The Paths of the Air

Six

The fire had been very particular in what it had consumed. The priory’s guest wing had been completely destroyed, leaving no more than one or two charred uprights and a strong smell of burning. The remaining buildings of the new foundation, for all that they were but a short distance away, had scarcely been singed; the wattle-and-daub walls and the reed thatching were intact.

As Josse and Gervase approached the smouldering ruin, Sister Euphemia and Sister Caliste riding behind them, Josse reflected that for once the priory’s proximity to the river had worked in its favour. When work had commenced on the foundation, locals had remarked pessimistically that it was nothing but folly to build on low-lying ground so close to the water, where the heavy clay was soggy for most of the year and where the yellowish mists brought a man nothing but colds, catarrh, coughs and consumption. When the rumours had spread that the canons had trouble singing the daily round of offices because at any time at least half of them were suffering from sore throats, the locals had nodded wisely and said, told you so.

Well, Josse thought, that might be the case. But before dawn this morning, the river that made the canons’ existence a permanently damp and rheumy one saved not only most of their new foundation but also their lives. If, that was, the fire had been an accident and not intended to burn down no more than the guest wing…

A short, stocky man dressed in a hooded black cloak over a white surplice was striding to meet them. Raising a hand to Gervase, he addressed Josse. ‘I am Canon Mark,’ he said. ‘Are you Sir Josse d’Acquin?’ Josse nodded. ‘Then glad I am to see you, for your reputation has gone ahead of you.’

‘Oh — er, thank you,’ Josse said.

‘And you have brought the nursing sisters!’ Canon Mark exclaimed, beaming up at the nuns.

‘Two of Hawkenlye’s finest,’ Josse confirmed. ‘This is Sister Euphemia, the infirmarer, and this is Sister Caliste.’

‘Ladies, gentlemen, please dismount and I will call someone to see to your horses.’ Mark looked around, spotted a brother apparently doing nothing but staring at the new arrivals and called him over. As the young canon led the horses away, Mark said, ‘Now, first let me take the two nuns to see their patients. Mistress Gifford is tending them with great skill but they are a sorry sight and I am sure she would welcome some support.’ Turning on his heel, he led the way to a low building only a few paces from the burned-out guest quarters. ‘We’ve put them in here because it was closest,’ he said over his shoulder. Then, ushering his visitors through the open door: ‘There they are.’

Josse saw a body lying on the ground, covered from head to toe with a muddy length of darned linen. Two other men lay on low cots. They were filthy, the remnants of their garments charred and sticking to their skin. Their faces were badly burned, swollen and unrecognizable. Both were asleep or unconscious.

Between them stood Sabin de Gifford.

Her eyes flew first to Josse and she murmured, ‘Josse, I am glad to see you.’ Then she moved to greet the two nuns, and Josse saw that Sister Euphemia put a concerned arm around the young woman’s waist as she muttered some urgent question. ‘I am quite all right,’ he heard Sabin reply. ‘Thank you for your concern, but I am neither overtaxed nor overtired.’

Word of her condition must have spread, Josse thought. With a surreptitious glance, he observed that any bump she might be showing would not be visible beneath her cloak and her voluminous white apron.

‘We hope to take the wounded men up to Hawkenlye,’ Josse said. ‘Are they fit to make the journey?’

He might have directed the question at Sabin but it was the infirmarer, bending down and studying the two men in turn, who answered. ‘Sabin has done a fine job,’ she announced. ‘What did you give them?’ she asked, and Sabin replied with a string of ingredients out of which Josse understood only poppy and monkshood. Lord, I thought monkshood was a deadly poison, he thought in alarm. But the infirmarer was nodding her approval; presumably Sabin knew what she was doing and whatever she had given the two Hospitallers had succeeded in sending them into a deep and hopefully pain-free sleep.

‘I think,’ Sister Euphemia was saying, ‘we may safely take them up to the infirmary and I suggest we make haste about it before the drugs wear off and they begin to feel their hurts once more.’

