Girl In A Red Tunic

by Alys Clare

  Josse did not answer immediately. He was going through this fictitious scenario of de Gifford’s, trying to work out how he should respond. God’s boots, but the sheriff had very nearly got it right! Rohaise had not stabbed Walter Bell in self-defence; she had escaped from his grasp and managed to trip him up. Then, when he had tricked her into creeping up to him, he had attacked her again and one of Leofgar’s hounds had bitten his throat out. But did not all that mean that in fact Rohaise was even less quilty of murder than she was in de Gifford’s version?

  Dare he risk telling de Gifford the truth? His instincts born of many years’ experience of men told him that he could. But then it was not his own freedom – perhaps his own life – that was at stake. It was Rohaise’s and, by reason of his involvement and the fact of his having concealed a death, Leofgar’s. And what would the Abbess do if her daughter-in-law were hanged for a murder that was no murder and her beloved son strung up beside her because he had helped her?

  I cannot tell him, Josse decided. He is a man of the law and an honest and moral one; despite what I feel is a friendship between us, he may consider it his duty to act on what I reveal to him. I dare not do it!

  De Gifford was still watching him, waiting for a reply.

  Josse had made up his mind. Taking a deep breath, praying he was doing the right thing, eventually he said, ‘Let us go on with our pretence a while.’

  ‘Very well.’ De Gifford sounded cautious. ‘But this is still just a story, Josse. Be in no doubt whatsoever about that, and also remember that whatever is said here is just for our ears.’ He grinned briefly. ‘We are two men puzzled by a mystery and we pass a chilly morning in idle conjecture.’ He paused. ‘It is on that basis and that basis only that I will hear you out.’

  ‘Aye, of course.’ Josse spoke with false cheerfulness. ‘Then let me make one or two suggestions of my own. I find your version of events plausible and I’m going to suggest what might have happened next. We know that Leofgar took his wife off to Hawkenlye Abbey because he was worried about her state of mind – this is fact, not conjecture. But let’s pretend that he had an ulterior motive; not only did he want the nuns to help him make Rohaise better, he also wanted to distance himself from the body he had just – er, he’d just buried in the woods. Then while he’s there with the nuns and the monks watching Rohaise slowly begin to improve, the inconceivable happens and a man who looks just like Walter Bell is found hanging in the forest not two miles from the Abbey. Somebody announces that the dead man is Walter’s brother Teb and Leofgar instantly fears that Teb had somehow found out that Walter lies dead close to the Old Manor. Leofgar leaps to the conclusion that Teb was on his way to kill him in revenge because Teb thinks Leofgar murdered Walter.’

  ‘But if that’s so then who killed Teb?’ de Gifford exclaimed. ‘In this story of ours, that is,’ he added quickly. ‘I accept that it makes sense for events to have developed as you suggest, Josse, but there is something else: how would a rat such as Walter Bell have known of the situation at the Old Manor? He might, I suppose, have happened upon the place whilst out riding and remarked to himself that it was the sort of household that looked as if it would contain valuables to steal and a pretty woman to assault. But it is extremely unlikely because for one thing Walter Bell does not own a horse and it’s quite a walk from Tonbridge to the Old Manor. Also both the Bells habitually restricted their villainy to their immediate neighbourhood, only venturing further afield at another’s behest.’ With a grim smile he added, ‘And probably riding that someone else’s horse.’

  He paused, staring eagerly at Josse as if in confident expectation of the right response. Which, after a moment, Josse made. ‘You think someone sent him to the Old Manor?’ he said, trying to sound as if he had only just thought of this possibility. ‘Someone said, go and break in while the master and the servants are out and steal the silver?’ He made it into a question.

  ‘Yes,’ de Gifford said. ‘And I’ll tell you who it was: Arthur Fitzurse.’

  Rapidly thinking it through to see if he would be giving away anything that he should keep to himself, Josse said cautiously, ‘Yet the Warin family treasures remain at the Old Manor. Either Walter Bell was prevented from taking them ...’ Deliberately he stopped.

