A Holy Vengeance Read Online Free PDF Page A

before continuing. “What about her husband and father? Do you know if anyone has a grudge against either of them?”
    This time, Constance’s response was swift. “I cannot answer that question, lady, for I do not know them well. I have met her father on a few occasions when I went to the armoury with Emma, but her husband I have only spoken to once. The armoury is a smoky, noisy place and Emma preferred to come to my house when we kept company together.”
    Nicolaa pursed her lips in thought for a moment and then turned back to the reeve, intending to dismiss him, but she saw, by the anxious expression on his face, that he had something more he wished to relate and asked if he had anything further to add.
    “Yes, lady, I does,” he said nervously. “When two of the young men from my village were carrying the poor woman’s body back to our compound, a dreadful thing happened.” The reeve hesitated, his countenance drawn with fear.
    “And that was . . . ?” Nicolaa prompted.
    “Lady, an adder—a black one—slithered across the path in front of them and almost tripped them up.”
    Droplets of sweat began to form on Rudd’s brow as he went on, “’Tis well-known that the Devil often comes in the guise of a serpent; I reckon the Evil One is behind this death, either Him or someone who’s doing His bidding.”
    This last was stated with a sidelong glance at Constance and she was shocked to her very bones at the inference. This sighting of the viper near the shrine must have been the reason that the reeve had taken the cart along a different path to return to Lincoln. It also explained why the priest had blessed the wain and the beast that drew it before they left. All of the villagers had believed that Satan was responsible for Emma’s murder, and that she might be his accomplice.
    Nicolaa, however, received the news calmly. “Are you certain the snake was an adder,” she asked the reeve, “and not just one of the common variety that abound in the countryside?”
    “I am, lady,” he insisted. “They said ’twas black as Satan’s heart, such as is never the colour of any ordinary snake I’ve ever see’d.”
    Although the castellan nodded in understanding, she was reluctant to put much credence in the reeve’s tale. Black adders were very rare; they were more usually grey or brown with a zigzag marking on their back. It was far more likely that the men had just stumbled and, in their distressed state of mind, thought they had seen a “serpent” but had seen instead a small branch that had fallen on the track and perhaps moved when it had been dislodged by their passage. But since the reeve, and the other villagers, were taking the matter seriously, she made an attempt to allay their fears.
    “Snakes are foul creatures that are always attracted to places where evil has been done,” she said. “Rest assured that now the corpse has been removed, it will have gone and be seen no more.”
    Rudd was doubtful of her explanation but did his best to hide it. Burton was one of the villages in Lady Nicolaa’s demesne and he had no choice but to accept her opinion. To do otherwise might bring repercussions down on his head.
    Satisfied with his acquiescence, no matter how unwilling, the castellan turned the subject of the conversation in another direction, one that she knew would divert him from his fear.
    “I am grateful for your assistance in this matter, Rudd, and would reward you for your services.” She gestured to her steward, Eudo, to come forward and instructed him to give the reeve six silver pennies from the household coffers as recompense for his trouble.
    Rudd promptly cast his misgivings aside, gave a bob of deference, and smiled as he gratefully followed Eudo away from the dais.
    Once he was gone, the castellan spoke to Constance in a cool voice that held not a vestige of the warmth that had been in her tone when she had spoken to the reeve. “I will make arrangements for your friend’s