Trouble in the Forest Book One: A Cold Summer Night Read online

  “I regret arriving late, Sheriff,” he said hurriedly to deSteny with a quick, short bow. He held up the pyx, explaining, “I wanted to be fully prepared. In case we must tend to the crofters’ burial.”

  “I am pleased you are so, for we may need all you have, and more,” said deSteny. “It is what I asked of you.” He indicated the second mule. “You know how to sit one of these animals, don’t you?”

  “I’ve done it before,” said the monk with a resigned air. “You lead the way and I’ll strive to keep up.” He tugged himself into the saddle, placing the pyx ahead of him on the high pommel. “God bless our endeavors today,” he declared, crossing himself and waiting while the men-at-arms did the same.

  The last to comply was Hugh deSteny. “If we are ready, then it is time to go,” he said, rising in his stirrups so that he could turn in the tall saddle. “All right, men. Single file, at the trot. That includes you, Friar,” he called out, then gave the order to the warder to open the gates for them.

  Wroughton raised his hand to bring his men up behind him as the little party moved through the gates of Nottingham Castle, across the moat, and through the town toward the outer walls.

  The gates yawned open to the encouraging cheers of the artisans and their apprentices who maintained shops near the gates as the Sheriff and the men-at-arms sallied forth to meet the dangers of Sherwood Forest that lay ahead of them, a vast green wilderness that stretched across the middle of England, from the fen country in the east to the Welsh mountains in the west, north to the city of York and south to Huntingdon and Cambridge. Few roads went through it, and few towns other than Nottingham and Lincoln flourished within its borders, for the forest held sway in the center of the island as no armed force or religious company could. The heart of Sherwood was so dense that it was said no sunlight reached it for months on end. Fortresses, castles, and monasteries were scattered through it, isolated and precarious, as well as crofts and hamlets, but for the most part, it was the realm of wild animals and outlaws.

  “Watch carefully. We do not want to be distracted,” deSteny ordered as he led the way into the first ranks of the trees and the speckled, twinkling light. The shadows were long around them with the rising sun at their backs so that they rode in their own darkness. Their passing silenced the call of birds and the rustle of animals in the undergrowth, and only the clatter of their mounts’ hooves and equipment gave sound to the morning as they stormed the great, green stronghold.

  They kept to the main road for nearly three leagues, and then Chilton indicated a narrow track turning to the northwest, toward the deeper part of the forest. “Down that way, a distance.” He trembled as he said it. “You will have to ride single file. The track is poorly cut.”

  The men-at-arms slowed their horses from a jog to a walk, and left the main road for the path leading to the crofters’ hut.

  “It is not far ahead,” Chilton was pale now, and he started at every noise. “We will come to the hut before we reach the hamlet.” He clung to the reins as if the leather would protect him.

  “Is it on the path?” asked deSteny.

  “No, just off, a furlong or so. The track is marked if you know to watch for it.” He looked around at the deep gloom under the green canopy and felt himself a stranger in the place, though he had been warden here for more than fifteen years. Now he was an intruder, and he strove not to shiver. “I will tell you when to turn.”

  “I hope the track is no narrower than this, and no more wild than now,” said Wroughton, half in jest, half in earnest. “These branches are hazard enough. They could sweep a reckless man out of the saddle. Not one of us would want to be lost here on foot.” He glanced uneasily toward the end of their little group to where the Trinitarian rode, his face ruddy with the effort of keeping his recalcitrant mule moving at the same pace as the rest.

  There was a rustle and snap of breaking branches, and then a doe with two half-grown fawns at her heels bounded effortlessly across their path, vanishing noisily into the undergrowth on the other side of the path. Four of the horses brought their heads up in alarm, one of them whinnying uneasily. “They’re nervous,” said Wroughton, patting the neck of his big bay gelding as the horse sidled.

  “They’re sensing something other than deer,” said deSteny. He had had the crawly feeling of being watched since they rode into the woods. He guessed it was useless to look for the watchers, for they would not be readily found.

