The Malice of Unnatural Death: (29 page)

‘Yeah. Seen a few corpses in my time. Well, you know. This
is
a city.’

‘Of course. What then?’

They had reached the little tavern now. A decaying holly bush was bound to a stake over the door to advertise its business,
and Art glanced up as it squeaked. ‘We came out,
and walked down back that way. Didn’t take long usually. Well, you’ve seen how near we are.’

Baldwin reckoned that they had walked a scant two hundred yards from the gate, but they had turned into a little alley to
reach this place. The gate was hidden from view.

Art continued: ‘It was when we got into the road. Look, come up here …’ He led the way back along the alley, until only
a few yards from South Gate Street. ‘Hereabouts, it was. The old man saw something down there on the right. Shook, he did,
and fair gave me a shock. Said it was a man, but when I looked there was nothing there.’

Baldwin walked to where the lad pointed. In the gloom, he could see little. There was a bundle or two of faggots lying at
the foot of a wall, and the overhang from the jettied room overhead concealed anything else until Baldwin was right underneath. Gradually his eyes grew acclimatised, and he peered about him carefully. ‘Your father said the thing was where? Here?’

‘Yeah. A bit up that way.’

Moving to his right, Baldwin saw that the building here did not quite meet its neighbour. A gap of eighteen inches separated
them. ‘Where does this go?’

‘Right along to the next alley. Why?’

‘I think your father was not so drunk as you imagine,’ Baldwin said thoughtfully.

Art gazed about at the alley. ‘You joking? You think there was some sort of …’

‘Not a ghost, not a demon, nothing like that,’ Baldwin said. ‘But there was probably a man here, yes.’

‘That what Will saw too?’ Art asked.

‘Perhaps,’ Baldwin mused. ‘He was very nervous about
it, certainly.’

‘It was him telling my dad about it made him see things that night.’

‘You mean your father spoke to Will yesterday and his story prompted Hal to think of what he saw as a demon?’

‘Yesterday? No, Will said all that to us on Tuesday, after finding the body outside his old house.’

Baldwin stopped and peered at him. ‘I think you and I need to discuss this further.’

‘Did I tell you the joke about the man who wanted his neighbour’s wife?’ Coroner Richard asked Simon rhetorically, and continued
before Simon could respond. ‘He waited until his neighbour had gone on a journey, and then knocked on her door. “Madam,” he
said, “I have fallen in love with you. My life holds no promise for me unless I can have you. I will do anything – command
me and give yourself to me!”

‘Well, this woman was honourable, and she was shocked to be addressed in this manner by her neighbour, so she gave him the
turnabout right away. “I love my husband, and I’ve given him my vows. I won’t dishonour myself and betray him. Begone!”

‘So off he went, the flea biting his ear, until he had a thought. There was a clever woman in a wood not far away, and maybe
she could help. Off he went, and spoke to her thus: “Old woman, there is a wife I adore, but she will have nothing to do with
me. I’ll die if I can’t have her. Is there anything you can do?”

‘The old woman looked him up and down, named her price, and when she had it in her purse she told him to wait there in her
cottage. She took some string, and set it about
the neck of a piglet, and walked off. When she approached the woman’s house, she rubbed soil in her hair and down her face,
and pinched herself to make herself tearful, and then carried on, the piglet behind her.

‘ “Old woman, what is the matter?” the woman asked when she appeared.

‘ “My daughter! Look at her! Turned into a piglet by that evil man!”

‘ “What evil man? What has happened?”

‘This dishonourable old woman said: “A man arrived yesterday and no sooner had he seen my daughter than he decided he must
have her. He told her he would pine without her …”

‘ “But that is what happened to me!”

‘ “My daughter was a good, honourable chit, though, so she refused him.”

‘ “As did I.”

‘ “And although he told her that without her, his life would be worth naught, still she refused him. And when he set to her
to try to force her, I beat him away. And as he went on his way, he roared at us most fearfully that if he couldn’t have her,
nor would any other man. My daughter would henceforth be turned into a pig and would never know a man. And this morning … this morning, when I awoke … this had happened to my little child!”

