Emma was staring at her, an expression of outrage on her face. Fortunately, Hugh understood the question. 'We need to know as much as you can tell us if we are to help you find out the truth,' he said.
Janna felt encouraged by his use of the word 'we'. It prompted her to explain further. 'It's important that we find out just where he was murdered, and if his body was moved afterwards,' she said. 'It could give us some insight into his killer's movements and maybe even who the killer might be.'
Emma blinked. 'Yes, I saw Anselm,' 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 red 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.
'The priest was with him, he'd been called to say the last rites, to anoint him and give him absolution. But he was too late, I know it. 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 here 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 get up yet, my lord, not until your wound is quite healed,' Janna said quickly. '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 dower. Where was that to come from, do you know?'
'No.'
'From a win at gambling, perhaps?'
Emma jerked upright, looking both startled and dismayed.
'He might have thought, if he increased Mistress Emma's dower, that you might be more willing to wed his sister, sire.' Janna turned to Hugh.
Hugh groaned aloud. 'Are you saying both Emma and I are responsible for what has happened to Anselm?'
Janna realised she was about to flounder 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 favour, he would not have attacked you.'
Hugh nodded thoughtfully. 'So the attack on me and the attack on Anselm are definitely not related?'
'That may be so, but it doesn't help to exonerate Peter from this crime!' Emma said impatiently, her concern not only with justice for her brother, but also for her lover.
'I'm not sure if the attacks are related or not,' Janna said slowly. She was feeling her way towards the truth. She thought she could see a glimmer of it, but not in any form that made much sense as yet.
'Both Anselm and I were attacked with a knife – or a dagger,' Hugh mused. 'That makes some sort of connection, doesn't it?'
'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 might find out about this.'
'Sire . . .' Janna protested, but Hugh already had hold of his clothes, which had been freshly laundered while he was lying abed.
He grinned at her, and mimed lifting his shirt. Recognising that he'd made up his mind, 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 the young woman.
'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'm afraid I hardly had a chance to look at him before I fled the scene 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 said I knew 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. 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.
Even in her misery she looked beautiful. 'Not a fright, just very distressed. But 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 dirty water beside her, she was doing what she could to clean away the blood and muck from the ditch to 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,' she scolded Hugh.
'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 recognised 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.
Save for the jagged gash across his throat and a nose still red and swollen from its earlier contact with Peter's fist, Anselm's face looked unmarked and peaceful. Janna raised the sheet that covered him and peered at the naked body beneath.
'Sister Johanna!' Sister Anne looked absolutely scandalised. Janna quickly dropped the sheet.
'I'm looking for scratches or bruises, anything that might tell us if there was a fight before he died. If there was, his assailant might also bear the marks of it,' she explained hurriedly.
'There was nothing to see. I would have noticed while I was washing him,' Sister Anne said stiffly.
'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 . . .?'
Emma thought about it. 'No. I can't think of any reason 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 recognise, 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 up 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 his wager for he seemed in great distress.'
'Could he, perhaps, have been unable to pay his debts?' 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 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. She has a keen eye and a quick mind, that I know from past experience, and she may well see something that the steward has missed.'
Janna flashed Hugh a grateful glance, while 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 flung out a hand to indicate a pile of bloodstained garments on a nearby bench.
'May I?' But Janna didn't wait for Emma's nod of acceptance. She moved across and 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 he'd 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?' she asked.
'No, I did not. I wondered about it at the time, but I'm afraid it went out of my head once I started to tend 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.
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. She glanced at Sister Anne, and wondered how best to put forward her most convincing argument. For Janna was determined that, when Hugh and Emma left the abbey to pursue the killer, she would accompany them.
'I've had some thoughts about who may be responsible for Anselm's death,' she said, once Hugh had gone back to bed in the infirmary and they were alone there with Emma. Janna had hurriedly mixed up a potion to give him, for he was pale and drawn. The effort of going down to the chapel to view Anselm had obviously taken a toll on his resilience. She handed him the mug, and he drank the potion down.
