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- Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
- Kategorie: Krimi
- Serie: Bradecote & Catchpoll
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021
The vicious death of a man at the teeth of a wild animal does not add up for Bradecote and Catchpoll. All Hallows' Eve, 1144. The savaged body of Durand Wuduweard, the solitary and unpopular keeper of the King's Forest of Feckenham, is discovered beside his hearth, his corpse rendered barely identifiable by sharp teeth. Whispers of a wolf on the prowl grow louder and Sheriff William de Beauchamp's men, Hugh Bradecote, Serjeant Catchpoll and young Walkelin, are tasked with cutting through the clamour. They must uncover who killed Durand and why, while beset by superstitious villagers, raids upon manors and further grim deaths. Out of the shadows of the forest, where will the wolf 's fangs strike next?
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3
Wolf at the Door
A Bradecote and Catchpoll Mystery
SARAH HAWKSWOOD
5
For H. J. B.
6
Contents
Chapter One
All Hallows’ Eve 1144
The sound of the thumping upon the door of the priest’s house was insistent, and Father Hildebert opened it with a look of concern upon his still youthful face, expecting to see Wystan the village bailiff, whose wife was in her time of travail.
‘I shall come—oh!’ The man before him was not worried father-to-be Wystan, but a vaguely familiar, stocky man about his own age, very square of jaw, at odds with eyes that were close together above a thin nose that made him seem broader of cheek. ‘I am sorry, I thought you were Wystan.’ The priest now looked puzzled.
‘I am William, son of Durand Wuduweard. You must come with me, now, and see …’ The man took a deep breath and swallowed hard. ‘He is dead, Father.’
Father Hildebert took in the man’s pallor, and the working of the muscle in his cheek. 8
‘Wystan the Bailiff?’ The priest blinked in surprise.
‘No. Not Wystan. My father.’ The wuduweard’s son enunciated slowly, not quite yelling. He wondered if the priest, still with the ‘taint’ of Norman French in his voice, was slow to comprehend him.
‘Your father. Yes, of course. Oh dear. It must have been all of a sudden, for I am sure I saw him but yestereve, and he looked as always.’ The good priest did not say he looked surly and unforgiving, which was his usual demeanour.
‘Oh, it was sudden, Father. I can promise you that.’ William sounded grim. ‘Come.’
The priest grabbed his cloak, for the wintery dawning was bitterly cold, and the ruts of the tracks that ran through the village of Feckenham were rimed with frost, and treacherous. The church and priest’s house lay upon The Strete that ran north off the king’s highway, which was an old road that showed in its straightness and occasional stony surface its use at least as far back as the Romans. It was the main route from Wich to Alcester and Stratford, a salt road, but at this season less frequented. William was not a tall man, but he strode swiftly, and Father Hildebert had to almost run to keep up with him. As they turned to the right at the junction of the two thoroughfares the priest exclaimed as he half slipped upon one of the hard ridges and his ankle turned. William did not so much as look around.
Durand Wuduweard had a dwelling at the western end of the village, on the Salt Way but set a little apart, as though to stress he was part of the King’s Park that he oversaw more than the community of Feckenham itself, which lay within the forest 9that took its name. There were still those who muttered that he was not really ‘local’, for he came out of Warwickshire and had more Norman blood than most of his peers. The wuduweard before him had fathered only daughters, and Durand had wed one of them, taken the forester’s role within the first year, and seen her buried within five, leaving him with a small son. A few generous souls said it was his loss turned him into the solitary and miserable bastard he had become, but others claimed he was always thus, and his wife had died from misery. This much the priest knew, but he had held the parish for less than a year, and was even more of an outsider than Durand, having been sent by his abbot at the abbey of St Mary’s at Lire, in Normandy across to their daughter-house at Wareham some years previously. The abbey had the advowson and thus appointed the priest, and since Hildebert had chosen the priesthood over the claustral life of a monk, and had an English grandmother, Father Abbot had sent him ‘to preach to the English’, as though they were heathens. Father Hildebert had found them far from heathen, but cautious in their welcome, and he was only just beginning to feel accepted.
With his breath almost freezing before his face, and the cold tightening his chest, the priest drew up, gasping, before the door of Durand’s home. He nearly bumped into William, who did turn at last.
‘I hope as you have a strong stomach, Father.’
‘A strong—oh dear.’ He crossed himself, as much to give himself courage as anything else, and stepped over the threshold as William opened the door and entered. It took some time for Father Hildebert’s eyes to adjust to the gloom of the chamber, 10and he wished that the sight had remained indiscernible. There were signs of a fight, a stool knocked over and a wicker basket upside down, but what drew the attention and kept it was the body of Durand Wuduweard. It lay sprawled upon its back, the feet so close to the now cold hearth as to have been in the fire. Shoes and feet had been burnt, leaving a sickly sweet smell that repulsed. The arms were bitten, one so badly the tendons at the wrist showed white, and the body was, in places, a mix of bloody rags and gashed flesh. What was far worse, however, was the face, or the lack of it. A priest saw death more than most, being called to give the last rites to all, from toothless babes to the toothless old, and was used to closing the eyes and seeing that absence of soul which left a body as a carcass. In this case, closing the eyes would be hard. The throat had been ripped out and the face was so mutilated it was barely recognisable as human, let alone Durand Wuduweard.
