‘I am glad to hear that. The coroner will have left a guard over the body.’
Lucie joined them. ‘I have given him something to calm him. He will soon sleep.’
Indeed, propped against the trunk of the tree, eyes closed, his breathing rough but beginning to calm, Bartolf seemed well on the way to slumber.
Owen crouched down and gently roused him. ‘You will ride back to York in the cart with my wife and children, Bartolf. Alfred and Master Chaucer will accompany you.’ He glanced up at Lucie. ‘Brother Michaelo and I will ride ahead.’
She nodded her agreement.
Owen assisted Bartolf to his feet. ‘Michaelo says that one of the York coroners was out there?’
‘Gerard,’ said Bartolf, his voice weak. ‘Been and gone. Left his men to guard my son.’
‘Has Mauley been informed?’ asked Owen. ‘As sergeant of Galtres he should be.’
‘Mauley, of what use is he?’ Bartolf whined.
‘He’s gone south,’ said Michaelo.
‘How do you know that?’ Owen asked.
‘I am a scribe for hire at present, Captain.’
Useful.
Bartolf clutched at Owen’s sleeve. ‘You will find my son’s murderer? You will see that justice is done?’
‘I will go to where he lies and learn as much as I can,’ said Owen. ‘That is all I can promise for now.’
‘Do not leave me behind!’
Lucie met them at the cart. ‘Bartolf, you and I must go to Muriel. Remember, she carries your son’s child. She must not feel alone.’
‘Muriel. Oh, my poor child.’ Bartolf gave a sob of dismay. ‘I meant to send for Mistress Alisoun. Pray God someone had the wit to do so.’
‘He had not the wit,’ Michaelo muttered as Owen drew him away. ‘What need have we of a coroner for the forest of Galtres? How often is that shaggy man called upon to sit a jury and decide whether a crime is committed, and who responsible? Is that not the job of the steward of Galtres, punishing the poachers and thieves who haunt the woods and marshes? What other sort of crime is there? Why would Swann care to chase after such riff-raff?’
Many wondered that. It was a lesser post than that of the coroners of York. Why would a successful merchant such as Swann have been chosen to serve the crown in such a capacity? He received no pay for it, no lands or titles. At least, nothing official.
‘I am not so well acquainted with Bartolf as to answer your questions,’ said Owen. ‘But as to the crimes, the small villages in the forest have their share of trouble, though not so often as in York.’ And yet as the years fell away Bartolf had spent more and more of his time at his small home in the forest, leaving the townhouse to his wife and children, and, upon his wife’s death, his son and heir. His trading partners had grown accustomed to dealing with Hoban rather than his father.
‘Perhaps he wanted merely a quiet place to drink himself to death,’ said Michaelo, punctuating the comment with a sniff of disapproval.
Brother Michaelo, a fount of information, a master of scorn. Owen urged his horse to a trot.
2
A Clearing in the Wood
Dappled sunshine, a pair of horses tied to a low branch, and, beyond them, their riders lifting a stained cloak over the blood-soaked body, then gently lowering it and bowing their heads. Alisoun had spied another horse and a donkey across the clearing. Gerard Burnby, one of the York city coroners, talking in a low voice to the clerk who wrote on a wax tablet propped on the donkey’s back. Dogs. Throat torn out. Hoban Swann.
Hearing that, Alisoun had hurried away; Hoban’s wife would need her. She’d taken the narrow trail along the river to save time, her heart heavy, praying for Hoban, for Muriel, for the unborn child. Had she heard twigs snapping behind her? Turn and turn again, she’d seen nothing, yet sensed a shadow. By the time she’d reached Magda’s house she was out of breath, yet she stopped only long enough to add to her basket a sleep powder gentle enough for an expectant mother – milk of poppy, valerian, and various herbs to calm and cool. The grieving mother-to-be would need sleep.
Now, as Alisoun sat in the shuttered bedchamber listening to Muriel Swann’s even breathing, she sipped watered wine, calming herself. She’d had all she could do to quiet the grieving woman long enough to coax her to drink a cup of wine in which she’d mixed the sleep powder. Bartolf Swann had foolishly sent a hasty message to Muriel with the first servant he’d encountered, a boy who embellished the details into a terrifying tale of snarling wolves dismembering Hoban. Alisoun had arrived to find Dame Muriel’s mother, Janet Braithwaite, physically restraining her daughter, who was leaning halfway out the window. She’d come perilously close to leaping out and ending her own life and that of the child she carried.
‘How can I bear to see him so? How can that not curse our child?’ Muriel had wailed.
After a long struggle involving the cook, reluctant at first to touch his mistress, they succeeded in guiding the expectant mother to a chair. Alisoun rubbed Muriel’s hands and talked and talked until she at last convinced the grieving woman that she had seen Hoban, and that, though mortally injured, he was whole. Once Muriel could hear it, she fell to weeping, an expression of grief far safer than a leap out the window. Dame Janet had blessed Alisoun for knowing just what her daughter needed to hear. Alisoun wondered why the woman had not shouted for assistance.
As the wine settled Alisoun, she winced at the memory of her fearful flight along the river. She’d carried her bow – why hadn’t she turned and confronted her shadow? At the least she would know whether she’d imagined it. Though she had not seen him since the night she’d tended his wound, she’d feared it was Crispin Poole, who would be concerned that she would connect this attack with his encounter with a vicious dog and consider it her duty to report it. Yet why then had he not shown himself? Confronted her? She would have reassured him that she meant to keep her word. Despite her doubts about why – honor or fear – she had no intention of betraying him. He, too, had been attacked in the wood.
Though not so viciously.
The royal forest of Galtres was a combination of woodland, marsh, small farms, and villages, subject to laws that protected game, especially deer, and their habitat, and also restricted the felling of trees. Owen had convinced Brother Michaelo to accompany him as his scribe, recording his examination of the corpse and the clearing in which Hoban lay. As coroner for Galtres, Bartolf Swann was known for keeping detailed accounts of the circumstances in which a body was found; though the coroner from York would have dutifully recorded his observations, Bartolf would expect a more thorough accounting from Owen. Michaelo had not been keen, admitting that he’d never ridden through Galtres without a full complement of armed guards, as was Archbishop Thoresby’s wont. Bands of outlaws were known to hide there.
‘Not to underestimate your skill with the bow, Captain Archer. But you are a complement of one.’
‘I should think that sufficient to guard a monk who has taken a vow of poverty.’ Owen was already regretting his request. But he had a purpose in testing Michaelo’s mettle.
Once past the hovels of the poor clustered close to the walls of the city and St Mary’s Abbey, Owen led the way through woodland and meadows, aware of a subtle shift as his awareness sharpened, his thoughts focused. He surprised himself with the thought that he’d missed this, the search, the sense of responsibility for restoring order.
Just past Overton, he guided his horse onto a track through coppiced woodland leading toward the marsh, fanning at the insects determined to blind his one good eye as he searched for signs of passage along the underbrush. He had instructed Michaelo in what to watch for. If the attacker had come through at night with a horse and one or more dogs, the animals at least would have spilled over the trail somewhere.