The Treason of the Ghosts

Chapter 7

Walter Blidscote was having nightmares. He wasn’t asleep but he wished to God he was. After he had met that terrifying clerk in the crypt beneath St Edmund’s Church, Blidscote had strode off wielding his staff of office. He had walked quickly, pompously, with all the authority he could summon up. Once away from prying eyes, he’d slumped beneath a sycamore tree and allowed his fat body to tremble. Sweat had trickled down his back whilst his stomach squeezed and winced so much he had to retreat deeper into the trees to relieve himself.

Blidscote had been petrified.

‘I am living in the Valley of Ghosts,’ he’d whispered, staring round. He believed he could see shapes amongst the trees. Or was it just the branches in the curling mist? Blidscote felt he was being haunted. He recalled the words of a preacher: how a man’s sins, like hungry dogs, can pick up the scent and come howling down the passage of the years. Blidscote’s mind trailed back. He couldn’t forget the day of Sir Roger’s execution: Chapeleys standing on the cart, the noose round his neck. He’d protested his innocence, shouting that one day he would have his vengeance.

Blidscote stared at his hands. Were they covered in blood? Or was it just dirt? He wiped them on his hose and felt the cold mud beneath him. What happened if that keen hunting dog of a clerk started to dig up the bones of the past? This was not some local matter. The King had intervened. The great council at Westminster had issued warrants under the Great Seal. Blidscote knew something about the law. Sir Hugh Corbett may stand in his dark clothing and travel-stained boots but he represented the Crown. He could go anywhere, see anything, ask any questions. God and his angels help any who tried to impede him! Blidscote had so much to hide. Sometimes he sought consolation in being shriven, in confessing his secret sins in church, in vowing repentance, in lighting candles, but still the burden on his back grew heavier.

Blidscote became so frightened, he got up and walked back into the town for company. He’d visited a dingy alehouse. Now he was sickened at what he had drunk so quickly from the polluted vat and the dirt-encrusted, leather tankard. He had enjoyed a quick fumble with a greasy potboy in one of the outhouses but the ale fumes were now dulled, his sense of pleasure replaced by remorse. Blidscote stumbled along the lanes, making his way towards the square and the Golden Fleece. Guilt perched on his shoulder like a huge crow. He’d ignored Corbett’s request to visit the families of the victims. They would tell him nothing. Images came and went like fiery bursts in his befuddled mind. Blidscote was a boy again, snivelling-nosed and ragged-arsed, standing before Parson Hawdon, the old priest who had served St Edmund’s Church long before Parson Grimstone ever came.

‘Do not lie, boy!’ the old parson had thundered. ‘A lie echoes like a bell across the lake of Hell and the demons hear it.’

Blidscote paused, wiping the sweat from his unshaven face. He always did have an awful fear of the church: those gargoyles which grinned down at him from the pillars; the wooden carvings, depicting the realms of the dead, the dancing skeletons. . Blidscote felt so hot, he wondered if it was the glow from the fury of Hell. He paused and leant against the plaster wall of a house, mopping his face with the hem of his cloak. He was about to walk on when he felt the touch of cold steel on his sweaty neck. Blidscote tried to turn.

‘Stay where you are, bailiff of Melford!’

The sharp steel dug in a little closer. Blidscote couldn’t stop shaking. The voice was low, hollow, muffled, as if the speaker was wearing a mask. Blidscote forced his head round. It was a mask, ghoulish and garish like the face of a demon. Blidscote closed his eyes and whimpered. Was he having a nightmare? Had he died? Was this one of Hell’s scurriers sent to fetch him? Yet he recognised that voice from many years ago.

‘Well, well, Master Blidscote, we meet again.’

‘I have kept faith,’ Blidscote muttered. ‘And a still tongue in my head.’

‘And why shouldn’t you, Master Blidscote?’ came the cool reply. ‘What can you do? Confess all to the King’s justice or seek private words with the royal clerk? Will you tell him the truth? You can hang for perjury, Walter.’ The tone was now bantering. ‘Or haven’t you heard the news? How the King’s parliament at Winchester have issued a new statute? Perjury is now treason’s brother. And do you know what happens to a traitor?’

Blidscote just whimpered.

‘Then let me tell you, master bailiff. For we are all alone in the dark. That’s what we are, aren’t we, creatures of the night? Scurrying rats with our horde of secrets?’

The sword was quickly withdrawn.

‘Stay where you are!’ the voice hissed, and the demon figure melted away.

