Company of Liars (52 page)

Cygnus stared down at the blood on his hand again. ‘I didn't buy it.’

Adela gasped. ‘You stole it? That's a hanging offence. Tell me you haven't risked that to get meat for me.’

There was a shocked silence in the room; for a moment all you could hear was the crackling of wood on the fire.

Cygnus shrugged, avoiding looking at her horrified face. ‘I buried the marked skin under some stones. No one will come here in the snow and if they do, who's to know this isn't the same sheep Zophiel and Camelot bought?’

I swallowed hard. ‘If they find you covered in blood, eating fresh mutton in a drovers' hut, believe me, they won't stop to ask questions.’ I was just as shocked as Adela. The penalties for sheep-stealing were merciless. I couldn't believe that Cygnus, of all people, would take such a risk.

‘Camelot's right, you must wash that blood off quickly,’ Adela said. ‘Give me your gipon and your shirt. If I wash them in cold water before the blood has a chance to dry, we'll get the stain out.’

‘No!’ Cygnus snapped, then, seeing Adela's hurt expression, he added more gently, ‘No, thank you. I can wash it. I don't want you to get blood on your clothes.’

We couldn't bring the sheep back to life, so there was nothing for it but to eat the evidence. We put the head, trotters and offal to boil straight away and hung the rest of the carcass up in the sack outside where the snow would keep it fresh. The wind had temporarily abated and snow was falling thickly now. It was lying and already the ground of the pinfold was white. By the time Cygnus returned from the spring clad only in his cloak and breeches, he was
shivering violently and covered in snow. We hung his wet clothes near the fire to dry, where they steamed. But Cygnus insisted on braving the snow again to lead Xanthus to the side of the hut. He tethered her close to the back of the chimney in the lee of the hut where she could feel the warmth from the chimney stones.

Snow was driving in through the open window which overlooked the pinfold. There was no shutter. The shepherds and drovers who used the hut needed to keep an eye on their charges. I volunteered to go out to the wagon to find something to fasten one of the wool-filled sacks across the window to keep out the snow and the cold.

Xanthus was leaning gratefully against the warm chimney back, her head lowered. Her mane was already white with snow. Cygnus had tied some old sheepskins across her broad back to keep out the cold, and snow was forming a thick crust on top of them. It occurred to me that I should also fetch a spade from the wagon. If it carried on like this all night, we might have to dig our way out of the hut door.

At least we would have food to fill our bellies for the next few days. Whilst I was grateful for that, I cursed Cygnus with every name I could think of for taking such a stupid risk. I thought of the day we had first seen Cygnus telling his stories in the market place, and of the purple, swollen faces of the men slowly choking to death on the end of a rope in that same square. Cygnus knew only too well what they did to men who stole sheep. Osmond had asked me that day what would drive a man to risk such a punishment. Had Zophiel's taunts driven Cygnus to do something so dangerous, or was it what he once said to me, that no one who lets a child come to harm could ever be forgiven? Had he risked the rope for Adela and baby Carwyn?

But maybe he was right; no one would come looking. If
the sheep had been left to wander out on the heath in this, then they were strays or no longer had a shepherd to tend them. Why should we starve and watch a baby die when there was food for the taking? It was hard to adjust to, but the old laws and the old order were crumbling about our ears. There was a new king and his name was pestilence. And he had created a new law – thou shalt do anything to survive.

I returned to the hut, shaking the snow from my cloak. As Osmond nailed the wool sack across the window, a sudden thought struck me.

‘Where's Zophiel? He can't still be looking for fodder in this? Did anyone see him when you were out?’

Osmond shook his head. ‘Just as well I didn't. I'd probably have thrashed him.’

‘Cygnus? Rodrigo?’

Rodrigo sat hunched over the fire. He didn't look round. ‘I saw him earlier this afternoon.’

‘It'll be dark soon. Perhaps we should go and look for him. He may be lost.’

