Ashes of the Elements Read online

‘He’s in there,’ she said, with a shudder. ‘Way back there. Lying deep in the underbrush, and he’s dead, I’m sure he’s dead, he must be dead!’ She was rapidly losing control again.

  Josse said gently, ‘Who is dead, Esyllt?’

  She spun round to look at him, staring at him wide-eyed as if she did not recognise him. But then a shadow of her usual smile touched her lips. ‘Sir Knight,’ she said. ‘Are you going to come and see my old dearies?’

  ‘Soon,’ Josse said. ‘I promise.’

  She nodded. ‘Good. They’ll like that.’ Then, as if awareness of her present distress, momentarily put aside, had come flooding back, her face crumpled and she whispered something.

  ‘What was that?’ Helewise asked, rather too sharply.

  Esyllt shook her head, tears flowing down her face. ‘Nothing,’ she muttered.

  ‘Esyllt,’ Helewise persisted, ‘something terrible has happened, and, for the moment, our Christian duty is to find this poor man who has been attacked and do what we can for him.’

  ‘You can’t do anything, he’s dead, I keep telling you, dead, dead!’ Esyllt moaned. A great shiver went through her, and her sobbing began again. ‘And, oh, God, it’s so awful! I – he – you see, we…’

  ‘Then we must take him back to the Abbey for decent burial,’ Helewise replied implacably, cutting off whatever Esyllt had been trying to say. ‘Then – and only then – will we set about trying to discover what lies behind all this.’ She gave the girl a gentle shake. ‘Do you understand, Esyllt? You are in no condition to be questioned now, but we will be doing so when you have recovered yourself.’

  Helewise wondered if Josse would realise what she was trying to do. Wondered, too, if he had noticed what Helewise had seen, when Esyllt had first rushed out of the trees towards them. No, she told herself. Don’t think about that now. Time enough to get to the bottom of that later, when they were safely back inside the Abbey walls.

  By speaking firmly to the girl – in effect, shutting her up – the Abbess was hoping to make sure that, in her shock and confusion, Esyllt didn’t blurt out something she would later regret.

  There was always the danger that, if she spoke up now, she might somehow incriminate herself. And the one thing Helewise was quite sure about was that, whatever else she might have done, Esyllt was no murderer.

  Josse must have been sure, too. For he said, ‘No, Esyllt, no more questions for now. We shall call out and attract the attention of one of the other search parties. Then you will be taken back to the Abbey, where they will look after you. Just tell me where to find the victim, then you can go into the warmth and the light, wash, change your clothes, then sleep until you feel better.’

  Esyllt’s eyes were fixed on him as he spoke, and, when he had finished, she smiled at him. ‘You have a kind heart, Sir Knight,’ she said. ‘Doesn’t he, Abbess Helewise?’

  ‘Indeed,’ Helewise agreed.

  ‘May I do that?’ Esyllt asked her. She was, it appeared, sufficiently herself to remember that it was Helewise, not Josse, who ordered her actions.

  ‘You may,’ Helewise said.

  Josse had trotted off down the main track, calling out as he went. Presently he had an answer, and, shortly after that, Brother Saul, Sister Euphemia and the other two lay brothers in their group came into sight.

  When they had finished exclaiming and offering up thanks over Esyllt’s having been found alive and safe, Sister Euphemia put her arm round the girl and the group set off with her back towards the Abbey.

  ‘Brother Saul?’ Josse called after him.

  He stopped. ‘Sir Josse?’

  ‘We have an unpleasant duty to perform,’ Josse said. He shot a look at Helewise, who had a good idea what was coming. ‘Esyllt has told us where to find the man who was attacked,’ Josse went on, ‘and I wonder, Brother Saul, if you would come with me, so that the Abbess can go back to—’

  Yes. It was exactly what Helewise had expected. ‘Sir Josse,’ she interrupted, ‘I am leading this expedition, and I shall not return to the Abbey until we have accomplished what we set out to do.’ She added, dropping her voice so that Brother Saul would not hear, ‘And I’ll thank you to remember that it is I, not you, who is in command here!’

  He looked suitably reprimanded, and for a brief moment she felt a rich satisfaction. Then she thought, but he was trying to help! Trying to spare me a possibly – no, a definitely – terrible sight. I should not have bitten his head off for that impulse to charity.

