Cruel As the Grave (11 page)

Justin was half tempted to take her up on her offer, but somehow it seemed a betrayal of Claudine to talk about her to another woman. Why he should care about keeping faith with a woman who'd played him for such a fool was a question he could not answer, one he could only ignore. "Some troubles need to ripen like cheeses ere they can be brought out into the open," he said, as lightly as he could, and instead, he told her about the rest of his day, about the scene in the Aston household and then the meeting down on the quay with the father and sister of Melangell. He'd begun to think of her by name now, always as Melangell, not just as
the
murdered girl
or
the peddler's daughter
. Nell listened intently, asked sensible questions, and for a time, he forgot to glance over at that notched candle, forgot to wonder why Luke had not yet returned. Nell agreed with him that there was more to Melangell's death than met the eye. It was not likely to have been a random killing, she declared, unconsciously echoing Luke's verdict. He must search for a motive, find out who had reason to want her dead. And he must also seek out the little sister again, for if Melangell had a secret worth killing over, Cati would be the one to know. Sisters share, she insisted, and Justin nodded somberly, seeing again Cati's slanting black eyes, too knowing and guarded for a child of eleven. She would not be easy to win over, this wary Welsh wood-sprite. She was not like Melangell.

He stayed at the alehouse until the curfew bells echoed across the city and Nell announced she was closing, ignoring the pleas from patrons for one more round of drinks. Collecting Shadow, he crossed the street, circled around the smithy, and headed across the pasture toward the cottage. Light shone through chinks in the shutters and he remembered that he'd not extinguished the lamp in his rush to catch up with Claudine. That would have been poor payment for Gunter's kindness, if he'd burned down the blacksmith's cottage by his carelessness. Reaching for the latchstring, he opened the door and then stopped abruptly, for Luke was sitting at the table with a flagon.

"I bought some wine on my way home," the deputy said. "There is enough for us to have one last drink... if you've a mind to?"

After a moment, Justin shrugged. "Why not?" Glancing once at the rumpled bed and tangled sheets and then away, he joined the other man at the table, watched as Luke poured the remaining wine into two cracked cups.

"Where were you?" Luke asked, with a casualness that was almost convincing. "Over at the alehouse?"

"Yes." Justin paused. "Did you see Claudine back safely?"

Luke nodded, and a silence fell between them, as charged as the stillness before a breaking summer storm. "I did not make up the pallet," Luke said, "for I was not sure if you'd want me to sleep here tonight."

"Is there a reason why I should not?" Justin asked, very evenly, and their eyes met for the first time.

"No," Luke said, "no reason." He took a deep swallow of the wine, then set the cup down with a thud. "Hellfire, de Quincy, that is one beautiful woman. Of course I agreed to escort her home. But a friend once told me that he was not one for poaching in another man's woods, and neither am I."

Those words were Justin's own, his assurance to Luke that he'd recognized Aldith was not fair game, already spoken for. He almost asked Luke if Claudine had offered him anything more than a walk home, then decided he didn't truly want to know. "Death to all poachers, then," he said with a crooked smile and he and Luke clinked their cups ceremoniously.

Luke was quiet for a moment, green eyes probing. "I do not know what you did, but you'll have no easy time making your peace with her. She is right wroth with you, man."

Justin drank, saying nothing, and Luke reached again for his own cup. "You can get her back, though," he said, "for when we reached the Tower, there were tear tracks on her cheeks."

Justin looked away, but not in time. The other man was staring. "My God, you've got it bad," he said. "Then why did you let her leave like that... and with me!"

"I do not want to talk about it, Luke."

"Why not?"

"Probably for the same reason that you do not want to talk about what has gone wrong between you and Aldith," Justin said, and Luke grimaced, then grinned reluctantly.

"That sound you hear," he said, "is a trumpet signaling retreat."

They finished the wine in silence and then retired for the night, Luke on his pallet by the hearth, Justin in the bed that still bore the imprint of Claudine's body, the scent of her perfume. He did not sleep well that night.

