by S. D. Sykes
I closed the tunic, pulling one side of the rip across the other, feeling sickened at first before experiencing another emotion – the sudden urge to run away. Nobody knew that I had been here. Nobody knew that I’d met Agnes and then mistakenly chased her into the river. Running away seemed like the right solution, and yet, even as I stood up, I knew that this was an act of pure cowardice. I could not leave Agnes’s body here, at the mercy of the foxes and the crows.
My next thought was to bury her, but I could not dig out a grave with my bare hands – not a pit deep enough to lay her body to rest. And anyway, if I were to bury her, then I would have no proof that she had been attacked. Her injuries were important pieces of evidence – pointers that might help to identify the person who had previously assaulted her. There was only one option – to face up to the consequences of my mistake and return Agnes to her home village of Stonebrook. Once she was there, the Constable could examine her body before she was buried in a Christian grave.
I made reasonable progress with this plan, once I’d established that it was easier to lift Agnes’s body over my shoulder and not in my arms. I still had to rest at regular intervals, however, where I suffered the same, terrible temptation – that I should hide her body in some undergrowth and then run away. It was an urge that I eventually managed to conquer, though I took no pride in this. The memory of that day still haunts me. Trudging through the forest with a dead girl draped over my shoulder like a wet shawl – her arms and legs swinging against my habit. The smell of her sodden, woollen clothes mixed with the stink of my sweat.
* * *
It was late afternoon when I finally stumbled into the small village of Stonebrook – a settlement of timber-framed houses and barns, arranged along a single street that ended at a muddy green. It was an unremarkable sort of place – the type of village you might find at the bottom of any country lane in Kent. Its only exceptional feature was the wall of trees that surrounded the outlying fields, bearing down on the place like an army of occupation and giving Stonebrook an oppressive, enclosed feel.
A crowd had gathered about me by the time that I reached the village green, where I rested Agnes’s body onto a grassy bank and called for somebody to rouse her family and the local Constable. Stonebrook was located in lands that were owned by my monastery, so the villagers were used to seeing monks from Kintham about the place – though not one who had arrived with a dead girl across his shoulder. Needless to say, I was met with a mixture of astonishment and horror, as the villagers jostled against one another to get a look at Agnes’s miserable, stiffening body. The women huddled together and held their hands to their mouths in shock. The men simply stared on in silence.
Eventually word of Agnes’s death reached her only family – her mother, a poor widow named Beatrice Wheeler, who now pushed her way through the crowd and then grasped at her daughter’s body, shaking the girl repeatedly as if this might bring her back to life. I didn’t intervene, but when Beatrice had finally convinced herself that nothing would wake Agnes, I gently touched her shoulder. She looked up at me with eyes that were dazed and bewildered. ‘Is it true, what they’re saying?’ she said. ‘You found her?’
I nodded. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It was me.’
‘Where?’
‘In the forest,’ I answered. ‘Near to the mire.’
‘The mire?’ The woman’s mouth hung open, before her face tightened into a frown. ‘But I don’t understand,’ she said. ‘What was Agnes doing by the mire?’ She shook her head repeatedly. ‘Why would she go there? It doesn’t make sense.’
‘How long has Agnes been missing?’ I asked. It was a simple question, but Beatrice Wheeler stared back at me as if she didn’t understand what I was saying. I tried again, realising that she was frozen in shock. ‘When did you last see Agnes?’
She finally nodded at this, as if the words had just been translated to her from a foreign language. ‘Five days ago,’ she said. ‘Agnes left home on Thursday and never came back.’
‘Where was she going?’
Once again her reaction to my question was delayed. ‘To market,’ she said. ‘Agnes was taking some cheese to sell.’
‘And you have no idea where she’s been since then?’
She shook her head. ‘I’ve been out searching for her,’ the woman mumbled as she passed her hand through her daughter’s damp, tangled hair, and then patted her sodden tunic. ‘What’s happened to Agnes?’ she whispered, looking up at me with reddened eyes. ‘I don’t understand. Why is she wet?’
