Saint Milburga's Bones (A Stephen Attebrook mystery Book 5) Read online

  Saint Milburga’s Bones

  Jason Vail

  SAINT MILBURGA’S BONES

  Copyright 2015, by Jason Vail

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

  A Hawk Publishing book.

  Cover illustration copyright canstockphoto.com.

  Cover design, map of Ludlow Castle by Ashley Barber

  ISBN-13: 978-1514701928

  ISBN-10: 1514701928

  Hawk Publishing

  Tallahassee, FL 32312

  Saint Milburga’s Bones

  MARCH 1263

  to

  APRIL 1263

  Chapter 1

  Harry the beggar did not ordinarily pay much attention to the doings of the Broad Street gang, a collection of the younger, unapprenticed boys from the families living on the street up from his station at Broad Gate. They had long since learned not to pelt him with dirt clods or shower him with taunts, so that mostly they left each other alone.

  But this day as the boys slipped through the gate around a cartload of cordwood so as to be out of sight of the gate warden, Gip, Harry heard them muttering excitedly about a dead man they had just seen. One of the said distinctly, “We got to show Dick!”

  Another of the boys noticed Harry watching. “Shut up, idiot!”

  Corpses were as common as fallen leaves, but the mention of this dead man caught Harry’s attention. Perhaps it was because one of the castle guards had disappeared without a trace a few days before; perhaps it was because the boys were not allowed by their parents to leave the confines of the town walls. The intersection of these two circumstances provoked his interest.

  “You there!” Harry put down the block of wood he had been whittling. “Come here!”

  The boys stopped and stared at Harry in amazement. They were not accustomed to being summoned by beggars, and by Harry in particular. The leader of the group, a boy of eight called Nate, recovered from his astonishment. He called back, “Screw you, asshole!”

  “If you don’t get over here now, I’ll have Gip tell your mother what you’ve been up to,” Harry said. “Sneaking out of town without permission, and God knows what else.”

  Nate hesitated. “Who says we don’t got permission?”

  “If you had permission, you wouldn’t be sneaking back in. Now get over here.”

  Nate sauntered across the street, trailed by his fellows. “What do you want?”

  “What’s this talk about a dead man?”

  Nate shuffled his feet. He frowned, then his brow cleared as he had a thought. “If you show us your stumps.”

  “You’ve seen ’em already.”

  “Not up close. And we get to touch them.”

  “You’ll have to wash your hands first. I don’t like people rubbing their grubby hands over them. I’m a clean person.”

  This claim provoked laughter, since Harry among all the beggars of the town was known to be the most filthy, although to everyone’s surprise he had bathed last month and suffered a shave and a haircut which new growth only now had begun to erase.

  “Our hands are clean enough.”

  “No, you’ve had them in your mouths and in the dirt, and God knows where else. Wipe them off at least, for God’s sake.”

  There was nothing around which was suitable for wiping except the boys’ shirt fronts, which had to do in this circumstance. They knelt before Harry as he drew back the blanket that normally covered his stumps except when he wanted to impress those who might be inclined to add to his begging bowl. One of the boys rested his foot on Harry’s wooden platform, which he sat upon to keep himself out of the dirt and which had rockers on the bottom to make it easier for him to get around by the use of his hands. The platform pitched forward. Harry batted the foot away.

  “God!” one of the boys marveled as he touched one of Harry’s legs. “That’s horrible! How did it happen?”

  “In the wars,” Harry said, which was a lie. His legs had been cut off after a wagon had run over him and they had gone gangrenous. The surgeon had been quite proud of his work, since few people survived a single amputation let alone two at once.

  “Did it hurt?”

  “Not a bit,” Harry lied again, for it had been the worst pain he had ever experienced. “Now about that dead man.”

  The boys exchanged looks as if waiting for one of the others to answer. Finally, Nate said, “There’s a dead man by the castle. Under the north wall.”

  “What’s he doing there?” Harry asked.

  “He wasn’t telling nobody.”

  “Don’t be so sure about that,” Harry said. “Dead men can talk. You know that coroner fellow, Stephen Attebrook?” The boys nodded. They all were familiar with the dark-haired knight who often walked with a limp. “You should find him at the Broken Shield this time of day. One of you run up there and tell him about this dead man. He’ll want to know about it. Dead people are crown business, you know. It’s treason not to tell him.”

  The boys looked worried at the possibility they might be charged with treason for not reporting this dead man.

  Nate nodded. “I’ll go.” With an anxious glance through the gate at Tad Thumper and his gang, who were tormenting a robin with a broken wing, the boys ran up Broad Street.

  The formidable Edith Wistwode, matron of the Broken Shield Inn, blocked the door when the boys tried to enter. She was known to be swift with a clout when crossed, so Nate kept well clear as he stated the nature of their business. Mistress Wistwode crossed her arms and straightened up, her face softening. She sighed, “There’s never an end to it, is there? Sorry, boys, he’s at the castle. You’ll have to seek him there.”

