The Deadliest Sin (33 page)

Thomas told my mother that he had fallen foul of a powerful man in the court of Edward II. This courtier surrounded himself with a rabble of projectors and forecasters, some of them little
better than vagabonds. Thomas Flytte was on the verge of a great discovery in the search for the substance that would transform base metal into gold, but before he could achieve this the courtier
demanded the return of some money he had invested in the scheme. Thomas promised the man that if he was allowed to continue only a little longer he would be rewarded a hundred times over but the
courtier was not to be persuaded. The physician had already spent the money, and his own besides, on the equipment he needed, so when the courtier began to threaten him with dreadful punishments
and vengeance, Thomas had no choice but to return here to his birthplace in an obscure corner of the country. He was lying low, licking his wounds, deciding what to do next.

The landlady, Agnes Carter, paused in her narrative. Like her husband, but in a more genteel way, she sipped at a bowl of wine before returning to her story, and the moment
when they’d discovered the physician’s corpse.

It was a strange talk we had, young Laurence and I. We did not raise our voices but conversed in loud whispers on either side of the crossing. I had a cooler head than he, I
think, so I said that he should go back and raise the hue and cry. In fact he’d be punished if he didn’t do that since it was his duty and he was of age. Meantime, I’d return home
and pretend that nothing had happened, if anyone noticed my absence and asked. Already I was good at adopting a guarded face – and keeping secrets. Despite what men say, women can keep
counsel, you know.

Laurence took to his heels across the fields. But I did not return home straight away. I gazed at the body of the physician, or what I was able to see of it bundled across the stile. I did not
mind being so close to the corpse. I almost felt that he should not be left alone, even though I knew I could not be discovered here when the people came. Then I started wondering what Thomas
Flytte had been doing out here. Obviously, he was on his way somewhere, going from the little house where he lodged with Reeve to . . . where? Or perhaps, he had been coming in the opposite
direction, from the Carters’ to the Raths’, and had met someone as he was crossing the stile. Or perhaps, some person had been lying in wait for him. I looked at the ground at the base
of the stile but it was just tussocky grass. It was coming on to rain again. Close by was a clump of trees and I went there for cover, though the branches were still quite bare.

From where I was standing I had a good view of the protruding legs of the dead man. I looked down and saw something glinting on the ground. I picked it up. It was a tiny sheet of gold, or what
looked like gold, set in a frame of wood. On the sheet was engraved the image of a lion. I’d never seen this object before but I recognised it all the same. It was one of the talismans that
Master Thomas carried with him, and the sort of thing he bestowed on those he treated. I cast around on the ground under the trees but saw no more items. Had he dropped it? Had someone tried to
steal it from him? Surely the little lion showed that the physician had been here under the trees. I could have dropped the talisman on the ground again, but instead I took it.

And now I examined the earth more closely, I saw the mark of boots or shoes pressed into the earth in a place where the grass grew more thinly and where the mud was still soft on account of the
wet dripping down from the bare branches. The print of the shoes was deep as though the person standing here had continued for a long time without movement. I shivered. I crouched down and measured
the length of the imprint against my outstretched hand. It was nearly twice the length of my hand. Then I stole off towards the corpse and the feet that stuck out on this side. Strangely I did not
feel frightened or disrespectful but . . . merely curious. I placed my hand against the sole of the dead man’s shoe and realised that whoever it was that had left their mark under the trees
it was not Thomas Flytte.

Then I thought I had done enough work for one day and I ran home, before Laurence should arrive back and the hue and cry begin. It was too late to do anything that evening and by the time the
first villagers came out to examine the body, the light had almost faded from the sky. Anyway, nothing could be done until the coroner arrived. He attended the next morning. He had come from
Thetford, as quick as carrion, eager to see what pickings he might get from the corpse in the way of deodands and fines. I remember his horse; it was a dapple grey hackney. He was accompanied by a
servant.

