The Night Wanderer

NINE

I woke from deep sleep to find soft morning light arrowing into the room through a long, narrow aperture set high up in the wall. I lay still, listening. Within the house, all was quiet. From outside, I heard the geese, cackling and quarrelling; perhaps they’d just been fed. There was also the splashing of water.

I had slept very well. I was sure I’d been dreaming; one or two very disturbing images still lurked somewhere near the surface of memory, but I forced myself to ignore them. I thought I’d woken once and called out, but perhaps that, too, was part of a dream. As was the feel of Jack’s warm arms around me and his deep voice telling me softly that I was safe, and the gentle touch on the crown of my head that felt just like a kiss…

It was time to get up.

I folded the blankets and the soft, sleek pelt that at some point in the night had been put over me, leaving the bed as neat as I’d found it. I smoothed my hair, put on my coif and bent down for my boots, then went through into the main room. Jack had left a bowl of water beside the hearth. I dipped my fingers in, to find that it was warm.

Before I washed, I needed to visit the privy. I went outside, to see Jack, stripped to the waist, kneeling over a trough and washing his upper body. That explained the splashing sounds. I stopped, staring at him. I’d known he was strong – his chest felt hard and solid as a barrel – but now, seeing him unclad, I could see the perfect muscles and the powerful shoulders. I was used to seeing the nakedness of both sexes, for people who grow up in households like my home do not have the luxury of privacy, and in my healing work over the years I have been presented with every inch of the human body.

You’d have thought I could look at Jack Chevestrier’s powerful form without my legs going weak.

I hurried across to the privy and was back inside the house before Jack had his head out of the trough.

By the time he came inside, fully dressed, his short-cropped hair wet and his face red from the cold, I was sitting primly beside the hearth, hands folded in my lap. ‘Good morning,’ I said. ‘Thank you for the hot water.’

He nodded an acknowledgement. ‘Did you sleep all right?’

‘Yes.’ No need to mention the dreams, good or bad.

He was moving around the room, checking on the small iron cauldron suspended over the fire, fetching wooden bowls and spoons, twitching items on the shelves into line. I realized suddenly that he was nervous. ‘That smells good,’ I said, too brightly, indicating whatever bubbled over the hearth.

‘Porridge,’ he said. ‘Almost ready.’

We ate in silence. The porridge tasted as good as it smelt. He had stirred in some honey, which was a treat. All too soon we had finished, and he leapt up to wash the bowls. Then they were back in their usual place, the remains of the meal had been cleared away, and there was no longer any alternative but to talk to each other.

We both took the plunge together.

‘I must go back and see what’s happened to Gurdyman,’ I began, just as Jack said, ‘I really don’t think you should go back to Gurdyman’s house.’

We stopped. ‘I have to see if he’s all right,’ I said firmly.

‘Yes, of course,’ he agreed. ‘I only meant you shouldn’t go there alone.’

‘Why not?’ I could feel my indignation rising. Was I going to allow Jack Chevestrier to tell me what to do?

He leaned forward, his eyes fixed on mine and full of anxiety. ‘Lassair, we cannot ignore what’s happening,’ he said urgently. ‘Victims are being picked off, to no logical pattern that we have yet determined, and the killer’s hunger seems to be growing.’ His words sent a chill through me. ‘Until we know why he is selecting those he slays, we cannot possibly predict who may be next. All we do know is that there will be more deaths, and you,’ he added brutally, ‘are in as much danger as everyone else.’ He paused, letting his words sink in. ‘Please,’ he went on gently, ‘let me come with you.’

I was briefly at war within myself. The hard-headed, self-sufficient part of me wanted to walk out, head held high, ignoring Jack’s fear for me and insisting I could manage alone. The sensible side of me was busy visualizing a strange silvery hand with cruel, vicious claws and a still corpse with a gap where a throat ought to be. Happily, the sensible side won.

I dropped my gaze. ‘All right,’ I muttered.

I know I ought to have been more grateful but I wasn’t used to people wanting to look after me and it was hard to lower my guard and be gracious. Jack, though, didn’t appear to take offence. He merely nodded, then stood up and reached for a sword that I now noticed stood just inside the door. Beside it was an axe whose edge, I could see from where I sat, was so sharply honed that it glinted pale silver.