  The boys perked up at this, since it raised the possibility of getting inside the castle, where they were not allowed. The thrill was compounded by the fact the place was full of knights and soldiers who had come to attend Prince Edward, son of that feckless king, Henry III, who had arrived only a few days ago intending to continue the war against the Welsh which had begun during the winter.

  The gate wards at the castle listened to their request to see Sir Stephen and dashed the boys’ expectation of further fun. One ward said, “If this is some kind of tale to get in, you’ve another think coming.”

  “It’s true. We saw him,” Nate said.

  “By the wall?”

  The boys all nodded.

  The wards exchanged worried looks. One who had spoken first said, “I don’t like the sound of this.”

  “You don’t think it could be Ormyn?” asked the other.

  “I hope not.” The ward rose from his stool. “I’ll be right back.”

  “I hate to say it, Stephen,” said Sir Geoffrey Randall, “But I don’t think you’ll be of much use.”

  When Stephen Attebrook had heard that his superior, the coroner of Herefordshire, had answered the commission of array with three knights and fifteen archers, he had hurried up to Ludlow Castle hoping Sir Geoffrey would take him on as a fourth knight. Although he had feared this answer, an outright rejection was dismaying. He had lost part of his left foot to a Moorish axe in Spain the previous year, and now the only work he could get was as the coroner’s deputy. It was low-paying, a demeaning position for a knight who was used to better, more prosperous times. He tried to keep a straight face.

  Randall, heedless of the hurt he had inflicted, went on briskly, “Your foot, you know. With half your foot gone, you can’t ride properly. Not enough left to put in the stirrup. Just a stump from what I’m told.” Stephen had never discussed his infirmity with Randall, or with anyone else in t
own for that matter, except for a close circle of acquaintances, yet somehow the whole world knew about it.

  “I can use a lance, despite the injury,” Stephen said. But Randall was right that he had trouble keeping the foot in the stirrup. “I handled Nigel FitzSimmons well enough.” Last fall he and a shadowy knight named FitzSimmons had fought a duel across the river in Ludford which he had managed to win.[1] The outcome had in fact been close, but it didn’t help to tell the whole truth.

  “Yes, yes, but that was just a joust. Any fool should be able to stay in the saddle for that. What about the melee? How will you handle that? A man who cannot stand in his stirrups is useless in the melee. You know that as well as I.”

  “Well, what if I asked to be taken on as a scout?”

  “A scout? That’s for the light horse,” Randall scoffed, as if the notion of Stephen riding with the light horse, who were mainly Welshmen who happened to own a pony, was absurd .

  Or perhaps, Stephen thought, the prospect reflected badly upon Randall: it would not do for his protégé to be seen riding with Welsh rabble, some of whom had already begun to go barefoot despite the fact that it was still March and cold. Stephen was sorry now that he had brought any of this up. Randall had really been his only true chance. He could not go to others and ask for a place. They would wonder why Randall hadn’t taken him on; there would be inquiries, and then his deformity would be more widely known than it already was, and he would be ruined for good, with no possibility of advancement.

  Before Stephen could say anything further, Randall shouted at the servants erecting his tent. One of them had not secured a corner line and the whole thing had begun to sag, the center pole leaning precariously.

  “You should get in there and help right that thing,” Stephen said sourly to Gilbert Wistwode, Randall’s clerk, a round little man who was also watching these proceedings.

  “I am not an erector of tents,” Gilbert said. “I am a man of the mind. I leave such work to those more fit for it. You know, it wouldn’t hurt for you to use your head now and again. Instead of rushing forward.”

  “Thank you, Gilbert. Your advice is noted.”

  “If you’d only take it. But you are young, and the young are ever foolish. You knew he would refuse, didn’t you?”

  “I hoped there was a chance.”

  “Hope . . . we need it so, but it can lead to wishful thinking, which often leads us astray.” He knitted his fingers upon his belly.

  “Is it Sunday? I don’t see a pulpit.”

  “No need to be so testy. I am only trying to help.”

  Just as Randall’s servants righted the tent pole, one of the gate wards came round the side of the tent. He spotted both Randall and Stephen at the same time, and seemed torn about whom to approach. He stepped up to Randall, as the senior person.

  “What is it, Bert?” Randall asked, not wanting to be distracted from the business of the tent.

  “My lord, there’s been a report of a death,” the gate ward said.

  “A death? How inconvenient.” Randall waved at Stephen. “Tell my deputy. He’ll take care of it.”

  “Duty calls,” Gilbert murmured as Bert crossed the few steps separating them from Randall.

  Bert the gate ward stood back with his companion ward as Stephen listened to the boys report their find.

  “By the castle wall, you say?” Stephen asked. “Where?”

  Nate pointed toward the north. “That way.”

  This was not helpful, so Stephen said, “Show me.”

  The shortest way around to the north side of the castle, which occupied the northwest corner of the town, was through Dinham Gate, which gave access to the town from the west. Beyond the gate, Nate turned north along the wall forcing everyone to clamber at the base, for the ground here sloped enough to the River Teme that there was no ditch. They passed a small round tower that had only been built a few years ago, then a square one that did not jut out from the wall, which marked the boundary of the inner bailey. This was followed by another square tower and then a third, larger one, where the castle wall curved east. As the group came around this third tower, Nate halted. He pointed to a spot ahead about halfway between this tower and the next.

