Season of the Raven (A Servant of the Crown Mystery Book 1) (17 page)

"Both better and worse than I expected," Faucon told the monk with a frustrated sigh. "I vow my thoughts are so tangled at the moment, I want to throw away the spindle and start anew."

"I can listen while you think aloud, if that might be of use to you," Colin offered.

"Well, it cannot make matters any worse," Faucon shot back, tempering the harshness of his words with a laugh.

He began counting out the bits of information he now held dear by touching the awl that lay beside Halbert on his bier, then brushing his fingers against the sleeve of the miller's blue tunic. "I'm content to claim this awl as deodand and say it was used to kill our miller, even if that may not be the truth. Also, I know that the miller despised the tunic he wears, and that he would never have donned it, given a choice. Someone else put it on him and did so for their own purposes. And I know where he died."

"Where?" Colin's gaze came to life with interest.

"In the fuller's croft, but don't let your thoughts run wild, expecting to find anything of import there. That path has lead me nowhere, and nowhere is where I've been since I discovered it."

Colin laughed and shook his head. "You don't believe there's nothing important there."

"You may be right," Faucon admitted with a grimace. "Lastly, I've made no progress in discovering the 'who' in all this, because the two I believe mostly likely to have killed the miller weren't at the mill when he died." It was enough to make his head throb. He pressed his fingers to his temples.

Again, the monk laughed. "Then someone isn't telling the truth, because Halbert is dead, rendered so by murder most foul. If you want to know who is telling you tales, you'll have to pick at their stories. A lie is always more complex than the truth, and the liar, no matter how accomplished, will always forget something as he crafts his falsehood. It's up to you to discover where he's erred.

"So tell me. Why do you believe the place of Halbert's death has no story to tell? Prove that to me. Start by telling me where in the fuller's croft he died."

"At the place where the family does its usual slaughtering. It just so happens that Simon slaughtered a young pig yesterday, a pig that had belonged to Agnes and whose leg..." Faucon's words trailed off.

Whose leg had been broken for a reason. That's what Agnes had whispered. He caught his breath, knowing what he'd missed when he stood beneath Simon's chestnut tree.

"What is it?" Colin prodded.

"It was no accident that Simon had a pig to slaughter the morning before Halbert died. That's why the gilt's leg had been broken, and not by Halbert, although that's what his wife originally believed," he said, no longer seeing the last of the commoners as they made their way past their murdered neighbor.

The man who murdered Halbert had broken the pig's leg, knowing Agnes would offer the injured creature to Simon and knowing Simon wouldn't wait to slaughter it, not when he had so many mouths to feed. All this had been done so there would be a hidden place to kill Halbert. It was the same reason the awl had been used, so there would be an insignificant wound in Halbert's chest.

"Ach!" Faucon cried out, as his thoughts once more stalled anew as they came up against the way Halbert's death had been disguised.

"I don't understand any of this," he complained to the monk. "Why does the one who killed Halbert go to such trouble to kill him? Carrying a big man here and there, undressing then dressing him, putting him into the race. It makes no sense! If Halbert was truly deep in besotted slumber, why not lower him into the race and let the wheel take him? Why is it important to make it appear that Halbert drowned by accident when he was in fact murdered by design?"

"Well, putting Halbert into the race might have been a simpler death, but it wasn't as certain," Colin offered. "The race is only waist deep. What if Halbert had awakened? Would he have come to his feet and avoided the wheel, or perhaps roused enough to call for help?"

"All possible," Faucon agreed, but he still felt as if he chewed on something distasteful.

That made Colin laugh. "I can see my reasoning doesn't satisfy you."

The monk's words shot through Faucon, tearing a hole in the wall that trapped him. Faucon threw back his head and laughed. "That's it! You've hit the nail, Brother. There was no satisfaction in simply drowning Halbert." Nay indeed, not when Halbert had drawn blood from a woman whom another man—a knight or nobleman well-trained in the art of war—had cherished, and might yet cherish. "Vengeance required his blood be shed."