Jack buckled on a heavy leather belt and slid the sword into its scabbard. Then he pushed a long knife under the belt, and picked up a smaller knife, which he stuck down the side of his boot. ‘Are we expecting trouble?’ I asked with a small smile.

But he didn’t smile back. He just said, ‘Yes.’

It was earlier than I’d thought, as became clear when we emerged from the total quiet of the deserted village and into the more frequented areas of town. There were signs of activity up at the castle, but the Great Bridge was empty of traffic, and when I looked down at the river and the quayside, the only signs of life were some spirals of smoke as people stoked up their fires to cook breakfast.

We didn’t take any chances, though, for as Jack pointed out, there would certainly be watchmen patrolling. We kept to the back lanes, and soon found our way to the narrow passage leading through to the alley where Gurdyman’s well-hidden house stands. We went inside and, once again, I hurried down to the crypt.

I lit a lamp and stood staring around. Everything looked just as it had done last night, and once more I was struck by how odd the crypt appeared without the normal clutter of Gurdyman’s many activities, interests and projects. The chief reason it seemed odd was because Gurdyman wasn’t there, but I tried not to think about that.

Jack had come down with me, and now stood beside me. ‘What is it?’ he asked quietly.

‘Hmm?’ I turned to look at him.

‘Something has caught your attention.’

‘Oh!’ I hadn’t realized that my preoccupation showed. ‘Someone – Gurdyman, no doubt – has had a very good tidy down here. All his work stuff has been put away.’ I was wandering round the crypt as I spoke, looking at the shelves, touching things. ‘Quite a lot of the materials and implements he uses aren’t actually here at all,’ I went on. ‘I wonder what he’s done with them?’

Then a dreadful thought struck me. ‘Oh, dear Lord – you don’t think someone’s stolen them? That someone’ – I couldn’t bring myself to suggest who – ‘broke in, stole whatever it was he wanted, and – and…’ I couldn’t bring myself to say that, either.

‘I’m quite sure that didn’t happen,’ Jack said with reassuring normality. ‘Nothing has been disturbed and there are no signs of disarray – on the contrary, you just said how tidy everything looks. And,’ he added softly, ‘nobody’s lying dead on the floor.’

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. With one last look around the crypt, I led the way back up the steps. Jack waited in the inner court while I looked around, but, as in the crypt, there wasn’t really anything to see, except that the same unusual order prevailed. Finally, I went up into my little attic room and, feeling suddenly drained of energy, sat down on the bed.

My eyes roamed round the small space. There wasn’t very much in the room, and I could see almost at first glance that everything was just as I’d left it. I’m an orderly person by nature and even if somebody had climbed the ladder to tidy my room, they’d have found nothing to do. I stood up, glancing back towards the bed.

Then I did see something that was out of place.

Deliberately so; instantly I was sure of that.

The floorboard under which I hide my shining stone was infinitesimally out of alignment with the board next to it.

Heart thumping – Oh, no, no, no! – I threw myself down on my knees, two fingernails tearing as I scrabbled to raise the board. The leather bag was where I’d left it, and the stone was inside. I clutched it to my breast, fierce joy coursing through me. I’m not sure I’d realized until that moment just what it meant to me. I wasn’t going to put it back in its hiding place, that was certain; wherever I went, it would come with me. I reached out to replace the floorboard and noticed that there was something else in the dark space.

It was a small object, pale green, with a strangely shaped gold-filled mark etched into it.

I picked it up and held it in my clenched hand. I felt its power, bucking like a living thing against my skin. I sent out a forceful thought to the person who had put it there; who had left it there for me to find, for I knew full well who he was. On the one hand, I was hugely relieved because I now knew where Gurdyman was; or, at least, who he was with, and that he was almost undoubtedly safe. On the other hand, I was angry because this person had not thought twice about coming up into my room – my own, private, precious space! – and reaching down into the secret hiding place where I keep my most treasured possession.

I waited, taking steady breaths, till I was calm. Then I went back down to Jack.

‘I can’t exactly tell you how I know,’ I said, ‘because it involves somebody else, and to explain might very well betray a confidence.’ I wasn’t quite sure what I meant, but somehow I knew better than to divulge what I’d just learned, even to Jack. ‘Gurdyman’s not here, but he’s all right.’

‘He’s left you a message?’ Jack demanded.

‘Er – sort of.’

