The Butchers Funeral: A Medieval Murder (7 page)

Anna could tell that the butcher was desperate.  If he were not in so much pain, she would not have been surprised to see him prostrated before her.  What was the man on about with these spirits?  She had sent no such thing, nor did she think she really could.  While she might threaten all sorts of things to keep people in line, she was still fearful of the divine judgement she would experience for herself.  Mind, there was no harm in going along with this, perhaps he would mend his ways?

'Did you listen to the spirits?'

'How could I not?  They kept accusing me of all the wrong things I've done.  There's one there now.'  He started to look over her shoulder, and began to address the vision, 'No I didn't.  It wasn't like that.' He pleaded, 'I never meant no harm.  Go away!'  With the shout, the butcher drew himself to his feet, all semblance of pain going, 'I'm warning you, keep back!'

Anna had not moved towards him, nor could she see the apparition that was clearly bothering him.  Before she could get scared the butcher rushed towards her, hatred on his face.  She raised her hand and hit with all her might, striking a solid blow on his temple.  The impact threw her off-balance and she fell to the ground, the man crumpling beside her.  Spirits?  Why had he rushed her?  He had seemed distracted.  Was it the spirits he was seeing?  Anna could not work out quite what had happened, but was a little scared by the whole idea of actual spirits taking an interest in her life.  She would not rule out spirits as he had certainly acted as if he had seen something.  Mind, it was probably the alcohol, he had certainly seemed drunk enough, stupid sod.

She checked on him when he did not start to get up.  He was breathing fine but was out cold.  She collected herself and got up.  The knuckles on her hand were sore, she must have really belted him.  As she brushed herself off, she considered whether he had learnt his lesson.  He certainly knew he had cheated her and he would think twice before cheating her again.  Whether he had actually been tormented by spirits or not, she would have complete power over him should she ever have need to exercise it.  She considered rolling him completely into the filthy ditch, he was half in as it was, but she decided against it as he was out cold and might drown.  He had learnt enough from her.

The flesh stank, the surface glittered in the half light that penetrated the cover, and Perry knew that when he took it out into daylight, the meat would be discoloured and covered in slim.  Liquids were dripping from a corner and he knew this would be the fat decomposing, rather than the blood that would drain from fresher meat.  The meat in the barrels would probably be worse as purification would most likely have begun.  Furthermore, the barrels were not under a cover, instead sat in the blazing sun on the back of the cart.  Still, the smell did not disturb him as he had plenty of experience with foods that were past their best, and this find was exactly what he had been looking for.  At last he had caught one of the gang that he knew to be moving rotten and putrefied meat into the city.

Perry jumped down from the back of the cart, having spent a few minutes confirming the contents of the barrels.  Someone passing by on the road gagged at the smell that followed Perry down.  Meanwhile the buzzing of the flies began to rise.  The small black creatures had accompanied the cart ever since the start of the journey.  He was pleased that all the time he had spent sitting around in taverns, listening in on conversations, had paid off yet again.  He had overheard that this cart was coming in today.  All he had to do now was find out exactly where the destination was, making sure he was present to catch all the parties handling the foul goods.  Afterwards, he could track the goods back to their source and deal with those individuals.  Unfortunately, his espionage had not uncovered the full details as his sources had simply discussed town gossip.  Even when he had tried to ply them with drink, to loosen their tongues, they had clammed up tight rather than cooperate with an officer of the court.  The cart driver would at least have some idea of the source and destination of these vile foods.

As a carniter, it was John Perry's job to check the quality of foodstuffs on behalf of the sheriff.  Adulteration of food was increasingly an issue, with some unscrupulous sellers even trying to pass off poor quality items to the monasteries and even the households of the rich and powerful.  As a member of the court leet, Perry was able to exercise legal powers to search and arrest those he suspected of guilt.  The court leet would require reasonable evidence or reliable witnesses, such as himself, but they would convict anyone he proved guilty.  For less serious crimes, he could just use the local courts, although Perry increasingly took advantage of the new justices of the peace, who could deal with cases far more quickly, especially useful as the court leet only met a few times a year.

'You!  Come here.' Perry addressed the oxen driver, who was busy tending to the pair of oxen while trying to look unimportant.

'What you want then?' The driver got straight to the point, angry at having been stopped and searched.

'You've been moving unfit meat to market.'

'What?  That stuff in the back?  That's perfectly fine stuff.  Would feed it to my own blessed mother.'

Perry climbed up onto the cart, tipping one of the barrels to the ground.  He was not prepared to play games and often found that overwhelming evidence would speed up the process.  As he expected, the barrel did not smash.  Jumping down and turning the barrel upright, he forced the lid off.  The protesting of the oxen driver was ignored throughout this show.  Prepared for a worsening of the odour that surrounded the cart, Perry held his breath as the lid came away.  The driver, however was not, and backed away gagging at the vile smell.

