by Alys Clare
He was deeply asleep when the knock on the door came, so deeply that it took Walter and Henry several attempts and even then Henry had to slip inside and shake Jack’s shoulder before he stirred.
‘You wanted to see us, chief,’ Walter said once Jack was on his feet. He didn’t seem to be able to meet Jack’s eyes; discovering his superior sound asleep in the middle of the day appeared to have discomfited him.
Jack decided the best course was to ignore it and proceed immediately to the reason for the summons.
‘I did.’ He sat down on one of the circles of tree trunk that served as stools, waving a hand to two others. Walter and Henry sat down on the opposite side of the hearth. ‘I’ve been concerned about Gaspard Picot’s widow, the lady Elwytha, because—’
‘Yes, chief, we know,’ Walter interrupted quietly. ‘Ranald and Lard told us.’
Jack recalled his first exhausting visit up to the castle, and the conversation he’d had with the four men in the guard room.
‘Yes, of course,’ he said. With a grin, he added, ‘I’d almost forgotten how the lot of you gossip over your evening mug of ale.’
‘We wanted to hear about you,’ the lad Henry put in disingenuously. ‘Ranald only told us about your interest in the widow Picot because we asked what you were doing with yourself all this time.’
Walter leaned over and lightly cuffed the lad. ‘We asked nothing of the sort,’ he said curtly. ‘He’s convalescing, that’s what he’s doing with himself, and we’ll have less of your cheek.’
Jack looked from one face to the other. Did his loyal men really believe he ought to be making more of an effort? Perhaps they were right …
He turned to Henry. ‘I want to resume my role among you as soon as I can,’ he said. ‘Believe me, I’m building my strength up again but it takes time. You have my word, Henry, that as soon as I’m sure I can work all day and pull my weight as a full member of the force, I’ll be there.’
Henry had blushed furiously. Now, temporarily robbed of speech, he just nodded.
‘I’ve been keeping an eye on Gaspard Picot’s house,’ Jack went on, ‘and three times now I’ve seen someone else doing the same.’ Briefly he described the dark figure. ‘It’s not much to go on, and the man may have his reasons. I wondered, for example, if he was one of the people driven out of his home in order that Gaspard Picot’s house could be built, and—’
‘That could mean he had a grudge against the Picots and a desire to do harm!’ Henry piped up. He had, Jack thought with a quiet smile, recovered his usual buoyant spirits.
‘It could, Henry,’ he replied.
‘You said a dark figure,’ Henry pressed on, eyes alight. ‘Perhaps this man’s a wizard and he’s putting an evil spell on the house and its inhabitants, so that they—’
‘Or perhaps he’s not,’ Walter interrupted crushingly. ‘Perhaps he knows there’s gold and riches inside and wants to get his hands on some of it. Shut your mouth and listen, lad.’
Henry subsided.
It was strange, Jack thought, that Henry should have mentioned evil spells. Hadn’t he himself had the strongest sense that the dark figure’s interest in the Picot house was malicious?
‘I can’t in truth say what makes me suspicious,’ he said after a moment. ‘There could be no cause for concern, but I think we ought to keep a watch.’
‘If this dark man notices we’ve got our eye on the place he’ll probably give it up and slink away,’ Walter said.
‘True,’ Jack agreed, ‘but I think we should try to find out more about him and his purposes. I will undertake to keep watch in the mornings at least, and possibly again later as well, since I’m already in the habit of walking out that way each day, getting myself fit for duty.’ He grinned at Henry. ‘If you can arrange between you to have eyes on the house at other times of the day – and night, I suppose – let’s keep at it for the rest of today and tomorrow, then meet in the tavern the following evening to report on what we’ve seen. If anything,’ he added grimly.
Walter and Henry got up, and Jack went with them out into the alley. Evening was drawing on, and the light had begun to fade.
Henry called out a cheerful farewell and led the way off up the path. Walter, following, turned back, his face creased in a frown.
‘She’s not your responsibility, you know, chief,’ he said softly.
Jack knew who he meant.