  Finally, half a league or so further on, Chilton pointed to the left. “There’s the way to the croft, that little path there; you can see it just beyond the fallen beech tree,” he announced in a cracked voice, and swung the head of his mule in that direction. “It is not far now. The track to the croft isn’t long. The buildings are on the far side of the dell.” His relief was apparent, and deSteny wished he knew why.

  The path was mottled with sunlight and well-kept, the underbrush nibbled back by the crofters’ two nanny goats who provided milk for cheese. These, along with a dozen pigs turned out in a fenced area to eat the acorns and new shoots under the oaks, constituted the entire wealth of the crofters, who had lived in a two-room tie-beam timber house with a small kitchen-and-creamery on the far side of the narrow court centered on a well. For a crofter, it was a prosperous establishment, one that many others might begrudge the holder.

  DeSteny swung out of the saddle as the party drew up in the little courtyard. “We might as well water the horses and mules while we have the chance.” He removed his helmet and held his mare’s reins as he looked around the croft. Empty hardly more than two days, it already had that vacant, neglected look of abandoned places, and it made deSteny ill-at-ease to be here; in a year it would be overgrown and crumbling. Thrusting his worst fears out of his mind, he made himself attend to the task at hand, taking a brisk tone to ask Chilton, “Where did you find the bodies?”

  “In ... in there.” The warden was still on his mule, as if he expected he would need to escape at any moment.

  “In the house.” DeSteny pointed to the door, which stood ajar. “Inside, not out.”

  Chilton nodded.

  Wroughton was already drawing a bucket up from the well, and motioning to his men to dismount. “Horses first, then you,” he reminded the men-at-arms as the bucket came into view. “Men stand thirst better than their mounts.”

  DeSteny pulled off one gauntlet and dipped his hand into the bucket, drawing out a cupped-handful of water that he held under his mare’s nose, and smiled as she licked his palm eagerly with her soft tongue. When she had got all the water, he filled his hand again and gave her more.

  “You spoil that mare,” Wroughton chided him. “You treat her like another soldier. She’s just a horse.”

  “She has taken good care of me. I will take good care of her.” He knew his men regarded his fondness for his mare as one more in a long list of eccentricities.

  “How many were there? Bodies, I mean,” asked the Red Friar as he got off his cantankerous mule, taking care to hold the pyx protectively.

  “Six.” Chilton ticked them off on his fingers, using his thumb twice. “The man, his woman, three children, and an old woman, probably the man’s mother, though she may be an older sister or an aunt.”

  “And no sign of a fight,” prompted deSteny. “Nothing is overturned or disturbed, and not one of them has weapons in hand.”

  “No, they haven’t—none that I noticed,” Chilton answered, dismounting reluctantly. “Nothing was disturbed. The furniture was not in disorder. I hauled the corpses away in their cart. I used the goats to pull it.”

  “Did you know the crofter?” asked deSteny, realizing he should have inquired some time before now.

  “I ... had met him a time or two,” Chilton lied clumsily.

  DeSteny let this pass. “And you took the bodies to the White Friars in the hamlet nearby.”

  “Yes, to Chefford,” he answe
red, becoming fearful again. “The White Friars have a chapel there, at their friary.”

  “I know,” said deSteny gently, reminding the warden he was familiar with the area he was called upon to administer.

  “Then you will know the way to the hamlet,” said Chilton, glancing around in distress.

  “I suppose so. It is north of here, as I recall.” He motioned to his men. “Wroughton, you stay out here. The rest of you, come with me. You too, Red Friar.”

  The crofters’ house was in fairly good repair, the walls not too sooty, and there were three big pots fronting the hearth, attesting to the success the family had enjoyed. There was a roll of rough blankets near the hearth that would serve one of the household, probably the old woman, as a bed at night. A sturdy table and four open-backed chairs stood in the center of the larger of the two rooms, another sign of prosperity, as was the long-handled rendering pan which the crofters used to prepare tallow. Half a dozen two-tined hayforks hung on the wall near the door, and beneath them, a large, square, brass-bound chest stood conspicuously locked.

