The King's Riddle

by Maureen Ash

  Once Leofwine was seated and provided with ale, Estrid recounted all that had been said that morning, and he listened throughout without comment. When she had done, he leaned back and blew out a hearty breath.

  “Rufus was right to ask you to investigate this murder. In just one morning you have learned more than I ever expected.”

  “The credit is not due to me, Leofwine, but to Tilde. If she had not taken me to Kendra’s house, we would have been hard pressed to uncover even one suspect, let alone three. And please remember that finding clues does not mean the mystery is solved. It is quite possible that none of these people were involved in the poisoning.”

  Leofwine gave her an engaging grin and pretended to be suitably chastened, but she could see by the mischief gleaming in his eyes that he was enjoying their repartee.

  Estrid maintained her serious demeanour and asked if he knew the identity of the knight named Gui that had been in the company of fitzRanulf on an occasion when he had met Alfreda.

  The English soldier shook his head. “There are many Normans who are called that,” he said, “but none that I have heard of in association with fitzRanulf.”

  Estrid had not really expected him to know more—Guillaume had proved to be a common first name among the invaders, now often Anglicised to William. “But fitzRanulf will know,” Leofwine added. “I will tell fitzHaimo about this knight when I take your report so he can ask him who it is.”

  Estrid nodded and then turned to Tilde. “Can you tell us anything of Sweyn and Redwald, the two suitors who made a bid for Alfreda’s hand?

  “Only a little. I know them both by sight and reputation, not from personal contact. Sweyn is a handsome young man, eldest son of a farmer who holds one of the larger plots of land from the Archbishopric. Because of this, he thinks a great deal of himself and struts around in the manner of a lordly cockerel. But, while his pride may have been hurt by Siward’s rejection of his suit, I suspect that for all his effrontery he is, at heart, a coward, and doubt whether he would have the courage to commit murder.

  “The widower, Redwald, is of a very different type to Sweyn,” she continued. “The crocks he makes are much sought after and, as a consequence, he is a man of good means, but he is reserved in manner and never flaunts his success. Again, I do not think he is of a nature to take such a revenge as killing Alfreda because of Siward’s callous rejection of his offer to wed her. But, having said that, I must admit that it does sometimes happen that quiet men, when deeply hurt, can be roused to great anger, so I suppose it might be possible.”

  Estrid nodded. Tilde was proving invaluable in providing information that might help to solve this puzzle. She was perceptive and observant, and Estrid was grateful for her assistance.

  “And the two girls, Rowena and Nelda, that Maud claimed were jealous of Alfreda?” she asked.

  “Of them I know a little more,” Tilde said. “Rowena is the reeve’s daughter, and a malicious little piece. Even though I was not aware she was envious of Alfreda, it does not surprise me that she felt that way. She is not an ill-favoured girl—in fact, she is very pretty—but any loveliness she possesses is spoiled by her vanity. She is ever on the lookout for any who do not give her the admiration she believes is her due and is not averse to using any spiteful means she can find to ensure she receives it. But as for going so far as to poison a girl she saw as a rival? My honest answer is that I do not know.”

  “And the other girl, Nelda?” Estrid asked.

  “She is supposedly Rowena’s friend, but I would guess it is more because Rowena demands it than that Nelda truly likes her. Nelda is not very pretty, being sallow skinned and a little too plump, so she makes a suitable foil for Rowena to have alongside her own beauty, which is probably why she wants her company.”

  “Maud inferred that Nelda’s father was also of some importance,” Estrid said. “What is his status?”

  “Mostly that he is a toady to Reeve Osric,” Tilde replied. “His name is Gifel, and he owns a boat on which, for a fee, he will deliver excess produce the farmers in the village have sold to buyers in other parts of Kent. Due to Osric’s friendship, many use his service rather than one of the other men who have boats for hire so as to ensure they are in good standing with the reeve.”

  “And Osric, what sort of a man is he? Was he elected by the villagers or was he appointed?”

