Candace Robb: The Cross Legged Knight

Owen withdrew to the shed and once again shone the lantern along the length of the woman’s body. He saw no remnants of a veil or cap, which might have protected some of her hair. One side of her head was caked with mud where it had been pressed to the earth. He found a length of sacking hanging on a hook on the wall of the shack and used it to wipe away some of the grime. He could see that her eyebrow was a light brown, a shade too common to set her apart. He tried to imagine her skin slack, her features more defined, but it was beyond his powers to do so. She was someone’s daughter, perhaps wife and mother. Someone would come forward to claim her. He thanked God he knew that all the women in his family had been safe when the fire began.

Something around the woman’s neck caught the lantern light, but her flesh had swelled around it. A piece of jewellery, perhaps. That might be useful in identifying her if the Fitzbaldrics did not come up with a name. Owen tilted her chin back gently. With the sacking protecting his hand, he reached for the item. It was polished metal, large for a lady’s neck, almost four fingers long, cutting into the swollen flesh above and below. A leather strap hung from it, the end so charred it crumbled in his fingers. He realized it was a buckle and a belt, or strap. The rest of the belt was deeply imbedded in the swollen flesh of her neck, secured by the brass buckle. Easing the leather through the buckle, he worked it out, trying not to tear the flesh. He was sweating and nauseated by the time he held the charred belt in his hands. The buckle had been positioned over her throat and had probably crushed it.

Owen’s discovery changed the temper of his examination. The woman was no accidental victim, a neighbour coming to talk with Poins while he fetched something from the undercroft, caught in a sudden blaze caused by an overturned candle. She had been murdered, her executioner, no doubt, hoping the fire would mask the deed, not counting on the quick response of the neighbours.

But they had not come in time to save her. May she rest in the light of Thy grace, dear Lord .

Gently Owen arranged the woman’s head so that the band of unburned flesh at the side of her neck, where the leather had protected it, was not noticeable. Whoever wrapped her in a shroud for burial might make note of it, but there were other abrasions and raw areas on her flesh where fragments of charred, brittle clothing had been pulled away, perhaps when she was moved. He hoped that only the murderer would know how she had died. With care, Owen coiled what was left of the belt around the buckle, wrapped it in the cloth, and tucked it into his scrip. He would show it to Thoresby and Wykeham, but no one here, not even the coroner — his job was but to record that she had died and how. For now he would be satisfied with death by burning.

Owen shuttered the lantern and stepped out of the shed. Alfred awaited him.

‘Get me some water to wash my hands. Then I want to talk to the men who carried her out.’

Owen leaned back against the wall while he waited, hands hanging at his sides, eye closed, breathing. Even the smoky air was better than the air in the shed.

Alfred returned with the man he had pointed out earlier. Owen recognized him as a blacksmith’s apprentice — someone unafraid of fire. He had little to add to what Owen had already heard.

Another man came forward, holding out a leather strap decorated with glass beads. ‘This dropped from the woman, I think,’ he said, placing it in Owen’s hand.

It was a pretty bauble, or had been before the fire had ruined it, perhaps the woman’s girdle. Owen added it to the other piece of leather in his scrip. It was something by which she might be identified.

‘Tell me about the other, the injured man.’

‘He lay beneath a burning barrel. His arm broken.’

‘Why did he not free himself?’

‘His head was bleeding. Perhaps he was in a faint.’

‘The barrel was atop him?’

‘Aye.’

Owen drew Alfred away from the others. ‘I want a guard on my house, where the injured man lies.’

‘Protecting a witness?’

‘Aye.’ Or the murderer . ‘And my family.’

‘Colin is in this crowd. I shall find him and take him with me.’

‘Good man.’

Soaking a cloth in a bowl of water, Lucie knelt to the injured man. Poins, the Fitzbaldric couple had called him. He had patches of dark hair between the burned areas, trimmed close to his head, prominent bones, a broad forehead underscored by dark, straight brows — though all the hair might be burned and not naturally dark at all. On the right side of his face he had blisters high on his cheek and forehead, and his right ear looked as if it had been even more severely burned. There were perhaps bruises on his left cheek — it was difficult to tell with his face streaked with soot. She dabbed at the dirt. He winced. She guessed by the condition of his clothes that he had burns on all his limbs, though his principal injuries were the gash on his head and his shattered and burned right arm. He lay with it thrust out from him as if he would shake it off if he could. The colour of the arm was unnatural. Every now and then he gave a violent shiver. Though it was warm here by the fire, she knew that after such an injury one often needed extra warmth.

Lucie’s elderly aunt sat on a stool nearby, clutching her elbows as if protecting herself from the man’s agony. Phillippa had been confused when Poins was brought into the house, thinking she was back on the manor of Freythorpe Hadden the night the gatehouse had been ablaze. It had taken the maid Kate a long while to convince her that this had been a different fire, involving none of her family, none of her property. But it was clear that Phillippa was still ill at ease. Lucie thought some occupation might calm her.

‘Aunt, would you fetch some cushions and blankets from the chest at the top of the stairs?’

Phillippa responded slowly, moving her fingers as if rediscovering them. Then she rubbed her cheeks, her eyes. ‘What did you say, child?’

Lucie repeated the request.

Phillippa rose and came over, holding her hands close to the fire while she gazed down on Poins. ‘He cannot be cold — it is so warm here.’

‘Yet he shivers, Aunt.’

Phillippa watched until she saw the tremor move through Poins. ‘I see. I shall bring what I can carry.’

Lucie bent to him again and gently pressed the cloth to his soot-streaked forehead, his cheeks, his chin. Except for the blisters on his cheek and forehead his face was untouched. She set the cloth aside, picked up the brandywine and a spoon. Before she tried removing the rest of his clothing she would numb him, if she could. Wheezing and occasionally moaning, Poins did not respond to Lucie’s efforts to get him to drink the brandywine. She kept up a soft patter, using his name, telling him that the brandywine would ease the pain, that he would soon be warm, that the Riverwoman was on her way. Phillippa returned with the blankets and they tucked them around him, lifted his head and gently placed a cushion beneath it. After a while his shivering ceased and at last he began to suck at the spoon. He seemed quieter by the time Magda Digby arrived.

Even so, Lucie thanked God for the Riverwoman’s presence. With little ado, Magda set her pack down on the small table Lucie had placed nearby, then crouched beside her.

For a long while Magda considered Poins, holding his right hand, touching the elbow, the shoulder. At last she said, ‘Magda will need thy help.’

‘Of course. I thought first we should undress him.’

‘Aye, see what else he suffers.’

Phillippa handed Lucie a pair of scissors. ‘It is no use saving the cloth, the fire has ruined it.’