He paused, his expression hesitant as if he fought with himself about whether he should speak further. When he did, his voice was low and quiet. "Jessimond was wrong to think that her mother didn't know the name of the man who sired her. I'm certain the opposite is true. I saw that on the day Odger took his whip to Amelyn. She withheld what Odger wanted, doing so for some reason of her own. But to this day I cannot understand what that purpose might have been. This is especially so, given what it cost her to still her tongue."
Here he shook his head. "What I don't understand is why she committed the sin of fornication in the first place. As beautiful as she is, there were a dozen men here and in Coctune, men who already had children who could inherit, who would have taken her to wife after Tom's death despite that she had proved barren."
"Only she wasn't barren," Faucon offered flatly.
"So it seems," Ivo agreed, nodding. "Nor was she ever a lightskirt, at least not until Odger turned her into one. Do you know she nearly starved to death before she bent and began trading her body to save her family?"
Falling silent, the smith threw back his head. He again dragged his fingers through his wild hair, leaving it wilder still. "Why didn't I aid her?" he whispered. "What sort of coward allows a friend to suffer so?"
Faucon gave him a moment to collect himself before he asked, "When did you know that Jessimond was missing from Wike?"
It was Dob who replied. "The morning after Meg said Jes had run into the woods."
"How long did the folk of Wike search before giving up?" Faucon asked.
All three of them shook their heads at that. Ivo made a bitter sound. "Odger wouldn't let us search, not after Meg told everyone that Jessimond had said she was leaving to become a whore like her mother. Instead, Odger said 'good riddance' and told us all that Jes wasn't worth forfeiting a day's work. That ended any discussion on the matter."
"And once again you didn't speak to defend a neighbor, this time a child?" The accusation leapt unbidden from Faucon's lips, driven from him by the difference between Haselor and Wike.
"But I didn't have to say or do anything," Ivo protested, brows high and arms spread wide. "The moment Gawne heard Odger's edict, he whispered to me that Jes wasn't lost. Once our bailiff was out of earshot, Gawne told us—" the movement of his hand indicated his sons and himself "—and those of our neighbors who knew the two of them had been meeting that he thought she'd fled to heal from Meg's last beating. My son was certain he could bring her back as soon as she was ready to come. We all were content to leave the matter of Jes in Gawne's hands. But as of that morning, I think we were also decided that once Jes returned she wouldn't go back into that kitchen, not after witnessing Meg's cruelty."
"If that's so, then I'm glad they finally came to that decision," Dob said. "A month is long enough to come to such a conclusion." He looked at his Crowner. "A good number of our neighbors came here then, urging us to find some way to keep Gawne in Wike. That's when we discussed removing Jes and Johnnie from Meg's custody." He glanced at his brother and father, seeking their confirmation to this. Rauf nodded. Ivo sighed.
Dob continued. "Moreover, when Gawne left that morning he assured me he'd have Jes back in Wike by day's end."
"And I told Gawne that when he found her, he should bring her home to us," Ivo added.
That brought both Dob and Rauf around to stare in surprise at their sire.
"What? Did you not hear me say that to him?" their father replied to their wordless question. Then he gave a quiet laugh. "Of course you didn't. You weren't there. Nor did I say it that first day. Instead, that's what I told Gawne on the second day, as I walked with him to the pale."
"Da, I thought—" Dob started to say.
"I changed my mind," the elder smith replied, cutting off his son as he looked at Faucon. "After Gawne returned without Jes that first day, he was adamant about searching again on the second. He was so distraught over his initial failure to find her that I did what I could to ease his mind. Offering Jes a kinder place to live seemed to soothe him."
He glanced at his sons, then looked back at his Crowner. "I admit it. When my neighbors came here, I resisted their efforts to part Jes and Gawne, and Dob's insistence that we needed a woman in our house again, one to care for us the way their mother had. My wise son had suggested that we take Jes and let her fill that role for us. On that morning as I walked with Gawne, I realized that once I brought him to the anvil, the smithy would more than provide enough to care for us as well as Jes and Johnnie. That was my intention, to make a place for both of them, had Gawne found the girl alive."
