"You've already taken up your duties?" William's face again filled with surprise.
"Was I not expected to?" Faucon asked, as startled as his uncle.
"Of course you were, but—" the bishop paused, smiled a little then glanced at Lord Rannulf.
The baron laughed out loud. "Did I not tell you Pery was the perfect man for this position, William?"
"So you did, Rannulf. A murder is it, Pery? How did it happen, and will you be sending the one who did it to the gaol? I suppose I must also ask if there will be anything resulting from this action to add to the royal treasury. Commoners usually have so little," he added as an aside.
"I can only say that this whole day has been strange beyond all my previous experience," Faucon replied. "When I arrived at the village this morning, the miller was in his race. He had been besotted the night before, and all believed that he'd fallen into the water due to drink, then drowned, trapped beneath his wheel. But once we extracted him, I discovered he'd been murdered with an awl that pierced his heart. Not only that, the one who killed him took him away from his home to kill him, waited until he'd bled his last, then returned him to the race and the wheel."
"So what man pierced his heart, Sir Keeper of the Pleas?" Lord Rannulf asked.
"Sir Crowner," Faucon corrected, reveling in his conversation with these men. It felt both strange and right to be speaking to them as an equal rather than as a mere second son with no prospects. "That seems the name most folk feel comfortable calling me.
"As for who did this, and why the miller was made to look as if he drowned—" Faucon once again struggled to tame his frustration. "I don't yet know, but I am slowly following the trail left by the murderer, learning to read his tracks as I go. One thing I can tell you. If not for Brother Edmund's insistence on following the rule of law exactly, Sir Alain would have declared the miller drowned, and taken the millwheel as deodand before I arrived at Priors Holston this morning. Edmund kept the sheriff at bay until I came."
Bishop William frowned at that. "Sir Alain was at Priors Holston this morn? How in the world did the sheriff come halfway across the shire and arrive before you, when you were only at Blacklea?"
"Because the sheriff wasn't across the shire," Faucon said with the lift of his brows. "He was close at hand this morning, something the miller's son had discovered several weeks before. It seems Sir Alain has been residing at his wife's manor of Aldersby since returning from Rochester and court."
"What!?" Lord Rannulf retorted in harsh surprise. "Lady Joan finally let her husband cross the threshold of her manor?"
Faucon stared at the nobleman in astonishment. He hadn't even considered that Lord Rannulf might be one to ask about shire gossip. "Apparently so."
"Huh, wonders never cease," the nobleman said with a laugh. "As far as I know, his wife has never once let him step a foot inside that gate until now."
Stephen had said something similar about the sheriff and Aldersby. "Why not?" Faucon asked.
Lord Rannulf laughed at that, this time displaying the smile that he and his brothers shared. It was one they must have inherited from their father, for there was nothing like it among the de Veres. "Because she enjoys rankling him. Aldersby is her dower from her first marriage, and she holds it in her own right. Sir Alain married her for profit and much against her wishes, when he paid the king to acquire her from among the royal wards. That set the lady on a quest to see the sheriff receives as little profit as possible from her. She's even managed to produce nothing but girls by his seed."
"It's a shame what time wrought of Sir Alain," Bishop William said, his tone subdued. He crossed his arms and shook his head. "Aye, he's a man of much more substance these days, but he's not the man I knew when he was but a landless knight under William de Mandeville, and we all rode out of Essex to make our journey to the Holy Land."
Faucon drew a breath so sharp he coughed. The bits and pieces of information he had in store shifted again. This time, when they came to rest, he could see the end of this trail and knew what awaited him there.
His uncle was yet speaking. "I'd press Hubert Walter for his removal if there were someone both trustworthy and powerful enough to replace him. Sir Alain has many supporters in this shire, most of them benefitting somehow from his reign as sheriff. What can I do? There aren't many sheriffs as honest as Geoffrey," he finished, referring to Faucon's cousin and Lord Rannulf's middle half-brother.
"My lord, might I ask when you made that journey to the Levant? I can't recall my lady mother ever mentioning it," Faucon asked.
