[Roger the Chapman 06] - The Wicked Winter (24 page)

'A boulder house, built into the side of the hill,' he answered thickly. 'About a mile or so east of here. Belongs to a hermit.'

'Ulnoth!' I exclaimed, my worst fears realised. I seized my companion's arm. 'You say he went out yesterday, before noon, and hasn't returned?'

'That's right. So his name's Ulnoth, is it? That's more than I could vouch for. He gave me food and drink, such as it was, but never a word of conversation. A strange, nervous little man, afraid of his own shadow.' The tinker got to his feet and began to unhook the tools of his trade from his belt, laying them neatly one by one on top of the barrel.

'How did you come to be there?'

'At the boulder house? I was caught in the snowstorm of Tuesday night, as I gather you were.' He grimaced expressively. 'Only you were luckier. You found a warmer, softer billet than I did.'

I smiled. 'I spent four nights with Ulnoth after twisting my ankle. I was comfortable enough, and after his own fashion, he made me welcome.'

The tinker picked up one of the pans and examined it, before stooping once again to retrieve the handle.

'A couple of rivets will see this right, I fancy.' He turned Io me. 'You were more fortunate than I was, then. Oh, he fed me, and not badly, either, but he couldn't, or wouldn't, talk. I told you, my feeling is that he was afraid, but of who or what I've no idea.'

I chewed my bottom lip thoughtfully. So much had occurred since my arrival at Cederwell Manor, that much of what had happened previously had been driven from my mind. But I recollected now that Ulnoth had told me he was frightened during that brief, second visit I had paid him on Tuesday, after leaving Lynom Hall. I remembered, too, how he had moaned and rocked himself, muttering all the while, 'Death. Death. Death.' Plainly some event had taken place between my quitting the boulder house earlier in the day, and my return to it a few hours later. It was also obvious that the tinker had no better idea than I what that event could be.

I watched him in silence for a moment or two, as he skilfully proceeded with his work. He had by now removed his cloak and hood to reveal a small, neat head covered with springing curls as fiery as his eyebrows. Becoming aware of my scrutiny, he glanced up and grinned.

'It's comforting to know there's yet another fool wandering about the countryside in the depths of winter. Not,' he added 'that I'd have ventured so far afield if I'd known we were in for weather such as this. My woman told me I was a dolt to go, but times are hard and work was slack in Bath. It's a little town. I don't know if you're acquainted with it. Whereabouts are you from?'

'Wells is my home, but I've a child in Bristol. She lives with my late wife's mother.'

The tinker nodded sympathetically. 'I've four daughters,' he sighed. 'Sometimes you get tired of being ordered about by women. Now and then you need your own thoughts and company.'

I laughed. 'True enough. And you want to be on the move. Being mewed up indoors for too long makes your legs begin to twitch.'

'It does that. But my goodwife was right on this occasion. I walked for miles without meeting another soul and then the weather began to turn. Luckily I was close to the Priory at Woodspring, where there was room to spare in the guest hall. The monks said they'd only had one other visitor in weeks.'

'That would have been Brother Simeon,' I nodded, adding in explanation, 'The friar who's presently warming himself in the kitchen.'

The tinker grunted, but displayed no real interest. It seemed the monks had said very little about Simeon or his visit, and I smiled to myself as I thought how affronted he would be if he knew. His message of eternal damnation unless they mended their ways had probably been forgotten almost as soon as he was out of sight.

There was another silence while my companion began work on the second skillet. Then I asked, 'When did you quit the Priory? The following morning?'

'Ay, on the Tuesday after dinner. It was foolish to leave so late in the day, but I waited until it was properly light.

The monks had told me of a big house, Lynom Hall, where my services might be wanted, but somehow or other I took a wrong track and lost my bearings. With night setting in and the sky threatening snow, I was scared, I can tell you. But just as I was beginning to get really frightened, I came out on to a broad road which eventually brought me to the hermit's lodging. A hundred yards or so before I reached it, I saw another track off to my left, and I wondered if it was the road I should have taken.'

I nodded. 'From that spot it leads south to Woodspring Priory and Lynom Hall. You made a bad mistake there, Tinker.'

'True. But it's taught me a lesson. It's the first and last time I go travelling at this season. What say you, friend?' I agreed, but absent-mindedly. My thoughts were centred on Ulnoth, who had left home yesterday and not returned. I bade the tinker an abrupt farewell and returned to Simeon, who was still toasting his toes by the fire. I bent over him and laid a hand on his shoulder.

'Are you coming?'

'Where?' he demanded irritably, and settled himself more comfortably on his stool. The rich smell of stew now filled the kitchen.

'You promised to explore the scrubland with me.'
 

'Well, I've changed my mind,' he snapped. 'I've decided I'll not be dragged outdoors looking for a mare's nest. If you want to go and search, you must go alone.'

His face was set in stubborn lines and I saw that he meant what he said. I was sorry for the loss of his company; two pairs of eyes are likely to see more than one. Nevertheless, I was not to be deterred. I picked up my cloak again and put it on for the second time that morning.

'I shall be back in time for dinner,' I informed Martha Grindcobb, but she, resigned by now to my folly, made no answer.

Chapter Sixteen

I walked along the back of the house in the direction of the stables, then turned left and crossed the inner courtyard, past the fish pond, to the gate set in the wall between laundry and dairy. The sun was mounting in the sky, and every now and then my eyes were dazzled by the sudden glitter, reflected from piles of banked-up snow. At the end of the path across the marshland, the tower swam insubstantially in the morning light. When I reached it, I did not enter, but turned yet again to my left, along the narrow track which led through the scrubland.