‘Sacré Coeur, qui … who did this? Why did they …?’ The poor priest was so overcome that his native French emerged, even after a decade in England. He choked, for his stomach could hold out no longer, and he pressed his hand over his mouth and rushed back out of the door, and could be heard retching outside. William stayed where he was, being past any first horrors. After a short while Father Hildebert returned, apologising for his weakness.
‘It is a terrible thing that has happened. We must raise a hue and cry, yes?’ Father Hildebert had learnt the English law enough to know that after a theft or violence, a hue and cry should be raised, but was it so after some beast? 11
‘What we need is hunters, not village folk with pitchforks and staves. You asked “who” did this, Father, but it was “what”. I thought at first it was some brute of a dog, but … ever seen a wolf, Father?’
‘A wolf?’ The priest’s voice went up an octave. He was a man strong in faith but weak and nervous of body. ‘No, no, never.’
‘They are rare nowadays, but in the forest they say as there are a few left in the deepest parts. Never seen one near people before, just a possible glimpse through the trees, but … There are bite marks, very clear, and the bones are broken. It would take a strong beast to do that.’ He had sounded calm until this point, but now his voice shook. ‘My poor father. Such a death!’
The priest nodded, overwhelmed, and trying desperately to muster his thoughts, beyond a very natural fear that if a wolf had been so bold at Feckenham’s edge, it might seek prey deeper within, at the church. Eventually, he swallowed hard and spoke, softly but with certainty.
‘Dying, however terrible the manner of it, is but a small thing in eternity, and God’s mercy is upon those who suffer. Pray for your father’s soul, which is beyond earthly concerns, and we will bring him to the church, and alert the village. Everyone must have a care.’
Durand Wuduweard was not a man many would weep over, but the tolling of the church bell summoned folk to its open doors, and weeping there was, among women fearful for their husbands and for their children. The swine boy was reduced to a gibbering wreck, even when it was promised he would not be sent alone into the woodland with the few remaining animals after the autumn culling. The village had both a reeve and bailiff, 12though a killing, by man or wolf, was beyond the scope of any village official, and a hurried gathering of the village menfolk soon came to the conclusion that this matter needed the lord Sheriff of Worcestershire, as the King’s man, with forest rights, to deal with it.
‘I shall go to Worcester,’ announced Edgar the Reeve, ‘and William, you must come along, and you also, Father, if you would. Most likely them in Worcester will not credit a wolf, but then they needs have no fear of one inside the walls and in their streets.’
‘But we should bury Durand first.’ Father Hildebert was confident the reeve would agree with him.
‘’Tis so cold I doubts the earth will be breakable enough to bury him yet. What say you, Leofric?’ The reeve turned to the village gravedigger.
‘Hard as iron it is this morn. If ’n it keeps as cold, you would need to delve as for stone to break the sod. I would not fancy trying to dig a grave.’
‘And also, Father, if the lord Sheriff sends anyone to Feckenham, and doubts us, they can see for themselves what happened.’ The reeve did not see that they would be believed without proof.
This met with a murmur of general approval. No man wanted his family savaged in their bed, but neither did they like the idea of hunting a wolf that had already tasted human flesh. The sheriff and his men sounded a far, far better idea.
William, son of Durand, did not look as happy. He had perforce had dealings with the sheriff’s serjeant in the past, and was not keen to renew the acquaintanceship. However, he 13realised his objections would fall upon deaf ears, and so gave a grim nod of acquiescence, and kept his thoughts, and plans, to himself.
Serjeant Catchpoll did not look happy. This did not particularly perturb Walkelin, his serjeanting apprentice, because ‘not looking happy’ was a look the sheriff’s serjeant had perfected over decades, and it successfully ensured that most of Worcester regarded him as a man to treat with circumspection. The honest were respectful and the dishonest tried their hardest to avoid him at all times. This was just how Catchpoll liked matters. However, this morning he was genuinely unhappy. Before William de Beauchamp, lord Sheriff of Worcestershire, stood three men. There were the priest and the reeve of Feckenham, with a man whom Catchpoll did not trust in the slightest; a man who was now describing himself as ‘William fitzDurand’ when most of Worcester knew him as William Swicol, or Deceitful William. They were gabbling a tale of a wolf and a faceless corpse, and he knew it would all mean him trailing out to Feckenham in bitterly cold weather that made his joints ache. This did not please him overmuch, but it was not the cause of his growling discontent. Catchpoll felt he was hearing a tale to scare children that had somehow been given a physical form. Nobody in Feckenham would be set at ease with anything less than a wolf’s pelt on display, and Catchpoll really doubted there were wolves in Feckenham Forest that would ever get within howling distance of human habitation.