'Perfectly normal is it?  Feed it to your dear old mother would you?'  Perry did not expect an answer, instead grabbing the driver by the back of the neck and forcing him forward, his face turned toward the open barrel, 'Of course, we could put you in the stocks and pile up the meat underneath your nose?  How normal would you find this rubbish then?'  Perry let go of the driver who started to vomit, falling to his knees with a rapidly growing puddle in front of him.  Some people passing by on the road walked quickly by, intimidated by both Perry's aggressiveness and the smell.  Eventually the driver rolled over and stopped, having emptied his stomach.

'So, what have you got to say for all this?'  Perry asked.

'I know nothing.  It's not my stuff, I'm only paid to move things around.' The driver slowly got up, careful to move upwind of both the open barrel and the mess he had created.  'Tis my cart and my trade, I'm not owned by no-one.'

'What's your name?'

'Wilf Tomson.'

'How long you been doing this then Wilf?'  Perry started to take a gentler approach, he had made his point and he expected a fair degree of cooperation now.

'Driving oxen since I was a lad.'  The driver shrugged his shoulders, 'Er, my dad did it before me when he got made a freeman.'

'No, moving rotten meat around the countryside.  How long have you been doing that?'  The tone was firmer.  Perry was not a particularly patient man and had no intention of dealing with any more evasiveness.

'Best part of five years if you mean working for the people who gave me this stuff.'

'So you know everyone who's involved then?'

'Of course not, and even if I did you won't get me standing up in front of no court.  Everyone in the countryside is at it, but those city blokes, they'd 'ave me if I spoke against them in court.'  Tomson was clearly more scared of the gang than he was of the carniter.  Perry would have to do something about that.

'Here's what we're going to do Wilf.'  Perry stepped toward Tomson, in what he hoped was a menacing fashion, 'I can't put everyone in the countryside on trial.'  His tone made it clear that if Tomson helped him, then the oxen driver would not end up on trial, 'I need to go after the people who make the money and sell foul meat to the victims of this trade.  You are going to deliver this muck and then I'm going to catch the people who are selling it.  Shouldn't be too hard as there are only a couple of butchers in the city.'  He put his hand up to silence an interruption from Tomson, 'Yes, I know who's involved in the city, but I've got to catch them in possession of the rotten meat before I can do anything.  Putting you up as a witness at the court would not be enough, they'd wiggle out of it somehow, whereas arresting them as they receive the meat, well that would be perfect.'

'They'd bloody kill me either way.' Wilf was worried.

'They'll not even know you were involved.  Just you and me will know that, if you get what I mean.'

'No, what do you mean?'  Tomson knew exactly what Perry meant.

'If you do a runner, or give away that I'm about,' Do I really have to spell it out, or are you that brain-addled, thought Perry, 'then they'll find out that you gave me their names.'

'But I didn't.' The oxen driver went pale, realising there was no easy way out of the situation.

'You know that.  I know that.  They don't.  Nor will they take any chances if they come across this little bit of information.'

'But that's blackmail, you're blackmailing me!'  Like many drivers, Wilf had a loud voice, and his fear was getting the better of him.

'No, it's motivation so that you do the right thing.  I'm not after people like you, people who are trying to make an honest living.  I'm after the criminals, the people who put everyone at risk to make money.'

Perry
had been in pursuit of this gang for a long time, years in fact.  Their agents travelled around the countryside and surrounding towns buying up poor quality foods, usually meat, at cut prices.  It did not matter if the meat were wormy or spoiled as they would pay a pittance for it.  Hauliers would be contracted to move the goods to whichever market the gang believed they could offload their wares in.  The merchandise would then be sold on at vast profit, passed off as being of far better quality.  Sometimes a Lord or a monastery would find their purchases contaminated, although monasteries frequently offloaded their own spoilt produce to the gang.

Two years ago Perry had first uncovered proof of the activities undertaken by the gang.  He had suspected their existence for many years prior to this and had finally confirmed it when spoilt barrels of salted pork, stores from an old castle, had appeared in a number of towns and cities during the same season.  The carniter had investigated further and found other patterns of spoilt goods arriving at markets within days of each other.  There was clearly a middleman, or several middlemen, and with this latest lead he knew he might finally catch one of them, one who was rumoured to have provided not only expertise and capital, but also an outlet for many of the spoiled foodstuffs.

