The Elephants of Norwich (23 page)

Olova was overwhelmed with sadness when the body of her grandson was returned to her. Gently and tactfully, Gervase explained what had happened, but even his soft words could not ease a grandmother’s pain. She asked them to lay Skalp inside the hut that he had been rebuilding. Though there was bitterness in her voice, there was also a note of resignation. She looked from Gervase to Ralph with tears welling in her eyes. There was no point in concealment. The truth came out of her between bursts of sobbing.
    ‘I knew that something was wrong,’ she said. ‘Skalp went away for a couple of days. He wouldn’t tell me where he’d been. Now I know.’
    ‘He went to kill Hermer,’ said Gervase.
    ‘He was very quiet when he got back. He threw himself into his work. But something had changed in him. I could sense it.’ She brushed away a tear with, the back of her hand. ‘How did you realise that it was him?’
    ‘We didn’t at first,’ admitted Ralph. ‘We were after a man called Starculf. When we caught him, he protested his innocence so strongly that we were inclined to believe him. That meant we had to look elsewhere. Gervase brought us here.’
    ‘It had to be Skalp,’ said Gervase, simply. ‘He never forgave Hermer for what he did to that young girl. You told me that it was Skalp who found her body. He took his own life close to the same place. In fact, I think he ran there deliberately.’
    Ralph was rueful. ‘I blame myself for letting him stab himself.’
    ‘It wasn’t your fault.’
    ‘It was, Gervase. I caught him. I should have taken his dagger away.’
    ‘You were distracted. We all were.’
    There was an awkward silence. Olova glanced towards the hut where Skalp lay. ‘He was here, Master Bret,’ she mumbled. ‘Who was?’
    ‘StarGulf. When you came for the second time. Starculf was close by. I didn’t know it at the time, so I wasn’t lying to you. Skalp was hiding him. I only discovered that afterwards.’
    ‘They were accomplices, Olova.’
    ‘In a sense, we all were,’ she said, harshly. ‘We all wanted Hermer dead. But not at this cost. I’ve lost everyone now. My husband, my children and now my grandson. They’ve all gone. What’s to become of me?’
    She went off into another fit of sobbing. Gervase put a consoling arm around her. ‘I’m sorry that it had to end this way,’ he said.
    ‘But it hasn’t ended yet,’ Ralph reminded him. ‘There’s unfinished business.’
    ‘I know.’
    ‘Leave us,’ said Olova, making an effort to compose herself. ‘Leave us alone to grieve in peace. You’ve done what you had to do. There’s nothing left for you to take from me now. Please go.’
    After muttered farewells, Ralph and Gervase walked slowly back to their horses.

Jocelyn Vavasour did not become aware of them until he was well on his way. He was far too preoccupied, his mind grappling with the horror of Skalp’s suicide. He could not understand how the precious gifts he had given to the abbey had ended up in the hands of the young Saxon. Still, they had been rescued now. Vavasour could give them back to Abbot Alfwold and return to his solitary existence on the coast. Riding at a steady canter, he covered some distance before he decided to give his tired horse a rest. When they reached an expanse of marshland, he slowed the animal to a gentle trot. It was then that he heard the pummelling of hooves behind him. He swung his horse round, expecting to see Ralph and Gervase coming towards him, but it was a larger troop of men that was approaching. They were a hundred yards away when he recognised Mauger Livarot. The instinct that had saved him from one ambush now warned him of another.
    He looked over his shoulder. The abbey was still a long way off. His horse could never outrun the fresher animals on his tail. Vavasour had no cover to use and no weapon beyond that of prayer. Sitting bolt upright in the saddle, he faced the newcomers without fear. Livarot barked an order and his men drew up in a wide circle around the anchorite.
    Social niceties were brushed crudely aside. ‘Give them to me, Jocelyn,’ demanded Livarot, holding out his hand.
    ‘What?’
    ‘The gold elephants.’
    ‘They’re holy treasures, my lord,’ said the other with righteous indignation.
    ‘I want them nevertheless.’
    ‘They belong to the abbey of St Benet.’
