Unholy Murder: The Janna Chronicles 3

by Felicity Pulman

  “I am so afraid for Peter,” she quavered. “You see, we weren’t careful enough to stay hidden. Anselm saw him at the fair with me and, before I could say aught, he charged up to us like a war horse at full gallop. He noticed my lily ring and asked about it. Knowing how angry he would be, I tried to pass it off as a trifle, but Peter faced up to him and said it was a gift of love, to mark our betrothal.”

  Emma scrubbed at the new tears leaking from her eyes. “My brother had taken too much ale and was wild with it. He started to shout at Peter, calling him all sorts of foul names. He said he was lowborn, good for nothing; he berated him for taking advantage of me. Finally, Peter couldn’t take it any longer, and he turned on Anselm. He gave him a bloody nose. It was only that I shrieked and came between them that the fight was stopped. But there were witnesses, and the hue and cry has now gone out for Peter.”

  “But he has not been taken?”

  “No. At least, not as far as I know.”

  “Do you know where he is?”

  “No.” Even Janna, who did not know her, could see that she lied.

  Emma began to cry again. “Don’t think my tears and my concern are all for Peter,” she said. “I mourn my brother; oh, I weep for him! I know we’ve had our differences, but he is everything to me, he is my only family, he was the greatest part of my life!”

  Janna could see that Hugh, too, was struggling to contain his emotion. “I am full of remorse that we parted on bad terms,” he said now. “I should have gone after him, tried to talk some sense into him!”

  Janna thought Hugh was missing the point, but forgave him for it.

  Nevertheless, she knew the question had to be asked. “Do you believe that Peter is responsible for Anselm’s death?”

  “No!” Emma’s denial came without thought. She paused. “No, I do not believe he could ever do such a thing,” she said more slowly. “True, he was upset and very annoyed, but we talked it through and decided we would go to our lord and ask for his support, as Hugh suggested we should. I’m sure Peter believed, as I did, that there was still a chance we might persuade Anselm to accept our betrothal. Besides, Peter is a villein, and tied to our lord. He knows the penalty for killing, or even injuring, a free man, a Norman. He would pay with his life.” Emma gave a sudden shiver. “He is not guilty of this, I swear it!”

  “How did your brother die?” Janna cast a quick glance at Hugh, worried that she was overstepping the bounds of propriety. He gave her a nod of encouragement. They waited for Emma to answer.

  “He…he was slaughtered like an animal!” She gave a hiccupping sob of outrage. “His throat was cut, and he was left to bleed to death in a ditch.”

  “Where? What ditch?”

  Emma looked a little bewildered by the question. “It was—it runs on one side of the marketmede,” she said slowly. “It’s near the cockfighting pit.”

  “Did you see your brother actually lying there, in the ditch? Did you notice anything unusual at the scene?” Janna knew she must sound unsympathetic, but the question was important. When first her mother and then her pet cat had been killed, she’d worked out the truth of their deaths from blood stains, confusing at first the stains of red wine with the blood pooled beneath the animal.

  Emma stared at her with an expression of outrage. Fortunately, Hugh understood the reasoning behind the questions. “We need to know as much as you can tell us so we can help you find out the truth,” he said.

  Janna felt encouraged by his use of the word “we.” It prompted her to explain further. “Forgive my questions, mistress, but it’s important to find out just where he was murdered, and if his body was moved afterward,” she said. “It could give us some insight into his killer’s movements, and maybe even tell us who the killer might be.”

  Emma blinked. “Yes, I saw Anselm’s body,” she said slowly. She put her hands to her eyes as if to ward off the sight of her dead brother. “There was…there was so much blood. So much! His clothes were soaked scarlet with it.”

  “Was there any blood on the ground outside the ditch? Any drag marks, or anything else to indicate he may have been killed elsewhere and his body taken there and dumped?”

  Emma shuddered. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “I didn’t think to look.”

  “I’ll go and have a look around as soon as I can leave here,” Hugh promised.

  Janna nodded. “What happened after you saw your brother, after you identified him?” she asked.