In truth, that scene is clearer and sharper in my mind’s eye than anything that happened yesterday. Almost everybody in the village of Wenham, from priest to ploughman to hayward stood in
the field close to the stile, the babies in their mothers’ arms, the children jostling to the front for a better view. It was a chill morning. The crows circled and the clouds pressed low
overhead. But however grim the occasion, and however much sadness there was at the death of Thomas Flytte, you could sense excitement, too. Even the Carters and the Raths buried their differences
for a time and exchanged a few words, though they did it warily, as if they understood that an unconsidered remark or a thoughtless move might bring trouble down on all their heads.

The coroner’s first question was to confirm that the body had not been moved. No, not moved? Good. So, whose land was it on? On a boundary, marked by the stile. On one side were the fields
farmed by the Raths, on the other those of the Carter family. Thomas Flytte was discovered exactly between the two. His head and upper part were hanging down on the Carter side, while his lower
half, his legs, were dangling over the Rath portion. It took some time for this to be imparted to the coroner, with both William and Alfred eager to explain, and somehow nudge responsibility for
the body towards the other’s territory.

The coroner rubbed his hands. Perhaps he was cold or perhaps he was thinking that having two families involved increased his chances of making a profit. Then he ordered Thomas Flytte to be
lifted down from the stile and laid out on some sacking, which had been placed on the ground. The overnight delay had caused the countenance of the poor physician to grow more mottled and bloated,
while the body itself had stiffened, making it awkward to handle. When he was stripped bare of his clothing and his shrunken frame exposed for his injuries to be openly witnessed and assessed,
there were expressions of real grief from the crowd. They came strong from my mother, and from me too. I noticed that even the Carters were affected and that stern old William seemed almost
moved.

The Thetford coroner asked if anyone present could say for certain who the corpse was, though everyone knew. My mother identified him as her cousin from Woolney. Her voice was low but steady
now. The coroner proceeded to examine the body more closely and determined for himself that the cause of death was indeed the rope wrapped about the man’s neck. It had been tugged so tight
that it bit deep into the flesh, which had swollen up and made the cord hard to unfasten. The coroner ordered the attendant who’d ridden with him to retrieve the rope, and I remember it came
away from the corpse with a tearing sound. Then the coroner held it up as if daring someone to come forward and claim it. No one did, of course. He kept the rope but it was thin pickings. There
were no goods he could confiscate here. Nevertheless, the coroner took – for himself, no doubt – the topaz brooch, which was in a pocket. I hope he managed to attract the King’s
favour with it.

No one said so at the time but much later, after the coroner had departed, someone remarked that the length of rope looked like the piece that William Carter had displayed in the alehouse to
prove that he had not stolen a woman’s purse. The length he’d picked up in the street, when he’d been seen by my father. Even though it had happened a year or more earlier,
everyone remembered that moment. Even those who hadn’t been present had heard of it. What had happened to that bit of rope? William had thrown it to the alehouse floor in anger and disgust
before he stalked out. But had someone retrieved that rope and stored it away to use many months later to squeeze the life out of a man? It didn’t seem likely, but somehow it linked the
murder of Thomas Flytte to the Carter and the Rath families.

The body was removed and the coroner departed with his servant. The physician was buried in the churchyard. Master John gave no sign of gloating at the death of a rival but took extra care with
his funeral devotions, sprinkling holy water on the grave to drive off the devils that might trouble the burial-place of a man who had died so suddenly and without being shriven. Both the Carters
and the Raths paid for daily masses to be said for Thomas Flytte. You could see why my family should do this, but the piety of William Carter caused some comment, considering how tight-fisted he
was. People thought he was trying to compensate somehow for the body being discovered on his land. All this while there was no sign of Reeve, the attendant and supposed son of Thomas.

If the keeper of the King’s peace had been in the area, he would have looked into the death. But he was not, and so the crime went without investigation.

You couldn’t stop people talking about it, though.