‘There's another hour of light left,’ said Osmond. ‘Maybe he walked a long way and it's taking him time to get back. Anyway, I'm in no hurry for him to return.’

We waited, but Zophiel did not return. The light was fading fast. Eventually even Osmond had to agree we needed to go out to look. If Zophiel had slipped and broken a leg, he might be lying out there helpless, though I dreaded to think what sort of patient he would make if he was hurt. Pain and frustration would do nothing to sweeten his temper.

Adela clutched at Osmond's cloak. ‘What if the wolf's out there?’

‘If you mean the Bishop's wolf,’ I said, ‘Zophiel's right. He'll not risk coming close in the snow and leaving tracks.
Besides, there's no reason why he should harm us,’ I assured her, trying to push the image of Jofre's mutilated body out of my head.

‘All the same,’ said Osmond, ‘since those wretched boxes of his are in the hut, I think Rodrigo should stay here with Adela, Narigorm and the baby. Rodrigo's the most able of us with the stave if it should come to a fight.’

Rodrigo, when pressed, said he'd last seen Zophiel walking in the direction of the far pinfolds. Pulling our cloaks tightly around us against the stinging wind, Cygnus, Osmond and I set off towards the pinfolds, fanning out so as to cover more ground between us. The snow was ankle-deep, deeper where the wind had blown it into drifts against walls and bushes. We carried torches lit from the fire, waving and calling in the hope that if Zophiel was lost he would at least see the lights or hear the shouts.

It was hard work, tramping through the snow; several times I came close to slipping and breaking a leg myself. Though the wind had eased a little, the snow was still falling hard and my guttering torch did little more than illuminate the millions of soft white feathers drifting down around us. In the distance I could just make out the bobbing torches of Cygnus and Osmond. I stopped to catch my breath. The sounds of Osmond's and Cygnus's shouts drifted back, but otherwise there was a suffocating silence.

We searched until it was completely dark and my hands and feet were so cold they hurt. Then I saw the two torches moving back towards me. Osmond and Cygnus had evidently decided it was futile to continue. I also turned back. He could be anywhere out on that heath. We didn't have a hope of finding him in this.

As I neared the furthest pinfold from the hut, I saw something move on the other side of it. I stopped, holding
my breath, unable to make out what it was. I could feel my heart thudding against my chest, but then it moved again, and I realized with a rush of anger and relief that it was Narigorm. She had evidently been standing there for some time for her clothes were encrusted with snow. She was staring up into the sky, letting the white flakes fall silently on to her white hair and lashes.

‘What on earth are you doing out here, Narigorm?’ I shouted. ‘Have you no sense?’

She turned, as if she had just been patiently waiting for me to come. Then she pointed at the ground inside the pinfold. The snow there was smooth and white, glittering in the torchlight. But then, near one of the walls, I spotted three dark smudges. I leaned over the wall as far as I could. Dark stones, maybe, sticking out of the drift. I moved the torch and realized it wasn't something jutting out of the snow; it was the snow itself that was stained.

I walked round the pinfold wall until I came to the opening. Now that I was inside, I could see there was a shape under the snow. From a distance it looked like a drift, but close up it was unmistakably the blurred form of a body. My heart pounding, I knelt down and scraped away until I found the fabric of a hood. I pulled it back. Zophiel was lying face down on the ground. There was no question that he was dead. I looked down at the three dark red patches staining the snow, melting it slightly. I brushed away the snow with numb fingers.

A pool of blood had oozed out of a wound between his shoulder blades, the kind of wound a dagger would make if it was thrust in hard and then wrenched out again. Chances were, Zophiel would not even have seen his assassin until he felt the knife plunge in. I brushed the snow from the side where a second, larger patch of dark blood stained the
whiteness. My fingers encountered something both spongy and sharp. I had to fight to keep from retching. I swallowed hard and, gritting my teeth, grabbed at the cloth at Zophiel's shoulder, pulling the body up on one side.

