Willows for Weeping Read online

  'Do you think she'll ever become queen?'

  'It's possible.'

  Janna thought he could have sounded somewhat more enthusiastic than he did, and felt some indignation on the empress's behalf. 'A queen can rule as well as a king, do you not think so?'

  Ralph smiled. 'We shall see,' he said enigmatically.

  'She is her father's rightful heir, after all! I understand the barons all swore an oath to King Henry that they would recognise her as queen after his death.'

  'I see you have strong opinions on the matter, Janna.'

  Janna warned herself to be careful not to betray her special interest in the empress. 'It's a matter of right and wrong,' she said. 'As I see it, King Stephen usurped the throne and, now that he's been captured and imprisoned, perhaps it is time for the rightful heir to take his place?'

  'So you don't know that King Henry changed his mind about his daughter on his deathbed, and released the barons from their vows?'

  'No!' Janna was stunned by the news.

  Ralph smiled at her innocence. 'Hugh Bigod was present to witness the king's change of heart. It was he who informed the Archbishop of Canterberye that Stephen's claim to the throne was legitimate, and the king's coronation proceeded from that. You should remember, Janna, that Stephen is an anointed king and, as such, is recognised by the pope. Can there be a new queen while an anointed king still lives?'

  Janna was silenced by his argument. 'You know so much of affairs of state,' she said at last. 'Whose side do you favour in this battle for the crown?'

  Ralph laughed, and shook his head. 'We live in uncertain times, Janna. You should know that it's dangerous to take sides, and even more dangerous to be seen to be doing so.'

  'Yet that didn't stop you asking my opinion!'

  'I beg your pardon, Janna.' He stepped closer, transfixing her with his blue gaze. 'I'm interested in you, and everything about you. I'm sorry if you think my curiosity was misplaced.'

  Janna's heart jumped with excitement. She was about to reassure him that she'd taken no offence when a sudden shout stopped her.

  'It's Bernard! Come quickly! He's over here!'

  'Come with me.' Ralph grabbed her hand, and hurried her towards Morcar. He was standing beside the monoliths that guarded the entrance to the henge, waving his hands and shouting to attract everyone's attention. Janna ran to keep pace with Ralph. There was a sick feeling in her stomach. Something was wrong, for Bernard would have answered for himself if he could. What was he doing here, why had he delayed when he'd seemed so anxious to be gone? Her steps faltered, but Ralph dragged her on.

  The shout had attracted everyone's attention, and people streamed towards its source. Janna stopped abruptly as the scene she had imagined on their approach to the henge sprang vividly to life. The limp figure of a man lay sprawled across the stone altar, his tunic soaked red with his blood. Blood spilled over the stone and dripped onto the earth below.

  'No!' she gasped, and turned aside, only to feel Ralph's arms close around her. He pulled her towards him and she burrowed into him, whimpering with fright.

  'Shh,' he soothed her. 'Don't look. You don't have to look.'

  But Janna had already looked, and had seen all that she needed to know. Someone had killed Bernard, had stabbed him in the heart and left him to die. Bile rose in her throat, bitter and choking. She swallowed hard, trying not to be sick.

  A loud howl rent the air. Juliana. The old woman must have hobbled over as soon as she heard Morcar's call. She had warned Bernard, had warned Janna too, but they hadn't believed her, had made light of her fears. And now it was too late. Too late to make amends. Too late to protect Bernard and keep him safe.

  Ralph set Janna aside, and went to express his condolences to Juliana. She seemed hardly to hear him. Nor was she aware of anyone, so deep was she in grief. Travellers to the site pushed forward, asking questions and exclaiming in hushed whispers. Morcar and Ulf tried to persuade them to move back, to go away. Bernard had been well-liked and highly regarded by the pilgrims, and deserved their respect now that he lay dead. Golde and Winifred stood close to Juliana, ready to support her if necessary. Janna hesitated to push herself forward, for she was sure Juliana would blame her for what had happened. Instead, she stayed in the background and watched.

  'We must inform the authorities of this foul deed, ma dame. And we must arrange transport for your son's body. Where do you wish to take him for burial?' Ralph had to ask the question twice before Juliana paid attention to him.

  Juliana stared up at him with red, tear-filled eyes. 'We . . . we must take him home to Oxeneford.'