    ‘Not any more.’
    ‘Would you dare to
steal
them?’
    ‘I’d dare to do much more than that,’ boasted Livarot, drawing his sword. ‘Hand them over now or I’ll cut them out of that ragged tunic of yours.’
    Vavasour thought quickly. His fate was sealed. He was certain that, when he surrendered the two elephants, he would be killed on the spot. If Livarot wanted to keep the stolen property, he could not possibly leave the anchorite alive to accuse him of theft. The marshes offered countless places where a dead body could be hidden, but they also gave him an idea. As his appointed executioner moved closer, Vavasour reached inside his tunic to take out two small objects that he held up in the air. Burnished by the sun, they glowed proudly in his hands.
    ‘Is this what you’re after, my lord?’ he asked.
    ‘Those are the elephants!’ exclaimed Drogo. ‘Those are the ones I saw!’
    ‘Give them to me!’ yelled Livarot.
    ‘How much do you want them?’
    ‘Enough to kill.’
    ‘You still won’t get them,’ taunted Vavasour.
    Putting both animals into the palm of one hand, he flung them as far into the marshes as he could. Mauger Livarot went berserk. What he saw disappearing into the water was his one chance of marrying the lady Adelaide. Emitting a howl of rage, he dropped from the saddle and went lumbering after the elephants, splashing through water and kicking his way through beds of reeds. Single-mindedness was his downfall. He lurched towards the spot where he had seen the objects fall, oblivious of the dangers, and water suddenly gave way to quicksand. Instead of moving forward at speed, he was sucked inexorably downwards, the weight of his hauberk working against him. His men looked on in horror as their master was suddenly waist deep and sinking.
    ‘Help!’ shouted Livarot, threshing impotently. ‘Get me out!’
    Jocelyn Vavasour was the first to go to his rescue. Spurning his own safety, he ran to the edge of the pool and stretched out a hand. But the stricken man was tantalisingly out of reach. When one of the soldiers tried to grab Livarot’s hand, he fell into the quicksand himself and had to be dragged out by the others.
    ‘Do something!’ begged Livarot. ‘Quickly!’
    There was no salvation. The more he struggled, the firmer hold the quicksand took on him, pulling him slowly and relentlessly down until only his head and hands were visible. After one last deafening cry, Livarot vanished from sight for ever beneath the loose, wet, treacherous pool of sand. His men were stunned. They stood there in grim silence until Drogo looked for revenge. Swinging round, he pointed accusingly at Vavasour.
    ‘There’s the man responsible!’ he said. ‘Throw him in there as well.’
    Before the order could be obeyed, however, eight riders could be seen coming towards them. Livarot’s men hesitated. They did not want witnesses to an act of cold-blooded murder. Vavasour was relieved and grateful to see Ralph Delchard and Gervase Bret coming to his rescue. Detaching himself from the others, he waved an arm in welcome. The newcomers brought their horses to a halt. Ralph sensed the tense atmosphere. He recognised Drogo.
    ‘Where’s the lord Mauger?’ he asked.
    The steward looked despondently across at the quicksand.
    ‘He’s still searching for two gold elephants,’ said Vavasour.

Brother Joseph was in the abbey church when he was summoned. Fearing a reprimand and still writhing with self-reproach, the sacristan hurried off across the cloister garth. When he was admitted to Abbot Alfwold’s lodging, he was surprised to find three visitors there. Ralph Delchard and Gervase Bret had escorted Jocelyn Vavasour to make sure that he arrived without further mishap. The anchorite exchanged warm greetings with Joseph then raised his eyebrows hopefully.
    ‘I’ve just heard the most remarkable story,’ said the abbot, soulfully. ‘It seems that our holy treasures were taken by a man called Hermer, steward to Richard de Fontenel. When he stayed at the abbey, Hermer gave us the false name of Starculf. This same Hermer was murdered and the treasures stolen by someone else. Earlier today, they were reclaimed from the thief by our courageous visitors.
    The sacristan gurgled with joy. ‘We have them back, Father Abbot?’
