Lost Innocents (A Servant of the Crown Mystery Book 3)

by Denise Domning

  The church of Saint Mary's and All Saints sat at the center of several wide-spread hamlets including Haselor. Built of stone and small in size, its style suggested an origin more ancient than the arrival of Faucon's ancestors with the Conqueror. The original builders had chosen to set their holy house on a knoll that gave its shepherd a good view of both the area and his flock.

  Strewn around the sanctuary were several small cottages, one of which was no doubt this priest's home. There were also a number of sheds and barns, the sort that any rural peasant might have to serve his needs. Sheep baaed from a fold behind one shed, testifying that this priest was a shepherd in more ways than one.

  There was no need to command the attention of the foot-bound folk who gathered around the mounted newcomers. It wasn't every day that their sheriff appeared with four armed knights and an expensively-dressed coxcomb. Nor was it every day that they could boldly watch as their sheriff lost an argument to his better. After haggling briefly with Oswald over who would command the venture, Alain gave way to the bishop's secretary.

  Thus it was at Oswald's command that each rider took a local behind him to act as a guide while they rode the unexamined furlongs. That was, all save Oswald. Faucon's cousin insisted that someone needed to stay behind to coordinate the effort. Faucon knew his cousin better. Oswald no more wanted to share his horse, a spirited and expensive gray palfrey, with a commoner than he wanted to be in this rustic place, searching for a commoner's lost child, especially a girl child.

  Off the knights and soldiers had gone, along with the crowd of commoners to walk the last furrows with them. However reasonable the plan, it proved as ineffective as the earlier search. Just as no amount of beating the brush or peering into thickets over the course of the previous night and day had produced Cissy, neither did calling her name while riding up and down the edges of the fields at sunset. By the time the sky had shifted from orange to pewter and the first star had appeared low in the east, all the riders had returned to the church. Faucon and the youth assigned to guide him were the last to arrive, making their entry to the yard on the piercing shriek of the owl perched atop one of the sheds.

  "Did you find her?" Oswald called out to him. Shouting sent his high-strung mount into another fretful dance. That set the milling commoners in the churchyard into a backward wave of motion as they gave space to the iron-shod creature.

  Faucon shook his head, then drew Legate to halt not far from Oswald, as the lad behind him slid off the courser's rump. "We did not."

  "May God have mercy on the child's soul," his cousin replied with a relieved sigh. "Tell them, Pery. Explain to them that they must have faith. They must believe that this child is now in their Lord's hands. If our heavenly Father wishes her to be found, she will be. But that moment will come only at a time of our Lord's choosing."

  Before Faucon could do as Oswald requested, Alain raised his voice and spoke for the bishop's secretary. He translated Oswald's words, then added his own instructions. "Go home, all of you. There's nothing more to be done here."

  "Nay!" came a woman's shriek from near the church door.

  Cissy's mother, who had been forced by her kin to stay behind at the church on this last search, now thrust her way through the folk standing between her and Oswald. Her sisters followed, both of them holding their arms at the ready as if they expected their sibling to topple at any moment. All three women were pretty, tall, and golden-haired, although at the moment 'Wyna looked ancient, beyond spent. Her blond hair was torn from her plaits as if she already mourned her child as dead. Her eyes were red-rimmed from crying.

  "You cannot leave when my precious babe is still out there! We have to find her. You have to help!" 'Wyna shouted as she reached the forefront of the crowd.

  Then she tried to push past a bulky man, as if she intended to confront Oswald more directly. Her sisters wisely caught her by the arms, holding her in place. Lunging against their control, the grieving mother pleaded, her voice still disrespectfully raised, "You cannot go! You cannot leave her out there."

  Although she directed her cries at Oswald, who watched her in disgust, it was the heavy-set man next to 'Wyna who responded. "But we've looked everywhere in Haselor, goodwife. We've done it from dark to dark again, and that's as long as we can bear it," he said tiredly. All across the crowd, folk nodded and muttered in agreement.

