by Alys Clare
The dead man was dressed in a fine velvet tunic which, before his body had begun to leach discolouring fluids into the fabric, had been scarlet red in colour, trimmed with gold braid. His undershirt was of linen and he had clearly been wearing it for several days, for it was sweat-stained and grubby around the collar and cuffs. His hose were of good quality but, like the tunic, scratched and torn by the brambles. His boots had suffered similar damage, although even the mud, the scuffed toes and the deep scratches in the high-quality leather could not disguise the fact that the boots must have cost a goodly sum. His tangled hair had been recently trimmed and looked dark in colour, although as Sister Caliste began to wash it, it was revealed to be a reddish chestnut shade. At a nod from Helewise, Sister Euphemia gently lifted the right eyelid. The dead man’s eyes had been light grey.
When the corpse had been stripped, thoroughly washed and covered up to the chest with a linen sheet, the three nuns stood looking down on the dead man. The body was already bloating and the veins were prominent and slightly greenish in colour. The face had swelled a little but, despite the disfigurement, it was still perfectly obvious that he had been a very handsome man.
Helewise was staring at a large bruise on the front of the neck. Pointing, she said quietly, ‘Sister Euphemia, could this be what killed him?’
The infirmarer bent closer. Then, with a soft exclamation, she beckoned to Helewise. ‘Look, my lady,’ she whispered. ‘There, on the right side of the throat beside the main area of bruising. Can you see?’
Helewise leant over the corpse. Sister Caliste tapped her gently on the hand and offered a sprig of rosemary; she had been squeezing it to make it release its fragrant oils and now Helewise, giving the young nun a grateful smile, held it to her nose. It helped, a little.
She made herself concentrate, forcing down the nausea. I must help this poor soul, she thought, and I will not be able to do so if I am crouched outside the infirmary vomiting up my midday meal. Now, let me see if I can make out whatever it is that Sister Euphemia’s sharp eyes have spotted . . .
After a moment she said, ‘Yes. There are faint marks like a plait, or a braid. Of course!’ Straightening up, she stared triumphantly at the infirmarer. ‘A rope.’
‘Aye, that’s what I’m thinking,’ Sister Euphemia agreed.
‘Was he hanged, then? Throttled?’ Helewise could not help but envisage both possibilities, harrowing though the visions were.
‘I think not, my lady.’ Sister Euphemia frowned. ‘If either were the case, the rope marks would extend far further around the neck. No, what I reckon is that he’s run at some speed into a taut rope, perhaps stretched across a path, and the force of it hitting his throat broke his neck.’ Glancing down at the dead man with compassion in her face, she added quietly, ‘He’d not have known much about it. Quicker than the hangman’s noose, that would have been.’
‘There is some comfort in that,’ Helewise agreed. She was thinking hard, trying to decide what to do next. A well-dressed young man, found murdered close by the new venture of Merlin’s Tomb, and— Suddenly she recalled something that one of the merchants had said. The guards at the tomb seemed ill at ease, were his exact words.
Why should that have been? Did they know about the dead man lying in the bramble thicket just a few miles away? Good Lord, had one of them killed him? Had he been a visitor to Merlin’s Tomb who had somehow annoyed one of the guards, done something, said something, that had earned him his death warrant? But what, for goodness sake?
Oh, she thought, oh, how I wish that Josse were here!
But he’s not, the cool part of her mind replied. You have brains, you’ve worked together with Josse many times to work out the solution to puzzles more complex than this one. And what do you always do when at a loss? You search out more information.
‘I shall ride out to Merlin’s Tomb tomorrow,’ she announced. ‘Sister Euphemia, can you spare Sister Caliste?’
‘Aye, my lady, for we are quiet just now and I have enough pairs of hands to do all that is necessary without her.’
‘Thank you. Sister Caliste, you will accompany me. We shall take Brothers Saul and Augustus. Oh.’ Belatedly she realised that, with Joanna’s mare absent in France, they only had three mounts, the Abbey cob, a pony and a recalcitrant old mule who went by the name of Mole.
