Free A Plague of Heretics by Bernard Knight Page B

Osric confirmed that his enquiries elsewhere along the street had been equally barren.
    ‘Let’s have a look in his house,’ commanded John, pushing open the door, which was unlocked. Nicholas Budd had occupied the ground floor of the small thatched house, the upper storey being used by a family of six who gained access by steps from the backyard. The woodcarver used the front part of his premises for his trade, with two workbenches, stacks of seasoned timber and a rack of tools on the wall. The floor was ankle deep in shavings and offcuts, but beyond a flimsy wattle partition, the rear part of the premises was clean. A firepit, now cold and dead, occupied the centre, and a table, a stool and a blanket-covered palliasse on the floor were the only furniture in Budd’s living quarters. Some food and few pots were on the table, and a small keg of cider stood in one corner.
    John sent Gwyn into the yard to look around and to make enquiries among the people upstairs, while he and Thomas looked around the ground floor. There was little enough to study, and within a couple of minutes they had drawn a blank.
    ‘So why was the poor devil so cruelly mutilated?’ muttered de Wolfe pensively. ‘It seems he had no life other than carving his bloody wood, by the looks of it.’
    Thomas nodded, his beady eyes roving around the living room.
    ‘Not even a cross or a pilgrim’s badge on the wall. Yet something he did must have caused great offence to someone.’
    Gwyn came down to report that the goodwife upstairs had not heard her neighbour since the day before yesterday. ‘Usually, she hears him sawing and chopping down here. So it looks as if he met his death the night before last.’
    ‘Did she say anything about relatives who might wish to know of his death – and who might pay for his burial?’ asked John.
    Gwyn shook his head, his ginger locks swinging wildly. ‘She knew very little about him, it seems. Thinks he came here from Bristol a couple of years ago. Doesn’t attend any church, which apparently causes offence to some of the neighbours.’
    With nothing more to be learned, the trio took themselves off to the castle gatehouse, where they ate some bread and cheese and drank ale mulled with an old sword heated in the brazier.
    Thomas was never keen on ale, a great handicap in a world where it was almost the only safe drink, given the dangers of all water, whether drawn from wells, rivers or ditches. However, when heated, Thomas could tolerate it better, though he preferred cider.
    ‘You must round up a jury for this afternoon, Gwyn,’ said de Wolfe. ‘Osric, Theobald, the lad who found the body and a few folk from Raden Lane who were knocked up by the constables. We’ll look on them “First Finders”, though as usual they’ll know damn all about what happened.’
    ‘Best add that shoemaker and the woman upstairs from Curre Street,’ said the Cornishman. ‘I wonder if he was in a craft guild – they might pay for his burial expenses?’
    ‘Who did he work for, I wonder?’ mused de Wolfe. ‘Must be a freeman on his own, I expect. If he carved stuff for churches, maybe my friend the archdeacon might know of him?’
    The coroner was correct in this, but not in quite the way he expected.
    Some time before noon, John made his way back towards Martin’s Lane for dinner, taking his horse Odin back to the livery stables opposite. He had ridden out to the gallows on Magdalen Street to witness and record the hanging of two thieves and a captured outlaw, a sight which in no way put him off his expected meal. However, on the doorstep he met Mary clutching a basket filled with new bread and a brace of sea fish from the market.
    ‘Your dinner will be another hour, Sir Coroner,’ she announced firmly. ‘My fire went out, thanks to the damp wood that old fool Simon has been chopping, so I had to relight it.’ In spite of her protests, he tore a chunk off one of the loaves and loped away, chewing the warm