‘Then we needn’t spend any more time here. Come on!’ He reached for my hand. I’d put the shining stone in its bag into my satchel back in my attic room, and now I swiftly buckled up the satchel straps and took Jack’s hand.

I paused to lock the door. Gurdyman and I rarely bothered under normal circumstances, but what was happening now was far from normal. I hoped Gurdyman had a key, too. Would he have remembered to take it with him?

I couldn’t think about that now. I said some silent words in my mind with the aim of keeping the house and its many secrets safe. Then I followed Jack away up the alley.

We went first to Mistress Judith’s house, for I was concerned about Adela and feeling guilty that I’d left her on her own. As we approached, keeping out of sight as best we could, I saw that the door was open. Voices were coming from within, and then two sturdy young men appeared in the doorway, supporting Adela between them.

I hurried up to them. ‘How is she?’

Adela herself answered. ‘My head hurts like the very devil but I’ll live, and there’s no need to talk about me as if I’m not here,’ she said with spirit. One of the young men caught my eye and grinned.

‘We’re her sister’s grandsons,’ the other one said, ‘and we’re taking her to our mother’s.’

‘Good,’ I said, already rummaging in my satchel. Taking out a remedy in a twist of cloth, I gave it to Adela. ‘This will help the headache. As much as will cover your thumbnail, in warm water, no more than three times a day.’

She took it and tucked it away in her bosom. Then, with an imperious command to the young men, she let them lead her off.

Jack and I melted back into the maze of alleys, taking a curving route to return to the marketplace some distance away. He stopped on the edge of the square and we leaned forward to peer out. I had heard a mutter of voices as we approached and now I saw that all at once the square was thronging with people, and that most of them seemed possessed of the sort of anger that is a thin disguise for fear. There appeared to have been a spontaneous mass revolt against Sheriff Picot’s order for people to stay indoors, and although a huge force of the sheriff’s men were doing their best to push people out of the square and into the many alleys opening on to it, the people were fighting back. The townsfolk seemed only just to have discovered that if enough of them joined in the protest, there wasn’t much the sheriff could do to make them obey the curfew. He simply didn’t have enough men.

Sheriff Picot himself stood over on the far side of the square, up on a low wall. A gang of armed men was ranged around him in a protective circle and his nephew Gaspard stood beside him, frowning down at the crowd and managing to look both threatening and disdainful.

‘He’s arrested the storyteller!’ a woman standing next to us said, eyes wide with horrified fascination. ‘Sheriff Picot, that is. Gave him a beating, too, or his men did. Said he’d been encouraging rumours and making us all scared. As if we weren’t scared enough anyway, what with all these murders and the sheriff’s total failure to do anything to stop them!’ she added recklessly.

Clearly, she hadn’t recognized Jack.

I took hold of her arm. ‘Be careful!’ I muttered in her ear. ‘I shouldn’t think Sheriff Picot is a man who likes being criticized, and you never know who’s listening.’

But she was brave, this woman; either that or foolhardy. ‘I’ll speak my mind if I want to,’ she said crossly. ‘And it’s no more than the truth, and what everyone’s saying.’

I felt Jack edge close. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t tell,’ he murmured. I sensed he was smiling.

Sheriff Picot’s voice rang out over the crowd. ‘Be quiet!’ he thundered. One of his men banged a cudgel against the ground. After a moment, the crowd fell silent.

‘What are you going to do about all the killings?’ someone shouted from over on our left. ‘We’re decent, honest folk, and we go in fear of being the next to die!’

‘Why aren’t you and your men protecting us?’ another voice yelled from further back. Others joined in, demanding reassurance, wanting explanations. The man with the cudgel banged it again, several times, there was a brief scuffle behind where the sheriff stood, and somebody yelled in pain.

‘Silence!’ roared the sheriff. Slowly, the hubbub died away.

‘I have already issued an order that you are all to remain in your homes unless you have permission to go out,’ Sheriff Picot went on, ‘in which case one of my men will escort you, and otherwise-’

‘But we ain’t safe in our homes!’ a woman’s shrill voice screeched. ‘Mistress Judith only poked her nose outside and someone did for her, and that poor young priest was inside the church!’ Her voice rose into an alarmingly piercing screech on the last word, and people standing close covered their ears.

