8,39 €
Mehr erfahren.
- Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
- Kategorie: Krimi
- Serie: Bradecote & Catchpoll
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016
An arsonist proves to be a tough adversary for Worcester's sleuths September 1143. Serjeant Catchpoll hopes a fire at a Worcester silversmith's is just an accident, but when a charred corpse is discovered following a second fire, he has no choice but to call in the undersheriff. Hugh Bradecote may be new to the job compared to his wily colleague, but his analytical eye is soon hard at work. With further fires and a hooded figure stalking the streets, the duo must piece together the arsonist's vengeful motive.
Das E-Book können Sie in Legimi-Apps oder einer beliebigen App lesen, die das folgende Format unterstützen:
Seitenzahl: 368
Ähnliche
Ordeal by Fire
a Bradecote and Catchpoll Mystery
SARAH HAWKSWOOD
For H. J. B.
Contents
September 1143
Chapter One
‘Fire!’
The cry spread almost as swiftly as the flames, from person to person as from straw to straw of the crackling thatch.
‘Fire!’
Panic was mixed with action as anxious mothers dragged wide-eyed children from the spectacle. Neighbours, with as much an eye to preventing the blaze reaching their own property as to aiding the unfortunate silversmith whose workshop was alight, came running with buckets and pitchers to take water from the nearest well, and poles and hooks to pull down the burning thatch.
Serjeant Catchpoll was on his way back to the castle after visiting one of the burgesses. He had been sent by the sheriff to report the successful apprehension of the thief who had stolen the good man’s three best pullets. It was a call of courtesy, and Catchpoll, who was not a naturally courteous man, was not best pleased, but William de Beauchamp, lord Sheriff of Worcestershire, was himself far too important to make such a visit. Instead, he had delegated his serjeant so that the next meeting of the burgesses would not lead to their whining petition for greater diligence in upholding the king’s laws by the sheriff and his men.
The serjeant halted, making a swift assessment of the situation. Fire was the great fear of townsfolk, with their homes and businesses cheek by jowl, and nearly every one of them constructed of wood, and daub, and thatch. A fire that Catchpoll could remember from his youth, back in 1113, had cost dozens of lives, and livelihoods too. One of his own cousins had perished then, and there had been fire both accidental and intentional in the years since.
He considered running to the castle to bring the men-at-arms to assist, but it was clear that the alarm had been raised swiftly and it was a windless afternoon. Running was not something he did from choice at his age. The inhabitants of the street had pulled down the little thatched lean-to abutting the neighbouring premises, disregarding the pleas of the owner, and had created a small firebreak. Women were throwing water at the wall of this adjacent property, and already the smoke was more in evidence than the flames.
Catchpoll pulled a face. He could, as the sheriff’s officer, make his presence known and take charge of the scene. On the other hand, the locals were doing pretty well on their own, and if the fire were not sufficiently damped down and erupted again later there could be no blame laid at his door. He held back and waited, inconspicuously; he was a man who could merge into the background when occasion arose. Eventually the number of people in the street began to thin, leaving only the tradesman and his immediate neighbours surveying the scene. Puddles of sooty water lay in every depression of the trampled earth of the narrow street, and the scattered thatch was strewn as if thrown randomly by a giant hand. Charred beams pointed accusing black fingers heavenward, and the frame of the lean-to stood precariously at a drunken angle. The owner of the structure was still complaining vociferously, but nobody was paying him any attention whatsoever.
Serjeant Catchpoll took a deep breath, and promptly coughed as the ghost of an acrid tendril of smoke caught in his throat. He had hoped to step forward looking official, but found himself being thumped on the back by an elderly and sparsely toothed woman, attracting the attention of the sorry-looking party while bent double and with streaming eyes.
The diversion caused the lean-to’s owner to cease his complaint. After a minute, Catchpoll stood upright again. He hawked, paused, and spat into the soot-flecked dust.
‘You know me. I am the lord sheriff’s man, and he will want to know of this. How did the fire start?’ he asked, still wheezing slightly.
‘How do you think?’ demanded the lean-to owner, grumpily. ‘You’d think any man with a furnace in his premises would keep a better eye on it, not risk his neighbours through negligence.’
‘’Twas not negligence, as I and my journeyman could tell you if you would but listen.’
The silversmith, sitting on an upturned tun, wringing his hands, roused himself from his gloom, and the journeyman, while having a burnt hand tended by a winsome maid who had eased his discomfort as much by her presence as her ministrations, looked round to confirm his master’s words.