It was Dob's turn to sigh. "Would that you'd come to this before Meg drove Jes from Wike," he said.
"Spilt milk," Rauf added, his voice still no more than a whisper.
Faucon studied the faces of the three smiths. Where the smith's sons heard regret, all he heard in Ivo's words was confirmation of the elder smith's cowardice. Ivo's offer to Gawne had been empty, naught but a sugar tit meant to placate his more honorable son. If Hew knew that Odger had put Jessimond and Johnnie into Meg's custody for his own reasons and intended them to stay there, so did Ivo. Given Odger's nearly absolute control of this place, it seemed unlikely that the bailiff would have allowed either of Meg's wards to leave that kitchen, not if it meant losing what little control he had over the bakestress.
"So, do you say that after Gawne hadn't found Jes on his first day of searching, your bailiff let him try again for a second day?" Faucon asked in another carefully crafted question. "That seems out of character for Odger, at least from what I've seen of him."
The smith looked at Faucon. "Odger knew none of what Gawne was doing. Our bailiff had left Wike the day before Jes disappeared. His wife is from Coctune and her mother lingers in her final ailment. Odger only returned to Wike the morning after Jes went missing because Meg sent for him. He issued his orders to us, then returned to his wife's family where he stayed until yestermorn, when we again sent for him after Gawne told us Jes was in the well.
"And you weren't concerned when your son didn't return from the woods after his second day of searching?" his Crowner asked.
"He did return," Ivo replied, looking startled by this.
"If that's so, then he returned to the forest once you slept," Faucon said, unwilling to offer more, not when doing so meant revealing Gawne's relationship with Hew.
"You're wrong," Ivo insisted, then shifted to look at his older boys. "He was home all night before he woke us with cries about Jes being in the well. Right, lads?"
Dob looked uncertain. "As far as I know, aye."
Rauf offered a guilty shrug. "He wasn't home, Da," he said quietly.
"Rauf! You knew Gawne was outside our walls at night and you didn't tell me?" Ivo cried, sounding more shocked than angry that his son hadn't been honest with him.
"He said it was important and that he wouldn't be alone," Rauf protested. "I only vowed that I'd say nothing to you as long as you didn't notice he was gone. I warned him, Da, that if you asked after him, I'd tell all."
"You should have told me, no matter what," Ivo retorted. Again, his chide was no more than gentle words, one that would have once again earned him his neighbors' scorn.
"What can you tell me about the night that Jessimond fled the kitchen?" Faucon asked, leading them in a new direction. "Can you recall anything unusual happening anywhere in Wike on that night?"
Yet frowning over the misbehavior of his sons, Ivo shook his head. "It was a night like any other," he replied.
Dob laughed at that. He was a handsome lad when he smiled. "What say you, brother? Was it a night like any other?"
That drove the guilt from Rauf's face. He grinned. "Too much wine," was all he said.
"Da, it isn't often that you lose yourself in your cup," Dob said, wagging his finger like a scold. Then he sent a wink in his Crowner's direction. "Da's plum wine had finished fermenting and he had a sip or two more than he should have. How he groaned about his aching head the
next morning!"
Ivo gave his elder son a friendly cuff to the back of his head that sent the boy's brown hair flying forward around his face. "Have a care with my secrets, son. I can't help it that I have a fondness for plums."
"And I thank our Lord for that," Rauf offered with another quiet grin. "You should drink it more often even if you end up sleeping in our doorway when you do. Your slumber was so sound that night that you didn't snore for hours."
"What of your neighbors? Did anything unusual occur when you might have expected them all to be within doors?" Faucon pressed, now looking at the younger smiths.
But it was Ivo who replied. "We wouldn't know. Once we bank coals in the box and leave the smithy for the night, we've all of Mille's—" his voice caught on his dead wife's name "—tasks to do. It falls to me to make certain we eat while the boys care for our stock and tend our garden as they can. Once we're inside our door, we see nothing more of the outside world until the sun rises again."
