The Final Toll Read online

  Table of Contents

  Praise for the Servant of the Crown Mysteries

  Epigraph

  Apologies

  Horarium

  Martinmas

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixfteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Day of Saint Eucherius of Lyon

  A Note from Denise

  Other Books

  Glossary

  Copyright

  From Award-winning, best-selling author Denise Domning

  PRAISE FOR THE FIRST SERVANT OF THE CROWN MYSTERY, SEASON OF THE RAVEN

  "Domning brings the English countryside alive with all the rich detail of a Bosch painting. With well realized characters and a depth of historical detail, she creates a vibrant mystery and a layered, engaging protagonist. CSI 12th century style. I can't wait to see more."

  — Christina Skye, New York Times best-selling author of A Highlander for Christmas

  "Pure and unapologetically Medieval...The world of Medieval justice is revealed in all of its shortcomings. Five solid stars."

  — Kathryn LeVeque, best-selling author of The Wolfe

  "Fascinating details of Medieval life"

  — Catherine Kean, author of Dance of Desire

  Epigraph

  Laudo Deum verum, plebem voco, congrego clerum. Defunctos ploro, nimbum fugo, festa decoro.

  I praise the true God, I call the people, I assemble the clergy; I bewail the dead, I dispense storm clouds, I do honor to feasts.

  My Apologies

  Mea culpa to everyone who waited far too long for this book. 2018 turned out to be a year full of twists, turns, overwhelming failures, and unbelievable successes. That included my inability to prove whodunnit to Faucon, who persisted (for more than two months over my objections) until he got it right.

  As always, I offer my apologies to the people of Warwickshire for absconding with your county, adding places that don't exist and parsing your history to suit my needs. Beyond that, I've done my best to recreate the 12th Century as accurately as possible.

  Horarium (THE HOURS)

  Matins, 12:00 Midnight

  Lauds, 3:00 AM

  Prime, 6:00 AM

  Terce, 9:00 AM

  Sext, 12:00 Noon

  None, 3:00 PM

  Vespers, 6:00 PM

  Compline, 9:00 PM

  I jerk into consciousness. Pain wracks my body, and my soul. Frantically, I reach deep within me, seeking His holy presence.

  There is nothing.

  My heart breaks. The punishment of the scourge wasn’t enough. I am no longer a vessel for His will. Despair joins the fire that consumes my back.

  Only then do I recognize that I lie face down on a cot. With my head resting to one side I can see a tiny tallow lamp atop the stool set near my head. Its wee flame batters valiantly at the enclosing night.

  Light in the dark hours is a luxury allowed only in our infirmary. My precious privacy has been invaded! Moaning, I shift, intending escape, but I haven’t the strength to move, much less walk.

  “Ah, you are with us once more, Sister Cellaress.” Mother Superior speaks from near my feet. Although the abbess of our house is the younger, her voice quavers like an old woman’s. I am incapable of turning my head to look at her.

  “You vowed not to interfere,” I whisper because it hurts to draw breath. All the better that I am too weak to express my outrage.

  Our abbess already dislikes me as much as I dislike her. The noblewoman who shepherds our convent is everything the men of this world expect of the daughters of Eve. Plump and sweet-natured, she rules with a gentle hand, one ignorant of the rigor necessary to forge saints from sinners. Nor will she heed me when I tell her that her gentleness cheats those under her care of our rightful seats at our Lord’s table. Goodness is not enough. The path of righteousness requires mortification of the flesh and self-abnegation.

  “You have gone too far this time, Sister,” Mother chides with unexpected harshness for her. “It is a miracle you survived long enough for that child to find you. Sister Infirmaress says your wounds already fester. By my command, you will confine yourself to the infirmary until you are completely healed.” She pauses. “And I have confiscated your scourge.”

  Even though I despise her for her ignorance, I forgive her. The men who control her hoard the truth, scheming to keep our Lord to themselves, believing all women undeserving of His love.

