by Alys Clare
Table of Contents
Cover
Recent Titles by Alys Clare From Severn House
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Footnotes
Recent Titles by Alys Clare from Severn House
The Hawkenlye Series
THE PATHS OF THE AIR
THE JOYS OF MY LIFE
THE ROSE OF THE WORLD
THE SONG OF THE NIGHTINGALE
THE WINTER KING
A SHADOWED EVIL
The Norman Aelf Fen Series
OUT OF THE DAWN LIGHT
MIST OVER THE WATER
MUSIC OF THE DISTANT STARS
THE WAY BETWEEN THE WORLDS
LAND OF THE SILVER DRAGON
BLOOD OF THE SOUTH
THE NIGHT WANDERER
THE NIGHT WANDERER
An Aelf Fen Mystery
Alys Clare
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This first world edition published 2016
in Great Britain and the USA by
SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of
19 Cedar Road, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM2 5DA.
Trade paperback edition first published
in Great Britain and the USA 2016 by
SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD
eBook edition first published in 2016 by Severn House Digital
an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited
Copyright © 2016 by Alys Clare.
The right of Alys Clare to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Clare, Alys author.
The Night Wanderer. – (An Aelf Fen mystery)
1. Lassair (Fictitious character)–Fiction. 2. Fens, The
(England)–Fiction. 3. Murder–Investigation–Fiction.
4. Great Britain–History–Norman period, 1066-1154–
Fiction. 5. Detective and mystery stories.
I. Title II. Series
823.9’14-dc23
ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8584-5 (cased)
ISBN-13: 978-1-84751-569-8 (trade paper)
ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-747-9 (e-book)
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is purely coincidental.
This ebook produced by
Palimpsest Book Production Limited, Falkirk,
Stirlingshire, Scotland.
For the Old Woo,
from OGH, with very much love
ONE
The death happened less than a week after my return to Cambridge. The season was autumn, the weather still mild and the leaves just beginning to turn yellow, bronze and copper: colours which made a pleasing contrast with the bright blue sky. The first frosts were still to come.
The body was found on the river bank, on a lonely willow-shaded stretch out to the west of the town. The throat had gone: torn out as if by a clenching fist with strong fingers and sharp nails. No human hand, surely, had that sort of force.
I’ve no idea why anybody thought it was a good idea to send for a healer. What did they imagine I would do? Join up the severed windpipe and put a patch on that gaping, yawning hole? Had I – had anybody – the skill, such an action might possibly have restored the corpse’s ability to breathe, but by then the poor man was past saving anyway because the ruptured vessels on the left side of the neck had allowed all the blood to drain out. By the time I got there, all we could do for him was pray for his soul.
And shiver with horror, for this was no ordinary death.
I had come hurrying back to the town and my studies with my mentor Gurdyman sooner than I had been expected, because I was following hard on the heels of Jack Chevestrier. We had got to know each other back in September, trying to help a lost woman find her way home,1 and although our time together had been quite short, already I sensed there was a strong connection between us. In my sensible moments, I found it hard to understand how two such different people – a Cambridge lawman and a village healer from the fens – could have anything in common. But the fact remained that something had drawn us together. I had followed him back to Cambridge because I wanted to find out what it was.
I had already settled back into life with Gurdyman, who, when I presented myself at his twisty-turny house hidden in the maze of lanes and alleyways behind the market square, had looked up from his workbench just long enough to say, ‘Oh, you’re back,’ quickly followed by, ‘Go out and buy us a couple of pies, it must be long past noon,’ before diving back into whatever was absorbing him and ignoring me for the rest of the day. I was used to him, though, and I didn’t mind. Once we’d eaten, we got straight back into our work together; he’d been instructing me in the Nine Herbs Charm a few weeks back, before we’d been interrupted, and it soon became apparent that this was merely the first in a long list of powerful charms he was planning on teaching me. I reflected with considerable pleasure that I was exactly where I wanted to be: deeply involved in the studies that I loved with a mentor I greatly admired, and with the prospect of an intriguing friendship to pursue as soon as I had some free time. Life, I thought as the days went by, not without a little complacency and self-congratulation, couldn’t be much better, and happily I looked forward to the weeks ahead.
Which just goes to show that it is a mistake to take for granted the pleasure of calm, peaceful days where nothing much happens other than what you’re expecting will happen. As soon as I stared down at that throatless corpse, I sensed the presence of evil and, somewhere deep inside me where intuition counts for a great deal more than logic and reason, I knew the calm, peaceful days were gone.