Sister Caliste must have appreciated the difficulty. ‘You and I could ride together on the cob, my lady,’ she suggested. ‘It is not far to the tomb, I believe, and neither of us is very heavy.’
A kind remark, but inaccurate, Helewise thought, hiding a smile; Caliste was slim and lightly built but she herself was a broad-shouldered, tall woman.
‘I think, Sister, that instead we will dispense with one of the lay brothers,’ she said. ‘Go and find Brother Augustus, please, and tell him to prepare the cob, the pony and the mule after Tierce tomorrow morning and be ready for an early start. You can ride the pony, Augustus must do what he can with the mule, and I shall ride the cob.’
Sister Caliste bowed low in compliance. Not quite quickly enough, Helewise noted, to hide the lively excitement in her eyes engendered by the prospect of the outing.
The weather the next morning was all that an English summer day ought to be. Sister Martha had helped Brother Augustus prepare the mounts and now the three animals stood ready, Augustus holding the mule and Sister Martha the pony and the cob. Helewise stepped forward and the nun gave her a leg up on to the cob’s back. ‘We call him Baldwin,’ she said. ‘Sometimes he responds to his name, sometimes not.’
‘I see,’ said Helewise. The cob shifted beneath her and she patted his thick neck. He was an inelegant horse, nothing like as enjoyable a ride as the mare Honey, but then, Helewise reminded herself sternly, I am not going on a pleasure jaunt.
Caliste and Augustus were now also mounted; with a nod, Helewise kicked the cob’s sides and led her little party through the gate and off on the road that led around the forest.
There was no need to ride in silence and Helewise let her two younger companions chatter away to each other, although in the main she did not join in. She was very aware that she had an important role to play today and she was trying her best to convince herself that she was up to it.
They reached the track that branched off into the forest glade where Merlin’s Tomb was to be found and joined the queue of people waiting to file past it. But only until they reached the first of the barriers; here Helewise, suppressing her surprisingly intense desire to go on and catch a glimpse of those bones, addressed the heavily built man on guard duty and asked to speak to whoever was in charge.
The man looked her up and down, only belatedly according her, in an awkward and grudging bow, the respect that as a habited nun was her due. Then, with a sniff, he rubbed at his broken nose with the back of his hand and said, ‘Reckon that’s me. What d’you want?’
‘I am not prepared to discuss the matter out here in the open where we may be overheard,’ she said quietly. ‘Is there somewhere more private where we might go?’
He glanced around. Then, evidently spotting whatever he was looking for, he called out, ‘Jack! Oi, Jack, come over here.’
A man in a stained leather jerkin walked unhurriedly across to them. ‘What?’
‘Watch the gate here for me. I’ve got to talk to the nun here. She wants a word in private.’
The man in the jerkin gave Helewise an assessing look. Then, turning to his companion: ‘All right, Hal, but don’t be long about it. I’m meant to be off duty and I’m about to get myself something to eat.’
‘I’ll take what time I want,’ the first guard said, swiftly rising anger turning his fleshy, deeply scarred face an unhealthy shade of purplish-red. ‘You answer to me, Jack, and don’t you go forgetting it!’
Then, puffing out his chest like a cock in the barnyard, he said grandly to Helewise, ‘Follow me, if you will, Sister.’
He led the way back along the track for a short distance before taking a narrower pat
h off to the left. There was just about room for Helewise and her companions to ride, although she felt the undergrowth scratch against the fabric of her habit and once a branch of hazel pushed quite hard into her leg.
The path opened out into a clearing where cut widths of tree trunk had been set out, presumably to serve as seats. The litter of hard crusts of bread, rinds of cheese and one or two coarse, cracked earthenware mugs lying around on the trampled grass suggested that it was the place where the guards went to take their refreshment breaks.
‘Now,’ the guard said, looking up at her through calculating, narrowed eyes, ‘will you dismount, Sister, so that we may speak?’
Brother Augustus slipped off the mule’s back and, keeping hold of the reins, said, ‘Friend, this is the Abbess of Hawkenlye. You must address her as my lady Abbess.’
