A Holy Vengeance Read Online Free

“and accompany me while I report this crime to the sheriff. There is only your witness to account for how your friend came to die.”
    The journey did not take long, but it was a rough one, and they went by a route that was different from the one she and Emma had taken. Instead of going south to the shrine, the reeve had guided the cart to the north-east on a track that was little more than a footpath. It had debouched onto Ermine Street much farther north from Lincoln than was necessary, but Constance made no demur for she was still too shocked to wonder at the significance. Nor did she consider the reason that the village priest had blessed the ox and cart with holy water before they left Burton, deeming it merely a ritual designed to comfort the soul of her dead friend. Later, she was to remember both incidents with horror, but for the moment, she did not pay them much heed.
    The ox that was drawing the wain was an elderly beast with a lumbering gait, and as she sat in the back of the cart cradling Emma’s head in her lap it had bumped and swerved alarmingly. Rudd’s son sat beside her as they lurched along, watching her every movement while keeping the knife the murderer had used, still wrapped in a rag, firmly clasped in his hand. With dismay, she realised that the reeve, and all the other villagers, suspected that it might have been she who killed Emma. Throughout the short journey, she prayed constantly that she would be able to prove her innocence.
    When the reeve drove the cart through Newport Arch, the town lay spread out below, for Lincoln was built on a knoll, with the castle and the Minster sharing the height of the apex. As the reeve guided the wain the short distance to the castle gate, Constance was reminded how little time had elapsed since she and Emma had passed by the fortress that morning on their way to the shrine. They had set out on their short journey with hope and in high spirits, and now, just a few hours later, Emma was dead. It was hard not to believe it had all been a nightmare from which she would soon awake.
    The castle gateward, when Rudd told him the reason they had come, quickly waved them through and called for his serjeant, a grizzled veteran named Ernulf.
    After directing the gateward to take the cart bearing Emma’s body to a sheltered spot beside the stables, the serjeant told Rudd that the sheriff, Gerard Camville, was away from Lincoln and that his wife, Nicolaa de la Haye, the hereditary castellan of Lincoln castle, was deputising for her husband until he returned.
    “I’ll go and tell Lady Nicolaa what has passed,” Ernulf said to the reeve. “Wait here until I return.”
    * * *
    A short time later, Constance and Rudd were standing in the hall of the keep before the castellan. A woman of small stature and slightly plump, and one who was much revered by the townsfolk of Lincoln for her fairness and compassion, Lady Nicolaa was sitting at the table on the dais when they entered. Beside her was a lad of about sixteen years of age with a pen in his hand and a few pieces of parchment laid in front of him. Constance had seen the castellan before, but only from a distance, and she recognized the clerk as the mute Sicilian youngster named Gianni who was employed in the castle scriptorium, and well-known in the town.
    Servants were bustling to and fro, some sweeping rushes, others trimming candles and one pair carrying a keg of ale to the back of the hall as Constance and the reeve approached the dais. All of them cast curious glances in their direction as they went to stand in front of Lady Nicolaa.
    When the castellan asked about the body of the young woman that had been brought to the castle, Rudd, in halting tones, said that she had been murdered, slain in the dell close to his village where St. Dunstan’s shrine was located. He then added that he had been told by the woman he had brought with him, Mistress Turner, that the victim’s name was Emma Ferroner, and that she was the