Page 48 of Lord of the Forest

Chapter Nineteen

Lancelot’s interrogation was shaming and humiliating. Having spent three years living hand-to-mouth in the forest, he’d thought he had no pride left but, evidently, he did. Enough to make the experience quite hideous for him. However, Justice of the Peace Sir Richard Kelsey, who was presiding over the proceedings, was a fair and intelligent man. The result of this was that, somewhat unexpectedly, Lancelot found himself outside in the street half an hour later, accompanied by the justice, the local constable, and a red-faced Walter de Glanville.

Immediately in front of the Recorder’s House, where his initial hearing had taken place, a strange sight met his eyes. Two oddly-dressed personages had stationed themselves there. One, a thin, ugly-looking woman wearing Clemence’s gown, was struggling to mount a horse bearing a sidesaddle. She seemed to want to throw one leg over, but was continually hampered by her skirts and her groom’s admonitions.

Lancelot pulled to a halt, his entourage stopping in his wake. “Clemence?”

Both personages turned around at the sound of his voice, and in an instant, the “groom” was at his side, white-faced and staring.

“Lancelot! You’re free?” It was Clemence’s voice. He shook his head and stared, but the vision of his beloved in a shirt, with a doublet laced tightly across her chest, and her shapely legs encased in long hose, refused to go away.

“For the moment. Why are you wearing your groom Perkin’s clothes?”

The boy slid down from the horse, crimson-cheeked. There was a hint of fuzz on his upper lip—surely, no one would ever have taken him for a woman? Lancelot felt a tremor of laughter, but as he was in the midst of urgent business with the local judiciary, as well as his accuser, Walter de Glanville, he fought the urge.

Clemence clung to his hand, keeping, he noticed, well away from Walter. “Tell me—what’s going on?”

“There’s no time, my dove. Walk with us—if you can in your new finery. Perkin must come, too. The sooner you’re both restored to your proper costumes, the better. I have recalled enough about propriety to understand only a woman of loose morals would don a man’s garb.”

“Can’t you recall useful things, instead?” she grumbled, but the clasp of her hand belied her frown. “Whither are you bound?”

“To the house of a local physician. Come—we cannot wait.”

“Of course.” She grabbed up her basket, gazed at it a moment, and handed it to Perkin. “It looks wrong with these clothes.”

There was a snort behind him. “If that is the way Mistress Clemence Fitzpayne chooses to behave, I wish you well of her, Brother. Not that you will have the time to enjoy her before sentence is passed.”

Lancelot turned his head slowly and speared Walter de Glanville with a glare. If he’d had a real spear to hand, that would have been infinitely preferable—but to draw blood in front of Clemence would be an abominable thing to do. He must keep a cool head.

“You assume too much, Brother. You have yet to prove me guilty of any wrongdoing.”

“Forgetting you’ve done murder doesn’t render you innocent,” Walter spat back at him.

“Enough, gentlemen. Your dispute will be settled by due process, not by bickering or insults.” Sir Richard waved a hand, indicating the direction they must take, and fell into step beside Lancelot and Clemence.

Lancelot could feel Walter’s inimical eyes on him, and experienced an unpleasant sensation between his shoulder blades as if a dagger were being slowly but surely pushed home. If only he were not now in the hands of the law! They could have settled this dispute like men—in hand-to-hand combat. He had no objection to risking his body to keep Clemence, but it would be Walter who spilled the most blood.

He wouldn’t give the scurvy knave the satisfaction of turning around. Gripping Clemence’s hand, he strode forward, his mind working. If only he could remember the circumstances under which he’d been attacked all those years ago. That would settle things once and for all.

“Lancelot—you still haven’t told me what happened.” There was an edge to Clemence’s voice that he knew only too well.

“Put simply, the justice needed to determine if there is a case to answer, and if so, which court session I should attend. Walter brought no witnesses to substantiate the claim that I strangled Paris. He’d wagered on having a woman to support him—our Mistress Wentworth, no less. But he was given no chance to locate her since my interrogation was brought forward. In the meantime, the issue over the lack of a body became of great significance.”

Alack! How grim it was to think of his brother as no more than earthly remains—just bones, dust, and clay. All life came to this in the end, but Paris, he was sure, had been taken before his time, and that was unforgivable. Now that it came down to it, Lancelot was as keen to find out the truth as Walter pretended to be.

“So, the absence of a body or a witness caused a conundrum. As, eventually, did the fact I kept scratching the back of my head, as I’m apt to do when anxious, apparently.”

Sir Richard leaned forward and looked at Clemence. “Mistress. Master. I know not what to call you—it is an infuriating habit, is it not?”

Lancelot resisted the urge to roll his eyes. He undoubtedly had a legion of annoying habits but, currently, he felt inclined to keep them all. Especially as this one, in particular, might help prove his innocence.

He continued with his story, buoyed up by the feel of Clemence’s hand in his. “Asked what was wrong, I explained to Sir Richard about the injury you found when you washed my hair.”

He hadn’t mentioned the scars on his back. Clemence’s reputation was already on the brink, as she was on public display, dressed as a man. No one need know the circumstances under which she’d discovered the scars but himself.

“Sir Richard suggested we delay judgment until I was examined by a physician. If my brother, Paris, and I had fought, I might have slain him in self-defense, which would alter my sentence. Assuming his body were to be found and identified beyond doubt.”

“I’m sure it will be,” muttered Walter, darkly.