‘True enough. The fire did not start by the furnace, and it was banked down low this afternoon. Master Reginald was selecting stones for setting in a chalice, and I was polishing. The fire was in the thatch at the rear of the shop when we first noticed it.’
Serjeant Catchpoll frowned. A fire was bad, but a deliberate fire was far worse.
‘Don’t you take what that longshanks says as truth,’ piped up the old woman who had clapped Catchpoll on the back. ‘He’d swear sunrise was sunset to keep in his master’s favour. He’ll not have the wherewithal to wed else, and he can’t afford to wait long. She,’ and the woman pointed a dirty-nailed finger at the journeyman’s ministering angel, ‘won’t be able to hide the result of their sinning ’neath her gown much longer.’
The young woman reddened and threw her a fulminating glance, but the old woman merely laughed mirthlessly. Catchpoll’s eyes, like everyone else’s, dwelt upon the girl’s figure, which was shapely in a voluptuous way. If she was carrying, well, perhaps another woman could tell, but the serjeant certainly could not, and the other men looked as surprised. Indeed, the owner of the lean-to stood agape, his jaw working silently for several seconds and his face assuming a purple hue, before he could find his words.
‘You … You … lecherous, whoreson rogue! Ruin my daughter, would you! I’ll have you whipped. Indeed, I’ll do it myself.’ He lunged forward, and the girl placed herself smartly between father and lover, looking not chastened but belligerent.
‘Out of my way, you ungrateful wench. What your poor mother would have—’
‘My “poor” mother would have said I should have been wed long since, not kept to labour in her stead because you are too close-fisted to employ a woman to keep house for you. It’s you who should be shamed, not I. Edwin has good prospects with Master Reginald, and is no mean match for the daughter of an idle, ale-swilling fletcher like you.’ She turned to her lover. ‘Will you take me dowerless, love?’
‘You know that, Winflaed, but after this,’ he waved his sound hand at the smouldering shop, ‘I know not how we’ll manage.’
Master Reginald, who had originally been contemplating the future in a very despondent fashion, seemed to have pulled himself together during the altercation over Winflaed, and now, though blackened of face and singed of brow, looked much more his normal, competent self.
‘I’ll swear not all is lost, Edwin. Whatever lies charred out the back, the flames have not done more than blacken the very front of the shop, so the ready pieces should be undamaged, and if it did not get too hot, the tools and gemstones will be there amongst the ash and soot. We can get the building repaired, even if I have to give bracelets and clasps in payment, but it’ll mean a few weeks under an awning, and that’s no place for a woman, especially if she is … Once there’s proper chambers again you can bring your bride, and I’ll make you my partner when your time is up next Lady Day. Let her stay with her father till all’s ready.’
‘As if I’d have her.’ The fletcher curled his lip disdainfully. ‘Giving herself like some cheap forlegnis in an alley, and behind my back too.’
Serjeant Catchpoll had been diverted by the unexpected turn of the conversation, but was keen to get back to the sheriff with a report, and now spoke up, his voice authoritative and calm.
‘She’d scarce do so in front of you.’ At his quip the old woman laughed, and choked as a consequence. ‘You’ll take her back, Master Fletcher, with a good grace, and make efforts to give her a dower if you value your own standing. And you,’ he turned on the old woman, ‘will keep your tongue between the remains of your teeth and not spread gossip. Many a child arrives a mite early, and nothing is said.’ He dusted his hands together, dismissing the subject. ‘Now, can we get back to the fire? If you and your journeyman are certain that the fire did not start in the workshop, could it have started accidentally to the rear, with a stewpot mayhap, Master …?’ He frowned, for Catchpoll liked to know the craftsmen of Worcester, and this one’s name eluded him for the minute.
‘Reginald Ash is the name.’ The silversmith gave a bitter laugh. ‘Fitting, today, eh? But the fire starting from a cook-fire? No, I’d swear not. A girl comes and sets a pot cooking slow for us during the afternoon, but she don’t normally do that till the bell has struck for the afternoon service in the cathedral, and I did not hear her out back.’
‘Nor I either,’ agreed Edwin, ‘and we weren’t beating metal, nor any other noisy task.’
‘Well, where would I find the girl to find out for sure?’ Catchpoll could foresee the sheriff wanting to be clear about this.
‘Opposite, next to Adam Merlie, the coppersmith. She’s Widow Wick’s daughter, Agnes.’
‘And would there be anyone you know of as would want you out of business, Master Ash?’