  'In that case we'll need a mount to carry him, or a cart. Some form of transport.' It seemed that, in the absence of Bernard, Ralph had stepped into the breach and become their leader.

  'I'll ask around, see what I can find,' Ulf offered.

  Janna's attention strayed from the problems of transporting Bernard home to an even more pressing question, a question no-one had yet asked. Who had killed Bernard – and why?

  She looked around the pilgrims, counting them off as she did so. Juliana, of course. Ulf and Ralph. Winifred, looking close to tears. Morcar now had his arm around Golde, protective and reassuring. And Adam was still missing. Was he responsible for this? Or had a common thief taken his chance and caught Bernard unawares?

  Janna stood still as something else occurred to her. The message! Bernard had taken it upon himself to deliver it to the empress, believing it had become a matter of some urgency. Whoever had killed Bernard might well have stolen it along with everything else he carried. In which case it was probably gone for ever. But she owed it to Bernard, and the secret they'd shared, to look for it. And if she found it, Janna resolved to deliver the message herself.

  As unobtrusively as possible, she sidled across to the altar stone. Ulf, Ralph and Morcar had gone into a huddle to argue over the best means of transporting Bernard home. They weren't paying any attention to her, but Janna knew that other eyes would see what she was about to do. Nevertheless, she forced herself to inspect Bernard's body.

  He lay on his back, his eyes open and staring. She thought his expression was accusing, but told herself not to be so fanciful. She felt his skin. It was cool, and his limbs were limp. The body had not yet had time to stiffen after death. She glanced about for Bernard's pack and staff, but there was no sign of them. She made a mental note to look for them later. Next, she patted down his blood-soaked garments, looking for telltale bulges, artefacts sewn into hems, perhaps. But they yielded no secrets. There was no sign of his scrip either.

  Without a doubt, Bernard had died from the wound in his chest. The quantity of blood that had pumped out around him as he'd died attested to that. Nevertheless, Janna cautiously rolled him onto his side and peered underneath his body. Her conscientious examination revealed a contusion on the back of his head, a slight swelling and broken skin which indicated that he'd suffered a blow some time before he died.

  'You seem very interested in Bernard's body,' Ralph commented, materialising at Janna's elbow.

  Startled, she let go and swung around to confront him. 'I . . . I am a healer by training,' she stammered, trying to cover her real interest in Bernard. 'Of course I can see that he's dead. No-one could survive a wound such as that! But I just . . .' In an attempt to add credibility to her actions, she turned to Juliana.

  'I am so sorry for your loss, mistress,' she said. 'I'm just wondering if Bernard was murdered for the goods he carried, if theft was at the heart of this dreadful deed, for you see his scrip is missing.' She wouldn't mention the missing letter, nor even her fear that it might lie at the heart of this attack on Bernard.

  ''Tis just past midsummer,' Ralph said. 'This is a sacred place for those who practise the dark arts, so I've heard. Could this be a killing to placate the old gods, think you?'

  'I knew we shouldn't have come here!' Golde wailed. Morcar pulled her close to him and she pressed her face against his chest.

  Ulf
brandished a crucifix in the air. 'The travellers told us of a recent miracle – but in the past the only tales I ever heard about the henge were of the ancient and evil spirits who dwell here.'

  Juliana gave a loan moan, and clutched her hand to her heart.

  'The henge has long been associated with death and sacrifice,' Ralph agreed thoughtfully.

  'If someone wanted a victim to sacrifice, why then steal Master Bernard's scrip?' Janna found she was fast running out of patience with the notion of ritual killings, even though she herself had imagined just such a vision. 'Surely it was his goods they were after? See, his pack and staff are missing too.' The pilgrims solemnly nodded their heads in agreement. Golde felt sufficiently recovered to remove her head from Morcar's chest and look once more upon the corpse.

  'Was there anything in his scrip worth stealing?' Janna asked Juliana, already knowing the answer but interested to hear what the dame had to say.

  Juliana looked at her with eyes glazed and red with grief. 'He carried coins to pay our passage, and some personal goods. Worth stealing, if you have nothing in your own scrip.' She drew herself up and said fiercely: 'Adam had nothing! He had everything, even his life to gain by murdering my son and taking his goods. Fool that I was not to have insisted on having my own way.'

