Season of the Fox (A Servant of the Crown Mystery Book 2) (6 page)

The third peg, the one closest to the door was empty. Instead, the pair of scissors that must have hung from it now lay in two pieces on the floor in front of the table, beside the toppled stool on which Bernart le Linsman had been sitting before someone had slashed his throat.

Dressed in a tunic made of the same blue fabric as his daughter’s gown and a wool cloak lined with squirrel, Bernart lay on his left side. His left arm was crooked beneath him as if he might have had his hand pressed against his throat as he fell. A puddle of blood had formed on the floor beneath his throat. It had flowed away from him, following the level of the floor and filling the cracks and joints in the stonework as it grew.

Faucon crossed the chamber, stepping the way he would in the woodlands as he sought evidence of the prey he wished to follow. But here, what he hoped to find beneath his feet was the tale of Bernart’s death.

Bloody smears marked the paths of those who had exited the chamber after the merchant’s death. There were three clear sets. Two of these shoe prints were small. Mistress Gisla and Bernart’s wife most likely, since the wife was said to have found her husband’s body while his daughter had told him she’d been in the workshop prior to his arrival.

The third set was much larger and wider. All three sets of footprints pointed in only one direction, moving away from Bernart’s body. Not surprising. Those who wore these shoes had only fouled their soles when they’d come to stand in the spreading blood near the fallen merchant.

Faucon dropped to one knee beside the corpse and pressed his fingers to Bernart’s bare neck, beneath the edge of the man’s neatly trimmed brown beard. The merchant yet retained the warmth of living. Then he touched the tip of his little finger to that pool of blood and frowned. It had already congealed into a thick gel, but that gel was beginning to separate. He’d seen that happen both on fields of battle as well as when hunting. Where blood pooled, it gelled, then after a time, it began to sweat out a clear liquid. While Bernart’s warmth fit with the timing of the hue and cry and Peter the Webber’s mad dash for sanctuary, which had occurred less than a quarter hour ago, that separation of the merchant’s blood had Faucon thinking.

Turning Bernart’s head upward, he studied the merchant’s visage. It seemed that although the man hadn’t recognized death coming for him when the one who killed him entered his workshop, he’d faced the end of his life with open eyes. The merchant wasn’t a corpulent man, but there was something in Bernart’s face that suggested he was one who ate deeply of life’s riches, only to leave the table unsatisfied. The merchant and his daughter shared no common features save their deep brown eye color. Where Gisla was fair and her face narrow, her father’s hair was brown and his face full. His features were small and soft, with a short nose and thick lips beneath his neatly-trimmed moustache.

The wound that had ended his life crossed his throat from ear to ear. Although it had started out fairly shallow, not completely parting the veins on the left side of his neck, it ended deep enough on his right side to guarantee Bernart a swift exit from life. The smooth edges of the gash suggested a well-honed blade, but then, a well-honed blade was what a man needed if he intended to open another man’s throat.

Releasing the merchant’s head, Faucon closed Bernart’s eyes, wondering why neither mother nor daughter had thought to offer their kinsman that courtesy. Then, shifting on his knee, he eyed the two pieces of the scissors that lay on the floor. It was a tool of unusual design and size, with each blade almost the length of his forearm. The nearest half lay close by Bernart’s feet and was coated with his blood.

Unable to believe that such a thing was weapon enough to do this deed, he picked up that bloody half. The blade was a well-made tool, to be sure. The metal had been worked until it felt almost as hard as his own sword. Faucon ran his thumb along its edge. Only toward the tip did it part the skin on his thumb. Although that surprised him, it didn’t make the tool as sharp as he thought it should have been. Then again, a blade swiftly lost its edge when cutting through flesh and sinew.

He turned the half-scissors in his hand, once more examining the strange looking thing. All the shears he’d ever seen were made from one continuous piece of metal, bent into a loop to form a pair of intersecting knives. Indeed, that was how the two smaller pairs of scissors hanging on the worktable back were formed. Not so this pair. This one was two separate knives held together by some sort of a fastener inserted through the hole in the center of each blade.

He scanned the floor, seeking the fastener, a bolt of some sort no doubt. But with only one open window, it wasn’t bright enough to find something as small as that bolt must be. Indeed, all he saw was the other half of the scissors.

Leaning to the side, he reached for the other half of the scissors only to freeze mid-gesture. As he moved, a shaft of dim light streamed over one shoulder to show him the floor beside his knee. There, outlined in spattered blood, was the shadow print of the front half of a shoe.

The huntsman in him came to vibrant life. Here was what he craved. This was spoor he could follow, a trail that would lead him to the murderer. Placing his hand into the outline, he spread and shaped his fingers as he sought to memorize its size and form.

“Might I use the stool, sir?” Edmund asked from the far end of the chamber where he yet stood.

Unwilling to risk his clerk disturbing what might be more of this shadowy spoor, Faucon rose and picked up the merchant’s short stool. Holding it high, he handed the seat to Edmund, then turned to once more study the crisscrossing trails made by those exiting after Bernart’s death. None of the prints matched the size and shape of the one outlined in blood, thus the owners of those shoes had done no wrong.

Stepping carefully, he opened the shutters on the closed windows, setting their bars on the top of the strongboxes. As this afternoon’s bright light streamed in, it revealed a clean area on the floor near the shadow print. Of course. Bernart’s body and the stool on which Edmund now sat had blocked the merchant’s blood from reaching the floor here.

Faucon placed his right foot into the outlined print. His shoe completely covered it. Like Bernart, Faucon was a man of medium height, although he was more powerfully built than the merchant. The size of the print suggested that the one who had done this deed was a smaller man. Although that was certainly possible–small men could be as strong or stronger than some large men–for no reason Faucon could yet name, that felt improbable.

