Oathbreaker (The King's Hounds series)

by Martin Jensen

  Estrid stepped out the door and gestured with her head that Ebba should get back inside, which the girl obeyed with a sidelong look at me.

  “And what do you want?” she asked me.

  “I’m looking for Winston—and Alfilda,” I added.

  “They’re not here.”

  “No, I understood as much from Ribald. They’re at the hospital.” I smiled affably.

  “So if you’re looking for them, what are you still doing here?”

  That was a question that I could have answered, but I thought it wisest to simply nod and go on my way.

  I pictured Ebba as I walked through the village. I let my thoughts dwell on the curve of her breasts and her tan calves, but I kept being distracted by that kerchief that had been around her shoulders. There was still something about it that bothered me.

  It had been big, I remembered. It covered both her shoulders. Finely woven, too, as far as I could tell from a distance. And sky-blue.

  Blue! That was it.

  The hospital sat off to the side of the village square, where the square opened onto a wider grassy plane. It was a post-and-plank building with a sod roof. The structure was as long as the church, but naturally not as high. My head was about even with the edge of the roof. A door, the upper half of which stood open, stood more or less in the middle of the building’s long southern side. The hospital had no windows but had a smoke hole at each end, from which gray smoke rose straight up on this windless day.

  I pushed the half door open and ducked into a long room, which was divided into smaller areas by woven hangings suspended from the ceiling. The air inside was nauseating, thick with human miasmas. I heard throaty gurgles, sighs, and muffled groans of pain from every direction. A couple of monks carried a limp form, wrapped in a roughly patched-together cloth, through the room and out the door. They turned right and headed up toward the monastery gate.

  I stood for a bit, letting my eyes adjust to the darkness. I heard rustling around me and squinted. I discovered that I was looking at a stout monk leaning over a bed. The protective drape had been pulled aside.

  “Brother Hubert?” I thought I recognized his blotchy face.

  The monk glanced up, but continued doing what he was doing, so I stepped over to him.

  “I’m Halfdan.”

  “I know who you are. Here, hold her.”

  I looked down at the patient, a wizened old woman, who was gasping for air. Her breath sounded like dry peas rolling across a kitchen table.

  “I’m looking for Winston the Illuminator.”

  “I said, ‘Hold her.’”

  I reluctantly obeyed. I took hold of the old woman’s upper arms and slowly pulled her into a sitting position. She moaned and complained, clawing at the coarse cloth beneath her with a crooked hand. As soon as her torso was free of the bed, Hubert thrust his hand under her and turned her, revealing a skinny rump. There was a large open sore on one of her buttocks.

  “There you go, my dear.” The monk’s voice was gentle. “Now I’ll ease your pain.

  “Stay!” he said to me, in a hoarse voice. I watched with my hand over my mouth and nose as he applied a stinking salve to her bleeding butt cheek. “It burns now, my friend, but it will start helping soon.”

  The old woman put up with the treatment, making that rattling sound while lying with her face buried in the covers and her arms limply at her sides. I saw her buttock clench as the salve touched it and smelled the unmistakable stench of a cabbage fart waft up from her.

  Brother Hubert kept steadily applying the salve, finishing by leaning over and inspecting the other buttock. He apparently found it to be satisfactory, because he set the jar of salve down with a grunt.

  “Now just lie back, my friend, while the salve soaks in,” he instructed her.

  The old woman made a sound—half sigh, half moan—and the monk got up without further ado and pulled the drape closed again.

  “So, you’re looking for your master,” Brother Hubert said, moving on to the next bed.

  My eyes had adjusted to the darkness, and when I looked down the length of the building, I saw other monks leaning over beds or kneeling in front of them.

  “Yes. Do you know where I can find him?” I scanned the room, trying to spot his or Alfilda’s characteristic heads of hair.

  “Yes,” Hubert said. He flung the next drape aside, revealing a legless man, whose fleshy paunch drooped off him to both sides like butter melting in the heat. “Now, Grandfather, let me take a look at you, my friend.”

