Lost Innocents (A Servant of the Crown Mystery Book 3) (28 page)

Near the center of the jurors, a young man threw back his head. His bellow was wordless, the sound raw and feral. When he lowered his head, he raced toward his bailiff, the pruning hook in his hands raised for a killing blow.

"My mother doesn't lie! You used my mother!" he shouted as he came.

It was almost Vespers when Faucon returned to the headless cross that marked Coctune on the Street. Edmund waited there, atop his little donkey. Someone had given the monk a sack in which to carry his tools and he'd used the strap from his ruined basket to lash it to his saddle.

While Edmund had remained in Wike to record the names of the jurors after they confirmed Ivo as Jessimond's murderer, Faucon had torn the smith from the arms of his yet-disbelieving sons. Ivo had offered neither word nor resistance as he'd walked alongside the mounted knight to Studley. Once there, he had freely given himself into the custody of Sir Peter's steward.

Now, as Edmund urged his stubborn mount into the road, Faucon glanced into the hamlet of Coctune. Four men stood in front of the house in which Odger presently lay, broken and beaten, guarding the former bailiff from those he had once ruled. That he had not gone to Studley with Ivo was Edmund's doing. Although the men of Wike had insisted on confirming Odger as a rapist at the same time they confirmed the verdict of murder against Ivo, the monk warned his Crowner that Odger would never stand for his crime, not when the necessary proof was lacking. None of the women had been heard crying out during the bailiff's attack, nor had any of them called for her neighbors to aid her during Odger's attack, nor had any raised the hue and cry once the man had finished with them.

That left the men of Wike with nothing more than the hope that their former bailiff died of his injuries. As for Faucon, he found himself hoping no one took the matter of Odger's continued life into his own hand. Faucon didn't much want to return to this place for another inquest.

"Sir, despite the smith's confession, I still don't understand how you knew to accuse him," Edmund said breathlessly, when he finally got his mount aimed in the right direction.

"I wasn't certain until I spoke with Gawne in the glade," Faucon replied, stirring himself from his sour thoughts. "After what the lad told me, I was certain Amelyn hadn't ended her life because of grief, but to protect yet another innocent."

That only won him a stunned and disbelieving look from his gasping clerk. The sound of Edmund's choppy breathing almost made Faucon smile. He needed no more to tell him that the monk's back was bruised and the motion of his donkey was aggravating it. He'd won a similar bruise during a melee and suffered much the same.

"It's what the boy told Amelyn, about how Dob had offered to wed with Jessimond to save her from Meg but that Ivo hadn't agreed to the plan until the day after Jessimond was dead." Faucon sighed. "Instead of comfort, the boy's words broke her heart. You were there when I challenged Amelyn's memories of that night, questioning her certainty that Odger had done the deed. I think that from that moment on, Amelyn's years of denial began to crumble. By the time she heard Gawne's story, she could no longer avoid what she must have always known, that Ivo had been the one to rape her. After the lad told her his tale, she also knew that Ivo had killed their daughter to prevent his elder son from marrying his half-sister."

Mourning a woman he barely knew, Faucon trained his gaze between Legate's ears as he continued. "With that, everyone Amelyn loved was gone or destroyed in her memory, save for the cripple, and even he would be forever more denied her, while she faced a lingering and painful death. In that moment, she must have believed preventing her daughter's beloved friend from becoming an orphan gave some meaning to her life."

Faucon fell silent, dragged deep into his own guilt. If only. If only Amelyn had waited for him, or been willing to entrust him with what she'd learned. But so long had the poor woman suffered the betrayals of the men around her that she no longer believed any man worthy of her trust. Her ploy had almost succeeded. For a single instant after Hew had revealed Amelyn owed coin to Alcester's procuress, Faucon had believed her capable of killing Jessimond, if only to save her daughter from being made to whore. But then he remembered that Amelyn was Amelyn, a woman willing to take the lash to protect another.

"But how could the smith even find the girl to kill her, when he was drunk in his doorway?"

Edmund's question stirred him out of his dark thoughts. Faucon shot a surprised sidelong look at his clerk. "Ivo wasn't besotted that night, despite what his sons said. As for finding the girl, you heard the smith. He all but told us outright that he'd known from the beginning where his son and Jessimond were meeting."

"He did no such thing," Edmund retorted. "Nor can you say that he did! Remember, I was there with you. I heard what he said."

That teased a laugh from Faucon. "Brother, you need to listen with more than your ears. The smith said he and Amelyn had been to each other what Jessimond and Gawne were. Why do you think Amelyn chose that glade as the place to meet her daughter?"