"I am ready, Sir Faucon," Edmund announced from where he now sat on one of the stools taken from beneath the workbench. The length of wood he used as a traveling desk was in his lap, a span of parchment stretched across its wooden top. He held the skin flat with one hand while in the other was an ink-stained quill. Behind him, arranged in a precise line along the edge of the workbench, were his tools, knife, inkhorn, extra quills, and a bag of sand.
Without waiting for his Crowner's permission, Edmund looked at the smiths. "State your names so I may note them," he commanded.
By the time Edmund had restored his tools and parchment to his basket, Ivo and his sons were back at their anvil, hammering at their half-formed tool. Just outside the shed, Johnnie paced, every jerk of his body transmitting his impatience. Each time he passed Faucon his gaze would move from his Crowner to the forest's edge.
"As you will," Faucon said to the mute once Edmund had his basket on his back. "Lead us to your sister."
Johnnie immediately swiveled toward the pale. Again, as he walked he threw no backward look to see that he was followed. Faucon wondered if this was because the simpleton trusted his Crowner to come along, or if Johnnie lacked the capacity to doubt. Across the stubbled and furrowed fields they went, Johnnie leading the way at his awkward pace until he reached the hatch Gawne had used yesterday when he escaped Odger. The gate in the wooden pale was foreshortened and narrow to prevent deer from fleeing the forest for Wike's fields. As such any man wanting to enter the king's woodlands had to do so one at a time, with his head lowered and his back bent.
With an ease that said he'd done this often enough, the half-wit opened the little gate and ducked through it. Once on the other side, he tiptoed without hesitation across the narrow plank bridge, the one Gawne must have yesterday kicked off the embankment as he made his escape. That it again spanned the deep ditch said Wike's folk had come this way to enter the woods.
As Faucon watched through the narrow opening, Johnnie turned to the west, again moving off without a backward look. Alf followed Johnnie, almost folding himself in half to pass through the hatch. The soldier paused on the opposite side of the ditch as if he meant to wait for his master and the monk. His view framed by the opening, Faucon waved Alf to move on as he waited for Edmund to pass through the pale ahead of him.
A moment passed, then another. Still, Edmund didn't move.
Faucon came to stand alongside his clerk. The monk stared through the hatch, his gaze locked onto the three lashed planks that bridged the deep gap. His hands were wrapped so tightly around the strap of his basket that his knuckles were white. There was aught in his expression that suggested the monk liked that makeshift passageway as much as his employer liked the water in the well.
"Will you cross?" Faucon prodded gently.
His clerk made a strangled sound. "I—" Edmund started. He looked at his employer and almost pleaded, "Is there no other way?"
Faucon nodded. "There is, but you'll like it no better than what is before you. Yesterday, the bailiff went through the holly." He gestured toward the hedge Odger had pierced and that had surely pierced him in return as he exited. "I speculate, but I suspect that yon shrubbery hides yet another bridge such as this," he offered with a shrug. Then before Edmund could reply, Faucon continued. "There's a third option, one that might please you better than the first two. Now that you've taken oaths from the smiths and made note of what we've learned thus far, there's no need for you to be here in Wike or the forest, not until the jury is called. As of the now, I don't expect to do that until late this evening or perhaps even the morrow."
"But we've yet to find that old man," Edmund started.
Faucon held up a hand to forestall his clerk's protest. "I agreed last even to meet Hew sometime over the course of this day. When I do, I can take his oath. You can note that he's given it at the same time you record the names of the jurors at the inquest. Why not return to Alcester and spend your day in the abbey's chapel?"
Much to his surprise, his offer didn't win him the gratitude he expected from the monk. Instead, Edmund shot him a hurt look, dragged in a deep breath and hurtled through the open gate. He clattered across the planks at top speed. With nothing holding the ends of the bridge in place, it bounced precariously on either bank as the monk ran. An instant later Edmund was beyond Faucon's view.
Faucon followed, albeit at a more moderate pace. As he crossed, he glanced into the ditch. A ladder leaned against the slope, suggesting that retrieving the planks from the ditch was a frequent chore.
Edmund had stopped well beyond the gateway. His basket lay on the ground while the monk had his hands braced on his thighs. He was bent in half, gasping for breath as Alf and Johnnie continued on ahead of him, already a good distance into the king's lands.