~~

Windsor Castle rose up on a chalk ridge a hundred feet above the River Thames. Just twenty miles from London, it had been chosen for its strategic significance by John's great-greatgrandfather, William the Bastard. The motte was flanked by two large baileys, crowned by a stone shell keep known as the Great Tower. Standing on the battlements, John gazed down upon the small village nestling in the shadow of Windsor's walls.

Daylight was fast fading but he could still see the parish church, the cemetery, the open market square, the wattle and daub houses. The narrow streets were empty of villagers. New Windsor resembled a plague town, for the inhabitants had fled, some to the deep woods south and west of the castle, others trying to reach the hamlet of Bray or the nunnery at Bromhall. Ordinarily in time of danger, villagers would have sought refuge in the castle, but Windsor Castle was no sanctuary. It was a target.

A few forlorn dogs still roamed the streets, abandoned by their panicked masters, and pigs would soon be foraging in the untended gardens, until they ended up on spits over soldiers' campfires. John paid no heed to the deserted village and the stray animals, keeping his gaze upon the road that stretched toward London. The dust clouds were growing thicker, kicked up by hundreds of horses and marching men.

"My lord?" He turned to find that Durand de Curzon had joined him at the wall embrasure. Together they watched the approaching army. The banners were visible now, the royal lions of the English king, his absent brother, hopefully rotting in an Austrian dungeon. John leaned his elbows upon the merlon, hearing again his mother's cool, clipped tones as she warned that she'd do whatever she must to protect Richard's throne.

"My lord?" Durand repeated, somewhat impatiently this time.

"What?"

"They are going to demand that you surrender the castle to the queen. Will you?"

Until that moment, John hadn't been sure himself what he would do. "No," he said. "I will not."

7

LONDON

April 1193

Luke left the next morning, after coaxing Nell into making him a hearty breakfast of fried bread and sausages. Justin saw him off with an exchange of affable insults and hoped that the other man would not tarry too long at the Windsor siege. If Aldith grew tired of waiting, there would be no lack of men eager to take Luke's place in her bed. After the deputy's departure, he found himself reluctant to return to the cottage, where the scent of Claudine's perfume still lingered. Nell insisted upon serving him another helping, waiting with rare patience for him to eat his fill before she broached the subject of Melangell's murder.

"Must you seek out the queen today?"

"I might stop by the Tower later, check to see if she has need of me. This morn I thought I'd see for myself where Melangell died and then pay another visit to her family."

Nell's blue eyes brightened. "Take me with you," she urged. "I'll get Ellis to open the alehouse whilst I'm gone. I can sniff out untruths faster than a pig can unearth acorns. Did I not prove that when we fooled the Fleming's whore?"

She was anticipating an argument, but Justin did not offer any objections. Nell's verve would keep his own dark mood at bay, and if her presence vexed the irascible Humphrey Aston, so much the better. Cutting up his trencher, he fed the gravy-soaked bread to Shadow, and then rose to his feet. "What of Lucy?"

Lucy was Nell's five-year-old daughter, the one pure legacy left by Nell's late husband, an amiable dreamer who'd died in a drunken accident. "I'll ask Agnes to look after her," Nell declared, jerking off her apron before Justin could change his mind. Solving a murder was infinitely more satisfying, after all, than tending to the demands of querulous alehouse patrons.

~~

The parish church of St Mary Magdalene was just off the Cheapside, on Milk Street, so conveniently close to the Aston family's shop that it was easy to see why Geoffrey and Melangell had chosen it for their trysts. Churchyards were popular places for dalliances, for any number of secular activities frowned upon by the Church. People played camp-ball and quoits; children darted between the wooden crosses in games of hoodman blind and hunt-the-fox; goods were bartered; prostitutes occasionally lured men into the shadows to sin; it was not unheard of to find goats and sheep placidly cropping the grass over the graves. And on an April evening less than a week ago, Melangell had gone to her death in this deceptively

tranquil setting.

