Gus shrugged. ‘He’s holding up.’
Poor Dominic had to go home to Paradisa this night, Josse realized, and tell her the child is still out there somewhere. Dear Lord, help them both.
Tilly got up and went to stand beside Josse. ‘Come and eat,’ she urged. ‘Ella’s got hot food all ready, and there’s a jug of spiced wine just waiting for the hot poker to make it steam.’
Food. Wine. Josse realized how hungry he was. He subsided on to a bench by the fire and, looking gratefully at Tilly, said, ‘Aye, I like the sound of both of those.’
Tilly hurried off to fetch the food, and Gus prepared the wine. Josse took a deep draught — he felt the warmth and the alcohol hit his empty belly and for a moment his head swam — and he emitted a long, ‘Aaaah,’ of satisfaction. Presently, Tilly returned with a platter of mutton stew in rich gravy, with chunks of root vegetables and a generous hunk of bread, and Josse ate as if he hadn’t seen food for days. It did not take him long to clear the platter and, putting it down, he said, ‘I have some news. Not much, but I wish to keep you all informed. Gus, would you please fetch Will and Ella?’
While they waited, Josse wondered idly how many other knightly households included their servants in family discussions. He smiled wryly to himself. His no longer felt like a knightly household — if, indeed, anywhere he had lived fitted that description, whatever it meant — and he had never been entirely sure where kin ended and kith began.
Geoffroi got up and came to sit beside him on the bench. Josse put his arm round the boy, just as Gus had done to his own son. It felt good.
When Will and Ella had settled — the diffident Ella so far to the back of the little group that Josse could hardly see her — he told them everything that had happened since he had been summoned that morning by the sheriff’s man, Tomas, and ridden off with him. His listeners made no comment beyond a few soft muttering among themselves, so Josse went on to outline Abbess Caliste’s thoughts on what might have happened.
It was Gus who spoke first. ‘It’s either a falling out among the two people who slept in the camp, then, and in that case probably nothing to do with our Rosamund.’ A frown creased his brow. ‘It could be that the man who took her was challenged by someone, who he fought with and who was killed in the fight. Or else maybe it was the dead man that took her, and somebody objected to that and went to try to take her back.’ His frown cleared. ‘I reckon that’s the most likely way of it.’
‘Aye,’ Josse said thoughtfully. ‘Aye, it’s possible.’
‘This other man got the better of the abductor,’ Gus went on, ‘and as a result of a particularly good punch, the man fell backwards and crushed his skull.’ He looked around the company. ‘So, assuming that if this other man attacked the dead man because he didn’t hold with him taking a little girl, what did he do?’
Josse had been wondering the same thing. ‘He might not know who she is and where she belongs,’ he said slowly. ‘He might even now be trying to take her back home, but unable to because he doesn’t know where home is.’
‘She’d tell him, surely?’ It was Tilly’s voice, and Josse looked at her in surprise. She had come a long way, he reflected absently, from the skinny, nervous, shy little tavern girl she once was… ‘Rosamund’s not slow to speak up, is she? When someone rescued her and asked where he ought to take her, she’d say, I live at New Winnowlands, and she’d be able to tell him where that was.’
‘Even if she couldn’t,’ Geoffroi put in, ‘and I could, and she’s the same age as me, she’d have said something like I know them at the abbey so you can take me there.’
Josse nodded slowly. ‘You’d think so, wouldn’t you?’ he said vaguely. Something was troubling him. It had begun earlier as a small, dark suspicion right on the edge of thought, and he had been able to push it away without too much effort. Now it was back, insistently demanding his attention. And it wasn’t small any more.
Gus was looking at him. ‘What is it?’ he asked quietly. It was as if he already knew…
Josse let his eyes roam around the circle of faces lit by the flickering firelight. Will, and Ella crouched back in the shadows. Gus and Tilly, all three children now sitting close to their parents, as if they had been drawn there for security. Geoffroi, his round face turned up to Josse so full of trust.
Josse knew he had to tell them. ‘I have been thinking,’ he said heavily. ‘There is one set of circumstances I can envisage that would explain everything.’
‘What?’ Tilly asked nervously. Gus dropped his eyes.
Josse took a deep breath, exhaled and then breathed in again. ‘Let us suppose that, indeed, the person who caught up with Rosamund and her abductor by the trees above the river had gone to fetch her back. He challenges the man who has her. They fight. The abductor strikes his head and he dies. The man who has come to rescue Rosamund sees what he has done and knows he will be judged a murderer. He has struck and killed a man, and he will probably hang.’ Josse’s voice broke on the word, but he made himself go on.
‘Who could this man be?’ he demanded roughly, staring round at the others. ‘Someone who cares about Rosamund, obviously, someone who will not sit by while evil is done to an innocent child. Someone who, having rescued her, cannot bring her back because he’ll be arrested and charged with murder.’
‘Is it Dominic?’ asked a small voice beside him. ‘You would kill a man who took me, Father, I know you would.’
Josse hugged his son to him. ‘Aye, Geoffroi, I’d do so willingly if it was the only way I could get you back,’ he agreed. ‘But it can’t be Dominic, can it? He was here earlier, you told me?’ He looked enquiringly at Gus, who nodded.
‘He’s called in more than once in the course of the day,’ Gus confirmed. ‘I don’t think he’d have let the rest of us go on searching and worrying if he knew the little lass was safe.’
‘I agree,’ Josse said. ‘So, who else could it be?’ With the exception of Gus, they were all looking stunned. ‘Gus?’
Gus shook his head. ‘I don’t want to say, sir. It’s murder, in the eyes of the law. I — no.’
Josse sighed. ‘Very well. We have not seen Meggie since yesterday, although I do not for a moment think that, strong as she is, she could have inflicted those punches on the dead man’s face. Who else is missing?’
They all looked round. On every face but Gus’s, puzzlement slowly gave way to realization, and then to deep dismay.
Geoffroi whispered, ‘Oh, no!’
Josse hugged him tightly. ‘We do not know for sure, son,’ he said. ‘But I fear we must prepare ourselves to face the possibility that the man who fought the dead man is the one person who ought to be here and isn’t. Who, if I’m right, none of us has seen since the evening we discovered that Rosamund was missing.’
He looked round at them all. In case anybody was still in doubt, he told them. Softly, he uttered the name: ‘Ninian.’
SIX
Gervase had almost run through the list of people he was summoning to the Hawkenlye infirmary to see if they knew the identity of the dead man. None of the nuns recognized him, and Gervase had no more success with the monks from the vale. Brother Saul had helpfully brought a party of visiting pilgrims with him but, to a man, they had briefly gazed at the dead man’s face and mutely shaken their heads.
The parties out searching for Rosamund were regularly reporting back to Gervase — and the long succession of: ‘Nothing yet, sir,’ was becoming extremely frustrating and very worrying — and he had paraded each and every one of his men past the body. Nobody recognized him.
The victim was a man of some means; that was evident by his clothing and the fine leather of his boots. Studying him now, Gervase looked at the hands. They were well shaped, reasonably clean and nicely kept. The dead man was no peasant dressed up in stolen garments. Gervase looked at the neatly-cut hair. That, too, indicated a man with the money and the time to look after himself.
Who are you? Gervase asked him silently. What were you doing out there by the river? Did you abduct the missing girl? If so, who fought you, killed you and took her from you? Where were you taking her? Where has he gone with her?
So many questions. So many uncertainties. Suppressing the urge to punch something, Gervase left the recess
