Ashes of the Elements Read Online Free PDF Page A

him. ‘Sister Ursel will have taken good care of them. I wish you good day, Sheriff.’
    He muttered something in reply. It could have been ‘Good day’, but it could equally well have been something far less polite.
    *   *   *
    When she was quite certain he had gone, Helewise left her room and crossed the courtyard to the infirmary, where she begged Sister Euphemia to part with some of her precious lavender-scented incense. Despite her efforts to think charitably of the sheriff, still Helewise felt a very strong desire to fumigate her room of his presence.
    *   *   *
    Later that day, she went back up the track to the forest.
    It was, she had discovered, very difficult to leave the matter there. A man had been brutally murdered right by the Abbey, and she had all but stepped on his body. It appeared there was no chance of his killer ever being brought to justice, and Helewise could see no way to alter that.
    I must, she thought, striding up towards the trees, have one more try myself. Take one more look. See if I can find some clue that the sheriff and his men overlooked, and, the dear Lord knows, surely that wouldn’t be hard.
    She found the place where the body had lain. There were still bloodstains on the grass. She walked a few paces on into the forest, and thought she could detect trodden-down undergrowth where the dead man’s running feet had passed. But what of the killer? Had he run in the dead man’s tracks? He must have stood still to throw the spear … She wandered on under the deep shade of the trees, not really knowing what she was looking for.
    Some time later, she gave up the search. It was, she realised, quite hopeless.
    She went back to the place where the man had fallen. There was some flattened grass a few paces off; she went to look.
    There, amid the brilliant green, lay the spear.
    Someone – Sheriff Pelham? – must have wrested it out of the dead man’s back and thrown it away. Its head and the first few inches of its shaft were still sticky with blood.
    Helewise bent down and picked it up.
    Carefully she wiped it on the fresh young grass, feeling, as she did so, an illogical but very strong urge to apologise for this act of desecration.
    Then, when it was as clean as she could make it, she had a good look. The tip of the spear was made of flint.
    Flint?
    Helewise had lived for most of her life close to the South Downs, and she knew all about flint. One of her brothers had amused himself on a wet afternoon by making a flint knife, and had discovered that knapping wasn’t as easy as one might think.
    But whoever had made this spearhead was a master in the craft. The point was exactly symmetrical, and shaped most beautifully. Like an elegant leaf. The knapped edges were perfect.
    And the point was as sharp as any knife.
    Helewise – who had learned her lesson over testing the sharpness of worked edges – tried the spearpoint on a patch of dandelions. It seared through the leaves and stems as if they hadn’t been there.
    A flint spearhead, she mused. Why flint, in this age of fine metalwork? Did it mean that wretched sheriff was right, and this murder was the work of some band of primitive forest-dwelling people, who lived not in the present day but in the manner of their distant stone-working ancestors?
    The idea sent an atavistic shiver of dread down Helewise’s spine. And here I am, she thought, not ten paces from the forest.
    She turned and hurried back towards the Abbey.
    But, disconcerted or not, still she took the spear with her. Even if this did appear to be the end of the matter, it seemed a good idea not to throw away evidence.
    *   *   *
    Back in her room, she found that the lavender incense had failed to burn properly, and the air still stank of the sheriff. In addition, the various tensions of the day had produced the beginnings of a headache.
    And, to cap it all, it was Friday. Which meant it was carp for supper.
    With quiet vehemence, Helewise muttered, ‘I