name, but we can take her to the priest in Claines for a decent burial and—’ Bradecote halted, as Catchpoll shook his head, his mouth set in a grim line. ‘Why not?’
‘Because I think she may well be out of Worcester, my lord, if my instinct is true, and Father Anselm will give her ground in which to lie.’
‘You mean because a local woman would have been missed already, in such a small place as the manor of Bevere or Claines?’ Walkelin was working things through, methodically.
‘Well, that is good thinking, young Walkelin, but takes us only so far. I think I may yet give a name to her, though it does not cheer me to say it. However, until I am sure …’ Catchpoll was almost talking to himself.
‘Then we wrap the corpse as best we can, and we get the reeve to lend us a cart to get it … her … back to Worcester.’ Bradecote spoke decisively. ‘Is there anything more here? Walkelin, search about and see if the killer left any trace of his 17presence. It is unlikely but … the axe, and it was surely that, is most likely out in the depths of the river, and lost to us, as Catchpoll feared.’
‘Very true if it was one he stole, but if it was his own, and for his trade, he could have washed it in the water and gone back with it, my lord. You had the right of it. A good axe is worth keeping, and besides, it would be noticed if he had “lost” it. We have to keep that in our thoughts too.’ Catchpoll was still staring at the remains, though neither of his companions chose to do so.
‘True enough, Catchpoll. So, we are looking for a man, a man who can be calm enough to bring his victim here and set about a killing almost as an execution, but then gives in to rage. If he is coming from Worcester then he must also have had a cart, since he could not conceal a bound woman over a horse.’
‘Unless she came willingly, my lord’ – Walkelin looked up from peering among the long grasses fringing the islet that had dried to barley gold – ‘and willing or not, why was she killed here, not in Worcester, if that is where she lived? And there is nothing here, except some animal fed upon another, recently, for there are little tugs of fur. Buzzard, I would say, with a coney perhaps. Less likely to be disturbed if it ate here. There’s nothing the killer could have left.’
‘You mean she could have had a meeting arranged here and met her killer rather than being brought here? I suppose that is possible …’ Bradecote, ignoring the natural history, frowned.
‘I do not see a woman walking out of Worcester at the hint of dawn, as soon as the gates were opened, and if she did, she would be noted. And especially not barefoot, not with those 18feet.’ Catchpoll was dismissive, but then frowned and looked more closely at the pale feet. ‘Those are feet that do not go barefoot, for the skin is soft except for … Now, that is odd.’
‘What is, Catchpoll?’
‘Look here, my lord. Them’s scars. Very old, mark you, like burn scars upon the soles of the feet. I never heard of a child as walked across a red-hot hearth.’
‘You mean it was not an accident, Serjeant?’ Walkelin looked horrified.
‘You, lad, do not know just how nasty people can be. Not only would she not have walked barefoot, I would swear she could not.’ Catchpoll pulled a thinking face. ‘But you are right to ask why the killing was here. It must have some meaning to the killer.’
‘But it is just a small islet in the Severn, Catchpoll.’
‘Aye, my lord, but big enough for the folk of Worcester to seek shelter here once, when the Danish king sought vengeance for their not paying him dues. That was before even our oldfathers drew breath, I should think, but the reeve talked about it as a place for young couples – and coupling too no doubt. What if this was where they first met and exchanged kisses, if nothing more? If she was an unfaithful wife …?’ Catchpoll sounded unconvinced by his own words and shook his head.
‘You do not think that? Why, Catchpoll?’
‘If my guess is right, she was no man’s wife, my lord.’
‘So, if she did not leave Worcester at first light, then perhaps she left yesterday.’ Walkelin still liked the idea the woman came at her own wish. ‘What if she had arranged to meet the man, spend the night with him and then … he did this?’ 19
‘It is sense enough, Walkelin, but you see I do not think she would ever leave Worcester like that.’
‘Come on, Catchpoll. However reluctant you are to give us your guess, you need to tell us who you think this might be.’ Bradecote watched his serjeant closely, and for all that Catchpoll was the lord sheriff’s serjeant by title, Bradecote felt that he was his by bond now. The man was unusually grim, as if actually saddened, and Catchpoll disapproved of sympathy for victims. It got in the way of finding them justice.
Walkelin, his search proving fruitless, also looked to his senior.
‘I hope I am wrong, my lord, but I feel it, deep in the gut instinct. I think this is Ricolde.’