  ‘Or family treasures were not what Bell was after!’ de Gifford finished for him. Smacking his first into his open palm, he said, ‘We must find out what it was that Fitzurse really sent him to find, Josse, for therein lies the secret that lies so well hidden at the heart of all this!’

  And Josse, triumph singing silently through him, said wonderingly, ‘Great God, Gervase, I believe you are right!’

  He reflected, as the sheriff began to pace to and fro, muttering to himself as he laid his plans for the next move, on his promise to Leofgar. ‘Find out what Walter Bell was after,’ the young man had begged, and Josse had said he would do his best. Well, now finding the solution to the mystery – and thereby fulfilling the promise – all of a sudden seemed a very great deal more likely; Gervase de Gifford was hunting for the same thing. Watching him, Josse could detect de Gifford’s impatience to be moving; it was evident in his brisk step. Closing his eyes for an instant, Josse sent up a prayer of thanks for the gift of such a capable man by his side.

  Chapter 17

  Two things pressed on Josse’s mind. First, he must get back to Hawkenlye and tell the Abbess what had happened; he would be able to reassure her that, although Arthur Fitzurse had brought what he claimed was evidence to prove that Walter Bell lay dead in the woods above the Old Manor, not only had Gervase de Gifford rightly dismissed this evidence out of hand, he also seemed more than ready to believe that even if Walter Bell had indeed died there, then it was as a result of Rohaise exercising her legal right to defend herself against a violent attack.

  The second thing he must do – or at least try to do – was to speak again to Leofgar. Something kept niggling at him, one small detail of the story that Leofgar had told him, and he could not quite bring it into focus. It was something that Walter Bell had done, something that Josse knew was important and that he must remember, but he was damned if he could think what it was ... Reasoning that Leofgar must want to speak to Josse almost as urgently as Josse wanted to consult him – wouldn’t he be desperate to know what was happening? – and that when the two of them had previously met, it was in that dell in the forest where Leofgar had been lying in wait for him, Josse decided to ride back to the Abbey via the woodland paths.

  Soon after he entered in under the trees he dismounted and, leading Horace, made his tortuous way to the place where the beech tree hung over the dell. It was too much to expect Leofgar to be there waiting for him but after a short while the young man appeared, as silently and unexpectedly as before.

  ‘I have been watching for you,’ he said, grasping Josse’s hand and holding it tightly. He looked drawn and his words fell out in a rush. ‘I thought you would come back. Have there been developments? Have you discovered anything?’

  ‘Steady there,’ Josse said, trying to calm him. ‘One good thing has happened: Gervase de Gifford believes in your innocence.’ Leofgar made to speak – Josse guessed he was about to demand if Josse had repeated his story to the sheriff – but Josse held up his hand. ‘I have not told him the full tale that you told me,’ he said gently, ‘for in truth it is not my secret to tell. But de Gifford is an intelligent man and, knowing the foul reputation of the Bell brothers as well as he does, he has worked out for himself a possible course of events that is as near the truth as makes no difference.’ Wanting to make certain that Leofgar realised what he was being told, Josse added, ‘De Gifford does not see any crime in a woman defending herself from an attacker wielding a knife who bursts into her house with the aim of stealing her goods and raping her.’

  As Leofgar sagged with relief, Josse suddenly remembered what it was he needed to ask. Giving the young man a few moments to recover, he then said, ‘Leofgar, when we talked before about that terrible day
, we concluded that whatever Walter Bell was sent to find – and de Gifford also suggests that Arthur Fitzurse was the man who sent him – it was not your family valuables.’

  ‘Yes, I remember,’ Leofgar said. Then, impatiently, ‘That’s what we have to find out! What it is he’s really after!’

  ‘Aye, I know,’ Josse said soothingly. ‘What I’m asking you is with that end in mind. You told me, Leofgar, that when Rohaise was watching Walter Bell – before he knew she was there – she saw him searching somewhere within the hall. Where was it?’

  Leofgar frowned as he tried to recall exactly what his wife had said. ‘She was hiding behind the hangings, clutching Timus to her and trying to keep him quiet ...’ Then, as if the remembered scene had suddenly clarified, he said de cisively, ‘Walter Bell went straight over to the table. That was where he searched first.’

