‘Master Bernard of Keynsham?’ It was only just a question.

  ‘Aye.’ The man looked at Walkelin, assessing him as he might a stone for dressing.

  ‘I was wonderin’ if you could tell me the way Walter the Steward, as is dead, treated you and your workforce. Did he like to tell you your craft as ’e did with others in Evesham?’

  ‘I could, but I would ask first who you be, and why you seeks to know?’ It was a reasonable question, and Walkelin smiled, and gave his name and position.

  ‘Well, Underserjeant, I can tell you this. “Master Walter”, and that was the name ’e called hisself, though to my mind a master be one as has mastered a craft, not set ’is own worth as high, tried to do as you say, off and on, but I told ’im to ’is face I would not stand for it. What did the man know of The Craft? Nothin’ at all.’ The master mason clearly felt that there was only one true craft, and others were lesser skills. ‘I warned the men as well, not to obey just ’acos the abbey steward told ’em to do this or that, and always ask me first. After that we got not instructions but complaints, always small, always little things to annoy. Like bein’ bitten by a flea, it were.’ Master Bernard frowned. ‘That was afore ’e began chastisin’ the apprentices, whether it were for runnin’ too fast, or walkin’ too slow, carp, carp, carp ’e did, and threaten where ’e possessed no right.’

  ‘Did you not go to the lord Abbot, or Father Prior, bein’ yourself a man of importance?’ Walkelin wondered.

  ‘Thought of it, but here be a thing. For all that Master Walter were a man puffed up proud and with a nasty streak in ’im, the lord Abbot and the senior officeholders in this abbey thought ’im some wonder. You would think the sun shone from out his arse, truly you would. So I did not go to the monks, but gathered all the lads and made sure they knew the only voice they need heed be mine. And afore you asks, no, I did not kill ’im.’

  ‘I did not ask, Master Bernard, but would ask if you knows the local masons, the ones not set up to build great churches and fine carvings?’

  ‘Met with them once or twice. Courtesy brought them to see me, and courteous I were to them, as brothers of the stone. There’s Osgod of Bengeworth, just across the river, and Hubert of the town itself. Good stone dressers both, but neither carvers, nor, as you say, able to take on a big task like this.’

  ‘True. Hubert the Mason only has his son Simon to aid ’im, and still learnin’.’

  ‘A son to follow on. Good is that, and one thing I lack, as Heaven ’as willed.’ The master mason permitted himself a small sigh. ‘So my “sons” are walls and corbels and sturdy columns, crafted to the glory of God.’

  ‘And some men ’ave worse legacies in blood and bone, Master Bernard.’

  ‘That they does, Underserjeant, that they does. Last time I spoke with Hubert he complained about the steward tryin’ to count the stones bein’ dressed for the well, and sayin’ the abbey would pay by the number used. Good job ’e never tried that with me. Now, I should be aloft, checkin’ the carpenter ’as set the form just right for the next arch. Be there anythin’ more you needs to ask of me?’ It was not said aggressively.

  ‘No, and I thank you for your time.’ Walkelin thought the courtesy worked both ways. He returned to the guest hall, aware that he had reinforced what they knew of the victim, but with nothing that would advance their investigation, and when he reported to his superiors after they had eaten, it was without providing anything revelatory.

  Old Cuthbert sat alone with his ale, but then he usually did. Mostly he listened to the laughing, the friendly teasing and the ale-fuelled ranting, but it was also the place where he could rant, even if few listened. It was better than staying at home and ranting at the cat, which simply stared at him in a very superior way, then curled up on his lap and went to sleep. The talk on all lips was the murder of Walter the Steward, and the two themes that were common were how little the man was liked, and how the fact that he ended up at the bottom of a pit was, in a way none could prove, an indication that his soul was unlikely to reach Heaven without an exceedingly long time in Purgatory, if he got there at all. Instances were told of his pride, his intentional unpleasantness, even rumours that he had got rid of his first wife by starving her so she was too weak to fight off a cold, though a voice of reason said she began coughing in the autumn and did not die until after Candlemas, and no ‘cold’ lasted for five months. The voice of reason belonged to Hubert the Mason, who was still on his first beaker.

