Study of Murder, The (Five Star Mystery Series) (22 page)

Grymbaud sent men to check the taverns, splitting our party into several smaller ones in order to search more quickly. Donald accompanied another party, but Grymbaud and I entered The Green Man. The tavern smelled of ale, wine and smoke from the hearth and bustled with the clamor of thirsty citizens. Master Jakeson approached and we told him of our search. He responded sympathetically, but asked us not to tell his wife, who was busy in the kitchens. He feared the news of yet another missing woman would upset her. Some students were dicing at a back table, but no one there looked familiar and I saw no sign of my wife. It was the same in all the other taverns we tried.

The lecture halls on School Street were locked up for the night, but there were student tenements on that narrow street as well, and we began the slow task of going door to door, rousing students from their evening pastimes. A few we actually found studying, but we did not find William of Uist.

The night grew later and even the taverns began to empty out. We shone our torches in the faces of the revelers straggling back to their rooms, but still found nothing. The torches burned lower and finally Grymbaud took me aside. “We’ve found nothing, Muirteach. It’s late. The torches have burned out. We must stop for the night.”

A dark shadow of what I hoped was a cat crossed the alley, on some nocturnal mission of its own. I heard the skittering of what sounded like rats in the gutter and listened for a moment before I replied.

“Come, Muirteach, the men are exhausted. We can start again in the morning, after a little rest.”

Donald stumbled over and gave a huge yawn.

“You all can go home,” I declared stubbornly, ignoring my own gritty eyes and weariness, intent only on my consuming need to find my wife. “I must keep searching for her.”

“I’ll stay with you,” Donald volunteered. “Perhaps we’ll find something. And it won’t be too long until students start heading for the morning lectures. They start early.”

“Perhaps we could see who attends Rudolfo’s lectures and ask among them. Someone there might have information.”

“That’s wise, Muirteach,” Grymbaud put in. “But I think you’ll make more sense of the search if you were to sleep for an hour or two now. That one,” and he glanced at Donald, “looks like he needs sleep, even if you do not.”

Donald yawned again. “I am happy to stay with you and keep searching,” he insisted.

Finally, I gave in and went with Donald back to Widow Tanner’s. The kitten was curled up on the bed, but it moved aside a bit when I came in. I thought sleep would not come but my eyes closed as soon as my head hit the bedding, and I unwillingly collapsed into a few hours of disordered slumber.

I awoke with the feeling I had forgotten something. My dream faded, a worrisome dream in which I ransacked piles of parchment, looking for something important I had lost. My heart pounded with anxiety as I searched the towering piles of parchment, all written in some indecipherable text.

I slowly came back to myself and realized it had been only the imaginings of sleep. The kitten still slept, and the moon shone in through the cracks in the wooden shutters. Then I realized where I was, and that Mariota was not there, and my heart began racing again in panic. Mariota had been missing for nearly a day now.

I tried to force my breath to come more slowly and to think rationally. We were to search again today, to ask the students in Master Rudolfo’s class if they had seen anything of William of Uist. And it was time we were on our way. The morning lectures started early.

I roused Donald and after a quick drink of small ale from the widow’s pantry we took a lantern and made our way through the quiet streets of early morning into the town toward School Street. A sliver of moon was just setting in the west, while to the east the sky began to lighten, but Oxford was beginning to stir. I smelled smoke as cooking fires were kindled and heard the bang of shutters and doors as townsfolk opened their upper windows, merchants readied themselves for the business of the day, and sleepy students made their way to class.

We made our way to the hall where Master Rudolfo gave his lectures. I did not see Brother Eusebius this morning, but many other students were jostling each other as they went inside and took their seats on the wooden benches. I spoke to Master Rudolfo and he gave me permission to address the students. There were some hushed murmurs among the clerks as I told them of the missing “William of Uist” and asked anyone with information on the lad to send word to myself or to Donald. One of the students, a tall, brown-haired lad, stood quietly and left his place on the benches to speak with us.