Colin grinned. "Once again I am glad to serve. Does this mean you know why Halbert died?"

"The why I already knew but failed to mention. He died to free his wife from their marriage," Faucon answered with more than a little satisfaction of his own.

"Bless me," Colin cried. "A woman alone did this to him? Are you certain there was no man to help her?"

"Nay, it wasn't she who killed Halbert," Faucon started.

"I am ready, Sir Faucon," Edmund interrupted as he joined them. A cloth sack was now tucked behind one arm, its strap over one shoulder. The bundle was awkward and the roll of parchment thrust out from behind his head much like an archer's quiver.

Edmund acknowledged the lay brother with a brusque nod. "Brother Herbalist, is that the last of the jurors?"

Faucon glanced around in surprise to find there were no men left in the yard now.

"It is, Brother," Colin replied, his tone modulated to the more subdued expression employed by men of the first estate.

"Then you are free to return to your own tasks. Take with you our gratitude for your help this day," Edmund said in dismissal, then looked at his employer. "Sir Faucon, the inquest is now complete. You may instruct me to inform the family that the corpse is theirs to tend to as they will, may the miller rest in peace."

God take Edmund! Faucon opened his mouth, ready to skewer the monk for his impertinence in commanding his better to heel like some dog, as well as for dismissing Colin. From behind his clerk, the older monk shook his head, his gaze filled with warning.

Faucon caught back his chide. "You are so instructed," he snapped, finding his patience with Edmund worn as thin as his uncle's seemed to have been yesterday when Bishop William had chided the man.

If Edmund recognized Faucon's reaction, he gave no sign of it. Instead, he turned and strode to the shed and Stephen.

Once his clerk was out of earshot, Faucon looked at Colin. "Why did you bid me hold my tongue? It is my right to chastise him as I will," he demanded of the monk.

"True enough, Sir Faucon. And if all you had intended was to scold him for how he spoke to you, I would not have interceded. But that was not your sole intent," the older man replied with an easy smile, seemingly untroubled by Edmund's harsh behavior toward him. "Although your urge to leap to my defense speaks well of the man you are, in all honesty, you have no right to speak on my behalf. I am but a lay brother. As such, Brother Edmund is well within his rights to command me to his purpose. If it helps, know that I chose this life of mine, and have never once had cause to regret that choice."

His was a gentle chide with a well-honed purpose, and unlike Edmund, Faucon understood the lesson and took the point. He vented what stewed in him with a long breath, then shifted to watch Edmund as the monk spoke with Stephen. There was no humility in the clerk's stance and nothing but command in his gestures.

"At every turn your brother in Christ demands respect from others, while offering no grain of it to those who deserve to receive it from him," Faucon complained.

Colin laughed. "You are expecting a dog to fly. Brother Edmund hasn't the ability to respect, or, I think, even admire another. Such things are not in his nature. Now, I have more herbs to gather before my day is done, and you must be on with your hunt."

He offered Faucon his hand, the way warriors did when greeting each other. Then again, today they had been warriors, fighting a battle of a different sort as they sought out the cause of Halbert's death. "Come find me when you have solved the riddle of Halbert Miller's death, knowing that I shall wait breathlessly to hear the identity of the one who did this. And should you ever again come upon dead men who have signs on them you cannot read, don't forget that I am attached to Saint Michael's Abbey in Stanrudde."

Faucon laughed as he took the monk's hand, well pleased by the offer of aid and friendship. "I shall indeed call upon you, perhaps more often than you intend."

"I stand ready." Colin winked, then gathered up his pack. He crossed paths with a returning Edmund, then was gone around the corner of the mill in a trice.

Edmund joined Faucon. "Now where?" he demanded of his employer, his tone as brusque and flat as ever.

