If he could. The thought made him give a wry little grin to himself. Whether he could or not would depend on so much. And even if he did go to the effort, it would depend very much on the attitude of the coroner. So often the bastards were useless. They just lived for the money they could extort from others. Like this latest sheriff, from all he’d heard.
Still, he was nothing if not thorough, so he wandered out beyond the fringe of trees, looking all about. It was as he reached the southernmost section of the clearing that he found something that made him give a quick frown. Here there were some heavily damaged bushes and brambles, as though something — or someone — had hurried through. But some of them had been dragged back the other way, too, so it appeared that there had been movement in both directions. He crouched, glancing all about him, wondering what story he was witnessing here, but he could make little sense of it. Then, as he cursed the rain, he saw some speckles on the grass. Nearby there was a larger splash. When fresh, this must have formed a pool. He touched it, and although it was difficult to be certain, he felt sure that it was blood. Perhaps it was a man who had left the camp to defecate, and who had hurried back when the attack started, only to be struck down as he returned?
But looking back at the clearing, he was forced to wonder why the man’s body was not here. Perhaps he wasn’t wounded badly enough to collapse, but had continued on to the main camp, where he’d died with the others. Strange, though, he thought, as he peered down carefully. There was so much blood. If a man had been knocked down here, surely he would never have made it back to the main camp after losing all this blood.
He heard voices. Retreating, he set his back to a tree, listening carefully, until he recognised one of them.
‘If you were trying to be quiet, you failed,’ he called.
‘Sweet Christ’s cods! Bill, what happened here?’
‘John, I wish I knew. All I can say is, whoever did this wasn’t just mad. A lunatic would have been far less effective.’
‘How could one man do this?’ John Weaver said. He looked about him, taking in the sight. At his side, Art Miller pulled a face at the odours.
‘It was a large gang. Question is, who were they?’
Chapter Two
Woods north of Jacobstowe
It had been a quiet night for Roger. The scene in the coppice last morning had shaken him more than he wanted to admit even to himself. Afterwards he had run quietly away. Before long he came to a vill, and crouched down, hiding. There was a woman in a little yard, calling and clucking to her chickens, a tall, strong woman, buxom and attractive, and he waited, watching her with something akin to longing, until she was done and went back inside, and he could hurry past and on to the north.
No one wanted to be found near a scene like that, especially if a stranger to the area. Because if any man was ever to be thought a dangerous murderer, it was always easier to think such things of foreigners. Roger had no wish to be captured by men determined to find anyone who could suit the description of a stranger and outlaw.
But it was not only the desire to put as many leagues as possible between himself and any posse that drove him on. It was also the memory of that appalling sight.
In the past he had been used to such pictures of horror. There had been plenty of bodies to see after the French invasion of the territories about Saint Sardos, those of men and women, and none of them would come back to haunt him, he knew. Not even the little tableau of the two children would affect him. He had found them under a set of rugs, as though they had been hidden there with the heavy woollen material thrown over to conceal them, a little girl and a boy, neither more than four years old, if he had to guess. The boy had been cut almost entirely in half, as though someone had swung an axe at his breast. The girl’s head had been broken by a club or mace; her death would at least have been quick. Then the cloth had been cast over them again, untidily. Carelessly. They had been dealt with, so their covering could be returned.
There had been many children slaughtered in Guyenne in the last months. Yes, he had come back to England to escape those sights now that the French officials were tightening their grip on the lands about Guyenne, but such things happened, and he had seen them, and he knew he was strong enough to survive this just as he had survived the others.
No, the deaths themselves were not enough to give him sleepless nights or even to unsettle him. But he was disturbed now as he thought back to the scene.
As he had entered the coppice, he had been prepared for it all. The smell of death lay over the place in the mizzly air like some foul miasma from a moorland bog, and he knew what he would see as soon as he reached it.
He had stood silently a while, absorbing the images that came to him. A cart upended, the shafts pointing at the sky; a second collapsed where a wheel had been snapped away; two horses dead, one on its side, the other on its back, all four legs in the air, arrows in head and flanks, the rider nearby, with more arrows in his back. And another man near him, his head missing entirely. A woman … There were so many there, and none of them made any impression on him. He was a fighter — he had seen it all.
Walking among them, he had found himself casting about carefully, for that was what a man did after a fight, but clearly there was no profit to be had from the bodies down here. All had been killed and their property taken from them with their lives. From the number of men here, there must have been some seven or eight carts just to cope with their goods, or a number of packhorses. So many travelling together for safety, thinking that there would be strength in their numbers. He would have thought that most were moderately wealthy people, but one group in particular was different. The man near the horse, he looked like a fighter. And not only him. Roger would guess from their build that some six or eight of the men here were warriors. They didn’t look like peasants, that was certain. The clothing, the boots and shoes, all pointed to people who were better off than the normal vill churl.
Roger had squatted near a man’s body. The fellow had six arrows in him, and there was a wound in his eye like a stab wound, as though someone was going about the place and making sure of all the injured.
He had the appearance of a fighter: he was fairly strong in the arm, with some scars to prove that he’d been in more than the average number of fights. There was no mail or armour, but when Roger looked at his wrists and neck, there were signs of chafing. He had worn some simple armour, which had been stripped from him, if Roger had to guess. No man-at-arms would be unaware of the value of mail, and it would be taken from the fallen, either to be altered for the new owner, or for sale.
Others, when he looked, had similar marks. One was just the same, with the proof of armour and helm. When he added them up, he reckoned these two were men-at-arms, and eight others looked like bowmen. They each had the characteristically powerful muscles on their backs that were the inevitable result of regular practice as archers. From the look of them, these could well have been a force together, perhaps protecting something, he thought. And then he came across another figure.
This was no warrior. He had the belly of an abbot, and the jowls to match. A tonsure in need of renewal, and the ink on his fingers, pointed to a clerk of some form. And yet he had been utterly despoiled. His feet were bare, but the flesh was soft and unmarked. Not a man used to walking barefoot, then. He had a chemise, but no cloak or surcoat, which looked out of place, and no jewellery. However, his fingers held the marks of rings. When Roger ran his own fingers over the first joints, he could feel where the skin was raised slightly in calluses about the outer edge of the rings the man had habitually worn. To his surprise there was no wooden cross about his neck. However, it was his face that jolted Roger more than anything else he had seen there that day, more than the proofs of theft. Because this fellow had been mutilated. Although he was blond, Roger couldn’t tell what colour his eyes were, because both had been taken out before he had had his throat cut. His death hadn’t been good.