‘Nobody asked. That is why, and we did not think of him as Welsh, see, just able to carp and complain and threaten in the tongue. Nasty, that’s what ’e was, if you wants to know the truth of it.’

  ‘The truth is always what we wants, Master Treewright, and it is folk not tellin’ us all of it makes our task the harder.’ Walkelin let complaint enter his voice. ‘It is what leads to more folk dyin’, too.’ He folded his arms, in a gesture he copied from his superiors. ‘So, come down and tell me what made the priest “nasty”.’

  ‘Well, see now.’ The treewright frowned, even as he descended. ‘I would not trust the man, not from the first day we arrived. Wanted to feel powerful, which is not the way I thinks a good priest should be, and wanting to use folk to his own ends. Found fault, ’e did, even with the choice of oak we felled, and the man knew no more of trees than a baban at the breast. Just wanted to niggle and make us feel small. Then ’e kept on about the speed we worked, as though the lord Bishop pays us by each single hour we labours. What is important to the lord Bishop is that the work is done well and to the glory of God, not done swift just to be cheap, and so I told Father Edmund.’

  ‘The priest also complained the mornin’ of the day he died. Did he know you was ale-sodden?’

  ‘I cannot see how, and besides he were not shouting at me but our Gwydion.’

  ‘Your son? Why?’

  ‘For speaking with the maid Mildred the day before.’ Gwydion himself spoke up. ‘She came by the workshop to say her mam was making dumplings for the pottage just ’acos I said I liked them so much. I was in ’ere at the time.’

  ‘She needed to come and tell you this? Was it important?’ Walkelin felt it was more an excuse than a reason. Gwydion blushed, and so Walkelin put two and two together. ‘Was it more the maid wanted time to speak with you without father or mother listenin’? Was that when she set you the test of manhood?’

  Gwydion just nodded.

  ‘But the maid was not chastised.’ It was an assertion, for Walkelin realised that otherwise Tofi would have heard the priest berate her in English.

  ‘No, which were unfair. And what business was it of the priest, anyways?’ Gwydion now sounded aggrieved.

  ‘You did not say that was what you spoke of.’ Pryderi glowered at his son. ‘You said it was just the pottage.’

  Walkelin was not entirely surprised at the youth’s deception. He would expect his father to object to any entanglement with a village beauty. Parents rarely thought a lad old enough to start thinking of maids at the stage when maids began to fill the dreams.

  ‘That itself is no crime, Master Treewright. Killin’ the priest is. Tell me once again, Gwydion, what you did that afternoon.’ Walkelin’s mind was already drawing from memory what the lad had said the first time, for comparison.

  ‘Mid-afternoon I had finished making the oak pegs for the joints, and the priest came and said as he would report my tad to the lord Bishop if he missed another day’s work, and then I went up the hill yonder, where the ysbrydion is meant to appear among the trees, and I went to the place Mildred ’ad described, so I could tell the answer to the question as proved I went there, and then I came back, and the ploughman was already hanged for killing Father Edmund and all was upset.’

  ‘So why did you go back to the workshop and not back to the pottage and dumplings? I would ’ave thought you would tidy up afore you went ghost huntin’.’ The question had arisen suddenly in Walkelin’s mind. He felt the original reason might not be entirely true. ‘Why did you really come back to the church and offer to assist the women who laid out the body?’

  ‘Never seen a dead man afore,’ admitted Gwydion, with a mixture of embarrassment and bravado. ‘Leastways, not one dead by violence. I wanted to see, and to see if I am man enough not to be sick to the stomach from it. I went in and asked if they needed aid to lift the body, and to fetch the trestles.’

  Walkelin could understand that feeling. It rang true enough, though it was also true that if Gwydion had any involvement with the killing it would have been useful to see if any incriminating evidence were left behind, and he had indeed found the awl. He looked hard at Gwydion. His serjeanting intuition, whilst not nearly as honed as Serjeant Catchpoll’s, told him that the youth was no killer as it had with serjeant and undersheriff. He asked a final question.

  ‘And how did you feel?’

  ‘Not bad right there and then, not doing things, but after – I felt a bit sick. I saw the man alive a few hours afore and there ’e was, just cold flesh.’ Gwydion looked at the ground.