  Much to my surprise with my act of forgiveness the barest hint of Life stirs within me. I breathe out as I understand His message. I have not failed. Instead, it is my time, my time to join Him and the sweet innocents I sent ahead of me.

  But that cannot be. We are only eleven when there must be twelve.

  With that thought peace overtakes me. I drift back into unconsciousness, certain I will not make my journey alone.

  Leading his borrowed horse, Faucon de Ramis strode steadily toward his new home at Blacklea, eyes narrowed and jaw tight. Dressed in a tunic and chausses of hunter's green, he wore a boiled leather hauberk and an old brown cloak that the day's chill wind tossed as it howled through the fields and orchards that spread out before him. God's breath pummeled the rise of earth on which the villagers had built their homes, tearing at thatched roofs and slamming unattended shutters.

  All of Blacklea's folk were in the orchard for the day. The adults, dusky homespun blankets cloaking their jewel-bright attire, manned ladders and baskets as their children scampered like squirrels along knobby branches, claiming the last of this year's fruit.

  His villagers. Although Faucon hadn't lived in Blacklea a full two months, it already felt more like home to him than had either his father's hall or his foster father's keep. Then again, he had never expected to have a home of his own. He was a second son, the son traditionally given to the Church.

  And, priest he would have been if not for his brother's accident. Faucon glanced at Will, or rather not-Will, for the man who had awakened days after taking a severe blow to his head wasn't the brother Faucon remembered. Will was also afoot, walking between their mounts, whistling a bawdy tune. Like everything else he'd done since appearing unexpectedly almost two weeks ago, even Will's choice of song rang false. Although Faucon was grateful that his brother wasn't screaming like a madman or hunkering in a corner, rocking and clutching at his head, almost two weeks spent in constant contact with his sibling had introduced him to a man he wasn't much sure he cared to know.

  "Sir Faucon?"

  Faucon looked over his shoulder at Alf. Tall and fair-haired, the former miller and soldier, now Faucon's man-at-arms, lagged a polite distance behind the two better-born knights. Lashed to the saddle of Alf's piebald nag was the skinned and gutted roebuck that Faucon and Will had taken in Lord Graistan's chase just after Prime this morning.

  As Alf caught his master's gaze the soldier gave a jerk of his head in the direction of the well-traveled road behind them. Four mounted men had appeared in the distance, making their way along that thoroughfare at an easy walk. Despite that they wore only unmarked leather hauberks with no helmets on their heads, Faucon knew them. Sir Alain's men had appeared here and there on the road over the past week, always following at a discreet if ominous distance.

  What little joy Faucon had managed to wring from thi
s day dissipated. He turned his gaze back to the village ahead of him. Not only had they taken their roebuck far too quickly, now the sheriff was once again reminding him that he also hunted, his prey being this shire's new Coronarius. Faucon's mouth twisted. As if Sir Alain hadn't made his threat clear enough by way of the assassins he'd sent not long ago.

  Will's whistle faltered. That brought Faucon's attention back to his brother. They favored their mother, their faces wearing the stamp of the de Vere family: black hair, broad brow, lean cheeks, and long nose. As did Faucon, Will wore a closely-trimmed beard, choosing that style to hide a chin they agreed was too pointed. With Will wearing the same style hauberk and green and brown attire, they looked almost like twins. The only difference was that the hair at Will's temples was already silver, he being Faucon's elder by two years.

  No expression filled his brother's dark gaze. "What is it?" Will asked.

  "Naught," Faucon replied with a shake of his head and a casual shrug.

  His brows lifted, Will studied the settlement before them. "I vow, Pery," he said with a laugh, using Faucon's pet name. Pery was short for Peregrine and a play on the meaning of Faucon. "I look upon this place and am once again awed by your incredible good fortune. Our uncle must truly love you. Not only has he arranged for you to have your own village, he's given you an income! Why, twenty pounds a year is more than I will inherit when our father passes."