  A man who was a stranger, but both loud and generous with his offer to buy everyone else ale, was questioning how it was that the lord Abbot had kept such a man as steward, and how divorced he must be from thinking about the people of Evesham who kept his abbey rich. Whilst some tried to explain the post was inherited, it was agreed that part of the problem lay in it being given to a kinsman by Abbot Walter, who was Foreign, and several anecdotes were told of the pride of the stewards since then, but as the ale flowed, murmurs did begin that the lord Abbot, godly though he obviously was, cared little for the folk of Evesham. Someone murmured as how Abbot Reginald was of lordly birth and with important kin, and would have no understanding of how ordinary souls laboured all their lives to keep their families fed and with a roof above their heads.

  ‘And now ’e proves it with that great wall to keep you all out.’ The stranger got up, staggering a little and spilling ale onto the table. ‘The lord Abbot lives secure, in peace and comfort, while the good men of Evesham are bein’ struck down in the street by unknown killers out for their blood. Who will be next?’

  Ale-muddled heads did not ask how Walter the Steward suddenly counted as a ‘good man’. Old Cuthbert, who was not as muddled as he would like to have been, waved his arm about, and his voice broke through the mumbles of agreement.

  ‘Foolishness! ’Twere but one man as did the killin’, and who else in Evesham invited such ill will as Walter the Steward? None! We is all glad enough ’e lies in the earth.’

  ‘And ’ow does you know it were but one man, “Stinker”?’ The appellation was habitual rather than an insult, having been coined long ago and, like the smell about his person, clung to him.

  ‘’Cos I saw, that’s ’ow, as I let the cat in to keep the mice from my bed.’

  ‘You should tell the lord Sheriff’s men, Cuthbert,’ came another voice, and Cuthbert’s face contorted. ‘Justice should be done.’

  ‘Me? Help the Law? I knows what Justice does.’ He raised his right hand, contracted forever into a fist. ‘That be “Justice”, robbin’ a man of ’is trade, reducin’ ’im to workin’ with ’is feet. I spits on Justice.’ He spat onto the earth floor.

  ‘The lord Abbot might give a reward, though?’

  ‘Hmm.’ The response was non-committal. ‘Might get more sense from the cat.’ Cuthbert got up, pushing his empty beaker away with his left hand, and, with hunched shoulders, departed, muttering.

  ‘So what tale lies beneath?’ asked the stranger, curious.

  ‘’Tis two score years old or more. Old Cuthbert, though ’e were none so old then o’course, were a coppersmith, with plenty of custom and a comely wife.’ The narrator was Oswald Mealtere. ‘Then the wife were found strangled, down by the ferry. I think she ’ad kin the other side, but rumour had it not just kin, but a lover, and Cuthbert found out. Not a friendly sort, Cuthbert, and not enough oathswearers could be found, so ’e went before the Justices, and to trial by the hot iron. Found innocent, by the will of God, else ’e would not be alive now, but the right ’and, as needed for workin’, well, holdin’ the red-hot bar tightened it up into a fist as you see, and no more smithin’ could Cuthbert do. Reduced to bein’ a walker for Martin Fuller, since all a walker needs is two good feet and a strong nose. Would you want to earn your bread from stampin’ up and down in a trough of stale piss all day? No wonder the man is bitter and twisted.’

  Heads nodded as the drinkers imagined the agony of the glowing iron in their own palms, but then the conversation returned to a possible reward and whether it would be a blessing, which had its value, or silver, which would be far better. The drinkers agreed it would definitely be a blessing, and perhaps a prayer for the soul of a dead family member, since the monks were good at drawing money in, but not known for spending it on anything other than the abbey fabric, but not everyone remained to hear the decision.