Many others now joined in, all muttering and mumbling the same thing. They had a point. What was the purpose of restricting people to their houses when it now seemed that their homes, and even the church, could offer no sanctuary? Whoever this killer was, he was no respecter of tradition. Then a voice from the thickest part of the throng, in the middle of the square, rang out clear above the rest: ‘It’s the Night Wanderer, that’s who’s doing it! You can beat up and arrest all the storytellers you like, it won’t alter the truth!’

There was a great roar from the crowd. There were shouts of, ‘Yes!’ ‘Hear, hear!’ and ‘That’s the truth, indeed it is!’ People were nodding, turning to their neighbours in encouragement, and now the level of sound in the square from those massed voices rose to a frightened, angry crescendo.

Sheriff Picot yelled again and again for quiet, and finally got it. ‘I’ll have no more talk of the Night Wanderer, or there’ll be trouble!’ he bawled. ‘You’ll all do as you’re told and go home, or else risk arrest!’

‘You’ve not got the room in your cells for us all!’ a man’s deep voice shouted back.

Sheriff Picot spun round, looking for the source of the provocative remark. ‘Oh, I’ll find room, don’t you worry about that!’ he said coldly. ‘And there’ll be fines and floggings for those who incite disobedience, have no fear.’

We all knew Sheriff Picot. We all knew he meant what he said. He liked a good flogging and didn’t need much excuse to order one.

The mood in the crowd had already altered. People were starting to drift away, and Jack pulled me back into the shadows of the alley. I was just wondering what we were going to do next – shouldn’t he join his fellow lawmen in enforcing the sheriff’s orders? – when he said, ‘There’s someone I need to find. He’s one of the sheriff’s men, but he’s not like most of them. He’s one of mine, and he has a good, loyal team.’

‘Where will we find him?’ I asked, already vastly relieved to learn that Jack and I weren’t on our own.

‘I’m not sure, but I have a few ideas,’ Jack replied. He took my hand again and we hurried off, deeper and deeper into the maze of lanes, alleys and little streets around the market square.

Our search for Jack’s man took us the remainder of the morning. We found him in a tavern on the quayside, close to Margery’s whorehouse, where he and a small group of five other men were wolfing down a hasty dinner. The man – he was slim and elegant, with watchful dark eyes in a high-cheekboned face – rose smoothly to his feet when he saw Jack, chewing and hastily swallowing his mouthful.

‘Sorry, master,’ he said when he had emptied his mouth. ‘Only I didn’t reckon the men and me could have gone on much longer without victuals.’

‘It’s all right, Walter,’ Jack said. ‘All of you, finish your food.’ He pulled up a bench and we joined the men at their board. ‘This is Lassair. Lassair, this is Walter.’ Walter and I exchanged glances and nodded at each other.

‘She’s the healer girl,’ another of the men muttered to the others, not quite quietly enough. ‘She tended my old mother when her heart was bad.’

I looked at the speaker. I remembered him: a lean, gingery man with a ready smile. I’d liked him when I was nursing his mother; liked the old woman, too, indomitable, bossy old soul that she was.

‘How is she?’ I asked.

‘She’s well, mistress, thank you,’ the man replied. ‘She’ll see us all out, I’ll wager, and nag me nigh into the ground in the process.’ There were a few chuckles. It appeared that others of the company were acquainted with the man’s mother.

Jack rapped gently on the table, and immediately had everyone’s attention. ‘Luke,’ he said, addressing the sallow-faced, older man sitting at the end of the bench. The man got up, went to the door, peered outside and then came back. ‘All clear, master.’

Jack leaned in closer to the circle of men. ‘As you may know,’ he began, ‘Sheriff Picot has ordered me to cease my involvement in these murders, and he’s put Gaspard in charge.’

‘Man’s an arrogant layabout,’ one of the men muttered.

‘Man’s an arsehole,’ said another.

‘I’m not entirely sure what the sheriff intends me to do instead,’ Jack went on, ‘since he hasn’t issued any orders and, in fact, has totally ignored me.’ A brief spasm of anger crossed his face. ‘Since I therefore have nothing else to do, I intend to pursue my own enquiries, and if anybody wishes to join in, they’d be very welcome. I must add,’ he went on before anybody could speak, ‘that such a course of action could result in a severe reprimand from the sheriff, even though I would of course make it perfectly clear that anyone who helped me was carrying out my orders, and had no knowledge of the fact that I had been removed from the investigation. If anyone prefers not to risk trouble, he may leave and there will be no repercussions. On that you have my word.’

