Fortune Like the Moon (11 page)

Josse waited. Would a gentle prompt be in order? ‘I have come from Winnowlands,’ he began, ‘and I—’

‘That poor old man!’ the woman exclaimed. ‘First Dillian, then Gunnora! If this double tragedy doesn’t tip him over into his grave, I’d like to know what would. How is he, sir?’

‘Not well. He—’

‘No, he wouldn’t be. Nor will any be among them what has the misfortune to depend on him, neither. The master isn’t here,’ she said, abruptly changing to the practical. ‘He’s gone to Canterbury, sir.’

No explanation followed – indeed, Josse thought, why should it? – so he repeated, with a delicate note of enquiry, ‘Canterbury?’

‘Aye. To bare his soul before the good Brothers, do an honest penance, take his punishment and say Mass for her, God rest her soul.’

‘Amen,’ Josse said. What, he wondered, mind seething, had Brice to do penance for? But it wouldn’t do to ask – wasn’t it likely that he’d get more confidences from this old soul if he pretended he was already in the know? ‘He’ll rest more easy in himself after that, I dare say.’

She gave him a swift look, as if assessing how much of the background he really knew and how much he was guessing. After a fairly uncomfortable pause – the deep-set brown eyes were disturbingly penetrating – she appeared to accept him at face value. ‘Well, I dare say,’ she agreed grudgingly. ‘No knowing how these things affect a man, that’s what I say.’ Another long, considering look, under which Josse did his best to make his expression bland and faintly earnest. The picture, he hoped, of a distressed family friend come to pay his respects.

It must have convinced her. Turning back towards the house, she yelled, ‘Ossie? Get yourself out here, lad!’ Too soon for him to have been anywhere but eavesdropping behind the door, a boy of about fourteen appeared, gangly, slightly spotty, hanks of greasy hair hanging limp over the low forehead, the epitome of young adolescence. ‘Take the gentleman’s horse,’ the woman ordered, ‘see to it’ – it! she obviously didn’t concern herself overmuch with such equine matters such as gender – ‘and then get you back to the stove. Don’t you
dare
let it stick, or it’ll be you as cleans my pan!’

‘No, Mathild.’ The boy flashed a quick grin at Josse – he had, Josse observed, a broken and discoloured front tooth, which must surely soon start giving the boy agonies, if it wasn’t doing so already – and Josse dismounted and gave the boy the reins.

Then, with a jerk of her head as if to say, this way, Mathild led Josse into the cool hall of Rotherbridge Manor.

‘You’ll take some ale, sir?’ she offered, going to where a covered pewter jug stood ready on a long side table. A hospitable house, this.

‘Aye, thank you.’

She filled a mug, and watched as he drank. ‘Thirsty day,’ she remarked. ‘You’ve come far?’

She was probing, he decided. ‘I put up last night at Newenden.’

‘Hm. Found a place to lay your head that didn’t make your skin crawl, did you?’ Then, before he had a chance to answer, ‘You knew her well, my lady Dillian?’

‘I didn’t know her at all,’ he replied honestly. ‘It was Gunnora I knew.’ That was not so honest. In fact, it wasn’t honest at all.

‘Gunnora.’ Mathild nodded slowly. ‘Went in a convent, she did.’

‘Aye, Hawkenlye Abbey. I know the Abbess.’ That, anyway, was truthful. ‘My mission here is primarily to discuss with Sir Alard the disposal of the poor girl’s body.’

‘Aye, and he’ll have told you, do what you please,’ Mathild said with devastating accuracy.

‘More or less,’ Josse agreed. Then, taking a step in the dark, ‘A shame, that they never made it up before she died.’

‘Aye, aye.’ He’d got it right. ‘No one should die with bad blood between them and their kin, sir, should they?’

‘No,’ he agreed gravely.

‘Not that it was entirely his fault, mind. She were a difficult girl, Gunnora. Wouldn’t have liked the care of her, I wouldn’t. Now Dillian, she were different.’ The creased face took on a softer expression.

Mathild, Josse thought, was at the stage of mourning when there is a great need to talk endlessly about the deceased, singing their praises as if that might weigh with the delicate business of the judgement of their soul. Like an ongoing prayer for those in purgatory.

But it was not to discuss Dillian that he had come. Not entirely, anyway.

When Mathild paused for breath – she didn’t seem to need to do so all that often – he interjected mildly, ‘Gunnora was – let me see – two years older?’

‘Four.’ Mathild took the bait. ‘But you’d have said more, I reckon. Old in her ways, she was. Mind, she had responsibility put on her young, what with her mother dying like that.’

