Alys Clare - Girl In A Red Tunic

Josse could well imagine Rohaise’s state of mind. How on earth had she borne it? Great God, but the poor lass had suffered! He was on the point of saying as much but a glance at Leofgar stopped the words before they were uttered; it had quite clearly cost the young man dear to tell his story.

So instead, realising even as he spoke that he already knew the answer, Josse said, ‘And you now know who this man was?’

Leofgar sighed. ‘Yes, for he was very like his brother whom we found hanging from the tree.’ He summoned a very faint smile. ‘I thought for one dreadful moment that he’d survived having his throat torn out and being eaten by my swine and had got up and come after me. But I was wrong.’ He paused, throwing his head back and for a moment screwing his eyes up tight, as if trying to rid himself of the images of violence that he could not help but see. ‘It was Teb who was hanged. The man who died in my hall was Walter Bell.’

After a long time Josse said, ‘What do you want me to do?’

Leofgar turned to him, his eyes alight with some emotion that Josse could not identify; it occurred to him later that it was probably gratitude.

‘I must find out what Walter Bell was after and why he attacked my wife,’ he said. ‘I want you to help me.’

‘Aye. I will.’

There was silence for a moment. Then Leofgar gave a cough and said, ‘Thank you.’

Josse, who also felt the need of a little recovery time, said after a pause, ‘I may already be able to offer something for you to think about. We have been led to understand that you knew the Bell brothers, moreover that there was some sort of a dispute between you and them and that this was the reason for Walter Bell having sought you out.’

‘Who told you that?’ Leofgar demanded. ‘It is a lie, I swear it! I had never seen him before the moment that I looked down on his dead body in my own hall!’

‘Aye, and I believe you,’ Josse hastened to reassure him. ‘Me, I always doubted it anyway. Said as much at the time,’ he added, half to himself. ‘Earlier you said you had some idea why Bell had gone to the Old Manor. What was it?’

‘Theft,’ Leofgar said simply. ‘Rohaise is insistent that the first thing he did was to have a thorough look at our table, as if it were his aim to search for-’ He gave a helpless shrug. ‘I cannot say. Then, as I told you, he broke open the chest.’

‘Was there anything of value in the chest?’

‘Oh — some pieces of silver. Quite valuable, I suppose, but we keep them put away because the bright shine of the metal is such an attraction to Timus and Rohaise is tired of constantly having to polish off his sticky finger marks.’

Josse waited, and after a moment Leofgar said slowly, ‘Walter Bell must have seen the silver, for he scattered the entire contents of the chest on the floor. Yet he made no move to steal anything …’

‘I think,’ Josse said gently, ‘that we may rule out theft as a motive. Could it …’ But this was delicate ground and he had no wish to arouse the young man’s ready anger again. ‘Perhaps his intention was to do what he tried to do to your wife,’ he said as tactfully as he could.

Leofgar shook his head impatiently. ‘I thought of that too but a man intent on raping a woman while her man and her servants are from home is hardly likely to rummage through the household belongings first. I have always understood rape to be a crime of hot blood and swift implementation.’

The fury was there, simmering beneath the surface, but at present Leofgar was keeping it under control. With a flash of insight, Josse thought suddenly that perhaps Walter Bell’s death had been relatively easy after all, compared to what Leofgar might have done to him had he come home to find the man raping his wife.

‘I think,’ Josse said after a brief silence, ‘that it is my turn to tell you something, Leofgar.’

‘What would that be?’ Leofgar turned to glare at him, his emotions clearly still running high.

‘I ought to explain to you that we have learned a little about the Bell brothers from Gervase de Gifford. When Teb Bell was found hanged close to the Abbey, we postulated that perhaps he had been on his way to Hawkenlye to look for Walter. He had been overheard down in Tonbridge saying that he was going up the hill to hunt for somebody. Now that phrase up the hill , in Tonbridge parlance, is usually taken to mean Hawk enlye Abbey, and we all surmised that Teb Bell was intending to go to Hawkenlye to find Walter, who was missing.’

‘Of course he was missing,’ Leofgar said coldly. ‘My wife set my hounds on him and they had just killed him.’

‘Aye, I know.’ Josse waved an impatient hand; he was trying to follow a twisting path of a tale and did not want to be interrupted. ‘Then, when another piece of the pattern was revealed, we thought that Teb Bell had a very different quarry in mind. We — or rather Gervase de Gifford — thought that Teb was probably aware that Walter was dead and was in fact on his way to Hawkenlye in pursuit of his brother’s killer.’

‘Me,’ Leofgar supplied.

‘You did not kill him,’ Josse said swiftly.

Leofgar shrugged. ‘He died in my house and we have but the word of my wife that she killed him to defend herself and her child.’

‘Her word is good enough for me.’

Leofgar gave him a bright look. ‘Thank you, Josse.’ Then: ‘But if Teb Bell was in truth coming to Hawkenlye to look for me, who strung him up on that branch?’ His face darkening with sudden realisation, he said, ‘Josse, I swear to you that I didn’t, although by this reasoning anyone would conclude that I had abundant motive.’

‘That is true,’ Josse agreed, ‘but I do not believe you killed Teb Bell.’

‘What makes you say that?’ Leofgar appeared genuinely curious. ‘I hope,’ he added with a small laugh, ‘that it is not your feelings towards my mother that are speaking.’

‘Your mother-’ No. Josse really did not want to discuss Helewise with her son. ‘No,’ he said instead. ‘It is merely that I recognise an honest man when I see one. You, Leofgar, would hold your head up high when accused of something that you had truly done and shout yes, I did it, so what?’

Surprisingly amid that grim conversation, Leofgar burst out laughing. ‘How long have we known one another, Josse?’ he asked, still amused.

‘Oh — a matter of days, and not closely at that.’

‘What a good judge you are,’ Leofgar murmured. ‘Pride and a tendency to run my head straight into stone walls were ever my devils.’ Then, his face straightening, he said, ‘Who, then, murdered Teb Bell?’

Instead of further surmise, Josse said, ‘There is another man in this tangle of whom I have not yet spoken. He was probably an associate of both the Bell brothers; certainly of Teb, with whom he was observed talking in the tavern at Tonbridge, when Teb spoke of coming up the hill. This man has demanded that Gervase de Gifford organise a hunt for Walter Bell, whom he claims was last heard of making his way to your house to try to resolve this rumoured dispute between you and the brothers.’

‘There is no dispute! I never met either Bell alive!’

‘I know,’ Josse reassured him. ‘I realise now that the whole business of the dispute is but a diversionary tactic to hide from us the true heart of this business. But for the life of me, I have absolutely no idea what that true heart can be!’

‘Who is this man who makes up lies about me?’ Leofgar said, an edge of menace in his voice.

‘His name is Arthur Fitzurse.’

‘Arthur Fitzurse.’ Slowly Leofgar shook his head. ‘It means nothing. What does he look like?’