A Deadly Penance Read Online Free Page B

resemblance between the two sisters was slight. Nicolaa had the bright red hair that Richard had inherited, but now, with the approach of her fiftieth year, was sprinkled with a few threads of grey. She was a small woman, a little plump, with slightly protuberant blue eyes that held a discerning look. Petronille, on the other hand, was dark haired and had an olive complexion, traits inherited from their mother. She was a little taller than her older sister, and had a softness about her that was not evident in Nicolaa. Consistently kind and caring, she regarded Richard with a slightly anxious look in her dark brown eyes, concerned at the reason for such an early arousal.
    Richard studied his aunt for a moment before he spoke. Petronille was still in a fragile state from the death of her young son, Baldwin, a few months before. Although of tender years, Baldwin had been of a very pious nature and his father, Richard de Humez, had sent Petronille and their daughter, Alinor, to Lincoln in the hope that both would recover a little more easily from their grief if they were away from the familiar surroundings of their Stamford manor house. They had come to stay just before the season of Christ’s Mass, for the holy season was a time when the absence from home of the son, and brother, they had loved so well would be particularly hard to bear. Richard hoped this latest tragedy would not be too distressing for his aunt.
    The maidservant he had directed to bring up a flagon of watered wine had come up the stairs behind him and Richard bid her fill three cups before straddling his long legs over one of the stools by the table at which the two women were sitting.
    Nicolaa and her sister listened with grave attention as he told them of how Ernulf had found Tercel’s body, and where, that morning. “He was shot with a quarrel from a crossbow,” he added and saw the eyebrows of both women rise.
    Petronille had drawn her breath in sharply when told of the death of her servant, but she kept her composure and asked, “Surely that is a strange weapon to use in such a confined space? I have not been up onto the walkway of the old tower since the days of my youth, but if it has not been altered in the intervening years, I remember it as a closely walled area, and not at all suitable for firing a bow.”
    “You are correcamfu are ct, Aunt,” Richard said, “but this arbalest is not one that would normally be employed during battle. It is a much smaller weapon and not intended for such a deadly purpose.”
    Realisation dawned on Nicolaa as her son was speaking. “Are you saying that the crossbow your grandfather gave me is the one that was used?”
    When Richard nodded, his mother rose from her chair and paced a few slow steps, thinking as she did so. “I haven’t handled it for more years than I care to remember and neither has anyone else, except for the castle bowyer. I would not have thought there were many people even aware of its existence. How, then, did the murderer come to know it was there?”
    “You are mistaken, Mother, in thinking it has been forgotten,” Richard said. “The tale of how you fired it when Grandfather presented it to you is the sort of story that makes good recounting, especially to newcomers to the bail. I am certain that not only our household, but most of the townsfolk of Lincoln are familiar with the weapon’s rather colourful history.”
    Nicolaa nodded. “So you think the murderer asked Tercel to meet him up on the ramparts, and then lay in wait with the arbalest, shot him and afterwards replaced the bow in its box?”
    “It would appear so,” Richard replied.
    “A strange place to choose for an assignation,” Nicolaa mused. “Was Tercel armed?”
    “There was no weapon on him. But it could have been removed by the murderer.”
    “If it wasn’t, then that means Tercel thought he had nothing to fear. So the person who killed him must have been someone he knew, and trusted,” his mother opined.