The Gallows Murders Read Online Free

met those who will swear on oath that Agrippa was with Richard III at Bosworth Field. According to these old men, Agrippa advised that cruel prince to make the dreadful charge which ensnared him in a marsh, and so Richard lost his life, his crown and the kingdom. And there are others, even as I am now past my ninetieth year, who have made their way to Burpham Manor to tell me how they met Agrippa in the dark green woods of Virginia outside Jamestown, in the sun-scorched streets of Constantinople, or even in the snowy, icy wastes outside Moscow. They always tell the same tale: dressed in black, Agrippa hadn't grown a day older than when I knew him in those blood-drenched days of Henry VIII.
    Agrippa would come, but on those evenings when I found the stables empty and my master waiting alone for me in the hall, ‘I’d heave a sigh of relief. Tonight, at least, ‘I’d sleep the sleep of the just. We would sup and I would listen to Benjamin chatter about his school, though keeping one eye on a young, buxom chambermaid who, when she served my meal, dipped her generous bosom to show both her glories.
    Oh, I confess, our life at our manor was a veritable Eden, but every paradise has its serpent. Eventually ours appeared in the shape of a plump, well-fed matron, Isabella Poppleton. Goodwoman Poppleton and her sneering sons lived on the other side of the valley and deeply resented my master's good fortune. The sons were bloated bags of wind, but Isabella was a veritable viper in petticoats. If she had bitten an adder it would have died of poisoning. She had a tongue which would clip a hedge and could shovel dirt faster than a gravedigger. Her tongue was a sharpened sword and she made sure it never went rusty. I called her, the 'Great Mouth'.
    Trouble first appeared one Sunday morning as Benjamin and I left Mass. We were out of the porch, walking towards the lychgate, when I saw Goodwoman Poppleton standing amongst the gravestones with a gaggle of gossips who hung on her every word. As we passed they fell silent, but Isabella's eyes, bleak and hateful, bored into my master. I quietly made an obscene gesture with my middle finger. However, the bitch hadn't been to Italy, so she didn't know what it meant, though she must have understood the spirit in which it was intended. Now such hate worried me. I tried to talk to my master. He just shook his head and refused to listen, so I wandered down to the White Hart tavern in the village where, after Mass, all the gossips gathered to tear their neighbours to pieces. When I entered the taproom, a group of young bloods sitting in the corner looked up, sniggering behind their hands. I recognised one of them as Edmund Poppleton, the elder of the Great Mouth's sons. 'What's the joke?' I asked.
    The landlord, a goodly man who served me a tankard of ale and a beef stew pie, glanced sadly at me and shook his head. The gigglers returned to their whispering, so I drank my ale, broke my fast and returned to the manor.
    The next morning, Benjamin came into my chamber where I was concocting a new remedy to cure catarrh: powdered goose bones mixed with garlic and salt. It was making me cough and sneeze so I judged it to be a good cure of the rheums. Benjamin sat down on a stool on the other side of the table. I babbled away about what I was doing. He remained silent but, when I looked up, his eyes were sad, pricked with tears.
"What's the matter, Master?'
    This morning young Tom the miller's son told me about the rumours going around the village,' he replied. He swallowed hard. That I only started the school because I like young boys.'
I dropped the knife I was holding.
    ‘You, Master, an apple-squire? A bum-boy? And did Tom believe it?'
    Benjamin shook his head. 'He was very angry. He claimed the Poppletons were behind such dreadful rumours.'
    I cursed the Great Mouth with every filthy word I could muster. Benjamin shook his head and got up but, even as he left, I glimpsed the tears trickling down his