The bailiff was right. To have heard the name of the old woman so soon after hearing it from his friend’s son had worried Baldwin. It was too coincidental. If he could believe the Bourc, the main reason for the man’s visit was to see and thank her for saving him. There was no reason to suppose that he was involved in her death, surely.
It was only a little over a mile to the edge of the trees, and here the farmer stopped his mule and pointed wordlessly to the gap in the hedge. The knight and the bailiff were soon clambering over it and into the field.
Tanner was surprised that the old man made no effort to drop down with the others. Staring dumbly ahead, he stayed fixed to the wooden seat, reins held ready in his hands, as if daring them to ask him to join them, not even acknowledging his dog as it jumped up onto the wagon and rested its forepaws beside him to peer around. The others were out of earshot, so the constable ambled his horse alongside the older man’s, and said quietly, “What’s the matter, Sam?”
When the farmer’s face turned towards him, he could see the terror. “It’s her, Stephen. Her! Why did it have to be me as found her?”
Looking at him, Tanner was about to ask what he meant when Simon called him from the hedge. Nodding at the bailiff, he said, “Wait here, Sam. You’ll have to explain all this to us later.” Swinging off his horse, the constable walked to the hedge, clambered up the steep bank and followed the other two into the field.
The snow was falling more freely now, thick clumps dropping and settling gently, making the whole area seem calm and peaceful, but the constable was not fooled, he knew only too well how dangerous the apparently soft white feathers could be to the unwary. It was not this, though, that made him frown. He had known the Cottey family for many years – Samuel, his brother, their children – and knew them to be sturdy, stolid folk. He had never known any of them to display such fear, not even back in the past when they were all younger, when Sam and he had fought as men-at-arms together. Why should he be so upset at the death of an old woman?
Simon and Baldwin were a few yards away, walking towards a tall youth dressed in a russet tunic and woollen hose, with a thick red blanket over his shoulders, pinned like a short cloak. A heavy-looking, wooden handled knife was at his waist. Tanner recognised him immediately: Harold Greencliff.
The knight had not met him before. Greencliff was a tall, fair-haired, good-looking youth in his early twenties, broad in the shoulder with a friendly and open face browned by the wind. Wide-set blue eyes glowed with health from either side of the long, straight nose. But today they were nervous and almost shifty, not meeting the knight’s gaze. From his clothes he was not poor, but neither was he wealthy. He had bright eyes, and looked quite sharp, but the knight did not judge him by that alone. He knew too many fools, who at first sight looked intelligent, to trust to his first impression.
In his hands the boy held a shepherd’s crook, and his fingers moved along the stave as he watched them approach with a trepidation that Baldwin could not understand. It seemed odd that a corpse should create so much fear – first with old Sam Cottey, now with this boy. He shrugged. There must be a reason, and he was sure to hear of it before long.
“You’re Greencliff?” he asked.
“Yes,” he said, peering over Baldwin’s shoulder at the bailiff and constable.
“Wake up, lad!” said the knight irritably. “You’re looking after the body of this old woman for Cottey, is that right? Where is she, then?”
Silently Greencliff turned and pointed to the hedge that led at right angles to the road to keep his sheep from going into the woods beyond. There, in the darkness under the plants, they could make out a small bundle. To Simon it looked like a bundle of dirty rags lying in the space made by a fox or badger path, in the gap between two stems of the hedge itself, lying half under the plants, half in the field. He and the knight walked towards it, leaving Greencliff standing, nervously fiddling with his crook. Tanner imperturbable beside him. The two walked to the body, pausing three or four yards from it.
“Did you touch her?” Simon called back to him, frowning concentration on his face.
“No, sir, no. Soon as old Sam told me she was here, I came and stood where you saw me. I didn’t want to see her.”
Glancing back, Baldwin nodded. He could see that the boy’s footsteps had flattened a small area of grass, but no steps came from there, showing that the boy had been there when it began to snow and had not moved from there since. “Did you hear anyone this morning? See anyone?”
