The Night Wanderer

SIX

Rollo Guiscard was heading north-west through Normandy. After months of travelling over both land and sea, on foot over deserts, mountains and the roughest, wildest terrain, he was mounted on a good, sturdy horse on a much-travelled and well-maintained road. He was not far from Rouen now, and only some thirty miles beyond the town was the coast. He reckoned he was almost on the last leg of his long journey back to England.

Even after so many days in the saddle, it was still a relief to be on dry land. He had spent weeks at sea on the sleek ship Gullinbursti, and although the voyage had been exhilarating, and an experience he was pleased to have had, nevertheless the gradually worsening conditions as autumn came on had steadily become harder to endure. The days of sunshine and calm deep-blue seas as they left Constantinople had become nothing but a memory, and even that was clouded for the ship’s crew by the tragedy that had befallen them at the mouth of the Dardanelles. [2] They might have been led by a madman, but he had been their captain; they had shared in his impossible dream, and to a man they grieved for him.

By the time Gullinbursti reached the port of Marseilles, nobody except Rollo had possessed the strength or the heart to sail any further. Rollo, desperate to get to England, had pleaded and shouted, reminding Brand, the ship’s new master, of his obligation to his passenger. But Brand had simply looked at him out of sad blue eyes and said, ‘Your bargain was with Skuli, and he’s not here to honour it. We stop here, and we don’t sail on till spring.’

Accepting the inevitable, Rollo had enjoyed a fierce-drinking farewell celebration with his brothers in endurance and hardship, then bade them goodbye.

He set out the next day, having utilized the modest facilities of the tavern by the port where he had put up to wash himself and his garments, and generally refresh his gear. He counted his money. His purse was worryingly light, but he reckoned he ought to have enough to see him back to England. He spent as much as he could afford on his horse. It was going to have to bear him a long way, and as swiftly as possible.

More than once he had been tempted to make use of the chain of contacts which he had personally set up over the years; men and women who lived their mundane lives in towns, villages and isolated settlements up and down the land, going about their quiet business with no outward sign that they had another, clandestine role in the employ of a man whom they barely knew except as a good paymaster. In exchange for information, the passing of messages, the occasional requirement of a bed for the night and a hot meal, or the production of the small bag of gold coins they kept hidden for their mysterious stranger, Rollo paid them handsomely. Not that the money came from his own pocket: the King of England was the provider of the bounty, and he always paid well for good, loyal, trustworthy service. Such was Rollo’s network that he could have travelled right up to the northern coast, and spent barely more than a handful of nights in inns or taverns. His contacts never turned him away; it was in their interests to help him in any way he required, since his was probably the easiest money they would ever earn.

Rollo trusted his men and women; he wouldn’t have selected them for his service had he not. But he preferred not to let anybody know where he was, even his own spies. For he wasn’t going straight back to King William in England; there was another place he intended to visit first.

William had sent Rollo to discover the state of affairs in the Holy Land: specifically, what truth there was behind the rumours that Alexius Comnenus of Constantinople was going to appeal to the lords of the West to help him resist the terrifyingly swift advances of the Turks. After a long and arduous journey, and at considerable risk and one grave injury, Rollo now had his answer. He would deliver his information first to William – his life wouldn’t be worth a silver coin if William were ever to discover he had done anything else – but Rollo had decided that there was nothing to stop him then proceeding to sell what he had discovered, at such personal cost, to another interested party: William’s brother, Duke Robert of Normandy. If William was right – and he usually was, being shrewd, intelligent and an excellent judge of men – Duke Robert would be among the first to answer the call from Alexius when it came. Unlike William, Robert was a romantic, and would not be able to resist the appeal of adventure in the East. But, being perpetually short of funds, Robert would have to look to his brother in England for the cash to pay for his expedition, and the only collateral he would be able to offer was his dukedom. With any luck – for how likely was it, William reasoned, that Robert would come back safe and sound? – William would acquire Normandy without so much as raising a sword.

The journey up from Marseilles had been long and lonely. Rollo had ridden north along the banks of the wide, slow-flowing Rhone, leaving behind the Mediterranean and the fascinating southern city of Arles, with its ancient Roman buildings gently crumbling in the golden light. At Lyons he had crossed the river, after which he struck out north-west towards Orleans and Chartres. Then he had slipped unobtrusively into Normandy.

