Not so much wise as cunning, the prior decided, but probably able to keep silent. What was the man’s purpose? At a sudden thought, he held out his hand. “Let me see that warrant.” He examined it, then handed it back. “This is merely the usual tax collector’s warrant. Is the king taxing the dead now?”

“Indeed not, my lord.” Sir Rowley seemed affronted by the idea. “Or not more than usual. But if the lady is to conduct an unofficial inquest, it might subject both town and priory to punitive taxes-I don’t say it will, but the regular amercements, confiscation of goods, et cetera, might apply.” The plump cheeks bunched in an engaging smile. “Unless, of course, I am present to see that all is correct.”

The prior was beaten. So far Henry II had withheld his hand, but it was fairly certain that at the next assize, Cambridge would be fined, and fined heavily, for the death of one of the king’s most profitable Jews.

Any infringement of his laws gave the king an opportunity to fill his coffers at the expense of the infringers. Henry listened to his tax collectors, the most dreaded of royal underlings; if this one should report to him an irregularity connected with the children’s deaths, then the teeth of that rapacious Plantagenet leopard might tear the heart out of the town.

“What do you want of us, Sir Rowley?” Prior Geoffrey asked wearily.

“I want to see those bodies.” The words were spoken quietly, but they flicked at the prior like a lash.

APART FROM THE FACT that its three-foot-thick walls kept it cool, and its situation in a glade at the far end of Barnwell’s deer park was isolated, the cell in which the Saxon anchoress Saint Werbertha had passed her adult life-until, that is, it had been ended somewhat abruptly by invading Danes-was unsuitable for Adelia’s purposes. For one thing, it was small. For another, despite the two lamps the prior had provided, it was dark. A slit of a window was shut by a wooden slide. Cow parsley frothed waist-high around a tiny door set in an arch.

Damn all this secrecy. She would have to keep the door open in order to have enough light-and the place was already beset by flies trying to get in. How did they expect her to work in these conditions?

Adelia put her goatskin bag on the grass outside, opened it to check its contents, checked them again-and knew she was putting off the moment when she would have to open the door.

This was ridiculous; she was not an amateur. Quickly, she knelt and asked the dead beyond the door to forgive her for handling their remains. She asked to be reminded not to forget the respect owed to them. “Permit your flesh and bone to tell me what your voices cannot.”

She always did this; whether the dead heard her she was unsure, but she was not the complete atheist her foster father was, though she suspected that what lay ahead of her this afternoon might convert her into one.

She rose, took her oilcloth apron from the bag, put it on, removed her cap, tied the gauze helmet with its glazed eyepiece over her head, and opened the cell door…

SIR ROWLEY PICOT enjoyed the walk, pleased with himself. It was going to be easier than he’d thought. A mad female, a mad foreign female, was always going to be forced to succumb to his authority, but it was unexpected bounty that someone of Prior Geoffrey’s standing should also be under his thumb through association with the same female.

Nearing the anchorage, he paused. It looked like an overgrown beehive-Lord, how the old hermits loved discomfort. And there she was, a figure bending over something on a table just inside its open door.

To test her, he called out, “Doctor.”

“Yes?”

Ah, hah, Sir Rowley thought. How easy. Like snatching a moth.

As she straightened and turned toward him, he began, “You remember me, madam? I am Sir Rowley Picot, whom the prior-”

“I don’t care who you are,” the moth snapped. “Come in here and keep the flies off.” She emerged, and he was presented with an aproned human figure with the head of an insect. It tore a clump of cow parsley from the ground and, at his approach, shoved the umbellifers at him.

It wasn’t what Sir Rowley had in mind, but he followed her, squeezing through the door to the beehive with some difficulty.

And squeezing out again. “Oh my God.”

“What’s the matter?” She was cross, nervy.

He leaned against the arch of the doorway, breathing deeply. “Sweet Jesus, have mercy on us all.” The stench was appalling. Even worse was what lay exposed on the table.

She tutted with irritation. “Stand in the doorway then. Can you write?”

With his eyes closed, Rowley nodded. “First thing they teach a tax collector.”

She handed him a slate and chalk. “Put down what I tell you. In between times, keep fanning the flies away.”

The anger went out of her voice, and she began speaking in monotone. “The remains of a young female. Some fair hair still attached to the skull. Therefore she is”-she broke off to consult a list she’d inked onto the back of her hand-“Mary. The wildfowler’s daughter. Six years old. Disappeared Saint Ambrose, that is, what, a year ago? Are you writing?”

“Yes, ma’am.” The chalk squeaked over the slate, but Sir Rowley kept his face to the open air.

“The bones are unclothed. Flesh almost entirely decomposed; what there is has been in contact with chalk. There is a dusting of what appears to be dried silt on the spine, also some lodged in the rear of the pelvis. Is there silt near here?”

“We’re on the edge of the silt fens. They were found on the fen edge.”

“Were the bodies lying faceup?”

“God, I don’t know.”

“Hmm, if so, it would account for the traces on the back. They are slight; she wasn’t buried in silt, more likely chalk. Hands and feet tied by strips of black material.” There was a pause. “There are tweezers in my bag. Give them to me.”

He fumbled in the bag and passed on a pair of thin wooden tweezers, saw her use them to pick at a strip of something and hold it to the light.

“Mother of God.” He returned to the doorway, his arm reaching inside to continue whisking the cow parsley about. From the woodland beyond came the call of the cuckoo, confirming the warmth of the day, and the smell of bluebells among the trees. Welcome, he thought, oh God, welcome. You’re late this year.

“Fan harder,” she snapped at him, then resumed her monotone. “These ties are strips of wool. Mmm. Pass me a vial. Here, here. Where are you, blast you?” He retrieved a vial from her bag, gave it to her, waited, and retook possession of it, now containing a dreadful strip. “There are crumbs of chalk in the hair. Also, an object adhering to it. Hmm. Lozenge-shaped, possibly a sticky sweetmeat of some kind that has now dried to the strands. It will need further examination. Hand me another vial.”

He was instructed to seal both vials with red clay from the bag. “Red for Mary, a different color for each of the others. See to it, please.”

“Yes, Doctor.”

USUALLY PRIOR GEOFFREY went in pomp to the castle, just as Sheriff Baldwin returned his visits with equal pomp; a town must always be aware of its two most important men. Today, however, it was a sign of how troubled the prior was that trumpeter and retinue had been left behind and he rode across Great Bridge to Castle Hill with only Brother Ninian in attendance.

Townspeople pursued him, hanging on to his stirrups. To all of them he replied in the negative. No, it wasn’t the Jews. How could it have been? No, be calm. No, the fiend hadn’t been caught yet, but he would be, God’s grace he would be. No, leave the Jews be, they did not do this.

He worried for Jew and Gentile. Another riot would bring the king’s anger down on the town.