The Girl in the Ice (A Stephen Attebrook mystery Book 4)

by Jason Vail

  “Stephen,” Gilbert said softly, “would you go fetch Harry’s cup?”

  “Harry’s cup?”

  “That’s right. We’ve need of it, more than he does now, I think.”

  Bewildered, Stephen went outside, where as expected, Harry was waiting on the path. “I need your cup, Harry.”

  “What for?”

  “Would you like me to send Gilbert after it? He’ll not be as polite about it as I am.”

  Harry handed over the cup. “I want it back. And no spitting in it, or anything like that!”

  Stephen went back into the church and gave the cup to Gilbert, who set it on the table beside the girl’s head.

  “Oh, dear Lord, forgive me,” Gilbert sighed. He put the point of his knife in the girl’s mouth and prized out a spoonful of greenish ice, which he put in the cup. When he was done, he sniffed the contents of the cup.

  “What is it?” Stephen asked, as bursting with curiosity as Harry must be, marooned outside.

  “I’m not sure,” Gilbert said. “I don’t recognize the odor, but then I am not very good with herbs.”

  “You think it’s a potion?”

  “I can’t think of what else it might be.”

  “What about the marks? What do they mean?”

  Gilbert put his knife away and folded his hands into his sleeves. “Sometimes they are found on the drowned. But more often on the smothered. I don’t know what causes them, but I’ve seen them more than once. The marks on the lips, now. Those are common and their cause is immediately apparent — someone pressed her lips closed, violently. And from that, I imagine she probably died.”

  “Smothered! Then she really was killed.”

  “It would appear so. I’m satisfied with this evidence. I’m not cutting her clothes off. You can if you like.”

  Stephen had had little enthusiasm for such a violation to begin with. He had none at all now and welcomed any excuse not to go any further. Stephen picked up the cup and sniffed the contents himself. The odor was faint, a musty sharpness that he could not identify. “Someone tried to make her drink something she didn’t want to.”

  Gilbert sighed again. “I assume so.”

  “The question is who — and why.”

  “Sadly, I doubt we will ever know.”

  Chapter 4

  The girl lay in the south transept for three days, her body covered to the chin with a linen sheet, which made it look even more like she was just sleeping. Everyone in town had a chance to see her. In fact, the church was crowded every day with onlookers. As news of her lying in state spread, she drew visitors from the surrounding countryside. Some came at least twenty miles for the spectacle. From this viewing it became ever more clear that she didn’t come from the town or any of the surrounding lands. More oddly still, no one could remember how or when she had gotten through the gates.

  Not even the gate wardens recalled her. “I’d not forget a face like that,” the one-toothed warden Gip said, gazing down at her alabaster face. “And neither would you.”

  By Saint Innocent’s Day, Thursday the 28th, the girl had thawed enough for burial. The priest had taken up a collection to cover the cost, and when Stephen arrived that afternoon at the conclusion of the noon Mass, he found a carpenter at work in the transept making the coffin. It was a pauper’s coffin, a plain and simple box. No peaked top for her, just a flat rectangle of wood nailed down. She’d go into pauper’s ground too, without anything to mark the spot where she had been planted. Grass would grow over the grave and within a few years she’d be forgotten, other than as a story to be told at Christmas. And before too many years doubtless even that story would be lost.

  There was another craftsman at work in the transept, a stained-glass maker at the top of the ladder repairing the broken window. People did not normally work during the week following Christmas unless they were servants or there was some urgent business. This master was not from town. Stained-glass-making was a special skill and he had been brought in from outside by the prior. It must be that his holiday idleness was costing the parish too much money. Or perhaps the priest intended to plug one of the holes used by the sparrows, which often left gifts on the heads of parishioners, to the annoyance of all.

  Since news that the girl was to be buried that afternoon had spread, a great crowd had gathered, with some jostling, at the mouth of the transept. There were leers on some faces, which irritated Stephen, and he drew the hem of the sheet over the girl’s face.

