Lost Innocents (A Servant of the Crown Mystery Book 3) (10 page)

"As you will and as you say," the woman replied, nodding to him before addressing her Crowner.

"While out collecting mushrooms, Hew came upon me as I waited for Jessimond in our chosen spot. That was the first time after Martha's death that my daughter and I were to have met. Not knowing that my stepmother was gone or that Jessimond was no longer free to leave Meg's kitchen, I was nearly out of my mind with worry by the time Hew found me. After he told me what was what, he carried my message to Jes, then returned with her reply."

"It wasn't only Hew who helped Jessimond reach her mother, was it?" Faucon said, looking at the idiot, trusting the strange man to understand him. "You helped, too. After your mother died and you joined Jessimond in the kitchen, you were the one who guarded the door after your niece departed and the one who let her in when she returned."

Johnnie met his Crowner's gaze. Save for his dark hair, he lacked any resemblance to his fair-faced kinswomen. Just as his ears were too big for his head, his brown eyes were too small. His nose and chin were overly long, also out of proportion.

Keeping his gaze locked on Faucon's, the idiot nodded, then grasped Jessimond's cold hand as if claiming ownership. At the same time, he made that clicking sound with his tongue, its cadence almost that of speech.

"Aye," Amelyn said quietly, "it was Johnnie who lifted the bar so Jes could leave, then listened for her return to open the door again."

"I think he was less than perfect at his task," Faucon offered, returning to his feet. Thus Meg's complaints about housing a sly girl. Without speech, the idiot couldn't defend Jessimond or lie about her whereabouts when Meg noticed the girl was missing.

"And I say Johnnie was too good at the task Jessimond set him," Hew said. "I think he couldn't refuse his niece, and Jes used his fondness for her to her advantage."

The rustic looked at the leper, his voice gentling as he continued. "It's my turn to speak the truth as the good knight has asked of us, Amelyn. Once each month has Jessimond met with you since Martha's death. Do you know how many times during that period she's fled the kitchen to be with Gawne? Touch all your fingers twice and it won't be enough!

"Amelyn, I cannot help but think that you should never have returned here after you were banished, slinking and skulking about like some hunting fox. By your actions you taught your child to do the same when you weren't here to control her. Worse, you gave Jes a freedom that should never have been hers, given her sex. But once she'd tasted what you offered, she craved more still, until she'd have nothing else for her meat. No matter how Meg beat her, your daughter grew ever more daring. At the last, she was striding out of yon kitchen—" the lift of Hew's chin indicated Meg's realm "—as bold as the Queen of May."

"I never meant..." Amelyn started to protest.

"Of course you didn't," Hew interrupted not unkindly, then looked at his Crowner. "Today was the day set for mother and daughter to meet, and why Amelyn sits here now. There is no other reason and no one called for her to come. As to why Amelyn thought Jessimond had fallen in the well, it's because that's what Gawne insisted I tell her."

Once again, the bits Faucon had collected thus far shifted in his mind. He added to them his certainty that Jessimond had died in the same place in which she and her mother had met. So too did he now suspect where Gawne would be found. That was, if Odger didn't already know the location of that meeting place.

He again glanced toward the line of trees where Gawne had entered the woods. There was no sign of bailiff or boy. It didn't sit well on him that he had to leave this place without knowing what became of the lad, but leave he and Edmund must and soon. The shadows beginning to cloak the eastern reaches of the forest promised nightfall.

"Although I did as Gawne asked," Hew was saying, "speaking his lie yet eats at me. Hear the truth now, Amelyn. Two nights ago, your daughter once more crept out of that kitchen, doing just as you had asked of her so many times before, and what she'd chosen to do when she wished to be with Gawne. But this time she didn't leave to meet either of you. Instead, Jessimond braved all, going into the dark with no witness or protector at her side, to meet God alone knows who."

Here, the oldster pointed to the girl's unclothed corpse. "This is what became of her, for this is how Gawne found her."

Amelyn shrieked at that. She crumpled atop her daughter, her fists clenched. "Nay! I killed her. Mary save me, I killed my own child," she sobbed, then began to grieve in earnest.

"She killed her own child?" Edmund cried quietly from beside Faucon, his voice held to a horrified whisper. There was something in the monk's expression that begged for assurances on the leper's behalf. It was definitely a day for surprises when it came to Edmund.

"Nay, she did not," Faucon replied even though he had no right to claim innocence for Amelyn. Although he believed she'd done no wrong, he hadn't yet proved that to himself.

At his answer his clerk released a relieved breath, but confusion yet marked the man's brow. "If so, then what purpose does she have in calling out now that she did the deed?" Edmund wanted to know.

Faucon started to laugh, only to catch back his amusement as he realized his clerk was serious. However impossible, Edmund didn't see the woman's grief-stricken protest for what it was. Again, he offered as much explanation as he had in store.

"I can only speculate," he began in preface, then paused to look at Amelyn. The idiot now knelt next to his grieving half-sister as she lay across her daughter's cold form, alternating between cooing and flapping his hands in agitation.

Faucon looked back at Edmund. "I can only speculate but I believe the leper has just realized how she is complicit in her daughter's death. By refusing to surrender to the fate our Lord set upon her, as severe and unfair as that fate might seem to her or to us, she unknowingly planted an evil seed in her child. It's a different sort of wrongdoing that this mother claims for herself."

"Ah, I see," Edmund breathed again, the color and calm returning to his face. "The leper is in need of a priest so she might unburden her heart."

"That would likely serve her well," Faucon agreed. "Now gather your gear, Brother. There's no time left for scribbling. We need to be off to Alcester for the night."

Edmund glanced at the sky. "Aye, it's time to leave if we wish to arrive at the abbey before the porter closes the gates," he said, once again speaking as if he had the right to comment on his employer's decision.

