by Alys Clare
Hide, Josse thought. Hide. Aye, that was what the child had said when he’d snuggled inside Josse’s cloak that day. Great God, the poor little lad had seen the man attack his mother! No wonder he’d turned dumb.
‘Then,’ Leofgar was saying, ‘she went for my hounds and let them into the hall.’
‘Your hounds,’ Josse echoed, his heart still overflowing with pity for the damaged child.
‘Yes, my hounds,’ Leofgar sounded impatient. ‘They are big dogs and they are trained to go after wounded creatures that get up and try to crawl away. They go for the throat, you know, as that way the kill is accomplished quickly.’
‘And—’ Josse swallowed. ‘And they attacked the intruder?’
‘Rohaise shut them in the hall and went a little way up the stair, leaving them there with the body. She thought she heard some sounds, although she is not sure what they implied. She waited, but there was nothing more. Then she crept down again and opened the door a crack. The man was lying exactly as she had left him and one of the dogs was sniffing at the blood pooling on the floor beneath his head. Rohaise tiptoed closer, then closer, until she was standing right over him. Suddenly he leapt up and lunged at her with his knife. She screamed and flung herself out of his reach and at the same moment one of the hounds leapt at him and took him by the neck. Great arcs of scarlet flew out all over her as the dying heart beat its last – Josse, she was covered with his blood.’ Leofgar’s eyes were wide with remembered horror. ‘Then the hounds padded off towards the door and she stood staring down at the man.’ Leofgar paused. ‘Soon after that I came home and found them. Rohaise had crept away to hide on the stair, shaking with shock and trying pitifully to pull the ripped pieces of her bodice together to cover herself. Timus was weeping hysterically up in the bedchamber and the man was on the floor of the hall. He was quite dead. He no longer had a throat.’
Josse waited while his shocked reaction abated slightly. Then he said firmly, ‘Your wife was threatened, Leofgar. She feared that this intruder had come to take her child, and furthermore that for some reason he meant to assault or even kill her. When a man armed with a knife attacks an unarmed woman whom he has just tried to rape, anyone would surely agree that she is within her rights to defend herself!’
‘Perhaps,’ Leofgar said dully. ‘But I dared not take that chance.’
‘So you came to Hawkenlye.’ But no, that could not be right, Josse thought, for there had been no bloody body lying in the hall at the Old Manor when he and the Abbess had arrived.
He looked enquiringly at Leofgar and said, ‘What did you do with him?’
‘I stripped him, burned his foul and filthy clothes in a big fire on the hearth and hid him in an outbuilding,’ Leofgar said tonelessly. ‘I buried his knife, his belt buckle and the remains of his boots. Rohaise and I tried to comfort Timus and finally we got him to go to sleep up in our bed. Then we cleaned every inch of the hall and she put her torn and bloody gown on the fire with the blood-soaked rushes from the floor. We had to make sure there was no sign left to give us away when Wilfrid and his family returned and when I asked him – Wilfrid – to mend the broken chest I told him a lie about having lost the key.’ Leofgar looked sad, as if it had hurt to treat his faithful servant this way and he still regretted it. ‘While we cleaned the hall I had worked out what to do with the body,’ he hurried on, ‘and when the light began to fail, I slipped out to make my secret preparations. I penned my swine up in a lonely place where nobody goes, leaving them without any food, and then two days later I took the dead man out into the forest and fed him to them. What was left of him when they were done, I buried.’ His anguished eyes suddenly raised to meet Josse’s, he said, ‘Rohaise tried to stop me. Even after the horror of knowing for two whole days that his – that the corpse was hidden away on our land and what would happen were it to be discovered, still she said it was wrong to deny the man Christian burial. We—’ He stopped, drew a breath and then said softly, ‘We almost fought over it. She was beside herself, but I was determined.’
Josse could well imagine Rohaise’s state of mind. How on earth had she borne it? Great God, but the poor lass had suffered! He was on the point of saying as much but a glance at Leofgar stopped the words before they were uttered; it had quite clearly cost the young man dear to tell his story.
So instead, realising even as he spoke that he already knew the answer, Josse said, ‘And you now know who this man was?’
