Pilgrim of Death: The Janna Chronicles 4

by Felicity Pulman

  The sight of a man reclining under a willow tree some distance away gave her a jolt. She hadn’t noticed him before, he lay so still. Regretfully she stood up, abandoning her plans. She continued to walk, planning to tiptoe around him without disturbing him. He was so quiet, she thought he must be asleep.

  As she came closer, she saw that he lay sprawled over a low-lying rock. Janna jerked to a stop. Her body reacted to the sight even before her mind could accept the truth in front of her. She began to shake, her whole body quivering with reaction. But she could not move, could not run. Her limbs felt leaden, her brain too numb to command action. All she could do was feel what she could see, even while her mind refused to comprehend it.

  She crossed her arms and clutched her fists to her chest, and fought to regain control. Hot tears blinded her. She dashed them away so that she could look again, even though she didn’t want to see. Nor did she want to believe. His face, so familiar, was turned up so that he gazed into the green fountain of weeping willow fronds. He wore a red tunic, dark red at its center and fading to a lighter red elsewhere. He lay still, unmoving. He was no phantom of her imagination. He was real. And he was dead.

  Janna pushed aside the trailing fronds of willow. She forced herself to take a step forward, and then another, and another, until she came close enough to look down, to see, and finally, to understand.

  Ralph lay before her, a gaping wound at his throat. Blood stained the front of his tunic a darker hue. Blood had also spilled from the wound and over the stone to soak into the earth below. For a moment Ralph’s face blurred and Janna saw Bernard stretched out and bleeding over the stone altar and the ground below. She blinked, and Ralph’s features came clear into her vision once more. His eyes stared into hers, blinded by death. He wore an expression of faint surprise. Had he recognized his killer? Had he understood that justice was about to be done?

  She knelt beside him. Reaching out a shaking hand, she closed his eyes, needing to escape the gaze that had so transfixed her in life. After a moment’s hesitation, she touched his cheek. “Requiescat in pace,” she whispered. It was more than Ralph deserved, yet he had died unshriven. At the end, she cared enough about him to wish that he might find redemption for his soul.

  And then the full extent of her loss burst upon her, and she began to weep without restraint. Weep for the death of a man she’d once imagined as a husband and lover, and who had betrayed all her hopes and her dreams. She knelt beside him, and bitterly reproached herself. Why, oh why, hadn’t she insisted right from the start that he tell her all he knew about her father? Instead, she had let herself be gulled by him, flattered and charmed into believing that he genuinely cared for her.

  A sudden thought stifled Janna’s weeping. Had Ralph courted her because he hoped to advantage his situation through her father? She thought back to the time when she’d shown him her father’s ring. It was certainly possible. True, he’d treated her with courtesy from the start, but had doubled his attentions after that. So what did that tell her about Ralph? More important, what did it tell her about her father?

  She searched Ralph’s face for answers, but he still wore the same expression of surprise that told her nothing. Instinctively, she looked for his belt and scrip. He wore them still. His assassin had wanted revenge for a brother’s death. He’d not had theft in mind when he killed Ralph.

  Janna sucked in a quick breath and then, before she had time to think about it, she quickly unfastened Ralph’s scrip and groped inside. Her searching fingers touched a small leather pouch. She pulled it out and stared at it. It took a few moments to recognize what she held: Winifred’s purse! At once she opened it, although she could already tell that it was empty. The hand had gone. Given to the bishop to compensate for the lost letter? Janna wondered if Bishop Henry considered such a prize a fair exchange for having his treachery known to all.

  But how had Ralph come by Winifred’s purse? She remembered then the scene in the alehouse, the drunken sot who had lurched into their table and almost fallen into her lap. Ralph must have seized on the diversion to cut the purse from Winifred’s girdle. But why? He couldn’t have known about the hand because she’d warned Winifred not to tell him, not to tell anyone.

