The queen's man : a medieval mystery (22 page)

Sharon Kay Penman

of sin, with no land of his own, not even enough soil to be buried in, all that he possessed able to fit into his saddle bags. They could share a bed, but no tomorrows, make love but not plans. He was glad of her gentle warning. For both their sakes, he must not ask for more than she could give.

"Seize the day," he echoed, and drew her down into his arms. But within moments, they were startled by hammering at the door. Wrapping himself in a blanket, Justin unsheathed his sword before sliding the bolt back and opening the door a crack.

The man outside was a stranger. "Master de Quincy? My Serjeant sent me."

Justin opened the door a little wider. "Jonas?"

"Aye. He said I was to fetch you."

"Why?"

"Master Jonas is not one for explaining. He says 'Do it/ and we do, or Christ pity us. He wants you to meet him out at Moor-fields straightaway."

Justin was still learning London's byways and contours and boundaries. "Where is Moorfields?"

The man looked at him with the utter amazement of a native Londoner. "Why, everybody knows Moorfields, the meadows north of the city walls. You want me to wait?" When Justin shook his head, he started off on his own, then glanced back over his shoulder. "I think," he said, "that he wants to see you about a body."

Moorfields was a playing ground for London's young and adventuresome. As soon as the waters froze each winter, crowds flocked to the marshlands, sliding and swooping across the ice, the more daring propelling themselves along with the shinbones of horses strapped to their feet, using iron-tipped staffs to gain speed and leverage. It was usually a lively and cheerful site, echoing with shouts and laughter. Now it was somber and hushed, youths clustered in small knots along the shore, watching solemnly as Jonas and his men circled cautiously around a large, gaping hole in the ice, probing the frigid, murky water with long, wooden poles.

Although he seemed to be directing all of his attention to the search, Jonas was still aware of peripheral sounds and sights. When Justin reined Copper in at the water's edge, the serjeant ordered his men to continue the hunt, and then strode over, as surefooted on the ice as he was on solid ground. "How did you come, by way of Dover?"

Justin was not about to explain that he'd had to see Claudine safely back to the Tower first. Quickly dismounting, he ignored Jonas's irritation. "What is going on?"

"Some young fools were sporting out on the ice when it cracked under their weight. Their friends managed to save one, but the other lad drowned. We've been trying to recover the body."

"May God assoil him." Justin sketched a quick cross on the icy afternoon air, all the while wondering why Jonas would want him to see this poor drowned youth. "Do you ever get used to this? It cannot be easy, having to deal with death day after day/ 7

"Nothing about this work is easy," Jonas said, then spat into the snow. "Come over here where we cannot be overheard, for I've news for you."

Hitching his stallion to a nearby bush, Justin followed Jonas across the snow. The serjeant shouted further instructions to the men on the ice, and then turned back to face Justin. "We snagged the body almost at once. But as we started to maneuver it within grabbing range, it slipped off the hook and went under again."

Justin still did not understand why this sad death warranted such an urgent summons. "Bad luck."

Jonas nodded. "It was that. It was also the wrong body."

"What do you mean?"

"It was not the lad. I think it was Pepper Clem."

Justin drew a sharp breath. "Can you be sure?"

"Not until we fish him out. But I got a look at the face ere the body sank and it looked like him to me."

Justin was still dubious. "I saw a body pulled from the River Severn once. He'd only been in the water two days, but not even God could have recognized him, Jonas."

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The serjeant pointed impatiently toward the lake. "I'd hate to think all that ice escaped your notice." He remembered then, though, that Justin could not be expected to have his specialized knowledge of dead bodies. "Cold water keeps a corpse from decaying," he explained brusquely, and was about to go into grisly detail when his men began to shout. "They've got one," he said. "Let's go see who it is."

Following Jonas out onto the ice, Justin saw that the men had been using poles with crooks on the end, like shepherds' staffs. One of these hooks had snared the victim's mantle, enabling them to drag him to the surface. By the time he and Jonas reached them, the men had pulled the body up onto the ice. When they turned him over, Justin felt a sickened pity, for he was very young, sixteen at most.

