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

  The view north from the castle was pleasant even at the base of the wall, and, having exhausted his capacity for day-dreaming, Stephen amused himself as much as that view allowed while he waited for Gilbert to return with the jury. He had often enjoyed this view from higher up. A great meadow spread from the slope, bounded on the left by the River Teme and the right the suburb of Linney, concluding at the line of trees marking the stream of the River Corve, which fed into the Teme. In ordinary times, the meadow served as the pasture for the horses of the castle garrison, but now it was filled with the tents of the army the Prince had summoned so that he could continue the war with the Welsh. Smoke from numerous fires hung over the tents, sharing the air with distant voices — one set of singers making a carol whose harmony was quite good, and another distant set of singers so inharmonious that anyone close by might be moved to plug his ears; a woman shouting at a fellow over the fact he had urinated on the side of her tent; and a shoemaker boasting of his skill.

  Stephen grew restless when more than an hour passed without any sign of Gilbert or the jury. He rose and stretched — and nearly fell. His bad foot made standing on the slope difficult. As he tottered to regain his balance, he heard voices on the wall above, other men of the castle’s standing garrison, including the watch commander, Ralph Turling.

  “Sir Stephen!” Turling called. “Your man says you’ve found Ormyn Yarker! Is it true?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Where is he?”

  Stephen pointed to where the body lay beneath the hazel. “There.”

  “I can’t see anything.”

  “He’s there.”

  “Dead then?” Turling asked.

  “Yes.”

  Turling turned away and spoke to someone whom Stephen could not see. A woman appeared trying to pull herself up between the crenellations to get a look for herself, but men of the garrison pulled her back.

  “Be still, Bridget,” Turling could be heard to say. “We’ll take you down straight away. Come now.”

  The figures went to the tower to the right, and presently the men and the woman Bridget came around the corner at the base of the wall. Stephen wondered how they got out of the castle so quickly, but then he remembered there was a little used underground sally port from the western tower that emerged in a small grove of trees down slope.

  Bridget had to be Ormyn’s widow, although Stephen had never seen her, nor had any idea what she looked like, since he had not involved himself in the lives of the men of the garrison. She slipped by Stephen and worked into the hazel. She was much younger than he had expected: no more than sixteen or eighteen, with straw colored hair and satiny skin, young and quite pretty, in fact. Ormyn was in his thirties at least. But then it wasn’t that unusual for men to marry much younger women, particularly the second time around.

  She knelt by the body. Stephen followed her, prepared to advise her not to disturb Ormyn since the jury had not yet had a chance to look at him. That warning was unnecessary.

  Bridget sat on her heels and looked at the body without any expression of grief. She sighed, “That’s it, then, thank goodness.”

  Turling glanced up at the top of the wall. “I suppose he fell off.”

  “Seems a likely explanation,” Stephen said.

  “Taking a piss, probably,” Turling said with some disgust. It was not unusual for men on the night watch to pee from the battlements, since, strictly speaking, they were not allowed to leave them to go to the latrine. The practice was undisciplined and risky, but the leadership could not put a stop to it. One solution was to leave a basin in a tower, but Turling did not approve of this and had removed those put out by the previous commander. He thought such basins gave the watch an excuse to huddle in the tower.

  “Hard to say.”

  “His drawers aren’t down?” That was how men killed by such falls were usually found.

  “Someone got to the body before we found him. Stole all his clothes.”

  “He should have had a sword, shield, and spear. Those are missing as well?”

  “I’d say that whoever took his clothes and boots probably got those too.”

  “It’s such a pity. I’ve had better men, but he was dependable, never late with a mouthful of excuses and never asleep on his watch.” Turling kicked at a tuft of grass. “He volunteered to take another man’s watch the night he disappeared, too. What bad luck. Now three children are fatherless.”

  The mention of the sword, spear, and shield got Stephen thinking. He should have considered the possibility already that they might have fallen apart from the body and could still be somewhere in the brush. “Can you have your men search for Ormyn’s spear and shield?” Stephen asked. “They might still be here.”