The silversmith shook his head. ‘No, none. I keeps to myself, and have no bad blood betwixt me and any man that I knows of. My goods are well made and sold for a fair price, and there has never been any complaint otherwise. No, there is no reason anyone should want to burn me out.’
Serjeant Catchpoll rubbed his grizzled chin. ‘Well, I will report all this to the lord sheriff, and let him decide whether it was malice or accident.’
He left the silversmith and his man, aided no doubt by the girl Winflaed, to begin the business of clearing and salvage, and went in search of Agnes Wick. She proved an unhelpful witness. The girl was slow-witted and vague, and her mother was much inclined to speak for her or suggest what she should say. She seemed unsure as to whether she had been to the smith’s, but her mother, fearing blame might come their way, swore with more vehemence than veracity that the nasty business could have nought to do with her ‘poor Agnes’.
Catchpoll was left with little that he could lay before the sheriff as good evidence for accident or crime. He returned to the castle unhappily aware that William de Beauchamp would most likely leave the decision whether to investigate further up to him, and knew the blame could be laid at his door if it proved he had made the wrong choice.
He was still pondering his unenviable position when he entered the castle bailey, and stopped short. He had left but an hour or so previously, and all had been quiet and everyday. Now the bailey was full of bustle, with horses, men-at-arms and a noticeable number of black-habited monks.
‘What in the Lady’s Name is going on?’ the serjeant asked of the gate guard, who was taking considerable interest in a monk’s spectacularly unsuccessful attempts to get an obstinate mule into the stables.
‘Well, the Brother has been trying to …’
‘No, cabbage-head, what is all this about?’ Catchpoll waved an arm at the scene within the bailey.
‘Ah well, the lord Bishop of Hereford has descended upon us all, in some state, because of some dispute. All above our level I expect, Serjeant.’
‘Above yours, aye, but not necessarily mine.’ He did not spare the guard another glance, but made his way through the throng to the kitchens. He knew the cook well, and also knew that the cookhouse was the hub of the wheel of knowledge within the castle. Drogo the Cook seemed to know what was going on before it even happened, and Catchpoll wanted to appear before the sheriff as fully informed as possible. Experience had taught him that being abreast of the news always gave the sheriff the idea that Serjeant Catchpoll was one step ahead, and Catchpoll enjoyed that.
Drogo was shouting orders at a scullion, while waving a ladle in the manner of a battling bishop with a mace. Catchpoll grinned.
‘A few more for supper, then?’ he quipped.
Drogo rolled his eyes. ‘Ravenous wolves would be easier. Here’s me, with Aelfred down with an ague, and two wenches sickening for heaven knows what, and the lord Bishop of Hereford arrives, without warning, with an army to protect him and half an abbey to pray with him. And then he sends down asking for herons! Not even just one! How much does this man eat? I thought men of God were meant to think of their souls, not their bellies! Where am I to get herons for tonight? Will they fall like manna from heaven or does the lord bishop think there is a fresh heron stall at the gate?’
Catchpoll sympathised, as one sufficiently up the scale of hierarchy to be called upon by name and given Herculean tasks to be performed instantly. His grin spread, ever more skull-like.
‘Give ’em chicken and say they are stunted heron, friend.’
Drogo lobbed the ladle at him, but he ducked with surprising alacrity, and it caught the spit-boy on the back of the head instead. The lad yelped.
Catchpoll put up his hands placatingly. ‘Fair enough, not a good suggestion. Just tell me in a few of your well-chosen words what is going on, and I’ll leave you in peace.’
Drogo told him, succinctly, but with adjectives that made the girl shelling peas turn crimson. The bishop, travelling, so he said, with a large party for protection in such perilous times, had come to drag the sheriff off to the northern border of the county to sort out a land dispute where one of his holdings was involved. The sheriff would normally demur, but the thought of having the bishop and all his minions eating him out of house and home, and ‘bleating’ in his ear for days, swayed him.
‘Well, I suppose I had best find out what the lord sheriff wants me to do, pox on it. Hope he doesn’t keep me kicking my heels for long. My wife has a nice fat partridge hanging ready to put in a pudding for tonight, and she makes a fine partridge pudding.’ Catchpoll’s mouth watered at the prospect.
‘Puts plenty of gravy with it, I’ll be bound, and not too much seasoning. Now I always say—’
‘No time to listen to your sound cooking advice, Drogo. Must get to the lord sheriff and report.’
Before the cook could say another word, Catchpoll had gone.
