A number of you seemed to like the first part of Rogation Day, which I posted last week (if you missed it, catch up here). Here’s the second installment, and it appears to be turning into a serial. That’s both good and bad. I nered to keep it going and make sure there’s enough to keep you interested. But I’m also getting caught up in the tell of it and what might happen. No, honestly, I don’t know; I’m truly making it up as I go. But Elizabethan Leeds is a new era for me, so we’ll discover it together, shall we?

Meanwhile, on with Part 2…

            ‘Where should we take him, Gil?’

            I thought for a moment. ‘The house of pleas,’ I said. Plenty of room to gather the witnesses and hear testimony and have a proper view of the corpse. ‘Everyone there and wait.’

            They made their way in twos and threes, reluctant to be a part of this. But this was murder, plain to everyone with eyes in their face.

            My mind was galloping. Men ended up in brawls, wounded in pain. That usually came after drinking. I could only recall two murders in Leeds during my lifetime: a gentleman had slain his servant, as if it was his right, and the judge decided it was just, leaving the killer to smirk his way from court with his friends. The other had been a woman at the end of her tether after beatings from her husband. I’d been part of the night watch, attending the mean little house on Vicar Lane with its spinning wheel in one corner. She’d admitted it, given her reason. She knew she’d die for it, a price she was willing to pay. Hung up on Chapeltown Moor, the occasion like a holiday for the townsfolk.

            Those had been straightforward. This was going to be much harder.

            I strode out ahead of the others, back into Leeds along Mabgate, banging on Richard’s door once again before going in. I knew I’d find nothing, but I had to check.

            Tenche dead, Richard missing. I didn’t know of any connection between them, but they had to be neighbours.

2

The body was laid out along the table and stripped, just a sheet for modesty. I’d sent for the coroner, Mr Bateson, to come and examine it, offer his judgement, and given a boy a farthing to gather the aldermen. I could hear voices outside as a crowd gathered, drawn by the horror of the news.

            ‘He was stabbed.’ Bateson’s words filled the expectant silence in the room. He was the apothecary, the only man in Leeds with any knowledge of medicine. ‘There, under his ribs.’ The man pointed it out for everyone to see before turning to me. ‘My fee?’

            God’s love. A lost life in front of him and all he could consider was a few pennies.

            ‘Send your bill,’ I told him. ‘You’ll be paid.’

            As soon as he’d gone, I raised my voice. ‘Any doubt this was murder?’ Nobody dissented.

            We needed to find the killer, and the reason. His Catholicism, or his position as cloth searcher. Where was Richard? With each passing moment, my doubts grew.

            I’d known him all my life, playing together as infants, then at the petty school, two years of learning to read and write while we were filled with the Scriptures. Protestant under old King Henry and his son, then Catholic when Mary took the throne, and back to Protestant after Elizabeth succeeded to the crown, God save her majesty.

            Richard had never been in a fight, as peaceable a man as they came. A fine musician and a good carpenter; he’d completed his apprenticeship, never an argument with his master, and solid in his work. Our wives died within a year of each other, his Bertha in her childbed after a stillborn baby, my Lizzie taken by the sleeping sickness. Neither of us had remarried. We’d never discussed it, but I suspect our reasons were the same: we couldn’t face heartbreak again. Both of us were find alone, meeting two or three evenings a week to practice with the Waits or play for dances. A few drinks afterwards.

            Not a violent bone in his body. What had happened to him?

I noticed Alderman Sykes stood at the back of the hall, looking quizzically down at the floorboards, hat in his hand, the plumes fluttering as they caught the small breeze from the open window. He was well-dressed as ever, a black doublet, sleeves artfully slashed to display the blood red material beneath. Black hose and buckled shoes, a small white ruff around his neck. The starched pleats neatly ironed.

            ‘We’ll need to tell his wife,’ I said.

            ‘She’ll know,’ he replied. ‘Don’t you think the whole town will have heard by now, Gil Craven?’

            ‘Mrs Tenche might know something to guide us, sir.’

            ‘Possibly,’ he agreed after a few seconds’ consideration. ‘She’ll need to arrange the burial.’

            ‘You knew him well, didn’t you?’

            ‘I knew him,’ he agreed. ‘I wouldn’t say well.’

            In a town like Leeds, every face was familiar. With a little over three thousand souls, each day you saw the same folk. Friendships, though, were different. I’d often seen Sykes and Tenche in the alehouses, heads together as they talked.

            ‘Do you think it had to do with his position?’ Sykes asked.

            ‘I don’t know, sir. That’s why I need to ask questions.’

            He nodded. Walter Tenche had been serving his year as cloth searcher. It was a position of honour among the merchants, voted by the others for his honesty and integrity. He examined the cloth offered for sale on Leeds Bridge on market days, every Tuesday and Saturday, making sure the quality of the worsted and northern dozens was high enough to be sold as Leeds cloth. We didn’t have guilds like York, so our merchants could sell more cheaply. The cloth searcher could refuse pieces and ensure the reputation of everything offered here was high. A dispute over that could well be a reason for murder.

            Sykes was a merchant. He’d been born to it. His father had made money in the wool trade and Charles Sykes has seen business expand. He’d built a stone loom house behind his home on Briggate, three apprentices working for him. A wealthy man with a heavy purse dangling from his belt, next to the sharp dagger in its sheath.

            He was very aware of his status in the town, but a good man for all that. Did he know about Tenche’s hidden Catholicism? Unless it was important, that was something I hoped to keep hidden; no need for it to taint him in death.

            ‘I’ll go and see his widow,’ Sykes said. I could see the calculation behind his eyes. He had three children, the oldest ten; his wife had died last year. Mrs Tenche had two young children of her own. Very soon she would need the protection and money of a husband.

The third part will arrive in a week or two – if you want it. Meanwhile, both the Cathy Marsden WWII novels, No Precious Truth and The Faces Of The Dead are currently £1.99 on Kindle – the first is just 99p (free with Kindle Unlimited). That’s two books for around the price of a coffee. You’re not likely to find a better bargain this week. I truly hope you’ll but them – because they’re good. I sweated blood and tears over those books!