‘Ricolde? Should I know her?’
‘Not as a happily married man, my lord. Ricolde is, was, the finest whore in Worcester.’
Chapter Two
If he had thought his answer would surprise his companions, Catchpoll was not disappointed.
‘“The Whore of Worcester”,’ murmured Walkelin, in a voice of awe, and crossed himself again.
‘Well, whatever her fame, and you both sound as though it was great, I have never heard of her,’ Bradecote remarked, almost petulantly. ‘You say “finest”, Catchpoll, which sounds an odd description of a whore.’
‘She was not like the others, my lord, not any man’s for a fumble in the alleyway in exchange for a halfpenny. She was … a lady among her sisterhood, if you see what I mean?’
‘I cannot say that I do, Catchpoll.’ Bradecote had no good opinion of whores.
‘She has been plying her trade best part of twenty years in Worcester. I do not know how she started, other than she was 21not born or raised within the walls, but from when I first knew her, and that has never been in the “know her” sense, my lord, she has had a little place of her own, kept neat as any proud housewife’s, not some greasy hovel, and she had her price, a high price. She dressed well, aye, and seemly too of the daytime, and the man who could afford her had her to himself for the night, or as much of it as he dared be absent from his own bed, if he was married. She was not just for a rushed hour of flattering lies and soft caresses. I suppose she was more like a leman, except not kept by one man.’
‘So, it is likely that the man who killed her was wealthy enough to have afforded her.’ Bradecote was caught between relief at this narrowing of suspects from every man in Worcester and the realisation that wealthy men could pay for good oathswearers.
‘Unless a man who wanted her, and could not afford her, gave in to lust and took her by force.’ Walkelin blushed scarlet. ‘I mean took her from Worcester by force.’
Catchpoll heaved a sigh and shook his head.
‘You dismiss this, Catchpoll?’ the undersheriff queried.
‘She was careful, my lord. A whore who is not careful does not live to see thirty summers, and she must have been that. It is a life with risk to it, from disease, of course, but also from them that buy the flesh. She would not let a man into her chamber who was drunk, for example, which is always a wise start.’
‘And how do you know all this, Catchpoll?’ Bradecote could not resist lifting an eyebrow.
‘Because she treated the law with respect, and I, being the law in person on the streets of Worcester, treated her likewise. Never 22threw me a chancy look, but always a polite acknowledgement, and we had an agreement.’
‘An agreement?’ This sounded intriguing.
‘Began years back, when first I had cause to ask her things. There had been a falling-out among guildsmen and a death. I had a pretty fair idea one of the suspects used to go to her. She swore he had indeed been with her the night of the killing and said The Whore of Worcester’s word was good. She said it was a bit like a priest and the confessional. What passed between her and a man was kept close, but she would not lie for one, however often she lay with one, and if I asked her a simple “Was he with you such a night?”, she would answer God’s truth.’
‘Which begs the question why any man who spent the night with her would bring her to this, and how did he get her here? She has not been here since darkness fell last night, so how was she brought out of Worcester as soon as the Foregate was opened without the man with a cart being noted?’ Bradecote shook out the sacking in which they could wrap the remains.
‘We might find he was, my lord,’ suggested Walkelin, hopefully. His seniors gave him a look that suggested such good fortune was the stuff of dreams, but Walkelin was not crushed, and offered another thought. ‘And if it was that he brought her here, he cannot be a married man, else he would worry about his wife revealing his absence through the night.’
‘More likely to be widowed or single, but there are wives in Worcester, for all they would play shocked virtue, know their husbands stray, but say nought because they have the position and power of a wife, which is a thing of worth.’ Catchpoll looked thoughtful. 23
He took a sack and eased it as best he could over the head and down the torso to keep the body together, and another up the legs a way above the knee. They slit open two sacks down the sides and laid them out, one on top of the other beside the body, so that they could roll it, cautiously, onto them. It was then proved that Catchpoll had been right; the hands were bound at the wrist and were not hands that saw heavy labour.
‘See, them’s woman’s hands, and kept nice too.’ Catchpoll peered closer. ‘There’s even a silver ring upon a finger.’ He leant to study it upon the hand, sticky with congealing gore. ‘It is wrought, so any silversmith in Worcester should know if it is his and might just recall who bought it. That will be your task when we get to Worcester, Walkelin. Safest left on the finger till we get her back.’
‘Yes, Serjeant.’
