Girl In A Red Tunic

Chapter 12

After a long time Josse said, ‘What do you want me to do?’

Leofgar turned to him, his eyes alight with some emotion that Josse could not identify; it occurred to him later that it was probably gratitude.

‘I must find out what Walter Bell was after and why he attacked my wife,’ he said. ‘I want you to help me.’

‘Aye. I will.’

There was silence for a moment. Then Leofgar gave a cough and said, ‘Thank you.’

Josse, who also felt the need of a little recovery time, said after a pause, ‘I may already be able to offer something for you to think about. We have been led to understand that you knew the Bell brothers, moreover that there was some sort of a dispute between you and them and that this was the reason for Walter Bell having sought you out.’

‘Who told you that?’ Leofgar demanded. ‘It is a lie, I swear it! I had never seen him before the moment that I looked down on his dead body in my own hall!’

‘Aye, and I believe you,’ Josse hastened to reassure him. ‘Me, I always doubted it anyway. Said as much at the time,’ he added, half to himself. ‘Earlier you said you had some idea why Bell had gone to the Old Manor. What was it?’

‘Theft,’ Leofgar said simply. ‘Rohaise is insistent that the first thing he did was to have a thorough look at our table, as if it were his aim to search for-’ He gave a helpless shrug. ‘I cannot say. Then, as I told you, he broke open the chest.’

‘Was there anything of value in the chest?’

‘Oh — some pieces of silver. Quite valuable, I suppose, but we keep them put away because the bright shine of the metal is such an attraction to Timus and Rohaise is tired of constantly having to polish off his sticky finger marks.’

Josse waited, and after a moment Leofgar said slowly, ‘Walter Bell must have seen the silver, for he scattered the entire contents of the chest on the floor. Yet he made no move to steal anything …’

‘I think,’ Josse said gently, ‘that we may rule out theft as a motive. Could it …’ But this was delicate ground and he had no wish to arouse the young man’s ready anger again. ‘Perhaps his intention was to do what he tried to do to your wife,’ he said as tactfully as he could.

Leofgar shook his head impatiently. ‘I thought of that too but a man intent on raping a woman while her man and her servants are from home is hardly likely to rummage through the household belongings first. I have always understood rape to be a crime of hot blood and swift implementation.’

The fury was there, simmering beneath the surface, but at present Leofgar was keeping it under control. With a flash of insight, Josse thought suddenly that perhaps Walter Bell’s death had been relatively easy after all, compared to what Leofgar might have done to him had he come home to find the man raping his wife.

‘I think,’ Josse said after a brief silence, ‘that it is my turn to tell you something, Leofgar.’

‘What would that be?’ Leofgar turned to glare at him, his emotions clearly still running high.

‘I ought to explain to you that we have learned a little about the Bell brothers from Gervase de Gifford. When Teb Bell was found hanged close to the Abbey, we postulated that perhaps he had been on his way to Hawkenlye to look for Walter. He had been overheard down in Tonbridge saying that he was going up the hill to hunt for somebody. Now that phrase up the hill, in Tonbridge parlance, is usually taken to mean Hawk enlye Abbey, and we all surmised that Teb Bell was intending to go to Hawkenlye to find Walter, who was missing.’

‘Of course he was missing,’ Leofgar said coldly. ‘My wife set my hounds on him and they had just killed him.’

‘Aye, I know.’ Josse waved an impatient hand; he was trying to follow a twisting path of a tale and did not want to be interrupted. ‘Then, when another piece of the pattern was revealed, we thought that Teb Bell had a very different quarry in mind. We — or rather Gervase de Gifford — thought that Teb was probably aware that Walter was dead and was in fact on his way to Hawkenlye in pursuit of his brother’s killer.’

‘Me,’ Leofgar supplied.

‘You did not kill him,’ Josse said swiftly.

Leofgar shrugged. ‘He died in my house and we have but the word of my wife that she killed him to defend herself and her child.’

‘Her word is good enough for me.’

Leofgar gave him a bright look. ‘Thank you, Josse.’ Then: ‘But if Teb Bell was in truth coming to Hawkenlye to look for me, who strung him up on that branch?’ His face darkening with sudden realisation, he said, ‘Josse, I swear to you that I didn’t, although by this reasoning anyone would conclude that I had abundant motive.’