  ‘I am sorry,’ she whispered.

  But Josse was already turning to set off down the path, and she didn’t think he had heard.

  * * *

  The moon had set now, and they had to use the flares which had been hastily prepared before the search parties had set out. Even so, it took a long time to find him.

  Esyllt had left quite a clear path for them to follow wherever she had pushed her way through undergrowth; there, it was a relatively easy matter to find the broken twigs and branches, the flattened bracken, that marked her flying feet. But, when she had run across clearings, they had to spend many minutes looking for the point at which she had entered the open space.

  It was Brother Saul who first spotted him.

  ‘Sir Josse!’ he called, his voice strangely uncertain. He, too, thinks to spare me, Helewise thought swiftly, rushing ahead, since he only calls Sir Josse.

  She and Josse arrived at the scene together.

  And the three of them stared down at the dead man.

  He was dead, there could be no doubt – nobody could lose so much blood and still live. Besides, there were savage, deep cuts to his neck and chest, and another that ran right through his left eye. Any one of those cuts could have penetrated to brain, or heart, or lung, bringing inevitable death.

  Helewise realised slowly that she was very cold. Her teeth were chattering, and her fingers felt numb. She tucked her hands into her sleeves.

  She became aware that Brother Saul had turned aside and was vomiting into the undergrowth.

  She felt Josse’s hand touch her arm. Tentatively. Then he said, in a matter-of-fact voice that did a great deal to bring her back into control – and stop her taking the same route as Brother Saul – ‘No wonder the girl had so much blood on her. I would think, wouldn’t you, Abbess, that she must have knelt down to look at him, and the blood seeped into her skirt?’

  Helewise swallowed. ‘Er – yes, indeed, Sir Josse. Perhaps, in the darkness, the extent of his wounds was not as apparent as it is now, to us, and she felt compelled to see how badly hurt he was.’ Oh, the thought of it! That poor, poor girl, kneeling down, feeling the warm wetness seep into her gown, through to the flesh of her legs! Then putting out her hands to touch him, and coming across those dreadful cuts. ‘She – er, she must have known immediately that he was dead.’

  ‘Hmm,’ Josse said reflectively. He, too, was kneeling down now, but being more careful than Esyllt and avoiding the worst of the blood-pool. He held the torch just above the body. ‘Aaah.’

  ‘You know who he is,’ Helewise said. ‘Don’t you?’

  ‘Aye. His name was Ewen. He was one of Hamm Robinson’s poaching and thieving gang.’

  ‘You are sure of that?’

  ‘Aye.’ He hesitated, bending to look more closely at the wounds on the chest. Then added, ‘I saw him earlier. He and Hamm’s cousin had gone back to the place where they were digging up treasure.’

  Treasure, Helewise thought vaguely. Men digging for it. Whom Josse must have been watching, at some previous point in this interminable night, when he had been about business of a very different sort.

  What was that, now? She wondered why it was suddenly so difficult to remember. Why had Josse gone into the forest?

  Caliste. Yes, of course, he’d been looking for Sister Caliste.

  Suddenly it all seemed a lot to take in. Helewise felt her head swim, and, stepping back from the corpse and the stink of blood, she leant back against the smooth trunk of a beech tree.
She took several deep breaths, then, hopefully before either Josse or Brother Saul had noticed her momentary weakness, she said, ‘We must get him back to the Abbey. And, I think, Sir Josse, I must notify Sheriff Pelham that there has been another murder.’

  * * *

  Josse and Brother Saul carried the corpse out of the forest between them. It was not a pleasant task, especially as, with dawn now well advanced, there was sufficient light, even under the trees, to see the dead man all too clearly.

  The Abbess, Josse noticed, had not, as she might have done, suggested that she hurry on ahead to notify the sisters at the Abbey of what they must prepare themselves to receive. Instead, she paced along beside the corpse, her rosary beads in her hands, her lips moving in silent prayers.

  Ah, but she was a determined woman! Josse thought, partly in admiration, partly in frustration. There had been no need for her to subject herself to this horror, not when he and Saul had been there, ready and willing to go and look for the body on their own!

  Still, as she had been at pains to point out, she was in command here. And, like a good commander, she didn’t make her troops do anything she wasn’t prepared to do herself.

