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.