Blidscote did. A beggar was coming up the lane, trundling a small barrow heaped with rags and other rubbish he’d collected from the town midden heap. The small wheelbarrow creaked and clattered on the cobbles. Blidscote turned. He would have loved to have run but he knew his tormentor was still lurking in the shadows on the opposite side of the lane. The beggar man drew closer. He recognised Blidscote, put his barrow down and grinned in a display of rotting gums and fetid breath. Blidscote flinched, waving his hand.

‘Good evening, Master Blidscote.’

‘On your way! On your way!’

The man was about to protest but Blidscote gripped him by the shoulder.

‘Get you gone or I’ll have you in the stocks for vagrancy!’

The beggar took up his barrow and almost ran down the lane, muttering curses about unchristian 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. ‘What’s your name?’ he asked the eldest girl.

‘That’s Isabella,’ Samler replied. ‘She’s two years older than Johanna.’

Ranulf studied the girl. She was comely enough, with flaxen hair coming down to her shoulders, thin-faced, sharp-eyed. Just a shift of expression betrayed her; perhaps she knew more than she had told even her parents.

‘And you know of no reason why she was killed?’

‘Why should anyone kill a young woman like Johanna?’ the thatcher retorted. ‘I have told you, sir, she had no secrets. Oh, she danced and she flirted but there was no one special, was there, Isabella?’

Ranulf smiled across at the young woman, who sat on the stairs above her brothers and sister.

‘But she was killed out in the open countryside,’ Ranulf insisted. ‘Down near Brackham Mere.’

‘I have told you what I know, sir,’ Samler retorted. ‘One afternoon she was sent on an errand to the marketplace and never returned.’

‘Will you catch him, sir?’ Isabella Samler called out.

‘Oh, we’ll catch him,’ Ranulf replied. ‘My master is like a hawk: sharp-eyed and swift. He’ll float above Melford and, no matter where the killer hides, be it the thickest bramble bush or the longest grass — ’ Ranulf got to his feet gesturing with his hand. Isabella watched him — ‘he’ll swoop, wings back, talons out, and he’ll clutch your sister’s killer in his tight claws.’

‘You are only saying that.’

‘No, Mistress, I am promising it.’

Ranulf undid his purse and put a silver coin on the table. The thatcher made to refuse.

‘No, no, take it,’ Ranulf urged. He patted Chanson on the shoulder. ‘For you, your family.’

He walked to the door, gathered up his cloak and sword belt, then looked round. Ranulf felt a tug at his heart. They looked now like a group of rabbits fascinated by a stoat.

‘I mean you well, I really do. But you have nothing to say, eh? Nothing more to tell me about Johanna’s death?’ He glanced quickly at Isabella.

‘She was a comely lass.’ The thatcher’s wife spoke up.

Ranulf put his hand on the latch and turned. ‘And she had no love swain?’

‘No,’ Isabella answered quickly. ‘Only those she laughed about.’

‘And a secret place?’ Ranulf urged. ‘Everyone has a secret place.’

‘The same as Elizabeth Wheelwright’s,’ Isabella blurted out. ‘They used to visit the copse on the hill overlooking Devil’s Oak. It’s not really secret.’

‘Could you show me the way?’

‘It’s dark,’ Samler replied.

‘No, no,’ Ranulf smiled. ‘I meant if Isabella could show us the lane back to the Golden Fleece.’

Samler’s daughter needed no second urging but grabbed her cloak from a peg on the wall. Ranulf made his good nights, as did Chanson, his mouth still full of food. They collected their horses. The lane was dark and muddy. Isabella walked ahead of them.

‘Just keep going straight on,’ she explained when they reached the end of the lane. She pointed to an alleyway. ‘That leads to the market square.’

Ranulf indicated that Chanson walk on.

‘You’d best go back then.’

Isabella watched Chanson lead the horses away. She drew closer and stared up at this strange, green-eyed clerk. Isabella Samler had lived a sheltered life. She’d never met a man like this before: tall, slim, smelling of horse, leather and fragrant soap. His white chemise was undone at the neck, allowing the glint of a silver chain, his sword-tip slapped against his boot. She felt frightened yet excited. He was dangerous. If his master was a hawk then so was he.

‘Will you really catch him?’

Ranulf chucked her under the chin. ‘If you tell me what you should, then it will be sooner rather than later.’

Isabella, in a mixture of fear and flirtation, moved a little closer.

‘Did your sister confide in you? Do you know why she went, whom she was meeting?’

‘We often lay awake in our bed loft. We’d frighten ourselves with stories about night-walkers.’