  “Good idea,” Turling said. He called to the five men who had come down with Bridget to start a search along the wall in the vicinity of the body.

  The men fanned out along the base of the wall and began forcing their way through the bramble, as Stephen and Turling descended to Bridget’s side.

  “Come away, Bridget,” Turling said, hand on her shoulder. “Let the coroner do his business. Then you can have him back.”

  Bridget nodded, as she climbed the slope to the wall. She squinted to the top. “It’s hard to believe he fell. You know how good he was at climbing.”

  Stephen remembered this too, now that she had mentioned it. Last autumn, shortly after he had arrived at Ludlow, Ormyn had climbed the outside of the east tower of the inner bailey to the highest window on a wager, getting his purchase from no more than the crevasses between the stones. When Ormyn reached the top, he had shown off with a handstand at the brink of the parapet.

  Meanwhile, the search party had been making a great deal of noise as the men worked their way about the space between the towers until there was a shout by the eastern tower. “We’ve got ‘em!”

  Stephen climbed up see what they had got. Three of the soldiers came toward him bearing a shield painted green and yellow, and a spear.

  “The shield’s Ormyn’s all right,” the soldier bearing it said. “You can see his mark here.” He held turned the shield so that Stephen could see the inner side, where there was a ¥ in black paint above the grip. Ormyn had been illiterate, like most men, although he knew enough to be able to recognize and to write the initials of his name.

  “Show me where you found them,” Stephen said. “The exact spot.”

  “Over there,” the soldier said, pointing at a place about ten yards from the body.

  “Take me there. The exact spot, I said.”

  The exact spot proved to be closer to fifteen yards than ten, in Stephen’s judgment, and the spear was found almost twenty yards away.

  When Stephen returned to Turling and Bridget, the other two soldiers who had searched toward the western tower had also come up. One of them was sniffing at the contents of a tin canteen. This struck Stephen as out of place, since he did not remember any of the soldiers having a canteen. It was not the sort of thing a member of the watch was allowed to carry for fear they might keep ale or wine.

  “What have you got there?” Stephen asked.

  “Found it yonder,” the soldier said. He pointed toward the west tower.

  “Let me see.”

  The soldier reluctantly surrendered the canteen. As well he might. It was new, with hardly a scratch on it, the leather of its strap new as well and still a bit stiff. Canteens like this were worth a bit of money.

  Stephen sniffed the contents. “Ale. Not gone all sour yet, if I’m any judge. Show me where you found it.” He had no idea if that detail might be important, but Gilbert would insist on knowing and he didn’t want to come up short when he was asked about it.

  The soldier led Stephen back another twelve or fifteen yards, down into the slope, and halfway up the other side. “It was there,” he said, “at the base of that hazel. Just lying there. Odd to find such a thing lying hereabout, ain’t it?”

  “It’s been a day of o
ddities,” Stephen said. “No reason we can’t have one more to add to the confusion.”

  “Can I keep it?”

  “No.” At the soldier’s frown, Stephen added, “Not until we sort things out and see where it fits.”

  At last Gilbert showed up on the path at the foot of the slope with not merely the six men of the jury, but also a cart. The jurymen listened to Stephen’s report, and briefly questioned the soldiers about the finding of the spear and shield. Then they climbed up for a look at the body and its wounds.

  “Well?” Stephen asked. “What is your verdict?”

  “What I can’t understand,” Thomas the tanner said, rubbing his round nose, “is why he’d lug that spear and shield to the wall. You’ve been in castle guard, sir. Is that something a fellow in his position would do?”

  “No,” Stephen said. “He’d leave them on the parapet.”

  “And then,” said Philip, a glover, “there’s the fact they were found so far from the body. If he’d fallen with them, they’d have been found nearby, don’t you think?”

  There were nods all around.

  “It ain’t right,” Michael, a baker said. “It ain’t right, at all. Something’s fishy. Do you even think he was taking a piss?”