Jonas showed no emotion, gazing down at the drowned youth so impassively that Justin felt a chill; did the man never grieve for the dead? With a few terse commands, Jonas set two of his men to dragging the corpse across the ice toward the shore, where his stunned companions still waited. "Ask those cubs if they know where the lad lived. Someone will have to break the news to his kin, and like as not, it'll be me. And keep looking. We've got another body to bring up."

Justin moved aside, watching as the men continued the search. When Jonas rejoined him, he said quietly, "I get the feeling it did not surprise you to find Clem floating under that ice."

"He was not floating, not when the water's that cold. But you're right. I was expecting Clem to turn up dead. The fool tried to—" As they talked, Jonas had continued to scan the activities of his men, and reacted even before the first outcry. "They've hooked him. This better be Clem. We find a third body out here and I'm heading for the nearest alehouse."

The men soon had the corpse out of the water. He was sprawled on his stomach, his face hidden from view, but Justin thought the limp ginger hair did resemble the thief's. At first glance, his hands seemed to have been dipped in whitewash, and were queerly wrinkled; one of his feet had lost its shoe and it, too, showed that same chalky puckering. Justin braced himself

THE QUEEN'S MAN

as the\ shoved the body over onto his back. The face was so bloodless it seemed more like wax than flesh; the eyes were wide and staring, sand trickling from his open mouth, his skin scraped and abraded. But Jonas had been right; Pepper Clem's features were still easily recognizable.

The other men had gathered around and they stared down in silence at the body. There was no need to ask if he'd drowned. The cause of death was painfully obvious, and Justin was not the only one to avert his eyes from that gashed, mutilated throat. Jonas showed no such aversion and knelt by the body, studying Clem's wrists and then his ankles.

"Best to do this quick," he said, "for he'll start to bloat up now that he's out of the water, and in no time at all the stink will put a polecat to shame. I'm looking for rope burns, but it does not seem that he was weighted down. I suppose Gilbert did not think it was worth the trouble." No one else spoke, and he continued his examination of the corpse. "He's been in the water awhile; see all this sand in the seams of his tunic? My guess is he died last Saturday eve and took his final swim that same night, for the lake had not frozen over completely yet."

Justin swallowed with difficulty. "Was he . . . was he hit on the head first?"

"Possibly. Oh . . . you mean this?" Jonas asked, pointing toward the raw-looking wound that spread from Clem's right eyebrow up into his hairline. "That is not the Fleming's doing. You do not think the fish and crabs would pass up a meal like this, do you?" Glancing over his shoulder at Justin, he bit back a smile. "You're looking a little greensick, lad. I hope you're not going to feed the fish, too?"

Justin shook his head mutely. Those sightless eyes seemed to be staring up accusingly at him. First Kenrick and now Clem. How many more? The other men had retreated, for Jonas had been right in this, too; a foul, fishy odor was becoming discern-able. Justin swallowed again. "I got him killed, didn't I?"

Jonas washed his hands in the snow, drying them on his mantle. "You have that backward. He almost got you killed."

"What are you saying?"

Sharon Kay Penman

"I told you that I'd put the word out on the streets. What I learned was that I'd misjudged the little cheat. As craven as he was, Clem was even more greedy. You probably offered him too much, for he concluded that if you'd pay to find Gilbert the Fleming, mayhap he'd pay more to know you were on his trail. I found two witnesses who saw him meet Gilbert at a tavern in Cripplegate on Saturday eve a week ago. They talked briefly and then left together. That is the last time Clem was seen alive. And when you turned up at the alehouse the next day as agreed upon, Gilbert was waiting."

Involuntarily, Justin's fingers cradled his slashed arm. It was still sore and somewhat stiff, but how much worse it could have been. That deadly blade could have lodged in his gut or stabbed through to his heart. "Clem told him what he wanted to know, how to find me. So why, then, did Gilbert kill him?"

"I'll tell you something about killing. Until a man has done it, he shrinks from it, makes of it more than it is. The first killing comes hard for most men. After that, it gets easier, a lot easier. For some, it gets to be a habit, or worse."

Jonas broke off to give orders concerning the disposition of Clem's corpse. There was a lot to be done and it was a while before he turned his attention again to Justin.

