Season of the Fox (A Servant of the Crown Mystery Book 2) (15 page)

“I’m not sure, save that it does,” he finally said with a shake of his head.

Together they passed the final shed, where the hogs who’d been granted another day of life were burrowing into the straw for their nightly rest. Near their pen stood a bank of beehives, their homes small domed baskets woven from willow withes, the hives giving off a gentle hum.

As they reached the garden, Faucon squinted, both his nose and eyes burning. These long rows had just received a fresh layer of manure. That said the household had already harvested the last of their turnips and beets, packed their cabbages into their dairy or ice house and shucked their dried beans into baskets for winter storage. All that remained of this growing season, now that Martinmas would soon be at hand, was to plant the over-wintering garlic and cold-weather beans.

Although the garden was a goodly swath of land, perhaps thrice that which belonged to a croft supporting a villager and his family, it wasn’t land enough to provide Bernart’s household with all its needs. No doubt like many other merchants, he either purchased what he required from the city’s grossiers, or his household owned fields outside the town walls that provided the grain for their daily bread.

A line of carefully-pruned apple trees stood at the back of the garden. Here and there, yellowed leaves yet clung to their otherwise barren and gnarled branches. Hanging low and heavy above their foreshortened crowns was a cloud of smoke.

“What burns?” Colin asked, but Faucon had already picked up his heels to jog in the direction of the fire.

It wasn’t until he’d ducked under the low-hanging branches of the first tree that he saw Gisla. Dressed only in her yellow undergown, Bernart’s daughter sat on a backless wooden bench. Shoulders hunched and arms crossed over her chest, she stared into the pit. Tears trickled unheeded down her face.

“Mistress Gisla,” Colin said as he joined Faucon, naught but comfort in his tone.

She gasped in surprise, wiping her face with the backs of her hands even before she looked to see who came. As she recognized them, she once more donned that arrogance of hers, throwing it over her shoulders like a cloak. “Brother Colin, what do you here?” she asked in the same cold, commanding tone she’d taken with Faucon.

“I was with Master Gerard when Sir Crowner’s clerk came begging witnesses to swear to your father’s ancestry,” the monk said, as if he were accustomed to women speaking so rudely to him.

He went to the bench, then sat close beside her. “Ach, lass. I’m so sorry this happened to you,” he said gently, extending an arm in the offer of an embrace. Unlike Edmund, Colin apparently paid no heed to his order’s ban on physical contact with women.

Much to Faucon’s amazement, Gisla melted into the monk’s arm, lowered her head to his breast and began to sob. Colin closed his other arm around her and rocked her gently as she wept.

Leaving the monk to comfort the girl as best he could, Faucon moved to the edge of the pit, and confirmed for himself that this was the place where the household burned what it couldn’t remake, reuse or sell off. Gisla’s dark blue overgown with its myriad of precious golden stars smoldered atop the ashes. Choked by the cloth, the fire but smoked fitfully, craving that next breath of air that would stir it to a blaze.

He picked up a stick and pushed at the garment. Beneath it lay the charred remains of yet more fabric. He poked and prodded until he found an untouched piece of that second garment. It was about the length of his arm and smut-stained, but he could see that it had started the day a pretty rose color sewn with swirling dark green threads to look like ivy. This must have been the gown Alina had worn until she’d befouled it with her husband’s blood this afternoon. He dug deeper into the thick layer of ashes. There was nothing–no gowns or, more importantly, footwear–to be found.

On the bench, Gisla’s sobs were ebbing into sad hiccoughs. Faucon sent Colin a warning look. Shadows were closing in. It wouldn’t be much longer before they’d have to leave this place or be caught in darkness. The monk nodded.

“Come lass, breathe deep,” he told the proud girl. “I know your sire is gone, but you needn’t lose Peter as well, of this I am certain. Sir Crowner has questions for you. The sooner you answer him, the more swiftly he can prove it wasn’t your sweetheart who did this awful thing.”

Gisla gave a quiet cry at that. Pushing back from the monk, she wiped her face with her sleeves, then swiveled on the bench to look up at Faucon. “How can you do that?” she pleaded, sounding and looking like nothing more than a bereft and lovelorn girl. “That’s the inquest jury in our yard.”

