He pointed.
And, deep in the woods, down in a dell surrounded by trees and thick underbrush, was a burnt-out cottage.
‘I’m going to look,’ Augustine announced, sliding off Horace’s back and looping the reins round a branch.
‘No, Augustine, it might be dangerous!’ The protest was out before she could stop it.
But Augustine took no notice. Neither did Saul, who, even as she spoke, was jumping off the cob and following Augustine into the woods.
It was surely better to be with them than left by herself on the track, so Helewise dismounted too and, making her way more carefully because of her long skirts, went into the still, dim interior of the woodland.
The dwelling could only have been very small, hardly worthy of the name cottage. The remains of four smoke-blackened walls stood up from a tangle of brush, and the new growth of rose-bay willow-herb — the country folk’s ‘fireweed’ — was busy trying to cover the great black scar in the land. Anything that might once have been within the little house had been crushed to the ground by the beams from the roof, which had obliterated all beneath them as they fell.
Helewise shuddered. ‘Come away,’ she said, wishing her voice sounded more authoritative. ‘This is an awful place, we-’
But, with an exclamation, Saul hurried forward into the dwelling. Her cry of ‘Be careful!’ was arrested in her throat as Saul bent down and, swinging up his arm, held aloft a human skull.
Augustine put his hand on her arm, and she was vastly comforted to feel his warm, firm touch. ‘Abbess, stay here,’ he said gently. ‘I will help Saul.’
She should have gone with him. She was both men’s superior, after all. But her legs had started to shake; she was afraid that, if she moved, she would fall.
Saul had carefully replaced the skull on the ash-soft floor of the dwelling. Now he and Augustine were crouching down, rummaging among the charred remains of beams and wooden wall supports. Saul murmured something — his tone sounded questioning — and Augustine replied. They were both picking up pieces of what looked like wood, holding them up to each other and then putting them back.
Suddenly Augustine let out a sharp breath, nudged Saul and pointed to what looked like a spike, sticking up out of the ground. His fingers were busy trying to pull something offit. .
Then Saul stood up, ashen-faced, and swiftly crossed himself. Helewise heard him say, ‘Dear God above, the poor wretch!’ Then, bowing his head, he came out of the dwelling and returned to her side. Augustine stood quite still in the centre of the cottage, gazing down at whatever it was he held between his fingers as if he could hardly believe his eyes.
Helewise said, ‘It was a human skull, wasn’t it, Saul?’
He sighed. ‘Aye, Abbess. I’m afraid it was.’
‘And the rest of the body. .?’
‘Aye, he’s there, what’s left of him. Only his bones, mind, and some charred remnants of his clothing and that. Leg bones, ribs, arms.’ An expression of deep disgust crossed his face.
‘It is a terrible thing to have seen, Saul,’ she said gently.
He glanced at her. ‘Oh, it’s not that, Abbess, bless you. I’ve seen my share of dead bodies; they don’t normally disturb me, beyond feelings of sorrow for the death. No, it’s — he was-’ But, shaking his head, he did not seem to be able to go on.
Augustine had joined them; silent and soft-footed, he had made no sound. He stared at Helewise, and his face, too, was pale.
‘That was no accidental death,’ he said. ‘Not a case of a man falling asleep while his supper cooks and, in his slumber, not noticing the fire spreading from the hearth and setting the house on fire. No. That’s not what it was.’
‘What, then?’ She could hardly speak.
Augustine held up what he had been holding so carefully in his hand. It looked like. . it looked like the frayed remains of a piece of rope.
‘He was tied to a stake in the ground,’ Augustine said quietly and, instantly, the sense of dread that Helewise had been feeling grew till it all but floored her. Evil was there, right there, in that place where a poor man had been tied up inside a cottage and left to burn to death.
‘Could — could it not have been somehow accidental?’ she whispered. ‘Might it not have been an animal that was tethered to the spike, not the dead man?’
Augustine shook his head. Then he held up his other hand, and the object that had been concealed behind his back came into Helewise’s view.
It was a skeletal human hand, the fingers pulled up into a claw. Around the wrist was tied another length of rope.
Chapter Twelve
They would have left the wood sooner, had Brother Saul not insisted that they bury the remains.
Helewise had resisted the temptation to suggest it; the expedition was under her command, and she was responsible for the brothers who were with her. She could sense peril all around them — and the sense that they were being followed, their every movement being observed, grew stronger by the minute — and, despite the clear Christian duty to inter what was left of the dead body, she felt it was an occasion when the living must take precedence over the dead.
But Saul insisted.
Augustine went to help him. They found lengths of wood to use as makeshift spades and, working hard, managed to dig a shallow pit within quite a short space of time; the recent heavy rain now worked in their favour, having softened the ground. Then Helewise helped them to pick up all the pieces of bone they could find and place them in the grave.
Augustine held up the pelvis. ‘This was a man and no mistake,’ he said quietly.
‘How can you tell?’ Helewise asked.
The boy gave a faint grin. ‘My family have been gravediggers, in their time. I was taught about bodies when I was quite young, and told how the wider opening’s for a woman’s skeleton, the narrower, more pointed arch for a man’s.’
Helewise felt quite faint. ‘Thank you, Augustine. Shall we put those bones in with the rest?’
When they were as satisfied as they could be that nothing of the man had been left within the ruined cottage for animals to destroy, the two lay brothers filled in the grave. Helewise recited the prayers for the dead, and they all stood in silence for some time with bowed heads. Saul found two pieces of roughly straight wood, and he fashioned them into a cross, tying them together with a piece of twine taken from the cord around his waist. He stuck it into the ground above the dead man’s head.
Then they returned to the horses.
It could reasonably be expected to be dark, in there under the trees. But, when they emerged into open countryside, to Helewise’s dismay she noticed that the sun had almost set.
Dear God, where were they to sleep that night?
Saul kicked the old cob into a canter and overtook both Helewise and Augustine, disappearing up the track into the gloom. They caught sight of him again as they entered Medely; he had dismounted and, leading his horse, was tapping at the doors of each of the inhabited dwellings.
Nobody was answering his knock.
Even the house from which the old man had peered out was shut up and dark. If he were within, he was lying low.
Saul turned to her, a look of desperation in his face. ‘I am sorry, Abbess, but I can’t make anybody hear.’
‘Never mind, Saul.’ She was, she realised, feeling better now that they were out of the wood. ‘We shall go into one of the empty houses. Should anyone come to ask what we’re doing, we shall say, with total honesty, that we tried to ask for accommodation but were ignored. We shall not do any harm, and we shall be gone tomorrow.’
Then, kicking the mare into a trot, she led her party up the track to the furthest of the deserted dwellings. And there, out of the wind and the night time mist if nothing else, they spent the night.