  ‘Stubborn woman,’ Josse muttered under his breath.

  The Abbess, quietly intoning her prayers, didn’t hear. But Brother Saul, walking ahead of Josse and bearing the dead man’s feet, turned and gave Josse a very fleeting grin.

  * * *

  They laid him in the crypt, a chilly, stone-walled chamber beneath the Abbey church. Its floor space was broken up by the massive stone pillars that supported the incalculable weight above; it was a dank and gloomy place.

  This was not the first time it had housed the recently dead.

  In the more adequate light of several torches, Josse confirmed what he had already suspected concerning Ewen’s manner of death.

  Then, while Sisters Euphemia and Beata went about the ghastly task of preparing the corpse for burial, Josse went up to the Abbess’s room to await the arrival of the sheriff.

  * * *

  ‘Did he have relatives?’ Josse asked the Abbess, resuming his seat on the wooden stool.

  ‘Hm?’ She turned to him, and briefly he wondered what she had been thinking about that he had just interrupted. ‘Relatives? Ewen Asher? I believe … He lived alone, I think. He used to board with his widowed mother, if indeed this is that same man. But she died last year. He had no wife and no children, as far as I know.’

  ‘That’s as well, now,’ Josse remarked.

  There was a short reflective silence. Then the Abbess said, ‘Was he, too, killed by the Forest People?’

  ‘No,’ Josse said instantly.

  ‘How can you be so sure?’

  ‘Because – well, I won’t go into that.’

  ‘But—’

  He went on, determinedly ignoring her interruption, ‘I’ve been thinking, Abbess, that the most likely killer is Seth, since, on the face of it, he’s the only person with anything to gain by Ewen’s death.’

  ‘A larger share of whatever it is they’ve discovered in the forest, you mean.’

  ‘Aye. In fact, with both Hamm and Ewen dead, Seth can have the lot. Only…’ His brows came together in a fierce frown.

  ‘Only what?’

  ‘Only that’s not right, either.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Josse raised his head. Meeting her eyes, he said, ‘Unlikely as it seems, Abbess, there must have been a third party out in the forest last night. Besides the poachers and Esyllt, I mean. Well, in fact a fourth party, if you count me. And, since neither the Forest People, Seth nor I slaughtered Ewen, and we must surely agree that Esyllt didn’t either, then we can only conclude that it was this mysterious fourth party who did.’

  Chapter Ten

  Sheriff Harry Pelham, Helewise observed, had made about as favourable an impression on Josse as he had done on her.

  Josse had given the sheriff his seat when the officer had come into the room; on the surface a courteous gesture, but she had realised – as surely Josse had done – that, for the sheriff to squat on a low and insubstantial stool while Josse stood over him, nonchalantly leaning against the wall, put the sheriff at a distinct disadvantage.

  ‘It’s those damnable Godless Forest People again, you mark my words,’ Harry Pelham, was saying, shaking an aggressive, finger at Josse. ‘First one murder, then another. And both on the night of the full moon! I ask you, what more proof do you need?’

  ‘Hmm,’ Josse said. He glanced at Helewise, and she thought that he, like her, was probably wondering if Sheriff Pelham had noticed the moon himself, or had had the fact of its being full again last night pointed out to him.

  Probably, she concluded, the latter.

  ‘You see,’ Harry Pelham went on, ‘they do things, when it’s full moon.’

  ‘They do things,’ Josse repeated tonelessly. ‘What sort of things, Sheriff?’

  ‘Oh, you know. Ceremonies, and that.’

  ‘Ah, I see. You make it so clear, Sheriff.’

  Surely, Helewise thought, Harry Pelham must hear the sarcasm?

  Apparently not. The sheriff went on, ‘They’re an old – um – tribe, if you like, see, Sir Josse. Live according to their own laws, live that sort of odd outdoor life when things like the moon are important. And, like I said to the good Sister here this time last month, when what’s-his-name was murdered—’

  ‘Hamm Robinson,’ Helewise supplied.

  ‘Thank you, Sister.’

  ‘Abbess,’ Josse corrected expressionlessly.

  Harry Pelham shot him a glance. ‘Huh?’