He waited. Nobody moved. I saw a sort of joy fleetingly flare in his eyes, as if he had doubted the men’s loyalty and trust in him and had fully expected them all to get up and leave.

He was a very modest man.

He cleared his throat. ‘Very well,’ he said after a moment. ‘Let me share my thoughts with you, and we’ll decide on a course of action and work out who does what.’ He paused, took a breath and then said, ‘It seems to me that the only hope we have of finding out the killer’s identity, and of stopping him from further attacks, is to work out how he has been selecting his victims, and why they have to die. Of course,’ he added, perhaps forestalling the question I could see in the expressions of at least one of the men, ‘it may be that these are random slayings and the work of a madman, but I hope and pray that is not so. I don’t believe it is’ – he leaned forward, as if he couldn’t contain his urge to share his conviction – ‘for already common threads are emerging. Robert Powl, the first victim, brought goods of all kinds into the town, and something was stolen from the barn next to his house. Gerda, the second victim, was known to have numbered among her clients men who worked on the river, possibly for Robert Powl. Mistress Judith kept an apothecary shop, and almost certainly obtained supplies from Robert Powl’s consignments; her shop, too, may have been robbed. The fourth victim, the young priest-’ He broke off, hands spread. ‘I have no idea what could connect him with the others.’

‘We need to find out,’ Walter said. ‘We need to ask around, see where he lived, if his quarters have been searched and if anything’s missing.’

‘We should discover what sort of a person he was,’ added the ginger-haired man, ‘and what he did when he wasn’t priesting.’ There were a couple of quiet chuckles.

‘Yes, good,’ Jack said. ‘Walter and Ginger, you get on with that. Gerald’ – he turned to a fleshy, brawny man still quietly getting on with eating what remained on the table, on others’ platters as well as his own – ‘you’re a good friend of Margery’s girls.’ Gerald grunted an assent. ‘Lassair has spoken to them, but they hadn’t much to offer in the way of helpful information. I’d like you to find out, if you can, who poor little Gerda saw regularly, whether she had any favourites, if anyone ever gave her presents, if she met anyone outside of her work.’ How careful he was, I thought, not to disparage her; I wondered how many other senior lawmen – for it was becoming clear that he must be senior, both because the person Sheriff Picot had replaced him with was the sheriff’s own nephew, and also because of these men’s attitude to him – would have spoken of a dead prostitute with such kindness and respect.

Gerald grunted again. He looked at Jack, eyes raised, and Jack nodded. ‘Yes, off you go,’ he said. ‘You too, Walter and Ginger. We meet here at sunset to report our findings.’ I wondered if Gerald was slow-witted. I watched as he got up from the board, every movement careful and studied, and then flexed his huge arms. He had enormous fists and, if they weren’t weapons enough, a knife in his belt and a heavy stick that he picked up from the floor under the board. If he found the man who had killed Gerda, I didn’t think that man would last very long.

Three men remained. One, the sallow-faced Luke, was ordered to mingle with the lawmen under Picot’s command; another was dispatched to seek out friends, neighbours and associates of Mistress Judith and ask a few careful questions. The last man was a boy, really, of about fifteen. He had an open, friendly face with an intelligent, alert look, a gap where a front tooth was missing, bright blue-green eyes and a shock of pale hair. He reminded me a little of my childhood friend Sibert, back home in Aelf Fen, and I liked him at once.

‘Don’t forget me, master!’ he said cheerfully to Jack. ‘What shall I do?’

Jack looked at him, assuming a frowning, critical look which I didn’t think fooled the boy for an instant, if his broad grin was anything to go by. ‘Ah, what’s-your-name,’ Jack murmured – both the lad and I knew he was teasing – ‘yes, now I remember, Henry. You, my lad, are coming with me.’

Henry, looking as if his prayers had just been answered, leapt to his feet. Jack looked enquiringly at me, and I too stood up. ‘We three,’ Jack said solemnly, ‘are going to make our way to Mistress Judith’s storeroom, where we shall do what Lassair and I were hoping to do last night, before the young priest died, which was to search through all the shelves and, by thinking very hard and putting our heads together, try to work out which of the items that ought to be there are missing.’