Alys Clare - Fortune Like the Moon

The dark man was smiling again, as if amused at some private joke. Offering Josse a mug of ale, he said, ‘I think, Sir Josse, that I must correct a misapprehension into which you have somehow fallen.’ He raised his own mug, took a drink, then said, ‘I am not Olivar. I am Brice.’

Josse’s immediate, foolish impulse was to say, No you’re not! You can’t be, I saw Brice, down by the river, in the deepest distress over the death of his young wife!

He held the words back. Clearly, he’d made a mistake. Jumped to a conclusion on purely circumstantial evidence. Wrong!

But, if this were indeed Brice, then who was the grieving man? There was a resemblance, yes — it was perfectly possible they were brothers.

He said, ‘My Lord Brice, I apologise.’ Brice shook his head, still smiling. Josse continued, ‘If it is not impertinent, might I ask if your bother Olivar resembles you?’

‘They do say so, yes, although I do not really see it myself. We are both dark, however. Only he has a streak of white, just here.’ He indicated above his left ear. ‘He’s had it since he was a lad of fifteen. It grew after he’d had a bad fall from his horse when we were out hunting. The physician said it was shock, but I’ve always doubted that. It takes more than a fall to shock my brother, Sir Josse.’

‘Ah. Oh. Yes, I see.’ Josse, aware of making the right responses, was thinking. Not a man to shock readily? Perhaps not, when it was a question of physical fortitude. But the man Josse had seen down by the river had been in shock all right. He’d been grieving so deeply that it had seemed he would never stop.

Olivar of Rotherbridge, then, had a secret heartbreak which, or so it seemed, even his elder brother was unaware of.

‘I asked you to visit me,’ Brice was saying, ‘because I wish to make a donation to Hawkenlye Abbey.’

‘You do?’ With some effort, Josse pulled his thoughts together.

‘I do. I was planning to pay a call on Abbess Helewise, but there are matters here at Rotherbridge requiring my attention, and I have already been away for some time.’

‘Aye.’

‘I was with the holy brothers at Canterbury,’ Brice went on. ‘Doing penance.’

‘Aye, I know.’ Josse felt compelled to admit it; there was no need for this man to punish himself further by giving the details to a stranger.

But Brice, it seemed, wanted to. ‘I did love Dillian,’ he said, leaning forward and fixing earnest brown eyes on Josse. ‘We had our difficulties, as no doubt do all married couples. You are married?’ Josse shook his head. ‘She could be wilful and over-frivolous, and she would not address herself to matters of importance. But I was at fault, too. I dare say I was too old and serious for her, God rest her soul, and I admit that I was not always kind to her.’

He was relating his story, Josse thought, with an ease that suggested acceptance. If that were so, then the heavy-handed monks had done their job well.

‘Her death was an accident, I’m told,’ Josse said.

‘Accident, yes. I know it was. But it was my rash anger which led to it. I have made my confession, and done my penance.’ He gave a grim smile, as if at the memory. ‘I am reliably informed that for me to go on heaping ashes on my head would amount to self-indulgence. And I am only to wear the hair shirt on Sundays.’

This time the smile was open and unrestrained. Josse, wondering if possibly he were being deliberately charmed, found himself liking the man. And, if Brice had won himself God’s forgiveness for his part in his wife’s tragic death, then who was Josse to go on condemning him?

‘You spoke of a gift to the Abbey,’ he said.

‘I did. I was explaining why I asked you to visit me, which was purely because, unable to make the journey to Hawkenlye, I could scarcely ask the Abbess to ride over here. So, Sir Josse, I asked you.’

It was reasonable. ‘I have no objection,’ Josse said.

‘Good. In that case, let us proceed to the business. My late sister-in-law, Gunnora of Winnowlands, would have been left the greater part of her father’s fortune had she and the old man lived a little longer. He disinherited her on her entry into Hawkenlye. Alard wanted her to marry me — it was a sound match, both families would have felt the benefits, and I was not unwilling. But she wouldn’t have me, Sir Josse, shouted out to all who would listen that life as a nun was preferable to being my wife. There was a degree of blackening of my name, or so I gathered. But she had her reasons.’ He spoke lightly, and Josse detected no hint of pain or of resentment. ‘That was her story,’ he murmured, half to himself. ‘By God, she needed a good one. So Alard made Dillian his heir’ — he was addressing Josse again now — ‘but, when Dillian was killed, Alard had to think again. Initially he left the lot to his niece Elanor and her stupid little boy of a husband, but I am told he was about to reconsider. I imagine it is likely that, even with Gunnora dead, he would have made some gift to Hawkenlye. However, death intervened, and his unamended will stands; Elanor will inherit. Good news awaits her, on her return from her visiting.’

They didn’t know, then, at Rotherbridge, of Elanor’s death. Indeed, how could they, when, as far as the rest of the world was concerned, the second Hawkenlye victim was a postulant named Elvera? Briefly Josse wondered just who would inherit Alard’s fortune. Milon, since he was Elanor’s husband? But wasn’t there some ancient law from back in the distant past about a criminal not being allowed to benefit from his crime?

The resolution of that matter remained to be seen.

‘I wish,’ Brice was saying, ‘to give to the Abbey a donation to compensate, in some part, for what they would have received from my late wife’s father, had he lived a day or so longer. I make the gift of my own free will, although I confess that the good brothers of Canterbury did drop one or two hints.’

‘I’m sure they did,’ Josse murmured.

Brice was reaching for a small leather bag that hung from his belt. ‘Will you give this to the Abbess, please, Sir Josse? With the compliments of Brice of Rotherbridge, in the name of Sister Gunnora?’

‘Aye, gladly.’ Josse held out his hand, and Brice dropped the bag into it. The bag was very heavy.

‘What news of progress in the hunt for her killer?’ Brice asked as, seated once more, he raised his mug. ‘You, I am told, have the new King’s authority to investigate the murder?’

‘Aye.’

‘I wondered at Richard Plantagenet concerning himself with a rural killing until I made the connection,’ Brice went on. ‘Your task, I imagine, is simply to persuade us all that Gunnora was not killed by one of these released criminals he’s been busy turfing out of the country’s jails.’

‘She wasn’t,’ Josse said. ‘I’ve known that from the first.’

‘Quite so. I can’t imagine that anyone with any sense would have believed otherwise. Prisoners hereabouts may be mean, stinking and hopeless, but few of them are murderers.’

Josse grinned. ‘Aye. Trouble is, Sir Brice, your average man drinking his hard-earned wages in the local hostelry doesn’t have very much sense.’

Brice laughed. ‘So, you remain here to satisfy your own curiosity?’

‘Aye.’ And, Josse thought wearily, I’m still a long way from doing so.

* * *

He was draining his ale, thinking it was about time he got up and headed back for Hawkenlye — it wouldn’t do to be out after dark with a purseful of gold tucked in his tunic — when something occurred to him. He might not have felt he should ask, except that, for the past hour or so, he and Brice had been enjoying a long conversation about the end of Henry II’s days, and discussing what likelihood there was of as good a life under the rule of his son. It had, Josse thought, put them on a new level of intimacy. Or it might have been the ale, and the sharing of the excellent food which Mathild had provided for the midday meal.