The Treason of the Ghosts

bailiffs.
    Blidscote
took a step forward but the razor-sharp steel nicked his neck.
    ‘The
Golden Fleece will wait,’ the voice whispered. ‘I was telling you about the
penalty for treason and perjury. You will be taken to London and lodged in Newgate. Then you’ll be
fastened to a hurdle behind a horse and dragged all the way to Smithfield . They’ll put you up a ladder and
turn you off. Your fat legs will dance, your face will
go black as your tongue protrudes. Afterwards they’ll cut you down, half dead
or half alive. Does it really matter? They’ll quarter your sorry trunk, pickle
it; dip it in tar, fix it above the city gates. Ah, travellers will comment,
there’s Master Blidscote!’
    ‘I
hear what you say,’ Blidscote gasped. ‘I have told you. I keep a still tongue
in my head and will do so till the day I die.’
    ‘I
like that, Master Blidscote. So, tell me now, Molkyn’s death and that of
Thorkle...?’
    ‘I
know nothing. I tell you, I know nothing. If I did—’
    ‘If
you do, Master Blidscote, I’ll come back and have more words with you. Now,
look at the wall. Go on, turn, look at the wall!’
    Blidscote
obeyed.
    ‘Press
your face against it,’ the voice urged, ‘till you can smell the piss and count
to ten five times!’
    Blidscote
stood for what appeared to be an age. When he turned, the shadows were empty. A
light to the mouth of the alleyway beckoned him forward. Blidscote shook off
the horrors of the night and ran. He reached the market square, the cobbles
glistening in the wetness of the night. The place was quiet. The houses and
shops beyond had their doors and windows closed but lights and lanterns glowed,
welcome relief to the darkness and cold. Blidscote realised he had lost his
staff. He ran back down the alleyway, collected it and returned to the
marketplace. The shock of the meeting with that demon had sobered him. He
adjusted his jerkin, pulling the cloak around his shoulders, and strode
purposefully across the marketplace. He stopped at the stocks where Peddlicott
the pickpocket had his head and hands tightly fastened in the pillory:
sentenced to stand there till dawn.
    Peddlicott
lifted his head. ‘Master bailiff , of your charity?’
    Blidscote
slapped him viciously on the cheek and walked towards the glowing warmth of the
Golden Fleece.
     
    Ranulf-atte-Newgate,
together with Chanson, sat in the comfortable house of Master John Samler,
which stood in a lane on the edges of Melford. Ranulf stared around. The rushes
on the floor were clean and mixed with herbs. The plaster walls were freshly
washed with lime to keep away the flies, and decorated with coloured cloths.
Onions and a flitch of ham hung from the central beam to be cured in the
curling smoke from the fire in the open hearth. Chanson sat on the bench next
to Ranulf, hungrily eating the bowl of meat stew garnished with spice to liven
its dull taste. Ranulf picked up a piece of bread, smiled at his host and
dipped the bread into the bowl.
    ‘So,
John, you are a thatcher by trade?’
    His
host, sitting opposite, eyes rounded at having such an important person talking
to him, nodded. Beside him, his wife, pink-cheeked with
excitement. Their children, supervised by their eldest girl, clustered
on the stairs. They reminded Ranulf of a group of owls, white-faced,
round-eyed. Ranulf felt uneasy. The thatcher was a prosperous man with a garden
plot before and a small orchard behind the house. He had been so overcome when
Ranulf knocked on the door, ushering him in as if he was the King himself,
serving the best ale his wife had brewed.
    ‘You
have five children, Master Samler?’
    ‘Eight
in all, two died...’ The thatcher’s voice trailed away.
    ‘And Johanna?’ Ranulf insisted. He looked across at the children.
    ‘Yes,
Johanna.’
    ‘I
understand,’ Ranulf continued softly, ‘that Elizabeth Wheelwright was murdered
a few days ago and your daughter Johanna earlier in the summer. Am I correct?’
    Samler’s
wife began to sob. Chanson stopped eating and put down his horn spoon as a sign
of respect.
    ‘She
was a fine girl,’ Master Samler replied. ‘She wasn’t flighty in her ways.’
    ‘And
the day she died?’ Ranulf asked.
    ‘I
was out working. Johanna was sent on an errand. She loved the chance of going
into the market square to talk to her friends.’ He shrugged. ‘She went but
never came back.’
    ‘Was
there anyone special?’ Ranulf insisted. ‘Anyone at all?’ He lifted his head.