by Jason Vail
Harry crossed his arms and pouted. “Give over.”
“No. Met her on crown business. Sworn to secrecy, I am.”
“Lying bastard. You’ve not met any witches in Ludlow.”
“Have too.”
Harry was silent for a while. Then he said, “This witch you claim to know, there isn’t any chance you’ll be coming across her anytime soon, is there?”
“I doubt it. Why?”
“Nothing. No reason.”
“What is it? What do you want?”
“Don’t want nothing. Oh, all right. Witches, they’re supposed to be good at brews. You know, cure you of stuff.”
“What ails you, Harry?”
“Nothing.” But Harry was blushing furiously above his deep brown beard, which covered his face like a mask and hung as far as his stomach, as if he had suddenly had second thoughts about speaking. “Nothing ails me.”
Stephen wondered what could make Harry blush so fiercely. “If you don’t tell me what to ask for, I won’t be able to get it.”
“Forget it. It’s not important. Lovely weather we’re having today.”
“Right. Nice day for finding corpses in the churchyard.”
The morning wore on as they waited. The air warmed and puddles began to form in the path. Droplets of melt from flecks of snow Stephen had not cleared away appeared here and there on the dead girl’s face and dripped down like tears. Children, released by their parents at the conclusion of their Christmas feasts, drifted into the churchyard. Stephen glared at them and they skittered out of harm’s away. Stephen gave the body a pull on the leg, hoping that the warming weather had loosened it, but it was still stuck fast.
Gilbert, followed by Jennie, waddled through the churchyard gate.
“Still here?” he asked.
“It takes forever to boil water,” Stephen said.
“I’ll go check on it,” Gilbert said and disappeared round back of the church.
He returned a few minutes later, lugging a pair of buckets. Steam wafted from the mouths of the buckets, like trailing fog. He said in disgust, “They all went to dinner, it seems.”
“I’d have gone too, but Stephen appropriated my cart for a chair,” Harry said.
“Be quiet and get out of the way,” Gilbert said, putting the buckets down beside the body. “Or you’ll get wet.”
“Come to think of it,” Stephen said, “he could use the bath. Have you ever seen or smelled anything so foul?”
Gilbert wrinkled his nose. “Now that you mention it, it smells like dead horse here.”
“I had a bath in July,” Harry said indignantly. “That’s good enough for any man.” Nonetheless, Harry moved a safe distance away.
“Shall I do the honors?” Gilbert asked with a touch of weariness.
“If you please,” Stephen said, resuming his seat on the cart.
“I don’t please. I just had a feeling you’d insist on it.”
“Quite so. At some point you need to remember my rank and pay proper respect. You’re wearing your clerk’s hat now.”
“Humph,” Gilbert said. “Clerks are paid for writing, not for this.” He tested the water in one of the buckets with a finger. Then he began to pour out a small stream around the edge of the body. When he had emptied the first bucket, he took up the second and poured out its contents, too.
When he was done, Stephen tried moving the body. It was still stuck. “You’ll need to go for more,” he said.
“Damn,” Gilbert said. “And I’ve a bad back.”
“This is the first I’ve heard of it.”
“You haven’t been paying attention.” But Gilbert clumped back round the church with his empty buckets.
After he had gone, Harry swung close to the body. He tried moving a leg. “Why don’t you give a heave at the shoulders, while I tug here,” he said to Stephen. “I think she’ll come loose.”
Stephen made a face. The thought of jerking the poor girl free like so much frozen wood was deeply distasteful. He had hoped that the hot water would make it possible to lift her without effort. “No thanks,” he said. “I’ll wait.”
Harry did not comment for a change. Instead, he took hold of the girl’s legs with his powerful arms, which had grown incredibly strong since he’d lost his legs in that cart accident a couple of years ago, and heaved. To Stephen’s surprise, the body came free rather easily.
“There you go,” Harry said airily. “You just have to have the right touch.”
“You’re a wonder, Harry,” Stephen said.