‘The wife turned pale on hearing this, you see, and she cried out, “But this all happened to me! Good woman, tell me what I must do to save myself! There was a man here today who asked me to lie with him, and told me he would pine for love of me
if he didn’t have my body, and I sent him away with every curse my heart could summon. What shall I do?”

‘ “Good
wife, there is only one thing you may do: find him and promise you’ll do all he desires so long as he doesn’t turn you into
a sow.”

‘ “Should I leave at once?”

‘The old woman shook her head. “You wait here. I shall fetch him to you. I think he lives near here. Do you prepare yourself
for him.”

‘ “Old woman, you are kind.”

‘So the old woman sauntered back to her cottage and told him to get back to his neighbour’s house, and he had a high time. And it only goes to show, you see, that if you want a vain woman, while she tries to protect her looks there is always a way
to her heart!’

Simon looked up at him. ‘You think that was a joke?’

‘Just a story to lighten the heart,’ the Coroner declared confidently. ‘Hoi, host, where’s your wine all gone? Is your barrel
empty that you leave your customers dying of thirst in this hovel? Eh? Ah, Bailiff, it is good to see you again. I like your
friend the keeper, but he can be a cold soul of an evening. Much more fun to have a congenial companion.’

‘Yes,’ Simon said meaningfully. His own thoughts were on his wife again after that joke. At least Meg would never fall for
so foolish a tale. Turned into a sow indeed!

‘Yes. I was not glad to be sent here just now.’

‘What did bring you?’ Simon enquired.

‘Ah, thank you, my fine fellow!’ Coroner Richard declared happily as more wine was poured into his jug. ‘To answer you honestly, Bailiff, I do not know. There must have been something, for the sheriff asked me to come here to meet him. When I arrived, I learned that the city’s coroners were both away, and as soon as I got here there were these
bodies about the place, so it was fortunate I
was
here.’

‘But the sheriff …’

‘Saw me briefly at the bishop’s palace, then at the castle too, but that is it. Since then, nothing. Still don’t know what
he wanted with me.’

Hearing how his voice had grown quieter, Simon shot him a look. The coroner’s eyes held a cold glitter suddenly, as though
his thoughts were not pleasant to him. ‘What?’

‘Oh, nothing. Just musing,’ the coroner said. ‘Aha, who’s this?’

‘Baldwin!’ Simon said with relief. ‘It is good to see you once again.’

‘And you, old friend. This man is Art, son of Hal at the South Gate. He has an interesting tale to tell about a body or two.’

Christ Jesus, but his feet hurt! The way here with all the newer cobbles was hard on the feet, especially after two or three
days of solid walking. Rob didn’t know what was so exciting about marching from one town to another. From what he’d seen,
walking and seeing other places was greatly over-valued. Better by far to stay in one place, and if you had to travel, then
best to do so by ship. The less of this stomping over moors and cobbles, the better.

Where was he off to now? Rob watched as the little hunched figure of the monk scurried across the lane in front of a horse,
which shied and made the rider curse, and thence passed over Carfoix and continued along the High Street towards the castle
at the farther edge of the town.

‘Why couldn’t you stay at the bishop’s palace?’ he grumbled as he walked. ‘Hot rooms, beds, blankets, food,
ale … what more does a man need?’

But the monk merely hurried onwards, and Rob had to stifle his complaints to keep up.

Simon had been quite explicit. ‘If he leaves the close, you have to stay with him. Don’t let him see you, but keep behind
him and watch where he goes and who he talks to. All right? If you do this well, there will be a reward for you. Fail, though,
and you’ll get a thrashing!’

The threat was meaningless, as Rob knew perfectly well. The bailiff wasn’t the sort of man to punish a lad for trying his
best and failing, but still he seemed to be happier for sounding like one of those modern knights who only ever knew how to
get men to obey by threatening dire punishment.

If he were to be honest, he rather liked the tall, dark-haired bailiff. Simon Puttock was a great deal kinder than most masters
he’d seen before. Usually they would be content to issue a command once, and then beat a fellow with a suitable rod. Only
last year a young apprentice had died after being whipped by his master. The man had explained that he had been trying to
show the boy the error of his ways after he had done something wrong – probably drank too much one evening or something. There
were so many reasons why a master could beat his charges.