    ‘Not exactly, Brother Joseph.’
    ‘But you said that they’d been recovered.’
    ‘Recovered then lost again, I fear.’
    ‘Employed to save a life,’ explained Ralph. ‘When someone tried to take them from Jocelyn by force, he flung them into the marshes. Two gold elephants are at the bottom of some quicksand with Mauger Livarot.’
    Joseph paled. ‘The lord Mauger?’
    ‘You’ll hear a full account later,’ promised the abbot. ‘Suffice it to say that the Lord has saved a good man and punished an evil one.’
    ‘Yet we’ve lost our treasures, Father Abbot.’
    ‘Not exactly,’ said Vavasour, stepping forward. ‘There’s something that I haven’t mentioned so far because I wanted you to be here when I did, Brother Joseph. You know what significance those gold elephants held for me and I was touched by the way in which you and the holy brothers revered them.’
    ‘We did, Jocelyn. We mourn their disappearance.’
    ‘Mourn them no more,’ said the other, reaching inside his tunic.
    To the astonishment of them all, he brought out the two miniature gold elephants and handed them to the sacristan. Joseph danced on his toes with pleasure. Abbot Alfwold had to hold back tears. Ralph shook his head in wonderment.
    ‘You told us that you threw them into the marshes?’
    ‘It’s true,’ admitted Vavasour with a smile. ‘Two elephants did get hurled there but they weren’t made of gold, as these are. They were carved out of wood. I brought them with me when we left my little home. That’s the irony of it,’ he added with a sigh. ‘The lord Mauger didn’t die in pursuit of holy treasures blessed by the Pope. He went into that quicksand after two pieces of driftwood that had dried yellow in the sun.’
    Ralph grinned. ‘I’ll wonder what he’ll say when he finds them.’

Richard de Fontenel was in a state of elation. Word had reached him that Mauger Livarot, his loathsome rival, had been sucked down into a quicksand on the previous day, a fate that de Fontenel found singularly appropriate. It was the best news he had heard all week and it made him shake with laughter. At a stroke, he had lost an enemy and gained an unexpected opportunity to renew his pursuit of the lady Adelaide. With one suitor dead, she might come to see the other in a more favourable light. He decided to give her time to reflect and a chance to mellow. When he next tried to engage her affections, he promised himself that he would have two miniature gold elephants to offer, as irresistible as the pair that had first excited her. Judicael the Goldsmith would have a commission from him after all. Hopes rising swiftly, de Fontenel began to speculate on the pleasures of marriage to a beautiful new wife.
    It was a dull morning and the sky was hung with grey clouds. When he came out of his manor house, however, he felt as if the sun were blazing down on him. That illusion was soon shattered. There was a drumming of many hooves before Roger Bigot appeared with a dozen men at his back. Ralph Delchard was among them, riding beside a Benedictine monk of middle years on a spindly donkey. When the visitors drew up in front of him, de Fontenel gave them a guarded welcome. The sheriff was brusque.
    ‘We need to inspect your stables, my lord,’ he announced.
    ‘My stables?’ said the other.
    ‘Yes,’ explained Ralph, indicating his companion. ‘This is Brother Osbern from the abbey of St Benet at Holme. He’s the hospitaller there and welcomes every visitor. One particular visitor turned out to be a thief. Osbern has come in search of his horse.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Because it’s the only way to prove that Hermer, your late steward, was the man who stole some holy objects from the abbey.’
    ‘But that’s absurd!’ blustered de Fontenel.
    ‘Is it? How else could the little elephants have come into your hands?’
    ‘I told your colleague, my lord. I bought them in France.’
    ‘Then the merchant who sold them to you must also have been a magician who conjured them out of the air, because the stolen property from the abbey could never have made the journey to France in the time you allege.’
    ‘Take us to the stables,’ ordered Bigot.
    ‘There’s no point, my lord sheriff,’ replied de Fontenel, evasively. ‘Hermer’s horse is no longer here. The animal had to be sold.’