The churchyard was still and deserted. The morbidly curious had already flocked to the site to gawk at the bloodstains; the more squeamish would keep away until the spectre of violent death had faded from memory. Not all of the graves were marked; some had wooden crosses, a few had flat gravestones, and others lay hidden under a blanket of new spring grass. Several earthen mounds were still visible, evidence of recent burials. They'd be the last for some time to come, for a churchyard polluted by bloodshed could not be used again until it was reconsecrated, the spiritual stain purged with holy water and Holy Scriptures. Melangell's murder would cause grief to a few, inconvenience to many.

Entering the churchyard, Justin nearly stumbled over a little mound of earth. It resembled a grave, but why had it been dug on the very edge of the cemetery? Nell saw him frown, and answered his unspoken question. "A babe who dies unbaptised cannot be buried in consecrated ground. Some priests will allow them to be laid to rest as close as possible to the cemetery's hallowed soil. Others are less merciful, and it is not unknown to refuse burial to a woman who died in childbirth if the babe was still within her womb."

Justin said nothing, gazing down at that small pitiful grave. Had his mother been shriven ere she died? Was she buried in holy ground? He had no way of knowing, for it was not likely his father would ever tell him. He did not even know her name. With an effort, he shrugged off his own ghosts and looked about for Melangell's.

Jonas had said she'd died by the cross, and as he drew near, he could see the dried blood darkening the greyish-white stone. The grass was trampled and torn by the base and it was all too easy to envision a girl's body crumpled in the dirt. With Nell watching him intently, as if he were an alchemist working his unholy magic, he studied the death scene in silence. She'd either fallen or been pushed, and had struck her head against one of the cross's outstretched arms. Panicked, the assailant had fled, leaving her dead or dying in the twilight dusk. Had he meant to kill her? Had this been a rape gone awry as Jonas suspected? If so, that would make Daniel a more likely suspect than Geoffrey.

Nell picked up on his thoughts. "Poor Agnes," she said softly.

Justin was turning away when something caught his eye. Bending down, he retrieved a rock from a thicket of nearby bushes. It was about the size of a man's fist, looked as if it had broken off from a grave slab. Holding it up toward the sun, he ran his fingers over the reddish-brown stain, and Nell blurted out:

"That looks like blood! Do you think it is Melangell's?"

Justin did. Melangell had died on Friday night, just five days ago, five days without rain. If the blood was not Melangell's, whose was it? And if it was hers? Suddenly her death did not seem so accidental, after all. Squeezing the rock into his money pouch, he said, "We're done here. Let's go on to Friday Street, see if we can find some answers there."

~~

They found the Aston household in disarray. Beatrice was abed, not receiving visitors; the little maidservant mumbled that her mistress was "unwell." Daniel and Geoffrey were at work in the mercer's shop, the former helping another apprentice to sort through piles of newly imported silks and linens, the latter going over the accounts. But Humphrey Aston was nowhere in evidence, and all in the shop - journeymen, apprentices, even customers - seemed easier for his absence.

"My father had to go to the Mercer's Guild. But he ought to be back soon," Geoffrey said, with a glint of hidden humor. "I am sure you'd not want to miss seeing him."

"Indeed not," Justin agreed gravely. "Suppose I talk with you and your brother whilst we await his return?"

Daniel flung down an armful of silks, with such vehemence that they slid from the counter, fluttering into the floor rushes. "I do not have to talk to you," he said combatively. "You're not the sheriff or even one of his men!"

"He is the queen's man, you foolish boy," Nell said irritably. Daniel had already wheeled; the door banged as he retreated into the storeroom.

"His nerves are on the raw," Geoffrey said, stating the obvious with an apologetic half-smile. "He was fond of Melangell."

"How fond?"

The tone of Justin's voice took Geoffrey's smile away. "He ... he may have fancied her. Is that so surprising? She was very pretty, after all."