  “He was appointed by the bailiff that oversees the lands in Maidstone held by the Archbishopric. But even though he was not elected, he is competent and would most likely have been the choice of the village if they had been consulted. As to his nature, he is shrewd, but not unkind and, apart from his showing favour for Gifel, gives a fair hearing to any complaints that are brought to him.”

  Estrid leaned back in her chair. Tilde’s description of the interplay between the villagers in Maidstone might not, in some instances, be a pleasant one, but it was not unusual. As is common wherever men and women gather to live together, some are greedy, some not, some eager for power and others content to ply their trade in obscurity, their only aim to earn enough livelihood to keep their families fed and housed. It had been the same in her father’s day, and undoubtedly had been so before that, and likely would continue in a similar fashion down through all of the ages that the Good Lord in heaven allowed mankind to exist.

  She stood up from her stool. “We must hope that somewhere among all this information there is a trail that will lead us to the poisoner. Perhaps, if good fortune is with us, it will be revealed when we attend Alfreda’s funeral procession tomorrow.”

  CHAPTER 9

  Estrid, Judith and Tilde left early the next morning to attend the funeral. This time they chose to walk instead of ride, for they wished to blend in unobtrusively with the crowd that were sure to gather for the occasion so as to observe in a covert fashion any of the suspects that might be there. Donning light summer cloaks they stepped out onto the road into the village finding that the day, except for an occasional gust of sharp wind, promised to be a fine one.

  As expected, there were almost a hundred people gathered on the main thoroughfare of the village, comprised of almost all of the adult residents and their older children. Estrid and her companions, mingling quietly with the people on the fringe of the throng, found themselves a good position near the church from which to watch the proceedings.

  By listening to the conversations of the people around them, they learned that the priest, Father Aubri, had already gone to the house of Alfreda’s father, Siward, and would soon be leading the funeral procession, at the head of which would be the corpse encased in a coffin, back to the church for the death mass.

  As they waited, Tilde quietly pointed out two of the people mentioned in Kendra’s house as possessing a possible reason for committing the crime—the young man Sweyn who had sought Alfreda’s hand in marriage and been refused, and Rowena, the reeve’s daughter, who Maud claimed had been envious of the dead girl. They were standing a little distance away, and close together. Sweyn was, as Tilde had said, a well-favoured young man with long blonde hair and moustache and features that were attractive, but the smallness of his mouth and chin, and the manner in which his lips were pursed, seemed to indicate a weak nature.

  Rowena, wearing a blue linen gown and head rail that enhanced the deep blue of her eyes, kept glancing up at him as he spoke, seeming to hang on his every word. She was, as Tilde had mentioned, very pretty, with a fair complexion and rosy red cheeks. It would seem that she was attracted to her companion but, if she had been, and still was, seeking him as a husband, surely she would have had no reason to wish Alfreda dead as Sweyn’s suit for the hand of the murdered girl had already been rejected long before her death.

  A collective sigh of sympathy from the crowd signalled the approach of the body and, in a few moments, they saw the Norman priest walking slowly in front of a cart bearing a closed casket of fine oak on the top of which had been laid bunches of rosemary, the symbol for remembrance. Tilde, in a whisper, told E
strid that Siward was the one leading the grey donkey pulling the wain, and that the two younger men walking one on either side of him were his sons, Harold and Penda.

  Estrid gave these three a close scrutiny. The miller looked to be a truculent man, as did his son, Harold, while Penda’s countenance appeared to hold a greater amiability. She noticed that the latter’s eyes, in contrast to those of his father and brother, were red-rimmed from crying.

  At the rear of the wain were two knights on horseback, which Tilde identified for Estrid. “The handsome one is Turstin fitzRanulf,” she said quietly, “and the ugly one is Ralf of Abetot, who often came with fitzRanulf when he visited Alfreda before they were married. Abetot is one of the knights that accompanied the groom to his wedding.”