I waited with the body while a lad ran to find an officer of the law. It had been discovered by a courting couple, who had slipped away to this quiet stretch of the river once their day’s work was done to enjoy some private time together before the cold of oncoming autumn made such outdoor assignations uncomfortable and impractical. The lad had come along shortly after the discovery, together with the boy who had dashed off to fetch me. He was now sitting hunched up some way down the track, as if determined to get as far away from the corpse as he could. He and his companion had been looking out for a shady place to fish.
I felt very sorry for the courting couple. They’d described to me how they found the body, or rather the young man had, for the wo
man was still too distraught to speak. She was only a girl, really, and apparently she’d fainted. The young man looked scared to death, watching her with anxious eyes, presumably in case she keeled over again. He really loves her, I thought. It was a strange thing to have noticed under the circumstances – probably I too was suffering from shock – but, nevertheless, I was heartened by that demonstration of the young man’s love. He hadn’t brought her out here solely to explore the plump young body, although that he definitely had done, for her gown was still unlaced. I would make sure to point that out tactfully, before he took her back to town. Perhaps she had wanted the intimacy as much as him, I mused, for men make a mistake if they think they always have to coax a woman, and …
My rambling thoughts were interrupted by voices and the sound of footfalls. Five men were coming along the path that ran along the river bank, one of them carrying a hazel hurdle. I recognized the man in the lead; he was, like Jack Chevestrier, one of the sheriff’s men.
My heart sank. It was only then, when I knew it wasn’t Jack who’d been sent to investigate the death, that I realized how hard I’d been praying it would be.
The law officer was a tall, skinny man with narrow shoulders, a prominent Adam’s apple and a face that came to a point, with a long, protuberant nose above a receding chin. His eyes, small, intensely dark and rather close together, increased the resemblance to a rat.
‘What’s all this about a body?’ he demanded belligerently. He looked at the young couple, a brief, lascivious grin twisting the small mouth as he took in the girl’s dishevelled gown, and then turned to me. ‘I know you,’ he said, jabbing an accusing forefinger at me. ‘You’re that healer girl. Did you find it, then, and reckon you’d try to save it?’ I noticed he hadn’t yet looked at the corpse, lying beneath the willows.
I paused to calm myself, then said quietly, ‘I didn’t find the body, no. This young couple did.’ The girl had made the discovery when, lying on her back, she had flung out her hand, then, wondering why it seemed to have landed in a sticky puddle, raised her head to have a look. That was when she fainted, and, as she started to come round, she’d been copiously sick. ‘Then these two boys came along.’ I pointed to the pair, standing a little apart and clearly trying to melt into the background. ‘One of them came running to find me.’
The lawman nodded, a sarcastic smile on his face. ‘Right, and you reckoned you’d act the hero and save a life? Is that it?’
He managed to make what would surely have been a laudable action into something faintly risible. I began to dislike him profoundly.
‘Saving lives is indeed what I am trained to do,’ I said, just about managing to sound polite, ‘but I realized as soon as I got here that there was no possibility of doing so in this case.’
‘Beyond your competence,’ the lawman said. He glanced at the two skulking lads. ‘They should have sought out someone with more experience. Some man,’ he added.
I made myself count to five, fighting down the hot, furious words. When I was pretty sure I could speak without spitting, I said, ‘The most experienced man in Cambridge could not have saved that poor soul.’ I hesitated, wondering if it was wise to show him up in front of his men, but then I thought, He deserves it, and went ahead. ‘As you would have seen yourself if you had bothered to look, the corpse has no throat.’
The girl moaned, bent over and threw up again.
The lawman went very white. I watched him, the struggle going on in his head clearly visible in his face. He took one step towards the body, saw the blood and hastily stepped away again. ‘Dead,’ he said, too loudly. Then, turning to the man holding the makeshift stretcher, ‘Go on, then! Pick it up! Don’t just stand there gawping, you’ve got a job to do!’
The man with the hurdle glanced at his companions and they all moved reluctantly towards the body. I took pity on them. It was hard to be expected to show courageous indifference to violent death, especially when your commanding officer so obviously couldn’t. I stepped between them and the corpse, and, bending down, took up a fold of the blood-stained cloak, draping it over the head and shoulders so that the dreadful wound was invisible.
The man with the hurdle gave me a grateful smile. ‘Thanks, miss,’ he muttered.
The four of them bent to their task. They handled the corpse with gentle hands, as if it could still feel.
The lawman was already striding back towards the town.