Canon Mark needed no further instruction. Already he was hurrying out and Josse heard him shouting to his brethren, issuing orders for the sheriff’s man and his cart to be brought up and for straw palliasses, pillows and blankets to be loaded onto it. Very shortly afterwards, the two unconscious men were tenderly carried out to the cart. The nuns volunteered to accompany them and a sister sat beside each of the patients to watch closely over them during the slow journey up to the Abbey. The man driving the horses was given final instructions to go as gently as road conditions allowed, and then they set off.

Gervase went to see Sabin home and Josse watched as he gave his wife a kiss and took her leather bag from her. Josse was about to go over to where the horses were tethered and organize leading reins for the two sisters’ mounts when Canon Mark caught his sleeve.

‘A word, Sir Josse, if I may,’ he said. ‘I wanted to speak to de Gifford as well, but he has gone…’

‘He is escorting his wife home,’ Josse said.

‘Ah, yes, of course.’

‘I will pass on to him anything that you tell me.’

Josse guessed that the canon was going to voice his suspicions about the fire and he was correct. ‘I am worried about how this blaze was started,’ he said quietly, lowering his voice and leaning close to Josse. ‘There is a suggestion being bandied about that it was caused by carelessness with a brazier, but this simply cannot be so because I take it upon myself to check that all the workmen’s braziers are dead at the end of each day.’ No wonder the poor man is so agitated, Josse thought; he senses that his own reputation is at stake. ‘I know the dangers of fire,’ the canon added, ‘as do we all, and as soon as the alarm went up, the fire drill that I myself devised was set in motion. All of us were ready with our buckets, forming a chain from the river bank. Canon John and I soaked our garments, covered our noses and mouths with wet cloths and dashed into the guest wing, where we were able to grab the two Hospitallers nearest to the door and drag them outside. But, Sir Josse — and this is what both puzzles and disturbs me — the fire showed no inclination to spread to neighbouring buildings! There we all stood, water at the ready, yet once it was done with the guest wing, the fire went out!’

‘Went out?’ Josse could not believe it. ‘Was it not rather that you and your men had already soaked the walls and roofs of the neighbouring buildings so that the fire could not take hold?’

‘No, no, no, there was no time for that!’ Mark insisted, agitated. ‘I was at the head of the chain and I swear to you that only I and perhaps a dozen others had thrown the contents of our pails before the flames died. What do you make of that, Sir Josse?’

‘I am not yet prepared to say,’ Josse replied cautiously.

Mark tutted impatiently. ‘Then come and look at this,’ he said, grabbing Josse’s arm and dragging him back to the small room where the patients had been put. Striding across the floor, he drew back the linen that covered the dead man. ‘This one was Brother Jeremiah. God rest his soul,’ Mark said, and so great was his urgency that Josse decided the last four words were an afterthought. ‘Look, Sir Josse.’ Mark was turning the dead head on the muddy ground. ‘What do you say to this?’

Josse crouched beside him, staring down at the left side of the dead monk’s head where Mark was pointing.

‘I see nothing,’ he began, ‘and I-’

Mark tutted again. ‘Don’t look, feel.’ Grabbing Josse’s hand, he pushed the fingers down into the smooth, dark blond hair. ‘There!’

Under Josse’s fingers he felt a huge swelling.

Something — or someone — had struck Brother Jeremiah very hard behind his left ear. And that was not all: as Josse continued to probe, he felt a deep depression right in the middle of the back of the skull. Sickeningly, he detected sharp splinters of bone.

‘It could have happened as he tried to escape the flames,’ he said. ‘It was dark; he had been wakened from profound sleep. He probably panicked, tripped and fell.’

‘Think again, Sir Josse,’ Mark said darkly. ‘I was first into the guest room once it was possible to enter. Brother Jeremiah had not even sat up, never mind tried to get out. He lay dead in his bed and his poor smashed skull rested on nothing harder than his straw mattress.’ His eyes, round with horrified astonishment, met Josse’s. Just in case Josse had missed the point, Mark breathed solemnly, ‘He was dead before the fire began. Somebody murdered him and then started the fire in an attempt to hide what he had done.’

As Josse and Gervase rode briskly back up the road to Hawkenlye, Josse related to his companion everything that Canon Mark had told and shown him.