    ‘I think that very unlikely,’ said Brother Osbern, speaking for the first time. ‘The traveller, who we believe stole our treasures, was riding a fine bay mare in her prime. He gave his name as Starculf the Falconer and I remember wondering how a mere falconer could own such a magnificent animal. I’d recognise that horse anywhere.’
    ‘Once we match the horse to its rider,’ said Ralph with a grin, ‘we have our thief. All we have to do then is to match the thief to the master who ordered him to steal.’
    ‘I did nothing of the kind!’ protested de Fontenel.
    ‘Conspiracy to steal from consecrated ground is both a crime and sacrilege.’
    ‘You can’t prove anything.’
    ‘We’ll start with that bay mare. Let’s see if Brother Osbern can pick her out.’
    ‘Oh, I will, my lord. I’d spot her among a thousand.’
    ‘Step over to the stables, Brother Osbern,’ said the sheriff.
    ‘No!’ countered de Fontenel. ‘The horse is not there.’
    ‘Then you won’t mind if we look, my lord, will you?’
    Bigot gave a signal and two of his men conducted the monk around the side of the house to the stables at the rear. Richard de Fontenel was concerned. He knew only too well that his steward’s horse was still there and that it would provide incontrovertible evidence against him. Unable to lie, bully or fight his way out of the situation, he flew into a panic and acted on impulse. He swung round, darted back into the house and slammed the door shut before bolting it from inside. Roger Bigot ordered his men to surround the building in order to cut off any possibility of escape, but Ralph acted of his own volition. Seeing the open shutters, he rode across to the window, dismounted on to the sill and jumped into the parlour. With his sword in his hand, he went in pursuit of de Fontenel and found him at the back of the house, fumbling with a key as he tried to open the strong room. Ralph was merciless. As his adversary pulled out a dagger and turned to confront him, he struck at the man’s wrist, opening up a deep gash and making him drop his weapon to the floor.
    Richard de Fontenel cursed and roared. Holding his wounded wrist, he tried to kick out at Ralph but the latter tripped him up with a deft movement of his foot and stood over him, his sword an inch above the man’s face. Thunderous banging was heard behind them, then the front door burst open under the concerted weight of two burly officers. Sword out, Roger Bigot followed his men into the house. Ralph stood aside to hand the squirming prisoner over to them.
    ‘He saved you the trouble of wringing a confession out of him,’ said Ralph.
    ‘Yes,’ said Bigot, grimly. ‘By his own actions shall he be judged.’
    ‘You have no evidence!’ howled de Fontenel, wincing with pain as he tried to stem the flow of blood from his wrist. ‘I was away in Normandy. I have no idea what my steward did while I was away.’
    ‘Hermer did nothing without your command.’
    ‘That’s not true.’
    ‘Starculf has told us how you treated those who served you.’
    ‘I’d never send anyone to steal from an abbey.’
    A loud whinny made them all turn round. Framed in the open door was Brother Osbern, leading a bay mare by a rope. The animal gave another whicker and flicked her tail playfully. The monk was beaming in triumph.
    ‘This is the horse,’ he said, confidently. ‘I’d swear to it.’

After the delays and distractions of the past few days, the commissioners finally began their work that afternoon. Their first session in the shire hall was long but productive. A number of minor disputes were settled with brisk efficiency. Eustace Coureton proved to be a sagacious judge and Brother Daniel an able scribe. All four men worked so well together that they seemed to have been in harness for years rather than for one afternoon. Seated in line behind a table, they proved a formidable quartet. When the session finally ended, Coureton wanted more elucidation about recent events.
    ‘What I can’t understand is how Skalp actually did it,’ he said.
    ‘Neither can I,’ groaned Ralph. ‘Before we could get the details out of him, he thrust that dagger into his heart.’
    ‘I think that we can work it out,’ said Gervase, thoughtfully. ‘With the lord sheriff’s permission, I talked to Starculf this morning. A night in chains has loosened his tongue a little. He told me what his original plan had been.’
    ‘To kill Hermer and leave him under the lord Richard’s nose.’
