New Blood From Old Bones (24 page)

By the time the bell stilled, the two men had walked their horses almost as far as the priory gatehouse.

Ned's news was that he had learned why Jankin Kett had been disliked by the day-servants and the other lay-brethren. It was not merely that he was set apart by being simple. Jankin had been the sub-prior's messenger, and he was suspected – rightly or wrongly – of spying on his fellows.

‘I thought he must be under Father Arnold's protection, even though he feared him,' said Will. ‘
The priory is my mother
, he told me,
the sub-prior is my father
.'

‘But from what I've heard,' said Ned, ‘the others mistreated him more for enjoyment than out of suspicion. They didn't wish him dead. They think he drowned himself out o' wretchedness, and now they're feeling the guilt of it.'

‘And so they should,' said Will sternly, ‘for they gave him reason enough to be wretched.' He paused. ‘But Jankin had reason to hate the bailiff, after the whipping he got. Loath as I am to believe it of him, I begin to think he could have been Walter Bostock's murderer.'

Ned's response was enthusiastic. He was eager to have done with all this mystery and set off back to London.

‘Aye, you're right! I've heard how Jankin was strong in the arm, and how he'd lash out viciously when he was tormented too far. No doubt about it,' he concluded cheerfully. ‘It was Jankin Kett who murdered the bailiff – and then drowned himself on account of it.'

Will made no reply. They mounted their horses at the gatehouse and turned towards the town, but he was absorbed in thought and would ride no faster than at walking pace.

‘The bailiff set out on his journey before dawn on St Matthew's Eve,' he said, half to himself. ‘We know that Jankin returned the Bromholm rent rolls to the cellarer later that same day. Most likely it was Jankin who returned the bailiff's horse to its stable, at the same time.

‘True, this could have been mere chance. Perhaps Jankin really did find the horse, saddled and running loose. But if so, knowing it was the bailiff's, why did he not raise an alarm?'

Ned had no patience with lawyers'reasoning. ‘By the Mass, we know why – because he was guilty!'

‘But where's your proof, you knave? I cannot go to the justice of the peace and tell him that Ned Pye says so! No, our best hope lies with the boots Jankin was wearing. If the cobbler knows them to be the bailiff's, they must have been pulled off his corpse when his clothing was exchanged. The most likely man to have done so was his murderer. It's not proof positive, but it should be enough for Justice Throssell to make a posthumous declaration of Jankin's guilt.'

Ned Pye thrust out his paw impatiently. ‘Then let me take the boots to the cobbler, and have done!' His voice took on a hopeful croak as he added, ‘As I recall, his shop is next to the Woolpack inn.'

‘Aye, I'll meet you there. Be off with you, for I still have some thinking to do.'

Ned set off along Castlegate at a gallop, the dust-clouds obscuring his horse's heels. Will followed slowly, his spirits tugged between relief at clearing his brother's name, and regret that it had to be at the expense of their boyhood companion. Besides, nothing was ever as simple as Ned imagined.

Will had no doubt that Jankin had the strength to pull the bailiff off his horse and knife him. And then, when his blood was up, he might have battered the bailiff's face in revenge for the whipping he'd been given. But, knowing Jankin, Will could not believe that the whipping would have caused him to commit murder.

Jankin Kett was not violent by nature. Nor was he cunning. This murder had been planned: first to coincide with the bailiff's absence, and then to prevent identification of the corpse, should it be found. Jankin was capable of none of this. He might well have struck the blows and changed the garments, but the guilt was not his alone.

The greater part was surely Sibbel Bostock's. She was without doubt a clever woman, one who knew how to captivate men and bend them to her will. (Interesting, he thought in passing, that she should share that ability with the woman she so much resembled, the King's mistress Anne Boleyn.)

Sibbel Bostock had reasons of her own for wanting revenge on her husband. Knowing that Jankin doted on her, she might well have encouraged his hatred of the bailiff and persuaded him to commit the murder. Certainly she had lied with cunning, purporting to be a virtuous wife awaiting her husband's return when most probably she knew he was dead.