  “A priest was with him; he’d been called to say the last rites, to anoint Anselm and give him absolution. But he was too late. My brother died unshriven.” Tears streamed freely down Emma’s face. “The priest asked one of the guards to summon the steward. There were no witnesses to what had happened, but the steward has questioned the man who raised the hue and cry after Peter. The man is from our manor, he knows us all, and that is why the guard came to find me.” Emma wiped her eyes and nose on the sleeve of her gown, and swallowed hard. “I wish we’d never come to the fair!” she wailed. “I was so looking forward to it, it was such a treat. If only we’d known what awaited us here!” She broke into despairing sobs once more.

  Janna exchanged glances with Hugh. “I’ll go and talk to the steward,” he said. Setting Emma gently to one side, he swung his legs out of the bed, ready to put his thoughts into action. “I’ll also talk to the witness, and to Peter—if you can find him, Emma?” His slight emphasis on the word brought a blush to her face. She gave a reluctant nod. “And perhaps I should also have a look at Anselm, in case there’s anything about his injuries that might tell us something about his assassin?”

  “You need not look far for that, my lord.” Emma’s voice was thick, choked with tears. “He has been brought here, to the abbey. The porteress told me that Anselm will be kept in the mortuary chapel until such time as the steward has finished his enquiries and allows us to take him back to our manor for burial.”

  “You should not leave your bed yet, my lord, not until your wound is quite healed,” Janna said firmly. “I’ll go to the chapel. I can tell you everything I find out.” Something Emma had said on her previous visit came into Janna’s mind. She wondered if it had any bearing on what had just happened. “Mistress, one more question, if I may?” she asked. “You mentioned before that Anselm had promised you a larger dowry. Where was that to come from, do you know?”

  “No, I do not.”

  “From a win at gambling, perhaps?” Janna suggested.

  Emma jerked upright, looking both startled and dismayed.

  Janna turned to Hugh. “He may have thought, if he increased Mistress Emma’s dowry, that you might be more willing to wed his sister, my lord.” Hugh groaned aloud. “Are you saying both Emma and I are responsible for what has happened to Anselm?”

  Janna realized she was in deeper waters than she’d expected; certainly much further than she’d intended to go. Nevertheless, she felt it important to continue. “I am saying, my lord, that if Anselm meant to buy your favor, he would not have attacked you.”

  Hugh nodded thoughtfully. “So the attack on me and the death of Anselm are definitely not related?”

  “It would seem so. The fact that Anselm was probably murdered close to the cockfighting ring indicates that his death might well have been related to his ill-fortune at gambling.”

  “None of this helps to exonerate Peter from this crime!” Emma said impatiently, her concern not only with justice for her brother, but also for her lover.

  “Both Anselm and I were attacked with a knife or a dagger,” Hugh mused. “Doesn’t that make some sort of connection?”

  “Every man I know, whether freeborn or villein, owns a knife or a dagger, or both,” Janna pointed out.

  “Peter owns a knife, a dagger, and other cutting implements besides. It is his trade,” Emma said bleakly.

  “Then let us see what else we can find out.” Hugh now had hold of his clothes, which had been laundered while he was lying abed.

  “My lord,
” Janna protested. He grinned at her, and mimed lifting his shirt. Recognizing defeat, Janna took Emma’s arm and led her from the cubicle so Hugh could dress. “Would you like me to make up a potion to soothe you?” she asked.

  “No!” Emma shrugged her off. “No, I thank you,” she continued more calmly. “I beg your pardon for answering sharply, mistress—Sister.” She cast a quick, bemused glance at Janna’s habit. “I’m not myself at present. But I will come with you to see Anselm, to…to pay my respects. I hardly had a chance to look at him before I fled from the ditch to be sick.” She shuddered, the horror still fresh in her mind. “After that, my only thought was to find Peter. I knew the steward would raise the hue and cry once he learned about the fight.”

  “You told him to hide himself?”