  “My dear,” “grandfather,” and “my friend” were apparently his names for the sick.

  “Where?” I asked impatiently.

  “He left,” Hubert said, holding up one leg stump.

  “Left? Alone?”

  “No.” Hubert apparently approved of the red flap of skin at the end of the man’s leg, because he moved on to the other stump, which caused him to shake his head in disapproval. “Listen, my friend, this is infected.”

  He gave the sick man a reproachful look and then turned to me and said, “Hold here.”

  I wanted to object, but he just took my hand and positioned it in under the stump before walking away from us. The cripple lay very still, staring at me with either pain or fear in his eyes. I couldn’t figure out which.

  Hubert came back with a steaming pot in one hand, a stone mortar and pestle in the other, and some rags hanging over his arm.

  “Now just hold tight,” he told me, when I indignantly pointed out that I had other things to do besides stand here. He placed the steaming pot on the floor, dropped the rags into it, and then started grinding with the mortar and pestle. As the pestle went up and down, I noticed a sharp odor. The monk dipped a finger into the mortar and pulled it back out, inspecting his now yellow fingertip. “Hmm.”

  Another couple of tamps, yet another fingertip inspection, and then he nodded. He pulled a steaming rag out of the pot, dipped it in the mortar, and spread the foul-smelling bandage on the man’s leg stump.

  Another three rags were dipped and applied to the wound. Then he nodded at the old geezer, who stared at him, wide-eyed.

  “There, Grandfather. That ought to help.”

  “He left with Edgar,” Hubert told me by way of explanation.

  I got out of there before he compelled me to saw the arm off of some poor old woman.

  Chapter 25

  The morning was drawing to a close as I stood outside the hospital once again. I was happy to breathe in the crisp autumn air after the fetid smells of the ill, and happy to leave the muffled cries of pain behind me.

  The sun had gained strength. A hazy heat lingered over the farms and buildings. The nobleman in me was glad for the farmers and the monastery that the autumn would soon be dry enough to bring the sheaves in to the threshing floors and haylofts, where the grain would ensure everyone ale and bread for the winter.

  It was a good year for farmers and noblemen alike, and even the country’s poor would reap the rewards of the bountiful harvest, because, as Harding put it: A full man is willing to share.

  I heard a deep voice from across the grass, over by the road to the south. A soldier was putting eight spearmen through their paces. They obeyed his shouted commands willingly, and I stood contentedly in the sun, watching the well-trained soldiers drill.

  The leader released them a short while later, warning them not to cause any trouble in the village, but to remember that it belonged to the monastery, to which they owed their respect. He ended by assuring them that if any farmer accused them of vandalism, he would come down hard on the culprit.

  I’d recognized the leader. It was Alwyn, who apparently hadn’t noticed me. He set off walking across the grass toward the village’s public house, a sod-roofed cottage with a green branch over its door and a couple of benches out front.

  Alwyn sat down heavily on one of the benches and nodded to a stooped man in a leather apron, who went inside and came right back out carrying a foaming barrel-stave
tankard.

  I let Alwyn empty half his tankard before I strolled across the green and stopped in front of him.

  “Is the ale good, Alwyn?” I asked. When he looked up in response to my voice, he had the sun in his eyes.

  “Oh, it’s you,” he said, shielding his eyes with his hand. “Yes, it’s splendid. Flavored with sweet gale the way I like it.”

  “Hmm, maybe I’ll have some,” I said and sat down next to him. The stooped man must have been keeping an eye on me from inside his nook, because he came out right away and asked in a creaky voice what I’d like.

  “I’ll take a tankard of ale,” I said and then glanced over at Alwyn’s tankard and raised my eyebrows to ask if he wanted more. “Actually, make that two.”

  Alwyn finished his tankard and handed it to the proprietor, who left us with a slight bow.