‘She’s a widow because of me,’ he replied.
‘She’s a widow because her thieving cheat of a man attacked you and all but killed you,’ Walter said bluntly. ‘And,’ he added, ‘it’s not as if his death has thrown her into penury, is it?’ He turned away again and a faint ‘Night, chief,’ floated back.
Jack returned inside and closed the door, leaning thoughtfully against it for a few moments. Walter was right; the lady Elwytha had been born into wealth and it wasn’t going to be taken away from her now that she was widowed. And, from all accounts, she was a self-serving, uncharitable soul who clutched her riches to herself like a miser.
Jack sighed.
It was folly, perhaps, but nevertheless he recognized that some impulse within him wasn’t going to let this go.
He resumed his vigil for a spell late that evening, and was back at his post the following morning. Perhaps he was losing his powers of observation, or maybe the dark man was getting better at concealing himself; perhaps he had simply given up. He returned briefly in the evening, still with no success, and finally, as darkness closed in and worn out from the extensive walking and the tension, he went home, ate a bite of supper and fell into bed.
With a start of alarm, Jack woke from a brief, deep sleep.
He knew he hadn’t been asleep for long because the couple of small logs he’d put on the fire when he went to bed had still not burned right through.
He wondered what had woken him. His heart was beating hard, as if he’d sensed danger. Then, like an echo out of a dream, he remembered smelling smoke.
Yes, that was it – he’d been dreaming of fire. He’d heard the hungry roar, seen the great billowing clouds of white smoke rising into the dark night. Fear returned, and he felt the sweat break out on his chest.
He sniffed, once, again. Other than the usual background aroma of woodsmoke that was always present inside his house – inside everyone’s houses, so that nobody really noticed it – the air was clear. No wild blaze, no smoke, no danger.
He sank back and tried to make himself relax.
He was tired – exhausted might be more accurate – and his bed was snug and warm. He should try to go back to sleep. He knew he needed his rest. Lassair had told him that the body used the sound sleep of deep night to heal, and he was well aware he still needed to heal. Although he was slowly building up his strength – as well as everything else, he’d managed to do quite a lot of work on the new roof today, and his muscles weren’t burning with quite so much pain as the last time he’d made such an effort – he was still a long way from being his former self.
His body was relaxed but he couldn’t still his mind.
Lassair filled his thoughts, as she so often did. At first, thoughts of her made him smile. But, as always seemed to happen, soon his optimism began to fade. She’d been gone so long. When would she come back? Would she come back?
As his thoughts set off down the dismally familiar track, he forced himself to contemplate something else. And, for want of anything better, he returned to the reliable distraction of planning in his mind how he would complete the construction of the new roof.
There was no sign of the dark-cloaked figure the next morning, either. By the end of that day, when Jack had stayed at his post far longer than he usually did and become thoroughly cold and very grumpy, he was ready to tell Walter and the others to quit. He had little hope that any of them would have had more luck than he had, and went along to the meeting at the tavern that evening wishing he could stay at home by the fire.
Seeing his faithful band huddled in their usual corner, howeve
r, raised his mood, especially when one after another they got up to greet him, and even more when Fat Gerald thrust a mug of ale into his hand. They were settling down again, shoving each other along the benches and pulling up additional stools, when the door opened and two more men came in.
‘We heard you were meeting tonight,’ Ranald said, ‘so me and Lard here thought we’d come and pass the time of day. Ned and the lad Iver are on duty, else they’d have come too.’
‘It’s good to see you,’ Jack said. ‘Thank you for coming.’
‘We want you back, chief,’ Ranald said bluntly. ‘We know you’ll be with us soon as you can, and in the meantime, we’re prepared to come to you.’
Made awkward by the men’s confidence and trust, Jack hastened to the purpose of the meeting. ‘We’ve all been keeping watch on Gaspard Picot’s house,’ he said. ‘I for one have seen no sign of the dark figure in the cloak for the last two days. Anyone else got anything to report?’
There were shakes of the head and mutters of ‘No’ and ‘Same with me.’
