I don’t know why, but I felt sure it had been left for Ida and not for Granny. Perhaps it was the furtiveness of the placement. If any of us had brought a little offering for our dead relative, we would have left it where all could see it. I looked at the craftsmanship of the little wreath, noticing that it was crude, the grass stems already beginning to unravel. It looked like the work of a child.
I heard a voice in my head. It was Sir Alain’s. He used to make little posies for her, clumsy things of grass stems woven together with a couple of flowers stuck in.
Then I knew who had left it.
It made sense, too, because he probably thought she was still here. .
I was filled with pity for him, poor Derman, mourning the girl he had loved from afar, driven to some furtive, night-time visit to the place where he believed her body was interred and leaving his pathetic little offering. I wondered where he was hiding, almost certain that he had not strayed far from this spot. He must have missed them when they came to take her off to Lakehall — he’d probably still been back at home with Zarina, where I had left him that terrible morning — and he could not have seen the sad procession when her body was taken to be reburied close by the church. Perhaps, exhausted by his grief, he had been sleeping somewhere, curled up in whatever nest he had made for himself. Perhaps he had been off looking for something to eat, for there was little to sustain a grown man in the immediate vicinity.
‘Where are you, Derman?’ I said aloud. ‘I know you are afraid and do not understand, but you should go home. Zarina is very worried about you.’
Was that good advice, though? Even if Derman could hear me, should he obey? I was not at all sure. I was convinced he hadn’t killed Ida — I did not allow myself to think about who might have done — but the rest of the village certainly didn’t share that view. There was still too much talk of going out to hunt for Derman, and not with anything charitable in mind like wrapping him in a warm blanket and bringing him home.
The little wreath did, however, tell me something very encouraging that I could report to an anxious sister: the wild flowers were still fresh, which meant the wreath had only recently been made. Derman was still alive, and he was still close by.
I said a hurried farewell to Granny — I know she would have understood — and, leaping back across the planks, ran back to fetch my basket. Then, moving more slowly once I was encumbered by its weight, I went back to the village. I left the basket of roots beside the outhouse; I could hear the murmur of voices from within the house and knew better than to disturb my aunt and her patient. Then I ran down the path again and raced along the track until I reached the widow Berta’s house.
Zarina was, as I had expected, down by the water, wringing out a long piece of sheeting with strong, red-knuckled hands. It looked as if it was of good quality, perhaps belonging to some grand servant up at the hall. She looked up as she heard me approach, her face anxious. ‘What’s the matter? Have you any news?’ she demanded.
I waited while I caught my breath and then said, ‘I’ve just been out to the island. Someone’s left a little wreath, and I’m sure it must have been Derman, making an offering for Ida.’
Slowly, she let the sheet drop on to the ground. ‘He’s still alive, then.’
I could read nothing in her tone. If she was relieved at my news, she didn’t show it.
‘He must be hiding somewhere nearby,’ I said encouragingly. ‘He obviously thinks she’s still in my Granny’s grave, so that’s where he left the wreath. Oh, Zarina, perhaps he goes there regularly to be with her! We might be able to lie in wait for him and persuade him to come home! If you like I’ll help you. I could-’
‘No.’ She cut my offer dead. Then, managing a smile, she said, ‘It’s kind of you, Lassair, and I know you mean well.’ I hate it when people say that because it usually means that you’re so far from achieving your aim that you might as well not have bothered. ‘But I think it’d be better if I went alone,’ she went on. ‘He’ll be in a very bad state. He’ll be frightened, hungry, thirsty and tired. He doesn’t manage very well on his own.’ Briefly, she turned her face away, and I guessed she was hiding sudden tears.
‘Very well,’ I said. ‘You know best, I’m sure.’
She must have detected from my voice that I felt snubbed. Turning back, she said, ‘You’re very kind, like all your family. I really don’t-’
She did not finish whatever she had been about to say. Without another word, she picked up the sheet, brushed off a few pieces of grass and went back to her wringing.
‘When will you go?’ I asked.
She shot me a quick glance, and then the golden-green eyes were covered again as she lowered her gaze. ‘Soon.’
I had the strong sense that was all she was going to say. There seemed little point in staying, so I left.
Hrype came, as he had promised, soon after Edild and I had tidied up after supper. As before, we were sitting out under the trees, and he knew where to find us.
I had already told Edild what I had found out on the island, and now I repeated it to Hrype. We all agreed that the wreath must have been left by Derman. I had called in at my parents’ house on my way back to Edild’s after seeing Zarina, and my mother had said that, as far as she knew, nobody in the family had left any such offering for Granny.
‘Zarina’s going to go out to the island to see if she can find him,’ I said now. ‘I offered to go with her, but she said she was better on her own.’
I watched Hrype and my aunt exchange a glance. ‘I wonder,’ Edild said softly.
‘You wonder what?’ I demanded.
But she shook her head. ‘Nothing.’
It wasn’t nothing; of course it wasn’t. What she meant was that, whatever it was, she wasn’t going to share it with me. They weren’t going to share it, because clearly Hrype knew what she meant. ‘It would be a solution,’ he murmured.
I was about to demand that they tell me but Hrype, as if he realized, turned to me and said, ‘Now, you have told Edild what we learned concerning Sir Alain’s familiarity with the household at Heathlands?’
‘Yes,’ I said shortly. I was cross with them.
‘Don’t sulk, Lassair,’ my aunt said. ‘So — ’ she was addressing Hrype — ‘you are suggesting that Sir Alain and Ida were lovers before Ida accompanied Lady Claude here to Lakehall?’
‘Possibly,’ Hrype said guardedly. ‘It seems likely that the two of them met. At the least, they could have done.’
‘Let us assume he fathered a child on the girl yet was betrothed to Lady Claude,’ Edild mused. Then, cutting straight to the point: ‘Lady Claude is very devout and intolerant of sinners. If she discovered the man she was to wed had bedded another woman, moreover one to whom he was not married, and had made her pregnant, she would have nothing more to do with him.’
‘Motive enough for him to kill Ida?’ Hrype asked softly.
‘Oh, I can’t believe he killed her!’ I burst out, earning urgent Shhh! sounds from my aunt and Hrype. ‘I just can’t,’ I repeated in a whisper.
‘Why?’ Hrype asked.
It was a good question. I had been asking it of myself all day and still had no answer. My sensible, logical head said that of course he’d strangled Ida; who else could have? My heart, however, just would not accept it. ‘Because he’s nice,’ I muttered under my breath. Fortunately, neither of them appeared to hear. ‘I don’t know,’ I said lamely.
We talked long into the night, for there was no obvious way to test our tentative theory of Sir Alain’s involvement with poor, dead Ida. The household at Heathlands would have been able to give us some answers, but the likes of us could hardly go marching up to the door and begin asking questions about Lady Claritia’s future son-in-law and his possible dalliance with Lady Claude’s seamstress. Hrype proposed trying to talk to some of the servants, but you could never tell how loyal a man or woman was going to be to his lord and lady and, if word got back to our Lord Gilbert that Hrype had been asking questions at Heathlands, it would undoubtedly lead to trouble.