Grave Goods by Ariana Franklin

Author:Ariana Franklin [Franklin, Ariana]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Tags: Adult, Mystery, Thriller, Historical, (¯`'•.¸//(*_*)\\¸.•'´¯), Suspense, Crime
ISBN: 0425232336
Google: yvyKPwAACAAJ
Amazon: B003TO6DBY
Goodreads: 3751995
Publisher: Putnam
Published: 2009-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

“Babies?”

Will smirked. “Babies. Oh, there was carryin’s-on with women in the old days, so they say, for all them monks was supposed to be virgins, an one of ‘em had twins an’ old Aelwyn give ‘em to her. Left ‘em on the abbey’s doorstep, she did. There was a right to-do about it. Had to bury ‘em in the monks’ own graveyard.”

“Dear God, how did the babies die?”

Will, with some reluctance, admitted that as far as was known, the twins had met a natural death.

Listening to them, Adelia began to see the fire’s great scar spread over the abbey as a stain representing human frailty and misery.

There was, however, nothing but good words for Abbot Sigward. “Wasn’t no carryin’s – on after he were elected,” Will told her. “Not a bad old boy, for a monk.”

“Fancy leavin’ a rich living so’s you got to say prayers all day,” Toki said incredulously.

“Did it for to remember his son as died fighting the bloody Saracens,” Alf said. “Right upset about that, Sigward was. ‘S a wonder he never sent to have the body brought back. Sir Gervase over at Street, he was brought back and put in Street Church with his legs crossed and his sword an’ all.”

“Cut up too bad by them black bastards p’raps, nothin’ left to bring back. Or maybe he never had no friends to carry him home. Might’ve died a hero but didn’t live like one. Weedy little bugger he was. Hilda never reckoned him much, said he was a milksop, always blubberin’ an’ saying he was cold.”

“Crusades suited him, then,” Will said. “Hot out them parts, ain’ it?”

“About as hot as here,” Adelia told him. She picked a dock leaf to protect her bare head from sunstroke and another to brush the flies away from the sweat on her face. “Aren’t those blasted men ever going to go in to dinner?”

“S’pose the darky proves Useless di’n’t do it, an’ we can bury the poor bugger,” Toki said to Will. “Where we going to throw his knife?”

“In the river, acourse.”

“Which one?”

Will shrugged. “The Brue, I reckon. Liked fishin’ in the Brue, Useless did. ‘F you ask me, that’s where King Arthur threw Excalibur like as not. Useless’d want his old knife to go the same.”

“You’re throwing his knife into the river?” Adelia inquired.

“Got to,” Will said, shortly.

“Why?”

” ‘Cos it’s got to go back.”

She was interested. In her beloved fens, fishermen were often getting their lines caught in rusting weapons, then, carefully and with a prayer, throwing them once again into the waters, obeying a time-fogged legend, almost an instinct, that held that a great warrior’s sword or shield, however valuable, must be returned to the mystery that had given it its power. Her foster father, on his travels, had found the custom everywhere in the east. “A very ancient ritual,” he’d told her, “an offering to the gods on behalf of the soul of the dead owner.”

Of course—now she remembered—she’d heard Rhys singing of Excalibur being returned to the lake from which a lady’s arm had once proffered it.

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