Oathbreaker (The King's Hounds series)

by Martin Jensen

“When he told us to stand here,” he said, looking smug now.

  Of course he was calm—he had no idea there had been a murder in the church. He was simply obeying an order, as he had so many times before.

  “And the gate guards let you do that?”

  “Yes,” he said, with a cavalier shrug of his shoulders that told me the guards had protested, but lost. But it also confirmed that there hadn’t been any spears present before the murder occurred. As far as I knew.

  I waited with my back to the church door. It was light out now, and men were coming and going between the various monastery buildings. My eyes fell on the gate. It was closed, as Winston had ordered. I raised my hand in greeting to Wulfgar and Alwyn, who were standing on either side of the gate, each of them positioned next to a local guard.

  I surveyed the palisade and realized something I hadn’t noticed or taken an interest in before: the palisade was a true defensive enclosure. Built of tree trunks, sharpened on top, the palisade stakewall ran from the gate around behind the monastery buildings, around the cemetery, behind the church, and then curved all the way back around to the gate. It enclosed quite a large space, a good four arrowshots across. It was as large as a palisade you might find around a village, but the palisade around a village would have guards stationed along it at intervals. The monastery’s enclosure was completely unmanned apart from the gate guards.

  In other words, anyone could have just climbed over the palisade during the night. Or maybe there was an opening where one could crawl under it. As soon as I could, I would come back and check if the wooden stakewall had been breached.

  I saw the mute man’s stocky form emerge from the guesthouse along with the spearman who’d been sent to fetch him. The mute man walked straight over to me and stopped when he was a couple of paces away.

  “We need your help, my friend,” I told him.

  He nodded and followed me into the church.

  Winston stood where I’d left him, next to Godfrid’s body, his face turned toward the swords before the altar. When we reached him, he snapped out of his deep thoughts, nodded affably to the tongueless man, and asked if he’d heard what had happened.

  The man came to a stop next to the body—having glanced at it indifferently the way a person who’s seen a lot of dead bodies is wont to do—and nodded.

  “Who informed you?” Winston asked.

  The mute man brought his hand up to his hair and made a circular motion. I stifled a smile. Well, necessity teaches the naked woman to spin, and so it must teach the tongueless man to speak with his hands.

  “Turold?” I didn’t think that was who he’d meant, and sure enough, he shook his head no.

  “So, Edmund,” Winston surmised before continuing: “Would you be so kind as to place your sword where you put it yesterday?”

  The mute man looked at Winston in surprise, then reached his hand out for the sword, which Winston handed to him, hilt first. Winston had a firm hold on the sheath.

  “There’s blood on the hilt,” Winston said.

  The man shrugged in a gesture that indicated this wouldn’t be the first time. He took his sword without reacting to the blood, which must still have been sticky, and placed it between the other two swords on the floor.

  Winston and I both looked from the sword to each other.

  “And this was the way you positioned it?” Winston asked.

  The mute man looked at the sword; then he reached out and pulled it toward himself a bit so that it was no longer even with the other two.

  Winston and I exchanged looks again. Now we knew why the murderer had chosen that sword. The hilt was sticking out, by the width of a hand, compared to the other two. That had obviously made it easy to grab.

  I cleared my throat and held out my hand. The mute man gave me a look, then understood what I meant. He picked his sword back up and handed it to me.

  I unsheathed it and shone the torch over the beautiful old blade. In the flickering light, I saw runes running down the blade just below the hilt. I pointed them out and Winston leaned forward.

  The runes were easy to read, even for me, a man not very skilled in letters. Winston, who knew both his Latin letters and the runic alphabet, read the inscription aloud: EADWULF.

  “Is that your name?” Winston asked.

  I wasn’t surprised when the mute man shook his head. The inscription seemed old. I glanced at Winston, who clearly had no more idea who Eadwulf was than I did. The name was not that unusual, even in our time, and I smiled at the thought that Simon would have to put up with another man with a heathen name, though one which meant something as simple as Rich Wolf.