  “Hey,” said a boy, who had been sitting on the ground by the foot of the ladder. He got up and pulled down the sheet to expose the face. “I’m not finished.”

  “I think you are,” Stephen said, taking hold of the sheet and returning it.

  “What’s the problem, Bertie?” called the man on the ladder.

  “He won’t let me finish, Dad.”

  “He’s your boy?” Stephen asked the craftsman.

  “Yes,” the craftsman said. He climbed down the ladder. He put down a green triangle of glass encased in a lead frame. He rested his hands on his hips in an unmistakably aggressive manner. “What, exactly, is the problem? Who are you?”

  “I’m the deputy coroner,” Stephen said, “and I wish that this woman be treated with a minimum of respect, which means she is not to be the object of gawking.”

  “I’m not gawking,” Bertie said, unmoved by what little eminence Stephen’s position might provide him. “I’m working.”

  “What do you mean, you’re working?” Stephen asked, taken aback.

  “Here,” Bertie said.

  He held out a sheet of Italian paper. That alone was startling enough. Italian paper was exceedingly rare and expensive, and Stephen had only seen examples of it three times in his life. But what was on the paper made his mouth fall open. It was a drawing of a face. In ink. He took the paper from the boy’s hands and compared it to the face of the dead girl on the table.

  “Looks right like her, don’t it?” the glassmaker said proudly. “Don’t he do a good job? Bertie’s really got the touch.”

  “It’s amazing,” Stephen said. The resemblance between the face and the drawing was uncanny, magical even. It was the girl, as she must have been in life. Instead of the slack look borne by the corpse, her eyes were open and lively, and she wore a slight smile. It almost seemed as if she was smiling at him.

  “Bertie does all me drawings for the glass,” the glassmaker said. “He’s got such a better hand than I have, and so young. Just eight, you know.”

  “You’re not going to put her in the window, are you?” Stephen asked.

  “I might. That’s not a bad idea.” The glassmaker’s fingers drummed on his lips as he considered this thought. “Provided that old fussbudget doesn’t notice. I could put her high up. There.” He pointed. “You won’t say anything about this, will you?”

  Stephen shook his head. A mere coroner’s deputy had no warrant to interfere with art, even if he might be inclined to express an opinion or two, politely, of course.

  Bertie held out his hand. His fingers, Stephen noticed, were stained with ink. “Can I have it back now?”

  “I’d like to keep it.”

  “It’s mine,” Bertie protested. “We need it now, see?”

  “I’ve need of it, too,” Stephen said. “More than you. You can make another.”

  Bertie’s father looked as though he might protest but the look on Stephen’s face stopped him. He said, “There isn’t time. They’re about to plant her. The box is almost finished.”

  “We’ll wait.”

  “On whose authority?”

  “On mine.”

  “Wonder what the prior will have to say about that?”

  “She’s lain here three days. Half an hour more won’t make a difference.”

  “It’ll take more than half a hour to get it right,” Bertie said.

  “Better get to work, then.” To stifle further protest, he tossed Bertie two pence, enough to buy four pounds of cheese, acutely a
ware of how empty his purse was now.

  The glassmaker smiled at the gesture. “All right. Bertie, there’s another piece of paper in the box behind the circle cutter.”

  “Thank you.” Stephen blew on the ink to make sure it was dry. He carefully folded the paper and put it in his belt pouch beside the ring.

  It took a full hour for Bertie to get his drawing done to his and his father’s satisfaction. During the course of his work, the prior himself appeared. He observed Bertie’s work with a frown, asked if things were ready, received the reply that they were not, and departed.

  When Bertie was done, Stephen asked who would prepare the body for burial. The girl, being a stranger and lacking relatives to wash and to shroud her, had to depend on volunteers for this final service. Several women from the town had agreed to do this solemn work. Indeed, they had already performed part of this service, for earlier in the morning, when no one was about, they had removed the girl’s clothes, which were in a neatly folded stack on the ground beneath the table, and washed her body. Two of the women were still in the crowd and they came forward to wrap the girl in the sheet, which would serve as her shroud. Then, one of the women at the girl’s head and one at her feet, they lifted her with surprising ease down into her coffin. The carpenter nailed the lid shut with swift efficiency.

