Fortune Like the Moon

Chapter Sixteen

As if fully aware that this new topic meant his guest was in for quite a long spell of sitting and listening, Brice got up and refilled Josse’s mug.

‘Had you, before we met,’ he asked his guest, ‘formed an impression of Gunnora of Winnowlands?’

Josse, who had quietly and, he hoped, unobtrusively, pushed the full mug out of his reach, considered. ‘To some extent,’ he said. ‘I sensed, from what I was told, that she was self-contained, lacking in warmth, manipulative.’

‘How astute,’ Brice murmured. ‘She was all of those. I knew her from childhood — my father’s lands bordered Alard’s, and it was inevitable that our two families should be on terms of some intimacy. Gunnora was several years my junior, but, nevertheless, it was she with whom I learned to dance, she with whom I harmonised when we were summoned to sing our little songs for our parents.’

‘You did not like her,’ Josse said.

‘Not greatly. I respected her, for she was intelligent and, when she put her mind to the task, capable. But’ — the heavy brows drew down in an expression of intense thought — ‘there was ever an air of superiority about her, as if privately she was thinking, “I am better than you. I only join in these inane activities because, just at present, it pleases me to do so.”’ He glanced at Josse. ‘She could be cruel. One of her father’s serving women had fallen for a groom — a handsome fellow, but brainless, some years younger than her — and he let her down. Gunnora, pretending to console the poor wretched woman, said that someone of her years and her looks would do better to set her cap at a man her own age.’

‘Sound advice, surely?’ Josse said.

Brice smiled grimly. ‘Indeed. Except that she didn’t content herself with that. She went on to suggest a suitable man, a half-blind old fool who was fat, stinking, and chronically indolent. Said he needed looking after, and Cat — the woman’s name was Catherine — could do the job.’

‘A little heartless.’

‘More than a little, if you could have seen the two men, the one so attractive, the other so foul. Gunnora made it clear to Cat that she considered Cat’s own looks more akin to the old man’s.’

‘I begin to see what you mean,’ Josse remarked. It sounded like a gratuitous piece of spite. ‘And Gunnora, was she beautiful?’ He had seen her in death, and her features had seemed regular enough: But a dead face gave no clue to how it had appeared in life, when it was animated, crossed with a dozen emotions, and-

‘She could have been beautiful,’ Brice said. ‘Her hair was thick and dark, her skin was perfect, and her eyes were large and deep blue, like her sister’s. But her chin was too small. That alone would not have detracted seriously from her looks, but, in conjunction with her pursed, prim mouth, the effect was too strong to miss.’

‘You studied her closely,’ Josse observed.

Again, the quick grin. ‘She was meant to be my wife.’

‘But she was in love with your brother, and would not have you.’

Brice considered that. ‘My brother, definitely, was in love with her. As for her…’ He seemed at a loss.

‘When did it start?’ Josse prompted. Often, he had observed, people told a story better when encouraged to begin at the beginning.

‘Well, when she had her eighteenth birthday, her father told her it was time that her betrothal to me should be formally arranged. My late father had long since persuaded me that the match was in my best interests, since, once I inherited Rotherbridge, an alliance with Gunnora would unite our estates with Winnowlands. It was a sound suggestion, I could readily understand that. And, as for marrying Gunnora, I had no particular feelings either way. There was no other woman I was in love with, but that, in any case, would not have been strictly relevant. And, as I have said, she was intelligent, good looking and capable.’ He shot Josse a shrewd look. ‘What more can a man ask for in a wife?’

‘What indeed,’ Josse murmured.

‘But Gunnora wouldn’t have it. She acted as if the whole thing was a total surprise, which it surely couldn’t have been. Then she said she did not wish to marry me, and, when pressed for a reason, said she did not care for me as a husband. That was not enough for Alard, who began a campaign to make her change her mind. He shut her in her room, threatened to beat her, took away her pretty clothes and left her with cast-offs to wear, all of which she greeted with the same sort of twisted, self-punishing delight as a martyr shown the means of her martyrdom. She was bright enough to realise that, if she acted as if this punishment were satisfying some strange, perverse desire in her instead of driving her towards surrender, then it would probably stop. Which it did — Alard was a simple man, poor sap, and no match for his elder daughter.’

‘And, all along, you think her real reason for refusing you was because she was in love with your brother?’

Brice looked puzzled. ‘I don’t know. It must have been, mustn’t it? I mean, no matter what she might have said about not wanting to be a rich man’s wife and plaything — and I was a rich man by then, my father having passed away — there had to be more to it than that. She knew me well enough to be aware I wouldn’t try to make a plaything of her!’ he burst out suddenly. ‘I might not have had any love for her, but I respected her. And life as a rich man’s wife is, I assure you, better than the alternative.’

