Willows for Weeping Read online

  She knew bodies began to stiffen into rigor mortis after several hours, and that they relaxed once more into softness after a day and a night had passed. Although she was sure that he'd lain here for some time, she stretched out and reluctantly lifted one hand. His arm was limp, his skin cold and clammy to her touch. She dropped the hand in a hurry, and pressed her fingers down her skirt in an instinctive effort to wipe away all trace of the man's presence. She stood up then and looked down on him, noting how his head lay twisted at an unnatural angle from his body.

  'An accident?' she asked anxiously. 'Or could this be murder, think you?'

  'Do not fret yourself with morbid fancies, child.' Bernard patted her hand. 'Tis an accident, no more than that. See? The man's neck is broken.' He carefully opened the purse that was bound by a leather thong around the dead man's neck. 'I'll see if he carries anything that might help us to identify him.' He felt inside, and pulled out a thin strip of parchment folded into a small packet, with a red wax seal on it. Janna looked at it with interest. There was a cross at the top, and some letters in a band around the figure of a man. He wore a crown like a round pot on his head, and carried a staff. Janna peered closely at the letters imprinted deep in the wax, trying to read them. 'HENRICUS DEI GRATIA WINTONIENSIS EPISCOPUS'. It was Latin, she knew that. From her time at the abbey she understood that 'dei gratia' meant 'by the grace of God', but she wasn't sure what the other words meant.

  Bernard frowned down at his find. 'I've seen something like this before,' he said, as he slowly traced the raised edges of the design with his finger. 'I think this is the seal of Henry, Bishop of Winchestre.' He thought hard for a moment, all the while staring at the parchment in his hand. ''Tis said the bishop has changed sides in the war for the crown, that he has swung his support behind the empress now that his brother, the king, languishes in Bristou castle under the guard of Robert, Earl of Gloucestre.'

  Janna nodded in understanding. It was common knowledge that the Earl of Gloucestre was the empress's half-brother and most loyal supporter, and that he'd taken the king prisoner during the battle at Lincoln. She looked with new interest at the courier who had met such an unfortunate and untimely death.

  He was obviously a man of substance judging from his glossy black cloak, the fine green linen of his tunic, the soft leather of his boots. Janna frowned. Why would he be wearing a cloak at the height of summer, unless it gave him some measure of disguise? There were several jewelled rings on his hand; a gold chain hung around his neck, and a dagger was secreted in a sheath hanging from his waist. Janna crouched down to draw it out. The hilt was silver, and beautifully engraved. It looked expensive. She replaced it carefully and sat back on her heels to sift through her findings. The evidence pointed to an accident, not murder, for if the latter the man most certainly would have been robbed. So, how had he come to break his neck?

  Bernard was still holding the sealed parchment in his hand. 'The messenger must have been on his way to Oxeneford, for I believe the empress resides there now after her . . . ah . . . unfortunate rout from London,' he mused. 'I wonder if this message is urgent.' He turned the parchment over as if hoping to read something on the other side, but the page was blank, sealed from curious eyes.

  'We go to Oxeneford already,' Bernard continued. As if his course of action had been decided, he thrust the packet of parchment into his own scrip. 'I will take it to my brother,' he said, by way of explanation. 'He will arrange its delivery to the empress.'

  'You have a brother in Oxeneford?'

  'Indeed. Walter is his name, and he is in the service of the empress – in a very minor capacity, of course.' In spite of his disclaimer, his face shone with pride. It was easy to see where his loyalties lay, and indeed, after meeting the empress at Wiltune Abbey, Janna shared his sentiments. But she couldn't agree with Bernard's proposed course of action.

  'Should you not read the message?' she ventured. 'This man,' she gestured down at the messenger, 'seemed to travel light and perhaps in some secrecy. Could the message be urgent, think you?'

  'Read a message meant for the empress?' Bernard sounded horrified at the very idea. 'No.' He shook his head in vigorous denial. 'My brother will know what to do with it.'

  'Should you perhaps travel on ahead of us then, Master Bernard, so that the message might reach the empress as soon as possible?'