William de Beauchamp, lord Sheriff of Worcestershire, was not a happy man. He found the society of clerics both boring and disquieting. He was a man who preferred action to pontification, and was distrustful of those who fought with clever words. He noted his serjeant’s arrival in his hall with the relief of a man who sees reinforcements arriving to lift a siege, and drew him forth by an exchange of glances and a slight nod of the head. The bishop was in full flow, but the sheriff cut across him without compunction.
‘You have seen Ranulf Fuller, Catchpoll? And he is content?’
‘Aye, my lord. You’ll have no moaning from him, leastways not more than usual, but as I returned there was a fire in the shop of Reginald Ash the silversmith.’
‘Much damage?’ The sheriff frowned.
‘No, only to the silversmith’s premises. The neighbours were quick about dealing with it, and prevented any real spread.’
The sheriff looked more cheerful. ‘Good, then …’
‘There was, my lord, some suggestion that the fire was not accidental.’ Catchpoll kept his own face expressionless as the frown reappeared between the sheriff’s brows, and a grimace of annoyance twisted his mouth.
‘You said “suggestion”. Is it an idle claim to keep the man’s neighbours from calling down curses on him, or are there grounds for thinking it was indeed a fire that was set?’
It was Catchpoll’s turn to look unhappy. His grizzled, mobile face was screwed up into an expression of contemplation, and his head nodded from side to side as he weighed the matter. This was what he had feared might happen. The sheriff was going to leave the decision on action up to him. Catchpoll far preferred being given a task, a scent to follow, and then getting on with it without interference. Making the initial judgement was, in his view, much more difficult. If he said it warranted investigation and it turned out to have been a simple mischance, the sheriff would berate him for wasting his time. Yet if it was deliberate and he ignored it, well, the consequences could be too unpleasant to contemplate. He pulled at the lobe of his left ear, meditatively, and sucked his teeth.
‘It’s a tricky one, my lord, honest it is. The smith and his journeyman swear the fire started in the back of the premises, not in the workshop, and definitely not at the furnace, which they say was not in use today. I thought perhaps it could be a cooking fire. A girl comes to set a pot for them in the afternoon. Trouble is, the girl is about as bright as a plough ox, if that, and I would not like to say whether what she said was true, what she thought was true, or what she thought her mother and I wanted her to say. All I would vouch for is that if the fire was lit through malice, it was not the girl that did it.’
The sheriff was no fool. He knew that Catchpoll was now trying to pass this potentially poisoned chalice back to him. His eyes narrowed for a moment, but then, to Catchpoll’s surprise, he smiled; it was a small, grim smile. He was being called away by the Bishop of Hereford, and a suspicion alone was not sufficient to detain him. He cast a swift glance at the prelate, who still wore an affronted expression at having been abandoned in full flow so that the sheriff could discuss shrieval business with an underling. The smile twitched.
‘Right, Serjeant. I am away north to assist the lord bishop here. In my absence you can keep your ears open in case of information that would prove this either way. I should not be gone for more than,’ he paused, as the bishop made a sound between a cough and a growl, ‘a week, or perhaps ten days. If there are further developments you can always send to my lord Bradecote and call him in. A little work would do my new undersheriff no harm. The harvest is in, and his brat should have been born by now. He would probably be glad to escape cooing women and a screaming infant in his hall.’
With that he nodded dismissal, and Catchpoll withdrew, muttering under his breath.
He had worked once with Hugh Bradecote, the new undersheriff, and had no real complaints about him, but he was still very green, and much inclined to get far too involved in what Catchpoll saw as his own remit. The old undersheriff, de Crespignac, had given the sheriff’s serjeant pretty much a free hand, and Catchpoll preferred it that way. There had been no question about his methods as long as the result was satisfactory and de Crespignac could make it sound as though the inspiration were his own. The new man wanted to be far more involved; indeed he had taken the last case with little delegation at all. Serjeant Catchpoll heaved a heavy sigh, and ambled glumly back towards the kitchens, where he slipped into the dim brewhouse, and drew himself a pot of small beer under the indulgent gaze of the florid-faced, motherly woman who was busy filling pitchers for the sheriff’s table. He gave her a slow, conspiratorial wink, with just enough of a leer to make her giggle and redden even further. She waddled out, still beaming, and Catchpoll, wiping the residue from his lips with the back of his hand, headed for hearth and home, and the consolation of partridge pudding.
