Alys Clare - Ashes of the Elements

The Abbess, Josse noticed, had not, as she might have done, suggested that she hurry on ahead to notify the sisters at the Abbey of what they must prepare themselves to receive. Instead, she paced along beside the corpse, her rosary beads in her hands, her lips moving in silent prayers.

Ah, but she was a determined woman! Josse thought, partly in admiration, partly in frustration. There had been no need for her to subject herself to this horror, not when he and Saul had been there, ready and willing to go and look for the body on their own!

Still, as she had been at pains to point out, she was in command here. And, like a good commander, she didn’t make her troops do anything she wasn’t prepared to do herself.

‘Stubborn woman,’ Josse muttered under his breath.

The Abbess, quietly intoning her prayers, didn’t hear. But Brother Saul, walking ahead of Josse and bearing the dead man’s feet, turned and gave Josse a very fleeting grin.

* * *

They laid him in the crypt, a chilly, stone-walled chamber beneath the Abbey church. Its floor space was broken up by the massive stone pillars that supported the incalculable weight above; it was a dank and gloomy place.

This was not the first time it had housed the recently dead.

In the more adequate light of several torches, Josse confirmed what he had already suspected concerning Ewen’s manner of death.

Then, while Sisters Euphemia and Beata went about the ghastly task of preparing the corpse for burial, Josse went up to the Abbess’s room to await the arrival of the sheriff.

* * *

‘Did he have relatives?’ Josse asked the Abbess, resuming his seat on the wooden stool.

‘Hm?’ She turned to him, and briefly he wondered what she had been thinking about that he had just interrupted. ‘Relatives? Ewen Asher? I believe … He lived alone, I think. He used to board with his widowed mother, if indeed this is that same man. But she died last year. He had no wife and no children, as far as I know.’

‘That’s as well, now,’ Josse remarked.

There was a short reflective silence. Then the Abbess said, ‘Was he, too, killed by the Forest People?’

‘No,’ Josse said instantly.

‘How can you be so sure?’

‘Because — well, I won’t go into that.’

‘But-’

He went on, determinedly ignoring her interruption, ‘I’ve been thinking, Abbess, that the most likely killer is Seth, since, on the face of it, he’s the only person with anything to gain by Ewen’s death.’

‘A larger share of whatever it is they’ve discovered in the forest, you mean.’

‘Aye. In fact, with both Hamm and Ewen dead, Seth can have the lot. Only…’ His brows came together in a fierce frown.

‘Only what?’

‘Only that’s not right, either.’

‘What do you mean?’

Josse raised his head. Meeting her eyes, he said, ‘Unlikely as it seems, Abbess, there must have been a third party out in the forest last night. Besides the poachers and Esyllt, I mean. Well, in fact a fourth party, if you count me. And, since neither the Forest People, Seth nor I slaughtered Ewen, and we must surely agree that Esyllt didn’t either, then we can only conclude that it was this mysterious fourth party who did.’

Sheriff Harry Pelham, Helewise observed, had made about as favourable an impression on Josse as he had done on her.

Josse had given the sheriff his seat when the officer had come into the room; on the surface a courteous gesture, but she had realised — as surely Josse had done — that, for the sheriff to squat on a low and insubstantial stool while Josse stood over him, nonchalantly leaning against the wall, put the sheriff at a distinct disadvantage.

‘It’s those damnable Godless Forest People again, you mark my words,’ Harry Pelham, was saying, shaking an aggressive, finger at Josse. ‘First one murder, then another. And both on the night of the full moon! I ask you, what more proof do you need?’

‘Hmm,’ Josse said. He glanced at Helewise, and she thought that he, like her, was probably wondering if Sheriff Pelham had noticed the moon himself, or had had the fact of its being full again last night pointed out to him.

Probably, she concluded, the latter.

‘You see,’ Harry Pelham went on, ‘they do things, when it’s full moon.’

‘They do things,’ Josse repeated tonelessly. ‘What sort of things, Sheriff?’

‘Oh, you know. Ceremonies, and that.’

‘Ah, I see. You make it so clear, Sheriff.’

Surely, Helewise thought, Harry Pelham must hear the sarcasm?

Apparently not. The sheriff went on, ‘They’re an old — um — tribe, if you like, see, Sir Josse. Live according to their own laws, live that sort of odd outdoor life when things like the moon are important. And, like I said to the good Sister here this time last month, when what’s-his-name was murdered-’

‘Hamm Robinson,’ Helewise supplied.

‘Thank you, Sister.’

‘Abbess,’ Josse corrected expressionlessly.

Harry Pelham shot him a glance. ‘Huh?’

‘The Abbess Helewise is in command here,’ Josse explained, with what Helewise thought was an admirable lack of anything in his tone that could have been construed as patronising. ‘We should do her the courtesy, Sheriff, of addressing her by her proper title.’

‘Oh. Ah.’ Harry Pelham looked from Helewise to Josse and back again, and, fleetingly, both anger and resentment crossed his face. ‘Where was I?’ he snapped. ‘You’ve gone and made me lose my thread, Sir Josse.’

‘Oh, dear,’ Josse said.

‘You were speaking of the Forest People,’ Helewise said gently, taking pity on the wretched man. ‘Explaining to us that they live an outdoor life, which includes elements of nature worship such as an awareness of the moon and its cycles.’

Harry Pelham looked as if he could hardly credit he’d said all that. ‘Was I?’ Recovering quickly, he went on, ‘Aye, well, like I said, they — the forest folk — don’t like what they’d probably see as trespassers on their territory. Specially not at full moon. It’d make them angry, would that. Make them take savage action against intruders, likely as not.’ He folded his arms, smiling grimly as if to say, there! Case solved!

‘I see,’ Josse said thoughtfully. ‘You maintain, Sheriff, that there are well-documented rites associated with these people’s worship of the full moon, which, when observed by outsiders, are so secret that those outsiders must be put to death?’

‘Er-’ Harry Pelham scratched his head. ‘Aye,’ he said firmly. ‘Aye, I do.’

‘What are these rites?’ Josse moved closer to the sheriff, bending down and putting his face close to the other man’s. ‘Can you describe them?’

‘I — well, not exactly, I-’ The sheriff took some well-needed quiet time in which to think. ‘Course, I can’t describe them in detail, ’ he said, giving Josse a triumphant grin. ‘They’re secret.’

‘Ah, how perceptive, Sheriff,’ Josse said softly.

Harry Pelham was in the act of puffing out his chest with pride when, at long last, Josse’s mild sarcasm breached his defences. ‘Well, perceptive or not, I’ve solved your murder for you,’ he snapped.

‘ My murder?’ Josse echoed faintly.

‘It has to be them, those dirty wretches up there.’ He jerked his head towards the forest. ‘Two dead now, and I reckon I might just go up there and round up the lot of them, hang a few and teach the rest a lesson.’

‘I shouldn’t do that, if I were you,’ Josse said.

‘And exactly why not?’

He seemed so confident, Helewise thought, watching him. It was almost a pity, when he was about to be rather firmly demolished.