Faithful Dead (4 page)

‘Yes.’ Helewise remembered all about young Augustus’s talents. He had been her valued and trusted companion on a mission that she had had to make earlier in the year, and she knew from personal experience that he possessed the knowledge to tell the gender of a dead body. In the course of that mission, the puzzle presented to the young lay brother had been a burned skeleton. He had explained, with a modest and reassuring confidence, how the shape of the pelvis and the quality of the bones themselves – sturdy and robust for a man, lighter and finer for a woman – usually gave away a dead person’s sex.

Now, if Augustus had declared a putrid corpse to be male, then the Abbess was prepared to believe that he was right.

‘A man, then,’ she repeated, in the same low voice. ‘Did they discover anything else? His age, perhaps, or any article of clothing or personal possession to reveal who he was?’

Sister Euphemia hesitated. Then said: ‘He was mother-naked, Abbess. And nothing was found near him, although Brother Saul and Augustus are still searching through the bracken.’

Yes, so they were. Helewise could see one of them – Saul, she thought – as he stood up and, head raised, took a breath of the purer air above the thick bracken. Poor Saul. Poor Augustus. What a terrible task. She could only hope that, with the body now removed, the smell was decreasing in intensity.

‘They do think he was a young man,’ Sister Euphemia ventured, her eyes, like Helewise’s, on the distant figure of Saul, who, as they watched, bent down to resume his search and disappeared from view. ‘They have asked me to look at him, to see if I agree.’ She sounded less than enthusiastic.

‘How will you be able to tell?’ Perhaps, Helewise thought, the poor infirmarer’s professional curiosity would engage her and make the task slightly less repellent.

‘Oh – a youngster will show none of the bent and deformed bones that give to the ageing such pain,’ Sister Euphemia said. ‘The teeth, too, will be in better condition, with less wear and fewer gaps.’

‘Mm, I see,’ Helewise said encouragingly. ‘Anything else that you will look for?’

Sister Euphemia turned to her, faint amusement in her eyes. ‘I thank you for your kind interest, Abbess, but I am sure you do not really want to know.’ She cut off Helewise’s half-hearted protest with a smile and a gesture of her hand. ‘I think, with your permission, that it is time I stopped putting off the moment and went to study that poor fellow lying by the track down there. Then, as soon as it can be arranged, we can say our prayers for his soul and put him in the ground.’

Helewise, as eager for that ultimate step as her infirmarer, merely nodded and said, ‘Yes, Sister Euphemia. Thank you.’

In the wake of Prince John’s departure, it had occurred to Josse that the one place in the area where they
might
have heard of a stranger by the name of Galbertius Sidonius was Hawkenlye Abbey.

The Abbey, with its healing spring of Holy Water dedicated to the Virgin Mary, drew folk from near and far. The miracle of the cure of the fever-ridden French merchants who had first discovered the spring was now widely known; even the very poor would try to scrape together the funds for what was often a long journey, in the hope of curing injury and sicknesses of both body and mind in themselves or their loved ones.

Aye. Strangers a-plenty, at Hawkenlye. Maybe this Galbertius himself had visited – might even be there right now – and, provided he had revealed his identity, Josse could find out who and what he was simply by travelling the half-day’s journey over to the Abbey.

So it was that he rose one morning, dressed, and summoned Ella to prepare a quick breakfast and Will to prepare Horace, his horse.

Then, in the golden sun of a fine autumn day, he rode off to Hawkenlye.

The porteress, Sister Ursel, was standing in the road outside the Abbey gates when Josse rode up. Shading her eyes against the bright noon light, she was peering down the track, almost as if she were waiting for someone.

For him?

Her greeting – ‘Ah, Sir Josse,
there
you are, now! How glad I am to see you!’ seemed to underline this impression, if not to confirm it.

‘I am expected?’ he asked, slipping down from Horace’s back and returning the porteress’s welcoming smile.

‘Expected?’ She seemed to think about it. ‘Nay. But she will be highly relieved to see you, none the more for that.’

She. The Abbess? He wondered what might be the source of her relief at his presence. And whether, indeed, it would prove to be justified.