Chapter Two
The sheriff’s absence was not marked by any sudden increase in criminal activity within Worcester, and the first week of September passed without any incident worth calling upon the undersheriff. A successful hue and cry was raised over a cutpurse who attempted to empty the scrip of a wealthy townsman; a woman who claimed to have had her washing stolen from the drying grounds was found to have made up the tale to lay blame on a neighbour’s servant, with whom she believed her husband to be having a liaison; and the thief who stole a leg of lamb from the butcher Cuthbert turned out to be a half-starved mongrel, whose owner had tried to use hunger to make it a more aggressive watchdog. Harsh words and the handing over of remuneration had ended the matter, though Catchpoll thought the dog would get a beating it did not deserve.
Serjeant Catchpoll was able to diffuse a boundary dispute between two potters, former partners, by the simple expedient of taking Hammon, a man-at-arms of enormous proportions, with him on the visit, and suggesting, ever so reasonably, that if they did not come to an amicable agreement, Hammon would become very upset. When he was upset, explained Catchpoll conversationally, Hammon was inclined to throw his arms about in a very wild fashion. The potters looked at Hammon, who grinned innocently at them. He did not appear to be a man who would be easily upset. Catchpoll, on the other hand, looked just the sort of mean, malcontented bastard who would enjoy setting his tame giant to the wanton destruction of honest men’s livelihoods. The potters, however little they liked each other, were not going to risk their goods, and, with fixed smiles and gritted teeth, shook hands and clapped each other on the back like brothers. Catchpoll’s wolfish grin grew broader and the evil twinkle, detected by the disputants, became more pronounced.
He departed well pleased with the outcome, and convinced of the efficacy of his unorthodox methods. There were those who would have sought an end to the problem by negotiation and compromise, and oaths from all and sundry. The sheriff’s serjeant regarded such disputes in the same way as he used to look upon squabbles between his children over a plaything. His method, which involved the removal, or destruction, of the article disputed unless both sides behaved, had been very successful, and had generally involved both parties uniting in their loathing of such a family despot. That numbers of the Worcester populace saw him in a similar light worried him not at all. In contented mood, he purchased a handful of plums from a market stall and deposited half of them in Hammon’s huge paw of a hand.
‘Just to keep you sweet, Hammon,’ he laughed, biting into the soft flesh and spitting the stone at a mangy cur, scratching behind its ear. ‘Don’t want you upset, do we.’
The stalls were doing brisk trade, and Catchpoll threaded his way like an eel among the vendors and purchasers, soon outpacing the giant Hammon. Despite his swift progress, his sixth sense, the criminal-detecting one, worked as ever among crowds. Nevertheless, he was taken by surprise as a small boy, running at full pelt, cannoned into him from behind.
‘Stop, thief!’ The shrill cry of a woman, still hidden from Catchpoll’s sight, made the serjeant grab the urchin almost instinctively, as he turned about. The child looked up, wary, fearful eyes staring from a grubby, undernourished face.
‘Please, my lord. Let me go,’ the boy whimpered, but Catchpoll’s grip remained firm.
The owner of the shrill voice barged into view. She was a lanky, shrew-faced woman with glittering eyes and a skinny, heaving bosom, who ignored Catchpoll, and raised her hand to strike the boy.
‘Steal my apples, would you, whelp? Well, I’ll knock the teeth from your head so you’ll bite into no more of ’em, and set you before the law. They hangs thieves like you.’
As her hand came down in the first blow, it was barred by the serjeant’s arm. The woman started, suddenly aware of his presence, and sneered at him.
‘Don’t you protect vermin like him, or did you set him to steal?’ She halted what would have been a tirade as she took stock of the man before her; grim face, hard, cold eyes and a thin-lipped mouth, which was set in an uncompromising line.
‘What exactly did he steal?’ The voice was slow, quiet and yet threatening, with lips barely parted.
The apple-seller looked less sure of herself. ‘My apples.’ She turned for support among the other vendors. ‘How can an honest woman earn her bread if thieves, even small ’uns, go unchecked?’
There was a ripple of agreement, a vague murmur of general support.
Catchpoll looked down at the child. ‘Show me.’ It was a command, and the little boy, trembling, opened a dirty fist. Within lay a small, malformed, and bruised apple.
‘It had fell off the basket, my lord, and rolled a bit. I thought nobody wanted it.’ The piping voice was scarcely more than a whisper.
‘It was still mine,’ averred the apple woman, holding out her hand, with its thin, talon-like fingers, to take it back.
The urchin looked up at Catchpoll’s harsh face. The man nodded, and with a sniff, the child handed back the purloined apple.
The woman smiled as if she had been given a silver penny. ‘Now we take him for justice.’
Catchpoll’s grip on the child tightened, and it cried out, but his eyes were on the woman.
‘I am Justice.’