‘My lord Sheriff,’ the reeve was in full flow now, ‘we ourselves cannot hunt a wolf pack. We are but village folk, 14and with but an ass and a pony among us all.’
Catchpoll shut his eyes. Now the wolf had become a pack of wolves.
‘It will take mounted men, and hounds, to save us from this peril. You must—’
‘I what?’ William de Beauchamp enunciated the two words slowly, with heavy menace. His temper was not difficult to rouse, and being told what he must do by some village nobody was guaranteed to inflame it. Those in the chamber who knew him, now awaited his wrath. ‘I “must”, must I? I do not have to do anything upon your command, wyrmling. I answer to the lord King,’ he paused for a moment, and added, grudgingly, ‘and God.’
The reeve shook, visibly.
‘You bring me this report of a violent death, and I will send Serjeant Catchpoll here,’ he gave a nod in Catchpoll’s direction, ‘and his underserjeant, to see for themselves what you have related, and they will come back to me. I am not going to spend fruitless days charging about Feckenham Forest hunting a possible wolf, which sounds unlikely. Catchpoll, how many wolves have you heard of in Feckenham Forest in your lifetime?’ He did not look at the serjeant, and thus did not see Catchpoll’s fleeting but obvious expression of surprise, which had nothing to do with wolves and all to do with hearing he had an ‘underserjeant’. There was a slight pause, which might have been interpreted as Catchpoll ruminating upon fanged predators.
‘I cannot say as I have heard of many, my lord, and such a thing would be known over all the shire if seen upon the roads 15or prowling round newly cleared assarts and villages. There was wolves enough in the forests in the days afore the sainted Confessor and I doubts they all dropped dead at the news of the death of King Harold, but they was rarely close to Worcester by the time of my oldfather. He spoke of one, just one mind, that had taken swine in the forest for a season right near to Himbleton, and then been found dead, starved and mostly toothless. For the most part, the odd report has come from further north, in the Lickey Hills, and the wuduweard who lives in Tutnall has brought in two wolf pelts in my time, when a few of the King’s deer was lost to attack in the northern part of the King’s Forest. The pelts were owed to the lord King, and he was granted a bounty for them. That is not many wolves over many years and acres of forest. There will be some out there, I doubt not, but wolves keep away from folk and in only the wildest places. ‘Tis not for nothing that a man declared outlaw is called wulfeshéafod, wolf’s head, for he is cast out of folk-life, like the wolf. But outlaw and wolf avoid people to survive. What wolf would enter a village? I also never heard of a beast within four walls. ‘Tis not natural. It does not fit.’
‘However true the serjeant’s words, my lord Sheriff, my father lies in the church, torn by teeth no hound possesses, his bones crushed by strong jaws.’ William fitzDurand combined a pleading tone with the determination of a dutiful and bereaved son. ‘I would have justice for him, as I would against a murderer, though his killer walks upon four feet not two, and if the killing of kine and swine was reason enough to hunt a wolf, none can deny it is right to hunt one who has killed a man.’
‘You would have justice. Well, that is not something I 16thought to hear from you, William,’ Catchpoll paused for a moment, ‘fitzDurand.’ He almost spat the ‘fitz’, and glared at the man. ‘More likely you would seek to avoid it.’
‘You have nothing against me, Sheriff’s Serjeant, beyond your own dislike, and that is no law.’
‘There are those in Worcester who might disagree with you,’ murmured William de Beauchamp, his anger ameliorated by watching the animosity between the two men. He wondered how fitzDurand had come to his serjeant’s notice. Catchpoll heard the comment, but did not react by so much as a muscle.
‘So did you creep off back home to Feckenham when all the alehouses in Worcester barred their doors to you and your cheating?’ Catchpoll’s eyes were on William fitzDurand, but also on the priest, who looked puzzled for a moment. No, Catchpoll thought, you have not been in Feckenham, yet you appear just upon the day your father meets a grim death. Interesting.
‘Where I have been is not important, and you have no right to know. This morning I went to see my father and found a corpse. That is what is important,’ William flung back at the serjeant.
Father Hildebert shrank at the raised voices and winced as if in pain.
‘Mon seigneur,’ the priest reverted to his native tongue, hoping that it might weigh more with the puissant lord, ‘I have a village where this morning all is fear and trembling, all questions and no answers. The lord King is our overlord, and you are his representative in the shire. It is only to you that we can look. I thank you for hearing us and sending your serjant.’ He glanced briefly at Catchpoll, who had grasped the gist of 17what he had said, in that it involved himself, the King, the village and fear.