  “I don’t know,” Stephen said. “It’s the spot for it, if someone was of that mind. The hall’s up there. It’s the one place where a man cannot be seen from the bailey. So he could have.”

  “But you don’t think he simply fell,” Gilbert murmured.

  Stephen shrugged. It was the jury’s decision about how Ormyn died. He could influence it, if he wanted to. But he wanted to see what the men made of this evidence.

  “Seems like he might have been helped,” Thomas the tanner said. “But it’s hard to say, ain’t it? A bit ambiguous.”

  “Ambiguous,” Philip said. “That’s a word too big for you.”

  “Oh, shut up.”

  “I’m in favor of a verdict of murder, more probable than not,” Michael said. “What do you say?”

  “That sounds about right,” Philip said.

  “You’ve got some more work to do, sir,” Thomas Tanner said with a grin. “Too bad it don’t pay.”

  “That has been an ongoing problem,” Gilbert said behind Stephen’s back.

  A corpse attracts crowds as well as flies, so there was a great collection of people anxious for a view as the cart entered the outer bailey. They were disappointed, however, because the body arrived covered with a blanket and remained that way, even after the jury released the body to the family and the cart was led away to the little chapel in the outer bailey that served the garrison.

  “Well,” Gilbert said, “there’s nothing like a dead man in the morning to wake one up. What do you say? Shall we tell Sir Geoff the good news?”

  “That there’s no fine? He’ll surely be thrilled to hear that. He’s impatient enough as it is with what little I’ve managed to take in.”

  “That’s not entirely your fault, although you could channel the discussions more than you do.”

  Turling fell in beside them as they wended through the tents erected in the outer bailey toward the one belonging to Randall. “They’re saying its murder. Is it true?”

  “It looks that way,” Stephen said.

  “That’s impossible.”

  “Where murder is concerned, little is impossible in my experience.”

  “He was an amiable man. He had no great debts that I know of. He quarreled with no one. You know that. You knew him. What could drive someone to throw a fellow like him from the wall?”

  “Perhaps he jumped,” Stephen said, thinking of Bridget’s lack of grief. He sensed trouble in their relationship. If it didn’t erupt into murder, suicide was not unheard of. “Unhappy people have been known to do that.”

  “No! I refuse to believe it!”

  Stephen glanced at Gilbert. “I’ve been faulted before for overlooking every possibility.”

  “He has,” Gilbert said. “Overlooked other possibilities, I mean.”

  “It is not a clerk’s place to criticize his master,” Turling said.

  “Of course not, sir.”

  “He says that now,” Stephen said. “You should hear him when he gets me alone.”

  “I don’t know why you put up with that,” Turling said, as they arrived at Randall’s tent.

  “He was forced upon me,” Stephen said. “I have no authority over him. Besides, he’s my landlord. He thinks that entitles him.”

  “Merchants,” Turling said, turning away. “Always thinking themselves better than they are.”

  “We’re not actually merchants,” Gilbert said when Turling had gone. “We’re innkeepers. We don’t sell things.”

  “People like him don’t know the difference. Besides, you sell food and a bed. Those are things. It makes you a merchant. And if this was a bigger town, you’d have your own guild. Perhaps you should start one.”

  “I never thought of it that way.”

  “And I am setting you right, for a turn.”

  “Better not let my wife find out. She thinks she has the exclusive right to do so.”

  “Edith thinks that about everyone.”

  “She is difficult sometimes — uh — I didn’t say that.”

  “And I didn’t hear it.”

  A servant informed them Sir Geoffrey had gone to the inner bailey to attend Prince Edward, so they crossed the drawbridge to the square gate tower to the inner portion of the great fortress. Where the outer bailey was broad and spacious, the inner bailey was small and cramped. There were only a handful of buildings here: a kitchen, round and belching smoke; a well house; a stable; and a round chapel which seemed to have been dropped down almost in the middle without much thought. Despite the fact the chapel, stuck out in the bailey like a wart on a man’s nose, the Genevilles, who owned the castle, were quite proud of it, and had richly decorated the interior, which one could not miss since you had to walk past the entrance to get to the hall, and the chapel’s doors were kept open in all but the worst weather.

