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was beyond his powers to do so. She was someone’s daughter, perhaps wife and mother. Someone would come forward to claim her. He thanked God he knew that all the women in his family had been safe when the fire began.
    Something around the woman’s neck caught the lantern light, but her flesh had swelled around it. A piece of jewellery, perhaps. That might be useful in identifying her if the Fitzbaldrics did not come up with a name. Owen tilted her chin back gently. With the sacking protecting his hand, he reached for the item. It was polished metal, large for a lady’s neck, almost four fingers long, cutting into the swollen flesh above and below. A leather strap hung from it, the end so charred it crumbled in his fingers. He realized it was a buckle and a belt, or strap. The rest of the belt was deeply imbedded in the swollen flesh of her neck, secured by the brass buckle. Easing the leather through the buckle, he worked it out, trying not to tear the flesh. He was sweating and nauseated by the time he held the charred belt in his hands. The buckle had been positioned overher throat and had probably crushed it.
    Owen’s discovery changed the temper of his examination. The woman was no accidental victim, a neighbour coming to talk with Poins while he fetched something from the undercroft, caught in a sudden blaze caused by an overturned candle. She had been murdered, her executioner, no doubt, hoping the fire would mask the deed, not counting on the quick response of the neighbours.
    But they had not come in time to save her. May she rest in the light of Thy grace, dear Lord .
    Gently Owen arranged the woman’s head so that the band of unburned flesh at the side of her neck, where the leather had protected it, was not noticeable. Whoever wrapped her in a shroud for burial might make note of it, but there were other abrasions and raw areas on her flesh where fragments of charred, brittle clothing had been pulled away, perhaps when she was moved. He hoped that only the murderer would know how she had died. With care, Owen coiled what was left of the belt around the buckle, wrapped it in the cloth, and tucked it into his scrip. He would show it to Thoresby and Wykeham, but no one here, not even the coroner – his job was but to record that she had died and how. For now he would be satisfied with death by burning.
    Owen shuttered the lantern and stepped out of the shed. Alfred awaited him.
    ‘Get me some water to wash my hands. Then I want to talk to the men who carried her out.’
    Owen leaned back against the wall while he waited, hands hanging at his sides, eye closed, breathing. Even the smoky air was better than the air in the shed.
    Alfred returned with the man he had pointed out earlier. Owen recognized him as a blacksmith’sapprentice – someone unafraid of fire. He had little to add to what Owen had already heard.
    Another man came forward, holding out a leather strap decorated with glass beads. ‘This dropped from the woman, I think,’ he said, placing it in Owen’s hand.
    It was a pretty bauble, or had been before the fire had ruined it, perhaps the woman’s girdle. Owen added it to the other piece of leather in his scrip. It was something by which she might be identified.
    ‘Tell me about the other, the injured man.’
    ‘He lay beneath a burning barrel. His arm broken.’
    ‘Why did he not free himself?’
    ‘His head was bleeding. Perhaps he was in a faint.’
    ‘The barrel was atop him?’
    ‘Aye.’
    Owen drew Alfred away from the others. ‘I want a guard on my house, where the injured man lies.’
    ‘Protecting a witness?’
    ‘Aye.’ Or the murderer . ‘And my family.’
    ‘Colin is in this crowd. I shall find him and take him with me.’
    ‘Good man.’

Three
     
PAINFUL REMEDIES
     
    S oaking a cloth in a bowl of water, Lucie knelt to the injured man. Poins, the Fitzbaldric couple had called him. He had patches of dark hair between the burned areas, trimmed close to his head,