“That ought to be worth a penny,” Harry said.
“We’ll see about that.”
Just then, Gilbert appeared with two more buckets of steaming hot water. He saw with some dismay that the girl had been loosened from her icy prison. He put down the buckets and groaned, holding his back.
“Stop your faking,” Harry said.
“How’d you like to sleep in the snow tonight,” Gilbert shot back.
“You wouldn’t. It’d be un-Christian, and this being Christmas Day.”
“Enough of that,” Stephen said, kneeling at the girl’s head. “Help me lift her.”
“Where are the servants when you need them?” Gilbert grumbled.
“Same place they were when you went to fetch water,” Harry said reasonably.
Gilbert shot him another hard look but did not respond. He took the girl’s feet, while Stephen lifted her at the shoulders, and together they placed her on the cart.
The green cloak remained snagged in the ice, however, and threatened to tip over the cart. Stephen knelt and freed the girl’s skirt and cloak. Her clothing was stiff and still partly frozen.
“Where should we take her?” Gilbert asked.
“Into the church,” Stephen said.
He was about to take up one of the traces of the cart when a shiny object on the ground caught his eye. It lay in the puddle formed by the hot water in the place where the girl’s body had sprawled, but was still partly frozen in the ice. Stephen pried it loose with the point of his dagger. He held it up to examine it closely. It was a ring, gold with a green stone. The wide band was molded with sinuous shapes, Irish in appearance, that could have been mistaken for serpents, but which were something at once both ordinary and sinister. The sinuous shapes were not snakes but the stalks of a flower, the heads of which blossomed below the stone. Stephen had seen the like of those flowers before, a dandelion, as an owner’s mark burned into side sides of stolen kegs of salt taken from a party of merchants he and Gilbert had discovered murdered on the Shrewsbury road in the autumn before the recent war with the Welsh began. He remembered the vivid sight of seven naked bodies lying in the grass beside a beautiful stream, the peace of the morning disturbed only by the buzzing of the flies about the dead. He wanted to say something, but his mouth had gone unexpectedly dry and his throat contracted so that he could not speak.
He showed the ring to Gilbert, who bent over to examine it in Stephen’s palm. “A lovely piece of work,” Gilbert murmured.
“A coincidence?” Stephen asked.
“It must be so,” Gilbert said. “Perhaps she’s from the same family. Or frequented the same goldsmith.”
“Perhaps.”
“We mustn’t jump to conclusions,” Gilbert said.
“I’m not jumping to anything.”
“Hmm. I know you well enough by now to see a leap coming.”
“What do you have there?” Harry said, clumping close, irritated that they would talking about something and did not include him. Since Stephen was kneeling down, they were at eye-to-eye level. “Somebody lost something?” He gaped at the ring, which must have cost a great deal of money. “Aren’t you the lucky one! Don’t need your salary now, do ya! That’ll fetch well!”
“I don’t think I’ll be fetching anything with this,” Stephen said, closing his fist around the ring and standing up.
“What do you mean?” Harry asked.
“Means I won’t be selling
it.”
“Why not?”
“It’s evidence,” Gilbert said.
“Oh,” Harry said, deflated, as if he had expected to share in the wealth of the find. Unexpected treasure usually was at least worth a round of drinks. “Evidence of what?”
“Of, of — of something,” Gilbert said. “Now stop with your questions. We’ve work yet to do.”
Stephen nodded agreement with Gilbert. The ring was evidence, although about what was not clear as yet. He slipped the ring in his pouch and took up one of the traces. Gilbert groaned and lifted the other trace. Together they balanced the frozen body, which was in danger of slipping off as they moved, and wheeled the tragic assembly into the church.
“Do you think she was a thief?” Harry asked. His words echoed in the cavernous interior of the church, which was empty except for him, Gilbert, and Stephen. They were at the mouth of the south transept, just down from the great stone block of the altar, which stood behind its wooden screen in the chancel, or far eastern end. The body still lay upon the cart. Stephen and Gilbert leaned against a wall, waiting for church servants, who had finally turned up, to return with a table.