‘You agree that this dead Hospitaller was murdered?’ Gervase asked curtly.

‘Aye,’ Josse said. There was no other explanation for Brother Jeremiah’s staved-in skull.

‘And you do not think Canon Mark is inventing this tale in order to cover up his own negligence in allowing a fire to start in his guest wing?’

‘No,’ Josse said firmly. ‘I cannot vouch for Canon Mark’s honesty, having only just met him, although I must say that I gained the impression of a conscientious man who insists on things being done according to his own careful rules. If he says he always makes sure no fires are left smouldering at the end of the day, then I believe him. Also’ — and this, he thought, was what clinched it — ‘how else did Brother Jeremiah get those fatal wounds to his head unless by another’s hand? He cannot possibly have fallen, for he was found in his bed.’

‘We only have Canon Mark’s word for that.’

Josse’s irritation spilled over. ‘Well, go back and ask the others! I did not think to do it, Gervase, but Canon Mark didn’t fight that fire all by himself and I’m sure his companions will vouch for the truth of what he told me.’

Gervase grinned. ‘Sorry, Josse. Yes, you’re right; I’m just thinking around the problem.’ His expression becoming rueful, he added gloomily, ‘As if one violent murder wasn’t enough, now it seems we have another.’

Gervase and Josse had decided to speak to the surviving Hospitallers in the hope that they might have seen or heard something suspicious before the fire broke out. It seemed quite possible for, as Josse pointed out, the murderer must have hoped that his fire would kill all three of them — it was only thanks to the quick-thinking and courageous Canon Mark and his fire drill that two had been saved — and therefore there was a good chance that the killer had not bothered too much about keeping out of sight.

On reaching the Abbey in the early afternoon, Josse had asked Sister Ursel to send word to the Abbess that they were back and then they had gone straight to the infirmary, where Sister Euphemia had put the Hospitallers on adjacent cots in the curtained recess at the far end of the long ward. The patches of cloth had been sponged off their flesh and now both appeared to be naked, covered as far as the waist with clean white sheets. Their burns were red and shiny.

‘This man — ’ Sister Euphemia indicated the monk on the left, who Josse identified as Brother Otto — ‘is the more badly wounded and he breathes only with great difficulty. His burns are extensive and he would now be in agony were he conscious. I thank the merciful God for Sabin de Gifford’s skill.’

‘Amen,’ Josse muttered. Gervase, he noticed, gave a faint smile at this praise of his wife.

‘The other one — ’ the infirmarer turned to look at Thibault of Margat — ‘suffered less damage and I guess this is because he was pulled out first. His burns are not so deep, and although he has been coughing and wheezing, his condition is not as severe as his companion’s.’

‘How soon before he is able to talk?’ Gervase asked.

‘He is very sick. Although I said his condition is less severe, that is relative, for he too will be in a great deal of pain when he recovers consciousness and I shall do my best to keep him asleep for as long as I think fit.’

‘Sister, the monk who died did not perish in the fire,’ Gervase said in an urgent whisper. ‘He was murdered, and I must set about trying to find the man who killed him. These two lucky survivors — ’ he must have noticed her instinctive protest, for he held up his hand to silence her — ‘yes, I know full well they will suffer agonies before they are healed but at least they are alive! These two may have seen or heard something of the attacker who killed their brother, and the sooner I can speak to them, the sooner I can get on his trail!’

The infirmarer nodded. ‘I understand,’ she said quietly. ‘All I can promise is that I will monitor my patients’ condition when they wake up.’ She stared down sadly at Brother Otto. ‘I fear it is if he wakes up, in this poor soul’s case,’ she added. Then, her eyes returning to Gervase’s: ‘If I deem it suitable for you to speak to either of them before I sedate them again, be sure that I shall send for you.’

‘But-’ Gervase began.

The infirmarer put both her hands on his chest and pushed him out of the recess, Josse following. Once she had ensured that the curtains had fallen closed behind her, she looked at Gervase and said, her voice exasperated, ‘That’s the best I can offer you. Go and ask that pretty wife of yours about the treatment of badly burned patients and I’m sure she’ll tell you I’m doing the right thing. It’s the shock, you see — burns hurt so much that the pain alone can kill you even if whoever is caring for you manages to keep you clean so that you don’t suppurate to death.’