  “But it is your sword?” I asked. The mute man hesitated before he nodded.

  “Are you sure?”

  The man set down the sword and then mimicked slicing through the air, like a man chopping with an ax. Then he pretended to fall, and then grabbed for the sword again.

  “You took it from a fallen man?”

  He nodded. That’s how soldiers get their weapons: they loot them from fallen enemies. I’d seen this man fight and knew he could defeat even the best.

  An exclamation from Winston interrupted my thoughts. Winston held out the sword to show us another inscription on the other side of the blade. Below a cross, runes ran down the left side of the blade from the hilt: ULF REVENGE.

  “Are you Ulf?” I asked.

  He nodded.

  “And you got your revenge when you took this sword from this Eadwulf?”

  He hesitated and then shook his head.

  “It doesn’t have anything to do with revenge?” I guessed.

  Ulf’s nod indicated that it did.

  Now Winston stepped in. “But it wasn’t Eadwulf you killed?”

  The man nodded.

  Of course the runes indicated the name of the man who’d originally had the sword made. But it could have had many owners since the original owner had been gathered to his fathers. And what did that mean for us? This soldier had taken the sword from a man he had killed as an act of revenge, a man who in turn had probably kept it as a trophy after having killed its previous owner.

  At least now we knew two things about this soldier. His name was Ulf, and he was a proud man, so proud that he inscribed on his sword that he had taken his revenge.

  “You took revenge for your tongue being cut out,” I said, after it suddenly dawned on me.

  The soldier’s eyes glistened with tears.

  I understood. It must hurt to think about the day it happened.

  It made sense that he wanted to flaunt that he’d taken his revenge.

  Chapter 13

  A bench sat to the right of the altar, probably so that Turold and other elderly or infirm brothers could rest a little during the sometimes lengthy masses.

  Winston took a seat on it, following Ulf with his eyes. After a quick bow to us, Ulf gracefully sauntered away through the church. A soldier who’s had his place in the ranks dictated for years, advancing through sun, rain, and rough weather, doesn’t waste any unnecessary energy on movement.

  The church door shut behind him, sending a draft through the length of the nave and causing the torches to flicker. Then silence settled once again in the cold building.

  “Shall we get to work?” Winston asked.

  My response was a sigh.

  “The signs point undeniably toward Ulf,” I said.

  Winston didn’t respond.

  “Godfrid’s right hand was chopped off,” I continued. “He wasn’t just killed. A murderer who just wanted to be rid of him would have used his knife, strangled him, crushed his windpipe, or hit him so hard with whatever he used on the back of his head that Godfrid would have died from that alone.”

  Silence.

  “We both saw what Godfrid did,” I said.

  “When he made the sign of the cross, yes,” Winston said, finally opening his mouth. “And like everyone else present, we knew it wasn’t a gesture of blessing.”

  “He
was mocking the subprior,” I said with a snort.

  “Simon?” Winston eyed me sharply.

  “Of course. He’s the one Godfrid crossed himself to.”

  “But was he the one being mocked?” Winston asked.

  Now I didn’t follow. “Godfrid and Simon snapped at each other. Godfrid was punished and sent away because of Simon.”

  Winston nodded. “But who sent him away?”

  “Turold,” I said, replaying the scene in my mind. I knew that Winston wouldn’t dwell on this topic if he didn’t have his reasons, reasons it often took me a long time to clue in on. “You mean he was mocking the abbot?”

  “Abbot Turold agreed with me just a few minutes ago that humility did not come naturally to Godfrid,” Winston pointed out.

  I concentrated, but still didn’t see where Winston was going.

  “Godfrid stood up to the brothers from Peterborough,” Winston said. “He wasn’t speaking like a monk who has promised to obey—which I’m assuming the monks here would do, even though they’re not Benedictines. Maybe his sign of the cross was meant to show Turold that he would obey, but also that he could have chosen not to.”