  ‘First time I saw a body that did not die natural, I felt like that too,’ admitted Walkelin, with a small smile. ‘No less of a man did it make me.’ Gwydion was perhaps no more than ten years his junior, but Walkelin realised he had just been quite paternal. Was marriage making him feel more mature?

  ‘The underserjeant speaks true, Gwydion bach.’ Pryderi sighed. He acknowledged to himself that part of him did not like to think of his son as even nearly full grown. Then he addressed the underserjeant. ‘The lord Undersheriff spoke of a treasure, last eve. We knew, and know, nothin’ of that. We are ’ere in Ripple to repair the church, and that is all we have done. Whoever killed that poor oldmother, and the priest, they were Ripple folk, not us. That is the truth and I would swear oath upon it, Underserjeant.’

  ‘I believe you, Master Treewright. Diolch yn fawr.’ Walkelin nodded, signalling that the interview was ended, and left the church, genuflecting towards the altar, and completely ignoring the shrouded body on the elm board by the west door.

  Chapter Twelve

  Bradecote, having availed himself of a good stick from the hedge on the north side of the field, first approached Selewine the Reeve, and spoke to him. This alone drew everyone’s attention, and heads were raised and backs straightened as though a rabbit warren was suddenly aware of stoats on the hunt. The reeve’s beckoning hand drew them close enough for the lord Undersheriff to address them, but first Bradecote took the stick and drew rough squares in the earth, a cross marking the church. Serjeant Catchpoll stood a little back and observed in silence.

  ‘I want each household to come forward, one at a time, and show me where their home stands in relation to the church, the priests’ house, and Oldmother Agatha’s. I will mark it in. I need to know if anyone, young or old, saw Father Edmund on the morning of his death, with or without a black cat under his arm, and near to her door.’

  There was a murmur of mild surprise, then silence. Nobody stepped forward eagerly. Bradecote scowled.

  ‘This is not a mere wish. You will all come forward. You, Master Reeve, you and your sons will be last. And your brother Tofi will be first, with his family. The quicker you obey, the quicker you can return to your labours.’ He sounded every inch the implacable lord. ‘Ulf Shortfinger, you and yours will be second, so everyone get in line behind Ulf …’

  Some glanced at the reeve, wondering. Tofi snatched his woollen cap from his head and stepped forward, followed by his wife and children, though Mildred was not present. Bradecote knew the location of Tofi’s house, but it was good to make it all obvious and the same. He had him point to where his home stood, and he drew the square with his stick.

  ‘I saw nothin’ of Father Edmund after he left our door, complainin’ at the Welsh, my lord. Honest.’

  ‘And your family? Where is your daughter Mildred?’

  ‘Not workin’ the field today, my lord. Ask the wife why.’ He frowned a little.

  ‘She be unwell, my lord.’ Tofi’s wife dipped in an obeisance, her skirts dragging in the muddy earth. ‘The morn Pryderi were the worse for ale,’ she glanced at Tofi briefly, including him by implication but not by name, ‘we worked indoors, for it were just too wet to do much, not early on. We went in the garden a mite later. I never saw the priest after he went from our door, and the children was about my skirts. They could ’ave seen no more’n me.’

  The children, looking nervous at being mentioned before this stern lord, nodded quickly in confirmation of this.

  Household by household, Bradecote placed each family on his plan. Some would clearly not have had line of sight to the oldmother’s door. One woman said she had seen the priest collect his bread from the communal village oven, but he was definitely not carrying a black cat when he did so. She could not say whether he covered the loaf in anything when he left. It gave greater weight to the possibility that he had been carrying bread when he went to Oldmother Agatha’s door, but if he had taken the cat from within the priests’ house, it was odd that he had not left the bread there.

  Walkelin arrived quietly, and watched the people as Catchpoll had taught him. Eventually Bradecote called forward Selewine and his sons, though he knew the location of their home. Selewine shook his head, and said he had gone out, despite the rain that morning, and checked the footbridge over the Ripple Brook, since it had been reported to him the day before that one of the planks was loose and the increased flow with the rain might have washed it clean away.

  ‘You did not say this before, Master Reeve.’ Bradecote looked disapproving.