And now poor Jankin himself was dead – but not, Will was convinced, by his own hand. Had Sibbel brought about his death for fear that he might reveal her part in her husband's murder? Had she persuaded another lay-brother, one who admired her and despised Jankin, to dispose of him on her behalf?

By now Will had reached the market place, and there were greetings to be exchanged with shopkeepers looking for custom, and with drinkers outside the alehouses. He dismounted at the Woolpack, dismissing the hopeful loiterers who competed to hold his horse. In a few moments his servant emerged from the cobbler's shop, with the boots in his hand and a great grin on his face. Will beckoned the pot-boy.

‘We were right!' Ned crowed. ‘These are the bailiff's boots. The cobbler has often repaired them and will swear to it.' He seized one of the pots the boy was carrying, and took a great draught.

‘That's your brother proved not guilty and your duty done, Master Will,' he announced as he lowered the pot to draw breath and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. ‘When do we set off for London? Tomorrow at dawn?'

‘Not so fast. I'm bidden to dinner by the prior tomorrow, in company with my godfather. We'll leave here the following day – but only if the bailiff's murder is finally resolved.'

Ned's round face lengthened with disappointment. ‘What's still in doubt?'

‘Sibbel Bostock's part in it is still in doubt. I'm convinced the plan was hers, but we have no proof as yet.'

‘That we have!' protested Ned. ‘I know for a fact that she lied over how long her horse had been back in the stable.'

‘By the quantity of dung? That's only your word against hers. A Jackanapes from London against the wife of the bailiff of the prior of Castleacre?'

‘By your leave!' said Ned indignantly. ‘Besides, she's a whore. You have only to call on your brother's evidence to prove that.'

‘He'd give no evidence against her. How could I ask him to? It would mean admitting his own adultery, and then being called before the archdeacon's court for punishment. No – with Jankin gone, taking the truth with him to the grave, we have nothing against Sibbel Bostock except suspicion. As long as she continues to deny everything …'

And then an almost-forgotten fact lifted his hopes. ‘By the Rood, Ned, I think we may have her yet! Leave your ale, man, and mount up.'

Fired with eagerness, Will made to vault into the saddle as he used to do. But his weaker leg, having lost some of its spring, refused the jump, leaving him to curse and scramble. Once aboard, though, he went dashing across the market place and into Priorygate street. Ned poured the remains of the ale down his throat and followed, just in time to catch the reins his master threw at him as he dismounted outside the tailor's shop.

When Will emerged it was with a grim smile.

‘
Now
I have proof of her deceit!' he said. ‘A proven lie to confront her with. Take those boots back to the laundress at the priory, with my thanks, while I return to the the bailiff's house and get the truth from Sibbel Bostock.'

‘In God's name, sir!' The bailiff's wife had changed to her workaday attire and stood in her farmstead with her skirts hoist above her bare feet, her hair flowing free and a runt of a piglet tucked under one bare arm. She held her handsome head high, her black eyes sparkled with indignation and her sun-browned cheeks glowed with rising blood. ‘Every word I've told you and your servant is the truth!'

Still mounted, Will looked down at her sternly. ‘Not so, Madam. I recall that we met by chance yesterday morning, outside Dickson the tailor's shop in Castlegate. I asked when you expected your husband the bailiff to return. On Tuesday or Wednesday, you told me. And you added that in his absence you had ordered a new cap for him. I believed you, thinking it the act of a fond wife.

‘But you lied. I have that on the authority of young Dickson himself. He tells me that you gave him no order for a cap, nor indeed for anything else, for you have never set foot inside his shop. What say you to that, Madam?'

Sibbel Bostock's head drooped. Her rich dark hair swung forward, half-concealing her flushed cheeks. The piglet fell squealing from her slackened arm. ‘Indeed, sir …' she faltered.

‘Indeed, Mistress Bostock. You lied to me then, just as you have lied to us at every encounter, to hide your knowledge that your husband had been murdered. But I have reason to believe that you not only knew of the deed, you were privy it.'

‘No, sir!' Sibbel Bostock raised her head and shook it in denial, her hair swinging about her throat, her eyes flashing. ‘I knew nothing of it until – until—'

Swift as bird to change course, she turned back from vehemence to meekness. Faltering, she twisted long strands of her hair in her fingers. Her bearing was anxious, her tone humble, but Will was aware that her eyes watched him with calculation from beneath modestly lowered lids.

