A gray-haired man, who comported himself with a certain dignity and greeted neither us nor the monastic duo, studied the slices of bread in front of him for a long time before cautiously biting into one of them. Then he started to eat with the expression of a man who’d just been served a bucketful of ants. He was on his second slice when a flabby woman who hadn’t yet put on her head linen joined him. She, too, had gray hair, but with a black stripe that ran from the top of her head to just behind her right ear. They ate in silence, hardly glancing at each other, completely indifferent to everything and everyone around them.
Winston finished his tankard and looked fondly at Alfilda, who had taken a seat next to him to chat between her duties. Winston said it was time to start the day.
The day was warming up nicely, and people were already out and about as we stepped into the street. We strolled at a leisurely pace over to the square. The king himself was standing outside in front of the Hall, surrounded by housecarls and a small flock of men who looked like craftsmen and merchants. Winston took one look at them and declared that they must be locals who were either trying to curry favor with the king or who had been summoned to pay some additional share of the heregeld. We watched as Cnut slammed his fist into the open palm of his other hand, hurling angry words at the man in front of him. Then he began to walk up the road that led north, the whole group following behind him like a flush of ducks.
We were about to turn west into the lane that led to Estrid’s lodging house when a cart came rumbling out of the lane toward us. Judging from both the deep wheel tracks it was carving into the dirt and the heavy breathing of the oxen beneath their yokes, the cart was carrying a heavy load. We stopped to wait for it to pass. When it groaned to a stop in front of the house where Baldwin the Master of Accounts was waiting out front with his armed guards, we realized that the cart must be delivering some of Cnut’s eagerly awaited heregeld.
Winston and I continued on down the lane toward Estrid’s lodging house, where we were stopped by the guards at the door. I couldn’t tell you if they were the same guards from the day before. I hadn’t studied them all that closely, and none of them seemed to recognize me now—but that’s how it is with guards.
“Could you please inform Lady Estrid that Winston the Illuminator, the companion of Halfdan, with whom she spoke yesterday, would like to speak with her?” Winston asked them politely.
One of the guards promptly turned on his heel and went inside to deliver Winston’s message. Why were they so quick to do Winston’s bidding when they hadn’t given me the time of day yesterday? It could have been because Winston looked less menacing than I did—he wasn’t carrying a sword, after all. But I suspected the real reason was that Winston actually knew the name of the lady, which I had not known the day before. It seemed to do the trick, as it only took a few seconds for the guard to return and wave us in.
The interior of the house was every bit as spacious as it appeared from outside. Though it was not as grand as the royal Hall Cnut was staying in on the square, it was by no means the smallest hall I had ever been in. A fire was burning in the hearth in the middle of the room. Bunk beds lined the wall, beside which were bundles of clothing marking where the visiting nobles were sleeping. Men were sitting on the beds and on the benches lining a long table that occupied the middle of the room on the far side of the fire from us.
Although a few women sat at the table with the men, most of the women in the room were servants walking purposefully back and forth. Estrid stood up from the table and came toward us with an ingratiating smile. Over her shoulder, I spotted the young man we had come to speak with.
“So you have more to discuss with me?” Estrid said.
As Winston bowed briefly, I wondered how he was going to get us out of this pinch.
“Just one simple question, my lady,” Winston said, in his customary polite tone. “And I would ask you to forgive that it may be a bit lewd.”
Her eyes widened.
“But,” Winston continued, undeterred, “I don’t have time to couch my words more delicately since—as you know—the king has charged me with solving your brother’s murder.”
Estrid stood silently, making no effort to find a place where we could sit down.
“I’ll just ask you straight out then,” Winston said, lowering his voice. “Why haven’t you, a nobleman’s daughter, ever been married?”
Her head, which she had bashfully lowered, jerked up. The rage in her eyes was almost palpable.
“I warned you it would be a frank question,” Winston said, his voice soothing and gentle.
“A question that has nothing to do with my brother’s murder!” she said shrilly.
“All the same, in my experience it’s impossible to know what details will end up being important in a case like this,” Winston said.
I glanced over at the young man we had come to talk to and thought he might be looking at me.
Estrid’s heavy chin quivered; then, in a steady voice, she said, “Even natural-born daughters need a dowry. None of my brothers ever felt the need to provide me with one.”
“Thank you for your candor,” Winston said, bowing gracefully and looking at me.
“My lady,” I said. The look she gave me was hardly friendly, but I continued anyway. “The young man who greeted you when we were having our drink yesterday—who is he?”
I didn’t think she was going to answer me. It seemed that she was debating whether to do so or not, as she studied me silently for a moment. Perhaps she hoped that divulging that information would shut us up.
“Ranulf,” she said, and turned on her heel and walked away.
I raised my eyebrows and looked at Winston, who was rubbing his chin. No one seemed to find it odd that we were still standing there, even though the person we had come to speak with had left us. I saw Ranulf stand, rest his hand momentarily on his neighbor’s shoulder, and make a remark that made the other person laugh.
He then crossed the floor, not toward us but in the direction of the door. I nodded at Winston to indicate that we should follow him and we set off.