I took a deep breath. ‘She drowned,’ I said.
‘Drowned?’ she replied, now screwing her face back into the frown. ‘In the mire?’
‘No. It was the river.’
‘But I thought you said that you found her by the mire?’
I was saved from having to answer this difficult question, by the arrival of the village Constable, John Roach, who scythed his way through the crowd like a reaping hook. Though we had never spoken before, I had seen Roach on many occasions previously at Kintham, when he came to make his monthly reports on the conduct of the villagers to the Abbot. Roach was a tall, conceited man with a shock of thick, white hair that rested on the top of his head like a sheepskin mat.
‘What’s going on?’ he said, his voice booming across the heads of the smaller men and women. ‘Why are you all gathered up in this rabble?’
A woman piped up from the crowd. ‘It’s Agnes Wheeler,’ she said. ‘The girl is dead.’
Roach drew in his chin and looked at the woman with disdain. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘See for yourself,’ she answered, pointing at Agnes’s body. ‘Looks dead to me.’
Roach stepped forward to make his inspection, unable to disguise his initial disgust at Agnes’s corpse, before gingerly prodding at her cold skin with the end of his finger. For a man responsible for dealing with crime in this village, Roach seemed curiously squeamish about death.
It was time for me to speak up. I could delay it no longer. ‘I was the one who found her body,’ I said, tapping him on the shoulder.
John Roach turned his head to face mine. We were the same height, meaning that he was unable to look down at me – a fact that seemed to cause him a certain level of consternation. ‘And who are you?’ he demanded to know.
I took a deep breath. ‘My name is Brother Oswald,’ I replied. ‘I’m a novice at Kintham Abbey and son of Henry de Lacy.’ I added this last piece of information in the hope that the mention of my family name would unsettle him a little. The de Lacy lands abutted those of the monastery, and my father was known to be rich and powerful.
‘And what have you got to do with this?’ he replied with much the same tone as he had previously used with the village woman. Clearly my familial connections had not impressed him in the least.
‘I met Agnes by the mire,’ I answered.
He raised his eyebrows, causing his thick white fringe to tickle at his eyes. ‘You met her?’ he said, pushing the hair from his face. ‘I thought you said that you found her body. So, which is it?’ The crowd about us fell silent. They wanted to know the answer to this question as much as Roach did.
‘Well, yes,’ I answered. ‘You see, she was alive when I met her.’
Roach folded his arms. ‘Well, she’s not alive now, is she? So, what happened to her?’
My heart began to pound, thrumming its beat in my eardrums. ‘It was a chance meeting,’ I said, suddenly realising how weak my story sounded. ‘I was in the forest, collecting Sundew. It’s a plant we use for—’
‘Thank you,’ Roach cut in. ‘We know the uses for Sundew. I asked you why this girl is dead.’
I looked away, feeling panicked and wanting to rest my eyes anywhere but in the orbit of Roach’s fierce gaze. For a moment I alighted upon a new face in the crowd – a woman who was watching me with a pair of the palest blue eyes. She was much taller and better dressed than any of the other women of the village, and appeared to stand in a space a
ll of her own, as if she had the power to part the waves. Our eyes locked for a moment and she gave me an encouraging smile.
I wiped my forehead and turned back to Roach. ‘I was washing my hands in a stream, when I found Agnes hiding in some bushes.’ I paused. ‘I called out to her and asked if she needed my help.’
‘And what did she say?’
I hesitated, when I should have been more definite. I was telling the truth and had nothing to hide. ‘She just shied away from me.’ I said, before taking a moment to choose my next words. ‘She seemed disturbed.’
‘Disturbed?’ he said. ‘How was she disturbed?’
‘Agnes didn’t recognise me,’ I replied. ‘Even though we’ve met many times before at Kintham.’ When Roach didn’t make a reply to this, I continued. ‘I tried to help her,’ I said, clearing my throat in time to thwart the sob that had been stubbornly brewing. ‘But she misunderstood me.’
‘Why’s that?’ asked Roach.
‘She seemed to think that I meant her some harm,’ I said.