Col Butcher was top of Perry's list of suspected middlemen, and was the one he hoped to soon catch.  Butcher had the money and the contacts to run this part of the gang network.  He was without ethics, many a time accused of selling rotten meat, and sometimes caught and fined; complaints had been made by various local organisations including an hospital run by a group of nuns.  Even the Bishop had complained after several of his precious stonemasons were ill for a number of days after eating pies from Butcher.  The Bishop had been annoyed that a number of statues were not completed in time for an important feast that had been scheduled for the opening of another part of the cathedral.  The building of the cathedral had been underway for decades and was the most important thing that happened in the city.  However, the Bishop had little recourse, nor did others, as there were only a couple of butchers in the city and they were both generally considered to be as bad as each other.

For normal folk, the situation was even worse.  Butcher controlled access to the weekly market where produce flooded in from the countryside.  It was all controlled in a very clever way and Perry suspected that the market organisers colluded with Butcher to ensure that only small quantities of fresh meat made it in to the city on these market days, with careful controls on both the numbers of sellers and the goods they brought.  There had even been rumours of violence directed at sellers who tried to bypass these arrangements.  All of this meant that the city was dependent on two butchers who colluded to control any other sources of meat.  Between them they had split the city in half and the residents had no option but to buy from them.  Of the two butchers, Col Butcher had the marginally worse reputation as he appeared to be the organiser behind the enterprise.  Perry thought that the other butcher, Williams, would probably be a reasonable trader if he did not have such a corrupt neighbour misleading him.

While the scale of this enterprise was beyond Perry's experience, the daily tricks of corrupt butchers were not.  There were many different ways to defraud customers and he had heard that Butcher was practicing pretty much all of them.  A recent innovation that had taken Perry by surprise was the sale of pies made with rotten meat.  This had caught on in London and York, where it was rumoured that animals found dead in the streets, and in drainage ditches, made it into the pies.  Butcher had quickly adopted the approach, according to the reports Perry had received.  Butcher used it as an efficient way to offload large volumes of cheap, poor quality and spoiled meat.  It was likely to be a lucrative venture as the pies were popular, cheap, and cost Butcher next to nothing to make.  Perry doubted Butcher had stooped to the level of including rats, cats and dogs in his pies simply because Butcher had such a well developed supply system already, but he had no doubt that all sorts of strange animals would turn up in the mix should Butcher consider it a better way to make money. 

Then there were the older tricks of the trade.  Perry knew that Col Butcher indulged in all of them.  He had received complaints and caught the butcher on a couple of occasions.  However, these occasions were never significant enough to lead to any appreciable punishment.  Butcher was known for dressing meat up as far better quality than reality.  One of his favourite strategies was to scrape slime off rotten meat and then sell it as much fresher meat that it actually was.  He also had a reputation for swapping cuts over when the customer was not paying attention, often with a subtle sleight of hand.  Customers also had to beware that anything sold within the dark confines of the shop, rather than on the street stall, may be discoloured, and the customer would not spot this due to the careful use of candlelight to disguise the rot.  Of course, many of the wild animals, the game, that made it into the shop would be contaminated with parasites, but this was completely normal for all traders, especially when the game required hanging.  However, Butcher would go beyond the pall by selling game that was well past prime.  To entice customers further, he would heavily discount the meat until it became an irresistible bargain.  A further favourite trick was to include poor quality meat in any sale of quantity, especially with finely cut meat, where the spoiled flesh would be largely concealed by the good quality meat.

Perry had never caught Col Butcher doing anything more than selling, or having on sale, poor meat.  None of the meat was too bad, but always beyond what Perry could allow to stay on sale.  Small fines had been issued for these offences, but nothing of significance.  Perry's ambition was to pillory the Butcher, piling up the rotten meat at his feet and burning it under his nose.  The thought of such a punishment was what drove him in his quest for justice.  With luck, if he caught Butcher involved in the wholesale movement and sale of rotten meat, Perry might even be able to push for the death penalty.  Oh how he prayed to God for this outcome.

It
would not be long until he arrived at the city to deliver his load.  Travellers were few and far between, probably another feast day, he thought.  Tomson was fuming about the delay.  The task that had been imposed on him was galling.  Blackmail, he thought, of all the lowly things an officer of the court stooping to such low levels.  Why should he be surprised, it was not as if such a thing was unheard of.  Most servants of the crown only worked for their own betterment, frequently lining their pockets from overcharged taxes while seizing goods that were not theirs to take.  Mind, things had got better if the stories his father had told him were true.  Back before the Plague, most people were tied to the land and were simply possessions of their lord.  This was fine if the local lord was good, but most did not even care about their peasants.  At least now, a freeman was no longer subject to the whims of any lords or lawmakers, and many peasants ran away to become freemen as the life was so much better, with waged jobs and freedom from most tithes.  Even the remaining peasants were better off as there were so few of them now, they were therefore in a much stronger position to bargain with their lord.