They placed the other sacks over the body and lifted it, carefully, to place in the boat. She was not heavy, for which they were thankful, and with Bradecote lifting the corners near the head end, Walkelin foot end, and Catchpoll, whose hands were already the most bloodied, supporting the middle, they made their way to the bank, where they stopped, adjusted their holds and descended with care – and some swearing. It was as they reached the narrow strand, no more than two feet wide, that Walkelin, watching where he put his feet, gave a cry.
‘That’s not a footmark from us, is it, Serjeant?’
Catchpoll looked down. It was toe towards the water, and a blade of darkened grass that had stuck to the sole had been left pressed into the mud. It was also partially obscured by a larger footprint. 24
‘Not ours, lad. Well spotted. I ought to have seen that when we arrived, but I am thinking you, my lord, were on that spot.’
‘You mean me and my big feet, Catchpoll.’
‘Would not put it that way, my lord, but yes. Means the man was of middling height, not as tall as you, but then, that does not limit us much, for you are one of the taller men I know.’
They set the body in the boat, and then realised that fitting all three of them in it as well would not be possible.
‘Looks like the reeve will have to give us a hand on the other side, my lord, and then I will send Walkelin back for you while a cart is fetched.’
‘Fair enough, Catchpoll. He won’t like that.’
‘And do we care?’ The serjeant shrugged.
‘No. Just remember to send Walkelin back and not leave me to try and wade across. I may be tall, but it looks far too deep to me, and I am no swimmer.’ Bradecote looked at his hands, which were stained and sticky, and at the marks on his clothing. He could wash his hands easily enough in the flow, but would the bloodstains not give cause for remark? He watched the reeve take the rope and tie up the boat as it reached the bank, and could have smiled at the way he tried not to look at what lay in it. His reaction when told to assist in the removal of the body made Bradecote think he might simply bolt for the manor and hide within the palisade, not that Catchpoll would have let him. When Walkelin returned in the boat, he was grinning.
‘I am not sure the reeve will not have this for firewood by evening. He acts as if it is cursed and is telling Serjeant Catchpoll the lord Sheriff ought to give him money for a new boat.’
‘I can imagine Catchpoll’s response.’ 25
‘Indeed, my lord. Now, if you dare step into this “haunted” craft, I will row us back and we can leave the man to his imaginings.’ Walkelin grinned.
‘Not until we have spoken to Edmund the Branch-feller.’
‘I had forgot him, my lord.’
‘I have little doubt we shall all do so very soon, especially since we need to get the body back to Worcester, but it seems wasteful of time not to at least speak with him, if he is close by.’
When they reached the bank, it was evident that Catchpoll had been of the same opinion, and he reported that Edmund, son of Gyrth, was being sent to them, with the cart.
‘And would you care to toss a coin over whether this man is any brighter than the limb he felled, Serjeant Catchpoll?’
‘I would not, my lord. If he can show us the tree, and is little brighter, we will leave him be for sure.’
So it proved. Edmund was a huge ox of a young man, slow-witted but clearly benign, who showed Serjeant Catchpoll the struck tree and the new cut where but recently had been a branch. He even offered to show him the branch.
‘I did not steal it,’ he repeated, over and over, being sure that the office of sheriff’s serjeant went to a man who took up thieves and thieves alone.
Catchpoll rejoined his companions entirely convinced that Edmund was not a killer with an axe.
They were not grinning as they entered Worcester, with Walkelin driving the Bevere manor cart and Bradecote and Catchpoll riding behind, like a respectful escort for the dead, and leading Walkelin’s mount. The man at the gate had just come on watch 26and could say nothing of what was seen that morning, but promised to send his predecessor to the castle within the hour to tell the lord undersheriff all he knew. With this they had to be content. At the castle they placed the body in the cool of an empty cell, and Catchpoll set a man-at-arms to take the cart back to Bevere, since Walkelin was needed to take the silver ring about the silversmiths of Worcester. It was Catchpoll who removed it from the now-stiffening finger and rubbed it to remove the blood, which then remained only in the etched marks. Bradecote took it from him and peered closely at them.
‘This is not a pattern. It is words, an inscription. It says “Ic beo min”.’
‘Ricolde had no letters, I would swear that,’ declared Catchpoll.
‘And what does “I am mine” mean?’ asked Walkelin.
‘There is no reason she needed to have been able to read them to ask for the words to be inscribed, and as for meaning …’ Bradecote paused, pondering.