“And they have only sworn to confirm my verdict that your father was murdered. I didn’t name Peter as his murderer,” Faucon told her. “Mistress, help me by answering my questions in all honesty, knowing I will do what I can to prove what I know in my heart, that Peter didn’t kill your sire. Be warned, though. This isn’t a vow. I cannot know how to resolve your sire’s murder until I speak with Peter and hear what he saw, and I may not be able to do that for another forty days.”

Gisla drew another bracing breath and gave a last shudder as she reclaimed her cloak of authority–the one her father had woven for her from the silver that filled his chests. It was a garment she wore more easily than did her mother. “If speaking to Peter is what you need, I will see that you do. Indeed, I’ll see that it happens on the morrow if it is your desire.”

Faucon smiled in understanding. The church was adding a tower, with all the costs that went with such an addition. Silver would make its way from one chest into another, and doors would open. “That would suit very well,” he replied with a grateful nod.

“So, describe for me the details of this day, especially the meal and your father’s absence from it,” he continued. “Did anything out of the ordinary occur in the hours prior to your father’s passing?”

Gisla again wrapped her arms around herself and turned her gaze toward the pit. It no longer smoldered. Stirred to it by Faucon’s prodding, the flames had found what they craved. Hungry tongues filled with warmth and light crackled in joy, sending up dancing sparks, as they cheerfully consumed the blood-stained fabric.

“I think this day was no different than any other,” the girl said, watching her gown curl and brown, “save that we were to have slaughtered Gog and Magog, the last of our hogs,” she said.

Faucon eyed her, in surprise. He didn’t know anyone who named their hogs. The choice of their names was even stranger. His nurse had more than once told him the tale of the ancient giant Gogmagog.

“Mama meant to do the deed it right after the meal so their carcasses could hang the night in the cold air,” Gisla was saying.

Her phrasing made Faucon frown. “You cannot mean that your mother meant to slaughter them herself?”

Gisla nodded, again staring into the flames, then corrected herself. “Well, Mama doesn’t do the skinning or the gutting. She just cannot bear that anyone else might deal them their death blows, fearing they might be caused unnecessary pain. That’s because she always becomes too fond of our piggies, making them into pets. But she never had the chance to do the task because of what happened to Papa.”

Another shuddering sigh left her. “As for our meal, it too, was like any other. At least of late.”

Opening her crossed arms, she clenched her fists as they lay in her lap. “Would that Papa had not made me his confidante and that he’d never taken that last journey to London,” she said harshly. “He’s been horrible since he returned. That mercer he met there is an incubus, who filled my father’s ears with the promise of the incredible wealth and riches possible were he to move our trade to London town.”

“This is the man to whom your father offered you in marriage?” Faucon asked. He wondered if it was the mark of a woman’s trade that a man might share such intimate information with a daughter, who otherwise had no right to such knowledge.

“You know of that?” The girl cried in surprise.

Faucon nodded. “Your mother mentioned there was a recent contract offered for your hand,” he told her.

She gave a sharp shake of her head. “Nay, the mercer isn’t that man. Papa intended me for some London goldsmith whom this godforsaken mercer knew. Nay, that black-hearted silk merchant dangled his own daughter before Papa, telling my father that he could shuck my mother because she has given him no heir save me.”

Faucon gaped. Colin stared wide-eyed at the girl. “But the trade is your mother’s,” the monk protested. “Bernart would own nothing if he set aside your mother.”

Gisla shook her head. “That might have been true for my grandmother when my grandfather gave over his business in favor of hers. But since Papa and Mama have been married, our trade has become firmly established in his name, even if what we produce yet rests upon Mama’s shoulders. Mistress Nanette has seen to it our journeywomen and apprentices are every bit as skilled as either Mama or I. That makes both of us no more than one needle among many others, something that my mother encouraged,” she added, a note of disapproval in her voice.

“I fear she’s not the tradeswoman my grandmother was,” she finished, glancing from Crowner to monk, then back to Faucon.