  No mention of the message that Bernard had decided was so urgent he should leave immediately, even if it meant abandoning his mother and the pilgrims, Janna thought. Trust no-one, Bernard had said. If he'd followed his own advice, if he'd told no-one of what they'd found on the dead man by the river, then no-one would know about the message and her fears were for nothing. Which meant that Bernard had been killed for the valuables he'd carried. But why was Juliana so quick to lay the blame on Adam?

  'Why would Adam run away? Where's he gone?' she asked.

  'He's escaped us, and we must raise the hue and cry after him. He must be made to pay,' Juliana insisted.

  'Why? What makes you so sure he's behind this?' Ralph asked.

  Juliana had avoided answering her question, Janna realised. She was glad that Ralph seemed as curious about Adam as she was.

  'He's murdered once before, and now he's killed again so that he can escape his penance and start a new life. All this . . .' Juliana gestured at the lifeless body of her son. 'I believe it's to cover his tracks, to make us believe that this was some sort of sacrificial killing and nothing to do with him.' She began to sob once more, crooking her arm across her face to stifle the sound and blot her tears.

  'You already know that Adam is a murderer?' Ralph sounded truly shocked. 'Why, then, is he travelling with you?'

  Juliana continued to weep. Eventually Morcar took it upon himself to speak for her. 'My father-in-law – Bernard's cousin – was found drowned in a pond early in the spring. He and Adam have long harboured a deep grudge towards each other. It was a matter of the pigs, you see.'

  The pigs? Janna was about to ask the question, but Morcar continued with his explanation. 'There was a bruise on the back of his head, perhaps a blow hard enough to kill him. For certes, the water was too shallow for him just to have fallen in and drowned!'

  'My father was murdered, and all know who was respon-sible,' Golde cut in indignantly.

  'Adam.' Morcar took up the tale once more. 'But no-one was willing to speak against him. It was known that my wife's father had consumed a quantity of ale shortly before his death, and the story went about that he was just too drunk to save himself when he fell into the pond.'

  'He was never so drunk as that! Never ever,' Golde protested fiercely.

  Morcar nodded. 'The next thing we knew was that Adam suddenly announced he was going to make a pilgrimage to the shrine of St James at Compostela.'

  'Yes, because the priest made him go as part of his penance!' Golde still seethed with fury at the memory. 'He wouldn't have thought of it else.'

  'True.' Juliana's voice was husky, blurred with tears. ''Tis thought he must have confessed his crime to our priest, and this was his penance: to make a pilgrimage. But Bernard, and Morcar too, wanted justice. And so they resolved to accompany Adam, and keep him always in their sight so that he was forced to make the journey and forced, also, to return. Their intention was to bring him back to Oxeneford and insist that he be brought to trial.' She mopped her tears on the back of her hand. 'I told Bernard, I told him over and over, that he should look to his own soul and leave the dispensing of justice to God,' she said, and began to weep once more.

  Janna remembered that Juliana had said something of the sort before. She hadn't understood her words then, but she did now. No wonder Juliana had been fearful. Adam had killed once already, if the pilgrims were to be believed, and by a blow to the back of the head before drowning his victim. So, too, had Bernard received a blow to the head before being stabbed. It seemed that Adam was careful to disable his victims before setting out to disguise their deaths as something else. Which meant that he was wily and dangerous as well as desperate.

  Juliana gave a mournful sniff. 'I was against this from the start. I knew no good would come from this journey and so I decided to accompany my son, to keep him safe.'

  'We know Adam understood our need for revenge, and that he resented being watched all the time,' said Morcar. 'Everything now points to his guilt, for he's no stranger to murder. But he's escaped us. So will he also escape justice, and punishment.'

  'Then there's no time to lose in going after him,' Ralph said quickly, eager to be of help. He turned to Juliana. 'We'll report the death at the next hamlet we come to, raise the hue and cry after Adam. Meantime, ma dame, we must come up with a plan to get your son's body home somehow. I will do all in my power to help you with this.'