‘But there are no night-walkers in Melford, are there?’

Isabella swayed slightly side to side as if she was enjoying her riddle.

‘You’d be very surprised what walks the streets and lanes of Melford at night. Talk to Parson Grimstone. There’s more sin here, under the cover of darkness, than in your great city.’

Ranulf took a silver coin out of his purse and held it firmly between his fingers.

‘I gave one to your father but your sister had one, didn’t she? Is that why she left? Went out into the countryside? No, no,’ Ranulf smiled. He stroked her cheek with a gloved finger. ‘Johanna was a good girl but there’s not much money, is there? And the tinkers and the chapmen sell such pretty things: a ribbon, a brooch, a bracelet, perhaps a necklace of stones, all polished bright? So, are you going to tell me?’

Isabella looked at the coin and licked her lips.

‘My sister had no such coin.’

‘Then whom did she meet?’

‘I don’t know. Perhaps an admirer, perhaps the Mummer’s Man.’

‘Mummer’s Man?’ Ranulf asked.

‘It’s someone I’ve heard of.’

‘You’re telling tales?’

‘I don’t think so.’ Isabella stared at the coin. ‘I met a travelling girl once. She claimed to have seen a Mummer’s Man. He had a mask over his face and his horse moved like a ghost along the lanes outside Melford.’

Ranulf recalled the lonely country trackways they had ridden along on their way to Melford. He felt a prick of fear at this hideous vision of a masked man riding a silent horse.

‘I tell you, sir,’ she clutched the front of Ranulf’s jerkin, ‘that’s all I know.’

‘Nothing else? This travelling girl?’

‘It was dusk. She couldn’t see much. I didn’t think much of her tale till after my sister’s death. I daren’t tell anyone; I was frightened of getting into trouble.’

Ranulf pressed the coin into her hands. ‘Then you’d best get back.’

She took the coin.

Ranulf grasped her wrist. ‘Don’t go out in the country lanes, and be careful of the Mummer’s Man!’

He released her and she ran off into the darkness.

‘What was all that about?’ Chanson came back leading the horses. ‘Ranulf, I’m tired and I’m cold. Despite what Samler gave us, my belly thinks my throat’s slit. My mouth is so dry it’s forgotten how to drink. Where’s Sir Hugh?’

‘Oh, old Master Long Face.’ Ranulf took the reins of his horse. ‘He’ll be riding round the dark lanes, high in the saddle, cowl pulled across his head. He’ll be thinking. He broods a lot, does Sir Hugh, turning things over and over in his mind like a water mill. Oh, he’ll come back and he’ll sit in his chamber staring out of the window, moody and quiet.’

‘Is he safe?’ Chanson asked. ‘I mean, the Lady Maeve told him to be careful.’

‘He was attacked in Oxford,’ Ranulf replied. ‘Took an arrow high in the chest but the King’s physicians healed him.’

‘Does he love the Lady Maeve? Is that what he is thinking about?’

They reached the end of the alleyway. Ranulf stared across at the poor unfortunate clasped in the stocks. The marketplace was empty, the rubbish had been cleared. Only the occasional flitting shadows: people walking towards the light of the Golden Fleece. Now and again a door slammed, the cry of a child, a dog yapping in its kennels, all the sounds of the night.

‘Sir Hugh is a man of great order,’ Ranulf declared. ‘You serve me, Chanson. Serve me well and, one day, you may become a clerk like I am.’

Chanson quietened the horse, stroking its muzzle.

‘Could I really become a clerk, Master Ranulf?’

‘Oh yes, there are clerks of the stables, powerful men they are, in charge of the King’s horses. Anyway, I am describing to you the way things are ordered. I am a clerk of the Chancery of the Green Wax, next up the rung is Baby Edward and Sir Hugh Corbett’s daughter, Eleanor.’

‘And after that?’ Chanson asked. ‘Sir Hugh?’

‘Yes, Sir Hugh, then the King, then God.’ He grinned at Chanson. ‘And, right at the top, the Lady Maeve.’

Chanson looked narrow-eyed but the smile had gone from Ranulf’s lean face. In truth, the groom knew he wasn’t joking. Ranulf was frightened of no one, Chanson deeply admired him for that. A true bullyboy, Ranulf would swagger into a tavern, the girls would smile and Ranulf would take out his loaded dice and invite all comers. He was quick as a cat, slightly mocking of Sir Hugh. Ranulf, however, stood in dreadful awe of the Lady Maeve even though she was only small and her golden hair framed a face which reminded Chanson of a painting of an angel in the ancient church. Once in his cups Ranulf had confessed how Lady Maeve’s eyes frightened him.