  ‘The Abbess Helewise is in command here,’ Josse explained, with what Helewise thought was an admirable lack of anything in his tone that could have been construed as patronising. ‘We should do her the courtesy, Sheriff, of addressing her by her proper title.’

  ‘Oh. Ah.’ Harry Pelham looked from Helewise to Josse and back again, and, fleetingly, both anger and resentment crossed his face. ‘Where was I?’ he snapped. ‘You’ve gone and made me lose my thread, Sir Josse.’

  ‘Oh, dear,’ Josse said.

  ‘You were speaking of the Forest People,’ Helewise said gently, taking pity on the wretched man. ‘Explaining to us that they live an outdoor life, which includes elements of nature worship such as an awareness of the moon and its cycles.’

  Harry Pelham looked as if he could hardly credit he’d said all that. ‘Was I?’ Recovering quickly, he went on, ‘Aye, well, like I said, they – the forest folk – don’t like what they’d probably see as trespassers on their territory. Specially not at full moon. It’d make them angry, would that. Make them take savage action against intruders, likely as not.’ He folded his arms, smiling grimly as if to say, there! Case solved!

  ‘I see,’ Josse said thoughtfully. ‘You maintain, Sheriff, that there are well-documented rites associated with these people’s worship of the full moon, which, when observed by outsiders, are so secret that those outsiders must be put to death?’

  ‘Er—’ Harry Pelham scratched his head. ‘Aye,’ he said firmly. ‘Aye, I do.’

  ‘What are these rites?’ Josse moved closer to the sheriff, bending down and putting his face close to the other man’s. ‘Can you describe them?’

  ‘I – well, not exactly, I—’ The sheriff took some well-needed quiet time in which to think. ‘Course, I can’t describe them in detail,’ he said, giving Josse a triumphant grin. ‘They’re secret.’

  ‘Ah, how perceptive, Sheriff,’ Josse said softly.

  Harry Pelham was in the act of puffing out his chest with pride when, at long last, Josse’s mild sarcasm breached his defences. ‘Well, perceptive or not, I’ve solved your murder for you,’ he snapped.

  ‘My murder?’ Josse echoed faintly.

  ‘It has to be them, those dirty wretches up there.’ He jerked his head towards the forest. ‘Two dead now, and I reckon I might just go up there and round up the lot of them, hang a few and teach t
he rest a lesson.’

  ‘I shouldn’t do that, if I were you,’ Josse said.

  ‘And exactly why not?’

  He seemed so confident, Helewise thought, watching him. It was almost a pity, when he was about to be rather firmly demolished.

  ‘Because,’ Josse shot her a look, then returned his eyes to the sheriff. ‘Because, although it’s possible the Forest People killed Hamm Robinson – although I’ve yet to see or hear anything that remotely resembles proof, without which you can hardly hang one man, let alone a whole tribe – I can tell you for certain that the Forest People didn’t kill Ewen Asher.’

  The sheriff emitted an expletive which Helewise hadn’t heard for years. People did not normally employ that sort of language within the walls of a convent. ‘You’re talking rot!’ he went on, getting to his feet and lurching towards Josse. ‘How can you be certain?’ His repetition of the word mocked Josse. ‘Just tell me that!’

  ‘Because Ewen was killed with a dagger, and because his killer was both a very different man, and in a very different frame of mind, from whoever slayed Hamm Robinson,’ Josse said coolly. ‘Hamm’s murder was clean and quick, performed with considerable expertise, by someone who was an excellent shot and used to his chosen weapon. The spear tip, I understand, pierced the heart.’

  ‘All right,’ the sheriff acknowledged. ‘So what?’

  ‘The man who killed Ewen – and I am quite sure it was a man, because of the force behind some of the wounds – was in a panic. Possibly he had tried to make it a quick, clean kill, too, but whichever of the cuts he made first wasn’t deep enough, and failed to penetrate a vital organ. With Ewen screaming and writhing at his feet, the murderer, perhaps beginning to be overcome with the horror of it all, slashed out again and again, throat, chest, face, until at last, realising the man was quite dead, he stopped.’

  The sheriff was staring at Josse, mouth open. ‘How can you tell all this?’ he said, a sneering tone entering his voice.

  ‘For one thing, by the wounds,’ Josse replied. ‘And for another—’

  ‘Well?’

  Josse glanced across at the Abbess. ‘Never mind.’