  Knowing Juliana was in good hands now that Ralph had taken charge, and conscious of her own self-appointed task, Janna hurried back to the place where the pilgrims had lain for the night. Aside from a patch of trampled grass there was little to see. Most of the pilgrims had shouldered their packs before setting out on their search for Bernard, but Janna swiftly searched through those that remained. There was nothing to find. None of the packs belonged to Bernard. Nor could she find his staff.

  Frowning thoughtfully, she walked slowly back to the pilgrims. Juliana was seated on the grass, now being com-forted by Golde and Winifred. There was no sign of Morcar and Ulf or of Ralph. Janna continued her search as unobtru-sively as possible, starting close to Bernard's body. Two parallel grooves caught her attention, faint lines that tracked through sand, grass and mud. They led from the henge out to the avenue beyond. Occasionally the tracks faded into nothing, but she discovered she could pick up the telltale signs if she walked on. Sometimes only one line was visible but mostly there were two, no matter how indistinct. Were these boot marks? Had Bernard been dragged from somewhere else to where he was found?

  She followed the grooves until they came to an end some way along the avenue. Janna cast about for any other signs of foul play, but found only a smooth, shallow indentation in the dust – recently made, she thought, or it would have been trodden over and obscured by the passage of visitors to the henge. She narrowed her eyes, picturing what might have happened: Bernard, leaving under cover of darkness, hurrying along the avenue and anxious to reach his destination. Someone had followed him, had hit him on the head and knocked him unconscious. The shallow imprint of his body on the ground told where he had fallen. Janna looked about for signs of blood, but there were none. So Bernard had been dragged back to the altar before being stabbed. Why? To disguise theft as a symbolic sacrifice? Or was the sacrifice for real, done to placate the gods, whoever they might be?

  Janna shuddered, and thrust the thought from her mind. There were more urgent matters to consider now. Bernard's pack and scrip, and the letter from the bishop. Where were they? Of course, the thief might have taken everything with him, but it seemed unlikely he'd want the extra burden of unnecessary goods, particularly if he was escaping on foot. No, he could as easily stuff anything valuable into his own pack and h
ide the rest of Bernard's property elsewhere.

  Janna gazed about, looking for a likely hiding place. The pilgrims were still searching the stone circles and great ditch for Adam. If there was anything of Bernard's to be found there, they would see it. Her searching glance settled on a small copse of trees some way further along the great causeway. She hurried towards it, thinking it as good a place as any to begin.

  Once inside the grove, she realised she'd found the perfect cover. Trees and bushes grew in wild profusion, while waist-high weeds covered the ground from sight. They would shroud anything thrown into their depths. Or would they?

  Janna stopped pushing through the weedy growth and paused to reconnoitre. She began to recognise the signs that someone had been here before her, his passage marked by bruised and broken stems and bent grasses. In the darkness, whoever it was wouldn't have realised that he was leaving a trail, but in daylight Janna could follow it easily.

  Her search was rewarded when she caught sight of something thrust deep into a thicket of brambles. She forced her hand through, getting mightily scratched in the process, and dragged out a pack. It was stuffed full, clothes and possessions crammed in anyhow as if put away in a hurry. Janna pulled everything out, recognising Bernard's travelling cloak as she did so.

  She looked about for Bernard's scrip. There was no sign of it, but she found his staff lying close to the pack, almost hidden among a patch of nettles. Stifling a sigh, and this time using her other hand, she carefully extracted it from its stinging hiding place. That Bernard's possessions had been searched and then carefully hidden was beyond a doubt. A casual passer-by would never have noticed them. That fact gave Janna a great deal to think about. Although her thoughts roamed free, her hands were busy as she carefully searched again the contents of Bernard's pack. The guard from Wiltune Abbey had also looked through it, but had found nothing. That might mean there was a hidden flap or a pocket, somewhere for Bernard to hide the bishop's message from the guard's eyes.

  She began to feel the pack for anything unusual, like an extra seam that might disguise a hiding place. Where could the letter be? Not in this pack, she thought, while she patted it down carefully all over again, just to make sure. She rocked back on her heels and thought about it. And came to the reluctant conclusion that the thief, whether Adam or someone else, had stolen something even more valuable than he'd realised when he'd taken the scrip. The question was: could he read? Would he know the value of what he'd found? Or would he discard the message, leave it blowing in the wind or torn and muddy in a ditch, destined never to reach the eyes of the empress?