    ‘Yes, Ralph, but it was rather more complicated than that. Using Skalp as his lookout, Starculf planned to get into the house under cover of darkness with one of the duplicate keys. The second key would have got him into the strong room where he could spend the night without fear of discovery. Hermer, it seems, was the only person who would go into the strong room and did so at the start of each day. Starculf was going to be lying in wait for him.’
    ‘Is that what Skalp did?’ asked Coureton.
    ‘He certainly spent the night in there, my lord, because he admitted as much to his accomplice. He chose his moment to pounce. My guess is that it was when Hermer paid his second visit to the strong room to return the gold elephants to their box after they’d been shown to the lady Adelaide.’
    ‘He couldn’t have killed the steward then,’ argued Ralph. ‘There’d have been too much blood. According to the lord sheriff, there were no signs of a struggle in that strong room.’
    ‘That’s because the murder didn’t take place there,’ said Gervase, piecing it together in his mind. ‘Skalp must have knocked him unconscious at first. We saw how strong he was. It wouldn’t have been difficult to take Hermer unawares. The strong room was at the back of the house. Skalp could have carried the body out into the garden. He used the trees as cover to get far enough away to kill the steward and conceal the body.’
    ‘Then he came back at night to retrieve it.’
    ‘Exactly.’
    ‘Tying a rope around Hermer’s ankles and dragging him off the estate.’
    ‘We all know what happened next, Ralph.’
    ‘I’d rather you didn’t mention any details,’ said Brother Daniel, putting a hand to his stomach. ‘I feel sick at the very thought.’
    ‘It was only the man’s hands that were cut off,’ said Ralph breezily.
    ‘My lord!’ Clapping a hand over his mouth, the monk rose up from the table and hurried out with his satchel over his shoulder. Coureton shot a look of reproof at his colleague.
    ‘That was unkind.’
    ‘It was not meant to be, Eustace.’
    ‘Brother Daniel is a sensitive soul.’
    ‘I’ll apologise to him this evening,’ said Ralph, penitently. ‘But let’s go back to Gervase’s theory of what happened. There’s one thing he missed out.’
    ‘Yes,’ admitted Gervase. ‘The two gold elephants.’
    ‘Skalp couldn’t possibly have known that they even existed, still less that they’d be in the house on the very day that he chose to get his revenge on Hermer.’
    ‘The murder was premeditated, Ralph. The theft arose out of opportunity.’
    ‘You mean that he just saw them and took them?’
    ‘He must have done. The steward went into that room to put those elephants back into their strong box. Skalp saw them, two pieces of solid gold worth more than he would earn in a lifetime. The temptation was too much.’ Gervase paused. ‘It was also one more way to inflict pain on Richard de Fontenel. Stealing something of great value from him. When he knocked Hermer senseless, I believe that Skalp grabbed the elephants and took them with him.’
    ‘Starting off a search that’s taken us all over the county.’
    ‘With compensations,’ said Coureton.
    Ralph was dubious. ‘Compensations?’
    ‘How else would we have got to meet Jocelyn the Anchorite?’
    ‘That was a pleasure I’d happily have forgone.’
    ‘But he was such an interesting man, Ralph. I can’t help admiring what he’s doing. And it was he, after all, who helped us to track down Starculf.’
    ‘He also duped the lord Mauger,’ observed Gervase. ‘That showed bravery and guile. He sacrificed his own wooden elephants to save the real ones.’
    ‘He’ll have plenty of time to carve himself another pair now,’ said Ralph.
    They got up from the table and gathered up their documents. Coureton sighed. ‘I suppose the person we should feel sorry for is the lady Adelaide,’ he said.
    ‘Never!’ exclaimed Ralph.
    ‘But one of her suitors died and the other is now in the castle dungeon.’
    ‘Both got their just deserts. The lord Mauger was going to kill Jocelyn and the lord Richard is as brazen a rogue as any in the whole county. As for the lady Adelaide,’ Ralph said, tartly, ‘spare no tears for her. She was the person who told Starculf when the lord Richard would be in France and when his steward would also be absent from the house.’