“Should my father have freed himself of Mama, then married me into a different trade, he could have simply have continued doing what he always had, claiming mastery while Nanette and the others provided the skill. And if he were to have moved the trade to London, there’d be none to know what might have come before or the terrible trick he’d pulled upon my mother.

“Or on me, I suppose, since I would have inherited after Mama,” she added, then shook her head. “But I cannot believe he intended me hurt. From the way Papa spoke of this goldsmith, I know he believed he was giving me a life far grander than even this one,” she waved a hand in the direction of her fine home. “It was the sort of life he wanted for himself, not one I craved,” she added at a whisper.

She paused, the firelight showing the hard hurt lines of her face. “Such was the filth this mercer poured into my sire’s ears. When Papa first confided all this to me, I did what I could to reason with him, pleading on Mama’s behalf. When that failed, I tried telling him how annulling their marriage would make me a bastard and lower my value to this goldsmith. He said there was no need for an annulment, not when time had proven my mother barren.”

Colin shook his head at that. “I cannot believe your father could ever have swayed anyone in our holy Church that he needed a son to carry on his trade. Not only is your trade not his, it’s a woman’s trade, and you are a woman. Thus he has the heir he needs to carry his business into the next generation.”

Faucon cocked a brow at this. “My pardon if I insult, Brother Colin, but Master Bernart had the wealth he needed to sway the opinions of such men, no matter how holy.”

The monk offered a wry smile at this. “No insult taken, Sir Crowner. Aye, Bernart had the coins, but any abbot or bishop who studied his plea would be hard-pressed to see their way clear to make use of that silver without raising complaints from their superiors.”

Colin looked at Gisla. “This is especially so when it’s clear that your mother isn’t barren, or rather she wasn’t barren when she bore your father his three children. And he has his heir. That fact is incontrovertible and, I believe, insurmountable in such an argument.”

Shivering, Gisla fell silent at that. Staring into the pit, she watched as the last of her fine gown, and the family which had provided it for her, went up in smoke. As the fabric was consumed, the flames began to die back, taking with them both heat and light as they expired.

Faucon released the pin that held his mantle over his shoulders, fastening it to his tunic before he offered her his garment. She gave him a swift smile, the movement of her mouth that of a wary child grateful for an unexpected kindness. He nodded in return, understanding better what it was she hid beneath her rudeness.

“So, did your father tell your mother of his intention?” he asked, certain that Bernart had done so.

To his surprise, Gisla shook her head. “Nay, Papa said he told no one save me, and me he swore to secrecy, trusting that my love for him would insure his privacy. I gave him my word only because, just like you, Brother Colin,” she said, looking at the monk, “I couldn’t see how he’d ever gain what he intended. Indeed, as days passed, I saw I was right. Papa went back and forth to the abbey, but it seemed no amount of treasure he offered was enough to purchase the answer he craved. That’s when he began avoiding our table each and every day rather than occasionally, doing so to spite my mother.

“Whipped to it by that evil mercer, his greed had grown so all-consuming that he couldn’t admit his plan was mad. Or, futile. Instead, he blamed Mama for standing between him and the wealth he was now convinced should belong to him alone.”

Again Gisla sighed. “So, up and down my mother went at every meal, growing ever more ashamed that her husband would make such a show of his disregard for her. Today was no different.”

Just then, the church bells began to toll, each to its own rhythm and on its own note. The hour of Vespers had arrived. With it the town gates would close, and the citizens of Stanrudde would rest easy in the safety of their walls for the night.

“Mistress,” Faucon said, casting a glance at the darkening sky, “it’s time we returned you to the house.”

“If I must,” she muttered resentfully, but came to her feet like the dutiful, loving daughter she was.

“Tell me what happened after your mother found your father dead, after she raised the hue and cry,” Faucon said, as the three of them made their way through the trees and into the garden. “What did you and she do in the workshop after you came down at her call?”

She was quiet for a moment as she gathered her thoughts. “When Mama began shrieking, all the household leapt up from the table to run to her,” she said, watching her feet as she spoke. “I was the last to reach the workshop. I sit at the upper table, the one farthest from the door. By the time I was coming down the stairs, Mama was screaming that Papa was dead and Peter had killed him.”