  ‘The table.’ Josse was nodding. ‘Aye, it always did sound an unlikely place for a thief to begin, unless, that is, someone had told him to look there first.’ A smile spreading across his face, he thumped Leofgar on the shoulder and said, ‘Thank you. Now I know what to do next.’

  Grinning back at him, Leofgar said, ‘Go and search my table?’

  ‘Exactly that, because Rohaise did not report that Walter Bell succeeded in finding anything in, on or under that table.’ And, he thought, I saw with my own eyes that Arthur Fitzurse met with no more success when he looked. But he did not voice the thought; there seemed no need yet to add to Leofgar’s worries by revealing that Arthur Fitzurse had also searched the Old Manor. ‘So,’ he concluded, ‘whatever Bell came hunting for—’

  ‘—is still there!’ Leofgar gave a whoop of joy. ‘Go, Josse, be on your way, I beg you, and God’s speed,’ he said more quietly. ‘May you meet with success.’

  ‘I have a feeling that I will,’ Josse said. ‘Tell that to your pretty wife, Leofgar, and make sure she keeps her hopes up and her heart high.’

  ‘I will,’ Leofgar assured him. ‘Come back soon. I will watch for you.’

  With a grunt of assent, Josse clicked to Horace and, leading the horse down the narrow track, set off in the direction of the Abbey.

  He was so eager to tell the Abbess what had happened and about this thrilling and promising new prospect of searching for the precious thing that Walter Bell was sent to find that, as soon as he could, he mounted and kicked Horace to a canter. Arriving at the Abbey gates in a thunder of hooves, he drew to a halt, slid off Horace’s back and, after the most perfunctory of greetings to Sister Martha and Sister Ursel at the gate, he ran off to find the Abbess.

  ‘She’s not there!’ Sister Martha’s voice called after him.

  He stopped dead. ‘Where is she?’ he asked, turning to look at the two nuns.

  They looked at each other and then back at him. Then, in a voice that reflected her puzzlement and the very beginnings of anxiety, Sister Ursel said, ‘Isn’t she with you?’

  He got the tale from them in time. Plunged almost into panic by their dread, they both kept trying to talk at once and for a while he could make no sense of what they said. Some man had come up from Tonbridge and told Sister Ursel that he had been sent by the sheriff and would the Abbess Helewise please go down with him to join Gervase de Gifford and Sir Josse d’Acquin there as something had happened and they wanted her to know of it and to give her opinion. Sister Ursel had thought it a little odd, but then hadn’t another of the sheriff’s men come up to the Abbey earlier with a similar message for Josse, and hadn’t he set off without a qualm in answer to that summons? Anyway, odd or not, the Abbess, bless her, hadn’t hesitated but had ordered Sister Martha to prepare the golden mare so that she could be on her way. ‘And it wasn’t for either of us to question her actions, was it, Sir Josse?’ Sister Ursel asked tearfully. ‘She’s our Abbess and we must do as we’re told!’

  Full of pity for the two distressed nuns, Josse agreed that it was for the Abbess to order her own comings and goings, and he reassured both sisters that it wasn’t their fault and nobody would hold them to blame.

  ‘That’s all very well, Sir Josse,’ Sister Martha said after waiting patiently for him to finish. ‘But if she’s not with you, where is she?’

  Trying to keep his own fears under tight control, he said, ‘What was the man like, the one who claimed he had come from the sheriff?’

  The two nuns looked at each other, then Sister Martha said, ‘Dark sort of aspect to him. Rode a decent horse and although he wore a cheap, thin cloak, I thought I caught a glimpse of a fine tunic beneath it. And there was something else ...’ She broke off, frowning as if trying to search for the words to describe a fleeting impression. Then, apparently finding them, said, ‘The man who came for you, Sir Josse, who I sent down to the Vale to find you, he sounded like what he was, if you understand me. This other fellow, he sounded as if he were putting on a voice. Speaking with words he didn’t usually use.’

  ‘Could he,’ Josse said cautiously, not wanting to lead her, ‘have been just pretending to be a sheriff’s man?’

