by Alys Clare
‘Yes.’
There was quite a long pause. Then Griselda began to tell me about Gerda, and presently the others joined in.
Much of what they said was probably irrelevant. Her sweet nature; her cheerfulness; her refusal to allow the life she led to alter her optimistic outlook and her affection for her fellow human beings. ‘But then she hadn’t long been here,’ added the woman who had told me this.
She wasn’t a local girl but had come to Cambridge after the deaths of both parents. The family had lived out in the country somewhere – the women were vague – and had just about made ends meet trying to farm a few strips of poor-quality land. Gerda had been the youngest child by some years, remaining at home when the older siblings had gone, and none of those siblings had been willing to take her in when she was left alone. She had made her way to the town and, as countless millions of women had done before her since the dawn of time, sold the only thing that was hers to sell. It was, I realized, a stroke of good fortune that she had come across Margery’s establishment. If you had to be a prostitute, it didn’t seem a bad place to be one.
As gently as I could, I interrupted the women’s chatter. They were eulogizing Gerda now, and I didn’t think I was going to hear anything useful. ‘Have you any idea why she went out the night before last? You say you all knew about Robert Powl’s murder, so wasn’t it strange that she should go out in the dark all by herself?’
I sensed a swift movement over to my right. Turning, I saw that Madselin had covered her mouth with her hands, perhaps to stifle a gasp of horror at the thought of Gerda venturing outside alone when there was a killer about. But there was something else, I thought; something in her eyes, some strong emotion which, in that swift impression, I didn’t think was only fear. But then she dropped her head, and the moment was gone.
‘She wasn’t the only one to risk it,’ the dusky-skinned woman said. ‘Madselin, I saw you scurrying back indoors the other night, didn’t I?’
‘No!’ The single word emerged as a horrified shriek. I turned back to her, my senses alert. But one of the other women chuckled briefly, breaking the tension. Madselin, I guessed, was being teased.
Griselda met my eyes. ‘Gerda’s not likely to have been by herself, not to start with,’ she said baldly.
I realized that my assumptions about the girls’ daily routine needed a bit of adjustment. I’d imagined they’d have taken their clients to one of the little recesses off the long passage. It appeared I was wrong.
Griselda was watching me, a faint smile on her face as if she was following my thoughts exactly. ‘Caught on, have you?’ she said. ‘The weather’s still mild, and some of the men prefer a bit more privacy.’
Gerda had been found beside the river, downstream from the quay. I knew the area, for my route home to Aelf Fen took me along the track that ran along the opposite side of the river. There were places on both banks where the road bent away from the water, where it would be possible to slip in beneath the trees that lined the river and find a spot where you would be unobserved.
‘Did the man who was with her have anything to say?’ I asked. I was finding it hard to believe that he’d have taken her out there, done what he’d gone for, paid her and left her to find her own way back.
Could it have been he who killed her?
My shock at the sudden thought must have shown in my face. Griselda leaned forward and patted my hand kindly. ‘You’re not the first to wonder if he decided to follow a spot of lovemaking with an act of violence while his blood still ran hot,’ she said. ‘Your friend the lawman grilled him for a whole morning, or so we’re told, but it seems the fellow’s guilty of nothing worse than letting Gerda walk back by herself.’
Under the circumstances, that was bad enough.
Griselda evidently thought so, too. ‘We also hear,’ she said, lowering her voice, ‘that the chap won’t be visiting us for a while. Seems he had a mishap while he was scurrying away after Jack had finished with him. Fell down some stone steps and knocked a couple of teeth out. He’s in a bit of a sorry state, it seems.’
I wondered if Jack’s hard-muscled arms had orchestrated that fall. I’d seen Jack lose his temper before and lay into a man. He’d had justification then, too. But it was something to set against the image I was forming of an upright, principled man who always followed every last letter of the law.
‘When can we bury her?’ the dark woman asked.
‘I don’t know,’ I admitted.
‘Is she safe?’ whispered the plump woman sitting beside Griselda. One of the others sniggered.
