‘May I make a suggestion, Sister?’
She was already blushing; he guessed, at having given what amounted to an order to someone who greatly outranked her. She lowered her eyes. ‘Of course, Sir Josse.’
‘It is possible that Akhbir and his late companion may have some involvement in the death of the man out on the forest track. There is also the matter of the fire at the priory, which it seems was deliberately set. Two of the victims of that act lie in the infirmary; their brother monk died in the fire. I suggest that-’
‘That we do not house Akhbir anywhere near the two Hospitallers,’ she finished for him. ‘I will ensure that he is kept well away.’ She looked across to the infirmary and then her gaze went on past it. ‘He does not need any treatment, other than someone making sure he drinks and eats,’ she mused. ‘Should we ask the lay brethren in the Vale to look after him?’
‘Aye, Sister,’ Josse agreed. The suggestion suited him very well. Since his own accommodation was down in the Vale, he could make sure that, with Akhbir being housed there too, he was the first to know when the man was ready to talk. He could also put the word around that Akhbir was to be subtly watched; Gervase de Gifford would undoubtedly wish to interview him as soon as he was up to it. It was probably just as well for Akhbir, Josse reflected, that the sheriff was not there with them now because he would not be as considerate as Sister Caliste and Josse with a man suspected of being involved in two murders. ‘I will come with you to install him in the lay brothers’ quarters,’ he added.
‘Should we not first ask the Abbess?’
‘I will report back to her as soon as Akhbir is comfortable,’ he assured her. ‘You have my word.’
His word was, apparently, good enough; Sister Caliste gave a relieved smile and, with Josse trying to form the words of a simple explanation to inform the stunned and silent Akhbir what was happening, they set off for the Vale.
‘The arrow that killed Kathnir was of the same manufacture as the one I pulled out of the tree,’ Josse said to the Abbess a short time later. ‘Whoever killed him was one of the pair who aimed the warning shots at Gervase and me to drive us away from where their Turkoman companion died.’
‘You are certain?’
‘Aye, my lady.’
She raised her hands in a gesture of frustration. ‘What are we to make of it all, Sir Josse? We now have two bands of murderers in the area.’
‘It appears that they are busy killing off each other,’ he said grimly. ‘First one of the group of archers is tortured and killed, and his companions value him enough to return to the spot and make a simple sort of shrine. Then one of their arrows kills Kathnir, whom we already suspect of knowing about the death of the Turk and who might well have killed him. I think we can now be sure of that. Kathnir — the leader out of him and Akhbir — mistook the Turk for his real quarry, whom we believe to be Fadil, going under the name of John Damianos. Kathnir and Akhbir capture the Turk and try to extract from him the whereabouts of whatever it was that the runaway monk stole.’
‘They are surely aware that the English monk and Fadil are in league,’ the Abbess said. ‘They must be, since they assumed that Fadil knew where the treasure is hidden.’
‘Aye. So, Kathnir fails to extract the information he seeks — because the victim isn’t Fadil — and he murders him. The Turk’s companions find his body and they know who killed him. They bide their time and when the moment presents itself, one of them fires an arrow which finds its mark and kills Kathnir. Vengeance is done.’
‘Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord,’ the Abbess quoted softly.
‘I do not think, my lady, that the Lord comes into this very much.’
There was a short silence. The Abbess broke it. ‘What of the man Akhbir?’
Josse shrugged. ‘He is broken, a soul in despair. Whatever he has done, he is suffering grievously. Sister Caliste said quite rightly that we should not attempt to question him yet.’
‘Sister Caliste is charitable,’ the Abbess said neutrally. ‘But Akhbir was present at a brutal scene of mutilation and death.’
‘Aye, my lady. I know.’ He paused. ‘I have the advantage over you in that I have met and spoken to Akhbir,’ he said diplomatically. ‘Had you too had that experience, I am sure you would agree that he is not a ruthless, vicious killer and that it is best to accord him time to absorb his grief and begin to recover himself.’
He watched her nervously and soon a slow smile spread over her face. ‘How tactful you are, Sir Josse,’ she murmured. ‘Very well.’
‘I will not hesitate to inform you when that time comes,’ Josse said, relieved. ‘My lady, we must send someone down to Tonbridge in the morning to tell Gervase what has happened. He will want to come straight here to speak to Akhbir, but we will instruct our messenger to explain that the man is unwell and that it would be better to wait for a day or so.’ Something occurred to him: there was another mission he had been going to pursue when Will brought news of the wounded Kathnir and drove everything else out of his mind… Ah yes! ‘I will go to see Brice of Rotherbridge and ask about local interests in Outremer. Unless, that is, you have anything from Thibault concerning the English monk’s lord?’
‘No,’ she answered. ‘I did ask him but he says he does not know.’
There was something in her tone that made him pause. ‘But?’
She smiled again. ‘But,’ she echoed. ‘Yes, Sir Josse; there is indeed a but.’ She drummed her fingers on her table and he could sense her impatience and tension. ‘I asked Thibault a very simple question: did he know the name and domicile of the English lord in whose company the runaway monk had gone out to Outremer?’ Her eyes met Josse’s. ‘I expected an equally simple answer: yes or no. It was not what I got.’
‘What did he say?’
‘He made a great show of appearing to think, but I am sure it was only to give himself the time to make up a credible lie. Then he said he hadn’t known the English monk that well and when they were together it was usually in the press of battle and they had never got round to talking of the past. It was,’ she added dismissively, ‘a shower of words that said precisely nothing. He knows the identity of this English lord perfectly well, Sir Josse; but for some reason he doesn’t want to tell us.’
Ten
Josse took a guilty pleasure in his ride over to Rotherbridge the following morning. There had been a hard frost overnight and now the sky was a clear, brilliant blue and the early sunshine was making diamond sparkles of the melting drops of water on tree and grass. It was a relief to leave the complex problems at the Abbey for a few hours. There was, he told himself, nothing that he could do for the time being, anyway. Akhbir was still refusing food and water and he lay curled up on his side, his face to the wall. Sometimes his voice could be heard keening in a peculiar high-pitched, animal-like wail. It was unnerving, to say the least.
Brother Augustus had volunteered to ride down to inform Gervase de Gifford of Akhbir’s presence at Hawkenlye. When Josse had asked if he could manage to deter the sheriff for a day at least, Augustus had replied glumly, ‘I’ll tell him about that inhuman howling that kept us all awake and chilled our blood. That ought to do the trick.’
Josse smiled at the memory. Gussie was a solid and dependable young man and, in his own modest way, as much of a force to be reckoned with as the sheriff himself.
He clucked to Horace and encouraged him to a reasonably sprightly canter. Rotherbridge was still an hour’s ride away and the morning was advancing.
He was shown into Brice’s hall by a young maidservant with a shy smile and a dimple. Brice’s wife Isabella sat on a settle before the hearth, a girl of about two and a half sitting beside her and a baby of perhaps a year clutching on to its mother’s skirts as it tried to stand up. At Josse’s approach, the smaller child, a little boy, turned and gave him a wide and endearing smile that displayed four top teeth and five bottom ones.