Leading Horace across to the stables – where, as both he and the horse knew from long experience, Sister Martha would care for the animal with a particular devotion that reflected the esteem in which she held its master – he said to Sister Ursel, ‘Any service that I may perform for the Abbess is for her to command of me, naturally. But––?’ He left the query hanging in the air, hoping the porteress would enlighten him.

She didn’t. Instead, turning to go back inside her little lodge by the gates, she said, ‘The Abbess is down in the Vale.’

A short time later, he was on his way to find her.

The main gates through which he had entered the Abbey lay to the east of the imposing Abbey church. Its great west door, with the magnificent tympanum of the Last Judgement above it, faced a second entrance, from which a path led down to the Vale. Here, a small and simple chapel had been built over the Holy Water spring. Beside it was a short range of wooden-framed, wattle-and-daub buildings where the monks who tended the spring and cared for the pilgrims were housed. There was also basic accommodation – clean, even if none too comfortable – for those pilgrims who lived too far away to make the journey to Hawkenlye and back in a day.

Old Brother Firmin was the most senior of the professed monks. Deeply spiritual, with a pure and sincere faith in the blessed Holy Water that he distributed with such love to the needy, he was inclined to keep his thoughts in Heaven and his hands in his sleeves. Although he had never admitted as much, the general view was that he considered practical work to be the realm of women – in this case, the nuns – while the monks devoted themselves to matters of the spirit.

The Abbess Helewise, however, had other ideas.

She maintained a gentle but firm pressure on the old monk, ensuring, as far as she was able, that he and his monks did their fair share of manual labour. Some of Brother Firmin’s monks were co-operative, some were not.

The Abbess’s great ally in the Vale, however, was her beloved Brother Saul. He was not one of the fully professed but a lay brother; he was also probably the most dependable, capable and handy man that the Abbess had ever known.

It was Brother Saul who Josse first noticed now, as he hastened down the path to the Vale. Saul was standing up to the waist in bracken and, as Josse raised an arm and prepared to call out, Saul seemed to take a deep breath, as if he were about to plunge into water, and disappeared beneath the thick, rusting fronds of the bracken. Turning his head to look down at the small clutch of buildings under the chestnut trees by the shrine, Josse saw two figures dressed in black, white wimples and coifs bright in the sunshine. One was round and stocky, the other taller, with broad shoulders. Despite the enveloping folds of their habits, it was clear that both were, even without the give-away white linen, female.

Breaking into a run, he went to join them.

‘Sir Josse!’ the Abbess exclaimed in surprise.

‘My lady Abbess,’ he said, giving her the formal bow reserved for a first greeting of the day, or after an absence.

‘Right glad we are to see
you
,’ Sister Euphemia said, grasping his hand in both of hers.

‘What has happened?’ he demanded. ‘How may I aid you?’

‘A body has been discovered,’ the Abbess said. ‘Badly decomposed, naked, nothing known save that it is that of a man, probably quite a young man.’

Against all reason – for why should it be, and, anyway, how would they know? – Josse almost asked, is it that of Galbertius Sidonius?

He restrained himself. Instead he said, ‘I saw Brother Saul, deep in the bracken over there. He is, I imagine, searching for anything that might help identification?’

‘He is,’ the Abbess said.

‘What would you like me to do?’ Josse asked. ‘Go to help Saul, or . . . ?’

‘Brother Saul has young Augustus to help him,’ the Abbess said. ‘More people in the bracken might be more of a hindrance than a help, do you not think?’

‘Aye. And I have big feet, with which I might tread some important find into the ground.’

‘I am sure you would not,’ the Abbess countered. ‘But, Sir Josse, an unpleasant duty awaits Sister Euphemia.’ She glanced at the infirmarer, whose face was impassive. ‘She is just now about to look at the corpse, where it – he – lies yonder by the path. Will you – may I ask you to go with her?’

‘You may, and I will,’ he assured her. ‘But whether I can aid the good Sister in her study of the body, I cannot say.’

‘I’d be glad of your company either way, Sir Josse,’ Sister Euphemia said bluntly. ‘Poor soul’s been dead a while, and his flesh is putrid and maggot-infested.’

‘Ah.’

A brief flash of humour crossed Sister Euphemia’s broad face. ‘Not had your dinner yet?’ she asked quietly.

‘No.’

