Season of the Raven (A Servant of the Crown Mystery Book 1) (5 page)

So many rural commoners in one place made for a colorful crowd, what with their homespun tunics and stockings dyed every hue that could be wrung from woodland or field: the brown of walnut shells, the blue of woad, elderberry red, and the green of wood sorrel.

It was a quiet gathering in spite of its size. Most of the men stared at the mill, the two-storey wooden building next to the cottage. From atop Legate, Faucon could see the front half of the tall waterwheel pinned to its side.

"Let us pass," he called to those in the lane as he urged Legate forward.

Although men shifted and stepped this way and that, trying to move out of his way, they couldn't make enough space for the comfort of his horse. Legate began to sidle nervously. Calm for his breed he was, but he was still battle-trained and that made him more than capable of killing with his hooves. Faucon turned his horse back to the copse of alder trees at the head of the lane.

"Stay here with him," he told the priory's messenger after they dismounted. "Let him graze as he will, but keep him well away from the crowd. Whatever you do, do not leave him."

This time when Faucon reached the back of the crowd, he caught the attention of the closest man, a doddering ancient with sparse white hair. "Where is the dead miller?"

The man grinned at him. Not a tooth remained in his mouth. "Halbert's been et by his wheel."

"Aye, drowned, he was. And no better fate could have befallen him," added another man at least a score of years younger than the first. This one's lips curled in satisfaction. "A vicious and uncivil man, Halbert Miller was," he said, "though no one dared say such things to his face, him having been a soldier in his youth and as good with his fists as he was."

As more than a few of those around the speaker nodded their agreement, Faucon began threading his way through the crowd. There was an advantage to being both armed and unknown. Every man he touched either stepped back in instinctive reaction to Faucon's sword or to get a better look at the newcomer. He made his way past the surprisingly large cottage and through the opening in the low wall that surrounded the mill.

More men filled the mill courtyard. Faucon started through their midst only to catch sight of a single small woman standing beside the stone steps that led to the mill's raised doorway. At that same instant, Brother Edmund's voice rang out from around the corner and the millwheel.

"Once again I protest, my lord sheriff! By the order of the Archbishop of Canterbury, only this shire's new coronarius has the right to move this body. You must desist. As God is my witness, you are no longer authorized to examine the bodies of the dead." The monk's cry was fraught with indignation.

"I know nothing of any new royal servant being named in my shire," another man replied. Although his words were measured and calm, tones of threat filled his gruff voice. "Therefore, I cede nothing of my right to uphold the law, certainly not to you. What sort of monk are you that you dare say me 'nay?' If you think your Church can protect you from me when you so usurp your position, you are wrong."

Faucon put his shoulder to all who yet stood between him and his new clerk. As he rounded the building, he came up short at the edge of the mill channel. Here, the stream Legate had crossed only moments ago was no burbling brook. Instead, the miller had dammed it behind his mill, creating a pond, then funneled it into a stone channel. The mill race was deep enough that the water became a rushing cataract beneath the wheel.

The wheel wasn't turning at the moment, not with the miller's body trapped beneath it. But if it had been moving, Edmund would have been riding it. The monk had his arms wrapped around the rim closest to him and a foot hooked around one of the slick, moss-dabbled paddles—the short lengths of wood placed between the rims to catch the water and turn the wheel.

Edmund's attention was focused on the three men across the race from him, where a sturdy wall supported the end of the great timber axle on which the wheel rotated. All three wore hardened leather hauberks over their tunics, and swords belted to their sides. One squatted at the edge of the race, his wet sleeves clinging to his arms. Another sought to use his dagger as a tool to loosen the brake, the massive wooden clamp that kept both axle and wheel from turning.

The third man stood with his arms crossed over his chest and his back to the support wall. Although his clothing beneath his hauberk appeared travel-stained and worn, this one's sword belt was chased with silver. Of medium height, he was barrel-chested, with sandy hair shot with gray; his face, all sharp lines and weathered creases, was framed by a grizzled reddish beard, worn heavier than was the fashion.

But it was the flatness of his expression that held Faucon's eye. He'd seen that same look on the faces of old warriors, soldiers who'd dealt out so much hurt in their lives that their hearts had turned to stone. By his expression alone would Faucon have known this was the sheriff, the man Marian thought could suck the marrow from a younger man's bones.

"I am here, Brother Edmund," Faucon announced, then offered the sheriff a brief bow. "I am Sir Faucon de Ramis, the newly-elected Keeper of the Pleas in this shire."

Although he spoke in his native French, his announcement stirred life in the watching commoners. Those who understood him passed his name among the others. It moved from man to boy, lip to lip, until the echoing syllables took on the sound of a surprised question.

Across the race, the crouching soldier eased back on his haunches to better see the newcomer; the other man paused in his efforts to look over his shoulder. The sheriff's gaze shifted to Faucon. Nothing changed in his flat expression.

"Sir Faucon," Brother Edmund said, offering his better a nod of greeting without giving up his precarious position on the wheel, "this is Sir Alain, lord sheriff of this shire. Sir Alain, I say again. From the moment of Sir Faucon's election yesterday, he was charged with the examination of all unnatural deaths in your shire. It is now his exclusive right."

Sir Alain's arms opened, his right hand coming to rest upon his sword hilt. "I do not know you," he said to Faucon. "You would not," Faucon replied evenly. "I have spent little time in this shire."

"Then how came you to be coronarius?" the sheriff asked. "I was yet at court when the announcement was read. Keepers of the Pleas are to be of their shire."

"The lands that are my inheritance through my lady mother lie at the edge of the Forest of Arden," Faucon replied. "As of last night, I also took possession of Blacklea Village, along with all its rights and rents, and was elected as Keeper. If you wish to know of my election, it might be best if you ask after it of Lord Graistan and my lord uncle, Bishop William of Hereford."