I felt that funny tightness in my chest again as I waited for the boy to begin. He introduced himself as James Heresward, from Suffolk. He was a gentle-spoken lad, with a grave countenance, and lodged at some tenements on Canditch. “I believe I saw the lad you seek after the lectures, walking toward Smithgate. I was walking that way, heading home to break my fast,” he said. “I tried to speak with the boy, but he is very shy. He passed me and kept walking.” James shrugged his shoulders. “That is all I know. I’m sorry not to be of more help.”

“Did you see anyone else?” I asked, rubbing my gritty eyes.

“The streets are crowded at that time of the morning,” James returned. “There were many folk about but when I left him, the lad was still walking alone, down Canditch.”

“And you’d swear to this?” I demanded.

“Of course. Why do you doubt my word?” he responded with some annoyance.

I thanked him and apologized for my churlishness. Then we left.

“So,” Donald commented as we walked along crowded High Street, “we know Mariota nearly reached home yesterday. But what could have happened to her? How could she have disappeared so near to our lodgings?”

“I can think of many things that might have happened to her,” I said darkly, “and none of them are good.” I waited impatiently while Donald stopped at a newly opened baker’s stall for a fresh bun. The normally appetizing scent of fresh bread did nothing for me. I had no desire for food; the thought of it made my stomach turn. Finally, Donald paid for his purchase and we continued toward Widow Tanner’s. We had just passed Northgate and were starting down Canditch when I saw Phillip Woode hurrying down the street.

“Muirteach,” he called, then quieted as he came closer “Good God, man, what is wrong? You look terrible.”

“It’s my wife,” I told him. “She’s disappeared.”

“God, no. Like Jonetta.”

“No, not like Jonetta!” I practically screamed at him. “Jonetta ran off with a chapman. My wife was last seen here, not thirty yards from our lodgings, in bright morning light. And yet she’s vanished.”

“As Jonetta did. Don’t you recall we were to search for her today? With the undersheriff’s men?”

I had forgotten our conversation of the day before. But the backlands were as good a place to search as any. I walked with Phillip back to Grymbaud’s headquarters in the castle. He and his men had just finished breaking their fast on small ale and bread. The undersheriff did not look overjoyed to see Phillip Woode but he listened to Phillip’s story and, after hearing of the silver pendant Anthony had found and Phillip’s assertion that it was the one he had given to Jonetta, agreed to send additional men, led by his man Ralf, to search the outskirts with us.

The search was thorough. The noxious vats at the Widow’s tannery were probed and the vintner’s wine casks thumped. A few kegs were tapped and sampled, Master Gibbes’s protests notwithstanding, and all the outbuildings searched. We searched the Benedictines’ college and then we moved across the street to the Austin Friars. Ralf and his men knocked on the wooden door in the stone wall that surrounded the establishment.

“We’re seeking information on the whereabouts of two young women, lately missing,” Ralf said.

“Two young women?” the Hospitaller echoed, a thin elderly man with concerned brown eyes. “I’d heard one girl from the town had disappeared. Now you say there’s another?”

“Aye,” Ralf responded grimly. “The second woman disappeared but yesterday.”

“She’s fair,” I interjected, “with light hair and blue eyes. She was dressed as a lad, wearing a blue tunic with a hood.”

“Dressed as a lad?” the Hospitaller repeated. I fumed at his slowness. “We had heard of the first disappearance and the troubles in the town. The slayings. But now you say another woman has vanished. This is a bad business.”

“Indeed,” Grymbaud’s assistant said, “and a medal belonging to the first girl, Master Jakeson’s daughter, was found on the road outside.”

The Hospitaller’s eyes widened.

“And so we are searching all the area here. Have you seen or heard aught suspicious?”

“No.” The friar shook his head. “We keep the door barred and see little of the outside world, as a rule. Although, of course, some of our friars are active in the university. They come and go into the town, so of course we knew of the trouble. But there are no women within these walls, you can be sure of that.”

I had spent time in an Augustinian priory as a young boy. That sect is not as cloistered as some others, and I could well imagine some of the canons teaching in the universities.

“Still, we must search,” Ralf insisted, obdurate.

The Hospitaller shrugged. “Come inside. I will call the Prior.”