Coming to a stop beside the monk, Faucon looked around him, grinning in delight. The air that filled his lungs was lush with that particular spice that was autumn, one that held hints of dying leaves and an earth made richer by their passing. The foresters who served their monarch had laid a heavy hand on these lands, or at least in this area. He saw it in the unnatural spacing of the mature trees and the flexible withe panels—protection from ravaging deer—wrapped around the saplings chosen to one day take the places of their parents once their elders were harvested.
Not far from where he and Edmund stood, this grassy meadow gave way to something a little more shaded and tangled. There holly, elderberry, and blackthorn had been allowed to grow as they would, their feet buried deep in bracken and felled trees. These natural hedges and thick barriers were intended to supply hiding places and dens for those creatures that both Man and Beast loved to hunt.
When Edmund realized his employer was waiting for him he waved for Faucon to move on. "Go," he gasped. "I'll follow in a moment."
"If you're certain," Faucon replied. His comment only won him another wave of Edmund's hand.
Setting out at a trot after the two men ahead of him, Faucon's pleasure grew as he moved deeper into this place. His footfalls startled sleeping hedgehogs and sent mice skittering into the fallen leaves. Overhead, squirrels chided as the last of the season's birds darted among the almost barren branches.
If Faucon needed proof that Odger had brought Wike's folk this way, he found it in the shoe- and footprints left in the moist soil of the path and in the wide swath of trampled grasses along its verge. But human spoor wasn't all he saw. Badger, fox, and weasel had all come this way since the rain. Although he found no mark of deer, Faucon knew as well as any man that these woods were stocked with both red and roe. And boar. Oh, to have a bow in his hands and a day of his own to spend as he wished!
Still reveling in both his longing and the joy that accompanied it, Faucon came abreast of Alf. Ahead of them, Johnnie moved steadily forward at his strange pace, looking neither right nor left as he went.
"You won't get it," Alf said, shooting his Crowner a swift glance as Faucon matched his stride.
Faucon blinked, startled out of his pleasure. "Won
't get what?" he asked, looking at the soldier.
"The murdrum fine," Alf replied, this time without turning his head to meet his Crowner's gaze.
That brought Faucon up short. Alf stopped with him, watching his better in unguarded amusement. For the briefest of instants, Faucon considered challenging the commoner's assertion with the king's name, then thought the better of it.
"Why not?" he demanded instead.
Alf cocked his head, yet wearing his amusement openly. "Because the moment their bailiff realizes that's what you're after, he'll force some man to claim he fathered the girl. If I were that headman, I'd claim her myself and take my punishment to avoid what you want to press on him," the tall commoner replied. His tone suggested that this was so plain he was surprised his new master hadn't considered it.
And of course it was that plain. Faucon grimaced and released a frustrated breath. He'd let himself be carried away by Edmund's rigid and uncompromising honesty, when Wike was an underhanded and sly place, a den of lies and liars.
As Alf read his employer's expression, he grinned. It was a snaggle-toothed smile. "Well then, if you're set on collecting that fine, you'd best be very circumspect," he warned. "It's in your favor that the smiths don't seem to have realized what you won from them with their oaths. More importantly, even if they do suspect, they won't have an opportunity to speak to their bailiff until he returns with his folk. Which, if it were me," Alf added, narrowing one eye as if calculating, "won't be until dark has fallen, after you've retreated and the smiths have retired behind their own walls. That is, if this bailiff is doing his best to avoid you."
Faucon laughed at that. That was one sign he hadn't misread. But murdrum fine or no, he'd see that Odger's ploy cost him. Given what he now understood of Jessimond's murder, that price would still be far more than the bailiff expected to pay. "Avoiding me he most surely is, much to his detriment."
"Just know that he'll defend himself by saying the corpse had gone missing, then rightly claim that without a body no jury could be called," Alf warned. "He'll offer the same ploy on the morrow, taking his folk away, if he can."
Lost Innocents (A Servant of the Crown Mystery Book 3) Page 15
