Free Fortune Like the Moon by Alys Clare Page A

carefully. Artistically, even. What an extraordinary thing to do.
    It prompted him to look at her hands. He drew back the wide cuffs, trying to fold them as tidily as the Abbess had dealt with the veil and wimple; he might have ordered this violation of the dead girl’s final peace, but at least he could show respect. He felt the Abbess’s eyes on him, but she did not intervene. Feeling he had been awarded a good mark, he bent over Gunnora’s hands and forearms.
    There was a slight scratch on the left wrist, but it looked old; a scab had formed and partly fallen off, which he did not think would have happened had it been done at the time of death. The nails were bitten, and on the right forefinger a torn quick felt unpleasantly squelchy. Other than that, the hands were undamaged.
    ‘Look, Abbess,’ he said. ‘Look at her hands.’
    The Abbess did so. Then said, ‘She did not put up a fight.’
    ‘No, exactly. Had she struggled, tried to ward off the knife, her hands would show it.’ He frowned, trying to work out what that meant. Either she was unconscious when the attack came – or asleep? – or … Or what?
    Or she was assailed by more than one person.
    He returned to the sleeves, pushing at them more urgently now, searching the upper arms … finding what he sought.
    ‘Look.’ He pointed. On the white flesh were small bruises, two on the right arm, four on the left. Without pausing to think if it was appropriate, he hurried round to stand behind the Abbess, holding her arms. ‘You see? She was held, like this, from the rear. Held hard enough for the attacker’s fingers to make those bruises.’
    ‘Held by one man, whilst another cut her throat,’ the Abbess said, infinite pity in her voice. Standing so close to her, still holding her arms, he felt the slight sagging of her body. Then, as if they had simultaneously realised the unseemliness of their position, he stepped back and she moved forwards. His hands dropped to his sides, and he was about to apologise when she spoke.
    ‘Do you wish to look at any more of the corpse?’ she asked briskly. Corpse, he noticed. Perhaps it made it easier, to refer to Gunnora as a corpse.
    ‘I think not. I am content to take the word of your infirmarer as to the contrived evidence of rape.’ He sensed her relief.
    He walked slowly round the coffin. There was something else he should check, he was sure. What? Absently he watched the Abbess as she rearranged the dead girl’s clothing, placing the plain wooden crucifix under the crossed hands, smoothing the veil so that it lay in perfect folds …
    Yes. That was it.
    ‘May I look at her feet?’
    The enquiry in the Abbess’s eyes was not vocalised. Instead, she turned back the hem of the habit, revealing small feet in narrow leather shoes.
    The soles felt cold, and, pushing with a finger, he detected moisture. Yes, she had been out in the middle of the night, hadn’t she? Of course her shoes would be wet with dew. He inspected the feet, then the ankles, but the skin was clean.
    ‘Would her body have been washed?’ he asked.
    ‘Naturally. The blood.’
    ‘Aye, that. I meant her feet, her lower legs.’
    The Abbess shrugged. ‘I cannot say for sure. I imagine so.’ Then, although he could sense her reluctance to have to ask, ‘Why?’
    ‘I’m wondering, Abbess, as I’ve been wondering all along, what a nun was doing out of her dormitory – out of her convent, even – in the middle of the night. I’m thinking, did she go far? She met her death close by, yes, but was she on her way out or on her way back? I ask about her feet and legs because, had she left the track, which she would have had to do had she gone further than the shrine, then she would have been walking through long grass. I would expect to have found the signs on her legs, on the hem of her garments. And her shoes would have been soaked through.’
    The Abbess nodded quickly. ‘Yes, yes, I see. You are right – the paths only extend to the