He raised an eyebrow. ‘And did you?’
‘No, of course not,’ I replied indignantly. ‘Agnes had been attacked by somebody before we met,’ I continued. ‘She was not of sound mind.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘Look at her body, Master Roach. See her injuries for yourself.’
‘I will make all of the necessary examinations later,’ said Roach. ‘But you still haven’t explained why Agnes was alive when you met her, and now she is dead.’
‘Agnes ran away when I tried to help her,’ I replied, looking about to see all the faces in the crowd staring back at me intently. ‘She wasn’t looking where she was going,’ I croaked.
‘Speak up,’ said Roach. ‘We can’t hear you.’
‘I tried to save her, I really did,’ I continued, raising my voice but speaking far too quickly as a consequence. ‘But Agnes ran into the river before I could stop her. I called out to her and told her to come back to the safety of the river bank, but it was too late. She was swept away by the strong currents.’ I paused for a moment to catch my breath. ‘I shouted at Agnes. Telling her to grasp a branch, or work her way towards the bank. But she couldn’t hear me. By the time that I caught up with her downstream, she had drowned,’ I said. ‘I did everything that I could to save her.’
I felt exhausted and cornered, unable to think of anything else to say, but when I looked up, I was met by a wall of silent faces. My story had horrified the gathered crowd and they looked back at me with a mixture of scorn and suspicion. I cast my eyes across to the tall woman again, hoping to receive another friendly, encouraging smile, but even she avoided my gaze.
I was finally saved by a group of young women who pushed their way to the front of the crowd like a gang of wrestlers at a charter fair. At the head of this phalanx was Aldith Brewer, a young woman I recognised from the manorial court, where she often appeared to pay her childwyte fines to the Abbey. By the size of her belly, it seemed she would soon be back in front of the Abbot, for her latest bastard was surely due to be born at any day.
Aldith glanced at Agnes’s body, before turning to point an accusing finger at Roach. ‘I told you to go looking for her, didn’t I? And now she’s dead.’
Roach puffed out his chest like a cockerel. ‘Oh yes,’ he replied contemptuously. ‘And what’s this got to do with you?’
Aldith folded her arms across her belly. This pair were clearly old adversaries. ‘I told you Agnes was in danger, didn’t I?’ she said. ‘Just like my sister was. Just like all of those other women who never came back.’
‘What others?’ I asked, trying to intervene. Aldith either didn’t hear my question, or deliberately chose to ignore me. ‘How do we know those women aren’t dead as well?’ she asked Roach. ‘Beaten and ill-used like poor Agnes here?’
Roach groaned. ‘How many times do I have to say this same thing to you, Aldith Brewer? They’re not dead. They left Stonebrook of their own accord.’
‘That’s not true,’ said Aldith, ‘and you know it. My sister Mary only went out to collect firewood, and she never came back. You should have gone looking for her that same day. But you couldn’t be bothered.’ The women about Aldith nodded and muttered in support. ‘You wouldn’t listen, would you? Mary meant nothing to you. Just because she was poor.’
‘Your sister ran off,’ replied Roach, as his cheeks started to redden. ‘Everybody knew what she was like.’
‘And what was that, then?’ asked Aldith.
‘Wilful and flighty.’
‘She was not!’
‘Yes, she was,’ replied Roach. ‘You just don’t want to accept the truth.’ The redness in his cheeks had deepened to form angry purple patches. ‘That she took herself off to London.’
‘You always say that,’ replied Aldith. ‘But it’s not true. Mary was taken by somebody. Just like all those other missing women. You should have searched for them, John Roach. You should have done your duty.’
‘Search for them?’ Roach threw back his head in laughter. ‘I’ll tell you where to find your sister. With all the others who ran away. Working in the bankside stews of Southwark. Spreading their legs for a farthing.’
‘That is enough, Roach!’ I shouted, not able to listen to this any longer. ‘There is a dead girl in our midst. Not to mention her grieving mother.’
Roach was shocked by my outburst and took a moment to compose himself. ‘Well, who’s fault is that, then?’ he answered, turning to face me.