The guard looked quite impressed and his thin lips twisted in a gap-toothed grin. ‘Sorry, my lady Abbess, didn’t know who you were.’
‘It’s quite all right,’ Helewise said.
‘Right. Now, then. What can I do for you?’
‘A body has been brought to the Abbey,’ she said without preamble. ‘It is that of a well-dressed and handsome young man and it was found in a bramble thicket some four or five miles from here. A party of merchants found it, locating its place of concealment by the smell; the victim had been dead for some days. Since the body was found quite close to Merlin’s Tomb, I must ask you if anyone corresponding to this description has recently visited the tomb.’
The guard had heard her out in silence, his face unreadable. When she finished speaking he said, ‘What was he wearing and what did he look like?’ Helewise told him. ‘Did he have a horse?’
‘No mention was made of a horse.’ She had been careful not to say how the man had died, just as now she made sure not to offer the suggestion that any horse the dead man might have been riding would surely have eventually made for home when its owner failed to remount and kick it on again.
The man was frowning. Then he said neutrally, ‘Our master is missing. Hasn’t been seen for four days now.’
‘You mean Florian of Southfrith?’ Helewise tried to keep the shock out of her voice. Was the body at Hawkenlye that of Florian? Unbidden she heard in her mind the Domina’s voice: There are things that could be done. But the guard was speaking; stamping down the whirling thoughts, she made herself listen.
‘The very same,’ the guard said. Now he sounded like a gossip avid to impart news. ‘He was busy in the afternoon and early evening four days back counting his takings. He was going to bag up the money and take it home after the last visitors had gone. Well, other than the few who stopped over. If we had any that night, that is. I could check,’ he offered. He was, Helewise noted, being considerably more co-operative now that he knew who she was. Rank does indeed have its uses, she thought wryly.
‘Was it generally known that he was to ride home with the money?’ she asked. ‘If indeed he rode?’
‘He rode all right. Had a fast-paced bay gelding that must have set him back a tidy sum,’ the guard said. ‘And as to it being known, aye, I reckon it was. It’s no secret how much he’s taking here, my lady Abbess, nor, I reckon, that he usually takes the money home two or even three times a week. People have eyes to see the coins changing hands and brains to do the adding-up.’
‘He was in the habit of taking the money away with him unescorted?’ she asked. It seemed very foolhardy.
The guard shook his head. ‘No. It was more usual for one of us guards to go with him, and he picked us special like, on account of we all know how to handle ourselves in a fight and have no qualms over bearing arms and using them if we have to. But that night, nobody could be spared. I remember now’ – he nodded enthusiastically – ‘we’d been busy and there were a party of seven staying over. Florian, he said we had to help out. He didn’t want folk going away and saying they hadn’t got their money’s worth, see, so Jack and me and the others, off we went to the accommodation huts to dole out food and shake up mattresses.’ His look of disdain told her what he thought about that.
‘So quite a lot of people would have known that he was to take a large sum of money home with him but with no bodyguard,’ she mused.
‘I can guess what you’re thinking, my lady, but it weren’t as risky as it sounds on account of that bay of his,’ the guard said. ‘It went like the wind and Florian said he could outrun anyone as tried to apprehend him and rob him.’
‘I see.’ What, Helewise wondered, became of the horse? Had it indeed returned to Florian’s home? But if so, then why had nobody raised the alarm? A riderless horse coming in late at night must surely have sent Florian’s wife and her mother into a veritable panic of alarm.
Perhaps it did, Helewise thought. Perhaps they sent for help and even now a search party is out looking for Florian. A search party that for some reason has not yet got as far as Hawkenlye Abbey. Which, considering the Abbey’s fame hereabouts, must be a very odd search party indeed.
Her next move was now clear. ‘Thank you for your help,’ she said to the guard. ‘Now one last request: tell me, if you please, how I may find Florian of Southfrith’s dwelling place.’
The directions were easy to follow and presently Helewise was leading her companions through the gate and into the courtyard of Florian’s Hadfeld manor house. There was a row of tethering rings set in the wall and, dismounting, Helewise tied her mount’s reins. Brother Augustus and Sister Caliste did the same. Then, turning slowly to look about her, Helewise took in the scene.