  There was a swarm of activity within the chapel, none of it stately, quiet, or measured as befitted a chapel. People were standing around throwing their hands about in argument, or with worried expressions. The tall figure of Prince Edward could be seen at the altar rail, his hand on a stooped cleric’s shoulder, urgently questioning him about something. Stephen stopped to gape, wondering what could have brought the Prince out of the hall at a time not normally given to Mass.

  Randall was in the crowd and came to the doorway at the sight of Stephen and Gilbert.

  “Sir,” Gilbert said, as a fellow Stephen recognized as Wace Bursecot, a goldsmith’s journeyman carrying a small box of tools, squeezed around them in a hurry to be away, “we’ve come to report about a murder.”

  “Never mind that now,” Randall said. “Something worse has happened.”

  “And that is, sir?” Gilbert asked.

  “The Earl of Arundel’s relic of Saint Milburga has been stolen.”

  Chapter 3

  Arundel’s relic of Saint Milburga . . . it took a moment for Stephen to adjust his mind. He had not been privileged to see this relic, although he had heard about it. Few, in fact, were allowed to see it. Gilbert had described it as being kept in a jeweled box that had a glass top that most of the time was concealed beneath a wooden cover. Even pilgrims who had paid to be in the presence of the relic were often not allowed to see it. Yet people came to the relic not so much to see it, but to receive the good luck that was said to arise from prayer before it. Percival FitzAllen, the earl of Arundel, had required that the monks of Greater Wenlock, a Cluniac priory twenty miles to the northeast which was founded by the saint centuries ago, to bring it to Ludlow so that the Prince could behold it.

  “So what?” Stephen asked. “Why is that our concern?”

  “Good Heavens!” Gilbert gasped. “That’s terrible! Who would want to do such a thing?”

  “That’s what every
one wants to know,” Randall said, answering Gilbert’s question. “Vanished from its box. It is a dark day, a dark day indeed. What shall we do now? The relic is gone, it’s blessing taken from us. Already there’s talk that it’s a bad omen for the army, and word’s not even got out of the bailey yet.”

  “The theft’s just been discovered?” Stephen asked.

  “Only a moment ago.”

  “It disappeared from its box? A locked box?”

  “It did indeed. As if into thin air.”

  “Well, I’m sorry about the relic,” Stephen said. He almost added that he was not sorry about FitzAllen’s loss, but prudence stayed his tongue at the last moment.

  He didn’t see any point in remaining here if Randall did not want to hear about Ormyn. He looked around for Walter Henle, the castle’s constable and the sheriff’s chief deputy in this part of Herefordshire. He had to be in the crowd but Stephen could not spot him. Henle would want to know about Ormyn.

  Stephen was thinking about going inside when the crowd came to him, headed by Prince Edward and the aggrieved party, Percival FitzAllen, with the stooped cleric who had to be the prior of Greater Wenlock Priory.

  Randall, Stephen, and Gilbert backed away to allow Edward to pass. The Prince paid no notice to Stephen or Gilbert, but FitzAllen looked at Stephen with hatred. It seemed that FitzAllen had not forgotten his grudge against him.[2]

  Edward paused. “Sir Geoffrey, I understand that you have a candidate for sainthood buried in your church cemetery.”

  “That is true, your grace, although some doubt that she is really a saint.”

  “But there are claims that she has performed miracles.”

  “Her remains, my lord. She was found dead on at the door of Saint Laurence’s just last winter. A few who touched her before she was buried claimed to have been healed by her grace. Lately some others have repaired to her grave site and come away whole. Or so they said.”[3]

  “You sound skeptical.”

  “My current duties require the exercise of skepticism, my lord. I am afraid that it becomes difficult not to doubt in other things.”