‘They’re saying she’s increased the guard,’ Ranald volunteered.
Jack turned to him, recalling that, when he’d first raised the subject of the widow Picot, it had been he who had provided information. ‘How do you come to know about her?’ he asked.
Ranald grinned. ‘I know one of her maids. Not like that!’ he added quickly as various suggestions of greater and lesser crudity were made. ‘She’s a comely lass, I’ll admit, but she’s sweet on one of the manservants. She’s my cousin’s wife’s sister, and when my kin get together, we like to talk.’
‘And is there any reason for this increase in security?’ Jack asked.
Ranald shrugged. ‘Other than the obvious one – that she’s now a woman alone, sitting in a rich man’s house with a wealth of costly possessions – can’t think of one.’
‘Maybe she’s spotted the dark figure,’ Henry suggested, eyes wide. ‘She’ll be frightened if she has, because I reckon he’s—’
Walter dug an elbow in the lad’s ribs and he subsided.
‘What d’you want us to do, chief?’ Lard asked. ‘Keep up the watch?’
Jack hesitated. On the one hand, he remained certain in his own mind that the dark-clad man meant harm to the household. Theft perhaps – the general opinion seemed to be that nobody, excluding herself, would lose much sleep if the widow Picot were to be relieved of a little of her fortune – but it was always possible that there was something else. His instinct went on telling him there was, but was it fair to impose extra duties on these hard-working, willing men simply on his instinct?
‘We’ll stand down,’ he said eventually. ‘It may be that, observing our interest, the dark man has quietly given up and slipped away. In that case, you’d all be wasting your time, and I don’t want to be the cause of that.’
It was evident, he noticed with a wry, private smile, that nobody protested.
‘We could make sure to keep the house on our rounds for a few days more,’ Walter volunteered. ‘Wouldn’t hurt to pause for a while and cast an eye over the place.’
‘Thank you, Walter,’ Jack replied.
It was time, he decided, to move on.
To repay the men for their time, he ordered more ale and some food. The least he could do, having kept them from returning to their well-earned rest at the end of another hard day, was to send them home with full bellies.
Jack couldn’t sleep. Earlier, he’d been so certain that keeping vigil to watch out for the cloaked man was a total waste of time. Now, alone in the darkness and the silence, he wasn’t so sure. Why? What had changed?
He tried to still his thoughts, to see if that would leave space for whatever was troubling him to make itself known. And, straight away, in his mind he was seeing the house of Gaspard Picot’s widow. Images of the rabbit-eyed woman, the extravagant, vulgar house and the mysterious man lurking outside filled his head and wouldn’t go away. He knew, knew, something was wrong.
Impatiently he flung back the bedding, reached for his leather tunic and drew on his boots. He fastened on his sword belt, feeling the weight of the steel dragging on his left side. He put a dagger in his belt and a smaller knife in a stout leather sheath in the small of his back, tucked into his belt and concealed by his tunic.
Then he set out.
The night was clear. For once it wasn’t raining, and the stars bright above him suggested it wasn’t going to in the near future. He strode on, fatigue driven out by purpose. Something was going to happen. He was all but certain.
He kept a look-out for patrols, but, other than hearing evidence of a small band of marching men in the distance as he passed by the deserted market square, didn’t encounter any. The town, it appeared, was fast asleep.
He hurried on, increasing his pace as the unreasoned sense of urgency tightened its hold. And, soon, the huge bulk of Gaspard Picot’s house rose up before him.
He stood panting in his usual place, beneath the willow trees overhanging the tumbledown wall. At first it seemed that all was quiet, and his unease misplaced.
Then, standing absolutely still, his breathing now returned to normal, he heard it: a long, thin, drawn-out scream of fear, of horror, of shock.
He didn’t pause to think but sprang straight into a hard run and made for the steps up to the iron-studded doors. He raised his fist and banged on them. The screams from within paused briefly, then resumed at an even greater intensity.
Then there was the sound of bolts being drawn back, and the doors opened. A deathly white face peered out, and, taking in the rest of the man, Jack recognized the stout servant who had been among those escorting the lady Elwytha on her excursion.
