The Winter King (11 page)

‘They spoke to you, I believe you said?’ Abbess Caliste prompted.

‘Yes, my lady,’ Sister Madelin replied. ‘As soon as they were near enough to speak without shouting, one of them whipped off his cap, polite as you please, and asked me if I could tell him how to find Wealdsend, adding that it was the dwelling of Lord Robert Wimarc.’

‘Were you able to help?’ Josse asked.

She turned to him, the calm hazel eyes on his. ‘Yes, my lord.’

He was not quite satisfied. ‘You know this area, then, Sister Madelin? You’d heard of Wealdsend?’

Again, her reply was brief: ‘Yes, my lord.’

She did not elucidate and, much as Josse would have liked to press her, he refrained.

‘What exactly did you say to them, Sister?’ Abbess Caliste asked.

Sister Madelin turned back to her. ‘I said, “Go on westwards along this track, and in time it’ll peter out to a path, not easy to determine. Head for the higher ground that rises up to the south, and after some five or six miles, look out for a cleft between two wooded ridges that slope down towards the valley. Between them lies Wealdsend.”’ She paused, considering. ‘They might not have been my exact words, my lady, but they’re near enough to make no difference.’

‘Thank you, Sister,’ said the abbess. ‘You may return to your duty at the gate.’

Josse added his thanks, and the tall, black-clad figure, with a swift bow to each of them, quietly let herself out of the room.

When the steady footfalls had faded, the abbess spoke. ‘One of the pair was your dead young man, Sir Josse?’

‘Aye, there can be little doubt, my lady. Sister Madelin’s precise description accords with our man. Costly garments, emerald-green tunic, fair hair fashionably cut. He was no longer wearing his cloak or hat, and there was no sign of his bay, but I believe we have found one of the pair who asked directions two days ago.’

‘Where, I wonder, is the other one?’ the abbess said softly.

Josse, who had been thinking deeply, started. ‘I should return to the search,’ he said. ‘I’ll ride on along the track, following the directions which Sister Madelin gave. Perhaps the attack occurred there; it’s a little-used path, and quite likely the sort of place where thieves might lie in wait for unsuspecting passers-by.’

‘Those two bright young men would be an attractive target,’ Abbess Caliste agreed. ‘But I wonder, Sir Josse, whether robbers would in fact wait under cover by a path on which so few travel?’

Her words echoed in Josse’s head as he set off from the abbey. He had hoped to detect hoof prints that he might identify as those of the two young men’s horses, but he quickly appreciated it was a vain hope. The main track was littered with foot, hoof and other animal prints, far too numerous to pick out those of two particular horses; and the path, when he came to it, was carpeted with the sort of deep leaf mulch on which it was hard to spot any kind of mark. Nevertheless, he followed it doggedly, searching for indications of a fight, a struggle, a fatal attack.

There was nothing. Was there any point, he wondered as he emerged into the cleft between the two ridges, in going much further towards Wealdsend? He knew that, some time in the near future, someone – probably him – would have to visit Lord Wimarc and break the sad news that his would-be visitors were not going to arrive. But it was better, surely, to wait until they had found the other young man. ‘Alive or dead,’ Josse muttered, trying to keep hope alive.

In his heart, he was quite sure it would be dead.

He got back to the House in the Woods as the sun was setting. Both he and Alfred were tired, filthy, hungry – or, at least, Josse guessed his horse was hungry – and decidedly out of sorts. Added to that, although Josse had ridden for miles, he had found no sign of any young man, or, indeed, of either of the bays.

He rode into the yard to find Will waiting. He slid down off Alfred’s back, handing over the reins, and heard Will’s quiet, reproving
tut
as he saw the state of the horse.

‘I know, Will,’ Josse said. His tone was sharper that he had intended, but his feet were frozen and his back ached.

‘I dare say it was necessary, sir,’ Will said, already running gentle hands over Alfred’s muddy, sweaty coat. ‘Nothing that a hard rub down and a bucket of feed won’t put right.’

Josse hoped the same could be said for him.

He was heading off towards the house when Will said, ‘A horse turned up. Found up on the road. Bay. Blood all over the saddle and the horse’s neck.’

Josse stopped. ‘Where is it?’

Will nodded towards a stall at the end of the line. Hurrying, Josse went to have a look.