  Chapter Nine

  Martin Fuller was making his early morning tour of his works. He liked the workplace tidy, even if some might see the tenter frames of drying cloth, wherever there was space that faced the summer noonday sun, as higgledy-piggledy. There was nothing he could do about the smells, but then, he could not smell them. Born and raised a fuller, his nose had ignored them from the time he could run about and get under people’s feet. His workers would be arriving to be told the tasks of the day, though he knew old Cuthbert would already be at the stocks, preparing his day’s treading, for treading was the only thing he could do with facility enough to make it more than charity to employ him. Martin had been in discussions with the abbey about making changes, and the Benedictines investing in a watermill to power the pounding of the cloth. It was the way forward, but would mean an end to employing Cuthbert. Mind you, by the time it was built, and he thought it was now more likely, Cuthbert might no longer be around.

  Martin stretched, and began checking the frames where the cloth might have dried sufficiently to be taken down. He worked his way round methodically, and came to the area nearest the river, which was flattest and best for the treading. It was then that he stopped, his mouth opening to call to Cuthbert in the same moment he realised that Cuthbert would never hear him.

  The fulling stocks, long wooden troughs, in which a man might walk up and down, trampling the woollen cloth beneath his feet, ran in a line. The first was filled with stale urine, the second with clean water, and the third had hot water with soapwort poured into it. Trampling the second was the preferred one in summer, and the third more popular in winter, Nobody liked the first, and Cuthbert was paid an extra half penny a day for doing it. He was already in the stocks, but not setting his next trampling of cloth into the bottom, but lying face down in it as though floating in a coffin. A wave of guilt flooded Martin; for he had just been thinking of Cuthbert as dead, and here he was. Then logic kicked in. He ran forward and grabbed the body by the shoulders, ignoring the fact that he was splashing stale urine from half Evesham over himself, trying to drag it out and onto the dusty earth, though it was difficult to move, and quite stiff. Voices hailed him, and two men who had just arrived together, rushed to see what had happened.

  ‘Help me.’

  There was a moment of indecision as both were not so keen to get elbow deep in the brown fluid.

  ‘I said help!’ The fuller yelled at them.

  With their aid, the body was taken from the trough and laid upon the ground.

  ‘Poor old Cuthbert,’ said one of the men, wiping his hands on his cotte and then snatching off the straw hat that would keep the burn of the sun from his balding head. ‘What a place to drop dead.’

  Martin Fuller did not answer. The only people he had seen dead were kin who had died in their beds and with the priest in attendance. Then the body was washed and laid out before it stiffened. Since Cuthbert was stiff, he could not have just ‘dropped dead’ after he had arrived for work.

  ‘I doubts that he did,’ he murmured, almost to himself.

  ‘Well, he lies very dead, Master Martin.’ The balding man was not really thinking.

  ‘We should take ’im to the priest, but as ’e is, the smell will be bad.’ His companion was being practical. ‘A few buckets of water first, and then we gets the cart and takes ’im. At least there be none to grieve beyond that cat ’e lived with.’

  ‘Should we raise a hue and cry?’ The suggestion was half-hearted, but if the master thought the death not natural, then the Law might demand that they did so.

  ‘No. First you, Harold, since you has longer legs and fewer years, run to the abbey and find the lord Sheriff’s men as are in Evesham to find the killer of Walter the Steward.’

  ‘Why, Master Martin?’ Harold might be the most fleet of foot, but his mind had some catching up to do.

  ‘I think someone killed Cuthbert.’

  The workers stared at their employer at the suggestion being put so firmly, and several crossed themselves, as much praying for protection from some unknown killer as for the soul of the departed Cuthbert.

  ‘But why would anyone kill Cuthbert?’ The straw hat-bearing man asked, frowning.

  ‘That is what the lord Sheriff’s men needs discover, not us. Harold, get going. Ifan, find an oilcloth and cover the body. Then everyone get back to work.’

  Thus dismissed, the fuller’s workforce dispersed, though he doubted they would put their backs into their labour. Martin Fuller himself remained staring at the corpse until the oilcloth was brought.