The woman’s jaw dropped. The voice was so icy, the gaze so hard, Catchpoll could have claimed to be death itself and she would have believed him.
‘You cry thief on a starved child for the sake of a wizened fruit most folk would feed to the swine, and take pride in it. Well, shame upon you, woman, and if the rest of your wares are as poor, I doubt you’ll have many customers.’
The small crowd that had gathered to watch, took a step back from the woman, as if she carried contagion. She sensed the change, and bit her lip, but gave in with reluctance.
‘Say whatever you will, I have the right … but no matter. In this case, since the fruit may have been damaged, I’ll not take it further, but mind you give him a sound thrashing.’ She turned on her heel and stalked away with as much dignity as she could muster, and little expectation of being heeded.
Within moments the attention of the crowd had dissipated, and Catchpoll, stepping back from the main thoroughfare, regarded his small captive. The child was confused, not knowing whether the man was his protector or the instrument of retribution. Catchpoll squatted down to be more of a height with the boy, and smiled, though the smile only made the scared eyes widen further.
‘So, Master Criminal, what have you to say?’
‘I thought it wasn’t wanted, honest, my lord. I doesn’t want to be hanged.’
‘And why did you take it? What will your mother say, when I lead you home?’
The boy opened his mouth, but before he could answer another voice gave it for him.
‘He did it because he’ll starve else, and there’s no home, nor mother neither, for you to take him to.’
Catchpoll turned. A girl, probably no more than twelve years old, had come up behind him. She was ragged, and though her face was cleaner than the urchin’s, it was as drawn and pale. Her voice was devoid of emotion, excepting perhaps the hint of a challenge, and her eyes ran him up and down, assessing him. Then they met his, and Catchpoll read in them all he needed to know. There was desperation, hopelessness and despair, as often amongst the destitute, but in addition there was a grim determination, and worst of all, a cynical condemnation. They were the eyes of a woman who knows how men can be at their worst, and counts all men as guilty, yet they were set in the body of a child.
‘Leave go of him, my lord, and I am sure there’s something better you could be doing than beating him.’
She smiled provocatively, while her eyes accused. The come-on was clumsy, and turned Catchpoll’s stomach. He stood, slowly.
‘I’ve a granddaughter your age, girl. What do you take me for?’
She shrugged. ‘Same as the rest.’
‘Well, I’m not, see. Now don’t play off tawdry tricks on me and just answer honest. If you’ve no home, where do you rest?’
‘Where we can. There’s stores and outhouses enough if you’re small, and careful, and I can make enough to keep us from eating the rats. There’s not much, mind, so Huw scavenges what he can. But I’ve told him, and often, not to steal.’
‘And how long has this been so?’
‘Since second week before Easter, when our Mam died.’
‘Your father?’
‘Dead these three years, and we’ve no other kin. Mam was out of Wales. I promised her I’d look to Huw, and so I will, till he’s old enough and big enough to take proper work.’
Catchpoll did not ask what the girl expected for herself. She clearly saw no future, and she was probably right. Disease or a violent man would see her end her days young.
It was not so rare a tale that the world-wise serjeant should have been shocked by it, yet he was, even as he chastised himself for being so soft. He dragged the remaining plums from his pocket and held them out to the boy, who snatched them lest the largesse be withdrawn.
‘Do as your sister says, lad, and don’t steal. I’d hate to have to take you up before the sheriff.’ He returned his gaze to the girl. He could not tell her to mend her ways, as a priest might. The situation was as it was, and he could not show her a way out, but a thought did hit him.
‘Since you range about the town, you might earn a little honest money from me. I am the lord sheriff’s serjeant, and I likes to know what is toward. If you hear ought of thieves or killings, you let me know of it and if it is true there’ll be coin for you. Serjeant Catchpoll, that’s me, at the castle or the house next the cooper’s in Frog Lane, just beyond the castle gate.’
The girl pursed her lips, and then nodded. Without a further word she took her brother’s hand and slipped away amongst the crowd. Catchpoll shook his head.
‘Never thought I’d grow that soft-hearted or soft-headed. Must really be getting old.’
He was still tut-tutting to himself when he reached the castle, where news cast all thoughts of the waifs from his mind. Just when he had expected the sheriff to return, a messenger arrived for the castellan with the tidings that the sheriff had broken his foot, slipping on a wet stair, and was holed up in the most northerly of his own manors, with the devil’s own temper and a heavily bandaged foot. He could not be expected back in Worcester until the end of the month. Catchpoll prayed that all would stay quiet until the sheriff’s return, but, despite his display of charity, his prayers were not answered.
