Read Online Fortune Like the Moon by Alys Clare - Free Book Online

pattern’ – oh, it was hard, remembering! – ‘and it seemed that some trouble had been taken to make the shape as perfect as possible.’
    ‘Dreadful,’ he muttered. ‘Callous, and quite horrible.’
    She didn’t want to, but she knew she must tell him the rest. ‘Her skirts were folded back so neatly. I noticed that.’ Realising her omission, she said, ‘I did not find her – two of the lay brothers did, only a matter of minutes after the search began. I was just coming down from the Abbey, and I heard them shout. I was the third one to look on her.’
    ‘I see.’ His voice held compassion. ‘Go on. You were telling me about her skirt.’
    ‘Yes.’ She swallowed. ‘The skirt and underskirt had been folded as one, and there were three folds. The first raised the garments to knee level, the second to thigh level, the third placed them across her belly. She was, as I think you know, naked from the waist down. And covered in blood.’
    Her voice was shaking. She clenched her teeth, hoping he wouldn’t ask her anything else until she had recovered her equanimity.
    He didn’t. Instead, he wandered slowly around the place where Gunnora had been found. It was impossible even for Helewise, who had seen her, to say exactly where the dead girl had lain; the small amount of blood that had trickled down into the grass had been ground in by the many boot and shoe soles that had trampled the scene. It was not, then, immediately clear what Josse was gaining from his long perusal. Perhaps he was just giving her some time.
    Eventually he returned to stand beside her.
    ‘There was something about a cross, a jewelled cross?’ he asked quietly.
    ‘Yes. They found it there, at the bend in the path.’ She pointed.
    ‘A rape that wasn’t, and a stolen cross that was thrown away. Although it is difficult to see why, unless it was by accident, since the murderer was not being pursued.’
    ‘Not by us,’ Helewise said. ‘It is possible that someone else saw him.’
    ‘Someone who prefers not to advertise his presence here in the dead of night?’
    ‘Quite.’
    ‘Hm,’ he said. And, again, walking a few paces away, ‘Hmmm.’
    She said, ‘About the cross.’
    He turned, alert eyes on her. ‘Yes?’
    ‘It wasn’t Gunnora’s. It was very similar to hers, same gold mounting, same size and colour of ruby. But Gunnora gave hers to me a few months ago, and asked instead to wear a cross of plain wood.’
    ‘She did? Why?’
    That was easy. ‘As a demonstration of poverty, I think.’ A very ostentatious show, Helewise had thought privately at the time, and not a very useful one since Gunnora had specifically asked Helewise to put the cross away safely for her. It would have been more convincing had she asked her Abbess to sell the pretty thing and use the proceeds for the poor.
    ‘So she would not have been wearing her own jewelled cross when she died?’
    ‘No.’ It was still secure in Helewise’s cabinet; she had checked. Now the other one, that was found beside her, was there with it. ‘The wooden cross was still round her neck, but it had somehow slipped under her scapula. Probably only another nun would have thought to look for it.’
    ‘A rape that wasn’t,’ Josse repeated thoughtfully, ‘and, now, a theft that wasn’t.’ He stared at Helewise. ‘Abbess, all we seem to be left with is murder.’

Chapter Five
    They walked side by side back up the slope to the Abbey, on its ridge. He did not have to shorten his stride greatly; she was a tall woman.
    Seen from this side, the Abbey presented a less stoutly walled aspect. Well, Josse reflected, that was understandable; the entrance through which he had first arrived faced the road, and, even if traffic was light, establishments of the size and prestige of Hawkenlye Abbey usually marked out their territory behind high walls and a solid gate that could be locked and barred at night.
    Coming up from the pleasant green vale whose tranquillity had so