‘It was not my fault, Arnulf.’
‘We must all take some share of the responsibility.’
‘But I was guiltless with Helene. You saw that.’
The chaplain nodded. ‘You always did your best.’
‘What will happen to me?’
‘My thoughts lie with Helene at this moment, my lord.’
‘Mine, too,’ he said quickly. ‘She dominates my mind.’
There was a long pause. Arnulf sounded tentative.
‘Did she say anything to you before this tragedy?’
‘Nothing at all.’
‘She gave no hint of the distress she was in?’
‘None.’
‘There must have been some small clue, my lord.’
‘She would not speak to us at all,’ said Wymarc. ‘She locked herself away in her room and refused even to eat. Now we realise why. If only I had known!’
Arnulf nodded sadly. ‘Try to rest,’ he counselled.
‘How can I?’
‘It has been a night of terror for you. No man could live through that ordeal without a heavy toll being taken on his mind and body.’ He eased him back in his chair. ‘Rest, my lord. Close your eyes and yield yourself up. Replenish your strength for the difficult time that lies ahead. I am here now. I will take care of everything. Share your load.’
Having placated Wymarc to the point where the latter drifted harmlessly off to sleep, Arnulf set to work on the rest of the household.
The arrival of the chaplain had allowed the wife to be seized by the fit of hysteria she had kept at bay while her husband was in need of her support. Now that Wymarc had been reassured, she made her bid for consolation, weeping copiously and wringing her hands, giving full vent to her emotions.
Arnulf combined sympathy with firm action. Taking the woman by the wrists, he shook her hard until she was jerked out of her lachrymose display and stared at him open-mouthed.
‘This is no way to behave, my lady,’ he said.
‘Helene is dead and by her own hand!’
‘Then it is for the living to show her some respect.’
‘She will go down into the deepest pit of Hell.’
‘Put such thoughts aside.’
‘Helene killed herself,’ wailed the other. ‘And lost all hope of entering into the Kingdom of Heaven. That is the Church’s teaching, is it not? Suicide is a sure road to damnation.’
‘God will take pity on Helene.’
‘After what she has done?’
‘Have faith, my lady. Do not despair.’
The chaplain spent even more time with her than with her husband, but she was eventually calmed enough to be left alone while he moved among the servants. Faces blank with horror, they snatched at every crumb of comfort he offered them. A suicide was not a merely personal calamity. It touched everyone in the household with its clammy fingers. Arnulf probed the servants to see if any of them had guessed at Helene’s plight and foreseen the catastrophe. No suspicions of any kind had existed. The servants had been taken completely by surprise.
Helene had confided in nobody. She kept sorrow penned up inside her until it burst out uncontrollably.
When a grisly tranquillity settled on the house, Arnulf found a moment to steal quietly upstairs to her bedchamber. He let himself in and recoiled at once from the nauseous smell that was easily winning the battle against the sweet herbs strewn around the floor. Helene lay on the bed beneath a shroud. The sheets were still stained by the posthumous effusions from her body.
Arnulf moved up to the side of the bed and lifted the shroud to take a look at her face. His stomach turned. What he remembered was the beautiful young girl with soft skin, who looked and sang like an angel in his choir at the church. Helene was no angel now. Rigor mortis had set in, freezing her expression of agony and robbing her of all grace and charm. It was a cruel transformation.
Falling to his knees beside her, Arnulf prayed with his hands clasped tight together. When he rose, he bent over the corpse to make the sign of the cross on her forehead as if baptising her afresh. He pulled the shroud over her face again and went out. As he descended the stairs in a daze, he could hear the haunting sound of a fourteen-year-old girl singing joyously in an empty church.
On the journey back to Oxford, they made a detour in order to pay a second unheralded visit. Ordgar was in the house when he heard Ralph Delchard and his men ride up. The old man came out to give them a wary greeting. Over by the stables, Amalric reached instinctively for a wooden hayfork, fearing that the soldiers had come to take possession of his colt, but he put the improvised weapon aside when he realised that they were not Milo Crispin’s men.
Ralph dismounted to be taken into the house by Ordgar. It was a typical Saxon dwelling, long and low in design, divided into a series of bays and with a sunken floor that was covered with rushes. The thatched roof harboured spiders, mice and other denizens. Light was frugal. After the timbered splendour of Wallingford Castle, the place seemed small and dismal. Ralph did not care for the faint smell of damp. He lowered himself on to the stool to which he was politely waved.
‘Do you know who I am?’ he said.
‘Yes, my lord. I was at the castle when you walked into the courtroom and stopped the trial. You saved a man’s life.’
‘Ebbi was innocent.’
‘But unable to prove his innocence without your help.’
‘I am glad I got there in time,’ said Ralph. ‘We went to a lot of trouble to establish that he could not possibly have been the assassin. We wanted our evidence heard. The poor man was arrested and charged on insufficient grounds.’
‘My lord sheriff felt he had grounds enough.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You know the law as well as I,’ said Ordgar without bitterness.
‘When a Norman soldier is slain, the murderer is always presumed to be a Saxon. If he is not caught or turned in, the district surrounding the place where the crime occurred is amerced for a substantial fine.
We have lived with that law for a long time now.’ He hunched his shoulders. ‘My lord sheriff wanted a Saxon killer. His soldiers found one.’
‘It was not as simple as that,’ said Ralph. ‘The law of which you speak was brought in as a protective measure after the Conquest.
England was not easily subdued.’
‘Did you expect it to be, my lord?’
‘Not at all. People are entitled to defend what they believe is theirs.
Until it is taken away from them. That is when it is time to sue for peace.’
‘Peace without honour.’
‘Peace with land to work. Peace with food in your belly.’
‘Imposed from above.’ He gave a philosophical smile. ‘But you are right, my lord. Peace is better than war. Even a lesser existence is better than death. I accept that.’
‘Many did not, Ordgar,’ said Ralph. ‘Rebellions, ambushes, brutal assassinations. On and on they went. The law was enacted to protect us from those Saxons who still thought they ruled this island. And they do not,’ he reminded his host. ‘The killing which has brought me here today is of a very different order.’
‘Is it, my lord?’
‘Walter Payne was murdered to pay off an old grudge.’
‘By whom?’
‘I do not know yet.’
‘Supposing that you never find out?’ asked Ordgar. ‘If my lord sheriff also fails to track down the assassin, he will invoke the law of which we just talked. A Saxon hand will be presumed to have thrown that dagger. A murder fine will be levied on those who dwell near Woodstock.’
‘It will not come to that. I’ll catch the villain.’
‘How?’
‘With your help, Ordgar.’
The old man gave a weary smile and sat on the bench opposite him.
Ralph studied him in the gloom. His assessment of Ordgar was favourable. The latter had a quiet pride which even the indignities forced upon him had not extinguished. He showed respect but not fear. There was a pleasing absence of rancour in him.
‘Let us talk about the race,’ suggested Ralph.