The Pardoner's Crime (19 page)

Once they reached Wakefield, Richard sent Hubert off to check on Matilda and Lillian, which he did with great
willingness
. He himself rode to the parish church of All Saints and tethered his mount outside. Then he went inside the church and walked up the aisle to the altar, where he knelt and said a silent prayer.

It was eerily quiet and slightly cold. He gripped the hilt of his sword, testing it for swift unsheathing if necessary, then he walked into the shadowy sanctuary beyond the altar.

He stood in the centre and turned to look back at the altar.

From behind him he heard a rustle of cloth from
somewhere
in the shadows, then a voice whispered his name.

‘I was hoping to find you here,' Richard whispered back. 

H
is Majesty, King Edward II had enjoyed his day's hunting in the Great Park. He had shot two deer and stuck one boar, all clean kills. By contrast and much to his chagrin, Hugh le Dispenser had taken one deer, but messily, so that it had to be dispatched by one of the foresters. The evening meal with the Deputy Steward, his family, and Sir Richard had inevitably been a splendid dinner of boar and venison prepared to perfection by Gideon Kitchen, whose beaming presence was called for by the King himself.

‘How is it, Master Kitchen, that I have not heard of your skills before? Methinks that your talent may be wasted up here in the wilds of Yorkshire. How think you of coming to London to cook for us?'

Gideon Kitchen beamed anew, his cherubic cheeks seeming to bulge with pleasure. He bowed, stumbling slightly as he did so, because of his lame leg. ‘Your Majesty does me great honour, yet I am not the person to ask. Your Majesty, the Deputy Steward may have—'

‘The Deputy Steward may have other ideas?' Edward
interjected
. He laughed lightly, and waited in the expectation that the others would also find his words amusing, which they dutifully did.

‘And I expect that is so, am I not correct, Sir Thomas? You would not like to lose so accomplished a cook.'

Lady Alecia volunteered a reply. ‘I would hope that our good Gideon Kitchen would stay with us, Your Majesty, so that we could entice you to favour us with further visits in the future.'

Hugh le Dispenser laughed. ‘Well said, madam. And to be frank, I would suggest that you keep him here, Edward, for I would like to hunt these woods again, despite my bad luck today.'

‘Then the cook shall stay!' the King announced, taking a large mouthful of wine. ‘And who knows, perhaps someday the Deputy Steward will not just be a deputy,' he said
suggestively
. ‘I am liking this Sandal Castle. I quite see why the Earls Surrey and Lancaster both had a liking for it.'

Sir Thomas beamed. ‘I hope that I will merit the trust you have placed in me, Your Majesty.'

The king laughed again. ‘Oh, I am sure that you will.' He was smiling, yet there was no mistaking the fact that the smile was only a movement of the mouth, for there was no laughter evident in his eyes. ‘After all, everyone knows what happens to those who cross me.'

Hugh le Dispenser was dangling his knife in his right hand. He smiled and suggestively waved it in front of his neck. ‘Look what happened to Lancaster, the last “owner” of Sandal Castle.'

The minstrels up in their gallery came to the end of their music and it seemed that an eerie silence fell upon the diners. It was broken after a moment by the King.

‘And tomorrow we shall see these Mystery Plays that Wakefield seems famous for.' Suddenly, he turned to Richard. ‘What say you, Richard? You have been quiet all evening?'

Richard was taken unawares. ‘My apologies, Your Majesty. My mind has been with more mundane matters than this. I am sure that you will be mightily entertained by it all.'

The whole of Wakefield was up before daylight for the Corpus Christi celebrations. The day before, the pageant wagons had been hauled into place to form a semi-circle around the one side of the Bull Ring and all of the market-stalls had been
taken down. The plan was to start the celebration at nine bells with a mass at All Saints before the procession of the players through the town, to end up at the Bull Ring, where the crowd would be eagerly waiting.

Hubert met Richard as agreed at the Roll's Office in the Moot Hall a good hour before the mass was due to start.

‘My Lord, I … I have a favour to ask,' he said.

Richard was sitting at the desk tapping the lid of a chest containing some of the artefacts from the recent court cases. He was preoccupied and replied distractedly. ‘Ask then, good Hubert.'

‘May I … may I have your leave to marry?'

Richard looked up in surprise. ‘You wish to marry Beatrice? But you have only known her a few days?'