  Sister Martha shot him a quick look. ‘Aye, Sir Josse, he well could. I reckon there was a man of quality hiding under that dirty cloak, or at least a man who habitually puts on the airs of one, and he didn’t much like having to act otherwise.’

  A man who habitually puts on airs ... Aye, Josse thought. A shrewd assessment of Arthur Fitzurse, if ever I heard one. Wondering what on earth this meant, what Fitzurse could possibly have been trying to do in luring the Abbess away from Hawkenlye, he did his best to reassure the two nuns that it was probably a simple mistake that would soon be cleared up. ‘I’ll go straight back down to Tonbridge,’ he said, taking Horace’s reins back from Sister Martha and swinging up into the saddle, ‘and I’ll have the Abbess back here before you know I’m gone!’

  His words sounded cheerful and optimistic. But his last glimpse of the two worried faces as he cantered away suggested they were no more confident of this rapid success than he was.

  He went straight to de Gifford’s house. Gervase was still there, or perhaps had been out and returned; he was sitting down to a hasty meal as Josse flung himself into the hall.

  ‘Arthur Fitzurse has taken the Abbess Helewise,’ he said breathlessly. ‘He went up to Hawkenlye and claimed to be one of your men sent to fetch her down to join us here.’

  ‘Fitzurse?’ De Gifford was standing up even as he spoke. ‘Why? What does he want of her?’

  Josse shook his head impatiently. ‘I cannot begin to guess. Where does he live? Do you know?’

  ‘He lodges in rooms in the town. A mean sort of place; I should have expected better from the man’s manner.’

  Josse heard Sister Martha’s voice again. Aye, it seemed more than one person had gained this impression of Fitzurse: he was a man who had the air of someone of more means than he in fact possessed. In that moment Josse saw the man again as he had first watched him ride into the courtyard of the Old Manor, looking as if he owned the place.

  ‘We’ll go and look for him,’ de Gifford was saying, reaching for his cloak that he had spread before the fire to warm. ‘Come on!’

  Needing no encouragement, Josse followed him. They mounted their horses and hurried off and after a short time were outside the dilapidated building where Fitzurse had his lodgings. To the surprise of neither man, he was not there and neither was the Abbess.

  ‘Where has he taken her?’ Josse raged as they returned to de Gifford’s house. Trying to keep his voice low, he demanded, ‘Why has he taken her?’

  Reading his anxiety, de Gifford spoke calmly. ‘I will summon all the men at my disposal and set them hunting for her. My men are good,’ he added, eyes on Josse’s, ‘believe me, Josse, they know their way around the dark corners of this town very well and they will not give up until they find her.’

  Only a little reassured, Josse watched as de Gifford sent out the summons and, as his men began to arrive, quietly issued his orders. When the last man had gone, he turned to the sheriff and said
, ‘What do we do? I cannot just sit here and wait, man, I—’

  ‘I understand,’ de Gifford said gently. ‘You need to be doing something, and so do I. What do you suggest?’

  Josse tried to think what he had been doing before this new and dreadful thing had happened. He’d been desperate to see the Abbess because he wanted to tell her something ...

  Aye. He knew what it was, and he also knew what he and Gervase must now do. He said – and he was pleased to hear that his voice sounded brisk and decisive and the terrible anxiety didn’t show – ‘We’ll ride out to the Old Manor.’

  De Gifford looked surprised. ‘Do you think to find Fitzurse there?’

  Josse shrugged; it was possible, he supposed, although he did not see quite why. ‘Maybe. But there’s something else that we must look for.’ And, as they rode out of the courtyard and set off along the road northwards, he explained what it was.

  Helewise had been riding along behind the sheriff’s man who had come to fetch her down to Tonbridge for some time before she was sure. As soon as she was, she called out to him, ‘I thought you said we were to join Sir Josse and the sheriff at the sheriff’s house? Is that house not in the town?’

  The man turned to her and she caught a glimpse of his sallow-skinned face under the concealing hood. He muttered something about the sheriff living out a way into the country and for a time she had to be content with that.

  But her unease grew.

  She could not have said why; the man treated her courteously enough and, even if he was bluff of speech and not inclined to talk unless he had to, those things alone were not sufficient to explain her vague fear.