  It was good ale. The sweetness was balanced by the bitterness of the wormwood, without overpowering the taste of the malt. We drank in silence, watching the green in front of us. I think we both enjoyed sitting in the sun and listening to the sounds of village life.

  Eventually Alwyn cleared his throat and said, “Well, I suppose I ought to buy you a tankard. Or did you have your sights set on some other form of payment?”

  “Payment?” I pretended not to understand him.

  He stood up without a word, took my tankard and walked over to the door, where he handed the tankards in to the waiting proprietor. He brought us two more tankards shortly thereafter.

  I let a little time elapse before I repeated my question: “Payment?”

  “The day before yesterday you wanted to pump me for information. Then a murder was committed, and my master asked you and your master to solve it. Which gives you even more reason to want to question me. So, I’m puzzled that you considered last night’s answers sufficient.”

  I chuckled agreeably. This man wasn’t dumb.

  “I thought you might like to answer me today?” I tried.

  “Ælfgar wants the murder solved,” Alwyn said with a shrug.

  “Then tell me what business he rode out on.”

  Alwyn looked at me sharply.

  “You can ask me about the murder.”

  “Good.” I bit my lower lip. “Do you have anything to add to what you told me last night?”

  He shook his head in response. He’d guessed that I was more interested in Ælfgar’s business than the murder. All the same, we both still had to play the game.

  “Ælfgar said he didn’t meet Godfrid when you were here at the monastery before midsummer. Was that true of you as well?”

  “Definitely,” Alwyn said.

  “So you’d never seen him before?”

  “Not here at the monastery anyway.”

  “But…?” I looked at him in surprise.

  “I can’t say for certain,” Alwyn said, hesitating, “but after your master’s chat with Ælfgar, I’ve been thinking a lot about it. I might have seen him before, but it’s hard when you see a man lying dead to try to picture him alive.”

  He was right about that. Especially, I pointed out, if you had met each other a long time ago. He nodded.

  “And you suggested he had only been a monk for a year. So he wouldn’t have had the tonsure. That makes it even harder.”

  “Picture a fiery, redheaded soldier,” I said, trying to help.

  “But Erik Sigurdson fell at Ottanford, as Ælfgar said.”

  “And he’s the only one you remember?”

  “Yes,” Alwyn said, looking serious. “Believe me, I’m being candid about everything I say about the murder.”

  I appreciated that. Ælfgar probably honestly wanted the murder cleared up. I tried to find another way to coax Alwyn to open up.

  “What was the reason for your visit here last summer?”

  “What in the world does that have to do with the murder?” he asked, narrowing his eyes.

  “Probably nothing. But we’re fishing in the dark, you understand.” I made my voice tremble with honesty. “We’re starting from scratch with this murder. Your master and you are innocent, we understand that. The same is true of the Benedictines, I believe. Who does that leave? So I’m trying to gather as much information as possible. Most of it will probably turn out to be insignificant, but we won’t know that until we have our hands around the murderer’s neck. And so I’m asking you, and I hope that you will understand why it might be important for you to answer.”

  Alwyn watched me, but then he looked out over the green. His eyes widened for a moment, and I looked to see why. Ebba was walking across the green, hips swaying.

  “A beautiful lass,” I said, winking at him.

  “Indeed, as farm girls go. In a few years she’ll be worn to a shadow from popping out babies.”

  I supposed you could look at it that way. Something in his voice made me study his facial expression, but it seemed quite neutral. He noticed me looking at him and quickly looked away, only to look back again.

  “My master is highly trusted by the jarl,” Alwyn said.

  I didn’t say anything but nodded encouragingly.

  “And often rides on his business. That is what we were doing last summer as well.” Alwyn shrugged. “But why should I remain quiet about what any monk can tell you? Ælfgar was meeting with someone at the monastery.”

  “Someone who doesn’t want his name known?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “If so, he was behaving foolishly. Which wouldn’t be the first time.” Alwyn shook his head dismissively. “My master was supposed to bring him back safely.”

  “Back to the jarl?” I asked. Now he really had my attention.