‘Aye,’ Josse said, nodding as if he knew all about it. ‘Never easy, for a young girl to lose her mother.’

‘That it isn’t.’ Mathild leaned forward confidingly. ‘She was an odd child, though, even before it happened. And she never let him spoil her like he did her sister. Blamed him and his wealth for her mother’s death, I shouldn’t wonder. Stands to reason, really. The Lady Margaret shouldn’t have had another child, but, there you are, a man wants a son to inherit, and that’s an end to it. Except it wasn’t a son, it was Dillian.’ She sighed deeply. ‘Dillian never blamed him, but then she was so little when she lost her mother, under a year old, she can’t have any memory of the lady Margaret except what others told her. But in Gunnora, it came out in her rejection of all he had to give. And that, of course, is why she wouldn’t have Sir Brice. For one thing, it was her father planning for her again – she’d never have that – and, for another, it would have been more of the same. She’d have gone from being a rich man’s daughter to being a rich man’s wife. And it was
that
which she reckoned saw off her dear mother.’

Yes. The reasoning was sound. It would be, Josse thought, in this observant old woman. ‘Poor Gunnora,’ he murmured.

‘Poor?’ Mathild put her head on one side as if considering. ‘Aye, to die at a murderer’s hand. But if she’d married Lord Brice, sir, she might have died like her sister did. As it was, Dillian died in her place.’

And that, Josse thought, looking at the resentment in the old face, was, to Mathild’s mind, unforgivable.

He said, ‘How did Dillian die?’

If Mathild was surprised that he didn’t know, it was not apparent. ‘They’d been arguing again, her and Brice,’ she said quietly. ‘They were always at it. Well, it was him started it.’ She shot Josse a quick look, as if to assess how he would react to hearing a servant criticise her master. He smiled encouragingly. ‘I hate to say it,’ she plunged on, obviously not about to let that put her off, ‘but she wasn’t the same girl as what she was when she married him. He’s a tough man, the master, likes his own way. Used to being obeyed, he is, and, being that much older than Dillian, he thought all he had to do was say jump, and she’d jump. Didn’t allow for her spirit, he didn’t. She went along with him to begin with – I do reckon, sir, that she loved him, or leastways thought she did, which amounts to the same result – and she tried hard to please him. But there wasn’t any
give
in him – all the pleasing and the accommodating was one way. And, soon as she started standing up to him, that was that.’ Again, the sigh. ‘It was a shock, when she first realised what he was like. Shocked him and all, when she changed. The shouting began, then he started to knock her about. Many’s the time I treated her cuts and bruises, poor lass. And’ – she cast a quick glance around as if to ensure they really were alone – ‘he used to force her. You know.’ Josse was all too afraid he did. ‘Wanted a child, he did. A son. And her, poor Dillian, well, even if she’d have liked a child, she didn’t like what brings a child into being, not with him, anyway. That was what they were fighting about that morning. Ran out of the bedchamber in her wrap, she did, hair all over the place, marks of his fingers on her poor pale cheeks where he’d slapped her, and she was crying out, “I’m not staying here with you! I
hate
you!” Flew down the steps to the yard, she did, and, as evil chance would have it, the first horse she sees is the master’s, still standing there from when he came in from his early morning ride – he liked to ride early, sir, then come in and eat, then go up to Dillian.’

‘I see.’

‘So she pulls the master’s horse across to the mounting block, throws her bare leg over its back, picks up the reins and gives it a kick in the belly with her sharp little heels. Well, it had just been standing there minding its own business, looking forward to a bite to eat, I dare say, when suddenly this howling little thing starts mauling it about, and it doesn’t like it. It throws up its head, tries to buck a bit, then sets off out through the gates and away. She managed to stay on till it jumped the ditch down there, sir. Then she fell off.’

The echoes of Mathild’s sad voice died. Josse could picture the scene, see that small figure in her wrap, bare legs trying to cling on to a horse far too big and strong for her.

‘Did she – was it quick?’ he asked. It seemed important to know that Dillian hadn’t suffered.

‘Aye. On the instant, they say. Broke her neck. They brought her poor body home on a hurdle. Laid her just here, by the fireplace.’

Josse looked to where Mathild was indicating. ‘And Brice? How did he react?’