Faucon only smiled. After today, he thought he could forgive Edmund any insult. Moreover, there was no point in chiding. Nothing he said affected the monk's behavior.

As his clerk slung his basket over his shoulder, Faucon looked at Hew. The old man watched him in return. With a jerk of his chin, Faucon indicated the oldster should join him. Resistance and not a little caution filled the rustic's expression. Nonetheless, Hew started for his Crowner, his gait hitched by his unbalanced hips. He stopped abreast of his better.

"Sir?" he asked, as he bowed his head. In that instant Hew looked like the one thing Faucon was certain he wasn't, a pitiful and helpless old man.

"My clerk and I leave Wike for the night," Faucon told him. "When your bailiff comes from the forest, let him know to expect our return on the morrow. Also tell him that before the morrow is done, I'll want to call the jury to view the girl's body, even if I may not yet be able to name the one who did the deed. Against that, Odger shouldn't send your menfolk too far afield."

As Hew nodded his agreement to these requests, Faucon added, "And lastly, I ask that you bear me company as my clerk and I make our way to our mounts. I have questions."

That brought the old man out of his humble posture with a start. Hew shot a glance at Amelyn before looking at his king's servant, a man with the right by birth and royal fiat to demand his compliance. The oldster's wild white brows inched up on his forehead. Nothing but caution remained in his pale eyes.

That promised little, even though the rustic answered the only way allowed for a man of his station. "As you will, sir."

They started away from the well together, Faucon moderating his stride to match the old man's slower gait. Edmund was already well ahead of them, moving at his usual clipped pace. "Is it safe to leave the child's body in the open overnight?" Faucon asked as they walked.

"If by that you mean to ask about wolves in these woods, nay we have none, not with the king wishing to keep deer within his pale," Hew replied with a negative shake of his head. "Now, if you're worrying that someone might do damage to the child's corpse," he continued, shooting a sharp-edged and sidelong glance at his Crowner, "don't. Between Amelyn's disease and that curse she spewed, I expect her poor lass will stay right where she is until her bones are dust." The old man gave a huff of disgust as he continued. "Indeed, unless Odger plies the lash, I think the only creatures who'll touch Jessimond's remains from this day forward are the ravens and the worms. Amelyn shouldn't have thrown those words of hers, empty though they were."

The possibility that the child's body would be denied a proper resting place set Faucon to considering. If he was careful how he pried, perhaps he could discover which monk Amelyn had served at the abbey. Other than Edmund, who was oblivious to the subtlety of what went forward around him, most monks were terrible gossips, or so claimed Faucon's sire. Faucon wondered if this was because most monks spent much of their day in silence. Thus, when the time came for their tongues to wag, wag they did.

More importantly, everyone, no matter their estate, liked to talk about their betters. The man Faucon sought, the one who had made Amelyn his leman, must sit high in the abbey's hierarchy. Only one so placed could have granted her the right to beg at the gate. Once Faucon found this man's name, perhaps a slight nudge might prod that sinning churchman into doing one more boon for the leper by providing a grave for her murdered child.

As they crossed the boundary between the manor's demesne and drew closer to the homes that served Wike's folk, the footpath he and Hew followed changed. Although the track remained just as deep, having been carved into the sod by generations of feet, it ceased to run in a straight line. Instead, it narrowed and began to snake, curling its way to and fro in front of the homes of the settlement. Such a meandering course suggested that no serf in Wike had ever chosen to hurry into his lord's—or lady's—fields.

No longer able to walk alongside the old man, not without climbing out of the deep rut to totter along its uneven edge, Faucon fell back and let Hew move ahead of him. "What was Gawne's purpose in lying to the leper about her daughter's death? Why put Jessimond's body in the well?" He threw his questions up to the old man.

"I cannot speak for Gawne, sir," Hew replied flatly without turning his head.

Unwilling to press the rustic for fear of losing all advantage, Faucon shifted onto another potential trail. "What can you tell me about how Jessimond's body looked when Gawne brought you to her."

"Sir, I fear you've heard all I know of this deadly matter." Once again, the old man spoke flatly and offered no more than his station and courtesy required.

Stymied, Faucon stifled his frustration. He needed to find the right key if he was to unlock the man's tongue, else he'd get no more. That sent him backtracking to safe ground, a trail that he'd already traveled and knew led nowhere.

"Was Jessimond with child by Gawne?"

That teased a quiet laugh out of Hew. The sound was a donkey's muted bray. This time he happily followed where his Crowner led.

"Meg is wrong in that." The old man turned his head to the side so he could speak to his Crowner from over his shoulder. "Despite that those two spent time alone together, it's as Ivo said. They were but children enjoying a few innocent hours. But it is true that Ivo has no place in his smithy for his youngest child. I think this isn't because he means to deny or ignore Gawne, but because he already has help enough with his older boys. That leaves nothing to offer his youngest, either to train Gawne in a skill or to keep him occupied. Against that, Ivo should have allowed his lad to be apprenticed elsewhere. Instead, he refused, insisting that someday soon he'll at last need to bring his youngest to the forge."

A few yards ahead of them the path curved sharply inward then straightened to run only an arm's length from the forefronts of a half-dozen moss-bespeckled cottages. As they drew closer to these homes, Faucon caught the sounds of a mother seeking to soothe her crying infant while in another a couple fought. Although he couldn't make out their words, there was no mistaking the rising indignation in the man's voice or the woman's pleading tone.

Hew stopped before he reached the nearest edge of that first cottage, resting his hand on his painful hip. Faucon stopped with him, stepping out of the rutted path onto the narrow verge so he could stand alongside the old man. Hew's expression filled with the same distaste that the villeins at the well had shown when Ivo hadn't chastised Gawne for his rude response.