"It was years ago, before you were born, Pery," William replied, "just before I came to be the first abbot of the Waltham Abbey." There was a moment's sadness in his gaze, then it was gone.
Faucon glanced from his uncle to the baron. "Would either of you know anything about a woman named Agnes of Stanrudde? I think she might have been leman to a knight or baron in this shire. She was the murdered miller's wife."
Lord Rannulf shook his head. "Nothing comes to mind for me," he said, "but the subject of kept women isn't one that honest men speak of, one to another." There was strong disapproval in his voice.
"And I'm not from this shire, nor is it likely any man with the rank of less than an earl would dare tell me tales of his mistress," William said with a cockeyed smile and a laugh. It was the first time Faucon had seen his uncle look like a man rather than the polished diplomat and accomplished churchman life had made of him.
"Sir Faucon!" Edmund called out. "The bag worked well enough. What must be scribed has been written. Now it is time to call the inquest jury."
Faucon wanted to groan. Given the look of this land, he guessed the borders of the hundred here were widespread, with some distance existing between farms and hamlets. He didn't want to wait for however long it took all the men of living within this district to gather. He wanted to return to Blacklea and stew over all he'd gathered about Halbert's death. Given a little time to think, he was sure he could return to Priors Holston in the morning to follow his developing trail to its finish.
It was his uncle who made the sound that Faucon had suppressed. "Must we?"
"I think we must," Lord Rannulf replied. "There'll be even less of her by the morrow if we leave her where she is for one more night."
The bishop grimaced. "What if we put up a barrier or some such to keep the predators at bay? We've already waited more than two hours for Pery to arrive. That's another day of hunting gone, when I'd hoped for at least a little respite before I return to my duties."
Faucon leapt to exploit the opportunity his uncle offered. "My lord bishop, here is a matter I intended to address with you. This morning, Sir Alain had already assembled the inquest jury for the miller when I arrived at the village, doing so upon the assumption of a simple drowning. The group was so large that taking their oaths was hardly satisfying. Any other communication with all of them was nigh on impossible. Had I not begun the viewing when I did, Brother Edmund and I wouldn't be here now. Instead, you'd be setting camp, wondering how much longer you'd have to wait for me. Meanwhile Brother Edmund and I would be making our own plans to spend the night in Priors Holston as the commoners still filed past the corpse. Must every man and boy in the hundred come? Can the jury of the inquest not be arranged in the same way the hundred court is, with a smaller number of men representing all the rest?"
"That should not happen here, Sir Faucon," Edmund warned most sternly. "All the men of this hundred must come view the dead child so she can be identified."
"How will they identify her?" Faucon demanded of his clerk. "What will they see of her but bloodied bones and rot and dark hair? Even if we wait the hours or more it takes for every man to arrive, we're not guaranteed we'll discover her identity. It's clear that the one who killed her brought her here from someplace else. What if no child in this hundred is missing? Then we'll have waited hours for no result. However, if a child has gone missing from this area, even if we call only a few men to come as representati
ves of their neighbors, those men will know this and bring with them the name we seek. Does that not seem the easier route to discovering her identity?"
"But it is the law that all men of the hundred be called to the inquest jury," Edmund protested, although his voice lacked its usual certainty.
"Laws can be changed and your argument has merit, nephew," Bishop William said. "I will bring it up with the archbishop when next we meet. But for the now, things must remain as they are and all men should be called to the jury of the inquest."
He paused. "Except for this one instance. Brother Edmund, please note in your record that William, Bishop of Hereford, did require an inquest jury consisting of only twelve men from the hundred to view the body of this murdered child."
"Aye, my lord," the monk said and bowed his head, complying without his usual resistance.
"Rannulf, send your men to the nearest settlement," William continued. "Have them inform the bailiff or headman of the body we've found here. Your men must tell them that Graistan's lord and the Bishop of Hereford ask them to send at least twelve men for the jury. No fewer than twelve can come, but we will not turn back others if they wish to help identify this child, as long as they are swift in arriving."