  Another man added, "Even if we wanted to search longer, we cannot. Nothing can be found in the night. You cannot ask us to squander more of our time and effort, not when we've already given you a full day. Doing so happily, mind you. Don't we all have children who are precious to us? But you cannot ask us for more, not when it would be a useless effort."

  A woman pointed at Oswald. "The priest and our sheriff are right," she called, mistaking the high-born clerk for a well-heeled clergyman. "Your daughter is in our Lord's hands, just as are our own babes."

  As the woman's friends and neighbors called out to confirm her words, Alain turned his horse and signaled to his men to join him. "I bid you a good night, Oswald de Vere," the sheriff said to the bishop's secretary. "Godspeed as you make your way back to Hereford. When you next see your bishop, remind Lord William that I will always be his faithful friend and servant."

  Then Alain's gaze came to rest on his new Coronarius. "So, Keeper, it seems you'll be the next to see the missing lass, if they ever find her. Perhaps when we meet again you'll share the tale of your success or failure here. Oh, by the bye, I'll be in your area for a time. Aldersby," he said, referring to his wife's dower house that was only a few miles from Faucon's new home, "is in need of a new roof. I'll be residing there for the next month while the workmen do the task."

  With that, the sheriff and his men departed, heading west toward Alcester and moving more swiftly than they had since Faucon first spied them. Their departure had the commoners considering taking their own leave. The folk in the yard began to mingle, some saying their goodbyes and goodnights as they walked off, others lingering to chat with friends and neighbors.

  "Nay! You cannot go. How can you leave me when she's out there, lost and alone?" 'Wyna pleaded once more, yet trapped in her sisters' arms. Then, recognizing her pleas were in vain, she collapsed to the ground, sobs wracking her. Her sisters sat beside her, wrapping their arms around her as they offered what comfort they could.

  Pitying the woman, who'd lost both husband and child in less than a month's time, Faucon started to turn Legate away from the church. Instead, and for no reason he could name, 'Wyna's final cry—that Cissy was lost and alone—conjured the memory of the dead child he'd viewed on his first day as Crowner. She'd been a lass only a little older than Cissy, found wearing a circlet of flowers and a slashed throat. That child had also been lost and alone in an empty, far-flung field.

  Of a sudden, the hair on the back of his neck rose. What if, a niggling voice whispered. The words repeated until they were like the pulse of his heart.

  That first child might have been alone in her resting place, but she hadn't been the only one. According to Brother Colin, the healing monk from Stanrudde who had become a friend, there had been many such lasses discovered over a period of years, all of them murdered in the same fashion.

  What if, the huntsman in him took up the phrase, eager to be on the trail for no other reason than the love of the hunt.

  Instantly, questions arose, demanding answers. The most important of them was how far a wee lass might go on her own in the dead of night through a foul storm. It had an easy answer. Not so far that she couldn't be found by those who lived in this place. Haselor's folk knew every stone and tree within their bounds. Moreover, according to Faucon's youthful guide, these folk had searched thoroughly over the course of the day.

  With that Faucon knew he was lost. He couldn't leave this place until he had answers that satisfied him, not even if it meant staying here after Oswald left. Not even if it meant riding back to the abbey alone in the depths of night.

  "It's time we were on our way,
Pery," Oswald said from beside him, sounding pleased with himself.

  "A moment, Cousin. I must have a moment longer, if you please," he replied to Oswald, and startled himself. However polite, this hadn't been a request. Instead, he had spoken to Oswald as Warwickshire's Crowner.

  Before his cousin could reply, Faucon called out, "Alf? Alf the Miller?"

  Across the yard the tall Englishman held up his hand so Faucon could place him. "Here, Sir Crowner."

  "I have questions that must be answered. Where is that priest? Tell him his king's servant in this shire needs him to hold his flock here for a little longer," Faucon told the man, trusting Alf, who had been the first Englishman to be interrogated by his new Crowner, to not only understand Faucon's intention, but to also do what was best for Cissy.