  A boy was sent to fetch the prior, who for some reason wanted to be present. No special burial ceremony was planned, for one usually never was. The required ceremonies had already taken place: One of the priests of the church had conducted the required vigil and a Mass had been said as her funeral. All that remained was to give her to the earth.

  During all this, people in the crowd began moaning and praying out loud. Suddenly, a woman cried out and stumbled forward. Her head was wrapped in a scarf so that only her eyes showed. She fell to her knees before the small stack of clothes, and unwound the scarf to reveal a face marked by a dozen seeping, awful sores. Before anyone could stop her, she lifted the girl’s gown to her hideously marred face.

  “What are you doing, woman?” cried the prior, who yanked the woman up by the shoulder and pried the dress from her hands. “Behave yourself!”

  “I — I — I ask only that the lady bless me, lord!” the woman stammered. “To heal me!

  “She was just a girl and had no power to heal anyone!” the prior shouted. “Get back, you!”

  “You saw her face!” the woman cried. “She was a saint!”

  “There may be saints, but that girl wasn’t one!” the prior said adamantly, shoving the woman into the arms of the crowd.

  Whether or not there had been any shortage of volunteers to prepare the girl’s body, there were none now to carrying her coffin. The crowd surged into the transept, shoving Stephen against a wall and nearly trampling Bertie, who would have fallen underfoot if Stephen hadn’t grasped his collar and pulled him to safety. A multitude of hands grasped the coffin and lifted it high and many other arms strained for a simple touch. The prior found himself in a tug of war as some people sought just for a touch of the garments while others tried to tear them from his hands, and if not accomplishing that, at least to get a fragment to take home.

  Hands even reached for the paper in Bertie’s grip, but Stephen batted them away. He felt a plucking at his belt pouch and hacked at the offender with the edge of his hand. Those grasping hands were so persistent that he had to draw his wicked, foot-long dagger to discourage them and to save Bertie’s picture.

  As the crowd surged away to the west door, Stephen handed Bertie back to his father. “You’d better guard that thing well,” Stephen said, indicating the portrait. “Blink an eye and it’ll be stolen.”

  “Aye, sir,” the glassmaker said, pulling his forelock in his first sign of respect, “we’ll keep proper care of it.”

  With the last of the crowd struggling through the west door, the only figure in the nave now belonged to Gilbert, who had come in without Stephen noticing. Gilbert looked sadly at the dagger in Stephen’s hand, as he returned it to its scabbard on his right hip. Gilbert glanced at the prior. “Forgive him, father, for baring steel in a house of God.”

  The prior looked rattled. He clutched the girl’s dress to his chest. Although it was rumpled and torn in a few places, the garments seemed intact. He gulped. “I didn’t see anything, my son. And if something untoward happened out of my sight, God will deal with it in His due time.”

  “Let me help you, then, father,” Gilbert said and assisted the priest in refolding the dress and undergarments.

  “Thank you,” the prior said, and hurried away to the exit in the chancel that led to the priest’s dwelling house.

  Somewhat dazed by this commotion, Stephen and Gilbert followed what was left of the crowd into the churchyard. It was still cool enough that there were large piles of snow everywhere, but they were much trampled down. Gilbert took the lead and forced their way through the press, calling out, “Make way, make way for the deputy coroner!” He seemed to get grim enjoyment out of this for some reason.

  When they reached the center, they found the coffin set beside a hole that had been hacked in the ground. Although the top of the ground had been frozen, which required cutting with an ax, the soil beneath was soft, and in fact the snow melt had filled the grave with water which a half dozen men were removing with buckets on the ends of ropes.

  When the bucket men had spilled out all they could, a gang of men lowered the coffin into the grave.

  A call went up, “A prayer, father! A prayer for Our Lady!”