And the talk in the village was of who might have so hated or feared Thomas Flytte that he had assailed him and left him dead in that remote spot. Some people mentioned Hugh Tanner, the pedlar.
We’d seen the argument between him and the physician while we were . . . resting . . . near the wash-house, Laurence and I, and it appeared that Hugh had lost no opportunity of venting his
anger at Master Thomas to all those who stopped to examine his wares, calling him a fraud and so on. Was he responsible for the fatal attack on Thomas Flytte?

Then there was Mistress Travis, the cunning-woman. She had lost some of her custom because of the physician’s words. Furthermore, she was feared because she was a strange, strong woman
– certainly strong enough to attack a man, and with enough power in her upper arms to wrap a cord round his neck. Some favoured the cunning-woman. Others whispered that the priest had spoken
out in his sermons against physicians and men of science – and they knew that Master John was resentful because offerings that should have come the church’s way were being diverted to
Master Thomas. But then they recalled the priest’s care with the funeral and they reproached themselves for speaking ill of a man of God. And then finally there was Reeve. As I said, almost
no one knew that he was Thomas’s son but the fact that he was nowhere to be found after the murder was enough to cast suspicion on him.

One thing was apparent, though, or it would have been to anyone who thought carefully about the matter. The physician had not been murdered by a thief, for he had been left in possession of the
topaz brooch, which the coroner had confiscated. It was possible that the murderer might have been intending to search for something to take but had been disturbed by the arrival of Laurence and
me, coming from opposite directions. But if that was so then surely we would have glimpsed him . . . or her? We said nothing of how we’d discovered the body together, and I certainly said
nothing of what I had discovered under the stand of trees near to the stile.

Not until later, when I told Laurence, and once I had we couldn’t stop talking. We talked about the murder and, after we’d finished, we talked about it again. It was less difficult
for us to meet now. Our families were not so watchful and the days were longer, even if the sun rarely shone. Well, the summer wore on and the death of the physician continued to cast a cloud
across Wenham, even though at least one other villager died during those months. His name was Robert Short, I remember. But he was an old man and he died naturally, while Thomas Flytte did not.

Still there was no sign of the King’s peace and it seemed that justice would never be done. The gossip and speculation about who the murderer might be began to die down. One person who was
cleared of the crime was Hugh the pedlar. He returned to Wenham at the beginning of the autumn and reacted with surprise when he heard of the physician’s violent death.

It seemed he’d not stayed long in the village that market day but departed southwards. He admitted he’d known Thomas Flytte in another place, as he put it, and that he thought the
doctor of physic was – not what he appeared to be. When pressed, he admitted that he’d encountered Thomas Flytte in London. (And I thought of the story I’d heard from my mother,
about the physician and the courtier who kept company with projectors and forecasters and vagabonds. Was it possible that Hugh Tanner was one of them?) But Hugh held no grudge against the
physician. If he’d called him a fraud it was only because he’d been called one himself in the first place. Let every man thrive as best he can under the eye of God, was his motto. If
Flytte was dead, and by violence too, then he was sorry to hear it. There was such meekness about him and his hang-dog air that scarcely anyone believed he could have choked the life out of the
doctor.

If there was a shadow over the village there was a darker one over my own house. My mother grew quiet and no longer wanted to speak good of everybody. She seemed to be keeping separate from my
father, and I thought she had been wounded by the death of her doctor cousin. She refused to do anything about the little cottage where the physician had lived with his son Reeve, but let it lie
empty and my father did not seem inclined to contradict her. Perhaps she thought Reeve was going to return to Wenham even though he would have been seized by the villagers if he’d done so.
But I don’t think my mother ever believed Reeve was guilty. Towards the autumn, she fell ill and grew weak. She spent long periods of every day in bed, so I had to take over many of the
duties in the house. I am sure she wondered whether, had Thomas Flytte still been alive, he would have found a remedy for her affliction.