  Janna cast her mind back, trying to remember if anything had been said to alert Ralph to the fact that Winifred might own something precious. She remembered that Winifred had mentioned their “unfinished business,” and had gestured toward her purse at the same time. A giveaway sign for anyone with a suspicious mind. Had Ralph offered to accompany Winifred in her search for Ulf in the hope that she might show him the letter he thought was concealed in her purse? Winifred had mentioned she’d had the devil’s own task in shaking him off so that she could speak to Ulf in private. Janna nodded thoughtfully. Thwarted of his quarry, Ralph must then have cut off her purse to see for himself what it contained. What a surprise he must have had!

  It was one mystery solved, although Janna greatly regretted that the bishop would profit from Winifred’s wrongdoing. Suppressing a shudder, she felt about in Ralph’s scrip to see if there was anything else of interest. Her fingers touched something, a scrap of parchment, judging from the feel of it. Had the bishop written another letter, and was Ralph on his way to deliver it when he was killed? If so, it would certainly be worth reading!

  Janna drew it out and unfolded it. Only a few words were penned on it and she read them without difficulty. “John fitz Henry, Alwarene Street.”

  John. The name leaped to her eye. Ralph had known several men with the name of John, so he’d told her. Was this one of his friends? Or was this her father’s name, and the name of the street where he lived?

  Janna stared down at the parchment in her hand. She’d begun to shake again, but this time with excitement and hope. Could it be? Had Ralph kept his promise to her, in this at least? Or was she chasing after shadows, wanting to believe the best of a man who had shown himself capable of deceit and betrayal, theft and murder? John fitz Henry! Her father?

  Her stomach was roiling; she thought she was going to be sick. She clutched the parchment tight and held it close.

  A sudden commotion startled her. A huge pale dog had launched itself into the river in hot pursuit of the ducks. They scattered in alarm, quacking their terror. The dog surged through the water, barking and snapping after them. His barking stopped as he crunched down into feathers. Brutus. Several swans sailed regally past, favoring the dog and its prey with a sidelong sneer before lifting their heads and extending their long necks as proof of their superiority.

  Janna looked about for the dog’s owner. Ulf was hurrying along the river bank, his pack bouncing on his shoulders as he rushed to call his dog to heel. He was carrying something in his hand. He hadn’t seen her. Having learned to stay well away from Brutus while he was wet, Janna stood up and waited while Ulf whistled Brutus to his side. She watched as the dog shook itself, showering its master in a waterfall of drops. That done, it lay down and began to devour the duckling, feathers and all.

  Knowing she was safe for the moment, Janna called out to Ulf.

  His steps faltered as he caught sight of Ralph. His face paled as he realized what had happened and who it was lying so still beside her. Then he hurried forward and put his arms around her. She leaned into him and cried all over again for the man who had wooed her, who had betrayed her trust, and who had died such a horrible death. And she cried also for what she had done that had brought about such a bloody conclusion. Juliana had been right; death had followed her from the start. If she could undo anything in the world, it would be her careless words to Ralph that had spelled Bernard’s doom and, ultimately, Ralph’s too.

  “Walter’s doing?” Ulf said quietly.

  Janna nodded.

  “And he is?”

  “Gone.” Janna jerked a thumb in the direction of the East Gate.

  Ulf pursed his mouth. “I’ll wager he’ll be finding his way back to Sarisberie. He’ll want to tell his mother that he has avenge
d Bernard’s death.”

  “And Adam will be exonerated – of that murder, at least.” Janna gave a mournful sniff, and wiped her red eyes on her sleeve.

  “I’m sorry, lass.” Ulf patted her hand, trying to bring comfort. “I know you cared for Ralph. If it’s any consolation, I think he cared for you too. It was only time and circumstances that…” He lifted his shoulders in a shrug.

  Janna wanted to believe him. If Ralph had cared for her as much as Ulf thought, he might well have taken the time to ask questions about her father, and to write down what he’d found out. Wordlessly, she unclenched her hand and showed Ulf the scrap of parchment.

  “I can’t read,” Ulf confessed. “What does it say?”