  The prior pursed his lips in exasperation. Like most men in his position, he came from a gentry family, and only the women of the gentry or higher were entitled to be called lady. The swift promotion of the poor, unknown servant girl who had died at his church door ran against the grain. But the demand for a prayer could never be denied. “Be still then!” the prior ordered.

  He put his palms together, bowed his head, and began speaking loudly in English so that the people in the crowd could understand, “Oh, Father, a poor innocent soul comes to you before her time, seeking succor . . .” All round, everyone went to their knees. It was unusual for people to do so at a funeral in the open like this with the ground wet and snowy. Only Stephen and a few figures watching from the street remained standing. Gilbert tugged at the hem of his shirt. Stephen looked down. Gilbert mouthed, “Get down.” Stephen sank to his knees. The snow, mostly trodden to slush now, was cold and wet, and sent a shiver through him.

  During the prayer, Stephen heard some schoolboys in a clump not far away hissing to themselves, and the words “Nostra Domina Nixae, that’s how you say it,” filtered through the bowed heads to his ears. Followed by, “Are you sure?” Answered by, “Yes, of course, I’m sure, you idiot.”

  Nostra Domina Nixae.

  Stephen struggled to dredge up what remained of his Latin. Nostra Domina caused him no trouble, but he stumbled over Nixae for a moment until the meaning of the phrase finally came to him: Our Lady of the Snow. A murmur spread through the crowd like the rushing of the wind through a forest as the name she had been given leapt from one set of lips to another: the Snow Lady. Even Gilbert had taken it up. When Stephen glanced at him his lips were moving with the name and when Gilbert became aware of Stephen’s eyes on him he said, “It seems fitting, doesn’t it? She has to have a name, after all.”

  If the prior was aware of what was transpiring among the crowd, he gave no indication and continued with his prayer with blind determination to reach the end.

  “Amen!” the prior pronounced with more authority than probably was necessary.

  The crowd climbed to its feet.

  The ceremony, such as there would be one, was completed.

  The men who had carried the poor girl to her grave now took up wooden spades and began shoveling earth on top of the coffin. The first falls of earth landed with a hollow thump.

  The crowd watched silently.

  A woman bent over and threw a sprig of ivy, probably plucked
from a Christmas display on one of the houses of the town, into the grave.

  The woman with the sores on her face threw herself on the ground at the lip of the pit and cried out for help in healing her disease. Friends bent to her aid. People began to shout as the crowd packed around the grave so that the gravediggers were pushed aside. The tumult grew.

  The prior, and probably even the bishop of this diocese, would have his hands full with this one. Ludlow had no native saint — not even the relic of one. Perhaps they had found one now. Only time would tell.

  Stephen and Gilbert backed out of the crowd. He had done all that he could do for the girl. He had seen her to her final rest. This near riot seemed the wrong way to send the girl off, and he wanted no part of it.

  The churchyard gate was jammed with people and there was no way out of the yard except to hop the fence. This posed no obstacle for Stephen, but Gilbert would have fallen if Stephen had not caught his arm.

  “I say,” Gilbert panted when they had gained the street, “I feared we might be trampled.”

  “They are a bit riotous,” Stephen said.

  He turned toward the Broken Shield, thinking of the warmth of the fire and the pot of ale that awaited him. He tried to push out of his mind the sense that he should do something to give the girl a name and determine the manner of her death.

  But a half dozen people stood across his path: a short man dressed in the blues, reds and yellows of a successful merchant, a woman a head taller shrouded by a blue cloak, and three other men behind them, and last, a young blonde girl of marriageable age. They all wore solemn expressions.

  “You’re Stephen Attebrook, aren’t you, sir?” The short man asked in a Gloucestershire accent. “Folk hereabout said you were.”

  “Why do you want to know?” Stephen asked, a little more harshly than common courtesy required, but he didn’t feel in the mood to talk with anyone.

  Then Stephen noticed the little silver badge the man wore on his coat — a dandelion with a drooping flower. The sight of that flower caused Stephen’s heart to miss a beat and he felt Gilbert’s hand upon his arm.