Lost Innocents (A Servant of the Crown Mystery Book 3) (5 page)

There was no reading Amelyn's face, not when it was concealed beneath her oversized hood. Ivo and his older sons appeared surprised by their Crowner's revelation. Gawne and the wild-looking oldster glanced at each other, their shared look suggesting much. Odger and Meg both stared flatly back at their better.

Then something flared in the woman's dark gaze. Dropping her hands from her hips, she pointed a finger at Gawne. "If that is so, Sir Crowner, then I say it was Gawne who killed her," the old woman charged, her voice raised and harsh. "Jessimond was missing for two full days before Gawne came crying that she was in the well. Who else would have known she was in there save the one who put her there? And who else would have put her there save for the one who killed her?"

There they were, the simple questions Faucon had expected to ask, the ones that should have easily led him to the girl's murderer. But the answers were no longer obvious, and the trail the woman's accusation indicated would prove naught but a dead end. Gawne's hands were too small to have throttled the girl, and his form too slight for him to have lifted the corpse high enough to have put her into the well by himself. And despite what strength the lad claimed for himself, he couldn't have brought the girl from where she had died to Wike by himself, not without someone witnessing.

But Gawne knew naught of what his Crowner did. His eyes flew wide at the old woman's accusation. With a choked cry, he pivoted and raced away from the well.

"Nay!" Ivo howled after his youngest son, the word filled with heartbreak.

"Neighbors, come to me!" Odger's voice drowned out the smith's cry. "Stop Gawne, son of Ivo! He has done murder!" the bailiff bellowed, raising the hue and cry.

So certain was Odger that those he ruled would follow that he turned instantly to chase the boy. He should have waited. Not a single cottage door opened. Neither did the ragged oldster nor Ivo do as the law required. Instead, both stayed where they stood.

The smith's elder boys weren't so sanguine. Shooting sidelong glances at their new Crowner, they started after their brother and their bailiff, albeit moving at a half-hearted shuffle. Near the kitchen the odd-looking youth also joined the race, but his awkward gait was as strange as his appearance. Lifting his heels and raising his chin high, he tiptoed precariously after the others. As he went, he flapped his hands and matched each step he took with a clicking sound made with his tongue. All in all, it was a pathetic chase and Faucon couldn't have been more pleased.

He watched Gawne race toward the pale, aiming toward the hatch—the narrow low-hung gate that allowed men entrance into the king's forest, albeit bent in twain and one at a time. The lad threw open the gate. He was short enough that he didn't need to duck as he passed through it. Even from this distance, Faucon could hear Gawne's footfalls echo on the plank bridge that crossed the deep ditch lining the pale, meant to prevent the deer from leaping over the fence.

Odger reached the hatch, started through it, only to turn back with a shout of frustration. It seemed the lad had kicked the planking into the ditch after he was across. Still the bailiff persisted, now bearing right to a stretch that was fenced with a thick holly hedge. There was a gap where the holly had died. That the bailiff didn't return once he pushed through the sharp-edged foliage suggested that another plank bridge was located there.

Faucon sighed. Hopefully, the boy had enough of a head start to send Odger back empty-handed. The sooner the bailiff returned, the sooner his Crowner could be off to Alcester for the night. Faucon wanted to reach the safety of town and abbey before darkness fell.

Arms folded in the manner of monks, hands at his elbows and hidden inside his sleeves, Edmund came to stand beside his employer. "Why do you not aid in the chase this time, the way you did last week in Stanrudde?" his clerk asked, retreating into their mother tongue.

Faucon laughed. Beneath his undecorated and mud-spattered linen surcoat he wore not only his chain mail tunic and leggings but the usual padded gambeson and woolen chausses of a knight. All in all, these garments added nigh on three stone to his weight.

"What? Run that race in my armor? I'd be moving even more slowly than they." He waved in the direction of what passed for the hue and cry in Wike. Across the bailey, Gawne's brothers were managing a snail's pace. The strange youth had given up the chase altogether and was making his way back toward the well at that same odd gait.

