Free Ashes of the Elements by Alys Clare Page B

no more than a lean-to built against its neighbour, now being used to house livestock. A scrawny pig and a handful of miserable-looking chickens raised their heads as Josse splashed through the water, and a dog on a short length of fraying rope dashed out, gave a token few barks, then ran back into the lean-to with its tail curving tightly over its backside, as if in anticipation of a good hard kick.
    Somewhere within one of the dwellings a baby cried, until it was silenced by a woman’s harsh voice.
    Dismounting, Josse put his head into the doorway of the first hovel. The baby was sitting on the mud floor, naked but for a tattered shirt several sizes too big. It had its fist in its mouth, streaks of greenish snot ran from its nostrils, and the filth on its cheeks was lined by the tracks of tears. Close to its small right buttock was a turd, its end smeared from where the child had sat on it. There was no sign of the woman with the harsh voice.
    He went on to the next doorway. The door was closed, and through a gap at the top, he peered inside. There was nobody there.
    In the third house, a woman sat on the step, just inside the door. From the chipped pot on the floor beside her and the meagre pile of earth-covered turnips and carrots in her lap, it seemed she was meant to be preparing vegetables. In fact, she was staring listlessly in front of her, face cast down into lines of dejection. If she had heard Josse’s approach, she was not sufficiently interested to peer out and see who it was come a-visiting.
    Josse said, ‘Are you the widow of the late Hamm Robinson?’
    She looked up at him, tears welling in her eyes. At some time, she had suffered a broken nose; there was a big lump midway between the tip and the bridge. She had also lost several teeth. She said dully, ‘Aye.’
    Josse went to stand beside the woman. ‘I am sorry for your loss,’ he said.
    She sniffed and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. ‘Don’t know what’ll become of me,’ she said mournfully, sliding a quick glance up at him. Her voice took on the familiar whine of the professional beggar. ‘Nowhere to call me own, no man to bring in a bit of this and that,’ she moaned. ‘Where me next meal’s a-coming from, the dear Lord above only knows.’
    Josse reached into the purse at his belt and took out some coins. ‘Perhaps these will tide you over.’ He dropped them into her lap.
    Her hand shot out and the coins disappeared. ‘Thankee,’ she said.
    Josse hesitated. There seemed little point in asking this browbeaten, dejected woman if her husband had had any enemies. Would she know? And, if she did, would she tell Josse?
    He asked instead, ‘I believe your husband – er – worked with his cousin Seth? And another man – Ewen, is it?’
    The dull eyes raised to his had a sudden spark of life in them. ‘You’re very well informed,’ she said tartly. ‘What’s it to you?’
    ‘Woman, it may interest you to know that I’m about the only person hereabouts who has the slightest interest in bringing your husband’s murderer to justice!’ he cried, suddenly angry. ‘I am trying to find out all I can about him, and I shall want to talk to everyone who knew him!’
    ‘Huh! That won’t take you long! There’s me, and I don’t know nothing about what he got up to, leastways, except he used to go into the forest, for all that I tried to stop him.’ She sniffed, making a thick snorting sound in her throat; had Josse not been standing in front of her, she might well, he thought, have hawked up the loose phlegm and gobbed it out on to the road. ‘Right, weren’t I?’ she flashed, with a sudden angry spiritedness. ‘Seeing as how them Forest People’ve gone and done for him!’
    ‘Yes, I know. As I said, I’m sorry.’ Josse brought his irritation under control. The woman was, after all, recently bereaved. ‘Did these men Ewen and Seth go with Hamm into the forest?’ he asked, trying to keep his tone conciliatory. ‘Did