  Tilde’s descriptions were apt. Both men wore their hair shaved high on the nape of their necks in the Norman fashion and were soberly garbed in dark tunics, but there the resemblance ended. FitzRanulf was tall and strongly built with cleanly-cut features, while the other knight, Ralf of Abetot, was squat and ill-favoured with a lumpy nose that appeared to have been broken in the past. The latter knight’s glance slid over Estrid as the pair passed by, and she shivered at the cold look in his eyes. A ruthless man, she decided, and one who would show no mercy to any he considered an enemy.

  At the rear, behind the two knights, were a trio of women, which Tilde, again, identified for her companions.

  “The two younger ones are Harold and Penda’s wives, Edith and Helga, and the older one is Valerie, Siward’s sister. It is said that Alfreda greatly resembled Valerie when she was young and was herself considered a beauty. They were very fond of each other as Valerie, who has never borne any children of her own, took the place of Alfreda’s mother when Siward’s wife died many years ago.”

  Estrid took stock of the women. Harold’s wife, Edith, was sturdily built and hard-faced, with a determined chin and close-set eyes. Although her visage appeared solemn, it was, Estrid, thought, her natural expression, defiant and wilful, and said as much to Tilde.

  “Yes, she always looks like that,” the miller’s wife confirmed. “She had a very hard life before her marriage. Her father was a basket-maker and, after his wife died when Edith was young, he was drunk on ale most of the time, leaving her to care for her little brother, who was then not much more than a babby. Then her father died suddenly and the pair were left all alone. A few of the village folk tried to help them, but Edith was too proud to accept their charity and taught herself to fashion the baskets her father had made so she could sell them for money to buy food. But she is a good wife to Harold, and works very hard alongside him in the mill—which is why, it is said, that he wed her—and takes excellent care of their children.”

  By contrast, Penda’s wife Helga, was small, slim and almost dainty. She kept glancing nervously at her husband’s back as though to gain reassurance from his presence. And, Estrid noticed, she kept a good distance between her and Edith as they walked along and concluded the pair were not close in companionship.

  Alfreda’s aunt, Valerie, on the other hand, could be seen as truly distraught. She was not weeping, but held herself stiffly, as though her sadness for the loss of her niece was so intense it would shatter her body if she allowed it to surface. She was a woman of about forty years of age, and still handsome, her hands clasped tightly together in front of her clutching a rosary from which depended a wooden cross.

  Estrid’s heart went out to the woman, who seemed vaguely familiar to her, but she could not remember from where. To lose a child, or one who is just as dear, must be truly heart-breaking.

  As the procession passed and came to a halt in front of the church, the knights dismounted and tied their horses to a post outside the building before following the murdered girl’s coffin and her family inside. The crowd surged in their wake, but Estrid halted a few feet from the door and placed a hand on Judith’s arm to forestall her from joining the others.

  “Judith and I are not inhabitants of Maidstone,” she said to Tilde, “and it would be inappropriate for us to attend the service. You go in and we will wait out here until it is over and then follow everyone to the graveside.”

  “I will stay with you,” the miller’s wife replied. “I have no fancy to get too close to Siward, whatever the reason.”

  As they stood and heard the priest intoning the words of the mass through the open church door, Estrid asked Tilde if she would, when the mourners reappeared, point out the other two villagers that might be considered as suspects, Rowena’s friend Nelda, and the potter, Redwald. Tilde nodded her assent.

  Once the mass was over, the priest exited the church, the congregation at his heels, and led them all to the large space behind the building where the cemetery was located. A gravesite had already been dug and as Alfreda’s shroud-wrapped body was removed from the coffin and lowered into the ground, there was a great outpouring of lamentation from the crowd of mourners.

  The dead girl’s husband, Turstin fitzRanulf, stood at the side of the grave as though carved from stone with his friend, Ralf of Abetot, standing quietly by his side. Once the priest had said the words of committal, and ready hands began to fill in the grave, the two knights walked to the place where their horses had been tethered, mounted and rode off.

