The Dance of Death by Kate Sedley

smell of fresh blood assailed my nostrils most powerfully, making me flinch. There was nothing in the room except for a clothes chest and a bed, both of which I could just make out in the gloom, for this upper storey had no window and relied, even in daytime, either on candlelight or on the faint glow that came up from the living quarters downstairs. All the same, I could see that the cloud of flies was hovering and settling on something sprawled across the bed. Instinct told me at once what it was – or, rather, who it was – but I had to be certain. I returned to the ground floor and lit a candle, which I found on one of the shelves, together with a tinderbox, and then went back upstairs, holding the flame aloft with a hand that trembled.
    Humphrey Culpepper – for who else could it possibly be? – lay face upwards, his throat cut neatly and cleanly from ear to ear. It was beautifully done, if one can ever say such a thing about murder, the head almost severed from the body, but the sight made me retch and I almost dropped the candle. I clutched the bedpost for a moment or two, feeling dizzy, then managed to pull myself together, angry at such weakness. I forced myself to look around, taking in the details.
    Humphrey Culpepper lay with his head towards the top of the stairs and was dressed in hose, shirt and boots, his right arm through a sleeve of his jerkin. I reckoned that after going outside to the drain, he had come upstairs again to finish dressing before going down once more to light his fire and make his porridge. He was sitting on the further edge of his bed, his back towards the staircase, and had neither heard his murderer entering the cottage nor creeping up to kill him. At his age, he was likely to be somewhat deaf, a probability of which his assailant had taken full advantage. Completely unaware of being in any danger – for what did he know of the machinations of Timothy Plummer or that I was on my way to interrogate him? – Culpepper had been seized from behind and despatched, with all the skill and precision of a butcher, to meet his Maker unshriven, which meant that he would have to spend a longer time in Purgatory. A cruel fate and one that made me angry, not merely with whoever killed him, but with Timothy and myself.
    The thought of Timothy brought me up short. As a law-abiding citizen, it was my duty to raise the alarm, and I had almost been on the verge of doing so, but what if I were to fall under suspicion for the murder? The goodwife next door would confirm that I had been making enquiries about Master Culpepper earlier in the morning, and although I had no doubt that I would be cleared in time, the investigation would draw just the sort of attention to me that the spymaster and Duke Richard were anxious to avoid. No; although every fibre of my being called out for justice on the person who had committed this atrocity, I knew that I had no choice but to get away from there as quickly as possible, without being seen, and report back to Timothy at Baynard’s Castle.
    My demand for an interview with Master Plummer produced the information that he was at present unavailable, being closeted with my lord of Gloucester.
    â€˜Splendid!’ I said to the supercilious steward who was regarding me as though I were something slimy that had just crawled out of the wall. ‘I’ll see the duke as well, then. It’ll kill two birds with one stone.’ The steward raised haughty eyebrows and curled his lip, but I kept my temper. ‘You’ll be sorry if you don’t take my message to His Grace,’ I said coldly, in a voice every bit as disdainful as his own. ‘He will not be pleased. In fact, he’ll probably be very annoyed.’
    In the event, I was the one who found himself in hot water.
    â€˜Will you stop drawing attention to yourself like this, Roger?’ Timothy demanded furiously. ‘You can’t insist on access to a meeting between my