  “They can’t have been thieves. They would have carried that off,” said Hamlin, the most promising of the men-at-arms.

  “Very likely,” said deSteny, his spine feeling chilly as he looked around the room again. “Let us go into the other room.” He nodded toward the length of woven cloth that separated the two rooms. It was divided into two levels, with a ladder leading to the loft where the children slept. There were piles of blankets to show where the crofter and his woman slept. Another chest held their few clothes.

  “Chilton,” said deSteny in a flat voice. “Where were the bodies?”

  “In the main room, all but the youngest child, who was in the creamery, turning the cheeses, or so I guessed,” the warden answered. “The man and his wife were laid across the table; the old woman was on the floor, in a heap, like cast-off rags. The other two children were in the chairs, bent backward.” He crossed himself, looking unhappily at the Red Friar. “There is no blood to mark the places. They hadn’t any left.”

  The Red Friar opened his pyx and took out the Host, which he broke and placed on the center of the table, murmuring a prayer in bad Latin.

  “This should not take long,” said deSteny, and signaled his men to leave the house. “Make sure you bless the hearth and the door, and any other entrance to the place, including the windows,” he added to the Trinitarian.

  “Certainly,” said the monk, a little huffily at having his work explained to him. “I will not take long.”

  The courtyard was not light enough to ease the sinking spirits of the men-at-arms. Hamlin spoke for them all when he said, “So it isn’t outlaws who killed them.”

  “It would seem not,” said deSteny, watching the Red Friar pause in the doorway to make the sign of the cross in Holy Water on the thick planks, reciting prayers while he did.

  “What about the pigs?” asked the warden. “What’s to be done with them?”

  “Have them rounded up and turned over to Sir Gui, as death-taxes—that will save us a great deal of trouble,” answered deSteny, aware of how avaricious Sir Gui could become over such matters. “So that any relatives will not have to forfeit the holding to pay them.” As he said his, he thought it unlikely that anyone would want to keep this croft again, not after such deaths the crofters had suffered.

  “Do we go to Chefford?” asked the warden, a bit too hastily. There was sweat on his brow and he was breathing as if he had just run two leagues over rough ground. He was holding the mule’s stirrup as if the animal might bolt without him.

  “I suppose it would be wise,” said deSteny. “We must find out if the bodies were buried, and where.” He looked around the courtyard again. “We don’t want to be abroad late in the day, not this day.”

  “No, we do not,” said the Red Friar with unmonk-like alacrity. He clutched the pyx to his chest and went to mount his mule.

  How the Monks received the Bodies

  LIKE MOST Orders of monks, the Carmelites were known by the color of their habits: White Friars, as the Trinitarians were Red Friars, the Dominicans Black Friars, the Austins and Franciscans Grey Friars, the Order of the Blessed Mary Pied Friars, the Victorines Blue Friars. The abbot who met deSteny and his men at the chapel door to Chefford tossed back his white hood and regarded the armed men with disapproval.

  “And what,” he asked by way of opening when deSteny had dismounted and removed his helmet to show his peaceful intentions, “does the Sheriff of Nottingham want with me?”

  DeSteny did not rise to the challenge. He tucked his helmet under his arm and met the abbot’s stare levelly. “My warden tells me that you refused to bury a family he brought to you two days ago.”

  “That I did,” said the abbot with a sharp glance at Chilton. “Though why he should report it to you, I do not know.”

  “He reported it to me because he is sworn so to do, and well you do know it, Regis de Bonpont,” deSteny replied, using the abbot’s full name deliberately to remind the man of worldly obligations. “He is mindful of his duties, though it seems you are lax in them. He would have to tell me if outlaws had robbed a crofter, as well, or killed deer without the Prince’s warrant, or taken money from your chapel.”

  “The dead had no blood left in them,” said the abbot bluntly. “I am certain that they would contaminate consecrated ground.”