‘I will not send hounds and hunters upon horseback, but my best hound to smell out wrongdoing, my best hunter of the truth, which is Serjeant Catchpoll. If he says there is no wolf, there is no wolf and Feckenham will cease to act like a headless fowl. Now, if you are to be in Feckenham before’ − de Beauchamp paused for a moment, and smiled, slowly − ‘wolf-howl, you must be gone swiftly. Yet I will speak with my serjeant privately first.’ It was a dismissal to all but Catchpoll, and, after one questioning look, Walkelin. The Feckenham men withdrew, two a little relieved and one complaining at this delay, though under his breath. Reeve and priest shot him a warning look.
‘What do you think then, Catchpoll?’ William de Beauchamp looked straight at his serjeant.
‘I would swear oath that whatever Durand Wuduweard’s son said, whether he gives himself airs and titles himself William fitzDurand or not, would be as false as a whore’s promise. Yet the priest and reeve swear he speaks true.’ Catchpoll shook his head, but then cheered himself slightly. ‘Of course, the good father has not had his parish more than a year and is foreign, so he might not know the difference between a wolf and a chicken.’
‘Oh, I am sure he would kn—’ Walkelin shut up, realising that the serjeant was not being literal.
‘And Edgar the Reeve has less brain than he has hair, and the man is nearly bald-pated.’ Catchpoll ignored the interruption.
‘Nevertheless, even rumour of a wolf is bad for the King’s Peace, so we will not let this go lightly.’ William de Beauchamp 18leant forward in his seat, resting his chin on one large palm. ‘Even if it was not a wolf, Catchpoll, something made such a mess of Durand Wuduweard’s face that he was recognised by scraps of his garb and the general size of the man. What else might do that?’
‘That I could not say, my lord. It is just … something smells all wrong.’
‘Then best you go and sniff it close, Serjeant, and report your findings back to me. I want all the wolf talk to cease. You can be sure it is already in the alehouses of Worcester and soon at every fireside. We will be having every cur that howls of an evening being named a wolf before Advent, you may be sure.’
‘Aye, that is sadly true, my lord, and wasting our time chasing shadows.’
‘Then best get to Feckenham today.’ De Beauchamp gave a cheerless smile.
‘And the lord Bradecote?’
‘No need to have him chasing shadows as well, not yet. Report back to me and hopefully there will no need to disturb him from worrying himself witless over his lady’s swelling belly.’
Serjeant Catchpoll wondered if the lady Bradecote might wish that her loving but overprotective lord would be called to service, and leave her to the business of breeding in peace. You could understand whence sprang the man’s worry, having been blissfully married under a year and after seeing his first wife bleed to death before his own eyes in the trial of childbirth. However, he was, in Catchpoll’s view, and evidently that of William de Beauchamp, taking his concern too far. Last time he had been called from his manor she was only just showing 19properly, but by now must be about seven months gone. When he had come to speak with de Beauchamp at Michaelmas he had been so eager to get back to her he had nearly leapt into the saddle to be away, and had clearly fretted during his few days’ absence. Catchpoll had offered up prayers that the lady would be safely delivered come her time, and the lord Bradecote return to his usual manner.
‘I will take young Walkelin, my lord, and yes, with good fortune, none of us needs be set chasing after invisible wolves.’
William de Beauchamp gave a nod of agreement and dismissal, and as they left, Catchpoll and Walkelin heard him call for more wood for the brazier. Catchpoll growled. It was not him setting forth in the late autumn chill.
It was beyond the gloaming and full dark when the small party forded the brook and reached Feckenham, and the priest’s teeth were chattering not just from the cold. He refused to be cheered by the assertion that no wolf would attack a group of five men on horseback by daylight or moonlight, even if there were only four mounts. William Swicol was upon the pony from his father’s stable, with the reeve up behind him, and Father Hildebert was uncomfortably astride a donkey borrowed from the bailiff, with his habit riding up and revealing bone-white, skinny calves.
Feckenham was a good-sized village, but there were the two yoke of oxen for the ploughing and no need of horses. Durand Wuduweard’s pony had been a source of gossip for weeks when it appeared in the village. Fortunately for the party, the moon was full and lit their way, but each of them was as chilled to the 20bone as Father Hildebert, and Catchpoll was in no mood to talk, even to Walkelin.
As their hoofbeats on the hard ground brought them into the middle of the village, on the north side of the Salt Way, a few shutters were cautiously set ajar, and nervous chinks of light crept out to meet them. They went to the church, and Father Hildebert gave an audible sigh of relief as the door was closed behind them with a reassuring creak of oak. The cold kept the death-scent from pervading the nave, and it was only when the priest, who knew his church so well that he had no need of the sanctuary light to tread confidently in the gloom, lit more candles at the altar and brought them from the chancel that their flickering birth illuminated the trestled board set to the north side of the nave, and the covered shape upon it. Catchpoll genuflected respectfully, crossed himself, and went without a word to lift the dark cloth that covered the corpse. He sucked his teeth as Walkelin came to stand beside him and took a sharp intake of breath.
