I said urgently to the fat woman, ‘You’re sure you saw nobody else that day?’
‘No, dear, no. Just the three of you, like I say.’
For a moment I’d thought I was on to something, but just as swiftly I realized that if Baudouin’s intention was to guard Romain because he was concerned for him, then he’d probably make quite sure he wasn’t seen, by either Romain or whoever it was that Baudouin feared might wish to harm him.
I remembered what else Hrype had reported that night. The witness said they saw Romain catch up with Sibert, who then doubled back and jumped Romain from behind, hitting him so hard on the back of the head that the bones of the skull shattered.
It made me feel queasy just thinking about it and my heart ached for poor dead Romain. I did not think I could retain my composure any longer and, not wanting to make a scene in front of the fat woman — who, to judge by her face, was quite upset already — I caught Hrype’s eye.
He dipped his head in a brief nod. ‘Thank you,’ he said to the fat woman. ‘We must go now and leave you to your water-carrying.’
She was still watching us, her expression sombre. ‘I hope your nephew gets off,’ she said to Hrype.
‘I hope so too,’ he replied gravely. ‘Farewell.’
‘God’s speed,’ she replied.
Then we loosened the horses’ reins and hurried away.
As soon as we were out of sight and sound of the clearing, he said, ‘Lassair, we must look closely at the place where the murder happened. It seems likely that it is the spot where Romain and Sibert fought, for you told me that you left Romain there, wounded, and it is very possible that the killer struck while he was down. I am sorry I had to remind you,’ he added.
I was sorry he had, too. But I knew he was right and we had to look. ‘The place where they fought must be back up this track that leads to the road,’ I said, ‘since the fight was after we’d stopped at the well.’
We rode on. We had missed the place as we went south towards the well but now I was sure we were on the same track that Sibert and I had followed.
In time, we came to the spot. The events of that day were vivid in my memory and I felt cold at the thought of what had happened after Sibert and I had gone.
Hrype had tossed his horse’s reins to me and he was on hands and knees, covering every inch of the ground. I suppose that I should have helped him but for one thing I didn’t know exactly what he was searching for and, for another, I was still feeling unwell.
I looped the horses’ reins around the branch of a young birch tree and leaned against it, sliding my back down its smooth silvery trunk until my backside rested on the ground. I closed my eyes and immediately saw Romain as he was when Sibert and I left him. Oh, I cried silently, oh, if I hadn’t yelled out to Sibert to lift his knee and Romain hadn’t been so hurt, perhaps his assailant wouldn’t have succeeded in killing him. On his feet and fully alert, Romain would at least have had a fighting chance.
I buried my face in my hands, fingers against my closed eyes in a futile attempt to stem the tears.
I don’t know how long the fragment of memory stayed in my mind before I realized its significance. One moment the picture of Romain lying with his knees clutched to his chest was just that, a vividly remembered image. Then the next moment I understood what it was trying to tell me.
‘Hrype!’ I hissed, in a sort of whispered shout; although it was very unlikely that there was anyone about, somehow I felt it was essential that what I believed I had just discovered should only be shared with Hrype.
He was grubbing about in the waist-high bracken on the far side of the clearing. He straightened up at my call and looked at me, eyebrows raised. I beckoned, getting to my feet as I did so, and in a few strides he was beside me.
‘What?’ he said softly. There was a light in his eyes; I think he already knew, somehow, that this was something important. I noticed, with a separate part of my mind, that his deep eyes sometimes seemed to shine as if they were lit from within. . ‘What?’ he repeated impatiently.
‘Tell me again how the witness described the murder,’ I said, my voice low.
He did not question my request but said, ‘Romain caught up with Sibert, who managed to double back and attack him from behind, crushing his skull with a branch.’
‘Did anyone see the body’ — I hated speaking of poor dead Romain in such detached terms but it was the only way I could begin to cope with this — ‘to verify what the witness said?’
‘No one that I know of,’ Hrype replied. ‘Except, of course, Baudouin.’
‘And nobody would think to question Baudouin’s word,’ I said slowly. Then: ‘Hrype, if it happened as we think it did, if the assailant attacked Romain when he was already on the ground, then the wound is in the wrong place. When we left him, Romain was curled up on his back, hugging his knees tight to his chest. It would have been impossible for anyone to hit him on the back of the head.’
Even as I spoke, my brief moment of certainty broke up and faded. There was no way of telling how long Romain had lain there; he could have rolled over on to his front, or managed to get to his feet, shortly after we had left him. My brilliant idea was nothing of the sort.
Then why, I wondered, was Hrype nodding, smiling even, for all that it was a grim smile?
‘It did happen as we envisage,’ he said, ‘and Romain was not struck on the back of the head.’ He hurried back to where he had been searching and held up a piece of branch, jagged at one end where it had been torn off the tree. I prayed that he would not bring it over to me, for I knew what it was, but he did.
He held it up. I could see dried blood on it, as well as some pale matter which I had spotted before I had the sense to look away.
‘I am sorry, Lassair,’ Hrype said gently. There was a swishing sound. ‘There; I’ve thrown it back in the bracken. It’s gone.’
I swallowed back the threatening nausea and said shakily, ‘What were you going to show me?’
‘When you poleaxe a beast,’ he said, still in those soothing, gentle tones, ‘the weapon may be stained with blood and sometimes, if the blow breaks the skull, with brains.’ Oh! ‘There are invariably a few hairs, and I would expect to find hairs also on a weapon that struck down a man on the back or the top of his head with sufficient force to shatter bone.’
‘Romain had thick hair,’ I murmured faintly. ‘Thick and glossy. . ’
‘There is not a single hair on that branch,’ Hrype said. ‘If it was what the killer used to murder Romain, then the poor man was hit on the brow, on the front of the face, where hair does not grow.’
‘The witness must have been mistaken, then,’ I whispered. ‘Perhaps he did not get as good a view of the murder as he claims.’ I realized something. I said excitedly, ‘So how can he be so sure that Sibert was the murderer?’
‘How indeed,’ muttered Hrype. He was frowning, staring absently out across the clearing.
‘We must ride back to Aelf Fen with all speed and tell Lord Gilbert!’ I said, already gathering up the horses’ reins. He did not move. ‘Come on!’ I urged.
He turned to me as if about to speak. But then, apparently changing his mind, he nodded and together we set out up the track towards the road.
SEVENTEEN
Baudouin had located his witness. He was a smallish man with sparse gingery hair and pale skin flecked with scaly patches. He claimed to be a merchant, although his general appearance gave the impression that if indeed he was, then he was not a very successful one. In the company of a sway-backed mule laden with shabby goods that surely only the desperate would wish to buy, he travelled the roads and the tracks of a wide area of East Anglia between the coastal ports and the inland towns, villages and hamlets and his name was Sagar. Brought forward to repeat his tale, he was sweating with nerves and had clearly taken a drink or two.