  Rather than joy for a beloved brother, subtle rancor soured Will's words. It was a reminder that Will understood just how damaged his accident had left him. So too did he understand why their father had diverted Faucon from his monastery school— and the potential of celibacy— to make a knight of him.

  "Hardly a gift, Will," Faucon replied, once again scanning the fields and orchards that lay between them and Blacklea. "Not only must I pay rent to Lord Rannulf, but I also support both my clerk and Alf. You've seen how much of my time is consumed by the tasks delegated to this new position of mine. Is this not the first day since your arrival that I've been free to please myself?"

  "True enough," Will agreed, rancor giving way to a hint of satisfaction. "Better you than me, Brother. Not only do I question if your new duties befit a knight, but I know I'd find your doings boring."

  Faucon couldn't disagree with his brother over uninteresting work. There hadn't been an intriguing death since that of Jessimond of Wike. Of the six corpses he'd examined since then, only one had been a murder. But the murderer— an almost penniless cottager— had killed for food and had been caught in the act.

  Pity for the man shot through Faucon. The wretch owned little more than his knife, his cup, and the clothes on his back. With no one in his village willing to vow they'd bring him before the justices when called, he'd been imprisoned in the sheriff's keep at Killingworth. Without the coin to buy himself free or kin to feed him, he would surely starve unless some charitable townsman chose to save him.

  "Sir Faucon!" a boy shouted from the field at Faucon's right. It was the lad who tended the village geese. Today, his feathered charges grazed among the stubbled remains of autumn wheat, seeking what seeds might be left after the humans, cows, hogs, and sheep had done their gleaning.

  As Faucon lifted his hand in acknowledgment, the goose boy started toward him at a trot. The blanket tied around his shoulders flapped as he ran, startling his birds. They honked the alarm and scattered.

  "Sir, Lady Marian said I should warn you that a foreign knight came looking for our new Crowner," the lad called as he came, using the title the English -speaking folk had given Faucon's new position. "He waits for you at your house."

  Although Faucon understood the commoners' guttural tongue well enough, he frowned at the word foreign until he realized the boy meant only that the stranger wasn't from Blacklea. "Many thanks for the warning and for delivering the message," he called back. "By chance do you know if men came from Graistan with our horses?"

  "Aye, sir. Walked past me not long ago, they did," the boy replied with a grin and a wave, pleased at having won his new master's notice and gratitude.

  The boy's cheery enthusiasm teased a scornful laugh out of Will. "Yokels," he said with a shake of his head, then went back to whistling his tune.

  Faucon's jaw tightened until he thought bone might shatter. More than anything he wanted to ask his brother when he intended to depart. He couldn't. He was trapped in the role of gracious host, and there he would stay until Will either chose to leave or lost himself in one of his mad fits.

  To the warble of his brother's lilt they made their way past the orchard, Faucon exchanging greetings with his folk. Once through the flimsy gateway that stood in the weathered and even flimsier wooden wall encircling the mound, the track became little more than a narrow and deeply-cut footpath. That forced them to walk single-file up the face of the mound. The higher they climbed, the closer the cottages stood to the path until Faucon could have stretched out either arm and touched a door.

  The top of the mound had been flattened by men from some long-forgotten age who had then used the local reddish stone to build a structure upon it. That building was naught but tumbled ruins that grew now ever more sparse. Not even fear of the dead prevented the villagers from plundering the past to create their future. The stones had been used throughout the village, including for their tiny church. That chapel with its newer, square tower stood among the homes of Blacklea's wealthiest inhabitants, among them the erstwhile steward.

  The remainder of the mound top belonged to Blacklea's landlord, much to Faucon's benefit. Enclosed by low stone walls were the gardens that fed him, several paddocks, and a pasture for his horse, as well as a stable and a kitchen shed. As with the church, the house that presently belonged to Faucon had also risen from that ancient ruin. Three times the size of the largest cottage and also capped with slate, his new home had thick defensive walls, but no keep tower for a final refuge.