  Emma nodded. Her eyes were bleak as a storm-filled sky as she said, “I suggested he leave Wiltune immediately, flee back to our manor and hide in a—a tumbledown barn where we used to meet…privately. I told him I’d talk to someone who might be able to help us, and that I’d come back to find him as soon as it was safe, once the man responsible for my brother’s death was safely locked away. And then I came straight here to find Hugh.” She straightened her rumpled kirtle, then raised trembling hands to her veil, which was also much awry. “I must look a fright,” she whispered, as she adjusted its folds.

  “Not a fright, just very distressed. But you may be sure, mistress, that my lord will do all in his power to help you, as will I,” Janna comforted her.

  *

  As they entered the mortuary chapel, Janna steeled herself for her first sight of Anselm. She remembered, only too vividly, the death of her cat, what it had looked like after its throat had been cut. A shiver of distress ran through her at the memory.

  Sister Anne was already there, bent over the dead youth. By the look of the cloth she wielded and the basin of stained water beside her, she was doing what she could to clean away the blood and muck from the ditch and make the body more presentable. She glanced up as they approached.

  “Come and help me, Johanna,” she said, then straightened slowly as she noticed who else was present. “My lord, you should not be up and walking about.”

  “I had to come, Sister.” Hugh gestured at Anselm. “My dearest friend lies here and I have sworn to do what I may to avenge his death.”

  Sister Anne looked thoughtful. Then she beckoned him closer. Janna and Emma followed Hugh, and all bent over to inspect Anselm. Janna drew a breath of surprise as she recognized his face. This was the desperate youth she’d seen at the cockfight. She’d wondered if he would wager his soul, and now it seemed that he had. Pity washed through her at the terrible waste of his life, and the havoc his death might yet wreak on the innocent.

  There was a jagged gash across his throat, while his nose was bruised and swollen from its earlier contact with Peter’s fist. Signs of a fight were unmistakable on Anselm’s face, but had he suffered any other wounds? Janna raised the sheet that covered Anselm and peered at his naked body beneath.

  “Sister Johanna!” Sister Anne looked absolutely scandalized. Janna quickly dropped the sheet.

  “I’m looking for scratches or bruises, or any signs that he might have tried to defend himself. If he did, his assailant might bear the marks of it,” she explained hurriedly.

  “There’s nothing to see. I would have noticed while I was washing him,” Sister Anne said stiffly.

  Janna inspected Anselm’s arms, then picked up his hands, one by one, paying special attention to his nails. “I can’t see any skin fragments, or blood, or bruising on his arms. It seems he made no effort to defend himself. Either he was taken by surprise, or he knew his assailant.” She looked at Emma.

  “It wasn’t Peter. And it wasn’t me, either!”

  “No! No, of course not. But you mentioned someone who raised the hue and cry, someone who knows you all. Could he have any reason to…?”

  Emma thought about it. “No. I can’t think why Odo would want Anselm dead.”

  “Do you know him well enough to be sure?”

  “I know him as well as anyone else on the manor. He’s been there as long as I have, probably longer in fact, for I think he was born there. He is but a villein, but I believe he is liked and trusted by all.”

  “Is anyone else here from your manor?” Hugh asked.

  Emma shook her head. “I haven’t seen anyone I recognize, but there was such a crowd at the fair that anyone could hide if he didn’t want to be seen.”

  “Can you think of anyone, anyone at all, who might wish Anselm harm?”

  “No. No, I cannot. You know what he was like, Hugh.” Emma gazed at him with tear-filled eyes. “Everyone loved him.”

  Except Peter Thatcher, Janna added silently.

  “You yourself said that he’d got into bad company, and that he was drinking too much,” Hugh reminded her. “Could it be that a drunken fight got out of hand?”

  Emma shrugged sadly, but didn’t reply.

  “I noticed him at the cockfighting pit on the first day of the fair,” Janna said, thinking it was time to reveal what she’d seen. “I think he’d just lost a wager, for he seemed in great distress.”

  “Could he have owed money to someone?” Emma asked, ready to clutch at any straw that might be offered. “Could this be a money-lender’s revenge?” “No, no, it’s nothing like that.” Sister Anne was bursting to tell what she knew. “I heard that he got in a fight over a young woman. The steward seeks his assailant even now. ’Tis said the woman is very beautiful. The pity of it is that such beauty would so inflame men’s passions as to lead them to—Why are you pulling such faces at me, Johanna? I beg you to remember that you are in the house of God.”

