Alys Clare - Fortune Like the Moon

‘You saw him twice.’

‘Aye.’ Matthew swirled the last half inch of ale around in the bottom of his mug. ‘Thirsty work, this remembering,’ he observed.

Josse caught the tap boy’s eye. When Matthew had taken the top off the refill, he said, ‘Turns out quite a few folk noticed him. Your pretty lad. We all had a good laugh.’ He gave a reminiscent chuckle.

Josse couldn’t for the life of him guess what they had found so funny. ‘At what?’

‘Them shoes!’ Matthew laughed again. ‘He’d have had to thread those daft toes through the stirrups like a good-wife threading her needle!’

Trying to keep the excitement out of his voice, Josse said, ‘How long ago was all this?’

The frown returned. ‘Ah. Now that’d be asking. Weren’t last market day, nor the one afore it. Or were it?’ Josse waited. ‘It were a fortnight ago,’ Matthew announced decisively. ‘Give or take.’

‘Give or take how much?’

‘Ah. Hmm. Day or so?’

There seemed little point in trying to pin him down any more precisely. In any case, Josse thought, I have the information I need. Milon d’Arcy was in the vicinity at the time of Gunnora’s death.

‘I suppose you’d recognise the fellow if you saw him again?’ Josse asked casually. It might be important to have a witness to Milon’s presence in Tonbridge.

‘That’d depend,’ Matthew said.

‘On what?’

Wearing a self-righteous expression suggesting that he didn’t want to be accused of handling the truth carelessly, he said, ‘Well, it was more the hairstyle I remarked on, like, than the face. And the shoes, like I said. And the tunic, come to that. Fair bum-freezer, were that tunic.’ He grinned. ‘See, if the young laddie came back in the same tackle, I’d know him again. But, there again, if he wore a hood and an old cloak, reckon he could stand me my ale all night and I wouldn’t recognise him. See what I’m getting at?’ he finished earnestly, as if desperate to prove his integrity. ‘I mean, ain’t easy, with strangers.’

‘No, indeed.’ Matthew had a point, Josse had to concede. ‘Well, thank you for your time, Matthew.’ Discreetly he laid a couple of coins on the table. ‘In case your thirst isn’t quite assuaged,’ he remarked.

‘Aye, aye, always a chance of that.’ A grubby hand shot out like a rat from a midden and the coins disappeared. ‘Thankee kindly, sir.’

Assured that he had done as much as he could to ensure Matthew’s future co-operation, should it prove necessary, Josse settled his bill and left.

* * *

He returned to the market, pushing his way around the stalls for a while, but could see nobody who looked remotely like Milon, even disguised in a hood and cloak. Giving it up, and glad to turn his back on the heaving, shoving crowds, he headed back for Hawkenlye.

He paused at the top of the ridge. The day was hot, with the sun shining strongly from a clear blue sky, and there had been little shade on the long trudge up from the vale. Letting his horse find his own way to a cool patch of grass beneath an oak tree, Josse relaxed in the saddle and sat looking back the way he had come.

From the high ground, the contours of the land showed up clearly. Visibility was good that afternoon, and, far away to the north, Josse could make out the line of the downs. His eye followed the roughly west to east course of the River Medway, down in the bottom of the valley, and he focused for a few moments on the great castle and the bridge over which it loomed. The township of Tonbridge, for all that it had seemed crowded and busy when he was down in it, appeared, from up here, small and insignificant, its whole existence brought about merely because it was the place where the river was crossed by the main road.

All around the town, in a clearly defined area within the encircling woodland, were the agricultural demesnes; now, at the height of summer, the rich alluvial land was heavy with ripening crops of corn, fruit and hops.

No wonder, Josse thought, pulling his horse’s head up and turning him back on to the track, the market was so well attended.

He still had time to kill. The track to Hawkenlye looped around a great bulge of the Wealden Forest. Making up his mind suddenly, he found a spot where the undergrowth was thin — a badger run, perhaps, or a deer path — and took a detour in beneath the trees.

Even on a bright July afternoon, the place was cool and dark. Josse could readily appreciate how it had come by its sinister reputation; riding through the steadily thickening trees and the rampant undergrowth as he went deeper in, he had to fight the urge to keep looking over his shoulder.

Oak predominated, interspersed with birch and beech. Some of the giant oaks must, Josse reckoned, be centuries old. Massive in girth, their upper branches high up above merged to form a thick canopy which entirely blotted out the sunlight. Many of them were thickly wreathed with ivy, which trailed down to ground level to merge with bramble, hazel, holly and thorn in an all but impenetrable thicket.

In places, he came across evidence of better-defined tracks through the forest, some of which, judging from the height of the banks on either side, were possibly as ancient as the old oaks. Were they the vestiges of roads made by the Romans, built straight, built true, built to last? Or were they what remained of the old iron ways, made by men before history began? Men who knew the forest like a brother, understood its nature and penetrated to its very heart, men who worshipped the oak as a god, in whose name they carried out unspeakable violence.

And who, according to some, still did …

Already apprehensive, it was not, Josse told himself, the best moment to let his imagination run free.

Coming to a clearing, he drew rein and sat staring about him. For the first time since he had left the sunshine of the world outside, there was evidence of human occupation. Not much, to be sure, just a huddle of mean-looking huts, simply constructed, scarcely more than a pole frame draped with a covering of branches and turves. Shelter enough, perhaps, to keep out the rain. There was evidence that charcoal-burning had been going on, although not, apparently, for some time; the patches of ground where fires had been set were no longer totally bare, but covered with small green tendrils as nature began to reclaim her own.

Josse dismounted and, tethering his horse, approached the largest of the huts. Bending his head, he went inside. There had been a small fire in there; putting his hand over it, Josse detected faint warmth. On a raised bank at one side was a mattress of bracken. Freshly cut.

It could have been anyone, Josse reflected as he remounted. All manner of fugitives and itinerants would know of these old huts, and it must be a common occurrence for someone to come and lie up here for a few days, while the heat died down and they planned their next move.

It didn’t have to be Milon.

But, as he set off back to the outside world — which, he had to admit, had rarely seemed so attractive a prospect — Josse couldn’t help being quite certain that it was.

* * *

He told Abbess Helewise what he had in mind. He saw her instinctive reaction before she could dissimulate: she didn’t want him to do it.

‘Don’t worry,’ he said quietly. Was it impertinent to assume she was worrying? ‘I can cope with Master Milon. And he may well not turn up!’ He tried to laugh.

‘He’s a murderer,’ Helewise said, equally quietly; it was as if neither of them wanted to speak aloud of such matters in the sanctity of the convent. ‘He has killed, if you are right. And, having done so once, he will not, I think, find it so difficult to do so again.’

He was surprised at her perspicacity, at a nun having the experience to understand the mind of a murderer. ‘Indeed, Abbess, it has often been observed that murder is easy after the first time.’ Suddenly he realised what they were saying. ‘But we speak of only one killing, whereas there have been two, surely!’