Alys Clare - Girl In A Red Tunic

With that he flung himself away and they heard his rapid footsteps striding across the courtyard.

De Gifford placed the bones on the sacking and wrapped them up, his movements economical and tidy. Then he said, ‘I have found no trace of Walter Bell, Josse. My men have searched all his known haunts and nobody has seen him since the day that Fitzurse claims he went off to seek out Leofgar at the Old Manor.’ The parcel of bones tied up to his satisfaction, he turned to Josse and, greenish eyes catching the firelight from the hearth, said, ‘Where do you think he is? What has happened here?’

It seemed to Josse that the moment ached with tension. With no idea how he was going to reply, he hedged and merely said, ‘It’s a mystery all right.’

De Gifford smiled quickly, almost as if to himself, then said, ‘Perhaps we shall aid our attempts at explanation if we make one or two guesses. Let me start by suggesting one possible set of circumstances.’ He moved away from the table and went to stand over the hearth, eyes watching the dance of the flames. Then he said, ‘Let us pretend that Walter Bell really did go to the Old Manor but we’ll say that it was not for the reason that Fitzurse claims, for we know that there was in truth no quarrel between Leofgar and the Bell brothers; he did not even know them. Oh, and we must add that this visit was made when the servants of the Warin household were away from home because neither the man, his woman nor their boy recalls a man answering Walter Bell’s description coming to the Old Manor.’

He paused, frowning slightly. A log collapsed in the hearth and one end of it fell outside the hearth stones; de Gifford kicked it back with his booted foot. Then he went on, ‘Leofgar too is out and his wife and child are alone in the house. Supposing Walter Bell’s real reason for sneaking into the Old Manor when everybody but a woman and a little boy are away is something far less honest and open than an attempt to resolve a quarrel. Let us suppose that he has come with theft in mind or, perhaps, a worse crime.’ Bright eyes suddenly on Josse, he added quietly, ‘The Bell brothers have a bad name, as I have told you. Nobody would think it out of character for Walter to have spotted a house where he might steal some silver and, in addition, rape a lovely and defenceless young woman before making his escape. I am right in surmising that Leofgar’s wife is lovely?’

‘Aye, she is,’ Josse confirmed, ‘and she’s of slim build and has been unwell, so obviously he didn’t expect her to put up such a fight.’ Realising even as he spoke the words what he had said, he hurried to correct them: ‘That is, he wouldn’t have expected it, had this imaginary scene really taken place.’

Some flash of understanding shone in de Gifford’s eyes, there and gone in a blink. Then, nodding slowly, he said, ‘Quite. Very well, let me continue with my description of this possible course of events.’ The emphasis was impossible to miss, as was the brief urgency in his voice, as if he were compelling Josse to be more careful what he said. ‘We’ll say that Walter Bell spies his chance and goes into the Old Manor. He finds Leofgar’s wife playing with her child in the hall and, although at first she is just an obstacle that he must get rid of before he can steal the candlesticks, or the platter, or the wine jug, it suddenly occurs to him that she is comely. So he pulls his knife and perhaps threatens to hurt the child, forcing Leofgar’s wife — what is her name, Josse?’

‘Rohaise.’

‘Thank you. He forces Rohaise to bundle up the silver candle holders while he holds a knife to-?’

‘Timus.’

‘To Timus. Then he throws aside the child and attacks the mother, pulling up her skirts, tearing her bodice, but somehow she finds a desperate strength and pushes him off. Swooping down and catching up the knife that he has dropped, she thrusts it at him, blind in her panic, and it goes into his neck. He falls limp to the floor and is still. After a while, when he does not move, she approaches him and realises that he is dead. Leofgar comes home and finds her hysterically weeping and he does what he can to comfort her and his shocked and terrified little boy. Later he disposes of the body, perhaps burying it out in the forest. In an area of the forest,’ he adds, enunciating every word clearly, ‘that is open and that in early November is used by everybody in the immediate vicinity for the fattening of their swine.’ Just to make quite sure Josse has not missed the point, he says, ‘So that, were bones — or indeed any other evidence — to be found that could be linked to Walter Bell, then there would, as I have said before, be no proof that Leofgar buried them there.’ Green eyes fierce, he demanded, ‘ Would there? ’

Josse did not answer immediately. He was going through this fictitious scenario of de Gifford’s, trying to work out how he should respond. God’s boots, but the sheriff had very nearly got it right! Rohaise had not stabbed Walter Bell in self-defence; she had escaped from his grasp and managed to trip him up. Then, when he had tricked her into creeping up to him, he had attacked her again and one of Leofgar’s hounds had bitten his throat out. But did not all that mean that in fact Rohaise was even less quilty of murder than she was in de Gifford’s version?

Dare he risk telling de Gifford the truth? His instincts born of many years’ experience of men told him that he could. But then it was not his own freedom — perhaps his own life — that was at stake. It was Rohaise’s and, by reason of his involvement and the fact of his having concealed a death, Leofgar’s. And what would the Abbess do if her daughter-in-law were hanged for a murder that was no murder and her beloved son strung up beside her because he had helped her?

I cannot tell him, Josse decided. He is a man of the law and an honest and moral one; despite what I feel is a friendship between us, he may consider it his duty to act on what I reveal to him. I dare not do it!

De Gifford was still watching him, waiting for a reply.

Josse had made up his mind. Taking a deep breath, praying he was doing the right thing, eventually he said, ‘Let us go on with our pretence a while.’

‘Very well.’ De Gifford sounded cautious. ‘But this is still just a story, Josse. Be in no doubt whatsoever about that, and also remember that whatever is said here is just for our ears.’ He grinned briefly. ‘We are two men puzzled by a mystery and we pass a chilly morning in idle conjecture.’ He paused. ‘It is on that basis and that basis only that I will hear you out.’

‘Aye, of course.’ Josse spoke with false cheerfulness. ‘Then let me make one or two suggestions of my own. I find your version of events plausible and I’m going to suggest what might have happened next. We know that Leofgar took his wife off to Hawkenlye Abbey because he was worried about her state of mind — this is fact, not conjecture. But let’s pretend that he had an ulterior motive; not only did he want the nuns to help him make Rohaise better, he also wanted to distance himself from the body he had just — er, he’d just buried in the woods. Then while he’s there with the nuns and the monks watching Rohaise slowly begin to improve, the inconceivable happens and a man who looks just like Walter Bell is found hanging in the forest not two miles from the Abbey. Somebody announces that the dead man is Walter’s brother Teb and Leofgar instantly fears that Teb had somehow found out that Walter lies dead close to the Old Manor. Leofgar leaps to the conclusion that Teb was on his way to kill him in revenge because Teb thinks Leofgar murdered Walter.’

‘But if that’s so then who killed Teb?’ de Gifford exclaimed. ‘In this story of ours, that is,’ he added quickly. ‘I accept that it makes sense for events to have developed as you suggest, Josse, but there is something else: how would a rat such as Walter Bell have known of the situation at the Old Manor? He might, I suppose, have happened upon the place whilst out riding and remarked to himself that it was the sort of household that looked as if it would contain valuables to steal and a pretty woman to assault. But it is extremely unlikely because for one thing Walter Bell does not own a horse and it’s quite a walk from Tonbridge to the Old Manor. Also both the Bells habitually restricted their villainy to their immediate neighbourhood, only venturing further afield at another’s behest.’ With a grim smile he added, ‘And probably riding that someone else’s horse.’