Now Rouen was only a few miles ahead. Rollo’s purpose there was not to seek out Duke Robert, but to hunt around for the sort of snippets of information that gradually built up into a full picture.

King William would, Rollo hoped, be impressed to learn that his spy had ventured right into Duke Robert’s home territory. As far as the king was concerned, this part of the mission would have been purely with the intention of discovering the current trend of his brother’s thinking. Only Rollo need know that there was a second purpose: for him to find out where to go, and who to speak to, when he went back seeking the duke’s ear.

Sometimes, tiring of the incessant intriguing and plotting, Rollo rested his mind by thinking how good it would feel to be back in England. He had been too long in the hot, dry, dusty south, and he longed for soft rain and mist rising in the mornings, and a pale yellow sun shining through the whiteness like a distant candle flame. His thoughts turned always towards the fens; to Lassair, whom he loved.

But she may not still love me.

He couldn’t banish the fear. It was irrational, and without real foundation. He and Lassair had become lovers, had exchanged tokens – he never took off the leather bracelet she had woven for him – and he knew she was not the sort of woman to give her affections to someone else just because he wasn’t there. But he had been away a long time; it was a year and a half since he had held her in his arms, and he had deliberately – cruelly? – refrained from sending any message to her, even though it would have been relatively easy to do so.

And sometimes, when he concentrated all his thoughts upon her, it seemed to him that she turned away.

Jack saw me back to Gurdyman’s door. Once inside the house, I was about to say goodbye, but, before I could do so, he said, ‘Can I come in?’

‘Yes, I suppose so.’ I realized it sounded grudging. ‘I mean, yes, of course.’ But why? I could have added.

He grinned, coming in after me and shutting the door. ‘Will Gurdyman be about?’

‘Probably not, but it doesn’t matter if he is, since he appears to quite like you.’

‘I’m really not that bad,’ Jack said modestly.

I led the way along the passage, past the kitchen and into the courtyard. There was no sign of Gurdyman. Although it was dark now, the air still held some of the day’s warmth, so I said to Jack, ‘Sit down out there and I’ll bring a mug of ale.’

He settled down on one of the benches. It wasn’t all that robust and gave a squeak as he lowered his considerable weight. I poured ale into a couple of Gurdyman’s best pewter mugs and went to sit opposite.

‘Any thoughts?’ Jack asked when he’d taken the top off his ale.

‘Only one,’ I said. ‘I’m sure it must have occurred to you too, but I wondered if Gerda might have made a habit of going outside with her – er, clients, and if so, whether she was unlucky enough to have witnessed Robert Powl being killed.’

‘Yes, I did think of that,’ Jack said. ‘Robert Powl was murdered some way from Gerda’s usual haunts, but I suppose it’s possible that a client insisted on some particular spot from where she might have seen or heard something.’

‘Wouldn’t-’ Just in time I shut my mouth on the question. I’d been about to say, Wouldn’t the client have seen or heard the same thing? but I realized that a man in the throes of passion probably didn’t see or hear anything.

‘I should have asked the other women,’ I said instead, hoping my face wasn’t too red. ‘Gerda might have said something.’

But Jack was shaking his head. ‘I don’t believe she would have. She was new to the life, and she’d probably have thought that venturing further away than the nearest piece of river bank would be against the rules.’

Silence fell. I was thinking about poor, pretty Gerda, and I thought Jack probably was too. Soft light spilled out into the courtyard from the lamp I’d lit in the kitchen. The air was still. I was just reflecting on how quiet it was, and how, although we were in the midst of a town, you’d have thought we were right out in the countryside, when a terrible scream ripped the peace apart.

Jack was on his feet, already racing for the door. ‘That came from the market square, unless my sense of direction has deserted me,’ he muttered as we fell out into the alley. He stopped, head spinning left and right, angry frustration making his face dark. ‘Which way?’ he demanded. ‘Lord, I can never find a path through these back alleys!’

I grabbed his hand and we raced off, twisting, turning and apparently doubling back through the maze, until we emerged in the square.