"You asked why the Fleming murdered that worthless little thief? Because it pleasured him. And that's also why there were men willing to talk to me about it. Not because they cared a rat's arse about Pepper Clem. Even a mother'd not mourn his loss. But it scares other men when they find one who takes too much joy in killing." That lone black eye held Justin's gaze, unwavering and unblinking. "As well it should."

Sharon Kay Penman

play with Lucy, saddled Copper, and rode over to St Clement's Church on Candle-wright Street where he heard Mass and prayed for the souls of all the Fleming's victims. It occurred to him that his was probably the only prayer to be offered up for Pepper Clem, and that seemed the saddest possible epitaph for a man's misspent life.

Afterward, he arranged with the priest to give Clem a Christian burial and then left word for Jonas that he would pay for the little thief's funeral. He was still in a somber, reflective mood when he finally returned to Gracechurch Street, and he decided to leave Shadow with Lucy for a while longer. Gunter had gone off on an errand and the smithy was being watched by young Ellis, the neighbor lad who helped Nell out. Giving the boy a coin to unsaddle and feed Copper, Justin crossed to the back door and went out into the pasture behind the smithy.

Gunter's cottage did not seem like a city dwelling, for it was set apart on its own, surrounded by the fenced-in field and sheltered by several bare-branched apple trees. The garden once tended by Gunter's dead wife had long since shriveled under the neglect born of a long illness, but the holly she'd planted still thrived, bright splashes of green against the softly drifted snow. It was the snow, not the holly, that caught Justin's eye now. His tracks were still visible, not yet filled in. Beside them was a new set of footprints, leading straight to the cottage door.

Justin came to an abrupt halt. Gunter's cottage did not have a lock and key, for he'd never seen the need for such expensive protection. Instead, he'd fitted his door with a simple latch, a small bar which pivoted at one end and could be lifted from the outside by a latchstring. When Justin had left that morning, he'd taken the precaution of snagging the latchstring around a nail he'd driven into the wood. Now it dangled free, further proof that someone had lifted the bar and entered the cottage.

Justin was motionless for a long moment, considering. There was but one set of footprints. And the shutters were still in place, so whoever was within could not see his approach. He slid his sword from its scabbard. In one swift motion, he jerked up the latchstring and hit the door with his shoulder, shoving inward.

I HI Ql BEN'S MAN

He came in fast and low. sword drawn. An oil lamp had been lit, its flame shivering in the sudden draft. A man was kneeling by the hearth, striking flint to tinder. He recoiled with a startled oath as the door banged open. "Jesii! Most men are content to open a door and just walk in. Leave it to you, de Quincy, to blow in like an ill wind and bounce off the walls!"

Justin was now the one to swear. "Hellfire and damnation! What are you doing here, Luke?"

"I happened to be passing by. What do you think?"

"I think that you nearly got yourself run through, and who'd have blamed me?"

They glared at each other, but their glowering gave way then to sheepish grins. Shutting the door, Justin dropped the bar back into place and carefully drew in the latchstring. "I'll confess that I'm glad to see you, Luke. At least now the Fleming will have a choice of targets."

"It sounds like you got somewhat confused, de Quincy. You were supposed to be the hunter and Gilbert the hunted, remember?"

"Good of you to point that out to me." Moving to the hearth, Justin helped Luke to get the fire going. "How did you find out where I was? The entire street is in a conspiracy to keep my whereabouts secret—and there are none more stubborn or suspicious than Londoners!"

"You need not tell me that, for I've already met the hellcat over at the alehouse. I might as well have been speaking Welsh, for all the good it did me. 'Justin who? Never heard of the man.' And the chill got even worse when I admitted to being an under-sheriff. They do not fancy the law much hereabouts, do they?"

Justin laughed. "I'd love to have seen that, you and Nell locking horns. So how did you win her over?"

"By sheer perseverance. I would not go away, kept insisting that we were allies. I even stretched the truth enough to claim we were friends. Finally it occurred to me to show her your letter, proof that I could be trusted. But then I had to wait whilst she sent for the priest, since he is the only man on the street who can read, and she was not about to take my word for the letter's