It was a surprisingly warm night, lacking any sign of September chill, and with the merest sliver of a moon occasionally peering, furtively, from behind swathes of cloud, as if fearful of what it might witness. Few stars were visible amidst the velvety, blue-grey folds of the veiled night sky, and the narrow streets of Worcester were dark and oppressive. A dog was barking somewhere; its lone voice carried on the still air, but disguised its direction. From within some of the dwellings floated intimations of humanity from open upper shutters; a wailing infant being soothed by a crooning mother; a man and woman arguing; the giggling of a woman, and her lover’s laugh; a snoring like the rumble of distant thunder. The sounds hung in the air for a moment before fading, ghostlike, ephemeral. Few souls were abroad. A pair of drunken men, arms linked in alcohol-induced amiability, wove a staggering course homeward, stopping briefly when one turned to vomit in a doorway. They almost collided with the dark-hooded figure who turned into Corviserstrete with steady, purposeful stride. They exclaimed as they reeled back, sending slurred expletives after him, but the figure ignored them as if they did not exist. One of the men crossed himself shakily, and muttered something about dark nights and hellfiends. His friend clapped him on the back and laughed, more from bravado than humour.
Catchpoll was woken from his bed in the early hours by an urgent hammering at his door. His wife groaned, and pulled the coverlet over her head, while he stumbled to cover his nakedness and, swearing as he stubbed his toe on a stool, went to open the door.
A breathless man-at-arms stood gasping for air on the doorstep. ‘Fire, Serjeant! Fire in Corviserstrete! Come quick!’
Cursing, Serjeant Catchpoll finished dressing haphazardly in the darkness, and left his home at the run, the man-at-arms trailing behind. The fire was more terrifying by night than one in daylight. Several properties were well alight, and sparks showered down into the street. The faces and bodies of those attempting to douse the flames were illuminated by the red-orange glow like the damned from hell, and cast grotesque shadows on the walls opposite. There was a deal of shouting and some screaming, and it took the serjeant some moments to assess the situation. A tall, broad-shouldered man seemed to have taken charge of the firefighters, and it was he whom Catchpoll first approached.
‘Anyone within?’ he shouted, waving at the conflagration.
The man turned, his eyes streaming from the effect of the acrid smoke. Catchpoll recognised him as Corbin the Wheelwright.
‘Can’t say, and it’d be too late for any poor soul now. Wilfrid Glover got his family out in good time, but that was the last to catch.’ He coughed, and shouted for more buckets. ‘Ask Father Boniface, he was here early.’
Catchpoll could not tell priest from parishioner in the weird firelight, but a small hand tugged at his sleeve, and he looked down to see Huw the beggar child, who pointed dumbly towards one of the men in the line passing pails.
‘Father Boniface?’
A youngish priest, with a long, ascetic face rendered ghoulish by the shadow and light, turned at the sound of his name. His sleeves were rolled back and his gown kirtled to reveal white, scrawny knees, and hairy legs where no hose had chafed them smooth. Had the situation not been so serious, Catchpoll would have found him a cause for mirth.
‘I am Father Boniface, yes.’
‘Do you know if any were trapped within? The wheelwright says you were here quickly.’
‘I raised the alarm, certainly. By then the first building was well alight, but it was the carpenter’s wood store so I doubt there was anyone within. They would have been swift to cry “fire” if they had been there as it began. A woman and her children ran out of the dwelling when I shouted. I think her husband was not at home.’ The priest was not watching Catchpoll now, but was once more engaged in the bucket chain. He wiped a grimy hand across his face as he handed on another slopping pail, wetting his sandals, his face now bearing sooty streaks. The sheriff’s officer thanked him and set his mind on preventing the spread of the fire, and took charge of a dithering group of citizens armed with pitchforks and assorted implements.
It was only an hour before dawn when Catchpoll got back to his bed, shivering where he had sluiced himself down with a bucket of water. He still stank of woodsmoke, and was only glad that his wife was a sound sleeper. Had she woken and seen the state of him, he would have been turfed out of bed and into the floor rushes.
After an inadequate amount of rest, Catchpoll was about the sheriff’s business once more, with a muzzy headache and a foul temper. He returned to Corviserstrete, where black puddles and charred wood marked the night’s disturbance. The carpenter’s wife and children had been taken in by a neighbour. Wilfrid Glover was standing before the ruins of his business, shaking his head, his family forming a sad group behind him. He did not take any notice of the serjeant’s arrival.