‘A few days, a couple of nights. What does it matter? I love her with my soul. I love her when I see her across the Bucket Inn, I love her when she scolds me, and I love her when we make love. When I close my eyes I see her, as she is in bed, naked, looking down at me, smiling with those beautiful lips. I love those lips, that gap in her teeth, the way she—'

‘Hubert, stop! That's it!'

‘That's what, my lord? Have I said too much?'

‘Teeth, Hubert! Teeth! Go and find George-a-Green the pinder. Bring him to me.'

‘But my lord, what about—?'

‘Now, Hubert!'

It took Hubert a good twenty minutes before he returned with the bewildered looking pinder. He was dressed as a
shepherd
, ready to perform in one of the plays.

‘You wanted to talk to me, sir?' he asked. ‘Will it take long?'

‘I want to talk to you about Hector Lunt. You must have been one of his closest friends. I want to know if he bought a pardon from Albin of Rouncivale.'

A muscle twitched in the pinder's strong jaw and Richard thought that he detected a glint of anxiety register in his face. ‘No, sir, he didn't buy a pardon, but he did buy something else.'

Hubert interjected. ‘Why didn't you say so before?'

‘I didn't see that it was important.'

‘It was a tooth, wasn't it?' Richard pressed. ‘I imagine he paid a goodly sum for it.'

The pinder looked amazed. ‘It was, and he did. He said it was the tooth of a sainted nun and that he was fully protected because of it. He became really cocky and all. But how did you—?'

‘That will be all,' Richard returned coldly. ‘I have no time to explain, but you will probably have to explain in court some time.'

When the pinder departed sheepishly Richard tapped the casket in front of him and opened it. ‘Teeth, Hubert! Fool that I am, I did not recognize the significance of the teeth.' He drew out one of the Pardoner's small jars and poured from it the two teeth. ‘Look at them, Hubert. What do you notice about them?'

Hubert bit his lip and concentrated. ‘They look fresh and they look good.'

‘Exactly! No rot. Just as Lady Wilhelmina said. These are not the teeth of a peasant.'

‘So could they be the teeth of a saint, as the Pardoner claimed?'

‘No, they were the teeth of a noble. Someone who ate and lived well.'

‘But who lost their teeth?' Hubert asked, still bemused.

‘These teeth had been pulled out, Hubert. After death, I am sure.'

Hubert snapped his fingers. ‘A noble killed in battle?'

‘No! One who died by decapitation.'

It took Hubert a moment, then he stared at his master in disbelief. ‘The Earl of Lancaster?'

‘Precisely. And now I think it fits. Or much of it. The Pardoner came to Wakefield from Pontefract, that we know. I believe that he bought some teeth from the headsman and probably sold them off to people who believed that they
needed special pardoning. Probably because they were racked with guilt, or because they were afraid that some crime might be discovered.'

‘Like Hector Lunt?'

‘Like a man who had raped a girl in the town,' Richard mused. ‘And who confessed to the Pardoner. Then later Hector must have panicked and tried to get the tooth back. And that was why the Pardoner gave himself up to the watch and confessed that he had committed a crime. He blurted out that he had committed the crime that had been confessed to him, and which was obviously in his mind at the time. He felt threatened and needed to gain the protection of custody. Albin of Rouncivale's crime was not rape, but greed.'

‘So where does Robert Hood come in?'

So deep had they been in discussion that they had barely noticed the sound of people milling about outside, of horses clopping up the streets. Then the bells of All Saints started to ring.

‘Never mind the Hood,' Richard said. ‘The thing that Hector Lunt gasped when he lay dying is of the greatest importance now.' He thumped the side of his head and cursed. ‘I have been such a blind fool! Hubert, we assumed he was just saying an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. What he was actually saying was that his killer had taken his tooth, his protection. And also something deeper than that. Remember, Scathelocke had been shot in the eye! An eye for an eye.'

‘I don't understand, my lord.'

‘No, I do not fully understand it myself. Yet there is
something
here that worries me deeply. And it concerns the King. He used to call Piers Gaveston his Eye. And now he calls Hugh le Dispenser the same thing.'

‘You think that someone means to kill le Dispenser?'

‘I think it is possible. The King still has many enemies and le Dispenser is as unpopular as ever Gaveston was. We must be vigilant.'