The prior was concerned and although he protested we would find nothing he let us search without further demur.

We found nothing untoward in the place. No hidden women, no trace of anything, except an austere friars’ dormitory and a few rooms not so austere. At the end of the dormitory was a fine library. We thanked the Austin Friars and left them to their devotions and their studies.

Outside there were few other buildings to search. The abandoned homes on the other side of the road, past the college of the Benedictines, were quickly looked over. Some had once been fine houses, several-storied, but all had fallen into grievous disrepair. Most were locked up tight, but Ralf ordered the shutters pried open so we could peer in. It was clear that the dwellings were empty and long untenanted. There were some outbuildings, also closed and locked. We pounded on the doors and peered through cracks in the wattle but saw nothing.

“These buildings are long undisturbed,” said Ralf. “There’s no sign of anyone having been here in a long while. No tracks.”

I wiped some of the dust from my face and peered in through another shuttered window.

“It’s that damned pestilence. It’s hard to see the ruins this town has come to,” Ralf swore.

“The same could be said for many places,” Phillip Woode observed.

“Aye.” The sheriff’s man kicked at a brick that had fallen forlornly into the yard. “Well, there’s nothing to be found here.”

“But she must be here,” I insisted. “People do not just vanish. What of the woods behind us?”

Ralf nodded. “We’ll search the woods.” He stopped. “There are two lymers at the castle, scenting hounds. Perhaps we could have the use of them for a time.” He gave orders for one of the men to go to the castle and return with the hounds, and sent me to get some of Mariota’s garments from our lodgings with orders to meet them on Canditch.

I went back to our rooms and found Mariota’s dress, still lying folded neatly where she had left it the morning before. The sight of it caused a tight lump in my throat and brought tears to my eyes, like a maid. I could not control myself as I picked it up to take back to the men. Mariota must be found. Surely I would sense it if she—I could not even frame the thought. No, we would find her, safe, and together we would laugh about this someday.

The kitten was not in our chamber. I stopped in the kitchen to inform the widow how the search progressed and spied it lapping at some milk from a pottery dish on the floor.

“They think to use the lymers to find her,” I explained shortly to Widow Tanner, who was kneading some bread on the worn wooden table while Avice chopped leeks nearby. Rufous prowled underfoot, whined, wanting scraps I supposed.

“Aye.” Widow Tanner nodded, her face looking pinched and much older today. “Godspeed. Avice and I are away to the church after these chores to pray to Our Lady for your success.”

Perhaps Our Lady was otherwise occupied this day, for when I returned with Mariota’s blue dress under my arm, there was still no sign of my wife.

“At least they’ve found no bodies,” Phillip Woode informed me. That comment did little to ease the pit in my gut and the tightness in my chest and throat.

By now the dogs had arrived from Oxford Castle, two gigantic, slavering beasts that tugged against the chains that held them. One was brindled brown and black and the other a lighter color, gray with brown spots here and there. I handed my wife’s dress to their keeper and the dogs sniffed at it eagerly, pulling at their leashes.

“Now,” said the handler, “let us see if they pick up her scent.”

I was suddenly minded of Somerled, the dog I had left back at home in Islay, as I watched the hound sniffing at the garment.

This activity received curious stares from the good folk of Oxford, about their business that morning. Apparently the fierceness of the dogs and the presence of the authorities kept the citizenry of the town at bay as most scuttled by us with an anxious glance at the beasts.

The hounds seemed confused on the street. Canditch Street was a much-used thoroughfare, after all. But after a time they seemed to catch the trail of something. The brown lymer paused, as if wanting to turn into the widow’s house, but then picked up the scent again, his nose close to the ground, and followed the trail up the road, past the tannery and the vintner Gibbes’s property, past the area we’d searched already that morning, and on up the road. The gray dog followed.

My heart began beating faster, with dread or anticipation. Perhaps we would find Mariota safe at last.

The first hound, all business, put his nose to the earth and moved on steadily, seeming to attend to his task, while the other beast bayed excitedly and started to dart toward the left of the road, but gave up after a bit and was pulled back by his keeper.