A Shadowed Evil Read online

  Helewise thought suddenly, Nobody’s sad. Here were the dead woman’s mother-in-law and sister-in-law, calmly discussing her terrible death as if it didn’t disturb them at all. But a woman had just died; quite a young woman, even if she was older than she said. Other than the pale, shocked Herbert, no-one was really affected at all. In fact – Helewise hated to admit it, even to herself – there was a palpable sense of relief that Cyrille was no longer there.

  Isabelle looked at Helewise, then at Jenna. Then she said very quietly, ‘I wouldn’t want to raise this possibility in front of poor Herbert, but do either of you think she could have jumped?’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ Jenna said instantly. ‘She was self-satisfied and self-regarding, and she set far too high a value on her own life to want to throw it away.’

  Isabelle glanced furtively at Helewise, then turned to her daughter. ‘Jenna, I don’t think you should—’

  ‘It’s all right, Isabelle,’ Helewise said. ‘I confess, I was thinking much the same thing myself.’

  As if encouraged by her frankness, Jenna went on, ‘She thought she was indispensable, and no doubt she believed we all thought so too. She’s the last person to kill herself. She’d have imagined we’d all collapse into a hopeless muddle without her telling us what to do.’

  ‘Er, quite so,’ said her mother, with another glance at Helewise.

  But a thought had just occurred to Helewise, and she had barely heard Jenna’s last, angry words. Was now the moment to share what she knew? Helewise decided that it was.

  ‘There’s a further reason why she would not have jumped,’ she said in a low voice. ‘Cyrille was pregnant.’

  ‘What?’ both women exclaimed incredulously. ‘She was too old!’ Jenna protested, and ‘Are you sure, Helewise?’ Isabelle demanded.

  ‘I can’t be certain, and I agree, I too would have said she was too old.’ She paused, weighing her words. ‘In addition, it’s been my observation that women of her nervous, anxious, highly strung disposition often conceive only with great difficulty, and after many years’ marriage.’

  Isabelle nodded her agreement. ‘Go on.’

  ‘However,’ Helewise continued, ‘I observed several things: she was unwell in the mornings, suffering from fatigue and nausea. She refused hare, which it’s believed can lead to a baby with a harelip if eaten in pregnancy. She stopped drinking red wine, presumably to avoid the danger of the dark crimson discolouration of the skin. And, perhaps most significant of all, I observed her once in the chapel, holding some small object suspended on a thread over her stomach, presumably to see which way it turned.’

  ‘It’s usually your own wedding ring,’ Jenna said softly. ‘One way means a boy, the other, a girl.’

  ‘Cyrille knew she was carrying a boy,’ Helewise said. ‘That’s why she changed towards Olivar: she no longer needed her first husband’s son since she had convinced herself she carried Herbert’s in her womb.’

  ‘But that business with the wedding ring is by no means certain!’ Isabelle protested. ‘It’s just superstition, surely?’

  ‘I agree,’ Helewise said. ‘Obviously, however, Cyrille believed it.’

  Isabelle had paled. ‘If you are right, Helewise – and I am sure you are,’ she added with a quick smile, ‘then it is indeed highly unlikely that Cyrille would kill herself.’ She shook her head. ‘Oh, no. To provide a son – a true male child of my son’s, and not her child by William Crowburgh, whom Herbert was to adopt – would, in Cyrille’s eyes, put her in a totally unassailable position here. Wife to my father’s heir, mother of his child; can you imagine what life would have been like for the rest of us, especially me?’

  Helewise could imagine perfectly well, and she was quite sure Jenna could, too; perhaps even more so.

  She thought she might as well put into words what all three of them were surely thinking. ‘If she didn’t fall or jump,’ she said slowly, ‘then there remains only one possibility.’ Two pairs of eyes shot to meet hers. ‘I hope and pray that Josse will be back soon to help us in our deliberations,’ she added, her voice a little shaky, ‘but, in the meantime, if you will both excuse me, I shall go to my room.’

  It was a relief to be alone. She closed the door firmly behind her, lay down on the bed and began to think. If Cyrille was deliberately pushed, then who, she wondered, had a motive?