‘What has happened?’ Jack demanded. ‘I’m one of the sheriff’s men, I’m here to help.’
The man’s face crumpled and tears filled his eyes. ‘Oh, come in, for the dear Lord’s sake, come in! Oh, thank God you’re here!’
‘What is it?’ Jack repeated. ‘What’s the reason for the screaming?’
The man, busy mopping his streaming eyes and running nose, set off at a trot, beckoning to Jack to follow. Other than a strange, distressed gulping, he didn’t seem capable of making another sound.
He led the way along a passage, stone-flagged, with ornate oak chests set against its sides. By the light of torches set in sconces, Jack made out the bright, lively colours of tapestries hanging on the walls. On the top of one of the chests, the flames reflected in a range of exquisite silver: goblets, platters, something that looked like an ornamental shield. There was more wealth in this one corridor, he thought, than in a whole street of the small, cramped, inadequate dwellings of the poor. Than in a dozen streets.
The corridor opened out into a high, wide hall, in the centre of which a fire burned in a huge hearth. More chests lined the walls, as well as a long, narrow oak board on which was arranged more silver.
But then the plump servant stood aside, and Jack saw what lay on the stone floor on the far side of the fire.
It was the blood that first caught the eye. There was a lot of it, pooled on the flagstones and glistening like garnets in the light of the flames. As always, he was overcome with amazement that the body should hold so much, and at how quickly it leaked away when the flesh was irreparably breached. It was an awe-inspiring, dreadful sight, even to him who was used to the appearance of violent death. For the young girl kneeling over the still figure, wringing her hands and still screaming, it was a horror straight out of hell.
Turning to the stout servant, Jack said, ‘Send for someone to take that poor child away, or do it yourself. She’ll scream herself hoarse otherwise.’ And I’ll need to talk to her soon, he could have added. ‘Get a woman to sit with her and comfort her,’ he went on; the plump man hadn’t moved. ‘She needs a hot, sweet drink and some kindness!’ he said more forcefully, and at last the plump man jerked himself out of his shock and did as he was told.
Alone in the hall, Jack knelt down beside the
victim.
It was a woman, and he was already fairly sure who she was. She lay on her front, however, and he needed to confirm his suspicions. Gently he took hold of the shoulders and turned the body over.
Even looking into the dead woman’s face, logical assumption had to take the place of a firm identity. For the woman had been attacked with such savagery that her forehead had collapsed, her nose was splattered across her cheeks and her lower jaw hung loose.
It was the eyes that gave the only real confirmation; those small eyes, with their pop-eyed, lashless look that puts you in mind of a rabbit: from the depths of his memory, Jack recalled Ranald’s description. Now the eyes were wide with horror; with fear; with agony. The lady Elwytha hadn’t died easily.
Jack tore his gaze away and methodically inspected the rest of the body. His questing fingers detected a bump on the back of her skull; perhaps the initial blow had been from behind. He pushed back the long, elegant, lace-trimmed sleeves of the undergown and inspected the thin stick-like forearms. Both left and right had bruises, marking the deathly white flesh like broad stripes. She tried to fight him off, Jack thought.
He continued his examination. It was quiet in the great hall: having noticed the strange silence, he wondered at it. And why, too, was he still here alone? He seemed to have lost track of time, but he was fairly sure that rather a lot had passed since he’d entered …
He sat back on his heels. His hands, he noticed, were covered in blood. Looking around for something with which to wipe them, he saw a small pile of linen cloths on the oak board. He got up and fetched one.
He had just finished cleaning up when there were footfalls in the corridor leading to the doors. Two sets. Three … No, more.
He turned to see who was approaching.
First came the younger of the two manservants he’d seen escorting the lady Elwytha. Next came a well-built young man – an outdoor servant, or perhaps a groom – who had armed himself with a cudgel, and who had presumably accompanied the serving man for protection when he went for help.
Bringing up the rear was a trio of lawmen, all three of whom Jack recognized. He nodded to them, and two of them murmured greetings.