But I knew what the chubby woman meant. ‘She is,’ I said gently. ‘She’s lying in an old chapel, covered up with a sheet, and no further harm will come to her.’
Soon after that I stood up, thanked the women and left them. Margery, I reflected, had been patient, indulging me, or rather Jack, with quite a lot of her girls’ time. I ought to go now.
Jack was standing at the edge of the quay, looking down at the river flowing silently past. He came to meet me as I emerged, and we fell into step as we headed back to the town. I told him what the girls had said, distilling it to its essence, which wasn’t really very much.
‘I hear you spoke to the man she was with shortly before she died.’ I tried to make my tone casual. ‘They said you were convinced he didn’t kill her.’
‘He was with her much earlier,’ he said shortly. ‘She was slain after dewfall, because the ground beneath her was wet. He was back home with his mother by then.’
‘His mother might have been lying,’ I suggested.
‘She might, but it’s unlikely all the other guests round her table were, especially as one of them was a priest.’
‘Oh.’
I thought for a while. ‘She must have stayed out there, then,’ I said slowly. ‘Do you think she was meeting someone else?’
‘I don’t know. Yet.’ Jack looked at me; a quick, assessing look. ‘What I do know is that had he walked back to Margery’s with her and seen her safely inside, perhaps she wouldn’t have been out on the river bank when the killer came by. Which is why,’ he added, ‘I shoved him down the steps.’
SIX
Rollo Guiscard was heading north-west through Normandy. After months of travelling over both land and sea, on foot over deserts, mountains and the roughest, wildest terrain, he was mounted on a good, sturdy horse on a much-travelled and well-maintained road. He was not far from Rouen now, and only some thirty miles beyond the town was the coast. He reckoned he was almost on the last leg of his long journey back to England.
Even after so many days in the saddle, it was still a relief to be on dry land. He had spent weeks at sea on the sleek ship Gullinbursti, and although the voyage had been exhilarating, and an experience he was pleased to have had, nevertheless the gradually worsening conditions as autumn came on had steadily become harder to endure. The days of sunshine and calm deep-blue seas as they left Constantinople had become nothing but a memory, and even that was clouded for the ship’s crew by the tragedy that had befallen them at the mouth of the Dardanelles.1 They might have been led by a madman, but he had been their captain; they had shared in his impossible dream, and to a man they grieved for him.
By the time Gullinbursti reached the port of Marseilles, nobody except Rollo had possessed the strength or the heart to sail any further. Rollo, desperate to get to England, had pleaded and shouted, reminding Brand, the ship’s new master, of his obligation to his passenger. But Brand had simply looked at him out of sad blue eyes and said, ‘Your bargain was with Skuli, and he’s not here to honour it. We stop here, and we don’t sail on till spring.’
Accepting the inevitable, Rollo had enjoyed a fierce-drinking farewell celebration with his brothers in endurance and hardship, then bade them goodbye.
He set out the next day, having utilized the modest facilities of the tavern by the port where he had put up to wash himself and his garments, and generally refresh his gear. He counted his money. H
is purse was worryingly light, but he reckoned he ought to have enough to see him back to England. He spent as much as he could afford on his horse. It was going to have to bear him a long way, and as swiftly as possible.
More than once he had been tempted to make use of the chain of contacts which he had personally set up over the years; men and women who lived their mundane lives in towns, villages and isolated settlements up and down the land, going about their quiet business with no outward sign that they had another, clandestine role in the employ of a man whom they barely knew except as a good paymaster. In exchange for information, the passing of messages, the occasional requirement of a bed for the night and a hot meal, or the production of the small bag of gold coins they kept hidden for their mysterious stranger, Rollo paid them handsomely. Not that the money came from his own pocket: the King of England was the provider of the bounty, and he always paid well for good, loyal, trustworthy service. Such was Rollo’s network that he could have travelled right up to the northern coast, and spent barely more than a handful of nights in inns or taverns. His contacts never turned him away; it was in their interests to help him in any way he required, since his was probably the easiest money they would ever earn.