    ‘Be fair to her, Ralph,’ counselled Gervase. ‘The lady Adelaide didn’t know that Starculf intended to steal those keys as part of his plan. She knew and liked Starculf. That’s why he turned to her for help. All that she gave him was information. She’d never have countenanced murder.’
    ‘I’ll wager she’d have provoked theft.’
    ‘Surely not.’
    ‘She wanted those gold elephants so much. Gervase.’
    ‘She’s lost them for good now,’ said Coureton. ‘Along with her two suitors. It’s been a very chastening experience for the lady Adelaide.’
    ‘She’ll be even more chastened when Roger Bigot has spoken to her,’ commented Ralph with a smile. ‘He knows that her hands are not entirely clean in this business and means to roast her ears a little with some hot words.’
    Ralph led them out of the shire hall and into the street where four of his men had been acting as sentries. The commissioners were in a contented mood. The murder investigation into which they had been drawn was satisfactorily terminated and their load had been lightened in consequence.
    ‘In some ways,’ said Coureton, ‘it’s a pity. The major dispute we came to settle has vanished into thin air now. I was rather looking forward to watching Richard de Fontenel and Mauger Livarot battle it out in front of us.’ A thought made him turn to Gervase. ‘Where will this leave Olova?’
    ‘In a strong position, my lord.’
    ‘She’ll regain some of her land?’
    ‘Most probably.’
    ‘I have reservations about that,’ said Ralph. ‘Her grandson was a killer.’
    ‘Olova isn’t,’ said Gervase, ‘and she’s the person on whom we must pass judgement, not Skalp. Olova had no part whatsoever in what went on.’
    Ralph was about to reply when he saw his wife riding towards him, accompanied by one of the guards from the castle. Thinking that she had come to greet him after his work in the shire hall he gave her a welcoming wave, but it was Gervase to whom she spoke.
    ‘Alys is unwell,’ she told him. ‘A doctor has been summoned.’
    ‘What’s wrong with her?’ he asked in alarm.
    ‘I don’t know. But you’d better come.’
    ‘We all will,’ said Ralph.
    Gervase did not wait for the others. Mounting his horse, he set off at a gallop that scattered people in the narrow street. By the time the rest reached the castle, he was running up the stairs to the keep. Ralph and Golde dismounted to hurry after him. When they reached the apartment that he and Alys shared there was no sign of Gervase, but they could hear voices from inside the chamber, and waited anxiously for news.
    The doctor eventually emerged, a small, fussy man who waved away their questions. ‘It’s for Master Bret to tell you,’ he said. ‘Wait until he is ready.’ He went off down the steps and left them even more worried.
    ‘What can it be, Golde?’ Ralph asked.
    ‘I don’t know,’ she replied. ‘Alys has not been well since we arrived here. In the bailey yesterday, she seemed to have a spasm of pain.’
    ‘Why wasn’t the doctor called then?’
    ‘Alys denied that there was anything wrong with her.’
    After a further delay, the door finally opened and Gervase came out. His face was so pale that they feared the worst. Golde reached out a comforting hand. But then a ghost of a smile touched his lips. There was an air of disbelief about his announcement.
    ‘Alys is with child,’ he said.
    ‘That’s wonderful!’ exclaimed Golde, embracing him. ‘May I go to her?’
    ‘Please do.’
    ‘Congratulations!’ said Ralph as his wife slipped into the room. ‘This is the best news possible, Gervase.’
    ‘It’s so unexpected, Ralph,’ said the other, still dazed. ‘I’m not sure that I’m ready to be a father just yet.’
    ‘Of course you are. And think how proud the child will be of you.’
    ‘Proud?’
    ‘Yes,’ said Ralph, slapping him on the back. ‘You’ve been a royal commissioner and you’ve had glorious adventures in the service of the King. Look at what happened here in Norfolk, for instance. You’ll be able to boast that you saw a pair of elephants.’ Ralph cocked an eyebrow. ‘How many people can say that?’
    Gervase thought about all the problems that the two gold elephants had created. ‘Far too many,’ he said.