'Thank you.' He gave her back the mug, and closed his eyes with a grateful sigh. 'Tell me who is in your mind?' he invited, as he stretched out to make himself comfortable.
'I think it was someone known to Master Anselm. I think it might have been Odo.'
'Odo?' Hugh opened his eyes again.
'Odo?' Emma echoed.
Janna nodded, and turned to her. 'I believe that, at some stage, your brother must have won some money at the cockfights. There is no reason for his purse to be taken else.'
'You can't blame Odo for that,' Emma objected. 'It may have happened that Anselm saw the thief cut his purse and chased after him – and was murdered for it. It could have been anyone.'
'I don't think so. If Anselm saw the thief and chased after him, he would have drawn his dagger, he would have been armed and on his guard.' Janna paused to order her argument. 'No, I believe Anselm knew the thief and that was why he had to be silenced. I also believe he was taken by surprise, and by someone he trusted, for he made no effort to arm or defend himself before his throat was cut.'
Odo – or Peter Thatcher? Her comments could apply to either man, but she knew Emma would hear nothing against her beloved. That possibility was something she must discuss later with Hugh, when they were alone.
'It could be that Odo met Anselm, either by chance or arrangement, near the ditch where he was found,' she hurried on. 'Your brother would have had no cause for concern, no reason to fear a man he knew well, which is why there are no signs of a fight. The attack, when it came, must have been sudden and completely unexpected. Odo had to kill your brother before he could take his purse, for he could not leave him alive to bear witness. But he cut the purse off afterwards, to make us think it was the work of a common thief.'
'If that is so, the purse will be stained with Anselm's blood!' Forgetting his wound in the excitement of the chase, Hugh jerked upright. He subsided with a groan. Sweat broke out across his forehead. Janna hoped the sudden movement hadn't torn apart the newly healing skin.
'We must go after Odo,' Emma said with determination. 'Hugh . . .' Her voice trailed away as she noticed his pallor.
'I'll come with you,' Janna said quickly. 'Th
e fair is over and people are already leaving Wiltune. We must make haste.'
'It's not safe for you to go alone. I'm coming with you.' Hugh swept aside the blanket that covered him, revealing a shirt stained with fresh blood.
'No, sire, you are not.' Sister Anne had entered the cubicle and taken in the situation with one glance. 'Look at the damage you have caused by rising from your bed too soon! You must rest and give that wound a chance to heal or I will not answer for the consequences.'
'I can go in my lord's place,' Janna said quickly, adding, 'if you will give me permission to leave the abbey, Sister?'
The infirmarian looked somewhat doubtful.
'Please!' Emma was anxious to be gone, but fearful of carrying out her task alone.
'You have taken no vows, you have merely sought safety here in the abbey?' Sister Anne questioned Janna.
'Yes.'
'Then you are free to leave whenever you will. But . . .' Sister Anne checked Janna's rush to the door. 'But if you leave, you may not find it quite so easy to return.'
'Why not?' Hugh demanded, before Janna could say anything. 'Surely the pursuit of truth and justice is all part of carrying out God's work?'
Sister Anne nodded thoughtfully. 'There is some merit in what you say,' she conceded.
'Then let Sister Johanna accompany Mistress Emma, for there are questions to be asked before those who might be able to answer them leave Wiltune. They must make haste, Sister! There is no time to lose.' Hugh cast an uncertain glance at Janna. 'But I beg you to be careful,' he said slowly. 'Both of you. And especially you, Johanna.'
ELEVEN
JANNA FELT AN exhilarating sense of freedom as they left the abbey. Nevertheless, she couldn't resist a nervous glance over her shoulder as they came to the site of the fair. There were still a number of people about, those who were busy demolishing booths and stalls, plus some of the traders who'd occupied them and were now busy packing away their goods and loading them onto sumpter horses or stacking them onto carts.
Lilies for Love Page 16
