Secret Murder: Who Shall Judge? (16 page)

Hel take that deer,
Gunnar thought.
At least it tasted good. And I cleaned up very well, after I prepared it.
“Why, I brought plenty of jerky. I know how fussy your king is about his deer. But Northmen do love their venison.”

“I hope you don’t mind if I look around,” the gamekeeper said. “I brought some troopers to keep me honest.” He waved his hand to indicate the bailiff’s men.

“I’ve met those troopers,” Gunnar replied. “I even gave one of the bailiff’s men some of the stew. But he isn’t with you.”

One of the troopers snickered. “He’s back at the castle, recovering from the stew.”

Gunnar could have taken that as an insult, but decided it was testimony to the accuracy of his aim. He smiled. “I thought it hit the spot for him. Perhaps he had too much.”

The gamekeeper shook his head. The cook and the troopers were talking right past him, and he didn’t like it. He jerked his thumb at the troopers. “Get to it, and see what you can find.” The three began searching around the firepit and the cauldron. Gunnar stood back, crossed his arms, and let them.

They checked the ground, spiraling out from the firepit, and examined the branches of the tree to see if anything had been hung from it. It was damaged from the storm, and what might have happened before that was unclear. Then they began looking under the seating-logs. “Pay attention, men, things accumulate in places like this,” the gamekeeper instructed the troopers.

One trooper lifted his lip and whispered to the other. “Teach your grandmother how to suck eggs while you’re at it.”

The gamekeeper reached under one log, and pulled out a chunk of antler. He held it up to Gunnar, and raised his eyebrow.

Gunnar came over, and looked at the piece. “You’re a gamekeeper. You know perfectly well that’s a piece of mature antler. Where are we going to find a deer with mature antlers this time of year? We
sell
antler. If you want more, there’s a large pile of moose antler in the booth.”

Chastened, the gamekeeper went back to work. One trooper found a tarnished silver penny, then the other found a spoon, and a rusty nail. Finally the gamekeeper dug under a log with a stick, and pulled out an elaborate brooch. He rubbed it partly clean with a cloth, and held it up. “Somebody was careless.” He held it up, giving everybody a chance to see the brooch. “But this certainly is handsome.” Gold, silver, and copper animals gleamed from the high points he’d cleaned.

Gunnar examined it. “Wait a moment. That’s Snorri Crow’s brooch. It’s famous. How did you find it under there?”

“I dug with a stick.”

“That brooch should go to Snorri Crow’s family. It’s part of his son’s heritage.” Gunnar reached for it.

One of the troopers got to it first. “The bailiff has been looking for this brooch. He thinks it might be important evidence.” He held it closely, fended off Gunnar’s hand. Gunnar wasn’t ready to get forcible with a lawman, so the trooper kept it.

The search for the King’s Deer died out from lack of interest. The gamekeeper and troopers looked around a few moments longer, but soon left.

Ragnar Forkbeard and John Freemantle had stepped to one side as the gamekeeper and troopers headed back toward Gunnar and the cooking area. After that, Ragnar wasn’t talkative.

John noticed, and tried to fill in the gap. “It seems Abbess Margaret’s salve is getting some use beyond the abbey walls.”

Ragnar looked at John in an inquiring manner.

“It was those troopers. I could smell the salve on them. Nothing quite like it.”

“What’s it good for?” Ragnar asked.

“Rashes, poison ivy, itching, things like that. It’s not a perfect healer, but it can be a comfort.”

“Does it work on mosquito bites? Surtsheim is full of thirsty mosquitoes.”

“It might,” John said. “Are you thinking you want some?”

“I’d have to talk with Abbess Margaret to be sure, but it sounds useful. Perhaps you could trade some for those knives you’re looking at?”

“We’ll both have to talk with the Abbess, but that’s the kind of trade she would approve.”

Ragnar, who’d kept an ear turned in Gunnar’s direction, heard him fussing about Snorri Crow’s brooch. “That sounds like trouble. I should be somewhere else when those troopers come back out. If I disappear, could you have Abbess Margaret, or perhaps Father Hugh, ask the bailiff if he happens to have me somewhere about his dungeon?” He beckoned to Knute, pointed at the display tables, and as Knute came to take over the trading, Ragnar quickly headed to Olaf Far-traveler’s booth.

“Olaf, I think somebody is trying to get me arrested for Thorolf’s killing. I’m going to make myself scarce. Watch over the booths, could you?” And he walked off, taking a crooked path among the merchants’ areas.