  Bernard stood still for a moment, lost in thought. Then he shook his head once more. 'I cannot leave now, Johanna. I undertook to escort our group to Santiago and see them safely home again.' His mouth firmed into a grim line for a moment. 'I cannot escape my responsibility for seeing that justice is done,' he said quietly.

  Intrigued, Janna was about to ask what he meant, but he shook his head. 'I'll say no more about the matter other than that the empress will have her message just as soon as I am home.'

  Closing off the conversation, Bernard began to search the man's pack and scrip, looking for anything that might tell who he was. He was busy repacking the man's belongings when the sudden snapping of twigs startled them both. Janna sprang to her feet. A spike of fear sent her heart jumping. She looked to Bernard, seeking guidance.

  'Stay here!' he commanded, and moved towards the sound, staff held in front of him like a weapon.

  Janna was only too glad to do as she was bid. A dead man was one thing, but the thought that they'd misread the signs and that there might be a killer on the loose chilled her blood. Her heart hammered with fright as the crackles in the under-growth grew louder. Surely, if the man had been murdered, his killer would be long gone by now?

  She could hear Bernard's voice. He was talking to someone. She strained her ears to listen, and realised it was not conversation she could hear. It was singing!

  The pilgrim emerged from the cover of trees and thick rushes, leading a fine black stallion by its reins and crooning softly into its ear. Their progress was slow for the horse limped badly.

  'Here's the cause of this poor man's death,' he called out when he noticed Janna's anxious expression. 'I expect the steed threw its owner at the same time it was lamed.' He gave the horse an absent-minded pat on the nose. 'Perhaps the creature was affrighted by something. A snake slithering across its path, or a sharp rock jabbed into its hoof? I should say that it stopped without warning and our traveller broke his neck when he fell.'

  Bernard's words brought Janna a measure of ease. She'd found no wounds on the man's body to indicate any attack. All the evidence pointed to the fact that he'd died from a broken neck, most probably from a fall just as Bernard supposed. She chided herself for her wild imaginings, and looked down with pity at the ravaged body at her feet.

  'Come.' Bernard still held the reins of the stranger's horse, and now he took Janna's arm to lead her away. 'We should not alarm the others. Let us move upstream a little; we'll stop there instead for our dinner.'

  Janna resisted the pressure of his hand, and the force of his will. 'We can't just leave him here,' she said stubbornly.

  Bernard gave an impatient shrug of his shoulders. 'You, yourself, have seen that there is nothing anyone can do for him now. I will report our finding at the next hamlet we come to, and make sure that someone brings a horse to transport the corpse back to Sarisberie.'

  'We have a horse, the man's own mount. Surely we can take him with us to the next hamlet?' Janna hated the idea of leaving the body to the mercy of hungry wild creatures and the gathering insect life. She wondered how such a kindly man as Bernard could be so callous.

  Her question was answered when he said, 'I know not if the message carried by the dead man was important, but we must continue without unnecessary delay. However, your point is a good one. It may well be quicker to bring the body with us rather than try to describe the site to others, or even have to return in order to show where he lies. Pray you, Johanna, go back to our party. Tell them what's happened, and take them further upstream. There's no need for anyone else to witness this distressing scene. Except for Ulf. Will you ask him to come and he
lp me wrap the dead man in his cloak and lift him onto his mount?'

  No need to spell out why the body should be concealed from view. Just the memory of it made Janna feel sick. 'Yes, I will.' She was about to hurry off to do as she was bid when Bernard stayed her with one final instruction.

  'Say nothing of what we have found to anyone,' he said. 'We live in anxious and difficult times. A man may say one thing to your face and quite another behind your back. That this letter is intended for the empress I have no doubt, but if there are those among us who favour the king's cause there might well be a conflict of interest if it becomes known what I carry in my scrip. I would not risk that for anything, for I have taken it on myself to see that the message is safely delivered. Give me your word that you will say nothing of what we found, or that we know this man to have been the bishop's messenger, Johanna. 'Tis better so.'