‘Oh,’ said Gervase. Josse felt quite sorry for him; he looked like a scolded child.

Sister Euphemia must have thought so too. She smiled and put a motherly arm around Gervase’s waist. ‘Just be patient,’ she said kindly. ‘The older monk is lean, wiry and tough as an oak tree. I’m not making any promises but I reckon it’ll take more than a few burns and some lungfuls of smoke to kill him off. We’ll see how he is in the morning. A good night’s sleep can do wonders, and we’ll all be praying for them both, so we’ll have the good Lord on our side.’ She nodded encouragingly, her face full of such trust that Josse was moved.

‘Come, Gervase,’ he said gently. ‘There’s nothing more we can do here. Everything the Hospitallers had with them, including the shifts they slept in, undoubtedly went up in flames, so we can’t even go through their belongings in the hope of finding some clue as to who wanted them dead. Let’s leave the nursing nuns to their task.’

Gervase let out his breath in a long sigh. ‘Very well.’ Then, belatedly remembering his manners, he turned to the infirmarer. ‘I am sorry if I appeared heartless, Sister, and I did not mean to bully you.’

‘I know,’ she replied serenely.

‘You will let us know the instant we can speak to one or both of the monks?’

‘I will.’

He stared down at her for a moment or two. Then, with a curt nod, he turned and strode down the long ward and out of the infirmary.

Outside in the crisp air, Josse recalled something he had intended to do today. Now seemed as good a time as any, and having a purpose might help Gervase’s all too evident frustration.

‘I was going to suggest we went to report to the Abbess,’ he said, ‘but before we do that, there’s something I’ve been meaning to check.’

Gervase looked at him. ‘What?’ he said eagerly.

‘I’d like to go over the ground where the first victim was found,’ Josse replied. ‘I’d like to do so with you, my friend, for a fresh pair of eyes may pick up something that others missed. After all,’ he added, ‘in mitigation, we who brought the dead man here to the Abbey were greatly disturbed by what had been done to him and it is quite possible we did not search around as thoroughly as we might have done.’

‘Indeed it is, Josse!’ Gervase cried. ‘Show me the way and let’s go!’

Josse went first along the track that ran beneath the forest fringes. He did not speak; he was reliving the moment two days ago when he had first seen the dead body. He reached the place and stopped, Gervase beside him.

‘He was lying just there,’ Josse pointed, ‘on the edge of the track. No attempt had been made to hide the body. He was naked and anything he might have been carrying on him was gone.’

‘And you do not think that the merchant who reported the body stole anything? It’s possible, Josse — I’m told that the fellow sent his lad to the Abbey for help, so could he not have stolen the dead man’s pack and hidden it away before you all came along?’

‘It’s possible, aye,’ Josse admitted. ‘The merchant — he gave his name as Guiot of Robertsbridge and he was going to Tonbridge market with nutmegs and cloves — was insistent that they found the corpse robbed of every garment and possession, and I had no reason not to believe him. I-’ He frowned, trying to put into words his conviction that the merchant had spoken the truth. ‘It was just so awful, Gervase, that somehow I don’t think any of us who saw that body lying there would have wanted to take anything, even something valuable. It would have been like picking up a piece of the victim’s horrible death.’

Gervase was looking at him interestedly. ‘I never thought you were superstitious, Josse.’

‘It has nothing to do with superstition. You weren’t there, Gervase. You didn’t see or smell that terrible death scene.’

‘You are probably right about the merchant,’ Gervase said after a moment. ‘The fact that he volunteered his name and his business so readily suggests he was honest. I suppose I could send one of my men to speak to him…’

‘I don’t think you’d learn any more from him than you will from me,’ Josse said bluntly. ‘But it’s your decision and your man’s time you’ll be wasting.’

‘Very well,’ Gervase said meekly. Then: ‘I’m sorry you have to come back here. Clearly it’s upsetting you.’

