‘But that means you would be left alone with the body, Sir Josse!’ she exclaimed. ‘I will stay with you, for two together will be better than one alone.’
She was courageous, there was no denying it, and he admired courage; indeed, he would have welcomed her company. But he did not want her to stay out there in the cold with him for the length of time it might take Saul to arrange and dispatch a party with a hurdle to fetch the body. ‘I will be quite all right, Sister,’ he assured her gently. ‘I have stood vigil by the dead many times and they do not frighten me.’
Her eyes met his. A very small smile touched her lips and she said, ‘And you would rather not have the additional worry of a woman who might pass out on you.’
He grinned back. ‘I have no fear of that, Sister. But you have had a disturbing experience and I would be reassured if I knew that you too were on your way to being tended by helping hands.’
She bowed briefly. ‘Very well, I will go.’
Brother Saul and Sister Anne had already started off down the path and now, for the first time, Josse looked over at Leofgar, about to ask him to take Sister Phillipa’s arm and help her along after them. What he saw quite surprised him, for Leofgar was almost as white as Sister Phillipa and he was staring down at the body as if he could see straight through the thick cloth of Josse’s cloak and was still studying the blackened, distorted features of the dead face. Perhaps, Josse thought, it is the first time he has seen violent death. Perhaps, despite the fine example of bravery set by Sister Phillipa, he cannot control his reactions. Well, if so, the sooner he puts distance between himself and the corpse, the better.
‘Leofgar?’ he said.
The young man slowly turned his head towards Josse, although his eyes remained fixed on the body. ‘Yes?’
‘Leofgar, please take Sister Phillipa back to the Abbey.’ This time Josse put a little asperity into his tone and to his relief Leofgar responded. As the young man stepped around the corpse and approached the nun, his features seemed to unfreeze and he gave her a comradely smile. ‘Come, Sister,’ he said, holding out his hand for hers, ‘Sir Josse is right, there’s no need for more than one to stay on guard here. Let’s help each other back to the sanctuary of the Abbey walls.’
She took his hand and Josse watched as the two of them strode off down the path, quickly catching up and overtaking Brother Saul and Sister Anne; Leofgar called out something, perhaps an assurance that he would alert the community to what had happened, and then he and Sister Phillipa, still rather touchingly holding hands, broke into a trot and hastened away. Leofgar might well have reacted like a green young lad on seeing the body, Josse mused, and I can’t really blame him for it was not a pleasant sight. But he’s pulled himself together, no doubt of that, and I am sure he will not falter again.
Josse put the matter out of his mind. There would be only a brief time before the hurdle bearers arrived to take the body away and he had work to do. First he inspected the ground beneath the branch from which the body had been suspended, but it was hard with the dry cold and, in any case, any informative footprints there might have been had been obscured by the lightly shod feet of the two nuns, by Saul’s sandals and by the boots of Leofgar and Josse. No help there, he decided. Then he went to look around the trunk of the tree. There were the prints of Saul’s feet; he had broken the thin ice on the edge of an all but dried out puddle and the marks of the hobnails on the thick soles of the lay brother’s sandals had made a sliding pattern in the mud.
There was another footprint too.
Josse hurried back to the dead man and studied his feet. He wore filthy boots of poor quality leather and the uppers had pulled away from the soles in one or two places. The backs of the boots were trodden down, as if the man had been in the habit of pushing his feet carelessly into them. Grimacing at the task, both because it took some force and because the man stank, Josse pulled the right boot off the dead foot. Then he carried it over to the base of the oak tree and compared it with the footprint there.
Interesting.
He laid the boot down beside the corpse — putting it back on the pale, naked and filthy foot would take time that he did not have and, besides, the infirmarer and her nurses would in any case soon be stripping the corpse in preparation for burial — and then he spat on his hands and shinned up the tree. He edged gingerly along the branch and, at the point where the knot was still tied to it, settled himself securely, winding his legs firmly together beneath the branch and, holding on with one hand, bending down to inspect the knot.
He traced the way in which the rope had been tied. That was interesting, too. Then he spotted something else. Leaning down, he teased out the small but revealing thing that was caught up in a strand of the knotted rope and carefully tucked it inside his tunic. He pushed himself back along the branch — funny how it seemed to be even further from the ground now that he was up there — and as he slid back down the oak tree’s trunk, he heard the hurdle bearers coming along the track.
Later, he and the Abbess waited together in the infirmary, outside the recess where Sister Euphemia had ordered the lay brothers to put the corpse. She would strip the dead man, she had said, have a preliminary look at him and invite the Abbess and Josse to join her when she was ready. She had just sent Sister Beata to fetch them and, as they waited there, the curtains parted and the infirmarer stood back to let them approach the cot where the body lay.
There was a strong smell of rosemary, combining refreshingly with some other flowery scent that Josse thought was geranium.
‘We’ve washed him,’ Sister Euphemia murmured. ‘He was lice-ridden and I didn’t want the little devils spreading.’
‘Quite so,’ said the Abbess. Josse, glancing at her, did not miss the swift expression of disgust that momentarily crossed her face. Then, like her, he turned his attention to the dead man.
The flesh was white and sparse; he had been a lean man, not very tall. Josse stared at the skinny arms and looked for several moments at the hands and wrists. The limbs were stunted and the legs slightly bowed, an effect often seen, Josse reflected, in the bodies of the poor who had never had quite enough to eat. Sister Euphemia had discreetly placed a folded sheet across the man’s lower trunk so that his groin and genitals were concealed; Josse raised the corner of the sheet and had a quick look, which told him little other than that the man had had gingery body hair and had not been circumcised. Replacing the sheet, he turned to stare at the head and face. The head hair had also had a ginger tinge, although less pronounced, and the man had been in the process of going bald. With a nod to himself, as if privately noting that some earlier possibility had just turned out to be true, Josse looked at the bulging eyes — Sister Euphemia had managed to close them — and finally at the open mouth with its protruding tongue.
Noticing the direction of his attention, the infirmarer said, ‘He had rotten teeth, Sir Josse. They’d have given him gyp, I shouldn’t wonder.’
‘Hm.’ Josse hardly heard; he was thinking. He put his hands either side of the head and, raising it from the cot, moved it gently around, from side to side, then backwards and forwards. Again he said, ‘Hm.’ Then he pulled out the small object he had found in the strands of the rope and put it on the cot beside the dead man’s head. Looking up at the infirmarer, he said, ‘A match, would you say?’
With a soft exclamation she bent to look more closely. She sniffed at the dead man’s scalp and picked up the few strands of ginger-brown hair that Josse had laid beside the head and sniffed them too. She felt the head hair — still damp from her own recent ministrations — and then the stray strands, rubbing at them between her fingers. Then, replacing the loose hairs on the cot and carefully wiping her hands on a clean piece of soft white linen that smelt of lavender, she said, ‘Aye, I reckon so.’