  Just about everybody, she decided ruefully.

  Isabelle disliked her intensely. As she had just admitted, she was faced with the prospect of being ousted from her family home and sent off to live in some specially-constructed, poky dower house because Cyrille wanted to lord it alone at Southfire. Uncle Hugh didn’t trust Cyrille; he had made that very clear. Helewise didn’t think it likely that he could have got out of bed, left his room and found his way to the solar at the very moment Cyrille happened to be leaning out of the window, but could he have persuaded, or paid, a loyal servant to watch, wait and do the deed for him? It couldn’t be discounted.

  Editha, Helewise thought, resented Cyrille’s infuriating habit of insisting on looking after her and treating her as if she was a feeble-minded invalid. Her angry reaction to Cyrille’s flapping was all too understandable; Helewise would have loathed someone patronizing and humiliating her in that way.

  Jenna was furious because Cyrille kept picking on the three little girls. She clearly hated her sister-in-law’s fussy, picky ways, her lack of understanding of the young, her intolerance, her constant and untrue accusations of mischief the children had allegedly done, and her labelling of the children as liars when they denied them.

  Emma, Helewise considered, might well nurse a secret grudge against Cyrille because she threatened to destroy Emma’s one ambition, to be a nun, by self-righteously revealing to the Hawkenlye community that Emma had kissed a young man, this rendering herself unsuitable – in Cyrille’s narrow-minded, loveless view – for the life of a nun.

  Was there anybody else?

  Then, horrified, Helewise thought, I have just come up with five people who profoundly disliked Cyrille. She was shocked at herself; did she really believe that one of those good, decent people – Josse’s kin! – was capable of pushing someone out of a window, to their certain death, just because they disliked her?

  But the someone in question was Cyrille de Picus. The trouble was, Helewise thought sadly, she could believe it only too well.

  SEVENTEEN

  Helewise was awakened by voices coming from the Old Hall. Disorientated – she hadn’t meant to fall asleep, and was amazed that she had done so – she realized she wasn’t alone on the bed. Olivar lay beside her, curled up like a puppy. He, too, had been woken by the sounds outside.

  Voices … Josse’s voice … He was back!

  She leapt off the bed, trying to straighten her headdress and smooth out the creases in her gown all at the same time, but then it didn’t matter because Josse was in the doorway, still in his heavy cloak and carrying the damp, cold smell of outdoors, and she flew across the room and into his arms.

  ‘Are you all right?’ she whispered, her face pressed against his chest. In the brief glimpse she’d had of his face, he looked pale, haggard and exhausted.

  ‘Aye,’ he whispered back. ‘Much has happened, and I have many things to tell you, but I’m fine. Now,’ he added, squeezing her hand as he let her go.

  She felt a hand grab hold of a fold of her skirt. Olivar had crept up to stand beside her, and was looking up at Josse with wide-eyed amazement. ‘It’s the big, strong man!’ he said with happy satisfaction. ‘You’ve come back.’

  Josse crouched down to him. ‘Aye,’ he agreed. He seemed at a loss as to what to say next. Someone must already have told him about Cyrille’s death, Helewise thought, remembering those voices out in the hall, and presumably he was wondering what you said to a child of six whose mother had just died.

  But then Josse said, ‘I’ve brought someone to see you, Olivar. She’s heard all about you, and she’s looking forward to meeting you.’
>
  Both Olivar and Helewise craned to see round Josse’s bulky shape and into the passage. To Helewise’s delight, Meggie stood there. She looked at Helewise briefly, and Helewise had the sudden, irrational thought: Meggie will help. The two women exchanged a deeply affectionate smile. Then Meggie knelt down beside Josse and said solemnly to Olivar, ‘I’ve just ridden here on a large, friendly horse called Auban. He’s very tired, and also really hungry, so would you like to come out to the stables with me to look after him?’

  Olivar nodded eagerly. ‘Can I get his feed ready? I know how to, she showed me.’ He jerked his head towards Helewise.

  ‘Oh, I was hoping you’d offer,’ Meggie said with relief. ‘I have no idea where everything’s kept, since I’ve only just arrived, and now I won’t need to ask. Come on, Olivar.’