‘Light blue they are,’ he’d slurred. ‘Quick and sharp, they miss nothing. Have you ever heard the phrase, “steel in velvet”?’ Ranulf had leant back. ‘That’s our Lady Maeve. I even think old Master Long Face is secretly frightened of her.’

Ranulf began to walk his horse across the cobbles.

‘And are you in love, Master Ranulf? I heard mention of a Lady Alicia. .?’

Ranulf turned swift as a striking snake, lips curled in a snarl. Chanson jumped so much even his horse was startled, throwing up its head.

‘Hush now! Hush now!’ Chanson soothed it but kept a wary eye on Ranulf, still glaring at him. ‘I am sorry. .’ Chanson muttered.

Ranulf relaxed. ‘Ah, it’s not your fault.’ He beckoned Chanson forward and put an arm round his shoulder. ‘I tell you this: I loved her and she left me. Gone to a nunnery, she has. Perhaps I’ll join her.’

Chanson stared open-mouthed. ‘I can’t imagine you in a wimple.’

Ranulf snorted with laughter and withdrew his arm.

‘No, no, Chanson, not a nunnery but into the Church. I’ve often thought of that. Can you imagine Archdeacon Ranulf, perhaps even Bishop Ranulf of Norwich?’

Chanson, who had seen these powerful prelates, repressed a smile. Ranulf-atte-Newgate, in gorgeous, flowing robes, wearing a mitre and carrying a crosier, processing slowly up the aisle of Westminster Abbey!

‘What was that girl talking to you about?’ he asked, changing the conversation.

They stopped at the trough to allow their horses to drink. Ranulf looked up at the sky, then once more at the smart front of the market square, its timbered buildings, lanterns and gleaming paintwork.

‘Old Master Long Face will want to know what we’ve been doing. So, what do we have here, Chanson? A fat, prosperous town, where everybody makes a good profit. Lords of the soil, like Sir Maurice and Tressilyian the justice. Merchants, farmers, millers, well-fed priests. Look at Master Samler: a thatcher who does a good trade. He’s not prosperous but, in a few years, he’ll be sending his sons to the schools in Ipswich.’ Ranulf paused. ‘During the day the markets are busy, trade is good. Silver and gold change hands, but where there’s wealth, corruption, rich and stinking, also flourishes. People have more time on their hands. A man lusts after his neighbour’s wife. Secret sins begin to fester like weeds amongst the corn. Rivalries break out, grudges are nursed. All strange sights and sounds appear.’

‘What do you mean?’ Chanson queried.

‘Take Samler’s family. Notice the girls, young, plump and well fed. Time is on their hands, not like things used to be when an entire family worked from morning to dusk. They filled their bellies on watery ale and crusts of bread and slept like hogs until the dawn. All has changed. Now, into this little paradise steps a demon, a man who likes to rape and kill.’

‘Are there such men?’ Chanson looked totally bemused. He was terrified of women and would bask in the smile of the ugliest, greasiest slattern.

‘Go into London, Chanson, talk to the ladies of the night in Southwark. They’ll tell you about men who like to beat and hurt them, sometimes quite badly, before they can take them.’

‘You mean like a stallion has to be quickened before he can mount a mare?’

‘I couldn’t put it better myself,’ Ranulf said drily. ‘That’s what our killer is. Melford’s an ideal place for him: no walls or gates; there must be at least twenty or thirty lanes leading out to the countryside which surrounds the town with lonely meadows, woods and copses. It’s so easy,’ Ranulf continued, ‘for the killer to slip in and out.’

‘Even on horseback?’

‘You work with horses,’ Ranulf replied. ‘Tell me, Chanson, what if I wanted to dull the sound of my horse’s hoofs?’

‘Sacking or straw,’ the groom replied. He bent down and lifted his horse’s foreleg. ‘You can’t take off the shoe — that will hurt the animal, make it lame. However, if you took small sacks, filled them with hay or grass, then tied them over the hoofs like buskins, it would be fairly quiet. Why, has the girl seen someone?’

‘What she called the Mummer’s Man, masked, riding a horse.’

‘That would be easy enough,’ Chanson confirmed. He climbed into the saddle and gathered the reins. ‘If I put sacking on my horse’s hoofs, I could ride this horse across the cobbles and you wouldn’t know I was there.’

Ranulf grinned up at him. ‘But pretend I’m a comely maid. If I met you, Chanson, riding along a lane, wearing a mask, I’d run, flee for my life.’