  'You have my word on it,' Janna promised, and set out to intercept the pilgrims before they came any closer. They greeted her news with anxious cries of alarm, but Janna quickly reassured them with the story that the horse must have shied in fright and unseated its owner. 'An unlucky fall,' she told them. She gave an involuntary shiver and turned to Ulf. 'Bernard asked that you join him down by the river to give him a hand with the body.'

  Bernard hadn't mentioned Morcar or Adam, and she noticed that neither of them made any offer to help. Adam stood beside Golde, scowling at everyone. Janna wondered anew why he stayed with the pilgrim band. He appeared to shun all overtures of friendship, although she'd observed that all the pilgrims, at some time or another, had made an effort to walk with him and engage him in conversation.

  Morcar and Golde began to walk on. Adam glowered after them but made no move to follow.

  'Adam?' Morcar stopped, obviously waiting for him to join them. Golde stopped too, and beckoned impatiently. Janna was stunned by the hatred on her face, which quickly smoothed into a smile as she realised that she was being watched.

  'Adam,' she cooed, soft as a turtle dove calling to its mate. The sullen pilgrim humped up his pack and shambled reluc-tantly towards them.

  Shrugging aside her curiosity, Janna followed the band upriver. The pilgrims lost no time in slaking their thirst at the first suitable site they found. Janna noticed they used their tin badges to scoop up the water, the scallop shells making a more handy cup than bare hands. Having drunk their fill, they unwound their travelling cloaks and spread them onto the grass. Janna's stomach growled in hunger as she watched the party delving into their packs and bringing out hunks of bread and cheese.

  With a sigh of regret, she walked on down to the river and crouched beside it. She could still feel the touch of the dead man, still smell his decaying flesh on her fingers. She thrust her hands into the cool, rushing water and picked up a handful of river sand. This she rubbed between her palms and through her fingers, scrubbing away all trace of the corpse. She repeated the procedure several times before, finally satisfied, she cupped her hands together to drink her fill. Shadows flicked and darted in deeper pools; a large trout shot into the sheltering growth of green watercress as Janna reached out to grab it. She licked her lips, imagining it sizzling in hot butter. She could almost taste its sweet flesh. But the water had filled her stomach to some extent, as did a handful of cress that she plucked and chewed with relish. She rose and looked about for somewhere to sit, somewhere clean enough not to soil her pretty blue gown. She was beginning to appreciate the advan-tages of rough homespun and a stout pair of sandals!

  She spotted a fallen tree trunk in the shade, and sat down on it. Wincing, she eased off her shoes and flexed her toes, noticing that they were already bloodied and blistered. She knew she couldn't bear to put the pretty shoes on again, and resigned herself to walking barefoot after all – like a penitent, a true pilgrim. Yet Janna didn't feel like a penitent, for she'd done little in her life that she truly regretted. And she'd been long enough in the abbey to hope that God was a merciful and forgiving father; long enough too, to understand that the rules and restrictions the nuns lived under stemmed mostly from the Rule of St Benedict and others like him, and had little to do with the will of God Himself. Or so she believed.

  So had her mother also believed, Janna thought, as she recalled Eadgyth's words. 'You don't need to go to church when God's great cathedral is all around you,' she'd said, as she pointed to the bushy herbs and bright flowers in their garden, and the green forest beyond. 'I follow God's law in my own way. I certainly do not need the priest to tell me how to behave, and what I may or may not believe.'

  With the sound of her mother's voice in her ears, Janna looked about her. A beautiful blue demoiselle dragonfly hovered over a bright patch of yellow flag that grew close to the glinting, rushing water. Lusty bulrushes grew in thick clumps at the water's edge, but she could see also creamy meadowsweet and the pale blue flowers of water forget-me-not. Sunlight slanted through the deep green of the trees, casting pebbles of gold upon the grass. A lone cuckoo called. Janna remembered her mother telling her that if she began to run, and counted the cuckoo's cries until she was out of earshot, she would add as many years to her life as she heard the cuckoo call. She smiled at the memory of how eagerly she had run about. If the story was true, she would live to a grand old age indeed! But for now she felt too lazy to move, although the cuckoo called thrice. Instead she leaned back and watched birds swooping about the treetops as they visited their nests and fed their young. On the ground, sparrows hopped ever closer to the pilgrims, keeping a careful watch for stray crumbs. Janna felt the tension ease from her shoulders, a tension she wasn't aware she carried until it slipped away.