"Of course, Alf stayed the night. Do you think I'd let him go back to the mill when I knew that ass meant to have at him? Not in my lifetime!"

Susanna the Alewife's voice was so deep she could have been mistaken for a man. She looked like a soldier, standing with her shoulders thrown back and her hands braced on her hips. A massive woman, she was taller than Faucon and as wide as she was tall. The sleeves of her dark green gown were rolled as far up her forearms as their meaty girth allowed. A pair of dark red braids streamed out from beneath the simple white cap she wore.

She looked skyward and shouted, "I'm warning you now, Lord. If You don't send Halbert Miller straight to hell, You and I are going to have words when I make my way to Your holy gates." Her rooster took umbrage to the shout and crowed from its perch atop her roof. From the cottage across the lane, a babe squalled as if the alewife's cry had startled it.

Offering a final scornful sniff at what she perceived as Faucon's foolish question, Susanna pivoted. Her braids snapped from side to side as she marched toward her cottage's open door. "Your inquest kept my trade away this morning, so I've plenty to offer. Sit anywhere you like." She threw the words over her shoulder as she stepped inside her home.

Faucon stared after her, startled by her and this whole encounter, as he tied Legate to the gate and retrieved his cup from his saddlebag. He'd reclaimed his mount from the servant watching him, then sent the man back to St. Radegund's with a message to Prior Lambertus, warning of his visit.

Hens worked diligently at the soil in what would have been Susanna's front garden, had she not filled it with a half-dozen makeshift tables—naught more than bare planks of wood set atop braces—and equally makeshift benches to accommodate her trade. He chose one close to her gate, sitting on the bench that faced the lane beyond Susanna's woven withe fence. That narrow path was no longer deserted as it had been upon Faucon's arrival this morning. Instead, folk moved this way and that along the lane, old men burdened with great bundles of branches collected against winter's coming, boys armed with slings racing toward the surrounding fields. A beyoked woman made careful headway over the ruts and stones, carrying her full buckets, while a tanner laden with his leather hurried past her. As he crossed the lane near Susanna's gate, the tanner glanced into the yard and nodded as he spied Faucon. Surprised and a little pleased at being recognized, Faucon returned the gesture.

As Edmund found his cup in his sack, Susanna threaded her way back through the empty tables at her same thundering pace. She carried with her a good-sized iron pot and a tray on which stood a clay pitcher and a bread trencher; it was a fasting day for Edmund, so he was only drinking. After emptying her pitcher into their waiting cups, she set it on a nearby table. Laying the bread in front of Faucon, she ladled stew into the center hollow of the crusty trencher. She dropped a wooden eating spoon next to his cup, then set aside her tray and pot with the pitcher.

"The stew's warm, and that's all I can say for it. I'm no cook. Now, the ale will be better than any you've ever before had," she promised with no show of humility as she dragged over a short bench. As she sat, she rested her elbows on their table top.

The planks shifted so forcefully that Faucon snatched for his cup, fearing it might topple. Once it was in hand, he put the cup to his lips, preparing the polite compliments her boast required. Her ale was thick, malty and sweet, all in one delicious instant. He swallowed deeply in pleasure, draining half his cup. No wonder Halbert had bought his drink from a woman who hated him.

"This is wonderful," Faucon told her, as he set the cup back on the table.

Edmund nodded in silent agreement as he sipped his own brew, his gaze shifting warily between his employer and the alewife.

Susanna accepted Faucon's praise with as much grace as Edmund might have done. "Everyone has a calling. Ale is mine, as it was my mother's before me." Then, rubbing her well-padded chin with her thumb, she studied him for a long moment. "Crowner. Is that what you're called?"

"Coronarius," Edmund corrected. "Sir Faucon is the newly-elected coronarius for this shire. He is the Keeper of the Pleas for the royal court."

Susanna turned her hard gaze on the clerk. "Then why did every man who stopped here to tell me what was afoot at the mill call him 'Sir Crowner?'"