That information set a muscle to twitching along Sir Alain's jaw line. Otherwise, he stood as a statue, his hand yet resting on his sword hilt. The quiet stretched.

From the reeds along the brook bank below the mill a small bird warbled. The water danced and played in the day's bright sun, tumbling merrily over the back of the dead man. The dark-haired miller seemed to be sleeping chest-down in the race, one cheek pillowed on the stony bottom. His right arm was caught beneath the right rim of the wheel while his shoulder was pressed to the floor of the channel, held down by one of the paddles. He wore only his shirt and a dark blue tunic with no chausses to cover his legs or shoes upon his feet. It was the manner in which about half the men in the yard were dressed.

At last the sheriff gave a single brusque nod, then pivoted. "Leave it," he told the soldier who was working at the screws that closed the brake. "We have other matters to attend."

With that, the three men made their way along the far edge of the race channel to where it ended in front of a fuller's property, or so Faucon assumed. Nowhere else would lengths of cloth be held taut on tenterhooks in large stretching frames. The men and boys gathered among the drying fabric swiftly parted to allow their lord sheriff and his soldiers to pass.

The instant the three could be seen no more, a collective sigh left the gathering. Men began to shuffle and shift. Low conversations broke out among the crowd. So many muttering men had a sound like distant thunder.

At the wheel, Edmund freed his own long slow breath and released his grip. He stepped carefully onto the edge of the race, his back against the wall of the mill behind him.

"Sir Faucon, that is Halbert the Miller," he pointed to the man caught beneath the wheel. "According to the fuller, who was the first finder and who most properly raised the hue and cry with his neighbors, it seems Halbert fell into the race last night and drowned when he was drawn beneath the wheel and could not win free."

Edmund curled a proprietary hand around the wheel. "You must claim this wheel as
deodand
. It must be dedicated to the Church to cleanse it of the sin of murder."

"Nay, you cannot take my wheel!" came a man's pained cry.

Faucon looked over his shoulder. The one who spoke was tall and auburn-haired, a young man no older than he.

"I am Stephen, only son of Halbert. Now that my father is dead the mill belongs to me, and it is my family's livelihood," this Stephen said, not the slightest sign of grief for his deceased sire in his hazel eyes. "Without the wheel, we will starve."

His protest teased a muted rumble of laughter out of the ranks of waiting men. The sound seemed to echo Faucon's thought that the miller's son didn't look like a man in danger of starving soon. If Stephen's powerful form was a testimony to the physical requirements of turning grain into flour, his attire was hardly that of a working man. His ankle-length tunic was made of fine wool, trimmed with braid shot with glinting, golden threads, although smut dulled the gleam of the expensive trim at its hem. Then again, millers were famous for their wealth, which some said was ill-gotten, stolen
koren
by
koren
from the bags of wheat, rye, barley and oats entrusted to them to grind.

Faucon shook his head. "Livelihood or not, if the wheel killed your sire, I must take it into custody. You know as well as I that it must be given to the Church so the sin of murder can be rinsed from it. That is the law."

"My wheel didn't kill him. I'll show you the one who did," the son snapped.

He turned and stepped around the corner. There was a female shriek. When Stephen reappeared, he held the arm of the petite woman Faucon had noticed in the courtyard. She wore a worn red undergown beneath an undyed linen over-gown. A clean white head cloth covered her brown hair. Although middle-aged, he didn't gauge her old enough to be Stephen's dam. Her left eye was blackened and her expression was twisted with tears.

"This is the one who murdered my sire. If my father is in the race, it's because she pushed him, as sure as I live and breathe, doing so because he had finally proved that she made a cuckold of him." His accusation set the crowd to muttering louder this time.

The woman hardly looked the part of either murderess or harlot. If she'd ever been pretty, her beauty had faded long before someone had taken his fists to her.

"I didn't kill my husband, and it's not true that I betrayed my marriage vows," she protested softly, speaking the tongue of the commoners as she scrubbed the tears from her face with the backs of her hands. "If only I had known Halbert was so jealous before we wed. He saw my betrayal in every man's innocent glance, and no word I spoke could change his mind.

"As for last night, after he gave me this," she gently touched her fingertips to the bruise on her eye, "I ran from him, going to Susanna the Alewife's house, as I have done all too often of late. When I left Halbert he was standing right there," she pointed to the spot on the edge of the race. "So Simon Fuller can attest."

"Indeed I can," called a man from those gathered in the fulling grounds across the race.

The fuller came forward to stand in the same space the sheriff had occupied, just below the wheel. Short and stout, he wore a thick fabric apron over a sturdy brown tunic, its sleeves rolled up above his elbows. Like Halbert Miller, the fuller's feet and legs were bare. The day's warm sun gleamed on the pale hair covering his shins and made his balding pate glow.

He offered Faucon a bow. "I am Simon, Fuller of Priors Holston, the first finder," he said, shifting into Faucon's native French, then returned to his own tongue to continue. "I was outside yesterevening when the shouting began between Halbert and Agnes. It was the same argument they ever had, Halbert accusing his wife of making him a cuckold. And I did last night as I have done far too often since they wed two months past. I crossed the race to separate them."

Simon turned to cast a stern glance at the miller's son. "But your father wouldn't be calmed last night, Stephen," he said, "not even after Agnes left. With you and 'Wina away for the night, he'd dived both sooner and deeper into his cups than usual. God be praised that he had, else he might have landed a few of the blows he aimed at me and done to me what he did to Agnes." He pointed from Agnes' bruised eye to his own, then continued.