Alys Clare - The Paths of the Air

Gervase let out his breath in a long sigh. ‘Very well.’ Then, belatedly remembering his manners, he turned to the infirmarer. ‘I am sorry if I appeared heartless, Sister, and I did not mean to bully you.’

‘I know,’ she replied serenely.

‘You will let us know the instant we can speak to one or both of the monks?’

‘I will.’

He stared down at her for a moment or two. Then, with a curt nod, he turned and strode down the long ward and out of the infirmary.

Outside in the crisp air, Josse recalled something he had intended to do today. Now seemed as good a time as any, and having a purpose might help Gervase’s all too evident frustration.

‘I was going to suggest we went to report to the Abbess,’ he said, ‘but before we do that, there’s something I’ve been meaning to check.’

Gervase looked at him. ‘What?’ he said eagerly.

‘I’d like to go over the ground where the first victim was found,’ Josse replied. ‘I’d like to do so with you, my friend, for a fresh pair of eyes may pick up something that others missed. After all,’ he added, ‘in mitigation, we who brought the dead man here to the Abbey were greatly disturbed by what had been done to him and it is quite possible we did not search around as thoroughly as we might have done.’

‘Indeed it is, Josse!’ Gervase cried. ‘Show me the way and let’s go!’

Josse went first along the track that ran beneath the forest fringes. He did not speak; he was reliving the moment two days ago when he had first seen the dead body. He reached the place and stopped, Gervase beside him.

‘He was lying just there,’ Josse pointed, ‘on the edge of the track. No attempt had been made to hide the body. He was naked and anything he might have been carrying on him was gone.’

‘And you do not think that the merchant who reported the body stole anything? It’s possible, Josse — I’m told that the fellow sent his lad to the Abbey for help, so could he not have stolen the dead man’s pack and hidden it away before you all came along?’

‘It’s possible, aye,’ Josse admitted. ‘The merchant — he gave his name as Guiot of Robertsbridge and he was going to Tonbridge market with nutmegs and cloves — was insistent that they found the corpse robbed of every garment and possession, and I had no reason not to believe him. I-’ He frowned, trying to put into words his conviction that the merchant had spoken the truth. ‘It was just so awful, Gervase, that somehow I don’t think any of us who saw that body lying there would have wanted to take anything, even something valuable. It would have been like picking up a piece of the victim’s horrible death.’

Gervase was looking at him interestedly. ‘I never thought you were superstitious, Josse.’

‘It has nothing to do with superstition. You weren’t there, Gervase. You didn’t see or smell that terrible death scene.’

‘You are probably right about the merchant,’ Gervase said after a moment. ‘The fact that he volunteered his name and his business so readily suggests he was honest. I suppose I could send one of my men to speak to him…’

‘I don’t think you’d learn any more from him than you will from me,’ Josse said bluntly. ‘But it’s your decision and your man’s time you’ll be wasting.’

‘Very well,’ Gervase said meekly. Then: ‘I’m sorry you have to come back here. Clearly it’s upsetting you.’

Josse shrugged but did not speak. Then both men quietly crouched down and, eyes fixed to the hard ground, began to search along the track and through the fringing undergrowth.

The cramp in Josse’s damp knees suggested they had been at their task for long enough. Josse had not found a thing; from Gervase’s continuing silence, he guessed the sheriff had had no more success. Slowly Josse made his way back to the spot where the body had lain and, staring at the short, frosty grass at the edge of the track, he made out the large area where it had been flattened, first by the corpse and then by the booted feet of those who had come to bear it down to the Abbey. There were still a few smears of blood.

Smears of blood…

Josse straightened up. ‘Gervase, he wasn’t killed here!’

Gervase hurried over. ‘There’s not enough blood,’ Josse said. ‘With those wounds — and assuming he was still alive when they cut his throat — he would have bled copiously. So where is it? Where’s the blood?’

Gervase was now staring down as intently as Josse had done. ‘There’s some there.’ He pointed. ‘And there.’

‘Aye, but those patches are nothing but seepage from the dead body,’ Josse said. ‘When you cut into a man’s wrist — and the dead man’s hand was all but severed — the blood spurts out like a fountain.’

Gervase was looking at him respectfully. ‘There, Josse, I must bow before your greater experience, for I have never seen a man’s hand cut off. Nor a throat being slit,’ he added, ‘and I pray I never shall.’ Then, as if deliberately steering his thoughts away from such horrors, he said, ‘So, if he wasn’t killed here, where? Is it worth our while looking around?’

Josse was thinking. ‘If you are going to torture a man, you want to do so in an out-of-the-way spot.’

‘In the forest?’ Gervase suggested.

‘Aye, perhaps, although-’ Although the forest would not like it and would soon rid itself of your presence, he was going to say. Deciding it would sound impossibly whimsical to someone like Gervase, who had had very little experience of the Great Forest and all that went on within it, he said instead, ‘Although if the slaying was done deep within the trees, why did they not leave him there? No — I think they probably jumped him on the track, took him a short distance into the undergrowth and afterwards dragged his body back to this spot.’

‘Why would they do that?’ Gervase persisted. ‘If he was hidden in the bracken, why not leave him there?’

It was a good question. Josse was considering it when, as if out of nowhere, the answer was in his head: We did not want the residue of such brutality within the forest. It was we who brought him out to the track.

And then he knew.

Would he be able to make Gervase believe him?

He could but try.

‘The forest people put him here,’ he said simply. ‘They knew he would be found sooner or later, for the track is quite well used. They also knew he would end up at Hawkenlye Abbey.’

Gervase was looking at him wonderingly. ‘You know that?’ Josse shrugged. Gervase took it as an affirmation. ‘Because of Joanna?’

But Josse did not want to talk about Joanna. He shrugged again and then said, ‘I suggest we go along the track for a mile or so in each direction, looking for any spot where flattened grass or disturbed undergrowth points to a body having been dragged out of the forest. You go back towards the Abbey; I’ll go on that way.’

Gervase, Josse noticed, had the puzzled frown of a man who wants to ask further questions but does not want to risk offence. With a private smile, he set off along the track and presently heard the sound of Gervase’s footfalls as he strode off the other way.

It was Josse who found the place. Had he not been actively searching for it, he would probably have missed it, for the signs were faint: a heel print on the edge of a muddy puddle right off to the side of the track; a slim hazel branch that had been partially broken; and, when he hastened off the track and in under the trees, the shadow of a line through the dying bracken that might have been made by a boar or a deer but that, under the circumstances, Josse was absolutely sure was the work of human beings.

He had gone perhaps a hundred paces. Hoping Gervase was still in earshot, he loped back to the track and yelled, ‘Gervase! Gervase! Here, to me!’