‘Have you been amongst the ashes to find anything worth salvaging?’ Catchpoll hardly thought there could be anything left among the blackened and twisted remains.
The glover opened his right fist, in silence. Two or three palming needles and a small knife without its handle, black but recognisable, lay upon his palm. They both stared at the remnants of his craft.
‘That’s all I possess. I had a fair stock of fine soft leather ready for the autumn … when the chill creeps into the air, that’s when I do my best business … but ’tis all gone, and the home with it. I’m sending my wife and the children to her brother, a tanner out on the northern road. There’s those who’ll help but it will be seasons before I can trade alone again, and I would not take a lease here.’ The man heaved a great sigh, and Catchpoll left him with a consoling clap on the back. There were no words that could be of help.
In all, the glover’s, the carpenter’s wood store and workshop, his house and an almost forgotten, narrow dwelling between the carpenter’s and a besom maker’s, had been destroyed. A sudden horrible thought struck Catchpoll; nobody had thought about the little cott. It had been no wider than a doorway and a shuttered window, and only the door frame now marked where once it had stood.
‘Who lived here?’ The question was urgent enough to rouse the glover.
‘Why, Old Edgyth, she’s a widow and—’ He stopped and blenched beneath the soot on his cheeks. ‘Sweet Jesu, I never thought!’
‘Has she been seen, today?’ Catchpoll could feel grim foreboding rising like bile, and anticipated the shake of the glover’s head.
Without a word, he took a half-burnt broom that the besom maker had leant against his shopfront, and trod gingerly over what had, only yesterday, been the widow’s threshold. His eyes scanned the blackened debris, and he used the shaft of the broom to prod about, but it was his nose that warned him. The smell of charred wood was heavy and all-pervading, but in one corner there was another smell vying with it, faint but distinctive. Burnt flesh, once recognised, was an odour, slightly sweet and like roasting swine, never forgotten. Several large beams had fallen, one flat and the others interlocked above it. Catchpoll heaved at the nearest. The blackened, crumbling surface still retained warmth, but the core of the wood was sound, and it was very heavy. He called to the glover, who came, with every show of reluctance. The pair of them moved the timbers carefully, but the glover gasped as the last one came away, and dropped the end he carried with a crash and an exclamation of horror. He put a hand to his mouth and turned away retching. Catchpoll looked down upon the crushed, black and grotesque remains of what was still just about discernible as a human form, curled up with the fists before the face. Age and gender were indiscernible, but where once there had been lips a few gapped teeth showed. The serjeant shook his head. It could be the result of an accident. The old woman could have knocked over a rush light as she prepared for the night. But if it was not … The townsfolk would link this fire with the last, whether or not it was connected, and then with the death on top they would begin to panic, seeing fire-raisers at every turn. Much as he disliked it, he would have to call for the undersheriff after all.
Chapter Three
The rain fell softly, as if trying not to disturb the mourners, but it had continued long enough to penetrate the top layer of soil that lay ready to fill the grave, darkening it, clogging it, so that the first few loads slid from the wooden shovel and landed with a heavy, dull thud. Hugh Bradecote had stood immobile, staring down into the trench, an uncomprehending frown creasing his brow, and with the rain plastering his dark hair to his head, dripping in chill rivulets down the back of his neck and from the end of his long, finely chiselled nose, as the priest intoned the familiar Latin of the burial service. At its conclusion, the villagers and retainers slipped away almost silently, save for the sob-laden breathing of an older woman clutching a heavily swaddled baby to her spare bosom, and protecting the tiny face from the rain: Ela’s baby; his baby; his son; his heir.
It required a superhuman effort for Hugh to leave the sexton and his lad to their task. Walking away was breaking the last tie, seeing the last red sliver of sun set on his unexciting but not unhappy marriage, and leaving him confused and blinking in the moonless night of guilty grief. Theirs had been a fairly standard marriage based upon family and land, beneficial to both sides, entered into with the barest knowledge of the other partner. He had seen a young woman who was quite pretty, and whose voice was soft. He had not loved Ela, but that only added to his guilt, because she had loved him so very obviously, for from the first she had hero-worshipped him. He had been fond of her, though more when parted, for she had irritated him to the point of madness with her mindless adoration. Whatever he said was right; whatever he thought a good idea must be implemented without regard to any obstacles, and at once. He had sometimes returned from duty with his overlord to find his household in uproar, and Ela fluttering like a netted bird, just because tasks she thought he wanted undertaken had been delayed. All she had ever sought, he knew, was his approbation and affection, and the more she had tried, the less she had achieved.