The bay was indeed a beautiful horse. It was a gelding, and had a white star between the eyes. Glancing down, Josse saw a glimmer of light in the darkness of the stall: a white forefoot. Will, typically, had tended both the horse and its tack, and no trace of blood remained on either the animal’s neck or its saddle.

‘They found a body, too,’ Will called out.

Aye
, Josse thought,
I thought they would
.

‘Can’t say where,’ Will added, vigorously rubbing at Alfred’s coat. ‘They’ll tell you, indoors.’

Once again, Josse set out for the comforts of home.

He found his family gathered around the hearth. He allowed them to fuss round him, removing his muddy boots and cloak, escorting him into his big chair right by the fire, thrusting a mug of hot, spiced wine into his hands. He enjoyed every moment. When Tilly appeared with a pie oozing with meat, root vegetables and thick gravy, fragrant steam issuing from cracks in the pastry crust, he willingly obeyed her directive not to say a word till he’d eaten it all up.

Sometime later, warm, well-fed, and with a replenished mug in his hand, Josse looked round at the circle of faces illuminated by the firelight. Helewise, Ninian, Eloise, Geoffroi, Meggie. Meggie … Now what did the sight of her bring to mind?

‘Is Sabin no longer here?’ he asked her. He ought, he realized, to have asked her last night, only he’d been so dog-tired, and so preoccupied, that he’d forgotten all about Sabin.

Meggie looked up. He had the distinct impression that, for some reason, the question was unwelcome. ‘She went home yesterday, Father.’

It seemed rather a terse reply. ‘Were you able to help with the matter over which she sought your help?’

‘I – yes.’

Evidently his daughter did not want to discuss the matter. Perhaps it was professional discretion? He did not know. Sabin had left, presumably satisfied with whatever aid Meggie had been able to give, and, for the moment, Josse was happy to leave it at that. There were, after all, more important things to discuss.

‘Will has shown me the bay gelding,’ he began, ‘and he told me a body has been found.’

Geoffroi looked up at him. ‘I found the dead man,’ he said quietly. ‘Or, to be honest, Motley did.’

‘Ah.’
Motley
, Josse thought. Geoffroi’s hound. The brindled dog had turned up in the yard one cold night, shivering with cold, fear and hunger. Geoffroi had tended her, mending her hurts and restoring her to what seemed to be her usual self: a courageous, friendly bitch who never gave up as long as there was a trail to follow. She repaid Geoffroi’s meticulous care (he had stayed up with her all one long night, feeding her tiny amounts of warmed milk and honey at regular, brief intervals) by the sort of total devotion that only a good dog can give.

It was illegal for ordinary households to keep a hound unless its front paws had been mutilated; the high lords of the land were keen to keep the hunting for themselves. Josse sometimes woke in the night in a cold sweat, worrying what would happen if Motley were to be discovered. They would just have to say she had wandered in, presumably lost, and persuade whoever came asking that Josse was doing everything he could to discover the identity of her owner.

‘Good for Motley,’ he said now to his son. ‘Where did she make this discovery?’

‘It was quite late in the day, and we were deep in the forest, south-west of here, south-east of the abbey,’ Geoffroi replied. ‘Someone had pushed him under the bracken, right inside a bramble thicket, and we’d never have found him if it hadn’t been for Motley’s nose. She smelt the blood, I expect,’ he added, with an attempt at nonchalance. ‘There was quite a lot.’

Beside him, Helewise gave a soft sound of distress. He turned to her, noticing she looked pale.
She still grieves for the young man she could not save
, he thought.

‘Then what did you do?’ Josse asked gently, looking down at Geoffroi. It was better, he decided, to encourage the lad to talk. He’d be thinking about that dead, bloody body constantly, in any case.

‘I called Motley out of the thicket before she – er, before she was tempted, and held on to her good and tight. Then I yelled out for Ninian and Meggie, and Ninian went into the bracken to have a look.’

Aye
, Josse thought.
Wise lad
. Motley had sniffed out the corpse late in the day, and she’d been running hard for hours. She’d have been hungry.

Josse turned to Ninian. ‘Well?’

‘He’d been dead a while,’ Ninian said. ‘His throat was cut. Meggie thinks –’ he shot his half-sister a quick smile, as if to acknowledge the fact that he was speaking for her – ‘he’d have died instantly.’