  ‘I were not asked if I were indoors all mornin’, my lord.’ Selewine looked a little hurt.

  ‘And your sons?’ Bradecote looked at the boys. They stood together, the older one behind the younger, his hand on the smaller boy’s shoulder. Bradecote thought he saw a squeezing of that shoulder. Both just shook their heads. ‘I see. Lying to the Law is a serious matter. You,’ he pointed at the smaller child, ‘told Serjeant Catchpoll here that you had seen the priest, Father Edmund, at the door of Oldmother Agatha on the day he died, and that he held her cat.’ Bradecote omitted the bag. ‘Why is this memory now gone from you?’

  Hugh Bradecote was not a man who liked to use his authority to frighten people. It was a thing used sparingly, and he was far more likely to make efforts to be approachable when dealing with children. Just at this moment, however, his voice exuded command, even threat. The child twisted from his brother’s grip, and stepped forward, though his face crumpled, and his voice was breathy with a sob.

  ‘I did see, lord. I did see, and it were not a dream.’

  ‘Good. Now tell me, did you see anyone else at that time?’ Bradecote’s voice softened to a more normal tone.

  ‘Only ’im,’ the child pointed to the man Wilf the Worrier, ‘carryin’ a pail to the midden. Nothin’ different to most days.’

  The child, Catchpoll realised, remembered that he had been asked if had seen anything odd that morning. A man with a midden pail was not odd. All three of the sheriff’s men were surprised at the answer.

  ‘’Tis true enough, my lord, but I did not look towards Oldmother Agatha’s, nor saw Father Edmund at all. I would ’ave said.’ Wilf the Worrier clasped his hands together in a gesture that was almost pleading, and rushed his admission.

  Bradecote was about to ask another question when the high-pitched shouting was heard.

  A female figure ran across the field towards them, holding up skirts to aid speed, and seeming to skip over the furrows. As she drew near, Bradecote recognised it was Mildred, and her face was white, and her eyes doe-wide.

  ‘Please, come quick. ’Tis Mother Agnes.’ She was gasping, as much from shock as from running, and all the coquettish poise was gone, leaving not the woman but the girl. ‘I think she’s dead.’

  Having given strict command to the reeve that all but Mildred remain in the field, Bradecote led the way back to the cluster of village homes at the run. Whilst Walkelin was the youngest of the trio, Bradecote had the longest legs, and reached the healer’s cott before his companions, trailing behind him. Agnes the Healer made her pristine home look unnaturally untidy, for she was sprawled upon the floor, her arms flung out in front of her and her head on one side as if she were listening for mice among the rushes. She was barefoot, a thick shawl lay flung carelessly on the ground behind her, and a linen nightcap was tied under her chin. This was now stained at the back and a small pool of sticky blood was forming, with her plait of brown hair preventing its spread.

  Bradecote, dry-mouthed, knelt at her side and leant down close. The light was not good, but when he laid a hand upon her back it rose and fell gently. She was not dead.

  ‘God be praised,’ he muttered, devoutly.

  The light diminished further as Walkelin stood in the doorway until pushed in fully by a breathless Catchpoll. Mildred, who had run the distance twice, stopped short of the door, unsure whether she would be commanded to enter, and unwilling to do so otherwise. She had seen someone who was dead before, since few reached her age without losing some family member, young or old, but never by violence.

  ‘She lives. Walkelin, see if you can find bandaging cloths among her preparations, and anything that you recognise as being for wounds. Catchpoll, you have more experience than I do. Her head bleeds a lot, but is the skull broken?’

  ‘I am no physician, my lord, and used to the dead, not the livin’,’ Catchpoll got awkwardly down on his knees and felt the back of the head, ignoring the blood on his fingers. ‘Nothin’ says to me the skull is broke, my lord. If we – and she – is lucky, she will waken at some point, and we ’as to hope as she remembers who came to the door early. Often as not, though, them as is left like this cannot recall anythin’. Best we get her onto the bed.’

  With Catchpoll taking her shoulders and Bradecote her feet, the two men lifted the woman, who was not heavy, onto the bed, putting her on her side so the wound was accessible. Walkelin, who had been smelling various bottles, some of which had made his eyes water, brought a small pot, bandages, and a pad made from the cleanest cloth he could find. At Catchpoll’s instruction, he held it very firmly against the wound to staunch the bleeding.