‘In truth, sir,' she confessed, low-voiced, ‘I did lie when I told you I was unaware of my husband's death, and I am deeply sorry for it. But my only intent was to protect Jankin Kett. The poor fool doted on me. My husband whipped him savagely for it, and Jankin took his revenge.

‘He came to me on St Matthew's Eve, bringing back the bailiff's horse and saddle-bags. At first he would not say what had happened, but when I pressed him he admitted he had knifed my husband and left his body in the river. My only thought then, sir, was to save the poor fool from hanging.'

Will interrupted her. ‘Your
only
thought, Mistress Bostock? If your first concern was not for your dead husband, but for his murderer, then I think you intended his death.'

‘It was not so!' Sibbel Bostock moved closer to Will. His horse shifted its hooves and tossed its head, but she caught at his stirrup leather and raised her great dark eyes to his.

‘Oh, sir, I cannot grieve for my husband,' she said in a throaty murmur. ‘He used me ill, sir, very ill – as you would know if you saw the marks on my body. Yet I never asked Jankin to kill him, I swear it. That was the poor fool's own doing. I told him only that the corpse must not be recognised, or he would be suspect throughout the precinct. I gave him some of my husband's clothes, which I first slashed into rags, and told him to dress the corpse in them and to destroy the features with a heavy stone. And that is all I know of the bailiff's death.'

‘I think not,' said Will grimly. ‘What of the Bromholm rent rolls that your husband carried with him? You told me not an hour ago that you knew nothing of them, yet Jankin returned them to the cellarer. Someone must have instructed him in that, for he would not have had the wit to do so of his own accord. Then later, when I began my enquiries, someone arranged for Jankin himself to be drowned. Who was that someone, Mistress Bostock? You, I do believe.'

His horse stamped with impatience, but Sibbel Bostock changed her grip from his stirrup to his boot and clung to it, gazing up at him with eyes that were darkly desirous. ‘No, sir!' she murmured, her voice breaking. ‘Oh, you would not think me guilty, if you only knew how ill-used I have been … Dismount, I beg you, and let me give you proof of my innocence.'

Her nearness and shamelessness disturbed him. He could not tell whether to believe her or not, but her lustrous eyes were captivating. He swallowed, understanding how it was that Gib and the constable and poor Jankin had all been in thrall to her, for he himself was near to being bewitched.

And then he remembered Julian Corbyn, and the thought of her fresh young beauty filled him with distaste for Sibbel Bostock's charms. But he did not draw away from the bailiff's widow, for he saw how he might turn her wiles against her in his search for the truth.

‘Very well,' he said stemly, glad that Ned Pye was not there to see him dismount and follow Mistress Bostock towards her house. But he took good care not to cross the threshold.

It was still too soon for Will to reveal to his family the extent of what he knew, let alone what he guessed, but as soon as he returned to the castle he said enough to put them all in good heart. The rest of it – the truth of the whole matter – he intended to discover when he went next day to the priory.

Supper was a far more cheerful meal than usual, Gilbert even going so far as to give his brother an affable nod before embarking with enthusiasm on yet another hot mutton pie. But for Will himself, conversation was difficult.

Meg and Alice, knowing nothing of his abrupt departure from Oxmead, were agog to hear about his visit – and most particularly about Mistress Julian Corbyn. What had she worn, they wanted to know? What had she said to him? Had she approved of his finery, was she betrothed to Lord Stradsett's son or no, had she spoken to Will in private; what had she
said
?

He parried all their questions as lightly as possible, but with a downcast heart. Since his return from Oxmead, the urgency of clearing his brother's name had enabled him for the most part to put Julian from his mind. But now, the teasings of Meg and Alice had reopened the parting wound that Julian had given him.

He left their company as soon as he could do so without displeasing his sister. Pacing about the darkened castle yard – to the accompaniment of firelit boisterousness from the kitchen quarters, where Ned was no doubt entertaining the serving women – he forced his mind to dwell on nothing but tomorrow's visit to the priory: on what he needed to learn, and from whom.