  She took a deep breath and then another, firming her resolve to leave behind all the cares of her childhood, and move forward with a steady purpose to whatever might await her at Ambresberie. The way to understanding her mother's past had been shown to her. At last she was coming close to unravelling the secret of her father's whereabouts. And with his help, she would fulfil her quest to bring him home to Berford to ensure that a killer was brought to justice for her mother's death.

  She sat forward and watched Bernard leading the horse towards them, with a long bundle tied up in a cloak across its back. Questions raced through Janna's mind. Who was the dead man, and what was in the message he carried? Why was he wearing his cloak when the days were so warm? She sighed with impatience. Bernard was a good man, and a kindly one, but she wished he had a keener sense of curiosity! If she'd been alone and first on the scene, she would have slit the seal and read the message, on the grounds that she needed the information to know how best to proceed. As it was . . . Janna gave another sigh, acknowledging that she might never know what the message was all about, for she would be leaving the group at Ambresberie, long before Bernard could deliver it into the safe hands of his brother.

  'Would you like to share my bread and cheese, mistress?' Janna was jerked from her reverie. She looked up at the relic seller, admiring his persistence. But she was too hungry to refuse his offer, and so she accepted a hunk of bread with heartfelt thanks, and set about chewing it hungrily.

  'This is Brutus,' Ulf said, interpreting Janna's involuntary shift backwards as his hound flopped down by their feet and began to gnaw on the bone it had been carrying in its mouth.

  'Is he a large dog or a small horse?'

  'He's an alaunt, a hunting dog. I've had him since he was a puppy. I . . . er . . . swapped him for a . . .'

  'An eyelash belonging to some saint? Or a toenail or tooth, perhaps?'

  Ulf gave a small huff of amusement. 'Nowt so fine. He was the runt of the litter and sickly with it. No-one wanted him. I must say, I had no idea he was going to grow so big.' He spread his cloak on the ground and sat down beside Janna. They ate in companionable silence for a while, although Janna suspected it was only a matter of time before Ulf kept his promise to show her the relics in his pack. Yet he seemed in no hurry to do so, nor did the pilgrims seem in any hurry to move onwards, for several had followed Julian
a's example and were stretched out upon their cloaks with their eyes closed. Morcar, a rather rotund personage with a bushy beard and moustache, had already begun to snore, fluttering the luxuri-ant growth on his upper lip with every breath he expelled.

  Janna had to admit that she was curious to see what Ulf carried. Coming from so far away as Galicia, there was bound to be something exotic among his treasures. She turned to meet his bright, expectant gaze. 'All right, then, you'd better show me what you've got.'

  He laughed. 'I thought curiosity would win over caution,' he said. 'You'll be amazed, I'm sure, when you see what I have.'

  'Go on, then. Amaze me.'

  Needing no second invitation, the pilgrim opened his pack. Juliana stirred into wakefulness, and she and Golde drifted over to see what he was about. Winifred came with them. Wide-eyed, she held a hand to her heart as she waited while Ulf unrolled a linen sheath. Janna longed to sound a warning, but knew she could not for the relics might indeed be genuine. She doubted it, though, and comforted herself with the knowledge that it was unlikely that Winifred would have coin enough to exchange for a relic, even if she had the will to do so.

  'And what is that?' Janna asked, as a scrap of dirty blue fabric was revealed.

  'This is one of my most holy relics.' Ulf crossed himself and bent to kiss the fragment of cloth. 'This comes from the gown of our Lady Mary, Virgin Mother of our Lord, Jesus Christ.'

  Janna's eyes widened. There was a startled gasp from Winifred. The other pilgrims pressed closer.

  'And here.' Ulf picked up a lock of dark hair. 'This comes from the very head of St James himself. It was given me by one of the guardians of the saint's shrine.'