‘Of course it might be a ring a man gave her in payment instead of coin,’ suggested Walkelin, ‘but he did not have it made as a gift for her, to impress, because it would have said “You are mine”. “I am mine” has no sense to it.’
‘It does if the woman wanted something to remind her that however much her body was used, she was her own soul.’ Bradecote was thinking of his Christina and how she had survived her years of mistreatment. Only by keeping her inner self separate had she done so and perhaps a whore … He scowled, for it felt all wrong to find a similarity between his beloved wife and a woman who sold her body for money, and 27yet in some cases, might it not exist? The girl Nerys Ford, God rest her soul, had not taken to selling herself from choice but from need. Had she not died, she would have grown to full womanhood, and would he have felt pity for her then? In truth, he would not, and it was his failing.
‘You might have it aright there, my lord,’ Catchpoll nodded, ‘which gives us a good chance of discovering the man who made it, and who could tell us who paid for it. Such a ring would linger in the memory. Walkelin, take it and show it to every silversmith. Meet us at Ricolde’s dwelling when you have your answer.’ He turned to his superior. ‘If she greets us at the door, my lord, we will have to start again as to our victim, but I will be the happier for it. If not, we asks all about when she was seen last.’
‘Agreed.’ Time was when Hugh Bradecote would have resented the serjeant taking charge of decisions, but there was no proving of superiority in this, just common sense. Catchpoll knew the heartbeat of Worcester, to the point where Bradecote had even dreamt that the cobbles told him things through the soles of his feet. Walkelin departed.
‘I must send a man to Bradecote, to tell my lady I am detained by a death. I do not see we will end this today, do you, Catchpoll?’
‘No, my lord, not unless we is very lucky, and the gate watch recognised a man and cart at dawn with a woman-sized bundle upon it.’
‘I should perhaps wait here for the watchman.’
‘I doubt we will be long, my lord, and, though I hates to say it, and would not in front of young Walkelin, when it comes to 28hunting in dark corners, my eyes ain’t what they were a while back, and a second, younger pair, might be of service.’
‘You want my eyes, but the rest is useless, Serjeant?’
‘Not my words, my lord, not my words.’ Catchpoll gave his death’s head grin.
Serjeant Catchpoll led the way through the streets down towards the wharfage. All Saints Church loomed with benign height over the generally squalid homes about it.
‘A lot of the flesh trade, and I don’t mean meat for eating, is done the south side of the church, along Shipmonneslone, so much so most people just call it Gropelone these days. Passing trade, so to speak, from the shipmen running up and down the river, keeps ’em busy. Ricolde, well she might have had a regular captain or two who would “stop by”, but she was a bit further along and away from the rest, on Brodestrete.’ Catchpoll walked on. ‘Here we are, and respectable tradesmen either side. You should have heard the complaints from their womenfolk, until it was realised guilty men buy trinkets for neglected wives.’
It was a very unassuming house, single storey but with a tall and steeply angled roof. The door looked new wood, or at least nearly new. Catchpoll knocked upon it and put an ear to the planking. The shutters were shut, but that meant little. There was a keyhole, which implied the door could keep things in and people out. He lifted the latch. The door was not locked, and he glanced at Bradecote. If you had a good lock and left the premises, why not use it?
Within it was one chamber, with a partition to chest height that divided the back half from the front. It was not lavishly 29furnished, but what there was was well made, and the front part was neat and tidy, excepting for the disorder of the rushes on the floor. There was a hearthstone, which Catchpoll touched.
‘Not even warm, my lord.’
There was a bench with a back to it, a stool, and against one wall a grain ark, with upon it two bowls, beakers and spoons, an earthenware cook pot, a pitcher, a ladle and a large paddle-shaped spoon.
‘She cooked for two,’ noted Bradecote.
‘I gets the feeling that a night with Ricolde could include a decent meal, if wanted. Think on it, my lord. If some of her men were wifeless and reliant upon a poor cookmaid, a good pottage, and soft words, would be a good start to a night that would end in a warm bed. For some it might even have been the food and company as was most important. Old Alfric the Potter, he used to come here, though he has been in the earth three years now. He was an old man, and if Ricolde had worked her wiles upon him in the bed, I doubt he would have lasted till then. He never hid that he visited her, even boasted of it, and I always thought he came to her to pretend he was still man enough to mount her, and in fact was happy to have a good meal and a cuddle ’neath the covers. He was just a lonely old bastard.’ Catchpoll spoke with gentle pity.