  Helewise and Josse watched them hurry away. ‘There are grooms and stable lads out there to see to the horses,’ Helewise murmured.

  Josse sighed. ‘Aye, I know. But they’ve just told me about Cyrille, and Meggie must have realized I need to speak to you alone.’

  ‘She was found beneath the solar window,’ Helewise said neutrally, ‘and her body discovered on the edge of the flooded stream, although she was soaked through and it was quite clear she’d been under the water.’

  Josse looked intently at her. Then – and it struck her as a strange question – he said, ‘Are you sure the fall killed her and that she didn’t drown?’

  Taken by surprise, she said, ‘I don’t know.’ She thought about it. ‘Surely it must have been the fall. It’s such a long drop.’ She found she couldn’t bear to dwell on it. ‘Why do you ask that? Have you discovered something?’

  ‘Aye, I have, although how it relates to what’s just happened here, I can’t begin to imagine.’ He smiled at her. ‘I was hoping you would have made a few discoveries of your own while I’ve been gone.’

  ‘Oh, I have,’ she said fervently. He guided her back inside the room and closed the door. ‘But, Josse, shouldn’t we wait till the family is gathered together? These matters are their concern far more than ours.’

  ‘Aye, they are.’ He sat down heavily on the bed and pulled off his boots. ‘All the same, my instincts tell me that you and I should share what we know just with each other first. Will you agree to that?’ He looked anxiously up at her.

  She went to sit beside him, taking his hand. ‘Yes.’ There was nothing she’d welcome more, she reflected, than a quiet talk with Josse.

  ‘Shall I start?’ he asked.

  ‘Go ahead.’

  Some time later, Helewise sat frowning in concentration as she tried to absorb all that Josse had just said. She was so sorry to hear that Aeleis was dead. She had hoped very much to meet Josse’s favourite cousin. As for Josse, she knew now why he had looked as he did when he came into the room. But it wasn’t the time to dwell on that still-raw grief.

  ‘So he wasn’t Aeleis’s son but her husband,’ she said wonderingly. ‘Oh, Josse, she was old enough to be his mother!’

  ‘He wasn’t as young as we imagined,’ Josse replied. He smiled. ‘Certainly, he wasn’t the nineteen-year-old you thought he might be.’

  ‘I always was a bit dubious,’ she agreed. ‘But you must admit, it was very difficult to work out how old he was, under all that damage to his poor face.’

  ‘He was eighteen when he met Aeleis; old enough to know his own mind, and—’

  ‘He was thirty-eight?’ Helewise interrupted. ‘Oh, surely not!’

  Josse laughed. ‘No, of course not! Think, Helewise: we conjectured that he’d have had to be only nineteen or so when we believed he was her son, because the year after I’d seen her at Yule was the first in which she could have conceived him. Only he wasn’t her son but her husband, so that timescale becomes irrelevant. Do you see?’

  She nodded slowly. ‘Yes, I do. How long were they together?’

  ‘I don’t believe she told me,’ he replied. ‘She just said they were happier than anyone had the right to expect, or some such phrase.’

  ‘They were lucky,’ she murmured.

  Josse broke the brief, reflective silence. ‘She wants them to be buried together. Abbess Caliste promised to look after the – to look after Aeleis until the family have decided where that should be.’

  ‘Peter’s – that is, Parsifal’s body has been moved down into the undercroft,’ she said. ‘Isabelle ordered that Cyrille be put in the chapel.’ She glanced at him. ‘Both the undercroft and the chapel are cold, and the weather is warmer than it has been,’ she added. There was no need for further explanation.

  ‘So,’ he said heavily, ‘what about Cyrille?’

  Helewise stood up. ‘Come with me, and I’ll show you what I’ve been doing.’