Ragnar ended up at James Smith’s forge, where he could watch both his booth and the Northlanding road. “Ready to do some trading?” James asked.

“No, I’m avoiding trouble. I think Otkel is planting evidence on me, trying to get me arrested over this Thorolf thing. I may have to head back up-river sooner than I expected. And if that happens, I don’t know as I’ll be coming back next year.”

James seemed shaken. “That’s terrible news! I’ll miss visiting with you, and I use a lot of that good Surtsheim iron you bring.”

“If you wake up tomorrow morning and find a pile of iron where my boat is today, take the iron and work out a decent bargain with Olaf. If you can’t use it all, turn the rest over to Benedict. He can trade it off and get the silver to me. If we’re rowing upriver, I won’t want the weight.”

Smithies are dark, so the smith can better judge the glow of the iron. From the dimness, unseen, Ragnar could see his booth. He watched the gamekeeper and the troopers questioning Knute, John, and Olaf. They eventually left, seeming dissatisfied, and headed down the Northlanding road.

James headed over to the road, and checked. Then he came back. “They seem to be truly gone.” Ragnar clapped James’ shoulder, and walked back to his booth. James watched unhappily as Ragnar went. He slammed the side of his fist down on the anvil, and cursed under his breath.

When Ragnar reached the booths, John, Olaf, Gunnar, Knute, Atli, and Ari gathered around him. They all went back to the cooking area, where they’d be less visible. “What were those three doing here?” Ragnar asked. “I don’t think it was about the King’s Deer.”

Gunnar pointed at the logs. “They dug around under there, and came up with Snorri Crow’s brooch, the one that went missing after he was killed. The one we think Thorolf took.”

“I am getting very tired of Thorolf,” Ragnar said. “And now somebody has planted that brooch on us. If Thorolf took it six years ago, and we turned up with it now, that would be strong evidence against us. As best I can tell, the bailiff seems to have decided it’s either me or Otkel did the deed.”

Gunnar folded his arms. “That gamekeeper didn’t plant the brooch. I was watching, and he really did dig it out from under the log. But it wasn’t tarnished, so it hadn’t been there long. And the troopers said the bailiff was looking for just such a brooch.”

“Loki take an interest in those troopers, and whoever put the brooch there as well!”

Ragnar tugged for a while on his beard as he thought. “Here’s what we have to do. Keep trading, but inside our booth, get everything ready for us to leave tonight. It’s still morning. I’m going to get to the bottom of this today, by Thor. If I can’t, we’ll be gone tomorrow morning and the bailiff can whistle for us. Olaf can stay and finish up his deals, because I’m pretty sure they’re just looking at me.”

Ragnar assigned his son Knute to take care of the booth and the trading. He had been talking with Gunnar in the cooking circle, until Ragnar arrived. Then Ragnar took Ari and Atli with him, and they headed over to the paddock. Both Matilda and Benedict had horses there, and they got the three fastest horses available.

Ragnar mounted up. “I want to see where Thorolf was killed.” And they rode off toward Northlanding.

It wasn’t long before they reached the place the body was found. Atli and Ari had been there, watching things while the bailiff was investigating. He showed Ragnar where the body was, and the polearm. And he pointed out the underbrush where Gervase thought the arrow had come from. Ragnar looked at the underbrush. “Let’s see if the rain has turned anything up since the troopers searched,” Ragnar said. He started to step into the bushes, but halted.

“Atli, did the troopers seem unhappy about searching here?”

“They did, but the bailiff spoke sharply to them, and they went in.”

“Do you suppose Gervase Rotour has poor sight at a distance?”

Ari said he’d heard that. “Dirk recognized Otkel and the other Northmen long before Gervase did.”

Ragnar laughed. “And here we are, right by the Abbey Road. Let’s go pay Abbess Margaret a visit. I have a hunch to check out.”

When the troopers and the gamekeeper got back to the keep, they turned the brooch over to the bailiff. “There wasn’t any evidence of poaching, but the brooch was under one of the logs near the fire circle.”

Gervase moved the brooch around to look at it from all directions. “That’s a peculiar place to lose something this valuable.”

“Oh, there were other things.” They showed him a tarnished silver coin, a rusted nail, a bronze ring, and a spoon. “People lose stuff when they’re sitting, paying attention to something else. And if I feared a search, that could be a good place to hide valuables.”