The groom pulled a face and eased himself out of the saddle. ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’

‘In fact,’ Ranulf quipped, ‘mask or not, any country wench would take one look at you and flee for her life.’

‘I can’t help my eye.’ Chanson coloured. ‘It’s the way I was born!’

‘I was only joking.’ Ranulf patted him on the shoulder. ‘But think, Chanson. You’re the horseman. I’ll tell you what.’ Ranulf pointed across to the Golden Fleece. ‘You solve the riddle and I’ll buy you the juiciest pie and a tankard which froths and glitters as if it is full of angel mead.’

Chanson wetted his lips. ‘You’ll keep your word?’

Ranulf lifted his left hand. ‘As your horse has a tail.’

Chanson climbed back into the saddle, gathered the reins and stared hungrily around. Then, digging his heels in gently, he rode to where Peddlicott the pickpocket dozed quietly in the stocks. The groom dismounted, took the water bottle off the horn of his saddle and held it to the grateful man’s lips.

‘Listen,’ he said, opening his wallet. He took out a piece of dried meat and gave it to the astonished pickpocket to gnaw on. ‘Give me the name of a tavern wench.’ He gestured at the Golden Fleece.

‘Try Matthew’s daughter, Adela. She’s buxom enough.’

Chanson thanked him, left his horse and walked back to Ranulf.

‘So, you say I am ugly, Master Ranulf?’

‘Well, not in so many words,’ Ranulf laughed, ‘but I’ve seen prettier gargoyles.’

‘A tankard, a pie and a silver piece,’ Chanson threatened.

‘For what?’

‘That I can bring a comely wench out from the tavern.’

‘But they already know you,’ Ranulf retorted.

‘No, they don’t. They have seen only you, Lord High-and-Mighty, and Sir Hugh Corbett.’

‘Wager accepted.’

‘On second thoughts,’ Chanson came back, ‘two silver pieces.’

Ranulf shrugged in agreement. Chanson, full of righteous anger, disappeared through the doorway of the Golden Fleece. Ranulf, ignoring Peddlicott’s cry for more salty bacon and a dish of water, stood bemused. Chanson knew everything about horses but his fear of the fairer sex made him quite hopeless with women and they were as frightened of him.

‘I know what he’s going to do,’ Ranulf murmured. ‘He’s going to sing. They’ll hear a few notes and that tavern will empty as if the rushes have caught alight.’

He was about to walk across and have words with Peddlicott when, to his amazement, the tavern door swung open: out sauntered Chanson holding a young, red-haired woman by the hand. They walked across the cobbles like a love swain and his doxy. The girl had a pretty, cheeky face, snub nose and an insolent mouth. She looked at Ranulf from head to toe.

‘Well, yes, I know you. What’s this?’ She let go of Chanson’s hand and rubbed her arms. ‘It’s cold, I’ve got jobs to do. You promised me a piece of silver.’

Ranulf looked at Chanson’s triumphant smile, sighed, opened his wallet and handed across a piece. The wench grabbed it, giggled and fled back to the tavern.

‘And the other piece?’ Chanson demanded. ‘I’m also tired of standing here.’

Ranulf reluctantly tossed it across.

‘You should thank yourself,’ Chanson smiled. ‘Remember what you told me about the girl Johanna? No country wench can resist a piece of silver.’

‘What did you do?’ Ranulf demanded.

‘I went into the tavern and called Adela. She sauntered over, pert as a robin. “You’re Adela?” I asked. “Why?” she replied. “There’s someone out there who wants to give you a silver piece.” ’ Chanson shrugged. ‘She almost pushed me out of the door.’

‘Of course.’ Ranulf closed his eyes. ‘That’s how the Mummer’s Man might have done it. He wouldn’t approach her. He’d just call out, “Elizabeth Wheelwright, Johanna Samler, I have good fortune for you!” ’ Ranulf opened his eyes and clapped Chanson on the shoulder. ‘He’d promise to leave a piece in a certain place and so lure them to their deaths. Can’t you see that, Chanson?’

‘I’m the one who proved it.’

‘If I told any girl in this town,’ Ranulf declared, ‘how there’s a silver piece lying beneath Devil’s Oak, specially for them, they’d laugh, they’d be intrigued, but they’d also be curious.’

‘And wouldn’t tell anyone else.’

‘No, of course they wouldn’t,’ Ranulf murmured. ‘In a town like Melford people would kill for a piece of silver. And that’s the truth of it!’