Josse shrugged but did not speak. Then both men quietly crouched down and, eyes fixed to the hard ground, began to search along the track and through the fringing undergrowth.

The cramp in Josse’s damp knees suggested they had been at their task for long enough. Josse had not found a thing; from Gervase’s continuing silence, he guessed the sheriff had had no more success. Slowly Josse made his way back to the spot where the body had lain and, staring at the short, frosty grass at the edge of the track, he made out the large area where it had been flattened, first by the corpse and then by the booted feet of those who had come to bear it down to the Abbey. There were still a few smears of blood.

Smears of blood…

Josse straightened up. ‘Gervase, he wasn’t killed here!’

Gervase hurried over. ‘There’s not enough blood,’ Josse said. ‘With those wounds — and assuming he was still alive when they cut his throat — he would have bled copiously. So where is it? Where’s the blood?’

Gervase was now staring down as intently as Josse had done. ‘There’s some there.’ He pointed. ‘And there.’

‘Aye, but those patches are nothing but seepage from the dead body,’ Josse said. ‘When you cut into a man’s wrist — and the dead man’s hand was all but severed — the blood spurts out like a fountain.’

Gervase was looking at him respectfully. ‘There, Josse, I must bow before your greater experience, for I have never seen a man’s hand cut off. Nor a throat being slit,’ he added, ‘and I pray I never shall.’ Then, as if deliberately steering his thoughts away from such horrors, he said, ‘So, if he wasn’t killed here, where? Is it worth our while looking around?’

Josse was thinking. ‘If you are going to torture a man, you want to do so in an out-of-the-way spot.’

‘In the forest?’ Gervase suggested.

‘Aye, perhaps, although-’ Although the forest would not like it and would soon rid itself of your presence, he was going to say. Deciding it would sound impossibly whimsical to someone like Gervase, who had had very little experience of the Great Forest and all that went on within it, he said instead, ‘Although if the slaying was done deep within the trees, why did they not leave him there? No — I think they probably jumped him on the track, took him a short distance into the undergrowth and afterwards dragged his body back to this spot.’

‘Why would they do that?’ Gervase persisted. ‘If he was hidden in the bracken, why not leave him there?’

It was a good question. Josse was considering it when, as if out of nowhere, the answer was in his head: We did not want the residue of such brutality within the forest. It was we who brought him out to the track.

And then he knew.

Would he be able to make Gervase believe him?

He could but try.

‘The forest people put him here,’ he said simply. ‘They knew he would be found sooner or later, for the track is quite well used. They also knew he would end up at Hawkenlye Abbey.’

Gervase was looking at him wonderingly. ‘You know that?’ Josse shrugged. Gervase took it as an affirmation. ‘Because of Joanna?’

But Josse did not want to talk about Joanna. He shrugged again and then said, ‘I suggest we go along the track for a mile or so in each direction, looking for any spot where flattened grass or disturbed undergrowth points to a body having been dragged out of the forest. You go back towards the Abbey; I’ll go on that way.’

Gervase, Josse noticed, had the puzzled frown of a man who wants to ask further questions but does not want to risk offence. With a private smile, he set off along the track and presently heard the sound of Gervase’s footfalls as he strode off the other way.

It was Josse who found the place. Had he not been actively searching for it, he would probably have missed it, for the signs were faint: a heel print on the edge of a muddy puddle right off to the side of the track; a slim hazel branch that had been partially broken; and, when he hastened off the track and in under the trees, the shadow of a line through the dying bracken that might have been made by a boar or a deer but that, under the circumstances, Josse was absolutely sure was the work of human beings.

He had gone perhaps a hundred paces. Hoping Gervase was still in earshot, he loped back to the track and yelled, ‘Gervase! Gervase! Here, to me!’

Presently he saw the sheriff coming running towards him. When he drew level, Josse said, ‘In there,’ and led the way back along the path through the bracken.

They came to a patch of open ground where short turf grew in a space between birch and hazel. There were the ashes of a small fire on which some lengths of rope had been burned; their charred ends were still visible at the edges of the burned circle. Stuck in the ground beside the fire was a bow made of layers of horn and sinew. It was strangely shaped and instead of taking the form of a single shallow arc, it curved back on itself.