There was a new extension under construction and the half-built walls were keeping a team of men busy. She could hear them talking; occasionally someone would call out a request for some tool or item of building material, to which there would be a cheerful response. A happy work force, she thought, doing a skilful job in fine weather for good wages.
She crossed the courtyard to the steps leading up to the main building, sensing Augustus and Caliste falling in behind her. Mounting the steps while her companions waited at their foot, she knocked on the stout door. After quite a long wait – she was just about to knock again – the door opened.
The woman who stood on the step staring out at Helewise with hostile eyes and an arrogant tilt to her chin was dressed entirely in black. Her hair was drawn off her face and covered with a little close-fitting black silk cap, over which was pinned a long, dark, semi-translucent veil which fell forward over her forehead almost as far as her eyes. In a voice that had the harsh timbre of a cawing crow, she said in heavily accented English, ‘Yes? Who are you?’
Helewise announced herself. Then, feeling her way cautiously, she said, ‘I wish to speak to the wife of Florian of Southfrith, whom I understand to be master here.’
The woman made a sound that sounded as if she did not think much of this understanding. ‘He’s – not here,’ she said.
‘As I say, it is his wife to whom I wish to speak,’ Helewise repeated politely.
The woman studied her, dark eyebrows drawn down. Then: ‘You can’t. She has taken to her bed.’
‘Is she sick?’
‘She is . . .’ The formidable woman hesitated. ‘Sick, oui.’
‘I am sorry to hear that,’ Helewise said. ‘Perhaps we can help? Sister Caliste here is a nursing nun and skilled in the healing arts.’
‘My daughter can see nobody,’ the woman said firmly. ‘She is . . .’ Again, she seemed to be searching for the right words. It could be, Helewise thought, because she was unaccustomed to speaking English. Alternatively, it could be because she was weighing what she said extremely carefully so as not to give too much away . . .
I am not going to stand here on the doorstep like some pedlar trying to sell his wares, she decided. She drew in a breath and then said quietly, ‘The body of a young man has been brought to Hawkenlye Abbey. I have just come from Merlin’s Tomb, where I was told that Florian of Southfrith has not been seen for four days. The description that I gave to the guard there
at the tomb appears to match that of your son-in-law and so I am very reluctantly forced to inform you that I believe the young man lying in our infirmary awaiting burial is indeed Florian.’
The woman’s face might have been carved from marble for all the reaction the features displayed to this terrible news. After a moment, the thin mouth opened and, lapsing into her mother tongue, she said, ‘It is as I feared, then. Primevère keeps saying that I am foolish to worry, that it is merely that he stays for more days out at the tomb in the forest – he is in the habit of remaining there for several days at a time, so eager is he to ensure that everything runs well – but me, I say we should send men to look for him. Now, alas, it seems I was right to be concerned.’
Helewise, trying to follow the rapid French – a language that nowadays she spoke infrequently – silently gave her brain a sharp nudge and replied in the same tongue. ‘Perhaps it would be wise for someone from your household to view the body to make quite sure it is that of Florian,’ she suggested. ‘If your daughter is already sick, then it would be unkind to risk upsetting her for nothing if the dead man proves to be someone else.’
The woman in black considered this for some time and then gave a curt nod. ‘It is sensible,’ she conceded. She thought further, frowning. Then: ‘I shall come myself. Wait here.’ Then she closed the door.
Helewise turned and slowly descended the steps. ‘That is Florian’s mother-in-law,’ she muttered to Augustus and Caliste. ‘She is going to return to Hawkenlye with us to view the body. She seems certain it’s Florian but we will wait for proof before she breaks the news to his wife.’ Dropping her voice still lower, she added, ‘The girl’s name is Primevère.’
‘Primrose,’ Sister Caliste breathed. ‘How pretty.’ Her face fell into dismay. ‘Oh, the poor girl! It’s dreadful for her, isn’t it, my lady? And she doesn’t even know yet that he’s dead!’