Leaving his right foot in the print, he shifted into the solid stance required of a killing stroke. That put his left foot at the center of the clean spot. Hence, the single outlined footprint.

Seeking to follow the same path as the murderer, Faucon reasoned out the line of events that resulted in Bernart’s death. Entering the workshop, the killer had taken the scissors from the peg and disassembled it behind the merchant, doing so without stirring any concern from the man he meant to kill. Once the scissor blades were parted, the murderer had dealt his blow. But rather than jump back to avoid the spewing blood, he’d remained behind the merchant long enough to have his foot outlined on the floor.

Faucon frowned. When this particular injury was dealt well, as it had been here, there was no recourse for the victim save a swift death and an even swifter departure from consciousness. For blood to spew over the killer’s shoe said that he’d held the merchant to the stool for a moment before releasing Bernart to the floor and his death throes. But why hold him at all?

Dissatisfied with what he conjured, Faucon stepped back, then looked down to see where his feet rested. He was in an area of the floor clean of blood spatter. Then again, most of what had spurted from Bernart’s severed veins had shot to the sides, not reaching directly behind the man. There were no more outlined prints, and none of the existing bloody footprints matched the size of the killer’s foot. Rather than blood-stained soles, this man would wear proof that he’d taken Bernart’s life only on the top of his right shoe.

“I am ready, sir,” Edmund said.

Faucon looked up. His clerk had set Bernart’s stool just inside the workshop doorway. Once again, Edmund had his traveling desk in his lap, their all-important parchment spread across its slanted top. His quill, poised above the skin, glistened with fresh ink. He looked expectantly at his master.

“Bernart le Linsman has been murdered, his throat slashed,” Faucon told him. “Although I cannot state exactly when he died, I do know that he’s certainly been gone for longer than a half an hour. I say this because the blood that spilled from the linsman’s neck is separating now that it has congealed.”

Faucon once more tested the heft of the half scissors he held. As well-made as it was, the fact that it needed to be disassembled before it could be used as a weapon made it inconvenient. Why commit this deed with something so awkward when a well-honed knife might serve?

“Although I remain uncertain if this is an act of passion or one well-planned, the weapon used to kill Bernart was this half of the scissors.” He showed Edmund what he held. “The man who plied it did so with his right hand, for the wound begins high on the left side of Bernart’s throat and ends lower and far deeper on his right side. Whoever handled the blade was skilled in this sort of blow, for the cut is placed exactly where it should be to swiftly end a life.”

Faucon grimaced as he said that. That information was hardly relevant. Anyone who’d ever slaughtered an animal knew how to use such a killing stroke, and that included just about everyone in this world.

“Also, the one who dealt the blow was strong enough to almost sever the linsman’s windpipe. But the footprint he leaves behind suggests he was not a big man, I think,” Faucon added, his voice trailing off into quiet. Again, the idea of the smaller man felt wrong.

“Good enough, sir,” Edmund said and lowered his head as he set quill to parchment. “Bernart was murdered, his death caused by Peter the Webber, who slashed his throat with the scissors that he took from the worktable.”

Faucon shot him sharp look. “That’s not what I said.”

“But it is all that the law requires,” Edmund countered without looking up, his quill scratching out the words he, not his employer, wished to place on the parchment.

This was one battle Faucon would lose because Edmund was right. The law did not require him to describe more than the manner and classification of the death. But what satisfied the law left Faucon wanting much more.

“Well, do not yet ascribe this act to the webber,” he commanded.

Edmund paused in his scribbling to look up. His brows lifted. “But this Peter was witnessed right here at the dead man’s side. What of the hue and cry and the webber’s plea for sanctuary? An innocent man doesn’t run.”

“He does if a mob is chasing him and he fears there will be no justice for him should he be caught,” Faucon retorted, then sighed. “Edmund, remember that the miller was found beneath his wheel, but it was not the wheel that killed him. We wouldn’t have known that had we not followed the trail left by the man who had truly done murder.”

Edmund studied his master for a moment. “Aye, and the man who committed that crime yet evades the earthly justice that is his due. I hope he doesn’t believe he’ll so easily escape heavenly justice when his time comes.” The clerk’s eyes took light. “Do you think he has done the same here?”

Faucon smiled. Edmund was far too literal. “Nay, not him. Never again him, and so he well knows.” The time for that one’s accusation and arrest had come and gone, but so had the man’s freedom to do as he pleased in this shire.

“My point is only to ask you to humor me,” he told his clerk. “Just as it’s not in you to ignore the law, I cannot blindly accept what others tell me is true, or even what appears to be true, without verifying it for myself. Let me hunt for the one who did this in my own way.”

Edmund watched him for another moment, then offered a single nod. “As you will, sir. I can leave space on the parchment to record the webber’s name later, when you have proved it to yourself.”

Then, rising from the stool, the clerk set his lap desk on the same chest where he had carefully arranged his stone, his inkpot and his knife. After exactly positioning his quill across the top of the desk, he turned to look at his master.

“Now that we are satisfied the linsman was indeed murdered, it is time to confirm that he was born an Englishman and not a Norman,” the monk said evenly. “Since neither the wife nor daughter may swear to this, and there appears to be no other man of consequence in the house at the moment, I would like to call his neighbors to testify. Indeed, as they attest to Master Bernart’s ancestry, perhaps they will also agree to stand surety for the wife, guaranteeing that she makes her appearance before the court when called to swear that she was the first finder.”

Having expected more of an argument from Edmund, Faucon watched his clerk in surprise. “As you should,” he agreed.

“I’ll come for you when I have returned here with the neighbors, sir,” Edmund said, then crossed his arms, tucking his hands into his sleeves, and sighed. “What a shame that they cannot offer vows in place of the wife, swearing for her that she was the first finder.”