‘It sounds to me as if you should have searched for these other missing women,’ I replied. ‘You bear some blame here.’
Roach stepped towards me, and had the audacity to put a heavy hand on my shoulder. ‘So it’s my mistake, is it? I like the cheek of that,’ he said. ‘You chase a girl into a river, and somehow I’m to blame?’ I tried to pull away, but his grip was strong and I couldn’t escape. ‘It sounds to me like there’s more to this story,’ he leant forward to whisper into my ear. ‘Did Agnes catch your fancy, Brother Oswald?’ he said. ‘Is that why you frightened her? Is that why she ran from you?’
‘No,’ I replied. ‘Of course not.’
I was trying to escape his grasp when Aldith came to my rescue again, elbowing her way between the two of us. ‘Leave him alone,’ she said. ‘At least Brother Oswald tried to help Agnes. That’s more than you’ve ever done.’
Roach glowered. ‘I thought I told you to be quiet.’
His threats had no effect on Aldith. She was commendably unafraid of the man. ‘Brother Oswald’s from the Abbey,’ she continued. ‘So if he says that he tried to help Agnes, then I believe him. We all should.’
Roach balled his fist. ‘What would you know about abbeys, you dirty little trollop? You don’t even attend mass at the parish church.’
‘Least I’m not a liar and a hypocrite, like you,’ Aldith replied, now squaring up to Roach – despite being much smaller than her opponent, not to mention heavily pregnant. ‘Happy to court us at night, and then call us to court in the morning.’
‘Shut up!’ he hissed.
‘Do you know what we call you, John Roach?’ she said. ‘The Cock Roach.’ She turned to the other women in her gang and laughed. ‘What’s it we say?’ she called out. ‘Lock your doors. The Cock Roach is coming!’
Roach swung his arm at her face but Aldith swerved as deftly as a fist-fighter, prompting jeers from the other women that only served to infuriate the man further.
‘Get here you little strumpet!’ he shouted. ‘I’d rather slake my lust with the cheapest Winchester goose, than bed the likes of you!’ As he attempted to pounce on Aldith, fists bunched and arms spinning, the other women bundled in to form a defensive circle about their leader. I went to pull Roach away, but received a thump on the side of my jaw for my efforts. I fell back in pain, as the tall woman with the pale blue eyes finally stepped in and was able to bring this brawl to a swift conclusion. She pushed her way past the women and laid a hand on John
Roach’s arm, causing him to freeze immediately at her touch.
‘Stop this, Master Roach,’ she said, her voice confident and clear, and missing all of the drawl of the local accent. ‘What a disgraceful spectacle.’
Roach dusted himself down. ‘She started it,’ he muttered, pointing at Aldith.
The tall woman ignored this remark and turned to me. ‘Brother Oswald. I apologise that you have had to witness such behaviour.’
‘Spirits are running high,’ I replied, rubbing my jaw.
‘Even so. You should have been shown more gratitude. Particularly as you made such an effort to return this poor girl’s body to her home.’
‘Thank you,’ I said sheepishly – acutely aware that I didn’t deserve any thanks, let alone an apology.
The woman bestowed another of those warm smiles upon me. ‘You say that Agnes Wheeler was already injured when you found her?’ she said.
‘That’s right,’ I answered.
‘Did she tell you who had attacked her?’
I shook my head.
‘Did she say anything to you at all?’
I thought for a moment, considering whether or not to reveal Agnes’s last words to me – Keep away from me, priest. Given my current circumstances and the potential for these words to be misunderstood, I shook my head and told a fib – saying that Agnes had remained silent.
The tall woman gave a sigh. ‘What a shame,’ she replied. ‘We might have learnt more.’ With this she turned back to Roach, with a sweep of her skirts. ‘We should raise the Hue and Cry, Master Roach. You must search the forest for the man who attacked Agnes.’
‘That’s what we asked him to do last time,’ said Aldith, with some umbrage that somebody else was taking charge. ‘But Roach wouldn’t do it, would he? Said he was too busy.’