‘Sweet Jesu!’ Walkelin crossed himself devoutly. The reeve and William fitzDurand hung back. They had seen more than they could have wished already, and did not seek to look again.
Catchpoll had a good memory for faces, but even had he met Durand many times before, he would have been totally unable to give this corpse his name. Not even a wife or son could have done so, for there was little of the face that still looked like features. The nose was ripped away, and half a cheek, leaving teeth in a grimace seen most usually on a skeleton. The one orbit was empty, the brow reduced to splintered bone, and there was not enough of the jaw left to bind the mouth closed, not that 21the hole that remained could be termed a mouth. The throat too had been ripped out. Whatever – and Catchpoll reluctantly doubted very much a man could have done such damage with any weapon and achieved the same effect – had done this to Durand Wuduweard was big and vicious. At the same time the idea of a wolf-death was all wrong. He felt it.
‘How did you come upon him? Exactly.’ Catchpoll glanced at the man’s son.
‘He was lying on his back and—’
‘No. Start at the beginning. You went to his house. Why?’
‘He was my father. Of course I went to his house.’
‘But you do not live in Feckenham. I ask why you came here this morning to see him.’
‘I … We had a falling out over something foolish and I wanted to tell him I had come to see that he had the right of it. I came to the house a little before full light and the door was open, and the place in darkness, with not even fire glow, which made me fearful. I lit a rushlight and then I saw …’ His voice trailed off, and William swallowed hard.
‘The door was open, you are sure?’
‘Yes.’
‘And I saw the poor man yesterday evening, at least as darkness was falling, Serjant.’ The priest spoke, rising from his knees before the altar, whence he had returned to avoid looking at the body and had taken strength from silent prayer. ‘I had been collecting sticks for kindling and saw him coming from his stable to the house.’
‘But he was not at the door?’
‘No, he was not. But he must have been inside for some 22time because we saw the fire had been lit, and was burnt out this morning.’
‘What concerns me is how a man, in the bone-bite cold of All Hallows’ Eve mind you, enters his house and does not set the latch, to keep out cold and stranger both, when he has done so.’ Catchpoll pulled a ‘thinking face’.
‘Perhaps he did?’ suggested the bailiff.
‘And that would mean this wolf could open doors. Now that is truly a thing to scare us all in our beds, that is.’ Catchpoll was scathing.
‘Then he must have forgotten to close it properly or heard a noise outside and gone to the door and opened it and …’ Edgar the Reeve’s suggestion withered on his lips at Serjeant Catchpoll’s expression.
‘And this wolf just happened to be there waiting to come in and sit before his fire and then attack him, yes?’
‘Well, I …’ The bailiff looked at the floor and gave up.
‘I am trying to see how a wolf, a beast not seen by a soul in this hundred for two dozen years, and then but one, appears from nowhere, and attacks not in the forest but in a man’s house. What wild animal would dare do such a thing?’
‘But there is no other explanation, Serjeant Catchpoll.’ Edgar the Reeve was frowning.
‘Unless,’ William fitzDurand crossed himself and dropped his voice to a hoarse whisper, ‘he entered as a man and killed as a wolf. What if it was a werwulf?’
‘A what?’ Father Hildebert looked puzzled.
‘A man as turns into a wolf at full moon, Father.’ Edgar shuddered. 23
‘A-a garoul? No, no, surely …’ The priest looked to Catchpoll, clearly hoping for reassurance. Catchpoll was trying to work out how he was going to get the inhabitants of Feckenham to see this as a crime, because it was, he just knew it, however much he could not prove it right now.
‘What you see was not the act of a man.’ William fitzDurand shook his head, but sounded slightly relieved, as though a monster was better than a murderer.
‘No. It was not.’ Catchpoll spoke slowly, reluctantly, drawing back the cloth from the rest of the body. He noted the burning to the feet, and the wounds upon the torso and both arms. If this was a wolf’s work in hunger, then why was there no sign of the body being eaten? ‘Not the killing bit, but … We need to see the house.’
‘Well, there is no wolf there now, I can promise you.’ William sounded annoyed. Why was the sheriff’s serjeant trying so hard not to see the obvious?
‘I did not suggest there would be. Just show us the house.’ Catchpoll drew the cloth over the corpse so that it looked no different to any other awaiting full shrouding, and requested a lantern from Father Hildebert. The priest hurried to bring one, and suggested that he remain and pray for them, which was not as cheering as he intended, but Catchpoll wanted all three present. He had questions.