It was broken.

The ground in front of the fire was drenched in blood. It had congealed and in places had dried to a crust. This was the place of torment and death they had been searching for.

Gervase had paled and Josse felt sure his own face must be just as white. He stared down at the blood. Had the ropes been used to tether the man? It seemed likely. Had whoever killed him tried to burn them to destroy the evidence of their brutality? But why do that, when the dead body spoke so eloquently?

There was something about the clearing. Something to do with the fire, and that broken bow stuck in the earth…

Gervase had stepped back from the blood and was standing beside the bow, staring hard at it as if trying to distract his mind from the horror behind him. ‘Josse, what is this?’ he asked, his voice a hoarse whisper. ‘I don’t know-’

The first arrow flew so close to Josse’s cheek that he felt the breeze. With a heavy clunk it struck an ash tree behind him, burying its head in the trunk; he reached up and wrested it free and quickly looked at it. The second arrow was for Gervase, who gave a cry of fear as it brushed his sleeve and flew on to lose itself in the underbrush. There came the faint creak of a large bow being drawn as the unseen archer prepared for another shot.

‘Come on!’ Josse grabbed Gervase’s arm and raced back through the bracken to the track, so conscious of the presence of that unseen archer that instinctively he weaved to and fro as he ran, pulling Gervase with him. For some terrible moments it seemed that, as hard as they were running, the track came no nearer, but then the spell broke and they burst out from beneath the trees. Without even a pause, Josse turned to the right and pelted on down the path towards Hawkenlye. Only when the Abbey buildings were in sight did he slacken the pace and, eventually, draw to a standstill.

His lungs were burning, his chest heaving with exertion and the aftermath of danger. Gervase, bending over with his hands on his knees, was gasping for breath. When he could speak, he raised his scarlet, sweating face and said, ‘He tried to kill us! Why, Josse? Why?’

Josse felt his racing heartbeat gradually returning to its normal rhythm. ‘I’m not sure,’ he said. ‘Possibly we were about to stumble upon something that would have given away the killer’s identity. Perhaps he watches over that place purely for that reason: to scare off anyone who gets too close. Or…’ His voice trailed off.

Perhaps he watches over that place.

He saw again the fire with the partially burned ropes. The broken bow, sticking up out of the earth like a marker.

He turned calmly to Gervase, for now he knew. ‘It’s a shrine,’ he said. ‘The dead man’s body may have been removed to a place out of the reach of his companions, but they have honoured him as best they can. They purified the tools of his torture — the ropes — by burning them, then they put his broken weapon in the earth as a memorial to his courage.’

‘They, Josse?’ Gervase looked doubtful. ‘You refer to them, but how can you sound so certain? How can you know he had more than one companion? How do you know he had a companion at all?’

‘Because the arrows came from different directions.’

‘They almost killed us!’ Gervase’s face was suffused with anger. ‘That arrow came so close that I-’

‘No, Gervase. If they had wanted to kill us we would now be lying in that bloodstained clearing, as dead as the corpse at Hawkenlye. No — they merely wanted us to go away, for we were contaminating the sacred spot where they lost their companion.’

‘But-’

‘It is what fighting men do, Gervase,’ Josse said patiently. ‘In an earlier age, a man’s broken weapon would have been buried with him as a mark of respect. These men are skilled fighters and, although I cannot speak for the others, the dead man at least was a Turk; one of the elite troops who use the recurved bow to such devastating effect.’

‘That thing stuck in the earth of the clearing?’

‘Aye. To use it well takes long training and the development of specific muscles. It’s a cavalry weapon and both its penetration and range exceed the longbow.’

‘You mean they fire these things from horseback?’

‘Aye.’

‘Then they are skilled fighters indeed,’ Gervase whispered. Meeting Josse’s eyes, he said, ‘I would not be in the boots of whoever killed that Turk. If his companions ever find him, his fate does not bear thinking about.’

Josse straightened up. ‘Then, my friend, we had better make sure we find him before they do.’