‘What do you want me to do, my lord?

‘I want you to stay close to his majesty and le Dispenser. I will have a word with Sir Thomas and make it all right. Also, keep an eye on me. If you hear me call out, guard the King and Le Dispenser.'

‘Should we not say something to his majesty?' Hubert asked.

‘There is no time,' Richard replied. ‘We must to church straight away.'

Richard shuffled up the aisle and sat down beside Sir Thomas Deyville who was sitting behind the King and Hugh le Dispenser. Richard whispered his concerns to the Deputy Steward, but as he expected he found that he was less concerned than he thought he should be.

‘The King could not be better protected,' he whispered back. ‘There is a small army in the town. You stick to the law, Sir Richard, and leave this to me. I will allow your man to shadow the King, but otherwise I shall take care of his protection.'

Richard looked past him and bowed his head to Lady Alecia.

‘Where is the Lady Wilhelmina?' he asked.

‘She is unwell this morning,' Lady Alecia whispered back. ‘A sickness. I have sent word for the apothecary to call later today.'

Richard nodded guiltily, feeling sure in his own mind that he was partly responsible for her absence.

Father Daniel conducted the Corpus Christi mass after which Lady Katherine and her nuns sang while the King, Hugh le Dispenser and the congregation filed out of the church. The King and his party, now including Hubert walked the short distance to the Bull Ring and took their seats in the special high carved chairs that had been set up on a canopied dais for them to observe the plays as they were performed in the temporary amphitheatre.

The procession of players, musicians and singers
meanwhile
marched through the streets, snaking their way into the
Bull Ring, to take up their places behind the pageants of their guilds.

A drum rolled and Father Daniel walked into the main area before the dais and welcomed the royal party and the crowd of spectators that had formed round about. As he did so Richard noted Sir Thomas and Lady Alecia sitting on either side of the King and le Dispenser, and Hubert standing at attention behind the King's chair. He also stood surveying the rows of armed men within easy reach of the king. He knew too, that more armed men were located around the town boundaries, so there would be no chance of an armed assault by anything less than an organized army while they were there, for, of course, the town was built on a ridge, with good views in most directions. He ran an eye across the tops of the buildings, checking that no one could be secreted on a rooftop or in a garret. Beyond the Bull Ring stood the
scaffold-surrounded
tower of All Saints, from whence the bell pealed every few minutes, as Father Daniel had instructed.

Perhaps he was wrong, Richard wondered. Perhaps there was no connection and he was worrying needlessly. He began to relax as the plays began.

The opening play of
The Creation
was performed by the Guild of Haberdashers and was as expected a colourful piece. There were great flashes of coloured cloth and much banging of drums, as God, resplendent in flowing robes and prodigious beard appeared and began to create the heavens and the earth and the water upon it. Dancers appeared on the pageant and around it to portray the fish, the birds and the animals of the wonderful Garden of Eden. And then,
tastefully
dressed in garments depicting no garments at all, Adam and Eve appeared.

The great apple tree of knowledge was wheeled on and Satan dressed as a snake tempted them to eat apples, with the result that they realized their nakedness and garnished their privates parts with fig leaves.

The audience enjoyed it, as did the King and his party, their appetites whetted for more with the play
The Killing of Abel,
performed with gusto by the Guild of Butchers.

And so it went on for three hours, each subsequent play moving on to the next pageant, and then round again.
Noah, The Procession of the Prophets, The Flight into Egypt,
and
The Arrival of John the Baptist
; all of the well known Biblical stories were enacted, cheered, and enjoyed by the royal party and the people of the town without a break, until the King raised a hand and a trumpeter blew a royal fanfare which silenced the cheering crowd and drew everyone's attention to the royal dais.

Father Daniel appeared from the side where he had been busily directing.

‘My good Wakefield Master,' said the King, ‘I am enjoying this fine day and these fine plays, but nature is calling and I—'

There was a creaking noise from the pageant wagon on the right of the royal dais, the one used to portray the Face of Hell. Slowly the huge face that formed its backdrop began to open.

Everyone knew that from the jaws of Hell the demons and lost souls were eventually supposed to pour out. It was assumed that some fool had allowed the mechanism to open prematurely.

‘As I said,' his majesty went on, irritably, ‘I need to—'