Chapter Two
The wuduweard’s door had been shut once the corpse had been carried out. It opened now with a preternaturally loud creaking, and Edgar the Reeve made a small whimpering noise. Catchpoll stepped within. The lantern, the little flame of which had been jealously guarded by Catchpoll’s left hand, did not do much more than enable him to see the hearth in the middle of the chamber, and the upturned stool. He cast around to see if a rushlight was there to be lit, and after prompting, William fitzDurand said he had placed one on the table by the far wall that morning. Even the combination of both lamps only made their looming shadows more grotesque upon the wall rather than giving illumination, but Catchpoll was seeing more than was present. He was mentally placing the body on its back, close enough to the hearth for the feet to have scorched, and then looking at the overturned stool, and the ash in the hearth. 25There was no cooking pot to be seen, so unless Durand had found another to feed him, the attack must have been some time after he settled in for the evening. There was enough ash also to prove it had been a decent enough fire. Catchpoll frowned, and glanced at Walkelin, whose expression was at first blank, but then altered subtly as he ‘saw’ what Catchpoll saw.
‘When you came in, which way was he lying? Which way was he a-facing?’ Catchpoll glanced at fitzDurand, but sounded as if only mildly interested.
‘Feet towards the fire, and they had been burnt, so he must have been sitting there.’
‘Yes, but I mean which wall was his head towards?’
‘The bed wall.’
The lumpy palliasse lay against the north wall of the dwelling, and the door was on the south side.
‘Hmm.’ Serjeant Catchpoll could put many meanings in a simple ‘hmm’. Walkelin had learnt to interpret quite a few already.
‘What do we do to keep us safe?’ Edgar the Reeve wrung his hands as he spoke.
‘You acts sensible and doesn’t open your doors to any wolves, even little ’uns,’ sneered Catchpoll, who was losing patience with the man. ‘More importantly, do not open your doors to strangers of a night.’
‘In case they turn into a wolf,’ added William fitzDurand, nodding sagely.
‘No, in case they are murderous bastards with …’ he paused for a moment, ‘a very big dog with very big teeth.’
‘How likely is that, though?’ The wuduweard’s son snorted derisively. 26
‘Far more likely than either a wolf or a werwulf, which is a thing of tales to frighten the foolish about the hearth of a long evening.’ Thus Catchpoll dismissed the supernatural, though he was not sure the reeve would remain convinced once he was alone.
Walkelin, resolutely rejecting the image in his head of a hairy and sharp-fanged man, focused on the immediate.
‘What is it that we do now, Serjeant?’
‘Us? We goes to Master Reeve’s house and gets ourselves warm. You will offer hospitality to the lord Sheriff’s men, Master Reeve?’ The reeve nodded, thinking not of extra mouths to feed but extra security, as Catchpoll had guessed. ‘On the morrow we returns to the lord Sheriff and reports.’
‘You will leave us undefended?’ Father Hildebert rolled his eyes like a jibbing horse.
‘Look, Father, we two are not an army, not that you needs one. What you needs is calm heads and good sense. Be watchful of anything or anyone unusual about the village, and set the bar to your door as any man with wits will do. Now, I am done here.’ As if to prove this, the serjeant blew out the lamp, leaving just Father Hildebert’s pottery lantern to light them to the door.
‘I would not sleep here,’ averred fitzDurand. ‘Will you give me shelter, Father?’
The priest agreed instantly, and sounded eager for company, but Catchpoll remarked to Walkelin as they headed to the reeve’s house, a cottage near the junction of the Salt Way and the single street, that he would be wise to be wary of his guest.
‘What are we going to tell the lord Sheriff?’ enquired Walkelin, quietly, once they were walking alone. 27
‘We tells him as there is trouble, that’s what. For tonight, we finds out all we can from the reeve about Durand Wuduweard. Who might want him dead would be a start.’
‘But he was ripped by sharp teeth, not a blade of any sort.’
‘No, and that is where our main problem lies. Nobody here will do anything until there has been a hunt for the wolf, though no wolf would come within walls or beside a hearth fire. Fire keeps beasts at bay.’
‘If not a wolf then—’
‘A very big dog. A nasty, big dog, and either way I wants to know its master,’ growled Catchpoll.
Serjeant Catchpoll and Walkelin rose early, in time to join Father Hildebert as he walked, a little nervously, to his church to say Prime, for it was the Feast of All Souls of the Dear Departed, and they were unsure whether they would be able to attend any other services that day. Catchpoll and Walkelin stood at the west end of the church, which gave them a view of any who also came in to pray. The service was well attended, for it seemed that with a violent death and fear in the parish, many of the villagers felt the need to observe the Holy Day to the full. Catchpoll watched them enter in silence, glance at the shrouded body in the corner of the nave and genuflect to the altar, crossing themselves with obvious commitment. Nothing like a corpse to remind folk of mortality, he thought, even on the day when everyone prayed for their dead, and even if the body was of someone none would grieve over. Catchpoll offered up his prayers, but also observed. None but curious children took a second look towards the remains of Durand Wuduweard. He 28thought it interesting that this included William Swicol. Would a son’s eyes not be drawn to his shrouded father, especially on such a day? At the conclusion of the service the congregation filed out in silence, solemn-faced.