At first this was easy to see despite its white covering, for the clumps of sea holly and samphire were widely spaced, with coarse tufts of marram grass in between. It gradually became less obvious, however, overhung by crowding trees and dense undergrowth, and as I picked my cautious way amongst stunted oaks and snaking roots, I was forced to keep my eyes firmly on the ground. But I was relieved to note that, even under snow, the well-trodden path grew slowly visible. People passing and repassing over the years had broken down foliage and branches, leaving a clear, if narrow, track which rose steeply towards the high ground and thebroad, rutted road leading eastwards in the direction of Bristol.

The silence felt suddenly oppressive, and I realised how alone I was in this desolate wilderness. The manor was by this time somewhere behind me and out of sight, although now and again I briefly glimpsed the outline of a distant roof as trees thinned and the path began to climb. I also grew more aware of my body's aches and pains as it protested against the treatment it had received in recent days. I began to shiver, and it was not altogether on account of the cold.

The ancient gods of the trees seemed very close; it needed little imagination to fancy the Green Man following hard on my heels...

I took a firmer grasp of my cudgel and flung the right-hand side of my cloak up and over my left shoulder, making the garment more secure and freeing my ankles, so that whenever possible I could take longer steps. Every so often I raised my voice and called, 'Ulnoth!' but there was no reply.

I was certain, although with nothing to support my conviction, that the signs of life I had noticed yesterday morning from the direction of the scrubland had been made by the hermit. For some reason, he had set out early from home and walked to Cederffell Manor. It would have been a long and arduous journey in such terrible conditions, and it was almost impossible that he would have come so far in search of food. Had he then been looking for me? He knew where I was, for I recalled telling him my destination during that short, second visit to the boulder house on Tuesday. Yet why should he wish to find me? What was it he had been so frightened of? And if he had indeed managed to get as far as Cederwell, why had he not simply entered by the main gate and asked for me by name? There was no gatekeeper, but he had only to make his way around to the back of the house and knock. Why was he so obviously spying out the land before approaching?

I realised that I might never know the answers to these questions, for if Ulnoth had found no shelter last night- and the tinker had testified that his host had not returned - he could well have frozen to death by now. The thought made me quicken my pace and, in consequence, I slipped on a patch of frozen snow and slid to my knees. I cursed aloud.

That was my third fall in just under a week, and although my tumble from the tower stairs had not been my fault, I was nevertheless growing careless. My health, particularly my physical well-being, was my fortune, what little there was of it, and I could ill afford to be laid up if I were to earn a living for myself and my child.

Shaken, I stayed where I was for a moment or two, but as I made to rise I noticed that the bushes and small trees to my right had been disturbed, bits of twig snapped off and a passage forced between them. Moreover their covering of snow was lighter than that of the surrounding undergrowth, a soft powdering, the result of the storm during the early part of last night and not the heavy burden of many days' accumulation. I scrambled to my feet and very carefully began to penetrate the scrubland.

Trailing brambles tore at my cloak and hose, but I was too worried now to pay any attention or take heed of the damage they were causing. Something or someone had recently passed this way, beating a path through the tangle of wild vegetation. And there, hanging from a thorn, was a long black thread and, further on, what proved to be, when shaken clear of snow, a thin strip of black woollen cloth. My heart sank at this proof that my suspicions might have substance. I lunged forward, swinging my stick from side to side, only to be brought up short by an obstacle which blocked any further progress.

The man's body was wedged between the iron-hard roots of trees and stems of saplings, having been pushed down as far as it would go to keep it concealed throughout the winter.

Had I not formed a theory and come looking, had I not slipped and noticed the tell-tale signs, the chances were that it would have lain undiscovered until spring, by which time, a prey to the elements and the predators of the woods, it would have been barely recognisable. Certainly there would have been too little left of the flesh to show how he had died. The bruised throat, the bulging eyes, the protruding tongue would no longer have borne mute witness to the fact that Ulnoth had been throttled.

For I had no doubt that it was Ulnoth, even before I stooped and turned his face towards me. The bald, almost skeletal head was instantly familiar, as were the thinly fleshed bones. His rusty black cloak was still fastened about his neck, but had fallen away from his body to reveal his much darned, greyish-brown tunic and hose. His hunting knife, however, remained in its sheath, attached to the leather belt around his waist, surely an indication that robbery had not been the killer's motive.

Anger licked through me with a steady and persevering flame, and I swore to bring to book whoever had committed this appalling crime. Ulnoth had been a quiet, kindly and, above all, gentle soul, offering harm to no one. Yet his life had been cut short, not by the forces of nature but by one of his fellow humans. The bruises on his throat were the shadows of two thumbs, pressed hard against his windpipe, and there was no doubt at all in my mind that when the back of the neck was exposed, I should find the imprints of fingers.

Someone had seized him by the throat and strangled the life out of him with no more compunction than if he had been a chicken destined for the pot.

Cautiously I straightened my back, vainly trying to avoid further damage to my clothes, and stared down at this latest victim of the murderer who stalked Cederwell Manor. It was impossible that I should move the body on my own, and I must therefore return to the house with news of my discovery, and get help. It would come hard on most of the inhabitants to be faced with yet another death, even though they acknowledged no connection between this one and the previous two. Ulnoth's would be attributed to a marauding thief, abroad looking for sustenance, who had quarrelled with the hermit over some precious morsel of food.

And might not that indeed be the case? I asked myself, as I retraced my steps through the scrubland. But I could not accept the explanation. I had spent four days in Ulnoth's company, during which time I had got to know him, if not well, at least as well as any stranger could. I was certain that he would not have strayed over a mile from home unless for a purpose, and that purpose would not be to forage. He knew all the places close to the boulder house where food could be obtained, even in the worst of winter weather. No, I felt sure that Ulnoth had come searching for me in order to unburden himself of something he had remembered...