  ‘I thinks the pot is a paste of selfheal. Smells like it to me, leastwise.’ He spoke, but did not take his eyes from his task. The cloth was reddening, but did not reach a sodden state.

  Bradecote turned to Mildred, beckoning her inside. She obeyed, but nervously.

  ‘Why did you seek Mother Agnes?’ It was meant to be an easy question to begin the conversation, but the girl reddened instantly, and looked to the floor. There was a pause, then she murmured her response.

  ‘Mother Agnes makes things as is good for the gripes of women.’

  It was Bradecote’s turn to be embarrassed. He almost rushed into the next question.

  ‘Was the door open when you arrived?’

  ‘No, my lord. It were shut, but not fully. I knocked and called out, but there were no answer, so I pushed the door a little and saw ’er on the floor and all the blood and—’ Mildred bit her lip and stifled a sob.

  ‘And did you see anyone as you came to the house, anyone at all?’ Bradecote did not expect any useful revelation and was not surprised that Mildred simply shook her head.

  ‘Thank you. Now, you go to your mother, but you are not to say anything of what you have seen or heard here. Do not say that Mother Agnes is alive. Understand?’

  ‘Aye, my lord.’ In truth, she did not understand at all, other than it was a command from the lord Undersheriff and must be obeyed.

  ‘Wise, my lord,’ commented Catchpoll, after she had gone. ‘We don’t want whoever did it comin’ back to finish her off.’

  ‘What concerns me, Catchpoll, is that last night we did not actually say that no treasure could have been brought to Oldmother Agatha. The killer might still think it true, and Agnes the Healer spoke up, saying the idea was foolish, which he might have seen as a lie to cover her having discovered it and taken it. He knows it was not in the priests’ house, nor the oldmother’s, and the healer admitted she had been in the house that day. We ought to have kept her safe.’

  ‘Well, if you thinks she would have accepted Walkelin sleepin’ by the fireside I thinks you is in need of somethin’ for addled brains, my lord. She would have sent ’im away with a tongue-lashin’, for sure.’ Catchpoll wanted to stamp firmly on the undersheriff’s tendency for self-blame, for it only got in the way.

  ‘Possibly, but we ought to have made the attempt. Has the bleeding stopped, Walkelin?’

  ‘Nearly, my lord. Shall I put the ointment on and bind it up?’

  ‘I think so, though I know as little of healing as you do.’

  It was probably a good job that Agnes the Healer was unconscious, for she would have had found little to commend in Walkelin’s neatness of bandaging, but it was at least effective. Had the situation not been so serious, Bradecote would have laughed at the result.

  ‘She would have had no qualms about answering her door, even early, for her skills would be needed at all hours.’ Bradecote stared at the pale face, severe even in immobility.

  ‘And our warnin’ might have made her a mite cautious about invitin’ someone in, but they would ’ave been kept on the doorstep anyways, since she would need to dress. She would tell ’em to wait but not put the bar down again, ’specially if her mind was already workin’ out what she needed to take with ’er.’ Catchpoll was also staring at Agnes the Healer, but in his head was playing out the scene as it must have unfolded. ‘My guess is the man stepped in almost as soon as the door closed. She has not untied the strings of the nightcap, and she would have placed the shawl on the bed if she had removed it ’erself. Also, she lay facin’ a bit to the door, but mostly as if turned away from it, so the blow landed as she looked round at the intrusion.’

  ‘Yes, that makes good sense, Catchpoll. The girl Mildred thought she was dead. Do you think the man who hit her really left thinking he had silenced her forever? I mean, we are thinking he was searching for treasure in her home, but should we also consider that he thought she might know something that would mark him as the oldmother’s killer?’

  ‘If it were a simple thing, my lord, she would ’ave come to us last eve, straight away.’ Walkelin was conscientiously trying to set the pot of ointment back as he had found it. ‘So it must ’ave been a thing she might recall late. And, my lord, these pots is still in a straight line and I does not think anyone but me has moved one, other than Mistress Agnes ’erself.’