New Blood From Old Bones by Sheila Radley Page B

To see the facts engraved on cold metal was to re-live his anguish. That Anne should have been bereft of breath at the age of twenty – and on the eighteenth of May, the sweet o’the year …
    But that was four years ago, and much had happened since then. He swallowed, dashed the back of his hand across his eyes, and slowly got to his feet. Then he lit a candle, said a prayer for the repose of her soul, and went outside to join his waiting godfather.
    Lawrence Throssell took his arm for a moment. ‘Is the memorial well done?’ he asked, looking anxiously up at him.
    Will cleared his throat, and gave the older man the reassurance he sought. ‘I thank you, yes – it is well done.’
    They walked round the tower of the church and came to the south side. Here in the sun, with the noise and colour of the market place before them, Will lifted his head and breathed more easily.
    â€˜Tell me,’ enquired his godfather, spying up at him shrewdly, ‘have you any thought of marrying again?’
    â€˜No, I have not!’
    â€˜Come – you are too young a man to forgo it.’
    Will paused. ‘I do not deny some dalliance, in France and Italy,’ he said. ‘But as for marriage – I could not marry where I cannot love, and I cannot love except with heart and mind, as it was with Anne.’
    â€˜Well, well.’ Lawrence Throssell smiled benevolently. ‘I have married thrice, and loved all three women in good measure. I would have you know, son-in-law, that when you desire to marry again, you will have my blessing. And now we will say no more on ‘t.’
    The church bell had already rung the noonday hour and there was no sign of the constable. They returned to the northern side of the church, where the low, stone-built mortuary stood among the grave-mounds, shadowed by a great yew tree.
    In the far corner of the churchyard a new grave was in process of being dug. No one was in sight, but earth was being heaved up by the spadeful as though some great mole was working in the depths. And from the depths, between heavings, came a cheerful whistling.
    â€˜Are you there, master sexton?’ called Justice Throssell.
    There was a scrambling from below and presently an earthy countenance, as hairy as a mole’s, peered at them over the mound of excavated soil.
    â€˜Good morrow, sirs!’ cried Hob Pulfer merrily. An empty flagon, lying on the grass beside his mattock and cast-off jerkin, no doubt accounted for his good humour.
    â€˜A fine day to be out in the air! Eh, master?’ he added, addressing a skull he had brought up with him from the grave, and then tossing it to one side for reburial. Other bones he had left half-embedded in the soil, for the churchyard had been well used over the centuries and there was no ground that had not already been occupied more than once.
    â€˜Are you come to see the murdered corse, sir?’ he asked Justice Throssell. He grinned, his stump-toothed mouth as dark as the grave he was digging. ‘I warrant you’ll find him a mystery!’
    â€˜You do not know him?’
    â€˜Nay! And nor would his own mother. Not only was he stabbed, sir, he was beaten about the head. But I know this about him –’ The sexton tapped his nose with one earth-caked finger. ‘Whoever killed him,’ he said, nodding sagely, ‘wanted him well dead.’

Chapter Six
    The sexton’s son, another Hob, as squat as his father and almost as hairy, came hurrying round the church tower from the direction of the market place. He was carrying a filled flagon, which he tried to hide behind his back as soon as he saw Justice Throssell.
    â€˜Give you good day, sirs,’ he mumbled. And to his father: ‘The constable’s now coming.’
    â€˜Then we are required to attend the corse,’ said the sexton importantly. ‘Lend me a hand out of here, boy – and do not spill the ale, for I have need of a