  “He’s down there,” Nate said.

  By down there, he meant some distance down slope. The hill was overgrown with brush, hazel mostly, which had not been cleared as it should have been last fall during the previous emergency when people feared Ludlow might be attacked. The presence of the brush made walking along the slope difficult, so Stephen proceeded close to the wall, peering through the branches for some sight of the body.

  At last, he came upon it.

  “My, my,” Gilbert said. “That’s not what I expected.”

  “Indeed,” Stephen said, as he knelt by the corpse.

  The dead man lay on his stomach. He was stark naked.

  Stephen turned the body over. The underside, including the face, was blue and crisscrossed with darker marks that had the appearance of the crushed grass beneath him. He said, “Ah, poor Ormyn.”

  “You know him?”

  “One of the castle garrison. He’s the one who went missing day before yesterday.”

  “I heard about that. Just disappeared during his watch in the night, or so they say.”

  “Well, now we know where he went.”

  “At least he doesn’t smell too badly.”

  “That is a relief.” Stephen glanced up at the wall. They were about halfway between the two rectangular towers on the north side of the castle that stood on either side of the great hall. “Most likely he fell from there.”

  “You think he fell?”

  “How else did he get here? None of the gate wards saw him leave.” As Stephan looked up, he noticed that many of the hazel branches overhead appeared broken. They could have been snapped by Ormyn’s body.

  He turned Ormyn on his side. His long brown hair fell back from his face, and Stephen saw that Ormyn’s left ear had been split almost in half. He peered closely at the wound. There were bits of bark within it and in abrasions along his cheek. Stephen lifted the hair, which had a few twigs in it as well. There were more abrasions on his neck. Now that he paid more attention, he could see bruises along his back, mainly on the left side of the body. He turned the body onto its back and bent his face close, looking for similar marks on the front. There were none, until he got to the dead man’s face. Near the edge of the mouth on the left side was a puncture. Stephen put a finger in the man’s mouth and drew the lips aside. Ormyn’s teeth were crooked and one on the jaw at the left stuck out a bit. There was blood on the inside of the mouth and a corresponding puncture. All this seemed consistent with a fall through the hazel.

  “If we could blame the wall, Sir Geoff would be very pleased,” Gilbert murmured.

  “It is a very costly wall, isn’t it?” The law required that the instrument causing a death must be valued and that the hundred where the body was found fined the value of that instrument, which had to be paid by the people of the hundred.

  Stephen clambered up to where Nate and the other boys were waiting. “That’s how you found him? Naked like that?”

  The boys shuffled their feet, eyes on the ground. “Yes,” Nate said.

  “Did you touch him?”

  “No.”

  “How did you know he was here?”

  Nate equivocated for a moment. “Somebody told us.”

  “Who might that be?”

  Nate’s hesitation went on longer at this question. “Tad Thumper.”

  “Tad Thumper?” Stephen repeated, as his mind sought the implications of this revelation. Tad Thumper was one of Will Thumper’s great brood. Will was a thief and a bully, quick to fight and often hired when someone needed a thumping for such things as the failure to repay a debt, hence his name.

  “Yes,” Nate said, looking worried now that he had said Tad’s name. His anxiety was understandable. Tad was as much a bully as his father. He and his gang of
urchins had the town boys terrified.

  “How did Tad find the body?”

  “I don’t know. He didn’t say. He charged us a full penny to see it.”

  “A full penny? Where’d you get a full penny?” A full penny was quite a lot of money. Many men didn’t earn so much for a day’s labor.

  “My father gave it to me.”

  There was something about the way Nate said this that told Stephen he was lying. More likely, Nate had stolen the penny. Stephen hoped that he had stolen it from his father rather than somebody else. In any case, he dropped that line of inquiry. Thefts weren’t within his purview, and he didn’t want to get involved.

  Gilbert climbed up beside Stephen. “Well, you have to admit, it’s rather enterprising of young Tad.”

  “Although unlawful.”

  “I don’t think the law means much to the Thumpers.”

  “I got that impression the last time we ran into Will.”

  “I suppose I should fetch the jury. Although I doubt they will be able to make much of this. You’ll remain?”

  Stephen nodded. “You boys, get out of here. And say nothing about this to anyone. Understand?”

  With a chorus of “Yes, sir! Yes, sir!” the boys backed away and scampered around the corner of the western tower.

  “I say, I wish I could move that quickly,” Gilbert said. “But I’m getting old.”

  “You could never move that quickly.”

  “I have moved quickly enough in the past to save you from disaster. I shall be right back.”

  As Gilbert followed the boys’ track through the tall grass, Stephen sat down. He daydreamed that he was riding at the head of a squadron of horsemen heading into battle as he had done in Spain before he had lost everything. But that would never happen again. He was stuck where he was, dealing with the dead.

  Chapter 2