But all at once I found I didn’t want to go on.
Jack turned to Lady Emma. ‘Have we your permission to search through Rosaria’s belongings?’
She nodded, clearly understanding. ‘Of course. This way.’
She and Lord Gilbert stood in the doorway while Edild and I inspected the many items that Lady Rosaria had spread out. Beautiful robes and underclothing; fine shoes; rich jewellery. And then, in a small leather bag tied with a drawstring, a little glass pot containing a mysterious dark substance.
Edild removed the lid and inspected the contents. After quite a long time, she said, ‘This is kohl. It is a cosmetic, used to outline and enhance the eyes.’ I wondered if the others were having the same thought: having suffered the terrible mutilation of her nose, it was hardly surprising that she wished to make her other features as beautiful as possible. And, out of memory, once again those magnificent dark eyes stared at me.
‘Kohl is made from finely powdered stibium, otherwise called antimony,’ Edild went on, ‘mixed up with soot and blended with olive oil to make a paste.’ She was already searching through the remainder of the objects Rosaria had left spread around the room. ‘We must try to find the raw ingredients,’ she muttered. Then she raised her head, looking at each of us in turn. ‘Stibium is a poison, producing headaches, dizziness, sickness. It is used as an emetic, but in ruthless hands, it is the tool of a murderer. Fed in regular small amounts over many days, the resulting continual vomiting weakens the victim, until finally they become so debilitated that they can no longer hold off death.’
Edild was still searching, her movements increasingly desperate. Gently Jack caught hold of her hands. ‘If you are right,’ he said, ‘and I am sure you are, she will have got rid of the poison long since.’
Edild stopped, then stood perfectly still. ‘Of course,’ she said neutrally.
‘So – so Rosaria, who was originally the maid, poisoned the blonde woman, who was originally her mistress, by putting this stuff in her food all the way home?’ Lord Gilbert’s fury seemed about to choke him, and I couldn’t help wondering if he would have been as indignant had it been the lady who had poisoned the maid.
‘It seems likely,’ Jack said.
‘Can this theory be put to the test?’ Lord Gilbert demanded. ‘The drowned woman is still in the crypt beneath the church. You!’ He spun round to Edild. ‘Can you tell for sure if she had taken poison?’
‘I will try,’ Edild said calmly, ‘although it must now be almost a fortnight since her death.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ I said firmly. I was desperate to get her alone, for she needed to know the whole story.
My aunt and I stood over the body of the blonde woman, and Edild frowned in concentration. After some time, she said, ‘To establish with certainty whether or not she was given antimony, I’ll have to open her stomach and inspect the contents.’ Already she was pulling at the winding sheet.
I caught hold of her wrist. ‘Don’t,’ I said softly. I’d once seen Gurdyman perform the procedure on a corpse, and I didn’t want it to happen to this woman.
Edild shot me a look. ‘Explain.’
I paused, gathering my thoughts. Then I said, ‘As we surmise, Rosaria was a slave. She wasn’t Harald’s daughter-in-law, but one of his servants, sent by the dying Harald to accompany the tall, blonde woman and her little boy on her long voyage to find her English kin. Rosaria wasn’t married to any son of Harald; perhaps he never even had a son.’ Again, I paused. ‘But he did have a daughter, and his daughter married a man of the south, dark-haired and olive-skinned. When he died and Harald was dying, Harald’s daughter and her baby were the last of his line, for had there been other family in Constantinople, then there would have been no need to send them so far away. He had to save them,’ I went on, ‘and getting them away to his kindred in the north was the best he could do.’
Edild was touching the dead woman’s shoulder with delicate fingers. I saw a tear on her cheek.
Very softly I said, ‘This is Harald’s daughter. She’s your cousin.’
I heard Edild sharply draw in her breath.
There was silence for a long time. Then Edild put her hand down to where the sheet covered the dead woman’s heart, resting it lightly above the smooth linen. ‘We would have welcomed you, cousin,’ she said gently. ‘We are not rich, and have no fine houses such as Rosaria was hoping to find, but what we have we would have shared with you.’
I waited until Edild raised her head, then, my eyes holding hers, I said, ‘Rosaria killed her. She poisoned her, bit by bit, making her sick for days on end, and she took her identity. Then, when she finally succumbed and died, Rosaria pushed her body into the water. The storm surge and the flood that came immediately afterwards dislodged the corpse from wherever it was hidden, and washed it so far inland up the river that, when it was found, Aelf Fen was the nearest place to which to go for help.’
Slowly Edild nodded. ‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘Yes, that is how it must have been.’ Then, frowning, she said, ‘But why, when Harald sent his daughter away to England, did he let her and her maidservant believe they were going to find a noble, rich household where they would live in luxury? He knew they wouldn’t. He knew they’d only find us.’
I thought about what Sihtric the monk had said: There was never anyone like Harald for building up a tale, and we always took everything he said with a pinch of salt. ‘He exaggerated,’ I said softly. ‘So far from home, who was to know if he made his family out to be richer and more powerful than they really were? In time, no doubt, like many braggarts, he came to believe his own boasting. I don’t think,’ I concluded, ‘that he’d deliberately have misled his beloved daughter.’
For some time, neither of us spoke. Then, taking a breath and squaring her shoulders, Edild bestowed a last gentle pat on the dead woman and turned away. ‘I shall leave her be. The kohl we found among Rosaria’s belongings is sufficient to suggest she could have poisoned her mistress; whether or not she did, it hardly makes any difference now.’ She met my eyes. ‘God will judge her,’ she murmured.
Then she led the way across the crypt to the steps, and we left our dead kinswoman to the peace of death.
The earthquake that hit the north-western tip of the Anatolian plateau that September morning brought down a long section of the ruined walls of ancient Troy. The group of twenty-three northerners who had been standing at the foot of the plateau when disaster struck got off lightly; only two of them died.
The remainder, leaderless, terrified almost to madness, at first tried with frantic hands to extract their fallen comrades from the huge heap of earth and stones. But it was hopeless. The ground was still shuddering, and, pausing only to scratch a few hasty runes on to a block of fallen masonry, they fled.
As they hastened back to Gullinbursti, carrying the unconscious and helping the injured and dazed, a pair of ravens soared overhead.
Rollo came to himself two days later. His head ached so badly that he groaned aloud. Exploring his skull with nervous fingers, he found a lump the size of an egg on his forehead and a long ragged cut running up into his hairline. His left leg hurt, too. Risking a glance at it, he saw that his ankle had been put in splints and bandaged.
He dared not even start to think what sort of injury those wrappings concealed.
But I am alive, he thought.
He thought back to the moment of disaster. He had seen the high cliff that formed the edge of the plateau begin to quiver, and then, as it had melted before his horrified eyes, he had dashed forward to try to pull Skuli back.
Now, as he gazed around the deck, slowly counting heads, he understood that he had failed. Skuli was gone; so was Tostig the singer, who had been at Skuli’s side as they approached the place Skuli had convinced his crew was Asgard, home of the gods. Fat Eric now held the tiller, but he wasn’t laughing any more.