Alys Clare - The Enchanter's Forest

It sounded very businesslike — also quite dramatic — but for all that, once the three men had told their story, interrupting each other, butting in with additional observations, Helewise was really still no wiser than she had been to begin with. It boiled down simply to the merchants having left the Tomb of Merlin — one of the men offered the opinion that the guards on duty there had seemed ill at ease — and shortly afterwards, perhaps four or five miles along the track and still very close under the eaves of the forest, smelling the stench of death. They had quickly located its source and, with barely a glance at the body, hastily wrapped it up and loaded it on to one of their horses.

‘Sorry, my lady,’ one of the merchants said. ‘But that’s all we can tell you.’

She nodded her acceptance. ‘Very well. Thank you for what you have done and please rest assured that I shall summon our priest, who will do what he can for the poor dead man’s soul. We shall bury him here at Hawkenlye unless someone comes forward to claim him, and we shall pray for him.’

The man’s eyes filled with tears. ‘He could do no better than be buried here,’ he said. ‘I can think of nowhere finer nor more fitting to await the Day of Judgement than here with you and your good nuns.’

Helewise bowed her head. ‘Thank you. Now, if you are all ready, I will see you on your way.’

A short time later, Helewise was back in the infirmary, in a curtained-off cubicle at the far end of the long room. Hot water and lavender oil bubbled in a little pot over a candle flame, giving off a strong, cleansing scent, and Sister Caliste had prepared bunches of rosemary that now hung above the body on the narrow cot. She stood beside Sister Euphemia and Sister Caliste as the two nursing nuns first unwrapped the blanket and then set about carefully removing the corpse’s garments.

The dead man was dressed in a fine velvet tunic which, before his body had begun to leach discolouring fluids into the fabric, had been scarlet red in colour, trimmed with gold braid. His undershirt was of linen and he had clearly been wearing it for several days, for it was sweat-stained and grubby around the collar and cuffs. His hose were of good quality but, like the tunic, scratched and torn by the brambles. His boots had suffered similar damage, although even the mud, the scuffed toes and the deep scratches in the high-quality leather could not disguise the fact that the boots must have cost a goodly sum. His tangled hair had been recently trimmed and looked dark in colour, although as Sister Caliste began to wash it, it was revealed to be a reddish chestnut shade. At a nod from Helewise, Sister Euphemia gently lifted the right eyelid. The dead man’s eyes had been light grey.

When the corpse had been stripped, thoroughly washed and covered up to the chest with a linen sheet, the three nuns stood looking down on the dead man. The body was already bloating and the veins were prominent and slightly greenish in colour. The face had swelled a little but, despite the disfigurement, it was still perfectly obvious that he had been a very handsome man.

Helewise was staring at a large bruise on the front of the neck. Pointing, she said quietly, ‘Sister Euphemia, could this be what killed him?’

The infirmarer bent closer. Then, with a soft exclamation, she beckoned to Helewise. ‘Look, my lady,’ she whispered. ‘There, on the right side of the throat beside the main area of bruising. Can you see?’

Helewise leant over the corpse. Sister Caliste tapped her gently on the hand and offered a sprig of rosemary; she had been squeezing it to make it release its fragrant oils and now Helewise, giving the young nun a grateful smile, held it to her nose. It helped, a little.

She made herself concentrate, forcing down the nausea. I must help this poor soul, she thought, and I will not be able to do so if I am crouched outside the infirmary vomiting up my midday meal. Now, let me see if I can make out whatever it is that Sister Euphemia’s sharp eyes have spotted. .

After a moment she said, ‘Yes. There are faint marks like a plait, or a braid. Of course!’ Straightening up, she stared triumphantly at the infirmarer. ‘A rope.’

‘Aye, that’s what I’m thinking,’ Sister Euphemia agreed.

‘Was he hanged, then? Throttled?’ Helewise could not help but envisage both possibilities, harrowing though the visions were.

‘I think not, my lady.’ Sister Euphemia frowned. ‘If either were the case, the rope marks would extend far further around the neck. No, what I reckon is that he’s run at some speed into a taut rope, perhaps stretched across a path, and the force of it hitting his throat broke his neck.’ Glancing down at the dead man with compassion in her face, she added quietly, ‘He’d not have known much about it. Quicker than the hangman’s noose, that would have been.’

‘There is some comfort in that,’ Helewise agreed. She was thinking hard, trying to decide what to do next. A well-dressed young man, found murdered close by the new venture of Merlin’s Tomb, and- Suddenly she recalled something that one of the merchants had said. The guards at the tomb seemed ill at ease , were his exact words.

Why should that have been? Did they know about the dead man lying in the bramble thicket just a few miles away? Good Lord, had one of them killed him? Had he been a visitor to Merlin’s Tomb who had somehow annoyed one of the guards, done something, said something, that had earned him his death warrant? But what , for goodness sake?

Oh, she thought, oh, how I wish that Josse were here!

But he’s not, the cool part of her mind replied. You have brains, you’ve worked together with Josse many times to work out the solution to puzzles more complex than this one. And what do you always do when at a loss? You search out more information.

‘I shall ride out to Merlin’s Tomb tomorrow,’ she announced. ‘Sister Euphemia, can you spare Sister Caliste?’

‘Aye, my lady, for we are quiet just now and I have enough pairs of hands to do all that is necessary without her.’

‘Thank you. Sister Caliste, you will accompany me. We shall take Brothers Saul and Augustus. Oh.’ Belatedly she realised that, with Joanna’s mare absent in France, they only had three mounts, the Abbey cob, a pony and a recalcitrant old mule who went by the name of Mole.

Sister Caliste must have appreciated the difficulty. ‘You and I could ride together on the cob, my lady,’ she suggested. ‘It is not far to the tomb, I believe, and neither of us is very heavy.’

A kind remark, but inaccurate, Helewise thought, hiding a smile; Caliste was slim and lightly built but she herself was a broad-shouldered, tall woman.

‘I think, Sister, that instead we will dispense with one of the lay brothers,’ she said. ‘Go and find Brother Augustus, please, and tell him to prepare the cob, the pony and the mule after Tierce tomorrow morning and be ready for an early start. You can ride the pony, Augustus must do what he can with the mule, and I shall ride the cob.’

Sister Caliste bowed low in compliance. Not quite quickly enough, Helewise noted, to hide the lively excitement in her eyes engendered by the prospect of the outing.

The weather the next morning was all that an English summer day ought to be. Sister Martha had helped Brother Augustus prepare the mounts and now the three animals stood ready, Augustus holding the mule and Sister Martha the pony and the cob. Helewise stepped forward and the nun gave her a leg up on to the cob’s back. ‘We call him Baldwin,’ she said. ‘Sometimes he responds to his name, sometimes not.’

‘I see,’ said Helewise. The cob shifted beneath her and she patted his thick neck. He was an inelegant horse, nothing like as enjoyable a ride as the mare Honey, but then, Helewise reminded herself sternly, I am not going on a pleasure jaunt.