  He was right. Edmund and Simon had behaved like what they were, nobleman monks. I remembered what Wulfgar had told me about them: Edmund had a powerful family from somewhere north of Watling Street. Simon was the son of a priest, and a force to be reckoned with if someone opposed his monastery. And Godfrid had argued with them as if he were their equal, even though he was just a common monastic brother.

  “Let’s undress him,” I suggested.

  Winston looked surprised but then nodded.

  Beneath Godfrid’s cowl, which we removed with some difficulty, he wore a linen shirt that I eventually wiggled up to his neck. Winston moved the torch over the body and nodded to me at the sight of the scars, which covered his torso like bird footprints.

  I knelt down and studied them more closely. I saw point-shaped scars, where arrows had slammed into a ring-mail shirt hard enough to nick his skin; a star-shaped scar, where a spear had had enough force behind it to split the iron rings and penetrate a few finger widths into his shoulder; and several scratches from sword blades, a few so deep that the edges of the scars were raised. I noted that his left collarbone curled upward and ran my finger from his neck to his shoulder. At some point a war hammer or the butt of an ax had broken the bone.

  We put the dead man’s clothes back on, and then Winston sat down on the bench again.

  “How long was he a monk?” Winston wondered.

  I shrugged. The answer wouldn’t be hard to get.

  “But,” I said, “that certainly opens up several other possibilities.”

  Winston nodded. “At least one.”

  It was Winston’s idea for us to begin with Thane Ælfgar.

  “We have a job to do,” Winston said. “We mustn’t forget that. Maybe if we question Ælfgar about the murder, we can get him to speak a little more openly about what the king is interested in.”

  I had to agree with him. It made sense to interview Ælfgar first, because we could be sure Simon wasn’t going anywhere. As long as we acted in the place of the shire reeve, we had a certain authority even over the monastic brothers. And if we believed it served the investigation to keep them nearby, they couldn’t demand they be allowed to travel on.

  Ælfgar was another matter. He had bestowed our authority on us, and, if I knew anything about noblemen, he could surely take it away again in a heartbeat.

  And yet as we walked toward the monastic buildings after ordering the spearmen not to let anyone into the church, Winston changed his mind. Instead of heading straight for the guesthouse, he stopped abruptly and then turned toward the chapter house.

  I followed him, annoyed that he gave no explanation for his change in direction. It wasn’t until we had Turold in private that I had to concede Winston was right. We would be best prepared for our conversations with both Ælfgar and the monks if we knew more about who Godfrid had actually been.

  Getting Turold to ourselves, however, proved rather difficult.

  He sat in his chair, looking gray and harried. Whether that was because his monk had been murdered or because Edmund and Simon were letting him have it, I couldn’t speculate.

  Edgar, the gray-bearded monk I’d sat next to at dinner, stood behind Turold. He glanced at us and then turned all his attention back to his abbot.

  When we stepped into the room, the Benedictines went quiet, albeit just for a brief moment. They both turned to look at us, but it was Edmund who asked, “What news?”

  Winston ignored Edmund and said, “A word, Turold?”

  My eyes focused on Simon, who looked angry, but not worried. Well, I’d seen murderers be as cold as the bottom of a root cellar, so I did not take that as a sign of his innocence.

  “I asked, what news?” Edmund said indignantly.

  “And I heard you,” Winston replied, sounding quite calm. “But my business is with Abbot Turold.”

  “Your business?” spluttered Edmund, gesturing in annoyance for Simon to shut his mouth. Simon had been about to say something but refrained. “Don’t forget you work for me!” Edmund said menacingly.

  Winston can have quite an edge when it suits him, which it did now.

  “Work for you, Prior Edmund?” Winston said. “There you are mistaken. I have been hired to perform a task, which no one else can do for you. I have agreed to do it, and once it is complete, you will pay me and I will move on. I am not your or anyone else’s employee, and it would be best if you understood that now.”

  Edmund’s eyes bulged, and although his lips moved, only a dry croak came out of his mouth. Simon stepped forward indignantly to come to his superior’s rescue, but before he could make a sound, Winston’s voice thundered through the room: “Silence!”