Unsurprisingly, we weren’t the only ones to have heard the scream. A small crowd had gathered, and more people were emerging from their houses and from the other passages that gave on to the market square. Jack pushed forward into their midst.

‘Go back inside!’ he shouted. The deep voice of authority seemed to have the desired effect. ‘Go on, before I arrest you for obstructing the law!’ he yelled at a stubborn old man dressed only in his chemise, whose chin was thrust out defiantly.

With a last glare at Jack, the old man shuffled away. Jack muttered something under his breath, his eyes roaming the square. ‘Where?’ he asked.

I’d been looking while he dispersed the crowd. I pointed over to the south-west side, where the better houses back on to the grounds of St Bene’t’s Church. Outside one of these a figure crouched low to the ground, and in front of her there was a huddled heap.

Jack and I ran across the square and in an instant we were kneeling beside the crouched figure. It was a woman, well over middle age, and she was moaning and sobbing, gasping for breath. ‘Oh, no, no, no, no!’ she wailed, her rising tone suggesting hysteria was imminent. Jack muttered, ‘Can you deal with her?’ I put my arms round her, murmuring soothing words, and got her up, gently leading her away from whatever lay at her feet. ‘Come with me,’ I said, ‘we’ll go back inside, and I’ll make you something hot to drink, with plenty of honey, and wrap you up in a warm blanket. Would you like that?’

‘Y-yes,’ stammered the woman.

I led her back into the house. I knew who she was, which probably meant I also knew who was lying in the square. Dead, for surely nobody could go on living after losing the huge quantity of blood that was soaking into old Adela’s white apron.

I settled Adela on a bench by the hearth, poking up the fire and swiftly mixing a drink of chamomile sweetened with a lot of honey. I swaddled her tightly in a blanket, first removing her soiled apron. It was a very beautiful blanket, of soft and pale-coloured wool, for this was a prosperous household. Then, feeling very guilty at deserting old Adela, I went back outside.

Jack looked up. ‘I was just coming to fetch you. She’s dead, isn’t she?’

I knelt down beside him and stared down at Mistress Judith. She was – had been – a handsome woman, entering her mature years but with a grace and dignity that had kept her carriage upright and her head held high. She was wealthy, having taken over upon his death her late husband’s shop, supplying materials for apothecaries and healers, and making a much better job of it than he had ever done. Mistress Judith was a born businesswoman, and I knew from personal experience that she drove a hard bargain.

She lay on her side, her carefully laundered and starched headdress awry, her fine wool veil crumpled beneath her head. Her eyes were wide open, and her face bore a look not of terror but of surprise. Her throat was a dark, gaping gash.

I bent right down over her, turning my cheek so that I would have felt any breath. There was none. Gently I felt for the beat of life beneath her ear. Nothing. Her flesh was still warm but she was dead.

‘She’s gone,’ I said quietly.

Jack reached for the veil and spread it out over Mistress Judith’s head and neck. ‘We must move her inside,’ he muttered. He glanced up and, following his eyes, I saw that people were once more creeping out to look.

‘I’ll take her feet,’ I said, getting up. He looked doubtfully at me. ‘She’s tall but she’s not fat,’ I added impatiently. ‘I’ve carried far heavier weights, and it isn’t far.’

He nodded. Between us we bore Mistress Judith’s body back inside her house, and laid her down beside the hearth. Jack closed the door – very firmly – and I went to sit beside Adela, whose sobs were escalating again at the sight of her mistress’s body.

Jack came to kneel in front of her. He took both her hands and, looking straight into her eyes, said, ‘Now I need you to help me – what’s her name?’ he demanded, turning to me.

‘Adela.’

‘You can provide one last and very important service for her, Adela,’ he went on, ‘by telling me everything you can recall about what happened this evening.’

Adela’s spine straightened a little. ‘I – I can help?’ she whispered.

‘Yes,’ Jack assured her. ‘You’re the only one who can.’