‘That is true,’ Josse agreed, ‘but I do not believe you killed Teb Bell.’

‘What makes you say that?’ Leofgar appeared genuinely curious. ‘I hope,’ he added with a small laugh, ‘that it is not your feelings towards my mother that are speaking.’

‘Your mother-’ No. Josse really did not want to discuss Helewise with her son. ‘No,’ he said instead. ‘It is merely that I recognise an honest man when I see one. You, Leofgar, would hold your head up high when accused of something that you had truly done and shout yes, I did it, so what?’

Surprisingly amid that grim conversation, Leofgar burst out laughing. ‘How long have we known one another, Josse?’ he asked, still amused.

‘Oh — a matter of days, and not closely at that.’

‘What a good judge you are,’ Leofgar murmured. ‘Pride and a tendency to run my head straight into stone walls were ever my devils.’ Then, his face straightening, he said, ‘Who, then, murdered Teb Bell?’

Instead of further surmise, Josse said, ‘There is another man in this tangle of whom I have not yet spoken. He was probably an associate of both the Bell brothers; certainly of Teb, with whom he was observed talking in the tavern at Tonbridge, when Teb spoke of coming up the hill. This man has demanded that Gervase de Gifford organise a hunt for Walter Bell, whom he claims was last heard of making his way to your house to try to resolve this rumoured dispute between you and the brothers.’

‘There is no dispute! I never met either Bell alive!’

‘I know,’ Josse reassured him. ‘I realise now that the whole business of the dispute is but a diversionary tactic to hide from us the true heart of this business. But for the life of me, I have absolutely no idea what that true heart can be!’

‘Who is this man who makes up lies about me?’ Leofgar said, an edge of menace in his voice.

‘His name is Arthur Fitzurse.’

‘Arthur Fitzurse.’ Slowly Leofgar shook his head. ‘It means nothing. What does he look like?’

Josse brought the man to mind. ‘His age is perhaps in the mid-thirties; he is well dressed, greying dark hair, dark eyes and a thin, discontented sort of a face.’

‘No,’ Leofgar said. ‘No, I do not believe I know him.’

Why, then, Josse wondered, staring hard at Leofgar, should he know you?

It seemed that Leofgar was thinking much the same thing. ‘It must seem strange to you, Josse, that this man who makes up such fictions about me is unknown to me?’

‘Aye, it does,’ Josse agreed. ‘I would guess that Fitzurse is behind the activities of the Bell brothers. It is his hand, I am certain, that directed Walter Bell to search your house.’

Leofgar sighed. ‘We come back to our starting point,’ he said. ‘We must find out what Walter Bell was looking for.’

Josse glanced up at the darkening sky, in which the first stars were appearing. ‘It grows late,’ he observed, ‘and high time you and I were making our way to the safety of our lodgings.’ He glanced at Leofgar, who gave a faint twist of a smile, as if to say, no, I’m still not going to tell you where we’re hiding. ‘I will return to the Abbey,’ Josse continued, ‘and tomorrow I will speak to Gervase de Gifford.’ He hesitated. ‘Have I your permission to reveal what you have just told me?’ he asked gently.

‘I have been asking myself the same question,’ Leofgar said. ‘To my mother, yes. For one thing’ — he shot Josse a pen etrating look — ‘I would guess that you and she have few secrets; for another, I did not feel easy when we were to- gether at the Abbey for I was all too aware that she knew I was hiding something from her, something very grave. So, to have her know the truth would be a relief to me.’

‘Very well. I shall tell her exactly what you have told me.’

‘Thank you. As for de Gifford — Josse, what do you think? You know the man far better than I, I imagine?’

‘Aye, and I judge him to be decent, incorruptible and fair.’ He paused — for in truth this young man’s life or, worse, his wife’s, might well hang in the balance and Josse did not want to be responsible for delivering either of them to a judgement that they did not deserve — then he said, ‘I believe that it is safe also to tell Gervase de Gifford. He will not rush to accuse you of deeds that you have not done and will, I think, view with compassion and understanding the events that took place in your hall.’