  As Alf gave a quick nod and strode for the tiny church, Oswald looked at his cousin. "What questions? And what is a Crowner?"

  Faucon smiled at him. "I am. On my first day, Brother Edmund kept referring to me as the shire's new Coronarius. There was one among the listeners who knew enough Latin to translate the word for the others, and he translated it as Crowner. By the end of the day, all the folk in that vale were calling me by that name. I liked the sound of it so I didn't correct them."

  "Huh, it's a strange word, but then is strange in the commoners' tongue," Oswald said as Alf reappeared with Haselor's priest.

  "Father," Faucon called out to the balding man, when he was in fact addressing everyone yet in the yard. "I am Sir Faucon de Ramis, appointed by the royal court to act as your shire's new Keeper of the Pleas. At the command of our king, I, not Sir Alain, now have the right to investigate the murders and rapes that occur in your vale. It is also my right to call the inquest jury to confirm the manner of death of those who expired under questionable circumstances. Remember me and my name, and send to me at Blacklea when you have need."

  As Faucon made his introduction, the noise in the yard ebbed into a restless, curious silence. Every eye was on him. He hoped these folk were startled enough by his introduction that they'd answer his next questions without considering they had nothing to do with rape, murder, or burglary. Then again, with the possible exception of the Archbishop of Canterbury, there wasn't anyone in England who knew exactly what a Coronarius was expected to do. The royal court had yet to clearly define his duties.

  Scanning the crowd, Faucon continued. "Can any of you tell me when the lass was last seen within the church, and who it was that saw her?"

  It was one of 'Wyna's sisters who replied from where she sat on the ground, cradling her weeping sibling's head in her lap. "It was just before the bedding and shivaree. I watched 'Wyna kiss her sleeping girl before we all danced out of the church," she called out, her voice raised so all could hear.

  Faucon nodded at that. "Anyone else?" he demanded of the crowd.

  "What of little Mary? She was tending the babes," a woman shouted.

  "She saw nothing, for she had fallen asleep," the priest replied, then shook his head. "Poor child is distraught over the result of her inattention."

  Faucon scanned the crowd again as he asked the most important question of all, one it seemed no one before him had thought to pose. "If you were all gone from the church and the girl tending the babes slept, how is it you're certain that Cissy wandered out on her own?"

  Now that provoked an explosion of responses from all who heard him. "Quiet!" Their priest cried out, stepping out in front of them and raising his hands in command. But even before his flock settled, he pivoted to look at his new Crowner. "Of course she left on her own. We were all—" he began, sounding as if he thought his Crowner's question frivolous.

  "Father," Alf interrupted, his tone urgent, his expression saying he grasped what his better was suggesting, "what became of the nun who was in the church last night?"

  "The nun?" the priest repeated tiredly. "What has she to do with any of this?"

  "What nun?" asked a man standing nearby. His question was echoed by a good number of his neighbors.

  Once more the priest held up his hands, driving the muttering back into silence. "Many of you may not have seen her. We were all dancing as she came in, just after the storm burst. I invited her to join our festivities but she begged off, saying she was a stranger and didn't wish to intrude. Instead, she asked for a blanket and a quiet place to lay her head within the church. I let her stay behind the altar since she said she needed to be on the road again before dawn."

  "She was traveling by herself?" Faucon asked in surprise.

  "She was," the priest replied with a quick nod. "I was as startled about this as you, sir. I even asked if her abbess knew she made her way alone along the roads. The sister only reminded me that none of us are ever alone, that our Lord ever walks beside us."

  The holy man shrugged. "Then again, she was big for a woman. Perhaps that makes her less likely to be assaulted whilst journeying. At any rate, she stayed behind the altar for the whole night, sir. She was yet sleeping when we left for the bedding and shivaree."

  "And when you returned? Where was she then?"

  The priest blinked and shrugged again. "I can't say. Alf and 'Wyna arrived here ahead of me, to discover her child missing. I never returned inside the sanctuary but went directly into the fields to begin searching."