‘All the better. Nothing for you to lose.’

With that encouraging remark, she bowed to the Abbess and led the way off along the track.

Josse was glad of those few preparatory remarks. Had he not expected the horror that lay beneath the sacking, he might well have disgraced himself. As it was, he took a deep breath as Sister Euphemia bent down to throw back the cover and, as the poor, purplish-black body was revealed, managed to retain his composure.

Only just.

Sister Euphemia stood for a moment, head bent, over the corpse. Then she said, ‘Excuse me, sir, for what I am about to do, and I apologise. But it is necessary. I will be as swift as I can, then we will leave you in peace.’

Josse had assumed, at first, that she was addressing him. But he realised, as she closed her eyes in prayer, that her apology had been to the dead man.

Opening her eyes again, she picked up a short stick from the undergrowth, trimmed it with quick, strong hands to the required length, then, kneeling down, poked it in among the liquefying flesh and the maggots around what had been the man’s thighs.

‘Look here at the long bones, Sir Josse,’ she said. ‘Tidily rounded, no more growing to be done, I’d say. Means we’re looking at a man, not a boy. In his twenties, at a guess.’ The probing stick moved on down the length of the right femur. ‘Here’s the knee joint. Lower end of the upper bone, upper end of the lower one. See? Smooth, solid, no signs of wear. This man could have knelt all day in a puddle in a rock without much discomfort.’

‘Mm.’ Josse wasn’t sure he could yet trust himself to speak. Besides, talking involved opening the mouth and, just then, he preferred to keep his shut.

Sister Euphemia adjusted her position and now, with another muttered apology, she gently pushed her stick into the mouth of the corpse.

‘Quite good teeth,’ she observed. ‘One missing here’ – she pointed with the end of the stick – ‘but there’s no hole in the jaw bone such as you see when a man’s lost a tooth through infection. No. I’d say this fellow had been in a fight, and some other man’s fist put paid to this tooth.’

Leaning away as far as possible without making it obvious, Josse said, barely opening his mouth, ‘You would say, Sister, that the state of the teeth would confirm your estimated age? A man in his twenties?’

‘I would, Sir Josse.’ She glanced briefly at him. ‘And there’s no need to talk like you’ve a toothache yourself. Breathe as deep as you like, you’ll not catch anything worse than a bad smell from
this
poor man.’

That the body could be the victim of some dread and fatal disease had not so far crossed Josse’s mind. With an involuntary start backwards, he said, ‘Are you quite certain, Sister?’

‘As certain as I can be,’ she said gruffly. Her left hand, he noticed, had slipped round beneath the corpse’s shoulders. ‘Not unless he was already sick when someone slid this into his heart.’

There was a brief movement in the body – a sort of lurch – as, with some difficulty, she pulled on some hidden object. Then she held up what she had discovered.

It was a knife. It was short – handle and blade together were probably little longer than Josse’s extended hand – and the blade was narrow, with a slight upward curve at the tip.

Josse swallowed. ‘It was still in him?’

‘Aye. It was pushed in deep. It didn’t even fall out when Saul and Augustus carried him out of the bracken.’ She ran a thumb lightly along the curve of the tip. ‘Probably designed to hold tight,’ she muttered.

‘And it would have penetrated his heart?’

‘Aye.’ She was staring down at the blade. ‘Aye. It’s thin enough to have gone clean between the ribs . . .’ The stick was busy again as she probed. ‘I can’t see any notching on the bones. This man’s killer knew exactly what he was about.’

A professional assassin, Josse thought.

And precisely why, he wondered, should that make Prince John spring instantly to mind?

‘. . . because I don’t reckon there’s much more to be gained from studying him,’ Sister Euphemia was saying.

‘I’m sorry, Sister, what was that?’

She gave him a considering look. ‘Thoughts far away, Sir Josse?’ Before he could answer – although there was really no need, since her assumption was quite right – she went on, ‘I was just saying, we can take him up to the Abbey now and prepare him for burial. The Abbess is eager to pray for him. Poor chap’s lain out here long enough with nobody interceding with the Good Lord on his behalf.’ She gave the body a tender look. ‘But then I’m sure the Lord won’t hold it against him, since it was hardly his own fault.’