Gervase cleaned the brooch more thoroughly. It had no rust or tarnish. It hadn’t been lying there for years, like the nail and the coin. “This is a pretty pickle. That cook identified the brooch as Snorri Crow’s, you say? It’s strong evidence, but not strong enough to make me want to stir up thirty Northmen who might object to our taking Ragnar Forkbeard away. And who knows what the other traders from the north would think of it all?”

“It’s even better,” Dirk replied. “Otkel had Starkad out in the storm, running an errand. He’s back at their warehouse, coughing his lungs out. It must have been quite an errand.”

“This is getting ridiculous. Starkad is sick, and the others are at the fair? Get our physician over to tend to Starkad. I owe Otkel and his men a favor for helping me with those highwaymen, after all. Some tincture of poppy should help his cough, and perhaps loosen his tongue. I want to find out what that errand was. You find out from Starkad, I’ll find out from Otkel, and then we’ll compare their tales.”

Dirk went to the physician’s room. They packed some healing medicines, and went off to the warehouse. Gervase saddled a horse and headed for the fair.
My horse is dead,
he grumbled to himself.
Not only do I have to chase all over, I have to do it on a strange horse.

At the warehouse, Dirk knocked on the door. A servant led them up to the greathall where Starkad was alone, wrapped in a blanket, shivering and coughing. “I’ve brought you our physician,” Dirk told him. “You helped with the bandits yesterday, and we want to return the favor.”

The physician listened to Starkad’s lungs, and rapped his chest, then had Starkad urinate in a flask and examined the urine. “I don’t think you’re in danger,” he told Starkad. “But you’re in for an unpleasant week or so.” He took out a bottle of medicine, removed the stopper, poured some into a very small cup. “Drink this.” He handed it to Starkad. “It should ease your cough, and maybe cool your fever a bit.” Starkad made a face at the strong taste, but drank it all down.

They sat for a while in the still dimness of the hall, chatting. Starkad soon was more relaxed, and coughing less terribly. “I’ll leave you some of the medicine,” the physician said. “It might be best for you to rest in the solar, with the door closed. You’ll have a more peaceful time of it, and so will the others. Above all, don’t go out in the rain for at least two weeks. You might relapse.”

Dirk smiled sympathetically. “Trust him. Physicians know about going out in unpleasant weather.”

“We have to. It’s our duty to help the sick, even when the weather is bad.”

Dirk shivered a bit. “I know. And sometimes I have to go out when the lawbreakers are indoors hiding from the weather.” He was silent for a moment, then looked at Starkad. “What the devil got you outdoors during that storm?”

Starkad bent over coughing. His shoulders twitched with the effort. “Otkel had to get a message to Samuel the dyer. I stayed at his shop afterwards, until the morning after the storm broke.” He leaned back, and closed his eyes. Since Dirk had asked his question, Starkad hadn’t looked straight at him.

Dirk took Starkad by the shoulder. “Get better, man. One of these days, we’ll all have to become lords or great merchants so we can tell
other
people to go out in the rain.”

“I’ll leave the medicine, and the cup, with you,” the physician said. “No more than four cups spread out over a day, mind you, and stop taking it once you feel better. This isn’t a safe medicine to take for a long time. It helps you master the cough, but if you take too much, too long, the medicine will end up mastering
you
. I’ll be back in a week or so to get what’s left.”

Outside the warehouse, Dirk and the physician headed back to the castle keep. But once they were well away, Dirk told the physician to go to the keep by himself. “Me, I’m going to pay a visit to Samuel the dyer’s shop.” He turned left, and headed towards the downwind side of town, where the dyers and the tanners worked.

Otkel was having better success at the fair this day. On the inside, he was eating his liver out because the deals weren’t as good as Thorolf could have gotten—but at least he was making deals. He traded spices to the copper merchant in return for blue vitriol, then traded the vitriol to the man with the alum to more than recoup the amount he gave the dyer.

One of the woodworkers inquired about the cypress wood. “It’s very handsome. What are its virtues?”

“It doesn’t rot,” Otkel told him. “It makes great tool handles, and if you use it for the legs of chairs and chests, they stay sound even if the floor is damp.” The woodworker had had problems with damp during the storm, and he liked the idea of cypress. He offered many little carved and decorated boxes in exchange. Otkel needed more cypress to make up the deal, so he sent one of his men back to the warehouse with the horseload of alum, to return with cypress.