"Moreover," Faucon continued, "I'd be far more likely to get lost in yon wild wood than to find the boy."

Then, having made his jest, he offered Edmund the more serious reply the monk deserved. "Last week, I needed to introduce myself to as many of the townsfolk as I could. The hue and cry made that an easy task. But why expend such effort here? All those in Wike have already seen my face and accept, or are at least resigned to, the fact that I serve king and court in this matter."

"Ah, I hadn't considered that," his clerk said, then rocked back on his heels. "It seems I was wrong to worry over how long it will take to note the particulars of this death. While they chase the boy, I'll scribble the details of what he's done onto our roll. When the bailiff returns with the lad, we can call the jury and be finished with this. I think me that we'll yet sleep within our own walls this night."

Faucon shot a smile at his clerk. "Is that so? What say you to a wager? I'll put coin on the possibility that the only walls we see tonight will be those surrounding Alcester, if there are any. Aye, and I also say that the morrow will find us back here at dawn, ready to spend our day sniffing out the trail that leads to the one who actually ended the girl's life."

His clerk shot him a startled look, then blinked rapidly. An instant later, Edmund's arms opened. His eyes widened.

"What do you know that I do not?" he demanded. "You showed me that she was throttled, not drowned in the well. Thus, it must have been the lad who killed her. He's the one who called the others to find her. Like the old woman said, who else could have put her in the well?"

"That is the wrong question, Brother. Her placement in the well is but a curiosity," Faucon replied with a quick lift of his dark brows. This time, when a huntsman's excitement overtook him, he gave way to it in pleased anticipation. He couldn't wait to uncover the spoor that would lead him to the girl's killer.

His response teased another frustrated sound from Edmund. "Why can I not see what you see?" he cried, only to dismiss his own question with the wave of his ink-stained hand. "Ack! What does it matter how you do it? At least one of us sees it. I'll fetch my basket, then enter what little I do know. Which, it seems, is only the dead girl's name, the manner of her death and that she was put into the well after she passed," he added irritably.

With that, the monk turned and stalked away from the well, following the arrow-straight pathway that led away from the manor toward the tiny settlement. Just beyond the farthest cottage was a rich greensward. It was in that small, grassy meadow that Faucon's big white courser and the monk's donkey grazed, waiting for their masters. The basket containing Edmund's writing implements yet hung from his donkey's saddle.

As the monk went, he called back over his shoulder, "It would be good to know when the lad announced the girl's presence in the well. Also, mayhap you can also encourage the leper or the girl's mistress to swear that the child is English? At least we'll get that much done before we must leave this place for the night."

Once again Edmund issued commands where he had no right, but against such a successful day, and the possibility of an even better day on the morrow, it didn't rankle just now. Faucon grinned and called back, "So I shall, although I doubt I can do the task as well as you."

If his clerk noted the friendly sarcasm in his employer's reply, he gave no sign of it.

Still shaking his head over Edmund's impossible behavior, Faucon brought his attention back to the four living people yet near the well. Once more weeping, Amelyn now sat upon the moist sod, her daughter's corpse cradled in her arms. As for the oldster, the rustic continued to watch his new Crowner with sharp interest.

The old woman, her gaze yet afire with the satisfaction of having accused Gawne of murder, stared boldly at her better. That was rude behavior for an unmarried woman, even one as old as Meg. What sort of gentlewoman, even as an absent landlord, employed a servant with so disrespectful a manner?

As for Ivo the Smith, he stared after his departing sons, looking as stunned as he'd seemed when Amelyn the Leper had approached the well. And stunned Ivo should be. In the space of a breath his youngest child had gone from rescuing hero to accused murderer.

Faucon touched the smith's bare arm to draw his attention. With a jerk, Ivo sidled away from his Crowner. Then, like a man startled out of a terrible dream, he gave a violent shake of his head.