Faucon was right in his guess. The nearest hamlet was more than a mile away, and according to the men who came, the next hamlet more than double that distance from their homes. Once the twelve arrived, the inquest proceeded comfortably. It was easy to address them and easy to hear them when they swore their oath, then confirmed his verdict of 'murder by persons unknown.' Moreover, Edmund was able to collect and write all their names into his record, something that would have been impossible to do at the mill.
None of the jurors recognized the dead child, nor had they heard tell of a missing girl among their neighbors and relatives. The locals assured their betters that had a lass gone missing, it would have been discussed at their hundred court which had been held only a few days past. When all was done, Lord Rannulf paid the commoners to take the child to their parish church. They agreed to do so after Bishop William assured them that she had the right to be buried in the hallowed ground of their churchyard.
The sun was creeping steadily toward the horizon as Faucon and Edmund once more reached the gap in the hedge at the front of St. Radegund's. The ride had been a quiet one, what with Faucon concentrating on turning his bits and pieces of knowledge this way and that.
Edmund more fell off Legate than dismounted. Clutching his sack, he looked up at Faucon. "I'll send that man who watched your horse on the morrow if I have discovered anything regarding the will you seek, sir," he said.
"Nay, I will come to you," Faucon told him. "We have more work to complete as regards the miller's death."
He intended to visit Stephen's wife at her family home upon the morrow. He knew without doubt that he'd find 'Wina there without her husband. Stephen would be at the mill, certain that all was now right with the world, and blissfully unaware of what lay ahead of him.
"You will come to me?" Edmund's words were so filled with astonishment that it startled Faucon out of his thoughts. "We have more to do?"
"I will, and aye, we have more to do. I wish to speak with the young miller's wife," he replied, then smiled. "Or perhaps yet another man will die between now and then, and we'll be off once more to view a body, having been cheated of our nightly rest by the quiet dead."
Something shifted in Edmund's face. "Until the morrow then, Sir Faucon." It almost sounded like a friendly farewell.
"Until the morrow, Brother Edmund."
Faucon turned his horse and started back through Priors Holston, keeping Legate at a walk as this man or that woman hurried around them along the lane. The carpenter's workshop was shuttered and dark. The cobbler's woman stood outside her home in the same place she'd occupied while making that boot. This time, she had a babe perched on her hip as she and the cobbler, or so Faucon assumed by the way he had his arm wrapped around her, chatted with another couple.
At the alewife's house, Susanna threw up a beefy arm and shouted "good night" to him. All but one of the customers seated in her foreyard waved with her. Agnes sat at the table closest to the cottage door, her elbows braced upon the table top, no expression on her face as she watched him ride past.
Reaching the edge of the village and the Stanrudde Road, Faucon put his heels to Legate, urging his steed to a faster pace. They hadn't gone far before he spied a lone man walking the road ahead, his back to the village behind them. This one carried a full canvas sack and moved at an easy, unhurried pace despite the encroaching night. He was tall and broad-shouldered, his hair fair and his tunic dusty.
As Faucon rode up behind him, Alf glanced over his shoulder. "Sir Crowner," he said in greeting, stopping to wait for Faucon to dismount and join him. "Have you sought me out for some reason?"
"I do not seek you at all, Alf. We are but traveling in the same direction. I'm on my way back to Blacklea, my new home. Where are you off to? Has Stephen asked you to leave the mill, as he did his stepmother?"
No caution remained in the former soldier's expression. Instead, his lips curved slightly in amusement. "You ask what you already know, sir, and you know very well that he did not. Shall we step outside of our redoubts and defenses to parlay as honest men? I will begin. Why are you not arresting me for Halbert's murder?"
Faucon laughed. "After the day I've had, an open and honest conversation would be a welcome relief. As you will. I am not arresting you because you did not kill Halbert, no matter how circumstances conspired to make it appear as if only you could have done it."
"Ah, but you wanted to arrest me," Alf replied, still offering him the curve of his lips that served him as a smile.