He waited for Edmund's reply, but the monk only shook his head in confusion, so he answered his own question.

"Because it was the same place where she and her precious childhood playmate had shared their happiest hours. When Gawne escaped into the woods, his father kept watch but carefully. I cannot say when, but at some time Ivo must have come upon his son and Jessimond in that glade. Thus did Ivo turn his back on his neighbors when they complained about Gawne and Jessimond. He thought he was giving his grieving child the same happiness he'd known, and giving him the sister Gawne didn't know he had, just as he was giving his daughter the family he denied her. Remember how Ivo protested that Gawne and Jessimond were naught but innocent children sharing joy? How could he know that unless he'd seen it?

"Then everything went awry when Dob offered to wed Jessimond. Ivo is a coward. He could neither confess what he'd done nor was it in him to stand firm against his son's choice of wife. That left him no choice but to end his daughter's life, something I doubt he would have done if he'd known Amelyn was yet visiting Wike. It must have been easier to plan to murder the child when he thought he was sparing her a life of abuse and pain, one bereft of her mother's love," he added, thinking again on the smith's shock as the leper made her race for the well.

Here, Faucon fell silent, unwilling to share with Edmund the rest of the tale, the part that included Meg and how she and the bawd had appeared in that glade within minutes after Jessimond's death. As Ivo must have slunk back into hiding, avoiding discovery before he had removed Jessimond's body as he surely would have planned, the man's fate was sealed. Not because of what he'd done, but because the court had stripped away some of Sir Alain's duties. For if the sheriff had come to Wike it was a sure thing that Ivo would have held his tongue even as Gawne died in his place. Such was the depths of the man's cowardice.

Frustration streamed from the monk on a harsh breath. "I vow, I'll never be able to understand what you do, no matter how hard I try."

"Nor do you need to," Faucon said with a grin, "not as long as one of us can do it. Isn't that what you said to me yesterday? We both have our roles to play in this."

Nodding at that, Edmund glanced across the wastes to the edge of the forest. "Do you think they'll ever get the idiot to leave that glade?"

"Aye, I think he'll go once both Amelyn and Jessimond are laid to rest." Again, he withheld suppositions from his clerk. There was no point in sharing that he believed the idiot was Odger's bastard son, and likely not the only child the bailiff had fathered in Wike. Thus had Martha known to stay close to Amelyn on the day that Odger sought to take her. So too was that why Amelyn's stepmother had fought so hard to keep her damaged babe alive. Martha had wanted her bailiff to look upon what he'd created for each and every day of his life.

There was motion ahead of him on the Street. Lifting himself in his stirrups, Faucon eyed the riders coming toward him. One man was mounted atop a piebald, naming him Alf. The other rode a courser as white as Legate, save for black stockings the same color as the hair of his rider.

What little satisfaction Faucon had managed to retain over this day's resolution died. Holy Mother of God. What was his brother doing here at this end of Warwickshire? More importantly, was Will sane? Faucon's hand dropped to his sword. If not, blood would definitely be shed.

How could I have faltered when He not only led me to her, but fair placed her in my arms? Instead, I was careless.

The whip flies. The knotted cords bite into my back. My flesh tears. Blood flows.

A part of me whimpers, complaining that she was stronger than I expected. That she awakened without warning. That she flew from my arms before I was prepared. It was dark. The wind howled, hiding her from me as it tossed branches and bent grasses. The rain fell in sheets, making it impossible to see.

On and on the excuses flow when they are nothing but excuses. Again the cords tear into my back. Sinful! Weak!

I beg my Lord to answer, if not to give me the forgiveness I crave, then to reveal that He is yet with me, that I remain precious to Him. There is naught but silence and emptiness where once there was presence.

Lost in self-pity, I beg Saint Martin to bear a message to our heavenly Father. To no avail. I am no longer his comrade-in-arms, battling beside him to save souls.

All is lost. I am abandoned.

Thank you for reading this third book of my new mystery series. I hope you enjoyed Faucon and his third investigation as his shire's new Crowner. If you liked the book, or I suppose even if you didn't, consider leaving a review. If you've found any formatting or typographical errors, please let me know by email at
[email protected]
. I appreciate the chance to correct my mistakes!

I have to admit I absolutely enjoyed adding Alf to the team of sleuths I'm assembling. He stepped onto these page fully formed and wonderfully alive.

By the way, you'll find Oswald de Vere and Bishop William making appearances in my
Seasons Series