Free Fortune Like the Moon by Alys Clare

stout length of timber – presumably rejected as too thick – and, trying to control his strength so that both coffin and bier didn’t end up being thrown over, banged its thicker end up under the edge of the coffin lid until he had made a wide enough gap to insert the other, thinner end. The Abbess, practical woman, perceived his difficulty and went to stand at the coffin’s head, steadying it.
    Now he could put his weight behind the effort. Leaning down on the end of the plank, he heaved as hard as he could. There was an ominous creak, and the plank began to bend; out of the corner of his eye he saw the Abbess take a firmer grip, as if she could predict his next move and was allowing for it. Placing his hands nearer the top of his lever, he took a breath, flexed his shoulder and arm muscles, and pushed down with all his might.
    The coffin slewed sideways and all but fell, but the Abbess grabbed at it and saved it. And there was no need to see if he had been successful: the smell told them both that he had.
    The Abbess had draped a fold of her wide sleeve across her face, and, taking hold of his arm, she pulled him away to the far side of the crypt. ‘Let the noxious air dissipate for a few moments,’ she said quietly.
    It made sense. There seemed to be a good supply of air in the crypt, its slight draught making the candle flame dance. Standing there beside the Abbess, he looked at the coffin. The lid was a hand’s breadth above the base on the side where he had been working; it would be easy, now, to tear it off.
    When the smell had lessened – either that, he thought ruefully, or I’m getting used to it – he and Abbess Helewise walked back to the coffin, and he thrust the lid out of the way.
    He hadn’t really known what to expect. He had seen dead bodies before, many of them, seen the dreadful mutilations caused by warfare, seen bloated corpses that had lain too long on a sunny battlefield, seen half-putrid flesh crawling with maggots. He had been prepared for all of that.
    The body of Gunnora, although clearly in the early stages of decomposition, was still relatively unchanged by death. The white skin of the hands and face, the only visible flesh, had a slight greenish tinge, and on her right hand, placed on top of the left, the main blood vessels were badly discoloured.
    Someone had closed her eyelids. But the lower part of her face, still twisted into a rictus of horror, more than compensated for the absence of any expression there might have been in the dead eyes.
    ‘She died hard,’ he murmured.
    ‘She did.’ The Abbess, too, spoke softly. ‘You will wish to see the death wound.’
    ‘Aye.’ Again, her undramatic tone was a help.
    He watched as her swift hands folded back the veil and untied the barbette that bound the smooth forehead, revealing the ends of the wimple, neatly fastened on top of the short hair.
    She lowered the wimple, laying it across the still chest.
    And the great slash that killed Gunnora was revealed.
    He felt a moment’s faintness, and the hard stone beneath his feet seemed suddenly a perilously uncertain slope. He made himself relax. She is dead, he told himself firmly. Dead. And the best service I can do her now is to find her killer.
    He leaned forward, bending close. The wound ran from ear to ear, a smooth, symmetrical cut that had severed the blood vessels and severely damaged the windpipe. It would, a detached part of his mind thought, be a matter of conjecture whether she died from loss of blood or asphyxia. He studied the ends of the cut. Interesting.
    He had seen many men killed or injured by sword cuts, and it could usually be determined whether the attacker had used his left or his right hand, especially to anyone experienced in sword use. A cut was normally deeper at the initial point of incision, where it bore the full weight of the assault.
    But this cut on the thin throat of Gunnora was as even, as perfect, as a quarter moon. Somebody had done it very