  “John fitz Henry. Alwarene Street.” Janna’s heart gave a sudden kick of excitement. Suddenly her father seemed very close.

  “Is it important?”

  “I came to Winchestre to see if I could find my unknown father. I showed Ralph his ring. It has a crest on it and I think Ralph recognized what it meant. He promised to help me look for him.” Janna’s voice faltered. She had to swallow hard before she could continue. “I found the parchment in his scrip, along with this.” She held out Winifred’s purse.

  Ulf’s eyes widened. He began to laugh. “I suppose it’s empty?”

  Janna nodded.

  “Poor Winifred. Her loss is the bishop’s gain, I suspect?”

  Janna nodded again.

  “But Ralph thought Winifred might have the letter. That’s why he cut her purse?”

  “Yes.”

  “Bastard!”

  Ulf, Janna reflected, was a man and so he wouldn’t have been as susceptible to Ralph’s charms as she had been. He would not have been taken in, as she was. And Ulf was right. There was nothing good to be said about Ralph’s character, nothing at all.

  Perhaps regretting his judgment, or at least his means of expressing it, Ulf held out to her what he’d been carrying. It was a swan’s feather, white and downy soft. “Thank you, Ulf.” Janna was touched by his kindness.

  “A feather from the wing of the archangel Gabriel,” he said solemnly.

  Janna didn’t know whether to laugh or be reverent. She looked at the twinkle in his eyes, and took the risk of smiling.

  “It’ll bring you comfort.”

  Janna raised a questioning eyebrow.

  “It will also bring you luck, if you believe in it,” Ulf assured her.

  “Then I’ll believe in it,” Janna told him, reflecting that if he spent some time along the river bank, he’d probably find enough angel feathers for an entire fluffy wing.

  Her thoughts were echoed when Ulf said, with a glimmer of a smile, “If the good bishop is a collector of relics, I should pay him a visit.”

  Janna held out the feather, but Ulf brushed it away. “No,” he said. “That’s yours.” He looked at the parchment in Janna’s hand. “Alwarene Street,” he said. “I know where that is. Do you want to go there?”

  “What, now?” Janna’s hands felt clammy. She suddenly found it hard to catch her breath. “But what about…?” She gestured toward Ralph’s body.

  “Leave it be. There’s nowt you can do for him, and we don’t want to be caught up in the hue and cry after his killer, do we now? So we’ll just pretend we’ve seen nowt and know nowt, and we’ll go looking for your father instead. Come on.” Ulf hooked his arm through hers and, not giving her any chance to come up with an excuse, he began to hurry back along the river bank in the direction of the East Gate, whistling to Brutus as they went.

  “No! Wait!” Janna wanted a moment’s privacy before facing the crowds along Chepe Street. “I have my father’s ring here in my purse.” She touched the small bulge through the fabric of her gown. “It might help us to find him.”

  Ulf nodded, and turned his back while she hurried between the sheltering fronds of a willow tree.

  “May I see it?” he asked when she came back to him, clutching the ring tight in one hand and the swan’s feather in the other.

  His eyes widened as she handed it to him. “Are you sure this belongs to your father?”

  “Yes! Well, no. I’m not sure. But I think so. I found it along with a letter to my mother.” Janna was puzzled by the glint in Ulf’s eyes and the dawning excitement on his face. “See, here?” She traced the J of the swan. “My father’s name is John, so it seems likely that this is his ring. Doesn’t it?”

  “Christ’s bones!” Ulf let out an incredulous whistle. “Do you know what this is?” he asked, touching the crown at the side of the swan.

  “It means that my father was loyal to the king. Not King Stephen,” she added quickly, lest Ulf mistake her. “He only came to the throne after my father gave this ring to my mother.”

  “No. What it means is that your father was probably a bastard.”

  “What?” Anger flared bright. Janna swung her hand back to strike Ulf. How dare he compare her father with Ralph!

  Ulf pushed her hand away. “That’s not a reflection on his character, not this time,” he said, with a wry smile. “What I’m saying is that your father was illegitimate. His name says that he is John, son of Henry, and so does his ring. He’s one of the old king’s bastards.”