‘You believe,’ Leofgar murmured. ‘You think. Josse, can we take the risk?’

‘Aye,’ Josse said firmly. ‘Although I will not speak to him if you ask me not to.’

Leofgar thought for some time. Then he said, ‘I put myself in your hands, Josse. Do what you think best.’

Then, leaving Josse staggering under the weight of that awesome responsibility, Leofgar gave him a graceful bow and, turning, hurried away down the track. In next to no time he had vanished from view.

Slowly, thoughtfully, Josse made his way back to the Abbey.

Although it was fully dark and quite late by the time he was safely within the walls, Josse went to find the Abbess. She was sitting in her room, working as usual on the big ledgers and now by the light of a pair of candles. As she looked up with a welcoming smile, the soft light threw shadows on to her face and he read the worry and tension in her as easily — more easily, for he was an inept reader at best — than words on a page.

‘I have not found Walter Bell,’ he said as soon as the door was shut fast and their greetings exchanged, ‘but’ — he dropped his voice to a whisper — ‘I did meet your son.’

Her eyes widened and a hand flew to her mouth. ‘Is he all right?’

‘He is well, my lady. He has taken Rohaise and the child to some safe place whose whereabouts he would not tell me but he assured me they are safe and are being well looked after.’

‘He — but what if Walter Bell finds him? With Teb dead and the distinct possibility that he was coming here searching for Leofgar, it is surely-’

‘There is no danger from Walter Bell,’ Josse interrupted quietly. ‘He’s dead.’

Then, as succinctly as he could, he told the Abbess what had happened that awful day in the hall of the Old Manor.

When he had finished — it did not take long, mainly because she heard him out without one single interruption — she said, looking uncannily like her son and using exactly the same words, ‘We must find out what Walter Bell was looking for.’

‘Aye. It seems certain that his purpose in sneaking into the Old Manor was to hunt for something.’

‘And that Arthur Fitzurse gave the order to search and told him what to look for,’ she added.

‘We cannot be certain,’ he protested. ‘Walter Bell might have been a thief who, once Leofgar and the servants had all gone out, spotted an opportunity and took it.’

‘No.’ She shook her head firmly. ‘If that were true, why should Arthur Fitzurse have made up this story of the Bell brothers’ dispute with Leofgar? No, Sir Josse. Fitzurse has a purpose at which, as yet, we may only guess. He sent Walter Bell to search in the Old Manor and, when he did not return, guessed that something had happened to him, quite possibly while he was carrying out his search. We know that this is what he thought because of the pressure that he has been putting upon Gervase de Gifford to search the Old Manor; he is quite certain that Walter Bell went there and probably believes he died there too.’

A memory stirred in Josse’s mind. ‘My lady, when I was at the Old Manor with Gervase and Fitzurse, I noticed that Fitzurse seemed preoccupied with searching the hall. He raked through the ashes in the hearth — maybe he was looking for evidence that Walter’s clothes had been burned there, as indeed they were — and then he started peering closely at the furnishings in the hall. Gervase demanded to know what he was doing and he said something about looking for evidence of this imaginary quarrel between Leofgar and the Bells. But’ — eagerly he leaned towards her, hands on her table and face close to hers — ‘what if in truth he was searching for whatever it was he had sent Walter Bell to seek out?’

She nodded slowly. ‘It seems highly likely,’ she agreed. ‘So, Fitzurse and Teb Bell discuss what might have happened at the Old Manor and Teb, believing that Leofgar must surely know something about Walter’s disappearance, is all for racing up to the Abbey to confront him.’

‘How did Teb know that Leofgar had left the Old Manor to come here?’ Josse asked. ‘Could someone have told him?’ It was something that had been puzzling him on his walk back to the Abbey.

He watched her face. Her frown gradually clearing, she said eventually, ‘I don’t know how he knew when Leofgar left,’ she said, ‘unless somehow he heard it from Wilfrid, but I can guess how he knew Leofgar had come here.’ Her eyes on Josse’s, she said quietly, ‘Because Teb knew that Leofgar is my son.’

‘More likely Fitzurse knew,’ Josse suggested. ‘I do not think, my lady, that the wide gap between your son and the likes of the Bell brothers would allow them to have any knowledge of your son’s lineage.’