‘You don’t have to convince me,’ Josse said. ‘Why didn’t she say she wished to marry Olivar instead? Assuming he had asked her?’

‘He did that all right, any number of times. She said her father would not accept that, that it had to be the elder son — the heir — or nothing.’

‘Was that true?’

Brice shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I expect so. Anyway, I got tired of the whole exasperating business. One summer night, I took Dillian outside into the moonlight for a stroll — it was after a family celebration, when we’d all drunk rather too much for discretion. She looked so lovely, and the gillyflowers were scenting the air, and a nightingale was singing, just for us…’ He broke off, a smile of remembrance on his face. ‘Before I knew what was happening, we were kissing. I think it was probably at her instigation rather than mine, although it is perhaps unchivalrous to say so.’ The smile deepened. ‘She was a delightful girl, Sir Josse. I couldn’t resist her — not that I tried very hard. It seemed a happy solution all round for the pair of us to be wed, and we were. The rest, you know.’ Abruptly the smile vanished. Brice turned his back, leaning one arm against the great fireplace for support. Josse, observing the slump of the broad shoulders, felt it would have been cruel to press him further about that particular part of the story.

After what he felt to be a decent pause, he said, ‘And then Gunnora entered Hawkenlye?’

‘No,’ Brice said, on a sigh. ‘She’d already gone. It was, she said, the only way to stop her father’s bullying. “I’m going to be a nun,” she told him, “and then I shall be answerable to nobody!” Alard pointed out that she would be answerable to God and her Abbess, and she said that she’d worry about that.’

‘How did Olivar feel about the woman he loved becoming a nun?’

‘He told me she was only doing it to get out of marrying me,’ Brice said. ‘Silly, really, when you look back — if she’d waited a little longer, she wouldn’t have had to bother, because I married her sister instead. Anyway, the plan was for her to stay at Hawkenlye for a year, then, when the time came for her to take the first of her permanent vows, say she’d changed her mind. She was going to start her life as a nun full of devotion and enthusiasm, then, gradually, start being less co-operative, less obedient. She was quite sure she could act in such a way that the Abbey would be quite glad to see the back of her.’

And, Josse thought, she succeeded. Brilliantly.

‘Then she was going to come back and find Olivar?’

‘That was the idea. She had guessed what would happen here, that, with her out of the way, I’d probably marry Dillian. She may even have known that Dillian quite fancied the idea. She probably observed it for herself, come to that — she didn’t miss much.’

Josse sat back in his chair. Good God, he thought, Brice had been right when he called Gunnora manipulative! How many people’s lives had been affected — deeply affected — by her plotting? Her father, her sister, Brice, Olivar. Not to mention Abbess Helewise and her nuns, who had welcomed Gunnora in good faith, believed in her vocation, done their best to help her adapt to the religious life.

Josse was beginning to find it not quite so surprising that somebody had cut her throat.

‘But now she’s dead,’ Brice was saying, ‘and my brother nurses a broken heart.’

‘Is your brother at home?’

‘He was. He came with me to Canterbury, you know, and was a tower of strength during my various ordeals. Then he accompanied me home, but he seemed unsettled. He had, I think, derived as much comfort from our time in Canterbury as I did, possibly more. The new shrine to Saint Thomas is most moving — have you seen it?’

‘Not yet.’

‘I recommend it, for those in distress. Anyway, Olivar said he was going back. I encouraged him to go — a man must seek comfort wherever he can find it.’

‘Amen,’ Josse said.

There was a short reflective silence. Josse, going over all that he had just learned — as well as he could, after the ale — knew that there was something he must ask. What was it?

Deliberately he let his mind go a blank, which wasn’t difficult. But then an image flashed into his head. Yes! He had it.

‘Your wife had a cross, a costly piece set with rubies?’ he asked.

‘She did. Alard gave them both one, almost identical. And a smaller one for their cousin Elanor.’

‘Aye. May I see Dillian’s cross?’

Brice looked surprised. ‘If you wish. Come with me.’

He led the way to a stair at the end of the hall, drawing aside the tapestry that hung over its entrance. The stair, set deep in the wall, climbed in a spiral to an upper floor. Following him through an arched doorway, Josse found himself in what was clearly a lady’s bedchamber, plainly but adequately furnished. Little seemed to have been tidied away; the coverlet spread on the woollen mattress was smoothed and straight, but a small pair of soft leather shoes lay in a corner, one upright, one on its side. A wooden chest had its lid slightly raised, and a colourful piece of silk, heavily fringed — a shawl? — spilled out. The room could have been only recently abandoned, awaiting the mistress’s return.

It was strangely touching.