‘I doubt any such men would have killed her, so we discount those in their last years.’
Strings of onions, garlic and leeks hung from a beam, and herbs also. It was much like any house where a goodwife spent her days. It was the rear part of the place that was different. There was a coffer, in which Catchpoll found a small casket 30containing a silver torque, headbands of silver interlaced with ribbons and three brooches. There were three good gowns, neatly folded, two girdles, one of polished copper panels with cabochon turquoises, coifs, linen shifts, braidings, two pairs of shoes, lined with moleskin, and a fine cloak with its hood lined with a thick chestnut fox fur. Catchpoll held it and a gown up, and Bradecote blinked.
‘I love my wife, but I could not afford to dress her like that.’
‘Nor could half the lords in the shire, I would think. She never dressed cheap and untidy. Only the best for the best, I would say.’
Bradecote looked at the large and sturdy cot, which clearly had a well-stuffed palliasse and a crumpled sheet of linen upon it.
‘Her clothes were not untidy, the hearth is swept, but the bed, Catchpoll, has not been made, and either her lover was extremely energetic or there was some form of struggle here. Also, it may be midsummer, but there is no blanket of any sort on the bed or in the chest. I think we assume he rendered her unconscious and wrapped her in it.’
They looked at the bed and the story it told, and both were, for a moment, embarrassed as they thought of the woman they had found on Bevere Island, but in other circumstances. Bradecote coloured, but Catchpoll gave a slow smile. Then Bradecote leant to finger strands of dark chestnut hair, more like a lock pulled from the head. The palliasse was clean, but for a small, dark smear of blood at the head end.
‘We’ll see him dangle for you, Ricolde,’ whispered Catchpoll, as if giving her a promise. Neither man had any doubt that it was she who had met a gruesome end that dawning. 31
‘We could look upon the floor, among the rushes, in case he lost something of his own here or forgot to put it back on, if he harmed her after … But surely, if he had knocked her from her senses and carried her away, they would have been seen even if he took the bedcovering, rolled her in that and got her into some cart?’ Bradecote shook his head and went upon his knees to look beside the bed. ‘But that seems so planned it means he intended to kill her from the very start. I do not understand.’ He looked up and across the bed at Catchpoll.
‘Well, my lord, first thing we need to find out is when Ricolde was last seen hereabouts. The neighbours might say they have nothing to do with her, but I would guess the women watch and gossip when they can, and summer evenings are light.’
Bradecote pulled something from under the bed. It was not something discarded by a lover, but a stout box, and it was heavy to drag. Within it was silver coin, and more than Bradecote might see at once from one season to the next, and a cloth bag, embroidered with a crudely formed flower, which bulged and was found to contain forty silver pennies.
‘Well, she really did not sell herself cheaply, did she,’ commented Bradecote. ‘I wonder at the portion set aside in the bag. Perhaps it was saving for some new expensive thing.’
At this point Walkelin entered, cautiously, as if he might be leapt upon by some dangerous beast, and then relaxed as he saw only his superiors.
‘The ring is hers. I spoke with three silversmiths, and all had made things for her, but it was Reginald Ash as made the ring. What all of them said, very firmly, was that she paid in coin, never by …’ he blushed, ‘you know. Now, Reginald Ash has no 32woman, so he need not say that for any reason other than truth.’
‘That fits with what I know of her,’ agreed Catchpoll. ‘If Ash came to her bed, it was not for payment, but him doing the paying. She had a sort of … independence to her.’
‘And there can be no doubt now as to the identity of the body, so we make it known and we listen closely,’ Bradecote spoke half to himself.
‘You really are starting to sound like me, my lord,’ said Catchpoll, but he was not smiling.
Walkelin was recruited to look for any lingering sign of the man, but not as much as a thread was discovered.
Chapter Three
The first thing was to decide what should be done with Ricolde’s possessions, because, as Catchpoll said, they would disappear quickly once it was known she was dead, and everyone knew that she had no kin. They left Walkelin to guard the place and went to the castle, where Catchpoll looked as best he could at the body to see if there was a key at her girdle, or where her girdle ought to be. He found none. He then sent a man-at-arms with a handcart and instructions to Walkelin to place anything that could be moved in the cart to bring to the castle, and to leave the man-at-arms at the door, at least for the day. Nobody other than the sheriff’s men was to be admitted.