Leofgar sighed. ‘Yes, for he was very like his brother whom we found hanging from the tree.’ He summoned a very faint smile. ‘I thought for one dreadful moment that he’d survived having his throat torn out and being eaten by my swine and had got up and come after me. But I was wrong.’ He paused, throwing his head back and for a moment screwing his eyes up tight, as if trying to rid himself of the images of violence that he could not help but see. ‘It was Teb who was hanged. The man who died in my hall was Walter Bell.’
Chapter 12
After a long time Josse said, ‘What do you want me to do?’
Leofgar turned to him, his eyes alight with some emotion that Josse could not identify; it occurred to him later that it was probably gratitude.
‘I must find out what Walter Bell was after and why he attacked my wife,’ he said. ‘I want you to help me.’
‘Aye. I will.’
There was silence for a moment. Then Leofgar gave a cough and said, ‘Thank you.’
Josse, who also felt the need of a little recovery time, said after a pause, ‘I may already be able to offer something for you to think about. We have been led to understand that you knew the Bell brothers, moreover that there was some sort of a dispute between you and them and that this was the reason for Walter Bell having sought you out.’
‘Who told you that?’ Leofgar demanded. ‘It is a lie, I swear it! I had never seen him before the moment that I looked down on his dead body in my own hall!’
‘Aye, and I believe you,’ Josse hastened to reassure him. ‘Me, I always doubted it anyway. Said as much at the time,’ he added, half to himself. ‘Earlier you said you had some idea why Bell had gone to the Old Manor. What was it?’
‘Theft,’ Leofgar said simply. ‘Rohaise is insistent that the first thing he did was to have a thorough look at our table, as if it were his aim to search for—’ He gave a helpless shrug. ‘I cannot say. Then, as I told you, he broke open the chest.’
‘Was there anything of value in the chest?’
‘Oh – some pieces of silver. Quite valuable, I suppose, but we keep them put away because the bright shine of the metal is such an attraction to Timus and Rohaise is tired of constantly having to polish off his sticky finger marks.’
Josse waited, and after a moment Leofgar said slowly, ‘Walter Bell must have seen the silver, for he scattered the entire contents of the chest on the floor. Yet he made no move to steal anything ...’
‘I think,’ Josse said gently, ‘that we may rule out theft as a motive. Could it ...’ But this was delicate ground and he had no wish to arouse the young man’s ready anger again. ‘Perhaps his intention was to do what he tried to do to your wife,’ he said as tactfully as he could.
Leofgar shook his head impatiently. ‘I thought of that too but a man intent on raping a woman while her man and her servants are from home is hardly likely to rummage through the household belongings first. I have always understood rape to be a crime of hot blood and swift implementation.’
The fury was there, simmering beneath the surface, but at present Leofgar was keeping it under control. With a flash of insight, Josse thought suddenly that perhaps Walter Bell’s death had been relatively easy after all, compared to what Leofgar might have done to him had he come home to find the man raping his wife.
‘I think,’ Josse said after a brief silence, ‘that it is my turn to tell you something, Leofgar.’
‘What would that be?’ Leofgar turned to glare at him, his emotions clearly still running high.
‘I ought to e
xplain to you that we have learned a little about the Bell brothers from Gervase de Gifford. When Teb Bell was found hanged close to the Abbey, we postulated that perhaps he had been on his way to Hawkenlye to look for Walter. He had been overheard down in Tonbridge saying that he was going up the hill to hunt for somebody. Now that phrase up the hill, in Tonbridge parlance, is usually taken to mean Hawk enlye Abbey, and we all surmised that Teb Bell was intending to go to Hawkenlye to find Walter, who was missing.’
‘Of course he was missing,’ Leofgar said coldly. ‘My wife set my hounds on him and they had just killed him.’
‘Aye, I know.’ Josse waved an impatient hand; he was trying to follow a twisting path of a tale and did not want to be interrupted. ‘Then, when another piece of the pattern was revealed, we thought that Teb Bell had a very different quarry in mind. We – or rather Gervase de Gifford – thought that Teb was probably aware that Walter was dead and was in fact on his way to Hawkenlye in pursuit of his brother’s killer.’