“What makes you think she was a thief?” Stephen asked.
“Don’t know,” Harry said. “But that ring looks like too much a bauble for a girl like her.”
“We don’t know if she was carrying it when she died,” Stephen said. “Someone from town — or even a visitor — could have dropped it, and she fell on it.”
“The chance that she died on top of someone’s lost trinket is too remote to merit contemplation,” Gilbert said. “You can’t think that, do you?”
“I don’t know what to think right now,” Stephen said.
“At least you’re not leaping to conclusions,” Gilbert muttered. “Shows you’ve learned something these last few months.”
“What did you say?” Stephen asked sharply.
“Nothing, nothing,” Gilbert said, no apology in his voice.
“You know,” Harry said, “if it was hers you’d think she’d be wearing it.”
“Wearing what?” Gilbert asked.
“The ring, you dolt.”
“I’m losing my patience with you, you legless idiot,” Gilbert said.
“You have such a charitable heart,” Harry sneered. He waved at Stephen who wanted no part of this dispute. “That ring, it ought to’ve left a mark if it was hers.”
“He’s right about that,” Stephen murmured. He examined the girl’s hands. On the third finger of the left hand, where a woman wore only a wedding ring, were faint impressions that could have been formed by a ring. He held the ring he had found up to the girl’s finger while Gilbert bent over his shoulder to watch.
“What did I tell you,” Harry said with triumph. “A match.”
“It could be,” Gilbert said. “But why would she take it off?”
“That’s easy,” Harry said. “She had an argument with her husband, she gave him back the ring, and he couldn’t take no for an answer and killed her. A story that’s as old as snot.”
“I hope that’s all there was to it,” Stephen said, thinking that if that was the case the death would be easy to account for once they found out who she was. “Or maybe the marks are nothing and maybe she stole it and the owner caught up with her.” It was still too much of a bauble for a simple peasant girl, even if it was a wedding ring. Yet he had noticed something else about her hands when he had examined them. They were unchapped and uncalloused; not the hands of a peasant or serving girl at all. None of this made any sense.
“Oh, yeah,” Harry said. “But you don’t believe that.”
Voices sounded at the western end of the nave. There was a barked curse, followed promptly by a sharp rebuke. The three turned to see who it was: two servants wielding a table through the door. One of them had banged his knuckles on the door frame, which explained the curse. The rebuke had come from the church prior, who was behind them. A third servant carrying the sawhorses on which the table top would rest trailed the prior.
The servants set up the table in the south transept and lay the body upon it.
“Must she remain here?” the prior asked, wringing his hands.
“Why not?” Stephen said. “The light’s good in here.” The light in the south transept was in fact the best in the entire church. There were stained glass windows on three sides, which gave access to the southern sun. Stephen noticed that high up, one of the panes had broken. A tall ladder leaned against the wall as if left there by a workman to fix the break. As he watched, a sparrow flew out the break in the pane. It was astonishing how it could streak through such a small opening at speed. He wondered how they did that. There were families of sparrows who lived year round in the church, nesting high up in the rafters. How they got in and out of the church had always puzzled Stephen, for somehow they found a way even with the massive doors closed.
“What has the light got to do with anything?” the prior asked.
“I want the people of the town to see her. Someone might know who she is. I’m sure her family will want to hear what’s become of her.”
“I see. Yes. A sad business.”
“Also,” Stephen coughed as he broached an uncomfortable subject, “it’s warmer here and she’ll thaw quicker.”
The prior looked startled. “Thaw quicker?”
“She won’t fit in a coffin with her arm stuck out like a tree branch.”
“It can’t wait ’til spring?”
When people died during the winter, it was not uncommon for them to be put in storage until the ground thawed out enough to dig a grave. Stephen grimaced. “She deserves better than to be left out in a shed like so much firewood.”