‘Very well,’ she agreed, ‘let us say instead that Fitzurse, on finding that Leofgar had left his home, said, ah, I bet I know where he’s gone, he’ll have taken his family to Hawkenlye Abbey where his mother is Abbess!’

Josse accepted that. ‘Aye, it’s possible,’ he said. ‘Teb Bell sets out for the Abbey, perhaps with murder in his heart because he thinks Leofgar killed his brother. But he never gets here because someone apprehends him and hangs him.’ Before she could speak, he said, ‘My lady, please be assured that I do not believe your son murdered Teb Bell. I am convinced that he is as ignorant as he claims to be of these two men and whatever business they said they had with him.’

She studied him for a moment and then said, ‘I am glad of that, Sir Josse. I have never thought of my son as a murderer although, in all truth, I think that under certain circumstances he could and indeed would kill.’

‘Which of us would not say the same?’ Josse countered.

She inclined her head. ‘Indeed,’ she murmured. Then, as if deliberately turning her thoughts from that unwelcome concept, she said briskly, ‘Arthur Fitzurse, then, knows of my son. He knows who his mother is, presumably also the identity of his father.’ She broke off suddenly, eyes wide as if at some extraordinary thought. But, whatever it was, she appeared to dismiss it for, when she resumed, it was in the same tone: ‘Fitzurse is interested in something that he believes to be in my son’s possession. Not something valuable such as Leofgar’s modest amount of silver, for Walter Bell found that and ignored it. No. Something of quite a different nature. He wants to look for it within my son’s home and he employs a local ruffian to break into the Old Manor and hunt around.’

‘Why not go himself?’ Josse put in.

‘Because if he were to be discovered there, apprehended and arrested, then whatever purpose is driving him would come to an abrupt end,’ she said. ‘The Bell brothers, on the other hand, are not only expendable, as far as Arthur Fitzurse is concerned, but also, according to Gervase de Gifford, experienced thieves. Perhaps Fitzurse thought it better to employ a professional. By using another to do his dirty work, Fitzurse could distance himself from whatever might happen.’

‘Then why come forward now that the attempted theft went wrong and Walter Bell ended up dead?’

She thought for some time. Then she said triumphantly, ‘Because Walter Bell ended up dead! Oh, don’t you see, Bell failed in his task and didn’t find what Fitzurse sent him to find! And it is as you just said — Arthur Fitzurse is desperate to get his hands on this thing, whatever it is, and so he goes along to Gervase de Gifford, spins a tale about Walter Bell having set off to the Old Manor to resolve a fictitious quarrel with Leofgar and not coming back. He knows it’s quite safe to make up this tale of a quarrel because both Bells are dead now and neither can deny it; the only one who can is Leofgar, but presumably Fitzurse reckons that it will be a case of Leofgar’s word against his. He uses Walter Bell’s disappearance as an excuse to demand that de Gifford make a search of the house and grounds. But Josse, Fitzurse didn’t care about Walter Bell! You were right; what he wanted was an opportunity to hunt through the Old Manor himself!’

Josse saw again Fitzurse’s face as he strode about the Old Manor’s hall; saw the eager, darting hands, the intent expression in the cold eyes. Aye, he thought, I was right.

‘Employing the Bell brothers did not turn out to be such a bright idea after all,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Walter did not find what he was sent to find and got himself killed for his troubles. Teb took up the role of avenger and came storming up here to Hawkenlye to demand the truth from Leofgar. Now as I said I do not think for a moment that Leofgar killed Teb — apart from anything else, he had no idea of the man’s existence and certainly did not know that Teb was on his way to find him.’ He watched her face, wondering if she were thinking the same thing. ‘No. My candidate for the role of Teb Bell’s killer is someone who knew both Teb and what he intended to do when he reached Hawkenlye and found Leofgar.’

‘Arthur Fitzurse.’

‘Aye.’

‘But why would he kill Teb Bell?’

