Alys Clare - The Rose of the World

‘I believe someone camped here,’ he said when Gervase hurried to join him. ‘Look. A horse stood there, and for some time, I would say. There are some oats scattered, and about a horse length away, a pile of droppings.’

‘A single horse,’ Gervase murmured.

‘Aye, and a sizeable animal.’

‘The dead man’s horse?’

‘Perhaps.’ Josse had seen something else and, slowly and carefully, he was moving across to look. ‘There was a camp fire here,’ he said, pointing to where cut turfs had been laid over a patch of burned earth. ‘And one — no, two people lay beside the fire.’ He indicated the areas of flattened grass.

Gervase frowned. ‘Two men camped here but with only one horse. What, they’re Templar Knights, sharing their mount for the sake of brotherhood and poverty?’

Josse grinned briefly. ‘Maybe, but I would suggest rather that the killer rode away on his horse.’

‘What of the victim’s horse?’

‘If, indeed, both victim and murderer rode to this place, then presumably the killer took the dead man’s horse away with him.’ Josse was searching again, slowly circling the trees, but soon he gave up. ‘I can’t read the hoof prints. You and your men have walked and ridden all over the ground, and it’s impossible to say if a mounted man rode away leading a second horse.’

‘So what-?’

Josse held up both hands as if fending Gervase off. ‘No more!’ he exclaimed. ‘I need time to think about what we have found here.’

Gervase held up his hands. ‘Yes, of course.’

They walked side by side back to where Gervase’s men stood around the body.

Josse glanced down at the dead man, whose face was now covered by a piece of sacking. ‘We will take him to Hawkenlye Abbey,’ he announced. ‘The new infirmarer is acquiring quite a reputation, and if she can’t tell us what killed this man, I will personally go to fetch Sister Euphemia out of her well-earned retirement and ask her.’

He watched as Gervase’s men put the body on a makeshift stretcher, made out of the man’s cloak fastened around two heavy branches cut from one of the oak trees. The procession formed up and — with Gervase and Josse in the lead, and Tomas and his old mare at the back — they began to wind their way slowly back to Hawkenlye.

When they had gone only a short distance, Gervase cleared his throat a couple of times and then said, ‘Josse, as you know, Dominic Warin came to see me.’

‘Aye,’ Josse replied. ‘Some matter you wanted to discuss with him, I understand.’

For some moments Gervase did not answer. Sensing his discomfiture, Josse turned to look at him. Gervase’s usual air of amused detachment appeared to have deserted him. ‘Well?’ Josse prompted.

‘There is a band of robbers in the area,’ Gervase said, the words emerging in a rush, as if he disliked having to utter them. ‘I am spreading the word to all men who have large manors and houses, for to be forewarned may afford some protection.’ Again, he hesitated. ‘I asked Dominic to tell me what valuables he possesses, suggesting he make certain that they are safely hidden or locked away,’ he hurried on. ‘I propose that you do the same, Josse, and I am happy to come to the House in the Woods to check on your security.’

‘That’s good of you, Gervase,’ Josse said, surprised, ‘although I can’t bring to mind much that any of us possess that’s worth locking away.’

‘Oh, you’d be surprised.’ Gervase gave an awkward laugh. Before Josse could reply, he added, ‘I have some experience with thieves, Josse. I know what they look out for; I can help you, if you are willing.’

‘Well, I suppose I am…’ Josse said slowly. His mind was working busily. Why on earth was Gervase discussing this unlikely suggestion of his, when there was another, far graver issue preoccupying them all?

Because he is my friend, he realized, and he thinks in this way to take my mind off my fears.

He turned to Gervase with a smile, about to thank him for his kind concern. But Gervase’s expression stopped the words before he could speak them. Whatever this was about, it was a great deal deeper than a sympathetic gesture from a compassionate companion.

Then he knew.

Feeling the same fear-induced nausea that had flooded him when Tomas had told him about finding a body, he said in a hoarse whisper, ‘You fear that these thieves may not stop at stealing property. You believe they may have taken Rosamund.’

Gervase’s eyes widened in horrified protest. ‘No, Josse!’ Violently, he shook his head. ‘No, my friend. Believe me, I have not the least reason to suspect such a thing.’ He muttered something, but Josse could not make it out.

Josse was not convinced. ‘Then why do you mention these robbers at all, when you must know that concern for any valuable possessions I might have is the last thing on my mind?’

He had spoken far more fiercely than he had intended. Gervase hung his head, as if accepting the rebuke. Instantly sorry, Josse reached out a hand. ‘I am sorry, Gervase,’ he said. ‘You were trying to distract me, I know.’ He took a couple of breaths, and he felt his heartbeat slow down. ‘I promise I’ll think about what treasures I own, and when next you are at the House in the Woods I’ll show you where I hide them and seek your advice as to how to keep these robbers’ filthy hands off them.’

Gervase nodded, but did not reply. In silence, they rode on to the abbey.

Josse stood beside Gervase, watching Hawkenlye’s infirmarer work her way all over the dead man’s body. It had been taken to a curtained recess, then stripped and washed by two young nuns working under the close eye of their superior. Josse had studied the infirmarer as she stood there, her full attention on what her nurses were doing. He did not know her well, and his first impressions were favourable. When one of the young nuns — nervous, perhaps, under the infirmarer’s unwavering stare — dropped a bowl of dirty water all over the clean sheet on which the body was lying, Sister Liese had issued no sharp reprimand, but quietly told the girl to fetch another sheet and then mop up the mess.

Now, observing her as closely as she had watched her nuns, Josse’s tentative admiration for her grew. She handled the body as if it still lived, he observed, touching the wounds to the face and the hands as if the man could still wince at the pain. She was modest, too, and after a quick inspection of the torso, groin and legs, she had pulled up the sheet so that the body was covered as far as the waist.

‘He has been hit over his ribs.’ Sister Liese’s soft voice broke into his reflections. ‘There is bruising. See?’ She beckoned to them without turning round, as if she knew they were watching. Josse and Gervase stepped forward, and Josse saw the dark discolouration over the lower half of the man’s rib cage.

‘Left side again,’ he muttered.

Sister Liese turned to look at him. Her eyes — light, and halfway between blue and green — fixed on his. ‘Yes,’ she agreed, ‘and the damage to the face is worse on the left. The man who punched him favoured his right hand.’

She turned back to the body. Now she raised the head with one gentle hand while she slipped the other beneath it. She felt around for some moments, and Josse knew what she would find.

He waited and, after a short time, Sister Liese smiled briefly and said, ‘Ah, yes.’

‘He fell flat on his back,’ Josse said. ‘There must have been a stone, or a rock, that his head struck.’

‘Yes, I agree.’ Sister Liese reached out and took Josse’s wrist in a surprisingly firm grasp. She raised the dead man’s head again and placed Josse’s fingers on the base of the skull. He felt a deep dent, and over the spot the thick hair was sticky with blood.