‘Me,’ Leofgar supplied.
‘You did not kill him,’ Josse said swiftly.
Leofgar shrugged. ‘He died in my house and we have but the word of my wife that she killed him to defend herself and her child.’
‘Her word is good enough for me.’
Leofgar gave him a bright look. ‘Thank you, Josse.’ Then: ‘But if Teb Bell was in truth coming to Hawkenlye to look for me, who strung him up on that branch?’ His face darkening with sudden realisation, he said, ‘Josse, I swear to you that I didn’t, although by this reasoning anyone would conclude that I had abundant motive.’
‘That is true,’ Josse agreed, ‘but I do not believe you killed Teb Bell.’
‘What makes you say that?’ Leofgar appeared genuinely curious. ‘I hope,’ he added with a small laugh, ‘that it is not your feelings towards my mother that are speaking.’
‘Your mother—’ No. Josse really did not want to discuss Helewise with her son. ‘No,’ he said instead. ‘It is merely that I recognise an honest man when I see one. You, Leofgar, would hold your head up high when accused of something that you had truly done and shout yes, I did it, so what?’
Surprisingly amid that grim conversation, Leofgar burst out laughing. ‘How long have we known one another, Josse?’ he asked, still amused.
‘Oh – a matter of days, and not closely at that.’
‘What a good judge you are,’ Leofgar murmured. ‘Pride and a tendency to run my head straight into stone walls were ever my devils.’ Then, his face straightening, he said, ‘Who, then, murdered Teb Bell?’
Instead of further surmise, Josse said, ‘There is another man in this tangle of whom I have not yet spoken. He was probably an associate of both the Bell brothers; certainly of Teb, with whom he was observed talking in the tavern at Tonbridge, when Teb spoke of coming up the hill. This man has demanded that Gervase de Gifford organise a hunt for Walter Bell, whom he claims was last heard of making his way to your house to try to resolve this rumoured dispute between you and the brothers.’
‘There is no dispute! I never met either Bell alive!’
‘I know,’ Josse reassured him. ‘I realise now that the whole business of the dispute is but a diversionary tactic to hide from us the true heart of this business. But for the life of me, I have absolutely no idea what that true heart can be!’
‘Who is this man who makes up lies about me?’ Leofgar said, an edge of menace in his voice.
‘His name is Arthur Fitzurse.’
‘Arthur Fitzurse.’ Slowly Leofgar shook his head. ‘It means nothing. What does he look like?’
Josse brought the man to mind. ‘His age is perhaps in the mid-thirties; he is well dressed, greying dark hair, dark eyes and a thin, discontented sort of a face.’
‘No,’ Leofgar said. ‘No, I do not believe I know him.’
Why, then, Josse wondered, staring hard at Leofgar, should he know you?
It seemed that Leofgar was thinking much the same thing. ‘It must seem strange to you, Josse, that this man who makes up such fictions about me is unknown to me?’
‘Aye, it does,’ Josse agreed. ‘I would guess that Fitzurse is behind the activities of the Bell brothers. It is his hand, I am certain, that directed Walter Bell to search your house.’
Leofgar sighed. ‘We come back to our starting point,’ he said. ‘We must find out what Walter Bell was looking for.’
Josse glanced up at the darkening sky, in which the first stars were appearing. ‘It grows late,’ he observed, ‘and high time you and I were making our way to the safety of our lodgings.’ He glanced at Leofgar, who gave a faint twist of a smile, as if to say, no, I’m still not going to tell you where we’re hiding. ‘I will return to the Abbey,’ Josse continued, ‘and tomorrow I will speak to Gervase de Gifford.’ He hesitated. ‘Have I your permission to reveal what you have just told me?’ he asked gently.
‘I have been asking myself the same question,’ Leofgar said. ‘To my mother, yes. For one thing’ – he shot Josse a pen etrating look – ‘I would guess that you and she have few secrets; for another, I did not feel easy when we were to- gether at the Abbey for I was all too aware that she knew I was hiding something from her, something very grave. So, to have her know the truth would be a relief to me.’