Rollo trusted his men and women; he wouldn’t have selected them for his service had he not. But he preferred not to let anybody know where he was, even his own spies. For he wasn’t going straight back to King William in England; there was another place he intended to visit first.
William had sent Rollo to discover the state of affairs in the Holy Land: specifically, what truth there was behind the rumours that Alexius Comnenus of Constantinople was going to appeal to the lords of the West to help him resist the terrifyingly swift advances of the Turks. After a long and arduous journey, and at considerable risk and one grave injury, Rollo now had his answer. He would deliver his information first to William – his life wouldn’t be worth a silver coin if William were ever to discover he had done anything else – but Rollo had decided that there was nothing to stop him then proceeding to sell what he had discovered, at such personal cost, to another interested party: William’s brother, Duke Robert of Normandy. If William was right – and he usually was, being shrewd, intelligent and an excellent judge of men – Duke Robert would be among the first to answer the call from Alexius when it came. Unlike William, Robert was a romantic, and would not be able to resist the appeal of adventure in the East. But, being perpetually short of funds, Robert would have to look to his brother in England for the cash to pay for his expedition, and the only collateral he would be able to offer was his dukedom. With any luck – for how likely was it, William reasoned, that Robert would come back safe and sound? – William would acquire Normandy without so much as raising a sword.
The journey up from Marseilles had been long and lonely. Rollo had ridden north along the banks of the wide, slow-flowing Rhone, leaving behind the Mediterranean and the fascinating southern city of Arles, with its ancient Roman buildings gently crumbling in the golden light. At Lyons he had crossed the river, after which he struck out north-west towards Orleans and Chartres. Then he had slipped unobtrusively into Normandy.
Now Rouen was only a few miles ahead. Rollo’s purpose there was not to seek out Duke Robert, but to hunt around for the sort of snippets of information that gradually built up into a full picture.
King William would, Rollo hoped, be impressed to learn that his spy had ventured right into Duke Robert’s home territory. As far as the king was concerned, this part of the mission would have been purely with the intention of discovering the current trend of his brother’s thinking. Only Rollo need know that there was a second purpose: for him to find out where to go, and who to speak to, when he went back seeking the duke’s ear.
Sometimes, tiring of the incessant intriguing and plotting, Rollo rested his mind by thinking how good it would feel to be back in England. He had been too long in the hot, dry, dusty south, and he longed for soft rain and mist rising in the mornings, and a pale yellow sun shining through the whiteness like a distant candle flame. His thoughts turned always towards the fens; to Lassair, whom he loved.
But she may not still love me.
He couldn’t banish the fear. It was irrational, and without real foundation. He and Lassair had become lovers, had exchanged tokens – he never took off the leather bracelet she had woven for him – and he knew she was not the sort of woman to give her affections to someone else just because he wasn’t there. But he had been away a long time; it was a year and a half since he had held her in his arms, and he had deliberately – cruelly? – refrained from sending any message to her, even though it would have been relatively easy to do so.
And sometimes, when he concentrated all his thoughts upon her, it seemed to him that she turned away.
Jack saw me back to Gurdyman’s door. Once inside the house, I was about to say goodbye, but, before I could do so, he said, ‘Can I come in?’
‘Yes, I suppose so.’ I realized it sounded grudging. ‘I mean, yes, of course.’ But why? I could have added.
He grinned, coming in after me and shutting the door. ‘Will Gurdyman be about?’
‘Probably not, but it doesn’t matter if he is, since he appears to quite like you.’
‘I’m really not that bad,’ Jack said modestly.
I led the way along the passage, past the kitchen and into the courtyard. There was no sign of Gurdyman. Although it was dark now, the air still held some of the day’s warmth, so I said to Jack, ‘Sit down out there and I’ll bring a mug of ale.’
He settled down on one of the benches. It wasn’t all that robust and gave a squeak as he lowered his considerable weight. I poured ale into a couple of Gurdyman’s best pewter mugs and went to sit opposite.
‘Any thoughts?’ Jack asked when he’d taken the top off his ale.
