A Deadly Penance Read Online Free

guards so close by.”
    Richard nodded absently and then, stepping carefully over the body, inspected the crossbow bolt embedded in the frame of the door.
    “Have you looked closely at this?” he asked.
    “No, lord,” Ernulf replied.
    “Then do so now,” Richard commanded.
    Moving carefully around the corpse, the serjeant hunkered down and then gave a gasp of disbelief. “That looks like a quarrel from that old crossbow your grandsire gave to your mother.”
    “I would swear it is the very same,” Richard confirmed. The shaft’s metal tip had not wholly penetrated the door and there, at the base, a tiny inscription could be seen—RH to NH.
    “But that crossbow was never meant to be used as a weapon,” Ernulf exclaimed. “It is only a small replica that your grandsire had made as a gift to commemorate your birth.”
    “Even so, it is capable of being fired.” Richard thought for a moment. “My mother keeps the crossbow in the armoury, does she not?”
    “Aye, in a wooden box, along with a few of the bolts that was made to go with it. The castle fletcher has the care of it and sees that the mechanism is kept free of rust and regularly oiled, but other than that, it’s never taken out of its case.”
    “Well, it was taken out last night,” Richard said, “for that bolt is too shallow to have been fired from a regular-sized arbalest. Loath as I am to say it, it would appear that whoever murdered Tercel used my mother’s crossbow to carry out the deed.”

Three

    A FTER DIRECTING ONE OF THE MEN-AT-ARMS TO FIND SOMETHING to cover the body, Richard and Ernulf went down to the armoury and to the shelf where the box containing Lady Nicolaa’s small crossbow was kept. The wooden case shone with a coating of linseed oil and was fitted with two simple catches to keep it closed. When they opened it, the crossbow lay on a bed of much faded green velvet, nestling in a space indented to take its shape.
    Richard lifted it out. “Well, if this is the bow that was used, it has been replaced from whence it came. After the murderer had accomplished his purpose, he must have returned here and put it back in the box.”
    He lifted the arbalest up to the light coming through one of the narrow casements. It was well crafted, the stock made of yew that had been kept as polished as the box in which it rested, the winding mechanism, trigger and release nut all fashioned of steel, as was the curved portion of the bow. The bowstring of glue-soaked hemp looked fairly new, so it was apparent that the castle fletcher, during his maintenance of the implement, had changed it recently. It was small, with a span of no more than eighteen inches, far less than the two to three feet of a full-sized crossbow. On one side of the stock was a small silver plate inscribed with the words—”To Ns saicolaa from her loving father, Richard de la Haye.” In essence, it was a toy but, for all that, a dangerous one.
    “I remember the day Sir Richard gave that to your mother,” Ernulf said. “It was his gift to her in celebration of your christening and, after they returned from the service at the cathedral, your grandsire presented it to her and ordered a butt set up in the bail so she could test it. Although’tis difficult for a woman to wind a regular bow, that one was small enough for her to manage, and she did it well. Took aim and hit the center of the target with her first shot.” There was pride in Ernulf’s voice as he spoke of the incident.
    “I recall my father telling me of that day,” Richard said. “He said that my grandsire had never been sorry that he had sired only daughters, for my mother, his eldest and principal heir, had the heart and stomach of a man.” Richard did not have any certain memories of the man after whom he had been named, for his grandfather had died when he was just a toddler, but he recalled an occasion when a tall man with a thatch of flaming red hair had tossed him high in the air and then, with a