“I suppose you’re right,” the prior said, although no doubt he was considering the cost of burying her now and who would have to foot the bill, the parish most likely. “What a lovely girl she was.” He brightened. “We’ll ask for contributions on Sunday.”
“Good,” Stephen said.
“Have you any idea how she died?” the prior asked.
“We were just about to find out. We’ll need blankets — two if you can spare that many. Or sheets.”
“Two? What for?”
“To cover her.”
“But — but — she is clothed!”
“Not for long!” Harry cackled.
“Shut up, Harry!” Stephen said.
The prior looked shocked. “You’re not going to . . .”
“We always do,” Stephen said grimly.
“Almost always,” Gilbert interjected. “That is, we must if the cause of death is not obvious.” He added, “As it is not obvious here.”
“Oh, dear,” the prior said. “She’ll be . . .”
“Naked,” Harry put in.
“Get out, Harry,” Stephen said.
“I can’t stay and watch?”
“No. No one’s to come in until we’re done. It isn’t fitting.”
The prior had recovered from his shock. “Quite right. Out you go, all of you.” He turned and addressed both Harry, who was close by, and the three servants, who had lingered by the altar curtain in hopes of learning something worth putting on the gossip circuit. The servants moved off obediently but Harry was slow in his clumping toward the main door.
“Leave off!” Gilbert and Stephen heard Harry protest. “You can’t herd a man like he was cattle! I’m going — I’m going!”
“Don’t think about trying to sneak back in, Harry,” the prior said as they went out the door.
“Yeah! As if I can jump and reach the latch!” they heard Harry say as the door closed and a thick silence settled on the interior of the church.
Stephen and Gilbert turned back to the dead girl.
“Must we?” Gilbert asked.
“I don’t see any other alternative. She didn’t just freeze to death. People who freeze to death don’t lie like that, as if they’ve been knocked over. Remember those beggars, curled up as if they had
just fallen asleep.”
“Yes,” Gilbert said reluctantly. “I know.”
“I’m not looking forward to this any more than you are,” Stephen said. “But we must know. We must!”
Gilbert blinked, taken aback at the strength of Stephen’s declaration. “She’s just a girl, Stephen, who died in the snow. There is no need to become so agitated.”
“Just a girl . . .” Stephen’s voice trailed off. Gilbert had attended to hundreds of dead people as Sir Geoff’s clerk. Stephen had attended only a few. It was easier being indifferent to death on the battlefield than it was to this. And though she was not the first woman he had attended — there had been two in the fire and one of the beggars — this death affected him as if she were the first. But he said, “Sorry. I’m still getting used to this.”
“Of course.” Gilbert nodded.
The first step was to cut off the girl’s clothes to see if there were any marks on her body that gave any indication of the cause of her death. Gilbert drew his knife and leaned over her, as if to begin. But he hesitated, as he stared at that beautiful face, which even death could not diminish.
“That’s odd,” he said.
“What’s odd?”
“I hadn’t noticed it before,” he said as if to himself rather than in answer to Stephen’s question.
“Hadn’t noticed what?”
“The marks.”
“What marks?”
“There.” Gilbert pointed to the girl’s eyes.
“I don’t see any marks.”
“Look more closely. Those little red spots just below the eyes.” Gilbert put his thumb on the edge of the girl’s right eye. Remarkably, he was able to pull back the skin below the eye. “There are more.”
Stephen saw the spots now — little red pinpoints, some of them looking faintly star-shaped on the cheek around the eye, on the flesh of the socket and on the eyeball itself. Like some kind of faint rash.
“What do they mean?” Stephen asked.
“We’ll see. It could be nothing.” Gilbert flicked the snow out of the girl’s mouth. Stephen had expected her mouth to be full of snow. But instead, beneath a surprisingly thin sheen of snow there was dark, greenish ice behind her teeth. The lips and jaws were still frozen and could not be prized apart, but even Stephen could see, as he leaned his head close to Gilbert’s for a better look, that she had bruises on the insides of her lips.