‘Is that right?’ Josse asked Meggie.

‘Yes.’ She met Josse’s eyes, and he saw her give a tiny shake of the head.
She’ll tell me more when the lad isn’t listening
, Josse thought.

‘We made a litter out of lengths of dead wood and my cloak,’ Ninian said, ‘and brought the body back here, since the house was marginally nearer than the abbey. He’s down in the undercroft.’

Where it’s good and cold
, Josse thought.

‘Will reported that the horse was found on the road,’ he said, ‘but that’s all he told me.’

‘I found the horse,’ Helewise said. ‘I stayed with the dead man up at the sanctuary until Gus and Will came to take him to the abbey, and then I walked up the path to the road.’
Still looking for the other man
, Josse thought.
For Symon
. ‘I walked for quite a while, first one way and then the other, and I came across the horse in a little clearing on the edge of the forest. His reins had become entangled in the branches of an oak tree, and his twisting and turning as he tried to free himself had tied him fast. He was very nervous, until he seemed to realize I was trying to help. I managed to untangle him, and I led him back to the house, where Will saw to him.’

‘We reckon he must be the man at the sanctuary’s horse,’ Geoffroi piped up, ‘because he was found nearby, and he had lots of blood on him. If the other man had a horse too, he’d have had to find his way right through the forest to have come out on the road above the sanctuary.’

Josse nodded. He wondered what had happened to Symon’s horse. If it was of similar quality to the gelding in the stall, then it was too good an animal to be left to its own devices out in the forest.
I am not going to worry about that tonight
, he thought wearily.
It is time my family were asleep.

He got up, stretching his back. The ache had diminished to a dull pain. ‘Go to bed,’ he said to Geoffroi. ‘You too,’ he added, looking first at Meggie and then at Ninian, sitting with his arm around Eloise, his head resting on the top of hers. ‘You’ve all had a long day.’

‘Your father is right,’ Eloise said, looking at Josse with a smile. ‘If we sleep now, we’ll have a few hours’ peace before Inana wakes us all up by informing us she’s hungry.’

Meggie hung back as the others left. ‘Father?’ she said softly. ‘Will you come with me now to look at the body?’

He suppressed a sigh. Glancing at Helewise – there was sympathy and understanding in her eyes – he nodded. ‘I’ll be back,’ he whispered to her as he left the hall. ‘Warm some more wine.’

He followed Meggie out of the door, down the steps and round to the little door leading to the undercroft. Meggie had lit a torch and, once inside the low, vaulted space, she stuck it in a bracket on the stone wall.

The dead man lay on a trestle table, covered with a length of linen. Meggie drew back the linen, and Josse looked down on the evidence of a shockingly violent death.

Someone – Meggie, no doubt, perhaps aided by Helewise or Tilly – had cleaned up the corpse. The wide, deep slash had cut the throat so efficiently that the head was only attached by the bones of the spine and some gristly sinews. The terrible wound had been carefully cleaned, and the only blood that now remained was that which had soaked into the beautiful fabric of the pale crimson tunic. There was so much of it that Josse might have thought the tunic was blood-coloured, had he not known otherwise. A reddish-brown tunic that stank of the butcher’s yard …

‘Were there any other wounds?’ he asked, his voice gruff.

Meggie leaned forward, picking up one of the still, white hands. She indicated the wrist, which had a bracelet of bruises. ‘The other wrist is the same,’ she said softly.

‘He was held, then,’ Josse muttered. ‘Someone held his hands, behind him, perhaps, while another person cut his throat.’

‘It could have been the same person,’ Meggie suggested. ‘This man is not particularly big. A man with large hands could have held both wrists in one hand while he wielded the blade with the other.’

‘I suppose so,’ Josse agreed.

But we have a witness
, he thought suddenly. He tried to recall what the man in the sanctuary had said.

He – they – he came for us, and they fell on us with their terrible, sharp weapons, and he slew Symon right there before my eyes.

He – they
came for us.
He
slew Symon.

One man or two?
Josse wondered.
Two, and
only one of them the killer? Or just one man working alone?
He did not know, and was not sure it mattered. If there had been two, weren’t you just as culpable if you held another man’s wrists while someone else slit his throat?

He stared down at the dead man. Meggie gave him a quick, questioning look and, at his nod, covered the corpse once more with the sheet.