  Janna was sorry she’d called attention to herself, yet was relieved that she had, at least, succeeded in stopping the nun’s prattle. She couldn’t help feeling amused by the revelation that Sister Anne, too, was not averse to listening to gossip, yet she was sorry that Emma was there to hear it.

  “She’s pulling faces because this is the young man’s sister.” Hugh indicated Emma standing silently beside him. “The fight was between her brother and…and her betrothed.”

  “Oh, mistress, I do beg your pardon!” Sister Anne clasped her hands together, unconsciously praying for forgiveness.

  “Where are Master Anselm’s clothes?” Janna asked, feeling sympathy for the infirmarian’s embarrassment and seeking to divert attention from it. “Maybe they can tell us something.”

  Sister Anne drew herself upright, her body rigid with disapproval. “’Tis the steward’s task to investigate this terrible crime,” she said frostily.

  “Please, Sister, allow Johanna to do whatever she may to help us understand what has happened this day. I know, from past experience, that she has a keen eye and a quick mind, and she may well see something that the steward has missed.”

  Janna flashed Hugh a grateful glance; the glow of his approval heated her cheeks.

  Sister Anne studied her thoughtfully while she made up her mind. “Over there,” she said at last, and pointed at a pile of bloodstained garments on a nearby bench.

  “May I?” But Janna didn’t wait for Emma’s nod of acceptance. She picked up Anselm’s soiled tunic, inspected it carefully and then turned her attention to his hose. She learned nothing from the garments, and looked around for his belt. A blood-stained sheath hung from it, and Janna drew out the dagger safely concealed within. It looked clean enough. Janna sheathed it and glanced about for a purse or scrip, for Anselm would surely have had some sort of pouch to carry his money and possessions. But there was only a cut string. Janna remembered the cutpurse she’d seen on the first day of the fair, and wondered if the youth had grown more desperate as the days progressed. If so, he would have to answer to a crime far worse than theft.

  “My lord,” she called to Hugh. Emma followed him over, and Janna showed them what she’d found. “Did you see any sign of a purse when you undressed Master Anselm, Sister Anne?�
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  “No, I did not. I wondered about it at the time, but I’m afraid it went out of my head once I saw the state of this poor young man.” Sister Anne fussed with the sheet, rearranging it carefully around Anselm’s shoulders and tucking it in to make sure no-one else would be tempted to take a peek underneath.

  Janna told Hugh and Emma about the cutpurse she’d seen. “My guess is that your brother won some money at the cockfights after all,” she told Emma. “No-one would bother to steal his purse else.”

  “But why didn’t the robber just cut his purse and run away? Why kill him?” Emma wailed.

  Janna could think of one very good reason, but she didn’t say it out loud, not in front of Sister Anne. She waited while Hugh and Emma bowed their heads and said a prayer for the dead man. She would talk to them later, and see if they agreed with her opinion. Meanwhile she needed to come up with an argument convincing enough to gain permission to leave the abbey. When Hugh and Emma left to pursue the killer, she would accompany them.

  *

  “I’ve had some thoughts about who may be responsible for Anselm’s death,” Janna said, once she and Emma had escorted Hugh back to the infirmary. She’d hurriedly mixed up a potion to give him, for he was pale and drawn, the effort of going down to the chapel having taken a toll on his resilience. She handed him the mug, and he drank the potion down.

  “Thank you.” He handed it back, and closed his eyes with a grateful sigh. “Tell me what’s on your mind?” he said, as he stretched out to make himself comfortable.

  “I think Anselm was killed because he knew the thief who cut his purse. I believe the thief may have been Odo.”

  “Odo?” Hugh opened his eyes again.

  “Odo?” Emma echoed.

  Janna nodded, and turned to her. “Your brother must have had coins in his purse for it to have been taken.”

  “But why blame Odo for that?” Emma objected. “It may be that Anselm saw the thief cut his purse and chased after him—and was murdered for it. It could have been anyone.”