Sufficient Unto the Day: A Matthew Cordwainer Medieval Mystery by Joyce Lionarons

Author:Joyce Lionarons [Lionarons, Joyce]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-09-22T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

“Where now, Master?” asked Jarvis as they stepped back into the wind. “What did the Sheriff say?”

Cordwainer shook his head, then pulled the hood of his cloak up to keep the wind from his ears. What was he to do now? He considered returning to the Minster to speak to Archdeacon Godfrey; if he told the Archdeacon all he had learned, most likely Godfrey would take the matter out of his hands and go directly to the King’s justices. De Bury would be forced to confess, by torture if necessary, and he would surely lose his head on the executioner’s block.

Yet Cordwainer had no true proof of the Sheriff’s guilt. The testimony of a child and a madwoman, a scrap of black velvet – twas not enough to send a man to his death or it should not be. Nay, he would not go to Godfrey, not yet.

“Take me to Goodramgate,” he told Jarvis. “Tis past time I questioned the neighbors there again.”

“Aye, Master. But are you certain you wish to walk so far?”

“I am certain I do not wish to do so,” Cordwainer said. “Yet I must.”

They turned their steps back to the Castle gate. Cordwainer knew that Jarvis was aching to know what had been said in de Bury’s chamber, but he had taught the lad not to question when information was not forthcoming. Twas not that he did not trust Jarvis, but he preferred to keep his own counsel. He would speak when he was certain he knew the truth.

Goodramgate was almost deserted, its residents busy at their work – Cordwainer could smell the lye of a soap-maker and the herbs of a dyer. The steady pounding of a carpenter’s hammer rang in the air. He paused for a moment in front of the Cobbs’s house, then pulled at the door, thinking he might search the building a second time. It was locked. With a shrug, he turned to the house on the right, its door open to the street.

The fragrance of freshly-cut wood washed over him as he stepped inside. To one side a thick log some four feet long and still bearing its bark sat clamped between two high wooden frames ready for cutting; lengths of cut lumber were stacked by the wall behind it. Two newly-made ladders leaned against the opposite wall, on which were hung the tools of the carpenter’s trade: axes and chisels, hammers and awls, planes and sanding blocks of every shape and size. A tall trestle table, meant to be used standing, held scraps of vellum covered not with writing but with charcoal diagrams of work waiting to be done.

Richard Ell the carpenter was a tall man with dark hair tied back and a black beard, crouching over a half-finished wooden bench. He glanced up at Cordwainer, then laid his hammer on the worktable with a pleasant smile. “Master Coroner, are you come to say you’ve found the killer?”

“Nay, I fear not, Master Ell,” Cordwainer replied. “I’ve but come to ask if you have remembered aught that might help me.

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