‘She kept her jewels in this thing.’ Brice was picking up a shabby velvet-covered box encrusted with glass beads. ‘It’s a tawdry piece, but she was sentimental about it. It was a gift from an old nursemaid, she said. I bought her that’ — he pointed to a large and beautifully made silver casket that stood on the floor beside the chest — ‘and she thanked me prettily and said she’d keep her gloves in it.’

Smiling, he opened the velvet box.

Inside was a pearl necklet, a brooch set with a sapphire, some amber beads and four or five rings. There was also a circlet of gold, quite plain but for a decoration in the shape of two hearts, picked out in tiny pearls.

‘I gave her that for our wedding,’ Brice said, touching it with his finger.

He seemed to have forgotten what he and Josse had gone up there for.

Josse hadn’t. And it came as no surprise whatsoever that the cross was not in the box. He knew where it was.

‘No cross,’ he remarked.

Brice started. ‘Eh? Dear God, but you’re right!’ He began rifling through the jewels, as if the cross might lie hidden. Then he flung the box down and picked up the silver casket, throwing out the gloves, then turning it upside down and shaking it.

‘Do not worry, my Lord Brice,’ Josse said hurriedly — silver caskets were not made for such treatment — ‘I believe I know where the ruby cross is.’

Brice turned a furious face on him. ‘Then why make me come up here to look for it?’

‘I apologise. I was not entirely certain, until now.’ That was a lie, but Brice wasn’t to know. ‘A cross was found beside Gunnora’s body, and we — the Abbess Helewise and I — believed it to be that belonging to your late wife.’

‘But Gunnora had one, too, I told you! Surely it would have been hers that lay by her?’

‘No, hers she had entrusted to the Abbess for safe keeping.’

Brice was slowly shaking his head. ‘Dillian’s cross? Dillian’s cross, found beside Gunnora? It makes no sense!’

But Josse thought it did. ‘Who else would have known where she kept her jewellery?’

‘Oh, anyone who knew her well. Her sister, her maid. Me, of course.’

‘Her cousin?’ Josse hardly dared say it.

‘Elanor? Well, yes, I suppose so. She was a fairly regular visitor to Rotherbridge, and she and Dillian spent hours up here in Dillian’s chamber.’ He had picked up the gold circlet, and was turning it in his hands. ‘She wore this over her veil. She looked so beautiful. So eager.’

Josse had learned all he needed to know. His impulse now was to get going, as swiftly as he could, back to Hawkenlye. He had already stayed longer than he should — he was going to have to hurry to arrive back by nightfall.

Brice was still deep in his memories. Feeling guilty — for it was his presence that had caused Brice’s reverie, his questioning that had taken the man back into the pain of the recent past — Josse said, ‘My Lord Brice, I regret, but I must take my leave of you. It is a long step back to Hawkenlye, and, with your gift on me, I wish to be there before dark.’

Brice turned to him. ‘Gift? Oh, yes. Of course.’ Then, manners instilled from childhood reasserting themselves, he said, ‘Let me see you to your horse. May I offer refreshment to sustain you for your ride?’

I have had more than enough already, Josse thought. But it was surprising how his head had suddenly cleared. ‘Thank you, but no.’

As he mounted his horse, he leaned down and offered Brice his hand. ‘My thanks, my Lord. I will arrange for your late wife’s cross to be returned to you.’

Brice nodded. ‘I thank you.’

As Josse turned to leave, Brice called out, ‘Shall you find him, this man who murdered Gunnora?’

And Josse said, ‘I think I already have.’

* * *

All the way back to Hawkenlye he was thinking, it has to be him! Milon killed Gunnora, just as I’ve been saying. It all fits! He knew from the first that he would have to make her murder look like rape or robbery, or both, and so he instructed Elanor to get hold of Gunnora’s cross, so that it could be dropped by the body. But Elanor went one better — maybe she thought it would be too difficult to get her hands on Gunnora’s cross, once at Hawkenlye — and she stole Dillian’s cross before she left home. It would have been easy, surely, to visit her dead cousin’s chamber?

Damnation. He realised he should have asked Brice if such a posthumous visit had indeed taken place.

It must have done, he concluded, for how else could it have happened, that Dillian’s cross ended up beside her sister’s murdered corpse?

They were, he concluded, cleverer than he’d thought, those two. Milon and Elanor might seem like children burning their hands by playing with the fire of the adult world, but it had to be an act! How well-planned it had been, that first murder. And how brutal. Had Elanor turned away, when Milon slit her cousin’s throat? Had the horror of the spilled blood affected the grip of those hands on Gunnora’s arms, so that it slackened as Elanor swayed in a faint?

He would never know.

Turning his mind to the practical — how he was going to convince the Abbess that his version of events was the true one — he kicked his horse into a canter and raced back to Hawkenlye.