  Hugh Bradecote had woken with a prayer of thanks for the skills of Brother Augustine, the abbey’s infirmarer. His head was clear and he rose in a positive state of mind, though without any definite plan that would narrow down who had killed the unlamented abbey steward. The problem lay in the fact that they had spoken with everyone who might have had a motive to kill him, and their answers had all been good. He was not sure what new question might elicit something that would change matters, so they might as well go to the castle in Bengeworth and make it clear that harassing women coming to market was not going to be allowed to pass like the Avon’s waters slipping smoothly beneath the bridge itself, whilst also finding out what interactions the garrison had with Walter the Steward.

  Serjeant Catchpoll had slept the sleep of the just, according to his own words. Walkelin, by contrast, had been awake for some time, sorting the information in his head to try and make some greater sense of it. They broke their fast with bread and a small beer in the guest hall’s small refectory, which also acted as sleeping quarters for the majority of those who sought the Benedictines’ hospitality. What became clear when they entered was that the conversation stopped very suddenly, and everyone made studious efforts not to look interested in their presence. As they rose to leave, Walkelin heard a whispered ‘brains left everywhere’. If the gossip, inaccurate and exaggerated, was running among Evesham’s visitors, it must also be rife among the townsfolk. They would now have to deal with the supposition, exaggeration and third-hand ’evidence’.

  The trio headed towards the new northern gate but were then found by the now breathless Harold. His obeisance was as much so that he could rest his hands upon his knees and gulp air into his straining lungs as a mark of respect.

  ‘My lord,’ he managed, on the third breath, ‘Old Cuthbert – dead.’

  This cryptic utterance did not have Bradecote thinking this information meant anything less than murder.

  ‘Who is, or rather was, “Old Cuthbert”?’

  ‘Walker at Master Martin’s.’

  ‘Martin the Fuller, yes?’

  ‘Yes, my lord. Master Martin found ’im in the stocks, first thing, floatin’ face down, and sent me to fetch you.’

  ‘We will come immediately,’ Bradecote saw Harold’s shoulders sag, ‘and no, I am not going to run all the way.’

  Nonetheless, Harold was not able to fully recover his breath, since the lord Undersheriff had long legs and did not dawdle, even though the last place he wished to visit just after eating was the fuller’s.

  It was a very serious-faced fuller who greeted them down towards the ferry.

  ‘My lord, I do not think I have called you falsely. I have tried to think of some way in which Old Cuthbert could have ended as he has, but only a foul deed seems to fit.’

  ‘Then you did right to send to us. Tell us how you found him, and let us also see the body.’

  Martin Fuller led them to the stocks, and the oilcloth-covered remains of Old Cuthbert.

  ‘I always does the rounds each morn, to check the tenters are taut and the cloth progressin’ well. Old Cuthbert tends – tended – to be the first to work, having nobody at home bar ’is cat. As I approached, I saw ’im lying’ face down in the trough, and my first thought was as he dropped dead sudden and fell forward, but his arms lay straight down his sides, and nobody falls like a felled oak. I called for aid, and tried to get him out, and then I found he was not limp, but stiff and hard to lift out. I knows as a body goes stiff some time after the soul departs, so Old Cuthbert did not just die when he came to work.’

  ‘Your thinking is sound, Master Fuller. There are several questions beyond the obvious one of why anyone would wish to kill an old man, and one is why meet him here, and kill him, and if they did not kill him here, why did they bring the body here from wherever it happened?’

  ‘Is it a threat to me, to my business?’ The fuller looked worried, for the thought had not occurred to him.

  ‘Do you know anyone who resents you?’ Bradecote did not think it a likely reason.

  ‘None my lord, though some turn their noses up as they pass from the ferry, but I says to them, “Would you rather wear cloth that still smells of sheep and is not felted and warm? If no, then do not complain, but rather thank those who keep you warm and well dressed.” Shuts most up.’

  ‘And was Old Cuthbert well liked?’

  ‘“Well liked”? Oh, I would not say that, but then he was not disliked, either. A bit of a loner and grumbler was Old Cuthbert, but his was not a happy life, so you could see why he was a miserable old bastard.’