Puttock was different. There were times when he had been so bound up with his work that he had been ridiculously easy to fool. Usually when there were too many new ships in the port, all waiting for their goods to be assessed so that they might be unloaded. At times like that, Rob’s life was much easier. He could rise later and not worry about preparing too much food, for his master
would snarl about going to a pie shop, he was in such a hurry, and that would
be all. Still, the fact that he was trusted tended to make Rob more protective of his master, as though Simon was in fact
his charge, not he his.

The monk passed through the castle gates and Rob could see him inside. He was speaking to a guard, but when he was finished
he didn’t go to the steps that led to the little hall. Instead, he was taken to another building. Even Rob could recognise
the entrance to a small gaol-house. He watched as the monk entered, and then he sauntered over to a log by a wall to sit down
and wait.

Bailiff Puttock would be interested in this, he reckoned.

There was a short pause after Art had told his story, and then Baldwin and the coroner glanced at each other and nodded.

‘He has some questions to answer,’ Coroner Richard acknowledged, and soon the three men were marching back down South Gate Street towards the old watchman’s house, Baldwin speaking quickly to Simon to explain what he and the coroner had already
learned.

‘The trouble is, old friend,’ he said as they approached the gatehouse itself and turned right to stand before Will Skinner’s
dilapidated property, ‘we have no idea why anyone should want to harm a king’s messenger. The idea that a man should cut off
a messenger’s fingers, too, is bizarre. I can only assume the fellow was being harmed in order to force him to answer some
questions – simple torture.’

‘Why would someone want to torture the messenger?’ Simon scoffed. ‘The pouch was there to be taken. No need to harm the fellow
first.’

‘What if the messenger was aware of some other aspect to the note? Perhaps the bishop decided not to put all into
writing? If there was some other part to the message that he dare not even commit to paper, something so dangerous that he
could only put it into the messenger’s head – what then? Perhaps a man might cut off his finger just to prove he was determined
enough to stop at nothing to learn what the messenger knew.’

‘It’s possible,’ Simon admitted. ‘But it is too wild. Who would have learned of something of that nature?’

‘If the bishop had a man in his room while he briefed the
nuncius
,’ Baldwin pointed out, ‘that man might have heard something. And then, if he had a brother, or a friend, out here in the city
itself, he might have been able to contact him, tell him to take this fellow …’

‘And then he caught the wrong man on the first night?’ the coroner rumbled.

‘Many thieves and felons are less bright than the common dog in the street,’ Baldwin pointed out. ‘It would not surprise me
if one of them caught the wrong man. In the dark along an alley, they could have mistaken him, I suppose.’ In his mind he
was reviewing the two men: the messenger was a lot taller, but Baldwin knew that gauging a man’s height in the dark could
be very difficult. Yes – it was possible.

Considering, Simon said, ‘It at least makes sense of the poor man’s losing his fingers, certainly. I’d be happier knowing
that there was someone in the bishop’s household who could have done such a thing, though. It is far-fetched to say that someone
was in a position to learn about this theoretical message, and happened to know a friend in the city who could kill the messenger. You might as well suggest some supernatural agent. What?’

Simon had caught sight of Baldwin’s quick look at the coroner. Coroner Richard grinned to himself and knocked
on the door as Simon set his hands at his sword belt and glowered. ‘I wasn’t saying this
was
a ghost, Baldwin!’ He knew how his friend looked down upon the idea of malevolent spirits of any type. In Baldwin’s world,
all was easily explained by rationality. ‘Look, all I was saying was, you may as well suggest that it was the devil who came
and killed the fellow. Until we have more information and a genuine possible suspect, I think that we ought to …’

‘Consider other possibilities. I know,’ Baldwin said coolly.

Simon was silent. He was annoyed at being treated so dismissively at first, but then he saw a strange look in the coroner’s
eye, a look almost of anxiety, and the sight was enough to make him pause. There was something about this matter that he was
not yet aware of.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘I can at least offer some help with the bishop. I have a young lad with me, and if Rob can’t sniff out a
conspiracy at ten paces, no one can.’