It was the right thing to have said, for who doesn’t like to feel important in an emergency? ‘Well, let me see,’ Adela began slowly. ‘We’d had a busy day, with a load of new supplies to sort and store, and I was a bit late with the meal, and the mistress was short with me. She had every right to be!’ she insisted, as if her mild criticism had breached some rule of correct behaviour regarding the recently dead. ‘Anyway, we’d eaten, and I’d cleared up, and I was settling for the night out in my place behind there’ – she indicated a small cubicle beside the storeroom – ‘when I heard the mistress get up and open the door.’

‘Had somebody come to call?’ Jack interrupted. ‘Did you hear a knock?’

Adela slowly shook her head. ‘I don’t believe I did,’ she said, ‘although I might have missed it. I was that tired,’ she added, ‘and I reckon I might have already been pretty nearly asleep.’

I met Jack’s eyes. ‘It’s quite likely someone did come knocking at the door,’ I said softly. ‘You may not know, but Mistress Judith sold herbs and other apothecaries’ ingredients, and although she wasn’t really a healer, people tend to visit in an emergency to ask advice, purchase supplies and make remedies up for themselves.’

Jack nodded. He had a way, I was noticing, of absorbing information without comment. Turning back to Adela, he said, ‘So your mistress opened the door. Then what happened? Did she go outside?’

Adela frowned. ‘Yes, she did. She stepped out into the square, just there’ – she pointed – ‘where the roofs overhang and make that colonnade, and I heard her… heard her…’ Her frown deepened.

‘Heard her what?’ Jack only just had his impatience under control. ‘Did she speak? Cry out?’

Adela looked up at him. Slowly she shook her head. ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘She laughed.’

I waited in Mistress Judith’s house while Jack went for help, and sat with my arms round Adela as we watched a trio of Jack’s men put the body on a hurdle, cover it and bear it away. A quick inspection of Mistress Judith’s shelves provided what I needed to prepare a second, stronger sedative for Adela, and I left her warm, snug and snoring in her little cubicle. Jack set a man to watch the house for the rest of the night and then took me home.

He saw me safe inside, then hurried away, calling softly over his shoulder, ‘I’ll come back in the morning. I need to talk to you.’

I closed and bolted the door. I went down to tell Gurdyman I was back, and found him fast asleep on his cot down in the crypt. I made a warm, calming drink for myself – I kept seeing Mistress Judith’s terrible wound – and, at long last, went up the ladder to my little attic and fell into bed. As I fell asleep – I’d put a pinch of valerian in my drink and it was quick to take effect – I wondered for at least the twentieth time what on earth had made Mistress Judith laugh…

Gurdyman’s whistling woke me early in the morning. I hurried to wash and dress, then went down the ladder to join him.

‘Another death,’ he remarked as he handed me a bread roll still warm from the oven. ‘I’ve been out,’ he added, smiling, ‘and it’s all they’re talking about.’

‘I was there,’ I said quietly. ‘Oh, not when she was killed’ – his face had paled in shock – ‘but soon afterwards. Jack and I were in the inner court, and we heard her servant scream when she found the body.’

Gurdyman quickly recovered himself. ‘Same method as the other two, I understand.’

‘Yes.’

‘And it was Mistress Judith?’

‘Yes.’

I’d forgotten that Gurdyman knew her, but of course he did: before I’d become his pupil, and during the times I was back home in Aelf Fen, he would have to do his purchasing of supplies for himself.

‘Jack’s coming here this morning,’ I said after a moment.

Gurdyman gave me an enigmatic smile. ‘Naturally.’ Before I could ask him what exactly he meant by that, he went on, ‘Unless either of you needs me, I’m off down to the crypt.’

‘Very well.’

He picked up another couple of bread rolls and shuffled away. His mind already caught up in whatever he was working on down in his cellar, he resumed his whistling, Mistress Judith, apparently, forgotten.

Well, I thought, trying to excuse his callousness, he didn’t know her very well.

I put more water on to heat and set out the ingredients for a stimulating, reviving drink. There were a few of the rolls left, so I organized them on a platter and took them into the courtyard. I didn’t think I’d have long to wait for Jack and I was right.

‘So,’ he said a little later, when he had put away two mugs of my drink and the rolls were no more than a memory, ‘what do we know?’

