Page 64 of Lord of the Forest

“Aye, Master. Sir Kester Bayliss sends his greetings.”

That sounded friendly enough. Mentally girding his loins, Lancelot strode into the great hall to meet his guests.

He recognized Sir Richard Kelsey, along with Master Hardy, Master Fitzpayne, and two other men, clad in the smocks and plain hose of laborers. The gentlemen exchanged bows with him, then stood about, solemn expressions on their faces. Lancelot’s flesh crept with foreboding. He raised a questioning eyebrow.

Sir Kester stepped forward, removed his jaunty velvet cap, and turned it around in his hands.

“I know not if you will delight in this news, but your brother, Paris, is found.”

A tremor seized Lancelot, and he put out a hand to the nearest wall. “Alive?” His voice was no more than a croak.

“Alas, no. He was dead and buried.”

So, Walter had told the truth. He’d murdered Paris. Lancelot swallowed, and wished heartily he had a goblet of wine to hand. Several, in fact.

“Can you be certain it is Paris?” He shied away from imagining what state the body might be in after three years buried.

“We believe so. This was found with him.” Sir Kester motioned one of the workmen forward, who held out a dagger, still with dark soil clinging to the blade.

Lancelot took it in shaking fingers. There, emblazoned upon the hilt, was the family crest, with the initials H and L on either side. He stared at it in silence for a long time.

“My dagger? How came it to be buried with Paris’ body?”

“Master Walter de Glanville said he left it there to incriminate you.”

“Walter?” Walter had led them to the grave? Why? How? Lancelot fumbled his way to the nearest chest and sat on it.

“Aye. May I send your wench for refreshment? We all thirst, and the laborers have delved under the hot sun.”

Lancelot waved a hand, still staring at the item he held. “Yes. Do as you wish.” He could think of nothing but the fact Paris was now found—the presence of his own knife in the grave seemed to confirm it.

“It was definitely Walter who did the deed?” He could still remember nothing of the day he’d persuaded Paris to abandon his books and go a-hawking.

Someone pressed a goblet into his hand. He sniffed at it. Wine—they’d read his thoughts. He drank the contents in one draft and was relieved when the goblet was immediately refilled.

“Walter has confessed all.” Sir Kester pulled a chair across and sat beside him.

“Was he tortured?” Lancelot couldn’t believe anything else could have extracted the truth from his conniving stepbrother.

“Nay, naught like that. Mistress Wentworth helped. She was concerned about being implicated in your poisoning. Self-preservation is a powerful stimulus to truth, it seems. She swore to both Sir Richard and me that she could prove Walter to be a recusant, claiming she knew whereabouts at Glemham Hall we would find evidence of his Catholicism. Such as secret correspondence between him and a priest, icons of the saints, and his grandmother’s rosary. As you know, the queen’s secretary, Francis Walsingham, is very interested in closet Catholics, especially any who might potentially be in league with Mary, Queen of the Scots.”

Lancelot turned the knife over and over in his hands. This was a great deal to take in.

“Mistress Wentworth denounced him?”

“Threatened to. Walsingham and his men may not be above torture. Walter decided he’d prefer a less painful death, and finally agreed to confess to Paris’ murder and take us to the grave, that your brother might be given a Christian burial.”

“I would you had told me.” He’d have dug Paris from that grave with his bare hands. Then thrown in Walter de Glanville in his stead.

“The coroner preferred for you not to be present under the circumstances. But you may visit the site, and you may have your brother’s remains for burial.”

Lancelot laid the dagger next to him and gently rubbed the back of his head. The depressed fracture ached, but running his fingers over the place soothed him, as it always did.

There was still something that puzzled him. “If I was unconscious, if I was at Walter’s mercy and he meant to kill me, too—why did he not bury me, as he did my brother?”

“We understand he meant to but heard huntsmen in the forest. They had espied your falcons in the woods and were trying to catch them. That’s when Walter decided to roll you into the river. He’d not yet dug a grave big enough for two, so he hastily threw the earth over Paris’ body, then covered the place with dead branches, before making his escape.”

“Surely, he must have known that with me and Paris gone, suspicion might fall upon him?”