Candace Robb - The Nun's Tale

‘I wonder why she wore it? The day was warm.’

‘It must have happened at night.’

‘Yet she was fully dressed.’

Louth raised a dimpled hand to dab at his eyes. ‘I shall never forgive myself. Maddy looked to me for protection while Longford was away. He may be a mercenary, and all the unsavoury things they say of him may be true, but Maddy was safe under his care.’

‘You do not think it might have been Longford who killed her?’

‘What?’ Louth looked puzzled.

‘Might he have walked in, thought she was Dame Joanna in that blue shawl?’

Sweat beaded on Louth’s fleshy face as he considered it.

Ravenser did not like the heavy man’s pallor, his shallow breathing. ‘But now that I think of it, we do not know whether Joanna had that mantle when she was here with Longford.’

Louth blinked rapidly. ‘Of course. It need not have been Longford. Perhaps someone else mistook her for Joanna Calverley. Or perhaps — do you suppose they wrapped the shawl round Maddy as a warning?’

The possibility made Ravenser uneasy. He wanted a simple solution, involving as few people as possible. ‘We have no proof of it, Nicholas.’

Louth sighed, dabbed at his upper lip. ‘Has the abbess learned anything from Dame Joanna?’

A safer topic. ‘She says the nun speaks dizzying nonsense.’ Ravenser stood up. ‘I see no choice but to open the grave they dug with such haste to see whether it reveals aught.’

Louth crossed himself. ‘You do not mean to bury Maddy there?’

Ravenser looked at the canon askance. ‘Do you think me a monster?’

Louth rubbed his eyes. ‘Forgive me. I shall attend you at the grave, if you do not mind.’

‘I welcome your company, I assure you. It is not a thing I do lightly. I would also like you to send out your men to stir up gossip, see whether they learn anything new about Will Longford. Or Maddy. Let me know tomorrow morning what you’ve heard.’

What Louth learned from his men about Longford’s reputation surprised neither him nor Ravenser. Longford was universally disliked and distrusted. His appetite for women had led most folk, upon hearing of the death of the nun in his house, to surmise that Longford had abducted, raped, then rejected the poor young woman, and that she had died of shame or fear for her immortal soul. Some even suggested that he had poisoned her. Now, with the news of Dame Joanna’s return, the consensus was that she had run away with Longford (no matter the delay in his departure) and he had rejected her. Some cynical souls even hoped that the nun had killed him.

‘ Not a romantic figure,’ Louth said.

Ravenser leaned back, his slender hands behind his head, and stared at the ceiling. ‘Eight months after Dame Joanna’s “burial” Longford disappeared. What if she was with child and he went to meet her after the birth? Then something happened to separate the happy family?’

Then where is the baby?’

Ravenser sat up, ‘Dead? Might that be why the grave has been disturbed?’

‘Or perhaps she lied about being with child. He discovered it. Rejected her.’

Ravenser smiled. ‘We spin a good yarn.’

Louth did not smile. ‘As I see it, Dame Joanna ran away to be with a lover, who may or may not be Longford, and something went wrong. Perhaps so wrong that he followed her back here to kill her.’

‘But why would he have raped Maddy?’

Louth closed his eyes, shook his head. ‘My men heard nothing ill of her. A hard worker, bit of a dreamer.’ He dabbed at his eyes. ‘The poor, sweet child.’

Old Dan took off his dusty cap and scratched his bald head. ‘A man buries so many as I have, can’t recall ’em all. But I remember Master Longford buryin’ someone, aye.’

‘Do you remember anything else about it?’

The old man wriggled in his ragged clothes as if the question made him itch. ‘Not as such, Sir.’

‘Is that a yea or a nay?’

‘I remember the ale, Sir. A wondrous brew, thick and strong. The kind you chew before you swallow.’ He grinned at the memory.

‘Someone brought it while you filled in the grave?’

Old Dan crushed the hat in his hands, stared down at his dirty boots. ‘I shouldn’t’ve touched it before ’twas done, but dear Lord, it was one of the sunniest days of that wet summer and steam come up at me with every spadeful of earth. It near boiled me. A thirsty man will drink.’

‘I am not judging you, Dan. Who brought you the ale?’

‘’Twas Jaro, Master Longford’s man.’

‘Do you remember filling the grave while you sampled the ale, Dan?’

A dirty hand crept back up to the bald head, scratching. ‘Now there’s the problem, you see. I can’t say as I remember the filling in, but I’ve been digging graves all my life and I’m sure I did it right.’

‘Did anyone help you? Longford, perhaps?’

Old Dan shrugged. ‘To speak truth, I can swear to naught once I tasted that wondrous brew.’

‘You know what you’re to do now, Dan?’

They spoke true, then? You want it dug up?’

‘It must be done. Have you the stomach for it?’

‘Don’t know till I do. But if it must be done — ’ Dan shrugged. ‘Can’t say as I wouldn’t welcome company.’

‘I shall accompany you.’ Ravenser wished to keep this incident quiet if possible. ‘And Sir Nicholas, also.’

It had rained in the night. The morning was dry but overcast, the air heavy. Old Dan and his son fell to the task in silence, but soon they cursed the saturated earth. As they dug, water seeped in to fill the hole and make the soil heavy to lift.

Ravenser slipped into his own thoughts. What if they found the real Dame Joanna rotting in her shroud? Then who was the woman at Nunburton who claimed to be resurrected? The abbess of Nunburton had noted that the woman’s French was genteel and her clothes, though travel-stained and torn, were new, not mended, and of costly wool. She also noted that the supposedly ancient, sacred mantle looked like good Yorkshire wool. Why would someone claim to be a dead person? What was to be gained? Was she dangerous? Or just confused?

‘They have reached the body,’ Louth said quietly.

Ravenser apologised for his inattention. ‘I have been pondering this strange case.’

‘Here we are,’ Old Dan called out. ‘Knotted up in her shroud, just as I remember. Shall we lift her out, Sir Richard?’

Ravenser knelt down and slipped his knife through the upper knot, blinking back the tears the odour brought to his eyes. ‘I should think we can come to a conclusion with a peek.’

‘Lord ha’ mercy!’ Old Dan covered his mouth and nose with a dirty kerchief as Ravenser peeled back the sheet. ‘Don’t like the looks of ’em when there’s still flesh. Nor the stink.’

‘What have we here?’ Ravenser muttered. ‘Much too much flesh for a year-old corpse, and it is not Dame Joanna, but a man with a broken neck. A huge man.’

Louth held a scented cloth to his plump face and leaned down, examining the face and body. ‘Unmistakable. That is Jaro, Longford’s man.’ Louth pointed to an amulet on the chest. ‘The tooth of an animal he killed in the Pyrenees. Proud of it, he was. But his girth is enough to identify him.’ He turned quickly away.

Ravenser’s gut burned. How in God’s name had Will Longford’s man wound up in this grave? He rose. ‘Fill it back in, Dan, and say nothing to anyone. I must notify the mayor, the coroner, the bailiffs’ — he passed a hand over his eyes, sighed — ‘and the Archbishop of York.’

As they walked away, Louth asked what Ravenser meant to do with Dame Joanna.

‘I shall ask my uncle to allow me to escort her back to her convent. Perhaps she will be more coherent with her Mother Superior, someone familiar. But after all this, the escort must be well guarded.’