"I longed to do so," Faucon agreed. "Naming you Halbert's murderer would have been a convenient solution to what has since become a thorny and complicated problem. I have answered your question. Now you answer one of mine. Why did you not tell me you'd spent the night at Susanna's?"
Alf's brows rose at that. "You had already decided only I could have done the deed. Nothing I said was going to change that. I wanted to let Susanna clear my name, rather than protest my innocence to deaf ears. Moreover, even at this moment, I am none too certain the whole of Halbert's strange death hasn't been arranged so I would be named the guilty one. When we first spoke, I wasn't willing to trust someone unknown to me."
"And now you trust me?"
"More than I did then," Alf replied, the corners of his mouth lifting.
Faucon sent him a taunting, narrow-eyed look. "You don't trust me? Were you not the one who told me to trust that all in the inquest jury would give their oaths, even if I didn't hear everyone? Then you went on to break that very oath. I asked if you heard the millwheel turning in the middle of the night from your bed. You lied to me."
Alf almost winked at him. "You asked the wrong question and did not listen carefully enough to my answer. I said I could not hear the wheel from where I slept. You assumed I meant the mill. I didn't lie. You cannot hear the wheel from Susanna's home."
That made Faucon laugh again. "Aye, Halbert's was indeed a strange death."
Alf nodded. "Today, I am very grateful Simon sent me from the mill last night. Had I been there, I would have arisen when the wheel began to turn and rushed out to confront what might have been a trap set to see me hanged. I gave the fuller my thanks before I left the village."
"Do you know he believes you're a runaway serf?"
The soldier gave a breath of a laugh. "That doesn't surprise me. I suspect he's not the only one in Priors Holston who believes that. But you do not?"
Walking behind them, Legate chose that moment to snort. As he did, he tossed his head, his harness rings jangling. It was as if he chuckled at the comment.
Faucon smiled broadly. "Nay, I knew better, even before Agnes told me you were a former mercenary done with war. A simple peasant would have been far less comfortable holding the tool that had killed a man. Nor would such
a man have so easily put his finger into another man's death wound," he said, once again seeing Simon's reaction over finding Halbert's blood on his property. "That sort of ease with killing belongs to those of us who deal out death to earn our daily bread."
Alf cocked his brows and nodded at this, but said nothing. They walked on in companionable silence for a time.
"Tell me something else," Alf finally said. "I cannot puzzle out why Halbert wasn't simply put in the race to be taken by the wheel. Why go to the trouble of piercing his heart?"
"For the sake of vengeance. Blood had to be shed. You see, Halbert had made Agnes bleed," Faucon told him.
The workman looked at him in astonishment. "But how can that be? Stephen despised her."
"Who said Stephen was the one to pierce his father's heart?" Faucon retorted.
That made Alf stare at him. "If not Stephen, then who?"
"I'm not willing to speak that name yet." Faucon dared not. To say the name aloud was to court his own death. Frustration gnawed at him. "I have lingering questions," he finally said, when in truth it was nagging demands for resolution that plagued him.
"Such as?" Alf asked.
Faucon hesitated, torn between the need to speak, as he had done with Brother Colin, and the need to hold close what he knew for safety's sake. He glanced at the soldier. Alf didn't look at him, only strode along beside him. It seemed the former soldier didn't care if he received a response to his question. For some reason that made it easier for Faucon to speak his piece.
"When I think of Halbert's death, I understand the need for his blood to be shed. The one who killed the miller had once loved Agnes, and had put his former love into Halbert's protection, only to have Halbert betray him with his drunken violence. I can only think this was the reason the man dressed Halbert in the tunic Agnes had given him as a wedding present. Perhaps that garment was a symbol of what Halbert had done to earn his death.
"But when I see Halbert beneath the wheel, I get trapped by the thought that he was put there after death so that Halbert's family might be destroyed as well. This, when I am certain Stephen participated in his father's death. I cannot understand why he agreed to assist in his father's murder, when the cost of the deodand for the wheel would send his family into penury."
Season of the Raven (A Servant of the Crown Mystery Book 1) Page 16