  “To his father, yes.”

  “Was it Leofric?” I couldn’t stop myself from whistling.

  But that didn’t make any sense. Godskalk told us that Leofric had been named by his father to lead the fyrd. The leader of the fyrd wouldn’t hide in a monastery and wait to be brought home to his father like some bedraggled puppy.

  And Alwyn’s response showed that I was right.

  “Eadwin,” Alwyn said, “who is the second oldest of Leofwine’s still-living sons.”

  I heard the bitterness in his voice, presumably at the loss of Norman. Here sat a man who was loyal to the core and of one mind with his masters.

  I thought so hard my brain practically creaked. I had claimed I was fishing in the dark as far as the murder was concerned, and it was true—I actually had no idea which direction to cast my net. Then I began to see the daylight.

  “Eadwin wasn’t satisfied with Leofric’s promotion,” I guessed.

  “Eadwin is not satisfied by much,” Alwyn muttered, staring into his tankard dejectedly.

  I stood up and walked over to the door. Why was he suddenly being so talkative when he and his master had otherwise put up such a fuss the moment we inquired about their business? I had found a potential answer by the time the proprietor set the tankards in front of us.

  “He behaved foolishly, you said. Was the meeting supposed to have been kept secret?”

  Alwyn nodded.

  “But Eadwin insisted on using his own name so that he would receive the monastery’s finest treatment, and when we arrived, everyone already knew who he was.”

  As he’d said: Why keep secret what any monk could tell me? The next question was obvious. “And what was his offense?”

  But here I reached the limit of Alwyn’s willingness to share. He had told me what he knew couldn’t be kept from me if I just asked the right person. He clammed up about everything else.

  Still, he had told me something important that might help with our actual assignment: Leofwine’s family did not see eye to eye on all matters.

  Chapter 26

  A shadow fell over the table where I’d sat alone for the few minutes since Alwyn had left. I looked up. It was Winston and Alfilda, of course. Since Alwyn had left, I had been wondering how to go about finding Winston. And now here he was, holding his girlfriend’s hand, with a contented,
goofy look on his face.

  “About time you showed up, Winston.”

  “Yes, here we are.” It was subtle, but it was there. Winston was asserting Alfilda’s right to take part in things.

  “I’ve been looking for you guys,” I said. I figured I’d better make it clear that I’d gotten the message.

  “We went for a walk,” he said.

  He seemed purely amused by the angry look on my face. This was no time to play lovey-dovey! We had a murder to solve and a job to finish.

  “By the Lady Path,” he added, just as I was about to give him a piece of my mind. “Not that I thought you’d overlooked anything. Just to take a look for myself and form my own impression.”

  “And?”

  “No one has been up that path for a long time.”

  Alfilda hadn’t said a word, and now she sat down across the table from me. I caught some movement over by the door out of the corner of my eye and saw the proprietor looking at us. I nodded in response to his unasked question.

  “Have a seat,” I told Winston, as the proprietor served our ale. “We need to talk.”

  They listened as I recounted my morning. Alfilda kept her hand on Winston’s arm, her gray eyes half-closed. Winston drank in small sips as he listened to me.

  “You were at the hospital?” I finished by asking.

  He nodded.

  “I wanted to see if the abbot was telling the truth,” he said.

  “The truth about what?” I didn’t understand.

  “The monastery spending its money to benefit the maimed and the sick.”

  Hmm, it hadn’t occurred to me to doubt the venerable Turold’s words.

  Winston turned his arm so that Alfilda’s hand slid down into his upturned palm.

  “So you believe Simon?” Winston asked me.

  “He is a disagreeable and self-righteous fart of a monk, but I highly doubt he’s a murderer,” I said.

  “I agree,” Winston said with a nod.

  “There is one thing I’ve been thinking,” I said, although that wasn’t exactly true. The idea had only just occurred to me that moment. “The hand. Maybe Godfrid making the sign of the cross didn’t have anything to do with his hand being cut off.”