  Faucon's gaze flickered across its front wall to linger longingly on the three closely-spaced arrow slits cut into the stone. Those defensive openings marked what was a private bedchamber, fitted out with a comfortable curtained bed, his to use as long as he lived here. That was, unless he had a visitor. Will presently slept in that bed while Faucon bore Alf company in the hall, both of them taking their rest on straw-stuffed pallets.

  Sighing, his gaze shifted to the wooden stairway that clung to the exterior wall, leading to a doorway raised a storey above the earth. Beneath the steps, their backs to the house as they sheltered from the wind, were four men and a lad. The men were Graistan's grooms, or so said their pale blue tunics, come to reclaim their lord's hunting horses. The lad, dressed in vibrant yellow and green, was Robert, son of Blacklea's steward Sir John and his wife Lady Marian. Not yet old enough to be squired, Robert played a string game with one of the younger grooms while the other three men diced.

  As Alf turned his horse to take the carcass it bore to the kitchen shed, Faucon and Will brought their borrowed mounts to a halt at the foot of the stairs. The grooms rose and Robert tangled his string around his fingers, then skipped and hopped his way to join Blacklea's new master.

  "Sir Faucon! Maman is fetching food and drink for your visitor. Look at what he gave me," Robert finished, wiggling his string-bound fingers at his benefactor, the same groom who had just claimed the reins of Faucon's borrowed mount. "Now I know how to play my own game without Mimi." Robert pined for his older sister Marianne, who had just begun her fostering with the sisters at Nuneaton.

  "That was kind of him," Faucon replied with a smile.

  It was easy to like the lad. Not only was he a handsome, fair-haired boy, he'd inherited his mother's cheerful disposition. For that reason Faucon was considering Marian's request that he take her son as his squire for as long as he lived at Blacklea and acted as the shire's Coronarius.

  It was the thought of becoming the boy's teacher that made him ask, "Did you thank the man? A knight always offers thanks when he receives a gift."

  Robert grin
ned. "I did, because I was very glad to have this gift."

  Just then Robert's dam rounded the corner of the house. Lady Marian moved at her usual bold pace with her head raised to a proud angle. Braced on her arms was a tray on which sat a pitcher, a half loaf of bread, and a wedge of cheese. The woman who had once claimed Faucon's new home as her own and who still served as its lady wore a fine green mantle atop her blue work-a-day attire. Her plain face was framed by a clean white headcloth.

  As usual, her lips were lifted in a smile and her blue eyes sparkled. That was, until she saw Will. Instantly, Marian's pace slowed. She bowed her head until her face was shielded in the folds of her head covering.

  Halting well out of reach of either Faucon or his brother, she gave a quick bend of her knees. "Well come home, Sir Faucon, Sir William," she said, her voice lowered to the soft tones expected of a well-bred woman. "Sir Faucon, Sir Adam of Bagot arrived a short while ago. He insisted on waiting for you even though I couldn't say when you might return. Thus did I suggest he take his ease in your hall. He has enjoyed our fresh cider, but with the hour growing late, I invited him to partake of our midday meal. This I did with the warning that our meal is simple and the only thing I could offer him for drink better than cider was ale."

  Irritation stirred sharply in Faucon. Although Mar-ian had made no complaint against Will, her unnatural reticence in his presence said she didn't trust his brother. Truth be told, neither did Faucon, but then he knew how unpredictable Will could be. Marian didn't.

  "Many thanks, Lady Marian. I can bear your tray into the hall for my guest if you do not mind returning to the kitchen a second time on my behalf, so my brother and I might also eat." As he spoke, he stretched out his arms to take her burden, his irritation with Will growing. It cut him to the quick that he had to speak with such awkward formality to a woman he thought of as a friend.