  “Though you have the task of burying the dead,” deSteny reminded him. “It is your service to God, in your Order.”

  “True enough. But what if they are not truly dead? It would be a sin to bury such as were not dead.” The abbot was pleased to see the distress in the faces of the men-at-arms.

  “It may trouble you,” said the Trinitarian, urging his mule up to the front of the line, “but if you will show me where the bodies are, I will try to lay them to rest.”

  The intense rivalry between monastic Orders flared as Carmelite and Trinitarian faced each other. At last the abbot indicated the smaller of the hamlet’s two gates, the one facing the stream that gave the place its name: Chefford meant goat-crossing. “They were put to lie there. If you want them guarded, you must do it yourself. If the bodies are still there and uneaten, you may attempt to put them in their graves, face down, Red Friar.”

  “Well enough,” said deSteny for them all. “How were the bodies left?”

  “With woven mats around them. We showed them that charity, little as they deserved it.” He held up his hand to bless deSteny’s men, but stopped before he could complete the gesture. “What will you do? We will not allow the bodies back inside the gates.”

  DeSteny did his best to contain his ire, though his frown was portentous. “No, you would not, would you?” He rocked back on his heels and considered what was best to do. “Very well, if we find enough to bury, we will put them beyond the walls, if that will satisfy you.”

  “Yes. It must,” said the Carmelite abbot.

  The Red Friar stared hard at the abbot of the White Friars. “You are supposed to do this work.”

  “For those who die in Grace, or through misadventure where Grace can be hoped for,” said the abbot sternly. “These were neither of those things. There was only damnation in their ends.”

  “Well,” said the Red Friar with a meaningful tap on his silver pyx. “God may see it otherwise.”

  The Carmelite shrugged and drew his hood up. “It is time for mid-day prayers,” he said, and without any further remark withdrew into his chapel.

  “What do you think?” asked deSteny as he remounted his sorrel mare. “Do you want to go through with this?”

  “I want to put the Devil to rest, if I can. I must do all I can,” said the Red Friar. “And I want these miserable corpses to be at peace in Christ. I will do whatever I must to bring those two things about.”

  “Very wise,” said deSteny as he saw Wroughton and his men cross t
hemselves for protection. He had long since given up such petitions. “You lead the way to where you left the bodies,” he ordered Chilton. “If you can find the place.”

  With most of the people of the hamlet in the field, Chefford looked deserted, though two spotted dogs roamed the center of the hamlet and barked as deSteny and his men passed by. In response to this alarm, a woman put her head out of the windows of one of the larger houses and watched them attentively, saying nothing. From behind her, within the house, a baby began to cry loudly.

  “Is this the gate?” deSteny asked as Chilton pulled his mule up in front of the double doors in the hamlet’s stockade.

  “It is,” said Chilton, clearly reluctant to pass through it. “They should be on the other side, laid out next to the wall.”

  “Then let’s go through,” deSteny said, and signaled Wroughton to dismount and open the gate.

  As they passed through the opening, the Red Friar said, “On a river like this, they could moat the hamlet easily.”

  “Yes,” said deSteny. “It would mean more protection, and from more dangers than outlaws.”

  Chilton pointed along the base of the wall to rolled reed mats. “There they are,” he said, sounding relieved.

  DeSteny halted the party. “Best to get to work, then,” he said with a trace of reluctance, and dismounted again, securing the reins to one of a group of rings set in the wall. He approached the reed mats carefully, not wanting to disturb any animal that might have come to feed on the flesh of the dead, or something worse. Nearing the first of them, he heard the distinct scuttle of rats, and averted his eyes as a dozen dark, furry shapes scurried away from the more distant rolls. Carefully he leaned down and flipped back the end of the mat. He stared at what he found. “Empty,” he said quietly, then directed his attention to Chilton. “Who lay here? Do you remember?”

  The warden was pale and he stammered when he answered. “Th-the man. That was the crofter.”