Once we were safely back out in the lane, we looked right and then left. Ranulf was walking purposefully up the narrow street, and we followed suit.
Before reaching the open square, he turned right into another narrow lane, apparently unaware that we were on his tail. He stopped to wait for a drove of pigs being herded down the lane, then continued on and turned into a side street. He appeared to be headed toward a little church about a hundred paces from the corner.
“That isn’t Saint Frideswide’s Church,” I said.
“No, it’s Saint Ebbe’s.”
Young Ranulf crossed the cemetery and disappeared inside. Winston nudged me with his elbow, so I took off my sword, passed it to him, and followed the lad in.
It was dark inside the little church, which was illuminated only by a single window in each of the side walls and the back wall and the two lit candles on the altar.
The room was empty apart from me and Ranulf, who was kneeling before the altar.
I exited quietly and found Winston, who was sitting on the wall that surrounded the cemetery. I retrieved my sword, and reported, “He’s praying.”
A contemplative look came over Winston’s face. “Like someone praying for forgiveness for committing the sin of murder?” he asked.
I shrugged my shoulders. I’d wondered the same thing myself. There was only one place a murderer could go to find salvation for his deed.
“Well,” Winston said, sliding off the stone wall and then leaning against it, “there’s only one way out of the church. We’ll let him finish praying before we question him.”
Chapter 24
The street outside the church cemetery was buzzing with activity. Oxford was inundated with people scurrying in all directions. Surely they all had some destination in mind, but from my perspective—leaning back, trying to appear relaxed, watching them hurry by—they seemed as aimless as r
ats.
Trying to appear relaxed. I couldn’t take my eyes off the church door for more than a second at a time because the crowd was so thick that someone who knew he was being watched could easily slip away, hidden in the swarming mass of humanity.
Winston sat in silence. He had plucked a straw blade, which he was sucking on with his eyes half shut, but when I looked over at him, I could tell that he was just as intently focused on the church door as I was.
Even so, we almost missed Ranulf’s exit. A heavily laden cart came to a halt in front of us. Its driver started whipping his two broad-necked oxen, screaming for them to move along, which didn’t do the least bit of good.
As I stood up to peer over the cart, three horsemen rode past on the other side of it. Enormous and armed, they were no doubt housecarls out on the king’s business. Regardless, my greatest concern was that they were completely blocking my view.
As the rump of the last horse finally moved out of my line of sight, I saw the church door swinging back into place in its frame. Had someone just gone in? Or out? My eyes darted up and down the street, and there—about a dozen paces down from the church—I spotted young Ranulf’s back. I brought Winston to his feet with a curse and broke into a run to catch up with our quarry.
Winston panted behind me as I caught up to the lad, fell into step with him, and waited for Winston to catch up to us.
Ranulf glanced at me, but showed no sign of recognition. He continued along at the same pace until we reached the square in the center of town. The Hall sat silent, but guarded. Activity was lively, however, in front of Baldwin’s treasury. A line of heavy-looking, ox-drawn carts snaked out from it, each of them surrounded by tough-looking housecarls. An even more intimidating-looking group of guards stood at the door, their hands never far from the hilts of their powerful swords.
Ranulf crossed the square to an alehouse, where he took a seat beneath the awning. He was served a tankard, and then simply sat there in silence.
I looked at Winston, who shook his head, indicating that we should hold off on approaching him. “Let’s see if anyone comes up to him,” he said.
But it seemed that Ranulf had just been thirsty, because quite some time passed and no one met up with him. When it looked as though he was almost done with his drink, Winston nodded and we stepped under the canvas awning.
Ranulf looked up as our shadows fell over him and then scooted over to make room for me next to him. Winston took a seat across from him. Recognizing me from the street, he narrowed his eyes at me.
“Are you following me?” he asked.
Before I could respond, Winston leaned across the table. His voice was quiet, but earnest: “Did you receive the absolution you were seeking?”
Ranulf’s eyes widened and he stared at Winston agape.
I hadn’t really paid that much attention to Ranulf before, having guessed that he was no more than twenty. But now that I was so close to him, I realized he was a fair bit older than I’d first thought. The wrinkles at the corners of his mouth indicated a man beyond his youth, and the steady look in his eyes indicated a man not easily bested.
He was dressed as a nobleman, with his breeches tucked into short boots. His shirt was made of fine wool, as was his sleeveless coat, which hid an elaborately worked sword hilt. He wore his brown hair in a helmet cut, and his powerful hands matched the rippling muscles that were just visible beneath his shirtsleeves.
“What in the world are you talking about?” Ranulf asked in a steady voice.
“In the church earlier, when you were praying,” Winston said, still quietly.
“So you are following me,” Ranulf said and started to stand up, but the hand I put on his shoulder stopped him. I never found out whether he was strong enough to shake my hand off because he immediately sat back down. “I’m Ranulf. Who are you?”
Winston nodded to himself. “That’s a reasonable question. I’m Winston, and this is my partner, Halfdan. At the king’s behest, we’re investigating the murder of a man named Osfrid, whom you knew.”