  “It does not appear they will be attending the gathering in the hall to partake of the funeral meats,” Estrid opined, but was not surprised. Why would they linger? Now that his bride was no more, fitzRanulf had no reason to stay amongst the villagers, who were not of his race or station and one of whom, more unbearably, might be the person who had poisoned his newlywed wife.

  As the crowd slowly moved away, Tilde nudged Estrid and, nodding her head slightly towards two people walking together in the crowd, said softly. “That girl there, the plump one with the red face, is Nelda, and the man beside her is her father, Gifel.”

  It was easy to see the pair that Tilde meant. Nelda, indeed, was not very pretty, and exceedingly pudgy. Her wide frame seemed huddled in upon itself and she was wringing her hands together as she walked. A strange attitude for one who had reputedly not cared for the dead girl, Estrid thought. Guilt, perhaps, for her enmity towards one who had been so foully murdered, or could it be due to secret knowledge of the person who had committed the crime?

  Her father, Gifel, was a thin weedy man, surprisingly lean to have sired such a corpulent offspring. His mien was suitably grim, but his narrow face, which reminded Estrid of a weasel, bore little trace of genuine grief as he walked carefully in the wake of a man Tilde said was Osric, the reeve.

  “Do you see Redwald at all?” Estrid asked Tilde.

  “I do not think so...,” she began to reply, her eyes searching the crowd and then, as she looked back at the graveside, she laid her hand on Estrid’s arm and said, “There he is, at the edge of the cemetery.”

  Estrid was careful not to turn and stare in that direction, instead using the ruse of stepping to one side to adjust the pin securing her light summer cloak to give her the opportunity to return her gaze to the place from which they had just come. The potter was a man of stalwart build, with long brown hair and moustache. His face was craggy and his grey eyes piercing. Here, as with Alfreda’s brother Penda and her aunt, she saw the signs of deep sadness written on his countenance as he lifted a hand in a final farewell to the woman he had wanted for his wife before turning and making his way out of the cemetery.

  “Another one who will not be joining in the funeral meats,” she murmured softly.

  “From the anguish on his face, it appears he truly loved Alfreda,” Judith said sadly, echoing Estrid’s own opinion.

  “I agree,” Estrid replied. “And he is not the only one that seems to be caught up in the passions that surrounded this girl while she was alive. Although you claim she was a kind and caring girl, Tilde, I get the impression that her presence deeply affected many of the persons with whom she came into contact, and not all of her influence was benign. It is obvious she was loved b
y fitzRanulf, her aunt, Valerie, and her brother, Penda, but she seems to have inspired jealousy in Rowena, and possibly Nelda. Her former suitor, Sweyn, is a prideful man whose vanity must have been sorely wounded by the rejection of his suit for her hand. And, amongst this maelstrom of emotions, we still know nothing of the reaction of the unknown Norman knight whose advances she is supposed to have spurned. Any of them might be responsible for her death, whether by their own hand or through the agency of another.”

  “What will you do now, frea?” Judith asked.

  “Go back to the mill and try to make sense of it all,” Estrid replied

  CHAPTER 10

  When the mourners from Alfreda’s graveside entered the village hall, they were shocked. Neither trestle tables nor benches for seating were laid out, or was there any sign of funeral meats or ale. On the small dais where Alfreda had so recently been taken fatally ill, Siward stood, flanked by his two sons and their wives and his sister Valerie.

  “There will be no feast of remembrance today,” he said to the crowd of villagers, “nor at any time in the future. Somewhere amongst you is the miscreant who poisoned my daughter and until he, or she, is caught and punished, I will not break bread or drink with anyone except my own family.”

  A murmur of uneasy surprise ran through the assembly. Such an action was unprecedented; whenever there was a death of one of their own, and whatever might be the cause, a feast of baked funeral meats was always held to honour their memory.

  They all stood stock still and stared at Siward. They knew he was angry, not only for losing his daughter, but also the favour that her marriage to a Norman knight would have brought him and his family. He was a callous man, grasping and cold-hearted, and even those who knew him well were not sure which loss brought him the greater sorrow.