  She took him first to the chapel. He spared a quick glance for the shrouded body before the altar, then turned away and followed her. It was only with great difficulty that he managed to squeeze through the little gap beside the pillar in the north-east corner, but, once they were down among the foundations of Southfire, he admitted it was well worth the effort. She watched as, with delight in his face, he revisited his childhood playground. Then – for she had not brought him here to indulge in nostalgia – she showed him the other discoveries she had made beneath the ground, finishing in the undercroft beneath the Old Hall. They paused, standing silently side by side, to pay their respects to the body lying there. Josse went up to the bier, briefly putting his hand on the dome of the head. He murmured something, but Helewise couldn’t make out the words.

  A little later, pausing together in the passage leading past the family’s quarters in the first extension, he turned to her. ‘How on earth did you discover that secret passage?’

  ‘I knew it had to be there,’ she said. They heard voices, quite near at hand: it sounded like Philomena and the little girls. ‘Not here,’ Helewise whispered. ‘Let’s find somewhere we won’t be overheard.’

  He looked aghast. ‘Not back the way we came?’

  ‘No, dear Josse, I won’t make you force yourself through that tiny gap in the chapel wall again!’

  They hurried back to their room. ‘You see,’ she said even as he was closing the door, ‘there were two occasions when someone just seemed to vanish. The first time was when we heard someone outside this room, when you told Isabelle we thought Peter Southey was Aeleis’s son, and the second was when I encountered Olivar’s monster.’

  ‘And, being the logical and down-to-earth woman that you are, you realized nobody can disappear, there are no such things as monsters, and so you went looking for another explanation,’ he said approvingly.

  ‘Well, it wasn’t all that clever,’ she admitted. ‘You’d already told me there was a network of crypts and passages down below the house, and it seemed the obvious place to search. Now we’ve discovered for ourselves that it’s easy to move from one part of the house to another without being seen.’

  ‘So, now all we have to work out is who needs to do so, and why.’

  She hesitated. ‘I think I know that, too.’

  They waited until after the family had finished supper before telling them. Josse realized he felt very nervous. He had said firmly to Helewise that he should be the one to reveal what the two of them had worked out, but, now that the moment was at hand, he was very reluctant to start.

  Despite all that had happened, the mood in the Old Hall was serene. All the family were there except for the children, who had been put to bed, and Emma, who had retired with a headache. Looking round at the faces, Josse couldn’t see any signs of profound grief for the woman who no longer sat in her accustomed place. Herbert was very quiet; he had barely said a word all evening. He was pale, and clearly suffering, but once or twice Josse had caught a hint of something in his expression that could almost have been relief.

  Meggie sat beside Isabelle, and it warmed his heart to see his daughter and his cousin with their heads together, talking as if they had known each other all their lives. He would te
ll Isabelle about—

  But he didn’t finish the thought. Helewise jabbed him in the ribs with her elbow and hissed, ‘Time to start!’

  Josse got to his feet, cleared his throat and said, ‘When Meggie and I got here earlier this evening, I promised I would tell you what I have found out. Since then I’ve had a chance to speak to Helewise, and between us we believe we have a version of what may be the truth. If I may, I will share it with you all.’

  His family sat staring up expectantly. He had no choice but to begin.

  ‘When the man we knew as Peter Southey was brought to the house we realized he must know Aeleis, because he had her precious Queen Eleanor chess piece, and she would never have given it away to anyone she didn’t love very deeply. We wondered if he was her son, and, carelessly, we allowed someone to overhear our speculations.’ He paused, staring at Herbert. This part was going to be difficult. ‘We believe it’s possible that this someone was driven to an act of violence. Someone had staked a lot on what they believed would be the line of inheritance, and, on finding out that there was another claimant – a legitimate son born to Aeleis of whom nobody had previously been aware – this person acted in the only way they could to safeguard the present arrangement.’

  Again, he stopped, taking a moment to prepare himself. ‘Peter Southey wasn’t Aeleis’s son but her husband,’ he said. ‘He was killed – and aye, I’m afraid he was killed –’ there had been several gasps – ‘there is no doubt of that. He was murdered to get him out of the way; to stop him claiming what his killer desired.’

  ‘But how was he killed?’ Isabelle said, her voice choked with emotion.

  ‘A pillow, or cushion, was put over his face while he lay deeply asleep,’ Josse replied.

  Her hands flew to cover her mouth. ‘I gave him the sleeping draught!’