  As little as Faucon thought it possible a nun would take a child, the huntsman in him insisted this was the trail to follow. "Do you remember from whence this nun came and to where she was traveling? Why she was in your vale?"

  The priest tugged at his ear as he thought, then yawned. "I can't be certain what I know at the moment. I vow I'm so worn that I can't remember my own name."

  "It's Otto," some prankster shouted, and won a brief spate of laughter for his effort.

  "I know your voice, Dickon," Father Otto retorted, proving that the amiable arrangement of his features did reflect his character.

  Then the priest glanced between Faucon and Oswald, his eyes shifting across their faces, as if he couldn't decide which of his betters he needed to address. "I think the sister mentioned she had been at Henwick. Beyond that, all I'm certain of is that she told me she'd be leaving before first light. She said she had a goodly distance to travel."

  Then his eyes widened as he drew a sharp breath. Tapping a forefinger against his temple as if to shake loose his words, he grinned and announced, "North! She said she was traveling north."

  "North," Faucon repeated, looking at the sky above him to gauge directions. "Father, how far did your search this day stretch to the north?"

  The holy man opened his mouth to reply, then caught himself and frowned at his better. "You cannot think! Not a nun!"

  Faucon agreed. Not a nun. The one he tracked had a heart black enough to slit the throats of many innocent lasses. Such a being couldn't live within daily sight of their Lord and survive. But the huntsman in him refused to listen. This was the trail to follow.

  "Father, all I think is that one so small cannot have gone far on her own in last night's rain and wind, especially when she is a stranger to this place. Yet you searched and searched well, and didn't find her dead or alive." As Faucon continued, he looked from face to face, meeting the gazes of each man or woman so they would know him if he came here again. "Because of this, we must consider other possibilities. As I see it, there is only one other in this instance. If the child didn't walk out on her own, then someone must have taken her. And look how, when that possibility is explored, there proves to have been a stranger in your midst, capable of doing such a deed."

  Again, everyone in the yard save for Alf and Father Otto raised their voices at this. To a one, both commoners and knights rejected the idea of a nun taking a child. Oswald was no different.

  "Have a care," his cousin warned. "Accusing a nun of stealing a child might well be blasphemy."

  Then Oswald's eyes narrowed. "Enough! Your duty is to assess estates and calculate what our king can collect from wrongdoers. There's no profit to king or court from
a missing child."

  "True enough, Oswald. Alive or dead, this particular child offers the king's treasure chests nothing," Faucon agreed with a shrug. "But consider, Cousin, how there might be more than coins to be gained here. Remember, I'm unknown to most folk in this shire, having been in this county for only a short while. So too is my position new and strange to all who hear of it. I do here what I have had to do time and again over these past weeks. I confirm my right to command these folk with the same authority given to Sir Alain. It's what I must do," he added, "if I'm to hold tight to my new position and do as my king requires."

  Once again, he spoke to his cousin as an equal. It wasn't something he would have done three weeks ago. Until then he'd been but a second son with little in the way of inheritance and no expectation of advancement.

  Confirming authority was something Oswald understood well, indeed. But even as his cousin nodded, he sighed in reluctance. "Do as you must, then. But how do you intend to accomplish this?"

  That made Faucon smile. Not only had the reins of his new position come a little more firmly into his hand, but he could now indulge his need to hunt the child without insulting his more powerful relative. "We'll search a little longer, going farther to the north than they've looked previously."

  "But that makes no sense," Oswald complained. "You've just suggested that the nun stole this child. Why would they search for you when, if the lass was stolen—" here, he paused to shoot a narrow-eyed look at his cousin. "Mind you, I'm not saying that she has been. But if the child was stolen, it's hardly likely that the one who took her would abandon her only a little distance from where she was taken."

  If he were looking for a child that the thief intended to keep alive, that would be true. Instead, in his mind's eye he again saw the image of that lost and lonely lass. It wasn't a living child he expected to find, whether he found Cissy tonight or at some future time and in a more distant place. But if he told Oswald he was seeking a dead child, Oswald would insist on leaving for the night.