Read Online The Song of the Nightingale by Alys Clare - Free Book Online

at her. ‘Perhaps, my lady.’ He hesitated, then went on: ‘For some weeks in the final quarter of last year, there had been reports of a series of robberies and assaults on isolated houses. It seemed that whoever was perpetrating the crimes had been steadily moving southwards, reaching the area around Tonbridge – my jurisdiction – some time in December.’ He paused, frowning. ‘The assaults were all too often brutal, I am afraid to say. Old people attacked, battered and beaten, to persuade them to reveal where they had hidden their money and their valuables. One elderly widow, living alone, was forced to see her guard dog killed before her eyes, and then she was hit over the head repeatedly, until she was blinded in one eye. And all she had hidden away was half a mouldy cheese and a clipped penny.’
    There was silence in the room. Then Josse said, ‘The assaults have now stopped?’
    Gervase sighed. ‘No reports have reached me of anything since January. Either the perpetrators have moved on, or else—’
    â€˜Or else they now lie dead in our undercroft,’ the abbess finished for him. Abruptly, she stood up, and Josse, noticing how the power in the room shifted as she did so from the sheriff to her, thought anew what a quietly strong and authoritative woman she had become . . .
    But she was speaking, and he made himself listen.
    â€˜. . . any real likelihood we shall discover the identities of the three men, Sir Gervase?’ she was asking.
    â€˜Very little, my lady, if they are indeed who we believe them to be, for they are not local,’ he said. ‘You wish, of course, to have them taken away for burial, I know, and—’
    â€˜They can be buried in the Hawkenlye graveyard,’ she interrupted. ‘Sir Gervase,’ she went on, her tone softening, ‘in the absence of certainty in this matter, we should leave judgement to a higher authority. I will ensure that such details of the men that we have are recorded, in case anyone should ever come looking for them. Then our priest will bury them, and we shall all pray that the Lord has mercy on them.’
    â€˜It is highly likely that they are all three guilty of grave crimes, my lady abbess,’ Gervase said, his face stiff.
    â€˜If so, then they have already paid by their deaths,’ she replied implacably. ‘If they are innocent, then they deserve our compassion and our prayers.’
    She appeared, Josse reflected, to have covered either possibility more than adequately. Amused, despite himself, at Gervase’s obvious discomfiture, he suppressed a smile.
    The sheriff was bowing again to the abbess, taking his leave. ‘If there is anything further I can do for you in this matter, my lady, or, indeed, in any other, you have only to summon me,’ he said.
    She bowed in return. ‘Thank you, Sir Gervase.’
    He nodded briefly to Josse, muttered his thanks, and then swept out of the room. Josse could hear his footsteps pacing quickly away.
    â€˜Have I offended him, Sir Josse?’ the abbess asked softly. ‘Would he have had me judge and condemn those three men, refusing them Christian burial and the hope of resurrection, even though we cannot be certain they are guilty of the crimes Sir Gervase described?’
    â€˜If he is offended, then the fault is his and not yours,’ Josse replied. He went over to her and took her cold hands in his; he had known Caliste a long time, and he hoped she would not mind the small intimacy. ‘You are quite right, my lady—’ he let go of her hands – ‘and it is not for us to judge.’
    She nodded, her expression relieved. ‘Thank you,’ she said simply. ‘What a friend you are.’ Then she stood on tiptoe and placed a soft kiss on his cheek.
    Riding back up to St Edmund’s Chapel on its rise above the abbey, Josse could still feel the imprint of that kiss. Reflecting how nice