‘Only one,’ I said. ‘I’m sure it must have occurred to you too, but I wondered if Gerda might have made a habit of going outside with her – er, clients, and if so, whether she was unlucky enough to have witnessed Robert Powl being killed.’
‘Yes, I did think of that,’ Jack said. ‘Robert Powl was murdered some way from Gerda’s usual haunts, but I suppose it’s possible that a client insisted on some particular spot from where she might have seen or heard something.’
‘Wouldn’t—’ Just in time I shut my mouth on the question. I’d been about to say, Wouldn’t the client have seen or heard the same thing? but I realized that a man in the throes of passion probably didn’t see or hear anything.
‘I should have asked the other women,’ I said instead, hoping my face wasn’t too red. ‘Gerda might have said something.’
But Jack was shaking his head. ‘I don’t believe she would have. She was new to the life, and she’d probably have thought that venturing further away than the nearest piece of river bank would be against the rules.’
Silence fell. I was thinking about poor, pretty Gerda, and I thought Jack probably was too. Soft light spilled out into the courtyard from the lamp I’d lit in the kitchen. The air was still. I was just reflecting on how quiet it was, and how, although we were in the midst of a town, you’d have thought we were right out in the countryside, when a terrible scream ripped the peace apart.
Jack was on his feet, already racing for the door. ‘That came from the market square, unless my sense of direction has deserted me,’ he muttered as we fell out into the alley. He stopped, head spinning left and right, angry frustration making his face dark. ‘Which way?’ he demanded. ‘Lord, I can never find a path through these back alleys!’
I grabbed his hand and we raced off, twisting, turning and apparently doubling back through the maze, until we emerged in the square.
Unsurprisingly, we weren’t the only ones to have heard the scream. A small crowd had gathered, and more people were emerging from their houses and from the other passages that gave on to the market square. Jack pushed forward into their midst.
‘Go back inside!’ he shouted. The d
eep voice of authority seemed to have the desired effect. ‘Go on, before I arrest you for obstructing the law!’ he yelled at a stubborn old man dressed only in his chemise, whose chin was thrust out defiantly.
With a last glare at Jack, the old man shuffled away. Jack muttered something under his breath, his eyes roaming the square. ‘Where?’ he asked.
I’d been looking while he dispersed the crowd. I pointed over to the south-west side, where the better houses back on to the grounds of St Bene’t’s Church. Outside one of these a figure crouched low to the ground, and in front of her there was a huddled heap.
Jack and I ran across the square and in an instant we were kneeling beside the crouched figure. It was a woman, well over middle age, and she was moaning and sobbing, gasping for breath. ‘Oh, no, no, no, no!’ she wailed, her rising tone suggesting hysteria was imminent. Jack muttered, ‘Can you deal with her?’ I put my arms round her, murmuring soothing words, and got her up, gently leading her away from whatever lay at her feet. ‘Come with me,’ I said, ‘we’ll go back inside, and I’ll make you something hot to drink, with plenty of honey, and wrap you up in a warm blanket. Would you like that?’
‘Y-yes,’ stammered the woman.
I led her back into the house. I knew who she was, which probably meant I also knew who was lying in the square. Dead, for surely nobody could go on living after losing the huge quantity of blood that was soaking into old Adela’s white apron.
I settled Adela on a bench by the hearth, poking up the fire and swiftly mixing a drink of chamomile sweetened with a lot of honey. I swaddled her tightly in a blanket, first removing her soiled apron. It was a very beautiful blanket, of soft and pale-coloured wool, for this was a prosperous household. Then, feeling very guilty at deserting old Adela, I went back outside.
Jack looked up. ‘I was just coming to fetch you. She’s dead, isn’t she?’
I knelt down beside him and stared down at Mistress Judith. She was – had been – a handsome woman, entering her mature years but with a grace and dignity that had kept her carriage upright and her head held high. She was wealthy, having taken over upon his death her late husband’s shop, supplying materials for apothecaries and healers, and making a much better job of it than he had ever done. Mistress Judith was a born businesswoman, and I knew from personal experience that she drove a hard bargain.