  Simon blinked his eyes in surprise, and Winston continued: “I am acting on behalf of the shire reeve, at the bidding of Ælfgar, the jarl’s man. You heard him yourselves not long ago, as we stood beside the deceased.”

  Edmund and Simon looked at each other uncertainly, and Winston made use of this pause: “I am reluctant to give orders in the abbot’s hall, so…” Winston turned to Turold. “Abbot Turold, I would like to speak to you. Could you ask these men to leave us?”

  Winston could be slick like that. He had silenced the two monks by reminding them of his authority, and then he had reminded everyone that here in this monastery, Turold was truly in charge.

  I watched Turold tensely. Would he know to seize the opportunity Winston had created for him?

  “Edgar,” Turold said firmly. “Would you be so kind as to escort our brothers-in-spirit back to the guesthouse and then return?”

  The gray-bearded Edgar bowed and then stepped over to the Benedictines. With a sweep of his hand, he indicated the door. Edmund and Simon both stood, stiff as pillars. Then Edmund turned on his heel and walked toward the door, followed by a fuming Simon.

  They had made it only a few steps when Winston’s voice stopped them: “I would like to speak to you as soon as I’m done here, Simon.”

  Simon stiffened and then kept walking without so much as turning to look back. His shoulders didn’t relax, even once he reached the door.

  Edgar, however, turned his head and winked at me from the doorway.

  Turold exhaled a long sigh. “These monks who don’t believe we can think for ourselves! Edmund has been lecturing me—ever since we returned—about how the ghastly act that took place desecrated the church. As if I hadn’t realized that on my own. And that’s not all. He wanted to send a messenger to the bishop to have him come as soon as possible to reconsecrate our church. Our church,” Turold sputtered. “He called it our church. I don’t care what forged documents they can present.”

  “So you’re implying that the good prior is concerned about something other than the church’s well-being?” Winston asked slyly.

  “Don’t pretend to be dumber than you are, Illumina
tor,” Turold scolded.

  “In my experience,” Winston said with his head bowed, “a person generally stands to benefit more from appearing dumber than he is rather than smarter.”

  “Not when you’re among smart people,” Turold countered.

  Winston didn’t respond. My brother Harding used to say: Some people are so smart that they’re dumb about the most important things.

  We stood in silence until Edgar returned with the news that the Benedictines were deep in prayer for the soul of the dead man.

  “In the church?” Winston asked tersely.

  But the Benedictines had realized that they wouldn’t be let in there, so they were praying in their guestroom.

  Turold sighed. “You wanted to speak to me?”

  “Perhaps it would be possible to have a little breakfast while we speak?” Winston asked.

  That hadn’t occurred to me, preoccupied as I had been, but now I noticed the hunger chafing away in my gut.

  “How could I forget…” The abbot flung his hand up to his mouth in horror. “You must be hungry.”

  He leaned forward and gave a quiet order to Edgar, who left us again. Turold stood up and invited us with a gesture of his hand to a door I hadn’t noticed before, behind his chair.

  A small room with a table and eight chairs lay behind the door. We sat down on one side while Turold took a seat on the other. Edgar came in a moment later carrying a pitcher and two leather mugs, accompanied by a young brother who carried a wooden tray with bread, ham, and a pot of honey. Edgar sat down next to Turold, and the young brother left us again with a bow.

  “Have you eaten?” Winston asked Turold, breaking the bread and passing me a hunk. I sliced some ham for both of us.

  “It would not be appropriate for us to eat until our brother has been laid on his bier,” Turold said, sounding apologetic. He remained firmly resolved on observing the fast.

  Thankful he didn’t extend it to include us, I ate greedily. The bread was mouthwatering, freshly baked from dark bolted flour, the ham not too salty, and when I got to the honey, it tasted like meadow flowers.

  We ate in silence. Then Winston pushed the tray to the middle of the table, and I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and poured us each another mug of strong ale while I waited for Winston to begin.