Voices… Two male voices, Gurdyman’s and another.
Shocked into wakefulness, I leapt out of bed, filled the bowl with water from the jug beneath the window, washed my face and hands and then, putting more water in a cup, took up one of the little twigs I cut specially and cleaned my teeth. My herb-induced sleep had been heavy, and my mouth felt as if it was lined with fluff. I pulled on my gown, re-braided my hair, tied on a clean head band and arranged my small coif, trying all the time to keep my movements restrained and quiet; I really didn’t want to give the impression that I was taking particular care with my appearance, even though of course I was. Then, boots in my hand, I climbed barefoot down the ladder.
My attempt at nonchalant sophistication was somewhat spoiled by the fact that I missed my footing and slipped down the last few steps, landing in a heap on the floor.
The conversation out in the court abruptly stopped and Gurdyman said, ‘Are you all right in there, Lassair?’
‘Fine!’ I said, my voice a squeak.
There was a pause, then he said – and I could hear he was smiling – ‘Aren’t you coming out to join us?’
So I did.
He and Jack sat opposite each other on wooden benches, with Gurdyman’s portable working board set up between them. Gurdyman was smiling at me indulgently. As for Jack, when I nerved myself to meet his eyes, I saw with a lift of the heart that he looked as glad to see me as I was him.
He got up as I approached and gave a sort of bow. He said quietly, ‘I heard you were back.’
I nodded. ‘Yes.’
Gurdyman endured a few moments of Jack and me looking awkwardly at each other, then said firmly, ‘Lassair, I expect you can guess why Jack is here. Come and sit down, for he wants to talk to you.’
I hesitated. If I sat next to Gurdyman, Jack might think I didn’t want to be near him, and if I sat next to him, it might make me appear too forward. So I pulled up a third bench and sat on that. Gurdyman shook his head in exasperation. Then, turning to Jack, he said, ‘Go on, then.’
Jack was watching me closely. ‘You were called out yesterday evening to attend to a wounded man down by the river, Gurdyman tells me.’
‘He was dead. The wounded man, I mean. I think the people who found him panicked, and sending for a healer was the first thing they thought of.’
‘He had been dead some time?’
‘Yes.’ I explained about the cold ground and the congealing blood.
‘I’ve taken a team out there this morning and organized a proper search,’ Jack said with a frown – of criticism for the inadequacies of the colleague I’d met yesterday? – ‘but we found nothing.’
‘I looked, last night,’ I said quickly. Had that been the right thing to do, or should I have left it to Jack? ‘I didn’t find anything either.’
‘What of the others who were there?’ Jack asked. ‘There were some lads, and a young couple, I believe. Would any of them have noticed anything, or picked up some object?’
‘I doubt it,’ I said. ‘The two boys had barely got to the scene before one of them raced off to fetch me, and I don’t think it would have occurred to either of them to start searching; they were far too shocked. As for the courting couple, before they found the body they were only interested in each other, and afterwards, his sole concern was to take care of her.’
‘You don’t think it would be worth my while to find them and talk to them?’
‘No.’ He’d learn nothing, I was sure of it, and I would save them from the ordeal if I could.
Jack seemed to accept that. Still watching me closely, he said, ‘What are your thoughts?’
‘Er – What do you mean?’
‘Tell me what you observed, and what you conclude from it.’
I paused, trying to sum up my impressions and work out how to express them in a way that would be helpful. It wasn’t easy, especially when he was staring at me so intently. I had forgotten the clear green of his eyes. Get on with it, I ordered myself.
‘The man was wealthy and enjoyed a rich life, with plenty on the board and in the larder,’ I began. ‘He could afford good clothes, and he had recently treated himself to a costly robe.’ The wool had had that distinctive, new-cloth gloss and smell. ‘He wore fine boots, although he wasn’t much of a walker, for the wear on the soles and heels was uneven, and he probably turned his toes out at quite an awkward angle. He had a purse attached to his belt, as well as a dagger in a nicely decorated sheath.’ I stopped, thinking. ‘Whoever attacked him didn’t do it to rob him, because the purse was still bulging, and they took him by surprise. He didn’t have time to get his dagger out.’ I paused again. ‘The assailant jumped on him from behind and he dug in his heels as whoever it was pulled him over backwards. The killer tore out the throat, I would guess in one savage movement and probably with the right hand, destroying the windpipe, the gullet and the blood vessels on the left of the neck. The man would have died instantly.’ Suddenly I could see that awful wound again. I swallowed, fighting the light-headedness. ‘I can’t begin to imagine the weapon,’ I said. ‘You’d think it was the huge paw of some wild creature, only I don’t know anything that comes that big.’
Silence. I heard my last words, over and over in my head, like a fading echo. Anything that comes that big. Comes that big. That big. Big. How stupid I sounded.
Then, after what seemed hours, Gurdyman stirred and addressed Jack. ‘You have seen the body?’ Jack nodded. ‘Do you know who he was?’
Jack sighed. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘His name was Robert Powl. As Lassair surmised, he was indeed a wealthy man, building himself a fine new house out to the north-west of the town, not far from where the quayside starts to peter out.’
‘He was a merchant?’ Gurdyman demanded.
Jack shook his head. ‘No. He had a fleet of river craft, and his business was the transportation of cargoes – goods, livestock, people – around the fenland waters and up and down the rivers between here and the coast.’
‘A lucrative business,’ Gurdyman observed.
‘Yes,’ Jack agreed. ‘He seemed to be doing very well.’
‘Has he family?’ I asked, somewhat sharply. It seemed more important to ask about the people left behind to grieve than about the poor man’s prosperity.
Jack met my eyes, and I sensed he knew exactly what I was thinking. ‘He was a widower,’ he said. ‘His wife died five years ago, and they had no children. He lives with a small household of staff, who have been informed of their master’s death and the manner of it, and are deeply shocked.’
‘And can any of them suggest why their master was killed?’ Gurdyman asked. ‘Had he enemies? Somebody he had crossed in business?’
‘We are enquiring, but it appears not,’ Jack replied. ‘Robert Powl liked to make money, and he was keen to use that money to make more, but then so do all successful men of affairs.’
‘Why, then, was he killed?’ I asked in a small voice. And in such a terrible manner…
Jack looked at me, his face full of sympathy. ‘I don’t know, Lassair.’ But. I could hear the but, although it wasn’t spoken.
So could Gurdyman. ‘But you have your suspicions?’ he said.
Jack looked from one to the other of us. ‘I have-’ he began, then stopped.
‘Go on,’ Gurdyman urged. He glanced at me. ‘You won’t scare Lassair. She is made of stern stuff.’
Jack drew in a breath. Then very quietly he said, ‘This death is not entirely unexpected.’
Gurdyman saw what he meant before I did. Leaning forward, he said, ‘There have been others, killed in the same manner.’
But Jack shook his head. ‘No – not people,’ he replied, in the same barely audible voice, as if he feared eavesdroppers out in the alley on the far side of the high enclosing wall.