Catchpoll and Walkelin thanked the reeve for his hospitality, and collected their mounts from the stable where the plough oxen were stalled. They led their horses, taking stock of Feckenham in the daylight, though the gloomy morn gave little better than dawn light. It was a village that benefited from being a place that kings visited, however rarely. The royal hunting lodge, set a little back from the centre of the village, was imposing in scale, and was surrounded by a moat-ditch, but had the look of a place that rarely saw more than its custodian in residence. The gate was firmly shut, but the wooden bridge across the moat was not one that could be drawn up. This was a place for kings to ‘play’ and be private, but not one to be defended. King Stephen had not come to hunt since he had visited Worcester in 1138, before the Empress Maud had set foot in England, and he was hardly likely to do so now.
‘Have you ever seen the lord King?’ Walkelin asked.
‘Not to speak with.’ Catchpoll grinned. ‘Kings is like us, but better fed, better dressed and treats everyone below the level of the lord Sheriff as rushes strewn beneath their well-shod feet. I caught a sight of King Stephen when he came last, but I did see the old king properly, twice, and heard him too. Strong voice he had, King Henry, and a look to him that was not just power but command, the way you see it in the lord Sheriff. Did not see that in King Stephen.’
‘And how could this hall look after a king if there is nobody much here?’ 29
‘Wake your wits, lad. If a messenger was to come saying the lord King was arriving, every able-bodied soul in Feckenham would be bustling about like ants in a nest before you could spit. Now, that lane heads westward to the mill as I recall, down by the same brook as we forded on the Salt Way. I went there once when I was like you, and we was called to take in the miller, who had hit his wife with a shackle, and cracked her skull like an egg. My serjeant sent me to look at where it happened, just in case he lacked oathswearers because he was unpopular.’
‘And was he guilty?’
‘Oh yes.’ There was nothing more Catchpoll had to say on the past, and they completed a slow walk through the village, observed, as Catchpoll knew, but without encountering anybody outside their door. After passing the empty house of the wuduweard, serjeant and serjeanting apprentice, or underserjeant, mounted, and headed back to Worcester to give William de Beauchamp the bad news.
William de Beauchamp grimaced.
‘I know, my lord. If it was not for the state of the body, we could treat this like a good ordinary murder,’ Catchpoll made violent death seem day to day, which was not quite true, ‘but as it is, Feckenham is a huddle of frightened sheep, convinced the wolf is about to tear them to shreds, or worse, a werwulf, man turned wolf.’
‘So it was a wolf, but could not be a wolf, and it was murder although a beast did the killing. I could not explain that to the Justices in Eyre, because I do not understand it myself, Catchpoll.’ 30
‘Nor me, neither, my lord, but it is so, I would swear my oath upon it.’
‘Why?’
‘A whole list of things, my lord.’ Catchpoll held up one hand, and began to tick off his life-roughened fingers. ‘Firstly, there is no such thing as a werwulf, and no wolf opened the door to get to the victim. Second, the body was found by the hearth, and the ash showed that there had been a decent fire there. No wild animal draws close to a fire. Third, the body was discovered flat on its back, which I grant you might find if a beast attacked, but it was facing towards the door, and the feet ended up so close to the fire that they were burnt.’
‘What does that matter, Catchpoll?’
‘Well, my lord, if Durand was attacked right there, the beast would have had to leap the fire to throw him onto his back, and the feet were burnt. I grant that if he had been knocked off his stool and been sittin’ close they might have shot forwards, but it looks very odd. Besides which, the stool was knocked over but much further towards the west wall, a very long way from the body. To my mind it looked as if it was put there to show a struggle that never was. The whole chamber seemed wrong.’
‘So you are saying the body was placed there.’ De Beauchamp’s expression became ruminative. ‘That fits.’
‘’Tis the only way it fits, my lord. And as the final proof, the door to the dwelling creaked real loud, so Durand could not have been surprised by anyone opening the door unexpected. Now, a beast did for Durand, I do not deny that, and it had sharp fangs, but a mastiff has big teeth. It might just have been a very large dog trained to bring down game. Certainly, it did its 31work elsewhere. There was little blood among the floor rushes, and nobody thought of how much blood might be there, not with what happened to the face, and …’ Catchpoll paused for a moment, and then murmured, mostly to himself, ‘why would a wolf bite the face of a man, all bone and no meat to it?’ He sighed, and resumed, more loudly. ‘It follows that someone, some man or men, put the body where we found it. Nobody would do that if they found a man dead by an accident, so this is a murder killing.’
‘Which leaves us to work out not just why, and by whom, but how we pacify the Feckenham “sheep”.’
‘Lords like hunting.’ Catchpoll’s face was deadpan.
‘Not hunting that gives no meat for the table and excitement to the chase. Hunting a fear is pointless,’ grumbled de Beauchamp.