‘Angry, to begin with. Yelling about her foolishness. Then, when it dawned on him she was dead, remorse. He’s not a bad man, sir,’ she said earnestly, repeating, did she but know it, what Will had said about Alard. ‘Hasty, like all of his family, and thinking more of his own needs than anyone else’s, but, there, show me a man that’s different.’ Josse could have showed her quite a few, but wisely held his peace. ‘Still, he’s sorry enough now. He’s taken the blame on himself, says he shouldn’t have been so rough with her, and that if he hadn’t, if he’d kept his hands to himself and been kinder, she’d never have rushed out like that and she’d be alive now. That’s why he’s gone to Canterbury. Stands to reason, someone like him, a man of action, full of energy, won’t feel he’s washed the stain of sin out of his soul till someone beats it out. He’ll be under the lash right now, I shouldn’t wonder. And those monks lay it on with a strong right arm.’ She didn’t look as if that were anything to be sorry about; quite the contrary.

She noticed Josse’s empty mug, and, reaching for the jug, poured him some more ale. ‘Thank you,’ he said. Then, after a sip, ‘Is the Lord Olivar here? Perhaps I could give my message to him.’

‘You could, aye, if he were. But he’s not. He’s gone to Canterbury too.’

‘Has he also got a death on his conscience?’ Josse said lightly, and Mathild smiled in response.

‘Nay. He’s gone to keep his brother company. Make sure he doesn’t go too far in this penance thing. Leastways, that’s what he’d like us all to think.’ She winked at Josse. ‘Fact is, our young Lord Olivar doesn’t pass up an opportunity to go to the city. Hot-blooded, he is, if you take my meaning.’ Another wink. Josse thought he knew exactly what she meant.

‘I see.’ He drank some more of the ale. It was a good brew, and cool from standing in the hall. He let the conversation run through his mind. He had learned a great deal, but was there more he could elicit from this willing informant?

Possibly there was.

‘So, with both Gunnora and Dillian dead, Sir Alard has no heir,’ he ventured. ‘Will he leave his estate to Brice, do you think?’

She shook her head vehemently. ‘No, not he. Blood’s thicker than water, and, anyhow, he must have heard the rumours. People talk, you know, sir, and it was common knowledge hereabouts that Brice was too ready with his fists when it came to his wife. Sir Alard loved her, in his way. No, I reckon it’ll all go to Elanor and that worthless new husband of hers.’

‘Ah.’ Elanor? Josse held back the enquiry; surely Mathild wouldn’t disappoint now?

She didn’t. ‘Surrounded by women, Sir Alard,’ she said, with a rueful smile. ‘Two daughters, two sisters, only one of them’s dead. And the surviving one bred girls, like her brother. Only the one, in her case, and, to make a bad matter worse, the girl’s just gone and married a man like Milon d’Arcy. And her silly mother let her! I ask you!’

Milon. Milon? Yes! Josse saw again the young man with his kiss-curl and his skin-tight hose. So he was married to Alard’s niece! That made it quite clear what he’d gone to see Alard about. No wonder Will had shown him the door.

Josse thought he might complete his visits to Gunnora’s family by paying a call on the cousin and her husband. Although he couldn’t immediately see any likely benefit, other than that it would widen his knowledge of Gunnora’s circumstances. He was just wondering how to find out where this Elanor and Milon could be found when Mathild spoke.

‘He’s fond of Elanor, Sir Alard is,’ she said. ‘Well, it’s hard not to be, she’s a lively little thing. Bright, full of fun.’

‘More like Dillian than Gunnora.’ It seemed a safe comment.

‘Aye, though she hasn’t the kindness of Dillian. There’s a ruthless streak lies underneath the laughter and the lightheartedness, of that I’m sure. She’s always had an eye on the main chance, that one – made sure she was around when Sir Alard was dishing out largesse. Why, he’d quite got into the way of treating her like one of his daughters when it came to presents. When he had those crosses made for his own girls, he didn’t hesitate to order one for Elanor as well. And now she stands to inherit the lot.’ Mathild shook her head, as if such sudden and unexpected good fortune were quite incomprehensible. ‘Well, good luck to her, I say. No doubt that foolish young flower she’s married to will run through it all in double-quick time.’ She gave a sudden loud laugh.

‘Perhaps she needs some advice,’ Josse said, seeing his opening. ‘I have experienced a similar situation within my own family,’ he improvised, ‘and possibly I might be of some help?’

Mathild gave him a very long look. Then she said neutrally, ‘Possibly you could, sir. Only Elanor’s from home. Been away a month or more. Staying with kin of her husband’s, they do say, down Hastings way.’

‘Oh.’

He sensed her suspicion. Was she regretting having been so forthcoming? Did she think he was plotting, by some devious means, to get a share of Alard of Winnowland’s fortune? He couldn’t be sure. But it seemed an opportune moment to remind her gently of why he had come, and where he had come from.