The killer had not been content to leave it as a simple murder. Zophiel's arm had been severed between the shoulder and the elbow. From the end of the raw, bloody mess, the bone protruded white and jagged. I guessed by the staining on the other side of the body that the killer had done the same to his other arm. As I turned the body, something fell from it into the snow. Narigorm bent swiftly and picked it up. It was Zophiel's knife. It was covered with blood. Unless Zophiel had managed to wound his attacker, which seemed unlikely, then whoever had cut off his arms had probably used Zophiel's own knife to do it. It was sharp enough to slice through flesh, but not bone, that would have had to be snapped.

So the Bishop's wolf had caught up with him after all. Zophiel had said that he wouldn't strike once the snow had lain and risk leaving tracks. But he had forgotten that falling snow quickly covers tracks, even bodies. The wolf had timed it well. He must have struck just as it was beginning to snow and the falling snow had concealed him, his tracks and his deed.

23. A Corpse Lies Bleeding

Osmond and Cygnus stood in the pinfold staring down at Zophiel's body as the snow continued to cover it.

‘We should raise the hue and cry,’ Osmond said, his voice trembling.

‘And send for the coroner?’ I said. ‘What if he happens to be the same one who attended Jofre's death? Two violent deaths from among our company in a month – we'd be hard put to explain that. I don't think that coroner would believe stories of the Bishop's wolf; we can't even describe him. And don't forget we have a stolen sheep in our hut too, in case you were thinking of asking him to stay for supper. No, unless we all want to be hanged, I think we should bury him before anyone else chances on the body.’

‘But the ground's frozen solid,’ Osmond protested. ‘We'd never manage to dig even a shallow grave.’

‘The earth floor in the drovers' hut won't be frozen,’ I said.

The torch shook in Osmond's hand. ‘Are you seriously suggesting we bury him in the hut and then sit on top of his grave and eat our supper?’

‘Since the bad harvests, many people have taken to burying
their relatives under their thresholds or floors, if they can't pay the soul-scot.’

‘But not when they've been murdered and mutilated,’ Cygnus said, glancing down at the body and quickly looking away. ‘It's not like dying in your own bed. His spirit won't rest. It'll seek vengeance.’

The snow was still falling hard. I could see the faces of the others were stiff with cold and I could hardly feel my own. ‘For now, let's cover him with the fallen stones from the wall. That and the snow will conceal him if anyone chances along here. And it will give us time to decide what to do.’

Even that was not as easy as it sounds. We had to drag the body over to the fallen part of the wall, where a heap of stones would not look out of place. Then we had to lift the stones on to the body with numb and painful fingers. It takes more stones than you might think to cover a man.

When we returned to the hut we found that Narigorm had already told Adela and Rodrigo about the body, in gory detail no doubt. They sprang up as we returned, searching our faces anxiously to see if it was true. Osmond hugged Adela to him, though I think that was as much to seek comfort for himself as to comfort her, for of the two of them, he was the more shaken. It was hardly surprising, for the sight of that mutilated corpse was enough to make even the strongest stomach heave.

Rodrigo clutched his head with both hands as if he was trying to keep it from bursting. Finally he said, ‘You left the body where it was?’

‘We covered it with stones for the moment,’ I told him. ‘But it can't stay there. If any shepherd or drover moves the stones to repair the wall, they'll find it at once. Even if the body has begun to decay by then, with the arms missing, no
one finding it is going to think the stones fell by accident and killed him.’

‘But with the snow, maybe no one will come.’

‘The snow won't last for ever; they could be driving cattle or sheep this way within weeks, days even. If anyone finds the body and spreads the word, that man at the standing stones is bound to remember he directed us here. He's hardly likely to forget Zophiel. We have two choices: either we report it ourselves and trust that the coroner will believe the story about the Bishop's wolf, or we hide the body so it's not found. I think hiding the body is our only option.’