‘Very well. I shall tell her exactly what you have told me.’
‘Thank you. As for de Gifford – Josse, what do you think? You know the man far better than I, I imagine?’
‘Aye, and I judge him to be decent, incorruptible and fair.’ He paused – for in truth this young man’s life or, worse, his wife’s, might well hang in the balance and Josse did not want to be responsible for delivering either of them to a judgement that they did not deserve – then he said, ‘I believe that it is safe also to tell Gervase de Gifford. He will not rush to accuse you of deeds that you have not done and will, I think, view with compassion and understanding the events that took place in your hall.’
‘You believe,’ Leofgar murmured. ‘You think. Josse, can we take the risk?’
‘Aye,’ Josse said firmly. ‘Although I will not speak to him if you ask me not to.’
Leofgar thought for some time. Then he said, ‘I put myself in your hands, Josse. Do what you think best.’
Then, leaving Josse staggering under the weight of that awesome responsibility, Leofgar gave him a graceful bow and, turning, hurried away down the track. In next to no time he had vanished from view.
Slowly, thoughtfully, Josse made his way back to the Abbey.
Although it was fully dark and quite late by the time he was safely within the walls, Josse went to find the Abbess. She was sitting in her room, working as usual on the big ledgers and now by the light of a pair of candles. As she looked up with a welcoming smile, the soft light threw shadows on to her face and he read the worry and tension in her as easily – more easily, for he was an inept reader at best – than words on a page.
‘I have not found Walter Bell,’ he said as soon as the door was shut fast and their greetings exchanged, ‘but’ – he dropped his voice to a whisper – ‘I did meet your son.’
Her eyes widened and a hand flew to her mouth. ‘Is he all right?’
‘He is well, my lady. He has taken Rohaise and the child to some safe place whose whereabouts he would not tell me but he assured me they are safe and are being well looked after.’
‘He – but what if Walter Bell finds him? With Teb dead and the distinct possibility that he was coming here searching for Leofgar, it is surely—’
‘There is no danger from Walter Bell,’ Josse interrupted quietly. ‘He’s dead.’
Then, as succinctly as he could, he told the Abbess what had happened that awful day in the hall of the Old Manor.
When he had finished – it did not take long, mainly because she heard him out without one single interruption – she said, looking uncannily like her son and using exactly the same words, ‘We must find out what Walter Bell was looking for.’
�
��Aye. It seems certain that his purpose in sneaking into the Old Manor was to hunt for something.’
‘And that Arthur Fitzurse gave the order to search and told him what to look for,’ she added.
‘We cannot be certain,’ he protested. ‘Walter Bell might have been a thief who, once Leofgar and the servants had all gone out, spotted an opportunity and took it.’
‘No.’ She shook her head firmly. ‘If that were true, why should Arthur Fitzurse have made up this story of the Bell brothers’ dispute with Leofgar? No, Sir Josse. Fitzurse has a purpose at which, as yet, we may only guess. He sent Walter Bell to search in the Old Manor and, when he did not return, guessed that something had happened to him, quite possibly while he was carrying out his search. We know that this is what he thought because of the pressure that he has been putting upon Gervase de Gifford to search the Old Manor; he is quite certain that Walter Bell went there and probably believes he died there too.’
A memory stirred in Josse’s mind. ‘My lady, when I was at the Old Manor with Gervase and Fitzurse, I noticed that Fitzurse seemed preoccupied with searching the hall. He raked through the ashes in the hearth – maybe he was looking for evidence that Walter’s clothes had been burned there, as indeed they were – and then he started peering closely at the furnishings in the hall. Gervase demanded to know what he was doing and he said something about looking for evidence of this imaginary quarrel between Leofgar and the Bells. But’ – eagerly he leaned towards her, hands on her table and face close to hers – ‘what if in truth he was searching for whatever it was he had sent Walter Bell to seek out?’
She nodded slowly. ‘It seems highly likely,’ she agreed. ‘So, Fitzurse and Teb Bell discuss what might have happened at the Old Manor and Teb, believing that Leofgar must surely know something about Walter’s disappearance, is all for racing up to the Abbey to confront him.’