‘Three deaths in a week, two women and a man,’ I began. ‘Two wealthy, or at least relatively so, and one an impoverished orphan in a whorehouse. Two connected to the river; one because his business was river transport, the other because she lived and worked beside it. One-’

‘Mistress Judith could also be said to be connected with the river,’ Jack put in, ‘because she bought supplies which arrived by boat.’

‘So do many people,’ I replied. But then something struck me: ‘Adela said they’d had a delivery yesterday.’ A load of new supplies to sort and store.

‘Indeed she did,’ Jack mused.

‘Do you think her goods were brought in by one of Robert Powl’s boats?’ I felt a rising excitement; had we found a link between the deaths?

But Jack shook his head. ‘Robert Powl’s boats are all lined up on the quayside,’ he said. ‘I’ve just checked.’

I had already leapt up. ‘But one of them could have come in yesterday!’ I cried. ‘Who would know?’ I was reaching for my shawl, slinging my satchel over my shoulder. ‘Who’s running his affairs now?’

‘He was a widower, and childless’ – Jack had also got to his feet and was following me along the passage – ‘but he had a household of several servants and employees.’ We were out in the alley now, and I slammed the door. ‘Who, it seems,’ he said, laughing softly, ‘we’re about to go and talk to.’

From habit, I turned right outside the house, to head for the marketplace as I usually did, but Jack stopped me. ‘I think we should stay away from the square,’ he said quietly. ‘If you can show me how we can get out of this warren of little streets and into the fields to the west, between here and the river, that would be very helpful.’

I did as he asked, thinking on my feet, utilizing my sense of direction, and, more by luck than anything else, soon emerging in roughly the right place. ‘Good,’ said Jack with a smile, striding off towards the river, ‘now we’ll be able to make our way round to Robert Powl’s house without anyone seeing us.’

‘Why,’ I asked as we hurried off, ‘did you want to avoid the square and make sure nobody sees us?’ You’re a lawman, I might have added, surely you go where you like?

He didn’t answer immediately. Then he said, and it sounded as if the admission was painful, ‘I’m not investigating the murders, which of course means I have no business going to Robert Powl’s house, or even, come to that, being out and about in the town, and I don’t want any of my fellow officers reporting what I’m up to.’

‘You’re not investigating the murders?’ I screeched. I could hardly believe it. ‘Why on earth not?’

He smiled wryly. ‘Because Sheriff Picot is extremely angry that I’ve allowed two of the town’s citizens to be brutally slain.’

‘Three,’ I corrected.

He turned to look at me, no longer smiling. ‘Sheriff Picot only counts the wealthy and well-known ones. He doesn’t concern himself with the deaths of prostitutes.’

I opened my mouth to shout my protest, but there was no need; Jack’s expression told me that.

‘So who is in charge now?’

‘Gaspard Picot.’

Sheriff Picot’s nephew. I knew him; I’d met him. He was a bald man, tall, slim, habitually dressed in black, and not long ago he had sent a man to kill Jack. Jack had got the better of him and left him tied up on the fringes of the ferns; clearly, he had escaped.

‘Him,’ I breathed.

‘Yes, him,’ Jack agreed.

‘So – so he’s trying to find out who’s doing the killing?’

‘He is.’

‘And he now has all your men at his disposal and you don’t?’

‘Yes.’

‘And it’s his uncle’s doing, of course.’

‘It is.’ Tiring finally of his monosyllabic answers, Jack added, ‘Sheriff Picot has had the brilliant idea of forcing people to stay indoors unless they have permission to go out, apparently in the belief that this will prevent any further killings, which of course it won’t since people with businesses to run and lives to get on with will find ways to circumvent the sheriff’s commands, and, since by definition the killer has no respect for the law, he’ll ignore the order, go out and about just as he pleases, and if he wishes to strike again, he will.’

‘That’s absurd,’ I said dismissively. ‘Making everyone stay in, I mean. Apart from what you just said about people disobeying, such an order means all the lawmen and deputies will be fully engaged trying to make people stay inside their houses, whereas what they should be doing is trying to find out who’s doing the killings.’

‘Succinctly put,’ said Jack, ‘and distressingly accurate.’ Then he grinned down at me. ‘Come on, let’s see what we can discover at Robert Powl’s house.’