When that April with his showers sweet
The drought of March has pierced to the root…
Then long folk to go on pilgrimages…
Damn. He hated that verse.
Not hated, Thomas amended. Was only brutally tired of it, having heard it a few too many times in his life to want it wandering through his head at odd moments. Besides, this wasn’t April and he was on no pilgrimage: it was definitely January and he was simply going home after rather too long a time at Westminster, where he’d only gone because he was needed to make a little peace between his cousins Hal and Gloucester, and if ever there was a thankless task in the world, that was it because the only peace either of them wanted was the other one out of his way – forever and in every way, for choice.
Ah, well. He had done what he could for now. They wouldn’t kill each other this month, likely, and he’d be home by supper if the weather held and nobody’s horse threw a shoe on the ice-set road.
Thomas eyed the grey, lowering sky and judged there was good chance the snow would hold off for the few hours more of riding he needed. January’s trouble was that the days were so short. And cold. He huddled his cloak more snugly around his shoulders and was glad of his fur-lined boots and that he had given pairs for New Year’s gifts to Giles and Ralph. They were riding behind him now without the displeasure that servants as good as they seemed able to make known without sound or gesture, when they did not approve of whatever their master had dragged them into – such as the long ride from London into Oxfordshire in a cold January with snow threatening – when there was no real need except that Thomas wanted to be home and with his books and family. And although whether those in service to him liked him or not, came second to whether or not they served him well, for choice he preferred to have people around him whom he liked and who, though he could live without it, at least somewhat liked him, too. Hal – otherwise my Lord Bishop of Winchester and son of a royal duke – had been known to tease him that such concern came from his somewhat low-born blood, to which Thomas invariably answered in return that it came from his good common sense and Hal ought to try it some time, thank you very much. Then they would laugh together.
Why was it he could talk and laugh and enjoy Hal’s company, and talk and laugh and enjoy Gloucester’s company, and all that Hal and Gloucester could do with each other was hate their respective guts? It was tedious of them and more tedious that they needed him to sort them out. Maud would say so over and over when he reached home, until he had given her kisses enough and her present from London – a pretty gold and enameled brooch this time – to make her feel she had been missed while he was gone, and then she would begin to tell him all that had happened the week and a half he’d been away and everything would be back to where it had been before he had left.
The road slacked downward and curved left and he knew that around the curve, beyond this out-thrust of trees, the Chiltern Hills fell steeply away to the lowlands that reached westward for miles upon miles, an open vastness that on a clear summer’s day at this hour would be filled with westering sunlight like a bowl full of gold, but today would be all dull shades of lead and grey. But Thomas had seen it from here in every season and weather and loved it every time and way, and besides, from here there were not many miles left to home, though it was further than it seemed because the steep, long drop from the Chilterns had to be managed first and…
With a slight sinking of spirits Thomas saw trouble ahead. A carriage stopped right at the crest above the first long downward drop of the road; and by the scurrying of three men around it and the woman standing to one side, wringing her hands and wailing, it was halted for more than the necessary checking of harness and wheels before the start of the treacherous way down.
With wanhope that it was not as bad as it looked, Thomas raised a gloved hand out of the sheltering folds of his cloak and gestured Giles to go forward and ask what the trouble was and if they might be of help, little though he wanted to be; and while Giles heeled his horse into a jog past him, Thomas put his hand back under his cloak, loosened dagger and sword in their sheaths, and then, as he and Ralph drew nearer the carriage, pushed back his cloak to leave his sword-arm free, on the chance this was after all a waylaying rather than simply someone else’s trouble.
Just for a moment then the possibility of robbery took stronger hold as Giles, after a brief word with the men there, drew his horse rapidly around and headed back with more haste than a carriage’s breakdown warranted, shouting well before he was back to Thomas’s side. “There’s some people dead here!”
Suddenly not minded to go closer, drawing rein and putting hand to sword-hilt openly, as Ralph moved closer up on his flank, Thomas asked, “I beg your pardon?”
“There’s people dead,” Giles repeated, stopping beside him. “You know William Shellaston? A merchant from Abingdon?”
“By name.” Thomas urged his horse forward. “It’s him?”
“And his wife and son, looks like.”
“All of them dead? How?”
“There’s none of that lot knows. It’s only just happened. Or they only just noticed. It’s odd, like.”
Thomas supposed it was, if three people were dead and their servants had “only just noticed”. But he was to them now, clustered beside the carriage, the woman still sobbing for the world to hear.
“I told them who you are,” Giles whispered at Thomas’s side. “That you’re a coroner and all.”
“In London,” Thomas pointed out, annoyed. For no reason anyone could explain, the office of Chief Butler to the King included the office of Coroner of London, and by that, yes, he was a coroner but, “I’ve no jurisdiction here.”
“They don’t need to know that,” Giles replied. “What they need is someone to settle them and tell them what to do.”
And here he was and had to do it Thomas supposed, and summoned up what he had heard of William Shellaston. A wine merchant whose wines were never of the best, a bad-humoured man, heavy-handed, not given to fair-dealing if he could help it, with a mind to join the landed gentry and the purchase of a manor lately near Henley to help his ambition along. Exactly the sort of man Thomas avoided like the plague because the only interest that sort had in his acquaintance was how much he could do for them.
Well, there wasn’t much to be done for him now, if he was dead, Thomas thought, dismounting beside the servants and the carriage that was of the common kind – long-bodied, with low wooden sides, closed in by canvas stretched over metal half-hoops, and high-wheeled to keep it clear of muddy roads. The richer sort were painted, sides and canvas both, but this was all brown wood and bare canvas, nothing to make it remarkable except, Thomas noted, it was solidly built, the only expense spared seeming to have been to decorate it for the eye.
The servants had all begun to talk as soon as his feet were on the ground. “Be quiet,” he said, so used to being obeyed it did not surprise him when they fell silent; then said to the man he had singled out as babbling the least at him, “What’s in hand here?”
“They’re dead. All three of them! We stopped to tell Master Shellaston we were about to start down. He hates to be surprised by the sudden drop and we’ve orders to always stop to tell him. Only when I called in, no one answered and when I looked in to see why, they were all…” He swallowed as if holding down his gorge. “… dead.”
“That’s all you know?”
The man nodded, tight-lipped over apparent gut-sickness.
“That’s all any of you know?”
More nods all around.
“No outcry? Nothing? No sign of how they’re dead?”
“Nothing,” the woman answered, her voice rising shrilly. “They’re just dead and it’s awful and…”