I waited until the men and their burden had gone. Then I turned to the two lads. ‘Save your fishing for another evening,’ I said. ‘Go home now.’ The lads needed no further instruction, and, as one, broke into a run and headed off; not, I noticed, in the wake of the officer and his men but up another, lesser-used path. It was a less direct route, but had the advantage of allowing them to avoid any further attention from the law. It was a sensible precaution.
I met the eyes of the young man and said quietly, ‘Can you look after her by yourself or do you want me to come with you?’
He stood up a little straighter. ‘I can manage.’
I nodded. Then, holding his gaze, I indicated the lacings on my own gown. For a moment he looked puzzled, then realization dawned and, turning to the girl, hastily he tidied her up. He glanced towards me and gave me a quick grin. ‘Thanks,’ he mouthed. Then, his strong arm round her curvaceous body and her head leaning trustingly against his shoulder, he took her away.
At last.
I stepped over to the place where the body had lain and began the careful search I’d been itching to do since I got there. The lawman should have done it – of course he should – but fate’s hand had sent a man who was squeamish around blood and dead bodies, and his one desire had been to get the corpse back to town and hand over responsibility to someone else. If Jack Chevestrier had been dispatched to the scene, matters would have been very different. I knew, for I had already seen him at work and—
With an effort, I made myself stop thinking about Jack and got on with my task.
I knelt on the grass, careful to tuck my skirts up to avoid the blood, and slowly walked my hands, palm down, all over the area where the body had lain. It was quite easy to identify, for as well as the mind picture I had concentrated on committing to memory while the corpse was still in situ, the grass had been bent and flattened.
The ground held no warmth. This poor soul had been dead some time.
Next I studied the pool of blood. It, too, was cold, and congealing, brownish in colour. Then, on hands and knees with my arse in the air and my face close to the grass, slowly and meticulously I went over the whole area. I didn’t find a thing.
I sat back on my heels. Closing my eyes, once more I conjured up that image of the body and listed everything I knew about it.
It was that of a man; in late middle age, well-fed, plump-faced and clean-shaven, with neatly cut grey hair styled in a bob. He was clad in a costly robe of good wool in a bronze shade, faced with embroidered panels at the collar and the edges of the openings. He wore a hat, pulled down firmly over his brows so that even the violence of his death hadn’t knocked it off. Around his waist was a wide leather belt on which hung a purse and a short dagger in a gold-tooled sheath. His boots were of chestnut leather, supple and new, and there had been divots of muddy grass on the soles, as if he had dug in his heels to stop himself being dragged backwards.
I got up and went to check. Sure enough, a couple of paces away I found two indentations in the grass.
Reluctantly, I pictured the fatal wound. Death would have been pretty quick, and I supposed that was some consolation for the horror of its manner. The man had, I thought, been approached from behind. Feeling himself grabbed in strong arms, he’d have fought briefly, but futilely. Had the assailant turned him round to kill him? I had no way of knowing. The wound was deeper on the left side – where I’d noticed the severed blood vessels – so it had probably been done by a right-handed person, either reaching out as he stood before the victim or curling his arm round the front of the th
roat if he had stood behind him.
Finally, feeling more than a little queasy, I thought about that murderous hand. Was it a hand? A human hand? I shook my head, for it was dreadful to contemplate. The wound had looked huge as my horrified eyes had gazed down at it, and briefly I’d had wild visions of some nightmarish animal straight out of ancient legend, its murderously long, sharp claws spread on a huge paw, a hybrid of wolf, bear and lion.
But my sensible mind knew that such creatures had no existence outside the old fireside stories.
Did they?
All at once I was struck by the frightful realization that I was standing all by myself at the very spot where a chubby and wealthy townsman had met his appalling death. I was quite a way out of town, and it was rapidly getting dark.
I gathered up my skirts and fled.
Gurdyman was waiting for me when I got in. I was panting hard, sweaty, dishevelled, and still suffering the after-effects of my panic. I was touched to see a swift expression of relief cross his face; he’d been worried about me. Worried enough, I thought, to have abandoned his experiment down in the crypt and come up into the house.
‘I’m quite all right,’ I assured him as he shepherded me along to the little kitchen, where a pot of water was simmering over the hearth.
‘Sit.’ He pointed at the stool in the corner, and I did as he ordered. It was a great relief to rest. He poured water on to the contents of a mug he had set ready – some herbal mixture … I smelt valerian and chamomile – and handed it to me. ‘Drink.’
I blew on it and took a sip. He’d put a lot of honey in it, too. I sipped again.
After a moment, I said, ‘You’re treating me for shock.’
He nodded. ‘Quite so.’