“No, sir.”
“What about last night? Did you see or hear anything strange?”
“No, sir. Nothing.”
His face was anxious, as if he was desperate to convince, and after holding his gaze for a moment, Baldwin nodded again, then cocked an eyebrow at the bailiff and pointed with his chin. “No tracks, Simon. We’ll never be able to see if anyone came here last night. At least no one has been here since it began snowing.”
He was right. There was no mark to upset the snow that now lay almost half an inch thick on the ground, the heavily cropped grass just poking above the surface. Shrugging, Baldwin walked the last few yards to the body.
It lay partly under the hedge, face down. The lower half projected back into the field, while the head and torso were shielded under the protection of the plants and free of snow. They could see the black of the old woman’s upper garments.
“Wait,” said Baldwin and stepped forward slowly to crouch, his dark eyes flitting over the ground, along either side of the body, back the way they had come, up to the hedge, then back to the inert figure itself. When he spoke, his voice was a murmur. “The weather has been so cold there’s no mark on the ground: it’s too hard. Even if there were, the snow would have covered them. I don’t think even a hunter could see a spoor under this.”
Simon nodded, dropping to a knee and peering back the way they had come, past Tanner and Greencliff to the hedge that bordered the road. Their own footsteps were distinct, flattened prints in the snow, but the snow had started while they were inside the inn. Now he could not even see Cottey’s marks from when he had first seen the body. Glancing back at the knight, he asked, “Could she have come from the woods? Through the hedge?”
“No. No, I don’t think so,” came the pensive reply as the knight peered up. “Look. The twigs aren’t broken. No, it looks like she fell from this side. Maybe she died right here.” He chewed his lip and considered. “Let’s see her face. Simon, come on. Help me move her.”
The bailiff gave an unwilling grimace. This was the part he loathed, the first shock of seeing the corpse, of seeing the wound that killed. Sighing, he tentatively took hold of the body by the hips while Baldwin carefully moved up, taking the shoulders and rolling her over. He suddenly pulled back and exclaimed ‘God!“
“What?” said Simon, nervously shooting him a glance.
Baldwin stared back, his shock slowly giving way to a quickening interest. “I’m not surprised he was upset! He was right when he said the throat was cut – her head’s almost off her shoulders!”
They carefully carried the figure a few yards away from the hedge and set it down on the snow-covered grass. Slowly shaking his head, Simon stood, hands on hips, while Baldwin knelt and studied the body carefully. The bailiff stared down at the sad little collection of cloth and flesh, thinking how pathetic it looked, this sorry little mass that had been a person – if only a villein. He was still staring when Baldwin rose.
“Whoever did this wanted to make sure. As Cottey said, she couldn’t have done this to herself.”
Looking down, Simon could see what he meant. The bones were still connected, but the flesh was cut so deeply that the yellow cartilage of the windpipe could be seen as a perfect tube in the sliced meat of her throat. Wincing, the bailiff gasped and turned away, swallowing quickly. Shutting his eyes and taking deep breaths, he gradually soothed the oily feeling of sickness in his belly. He heard the low chuckle of the knight and the footsteps crunching on the dry snow, but kept his eyes shut a little longer.
“Simon, come and look at this!”
His eyes snapping open, Simon turned and strode away from the body towards the hedge where the knight crouched. At his approach, Baldwin stood, and Simon was surprised to see his puzzled frown. “What is it?”
“Do you see anything strange here?”
The bailiff swallowed. His stomach was still turbulent after his shock, and he was in no mood to play games. He opened his mouth to give a sharp retort when he saw the pensive concentration in the knight’s eyes. The words were stopped in his throat and he felt his gaze drop to the area where they had found the body.
Where she had lain, her image remained on the grass and earth. Snow bounded the lines of her legs. None had fallen under her, nor had the frost touched the ground. Apart from some twigs and flattened leaves, he could