‘Not quite so, my lord, because while you does that chasing about, we tries to find out our why and who.’
‘Hmm. I shall send for my hounds from Elmley, and look to parading them about the forest the day after tomorrow, if it is not so foul weather that we will just catch our own deaths in the wet and cold. Is the “we” just you and Walkelin here, or do you want to go to Bradecote?’
‘I do not want to go, my lord, but I do want to send Walkelin to fetch my lord Bradecote. An extra head on this, and him being one as ordinary folk naturally obey, would help.’
‘Fair enough. Send for him, and I will gather my hunting party on the morrow, to hunt thereafter, but I will not get wet and chilled for all the peasantry of Feckenham.’
‘Very good, my lord.’ Catchpoll made an obeisance, which 32Walkelin hastily copied, and turned to leave the hall.
‘By the way, Catchpoll, I take it you are not “ordinary”?’ There was a wry tone to de Beauchamp’s voice.
Catchpoll did not turn back, but made a sound somewhere between a grunt and a guffaw.
‘I thought not.’ William de Beauchamp smiled.
The manor of Bradecote was set to winter life. There were children playing chase between the low-eaved thatched dwellings, keeping warm by exercise and expending the energy of youth where they did not get under the feet, and upon the nerves, of their older kin. They halted briefly at the sound of a horse’s hooves, but Walkelin was a known figure to them, and they resumed their game without much pause.
In truth they recognised Walkelin’s reluctant and shaggy horse more than Walkelin, so well wrapped up was he against the cold. Catchpoll had told him that the beast was perfect for winter riding, because urging it to move kept Walkelin moving and warm. Walkelin felt he was simply kept heated by annoyance.
He rode through the gateway set in the wooden palisade that surrounded the manor hall itself, and dismounted, rather pleased that a man-at-arms came forward quickly to take the horse from him, and with a slight show of deference, as to a senior among the soldiery. Perhaps, thought Walkelin, a little of Serjeant Catchpoll was rubbing off on him at last. He gave a nod of thanks, and climbed the steps to the hall. In the cross-passage within, a maidservant stood aside and he turned right, beyond the screen, into the main chamber, where a good fire crackled 33in the central hearth, and woodsmoke rose like a supplicant’s prayers heavenwards to the roof trusses. Hugh Bradecote was by the hearth, with two men, one of whom Walkelin recognised as the steward. He turned at the sound of booted feet, and smiled at Walkelin, who was, despite his wrappings, pink of cheek and nose, which clashed with the strands of fiery hair that had escaped from beneath his woollen cap.
‘Has Serjeant Catchpoll decided he does not need exercise?’ Bradecote asked, his lips twitching.
‘More like he thinks I do, my lord,’ responded Walkelin, snatching the cap from his head to reveal the rest of his hair at odd angles, like a half-dismantled hayrick. He made an obeisance, respectful but not in any way servile.
‘So, tell me why you are here, and warm yourself as you do so.’ Bradecote extended a hand to indicate the fire. Walkelin drew closer with an expression of thanks, and Bradecote dismissed the man Walkelin did not recognise.
‘Serjeant Ca—the lord Sheriff,’ Walkelin corrected himself swiftly, but clumsily, and his cheeks reddened further, ‘would have you come into Worcester, and perhaps on to Feckenham. There has been a death, a murder, but it is all knots, and the lord Sheriff is going hunting even though he won’t find anything, and …’ He sighed. ‘Sorry, my lord. The cold has got to my brains, though Serjeant Catchpoll would say I do not have any.’
‘Ale might help you, warm ale.’ Bradecote looked to his steward, who nodded and withdrew, and was heard speaking with the maid. Bradecote picked up a stool, and indicated Walkelin do the same.
The serjeanting apprentice sat, composed himself, and began 34to explain the previous day, from the arrival of the Feckenham men before William de Beauchamp to Catchpoll’s thoughts upon how Durand Wuduweard met his grisly death.
‘I would have liked to see the lord Sheriff’s face when Catchpoll “told” him he ought to hunt an invisible wolf,’ Bradecote grinned.
‘I am sure you can imagine it very well, my lord, and anyways, Serjeant Catchpoll only said as lords likes hunting.’
‘Even better!’ Bradecote laughed at that, but then grew more serious. ‘I follow Catchpoll’s trail of thought, but I am left with the same questions both he and you must have. Who wanted Durand dead, and why, and why did they move his body to where it was bound to be discovered at some point, rather than leaving it in the depths of the forest to be lost until Judgement Day?’
‘I reckon as Serjeant Catchpoll will say the son, William, is part of it. He knows him from Worcester, though he has never had a name there beyond William Swicol, which says all you need to know, really. He seemed angry-aggrieved, the way some folk are when their kin is killed, but if you are swicollic, pretending is easy.’
The maid came with the ale, steaming from the introduction of a hot poker, though a flake of ash floated upon its surface.