“And what does that have to do with me?” Ranulf asked.
So he didn’t deny knowing the dead man.
“Probably nothing,” Winston said, nodding to a lanky man with an oversized leather apron tied around his belly who appeared tableside. “Three ales, please,” Winston said and turned back to Ranulf. “But we’d really like you to answer a couple of questions all the same.”
Ranulf raised his eyebrows. “Ah, so that’s what you want. How long have you been following me?”
“Since you left the lodging house.” Winston had obviously decided that honesty couldn’t hurt.
“Did you follow me into the church?” Ranulf said, not protesting when the servant replaced his empty tankard with a full one.
“Yes and no. Halfdan followed you in, but then came right back out so as not to disturb your prayers.”
Ranulf exposed his teeth in a sarcastic smile. “So you think your tactfulness entitles you to ask questions.”
Winston responded simply by shrugging.
“Wait a minute,” Ranulf said, his face suddenly lighting up with understanding. “Absolution? Are you implying that I killed Osfrid and was praying for forgiveness?”
“That is a possibility,” Winston said.
Ranulf shook his head haughtily. “Not for me, it’s not. I don’t slink around killing men in secret.”
“But you do go visit their widows,” Winston said pointedly.
“Yes,” Ranulf said, looking from me to Winston, with a puzzled look on his face. “Of course.”
“Of course?”
Ranulf leaned back and studied us, as though he were contemplating whether he could be bothered to take the trouble to explain. He took his time, drank, wiped his mouth, drank again, wiped again, and then looked straight at Winston, who was waiting calmly for an answer.
“Tonild is my sister,” he said.
Winston’s eyes met mine. There seemed to be no end of relatives popping up in this case.
Something wasn’t right. I tried to put my finger on a foggy recollection, but it slipped away from me, and I sat back with a vague sense that it had been important.
“Your sister?” Winston said with a nod. “Yes, then I understand.”
“Thank you. Now, perhaps you will excuse me?” Ranulf said. He finished his ale and stood up.
“If you wouldn’t mind holding on for one moment,” I said, trying to put my finger on the thought that had escaped me. I stood up and pointed to the bench.
But it was not to be. Ranulf turned his back on me without uttering a word and was already three paces away when my vague recollection finally crystallized. I walked up behind him, put my hand on his arm, and said, “Yet you didn’t attend your brother-in-law’s funeral.” He looked annoyed.
“That’s my own concern,” he said.
“And ours,” I said. Winston had jumped to his feet and run around the bench as quickly as a cat to welcome us back to the bench.
“Would you please sit back down as Halfdan asked? Otherwise we will have to summon their help,” Winston said, pointing to four housecarls who happened to be walking past.
Ranulf eyed Winston for a long time before sitting back down on the bench without a word.
It had been a falling-out over land. The story Ranulf reluctantly told us has been told before and will be told again. A nobleman’s wealth is land. Land is what he covets most, and his enemies are often the result of disputes over land.
When Cnut had ordered Ranulf’s father assassinated, Ranulf decided, like so many other Saxon noblemen, to throw his lot in with Cnut, and swore allegiance to him.
Cnut accepted Ranulf’s oath, returned a portion of his father’s seized property, and hinted that the rest could be won back through loyal service and fulfillment of his oath. But Cnut did not return the family’s ancestral home, an estate in Kent that had been in the family for three hundred years, ever since King Eadbert had bestowed it upon their an
cestor, Ranulf the Elder, and it had passed to the eldest son in each subsequent generation since that time.
“What happened to the estate?” Winston asked.
I was fairly certain I knew the answer already but let Ranulf confirm that Cnut gave the estate to Tonild. Thus she brought her family’s ancestral home with her into her marriage with Osfrid. Predictably, this infuriated Ranulf, who felt it should rightly have been his. First he tried negotiating to get it back, but he eventually resorted to begging.
“What about Osfrid?” I asked.
“Osfrid just laughed at me and promised that he and Tonild would name their first son Ranulf,” he said, practically spitting out the words.
Osfrid could not have insulted or dishonored Ranulf more if he’d tried. Not only did Osfrid hold the family’s ancestral home, he was now threatening to take the name Ranulf and pass it down on the female side—this despite the fact that Ranulf was walking around, alive and well and presumably fully capable of producing an heir, who should have been entitled not only to the name Ranulf, but also to the family estate.
Though Osfrid was his brother-in-law, Ranulf swore he would never see him again. Ranulf’s oath had cost him dearly: Tonild, his sister, was welcome to visit him, but Ranulf never again set foot in the same building as Osfrid.
“And did Tonild visit you?” Winston asked. Ranulf explained that Osfrid had forbidden her to do so and that their visit the night before had been the first time that he and Tonild had seen each other since the falling-out.
I wanted to ask if he had appealed his case to Cnut directly, but I bit my tongue—it obviously more than suited the king’s purposes to sow strife between two Saxon noblemen.
“So you weren’t praying for Osfrid in Saint Ebbe’s?” Winston asked.
Ranulf was quiet for a moment and then sighed deeply.
The King's Hounds (The King's Hounds series Book 1) Page 19