‘Yes.’ She was still thinking hard. ‘What I don’t understand is why you felt the necessity to warn us that the ruffian’s friend, or whatever he is, was coming here. Do you think he is dangerous?’
De Gifford studied her. ‘I mentioned that the ruffian in the tavern was known to my officer.’
‘Yes.’
‘He is also known to me, and so is his usual companion. If it is he who is missing and is the man to whom the other two referred, he’s called Walter Bell and he is the ruffian’s brother.’ De Gifford’s clear green eyes met hers and he added softly, ‘Walter Bell is the more violent of the brothers. He has committed murder, although circumstances were such that he was never put on trial for it. Had he been, I should have done my utmost to see that he hanged.’
She felt a chilly finger of fear creep up her back. ‘And Walter Bell may be on his way to Hawkenlye,’ she whispered.
‘Yes, my lady. Of course, he may not be, but I felt it only right to warn you.’
‘Yes, I understand, and I’m grateful. What should we do?’
He hesitated. ‘Well, it’s difficult because we have no idea why Walter Bell would come to the Abbey. It could simply be that he’s sick, or reckons it would be the best place for a free meal.’
‘Not a very substantial one,’ she remarked. De Gifford’s practical and undramatic reasoning was helping her to regain her composure.
‘Or on the other hand,’ he was saying, ‘perhaps when Bell’s brother said he was coming to Hawkenlye because that was where they reckoned he’d gone, the he in fact meant someone else.’
Something in his tone warned her and, fearful again, she said, ‘Who might that be?’
‘My lady, please do not look so alarmed, for this is but conjecture, but my officer said that Bell’s brother seemed to be furiously angry. It did just occur to me whether the he whom he might or might not be following up here to Hawkenlye could be not his brother but the person whom he holds responsible for his brother’s disappearance.’
He said it is but conjecture, she reminded herself as she waited for her rapid heartbeat to slow a little. Then she said, as calmly as she could, ‘As you are aware, the Abbey is full of people at present. How can we possibly hope to isolate which of them is in danger from this man Bell?’
‘His name’s Teb,’ de Gifford supplied. ‘A nickname, presumably, but it is how he is known.’
‘Teb,’ she repeated. ‘Teb Bell. Is there any point in asking around, do you think? To see if mention of the name raises a response in anyone here?’
De Gifford shrugged. ‘Possibly, my lady. It can surely do no harm, and we might be able to warn the man whom Teb Bell is after, if I have reasoned correctly and this whole miserable tale has not caused you needless anxiety.’
‘Better safe than sorry,’ she said stoutly.
He smiled briefly. Then, looking at her with what looked like a slightly awkward expression, he said, ‘Er — I’m wondering, my lady Abbess, if it might be a wise precaution to ask Sir Josse d’Acquin to come over to Hawkenlye, just until this business is cleared up.’
Now it was her turn to smile and hers was more wholehearted than his. ‘No need,’ she said happily, ‘I’m pleased to say that he’s already here. You have but to wait until he returns from this morning’s second mercy visit, and then you will be able to talk to him yourself and tell him all that you have just told me.’
Josse returned and was briefed by de Gifford. Having as he did such favourable memories of the sheriff and trusting that the man was not causing a fuss about nothing, Josse agreed that they should begin asking all the people currently making use of the Abbey’s various services if the name Teb — or, come to that, Walter — Bell meant anything to them. In particular, whether it brought fear into their eyes. Leofgar and Brother Saul offered to help, and Saul said he would enrol the assistance of some of the other lay brothers; there were, after all, an awful lot of people to ask …
But in the end they had got no further than interviewing the first dozen or so pilgrims down in the Vale before they were overtaken by events.
Two nuns, Sister Anne and Sister Phillipa, were on their way back from the tiny hamlet of Fernthe, accompanied by Brother Erse, the Abbey’s carpenter, and a young lay brother called Peter. They had met with a slight accident when almost within sight of the Abbey; Peter had tripped on a tree root and sprained his ankle. Erse had been of the opinion that, with the support of his stout shoulder, the lad would be up to hopping back to the Abbey if they gave it a while for the pain to subside but, not wanting the nuns to take a chill while they waited around in the cold, he urged them to hasten on to Hawkenlye. It had seemed unlikely that they would meet with any mishap so close to the Abbey’s walls, especially as their baskets were empty and no longer a target for hungry thieves, but if they did, Erse told them ‘to holler as loud as you can and I’ll come running’.
They did as he suggested, as confident as he that nothing unexpected would happen.
But it did. They rounded a curve of the track that ran along beside the Great Forest and walked straight into a body hanging by a rope from the branch of an oak tree. Sister Phillipa had the presence of mind to try to lift the man and take the weight off his neck; a good idea but in fact quite pointless since he had been dead for some time. Poor Sister Anne’s terrified screams echoed not only back to Erse, who dumped Peter on the ground and, habit flying up round his thighs, raced to help; they also echoed faintly in the cloisters of Hawkenlye Abbey, where people looked up in alarm and wondered what on earth had happened now.
It would not be very long before at least some of them found out.
Chapter 6
Josse and Brother Saul were first on the scene. They had been speaking to a young family who had just arrived at Hawkenlye and they had run the distance from the Abbey gates up to the forest fringe with the speed of anxiety; Sister Anne had a scream to equal the last trump. Leofgar, who had been in the stables trying to get some of the icy, caked mud off Horace and his own horse, raced after them. Everyone had been too busy to notice, but Leofgar looked if anything even more tense than when he and his little family had arrived.
Josse hastened to relieve Sister Phillipa of the weight of the body and Saul climbed up the oak tree and tried to undo the knot that bound the rope to the high branch. Leofgar, who had put his arm around Sister Anne to comfort her and in the hope of stopping her piercing screams, looked up briefly and, catching Saul’s eye, took a sheathed knife out of his belt and threw it to Saul, who deftly caught it. He sawed through the rope about two hands’ breadths from the knot and instantly the full weight of the body descended into Josse’s arms.
Josse put his fingers to the throat and his ear to the gaping mouth, from which a blackened tongue protruded. As his senses confirmed what he already knew, Josse shook his head.
He sensed that someone had come to stand close beside him and Sister Phillipa’s low voice said, ‘Did I not succeed in saving him, Sir Josse?’
He laid the dead man carefully on the ground and, taking off his own cloak, spread it over the horrible spectacle of the ruined face. ‘Had you happened upon him soon after the rope tightened, your resourceful and brave action might well have helped, Sister,’ he replied. ‘But he is already cold and his limbs begin to take on the stiffness that follows death, so we must assure ourselves that any action we tried to take to save him came far too late.’
‘Sister Anne and I did not set out by this path,’ Sister Phillipa murmured. ‘Had we done so, we might have been in time.’
Josse looked at her and noticed how pale she was. Shock, he reminded himself, can manifest itself in other ways than in hysterical screaming. Straightening up, he took hold of Sister Phillipa’s hand, which was cold and clammy. Thinking quickly, he leaned close to her and whispered, ‘Sister, we must get Sister Anne back to the Abbey for she is beside herself and is in need of the infirmarer’s calming draught. Will you see her back, if Brother Saul and Leofgar go with you?’