"Gawne didn't do this," he shouted at his Crowner, his fists closing. "They were like brother and sister, those two. Just a pair of children seeking to wring a little innocent joy out of a life gone sad and sober too soon. Gawne would never, ever have hurt Jes."

"Master Smith, you protest when I have said nothing at all about your son," Faucon replied mildly. He picked up the leather apron Gawne had used in the watery depths and handed it to Ivo. "Take your gear and go home. There's nothing more you or I can do for the now save wait on your bailiff's return."

Which Faucon continued to pray would be without Gawne. He also hoped that Ivo or Gawne's brothers had some inkling where their young kinsman might choose to hide. More importantly, Faucon needed to find a way to win their trust. If the bailiff didn't bring back the boy, then one of them would have to lead him to Gawne on the morrow.

While the smith blinked in surprise at his Crowner's command, Meg freed an irritable huff. "Better that you hold tight to this sorry ass until Odger finds his lad, sir knight. Ivo cares nothing for your laws or your king, only for his own flesh and blood."

She turned her disrespectful gaze on the smith. "I warned you, didn't I? Spare the rod, spoil the child, said I. But you didn't heed me. The way you let Gawne wander as he would, making whatever mischief he chose!" She made an impatient sound. "I tell you, it wouldn't surprise me to learn you've never asked so much as an hour's work out of that child. See now how you spoiled your boy until he thought he could do this horrible thing with no fear of consequence? That little smell-smock! His sin rests upon your shoulders."

"There is no sin," Ivo protested again. "He didn't kill her. Gawne is innocent."

"Innocent, indeed!" Meg retorted. "There was nothing innocent about those two when they were together."

She turned her shoulder to the smith to address her Crowner as if she were his equal. "Make note of my words, sir knight, and you'll understand why Gawne did murder. Those two were forever stealing off together, disappearing into yon woods, sometimes gone for the whole night." The wave of her hand indicated the direction in which Gawne had fled. "And her just this year coming into her courses! I told Ivo his boy was out to steal that brat's maidenhead. I warned him that if she came with child I'd see to it both his boy and Ivo paid the price. But our smith ignored me.

"I say it's because of Ivo's neglect that the worst happened. I say that the smell-smock got her with child and, not wanting his father to learn what he'd done, killed her. That boy didn't want to be forced into wedlock with a penniless pauper whose dam is a whoring leper. Who would?" she added, shooting a hateful glance at Amelyn.

Then Meg pointed at the dead girl. "As for that brat, it's no surprise to me that she spread her legs for the first man who touched her. Her mother bred lewdness into her bastard's blood and bones, and that sly little creature was never going to be other than a whore. Headstrong bitch! It didn't matter what punishment I dealt her, she kept stealing out against my will.

"And what was she doing while she was out of my sight?" Meg threw her question at Ivo, then answered it for him. "Bedding your son!"

"Gawne wouldn't have touched her that way! He didn't!" Ivo protested again at a shout. "I tell you, he loved Jessimond like a sister."

Meg ignored him, her attention coming back to Faucon. "You've heard me, sir knight, and you've heard our smith," she told him. "Now also know that I speak the truth when I say he'll do anything and everything to protect his son. If you don't hold Ivo, that little dastard will never face just punishment for the wrong he's done. Arrest the father, else you'll never get custody of the lad."

"That isn't what the law requires," Faucon replied flatly, looking away from her to hide a dislike that grew with every breath.

"Go home, Master Ivo," he once more commanded the smith. "I'll need to speak with you about this matter but our conversation must wait until the morrow. I'll seek you out when I'm ready."

Clutching his apron close, the smith gave his Crowner a startled but respectful nod. Then sending a final scathing glance at the vicious old woman, Ivo departed, moving like a man twice his age. As he went, he crossed paths with the strange youth now circling in the direction of the well.