‘Because he did not want him to confront Leofgar. Just imagine, my lady, a furious Teb bursting into the Abbey demanding to speak to your son and accusing him of having killed Walter! Questions would be asked, and if Teb’s fury got the better of him and, God forbid, he had attacked or even killed Leofgar, then it would have been very difficult to cover up such an occurrence and there would have been a full investigation. And Fitzurse is not ready for that. He does not welcome anyone looking too closely into his affairs, certainly not before he has found whatever he is looking for.’

‘Yes.’ She was nodding her agreement. ‘And I would judge also that he prefers others to dance to his rhythm,’ she said. ‘He needs to be in control.’

‘Aye, and the danger that Teb Bell might make very loud and public trouble by accosting Leofgar here at Hawkenlye was a risk he could not take.’

‘So he followed him, jumped him and murdered him,’ she finished. ‘Sir Josse, it is possible, is it not?’

‘More than possible,’ he said. ‘I would say it is highly likely.’

She had been watching him but now her eyes seemed to slide away from his and become unfocused, almost as if she were entering a reverie. ‘What is it, my lady?’ he asked, and heard the concern in his voice.

‘Hm?’ She returned her gaze to him but still she looked distant.

‘What are you thinking about?’ he said gently. ‘Can I help?’

Now she smiled. ‘Dear Josse, I expect so. You usually can.’

He grunted an acknowledgement and then waited while she assembled her thoughts. Then she said, ‘Just now we surmised that Arthur Fitzurse knew of Leofgar’s parentage. He knew who I was and therefore he probably knows about Ivo. I’m just-’ Again she frowned, then gave a half laugh, as if she were amazed at her own thoughts. Then she said, ‘Josse, it’s probably nothing more than a coincidence and I’m being foolish even to consider it.’

‘I have never known you to be foolish,’ he said gallantly.

Her smile widened. ‘Thank you. That is only because you know me only as a sedate nun and not as the girl and the woman I once was.’

‘But even then, foolish was surely not the right description.’

‘I am not so sure …’ But whatever image she had been seeing she must have closed off, for the soft, indulgent expression abruptly left her face. Then she said, ‘It is his name.’

‘Whose name?’

‘Arthur Fitzurse’s. Urse surely derives from ursus, the bear.’

‘Aye, and his forename is that of a legendary hero who fought under the banner of the bear.’

Her eyes studying him were full of emotion. ‘As do the Warins,’ she said quietly. ‘Did you not notice the shield on the wall of the Old Manor’s hall?’

He cast his mind back and saw it again. Images and vocabulary rose up from his own fighting past and he thought, aye, I noticed it. Bear salient on an azure ground. A stirring image, for despite the shield’s age the rearing creature maintained its ferocity. ‘I did,’ he said. ‘I can picture it clearly.’

‘Fitzurse,’ she repeated. ‘Son of the bear.’

‘A not uncommon name,’ Josse observed. ‘Borne, amongst others, by one of the four knights who murdered St Thomas a Becket.’

‘Yes, yes,’ she said dismissively, ‘but I’m not talking about all these others.’

Then he saw what she meant. ‘You believe Arthur Fitzurse has a connection with the Warins?’ he demanded. ‘An illegitimate connection?’ Suddenly very embarrassed by the direction in which they seemed rapidly to be going, he protested, ‘But that would mean-’ and found he could not go on.

She must have picked up his awkwardness. ‘Sir Josse, I have to think about this,’ she said kindly. Standing up, she came round her table and approached him. She put a light hand on his sleeve and murmured, ‘You must be very tired, as indeed I am. Let us try to have a good night’s sleep and then, given time to dwell upon all that we have discussed, speak again in the morning. Yes?’

‘But-’ He wanted to protest that at that moment sleep suddenly seemed an unreachable dream; tired though he was, both physically and mentally, the matter at which she had just hinted had set his mind spinning. Could she really be hinting at what he thought she was? God’s boots!

She was tidying the ledgers on her table, setting everything out neatly in preparation for the morning. She seemed quite serene, although he knew her well enough to realise that this might be a pose adopted to conceal inner turmoil.

But it was quite clear that she was not going to be persuaded to speculate any more tonight.

‘Aye,’ he agreed, with a gusty and regretful sigh. ‘Aye, let us talk again tomorrow.’

Then she blew out the candles and together they left her room and went their separate ways to bed.