Кэндис Робб - The Nun’s Tale

“Has there been any… disturbance – around her grave?”

The priest looked nervous. “What sort of disturbance?”

Louth pressed his fingers together and closed his eyes, calming himself. “Does the grave look as if it has been untouched since the so-called funeral of Dame Joanna?”

Sir Thomas took a deep breath. “I tell no tales, but since I heard of her return, I went to look, and, I must say, something has been at the grave in the past year. Though not so recently as Dame Joanna’s resurrection. Then again, would a body disturb the earth as it rose from the grave? Seems to me–”

“She did not rise from the dead,” Louth said sternly.

“No. No, of course not.” The priest blotted his forehead.

“Did Dame Joanna wear a blue mantle when you attended her?”

“Our Lady’s mantle? Alas, no. I did not have the good fortune to touch it.”

Louth sighed. “Yes. Thank you, Sir Thomas.” He rose with the priest, escorted him out and called for his squire. “Come, John, let us visit little Maddy and ask her about the two men.”

John knocked on the whitewashed door of Longford’s house. It swung open. He glanced back at Louth, puzzled. Louth nodded. They drew their daggers. John stepped inside and Louth followed. The afternoon sun poured through the unshuttered windows, illuminating overturned chairs and benches. An oil lamp lay on the floor next to a scorched chair. The house was silent but for a bird that took fright at their entrance.

“Maddy?” Louth whispered. He cleared his throat, repeated her name loudly. No answer. He moved slowly toward the door that led to the kitchen, stepped through, stopped with a sense of dread at the bloodstains in the courtyard, an uneven trail that connected the hall with the kitchen. He opened the kitchen door. “Sweet Heaven.” Cooking pots lay scattered on the stone floor; the remains of a stew coagulated in a pot over the pale embers of the cooking fire; wine pooled on a trestle table, dripped onto the floor. “Maddy?” A curtain was drawn across an alcove. Probably Jaro’s pallet. John reached it first, pulled back the curtain, turned away with a strangled cry.

Louth crossed himself and joined his squire. Maddy lay on the wide pallet, coins on her eyes, her hands folded neatly on her breast, fully clothed, draped in a blue shawl. But the swollen face, split lip, the blood on her skirt and hands, and most of all the ugly dark bruise on her throat made it plain that Maddy’s death had not been peaceful, much as someone had carefully arranged her afterwards. Poor little Maddy. Louth fell to his knees and wept.

Louth’s round, usually ruddy face was pale the next morning, his eyes shadowed. Ravenser invited him out into his garden, where the sun might draw the chill of death from his bones.

“What have they done with Maddy’s body?” Louth asked.

“I have claimed it. The bailiff and the coroner will deliver her to me.”

Louth leaned forward to touch Ravenser’s hand. “God bless you, Richard. Pray, let me bear the expense of her burial.”

Ravenser withdrew his hand, discomfited by the canon’s emotion. “Why should you bear the expense?”

“In Heaven’s name, it is my fault that she is dead. What was I thinking to leave her there alone?”

Ravenser bowed his head to hide his agreement. “Did you notice the blue shawl, how like Dame Joanna’s it is?” Best to engage Louth in searching for answers. The peacock would have made note of the bright shawl.

“The blue shawl.” Louth nodded. “Yes, I did see it.”

“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.”