  “But…but – ” Janna was having trouble understanding what Ulf was trying to tell her. “What does that mean?”

  Ulf smiled. “It means,” he said gravely, “that you are the granddaughter of a king!”

  Chapter 15

  Janna was hardly conscious of the crowds thronging the High Street as Ulf pushed his way through, dragging her along in his wake. She was still fighting to come to grips with what he’d told her and what it meant for her future. What was most on her mind was the realization of Ralph’s final betrayal: that he must have recognized the insignia on the ring right from the start and determined to use her to better his own position. No wonder he’d treated her with such respect! He didn’t love her at all, it was her connection to the crown that he coveted.

  This confirmation of his final betrayal was shattering. But Janna knew she could not dwell on it, for they were on their way to meet her father and she must focus, now, on the ordeal that lay ahead. She was the granddaughter of a king! She was the illegitimate daughter of an illegitimate son of the king! There was a small warmth in thinking that, if her father’s birth was also in question, he must surely look more kindly on her birth, on the fact of her existence.

  Questions tumbled through her mind. Did Eadgyth know who she was bedding when she went off with John? Did she know she was consorting with royalty? If so, why didn’t she go to the old king and demand his help once she realized she was with child? Was she too ashamed? Or was she afraid that if she found the king she might also find her lover, married and living happily with someone else? Not having read John’s letter, she didn’t know how much he’d loved her and that he planned to return.

  Yes, Janna thought, as she walked along with Ulf. Her mother’s fear of encountering her lover no doubt kept her as far from the old king as possible. And now she, her daughter, was about to meet John for the very first time! Would her father be at home? What would he look like, how would he greet her? Would he be glad to see her, this reminder of his past, or would he send her on her way? What if he was wed? What if his wife was home and sent Janna away before she had the chance to meet her father? One moment Janna felt her spirits lift in excitement and hope, and the next she was cast down in despair.

  Ulf kept glancing sideways at her as they walked along, but he did not speak. Perhaps he sensed her turmoil and realized she needed time to get used to her new, strange circumstances. Janna was grateful for his silence. He turned to the right, and then stopped so suddenly that Janna bumped into him.

  “It’s quite a long street,” he said.” There’ll be several estates along it, I’ll be bound. How shall we know which is the right one?”

  Janna surveyed the warehouses and shopfronts that lined the street, and realized that locating her father might no
t be quite so easy as she’d hoped. “If my father is the king’s son, would he own a shop?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. I know nowt of how royal families conduct themselves.” Ulf scratched his head. “Why don’t we ask someone?”

  Sighting two men in conversation outside one of the shops, they crossed over to speak to them. “Can you tell us where we might find John fitz Henry?” Janna asked, holding out the ring to them.

  “That’s Sire John to you, mistress,” one of the men reproved her. The other studied the ring in silence, then gestured in the direction of the town walls. “His manor’s up near the North Gate.”

  Janna started walking, anxious to get there as fast as she could, to outpace her growing fear. All she wanted was for her father to love her and to welcome her, and make her part of his family, if he had one. That was what she most desired. But first, she had to find the courage to see this through. She walked ahead of Ulf, her quick strides betraying her nervousness.

  Ulf tugged on her sleeve to slow her down. “Have you thought what you’re going to say to your father when we get there?”

  Janna shook her head. “I’m too frightened to think,” she admitted breathlessly. “Oh, Ulf, you don’t know how I’ve longed for this moment. I was never sure I’d succeed in finding my father. And now…” She smiled at him, full of wonder at the moment.

  “Whatever happens, I’m here and I’ll help you,” he promised.

  Janna was grateful for his reassuring presence for they had to ask several times before they were finally directed to an imposing door set within a tall wall. A bell attached to a rope invited their attention, and Ulf gave it a hearty tug before Janna could stop him. Now that the time had come, she was sweating with terror. She needed a few moments to compose herself. But their arrival was announced and she must deal with the situation as best she could.