[Roger the Chapman 06] - The Wicked Winter by Kate Sedley

seen anyone lying on the ground as we approached. The light had not completely vanished.'  
    'No, no,' I answered impatiently, catching at his skinny wrist with my free hand and shaking it. 'Here, we are standing on the opposite side of the tower to the door and the track from the house. Whatever it is down there.., whoever it is, was completely hidden from our view.'
    'I still say that you're imagining things,' the friar insisted. He shivered. 'Understandably, perhaps. This is not a spot which encourages congenial thoughts.'
    I wondered if Simeon had ever entertained a congenial thought in the whole of his life, but I was too anxious to investigate further to pursue the idea. I made for the stairs.
    Some ten minutes later, after I had nearly slipped twice on the worn treads and Simeon had only saved himself from a nasty fall by grabbing at a notch of stone which stood proud of the wall, we emerged from the tower into the snowy darkness. Without wasting any further words in argument, I groped my way around the outside of the building until I judged myself to be roughly on the opposite side to the doorway. I was about to raise my lantern higher when I tripped over something lying in my path and went sprawling.
    'What's happened? What are you doing?' Simeon demanded querulously from behind me. He had, however, stopped short several paces away and so avoided a similar accident. 'What is it? what have you found?' I made no answer but picked myself up off my hands and knees, my first action being to discover what damage had been done to the lantern when I dropped it. By some miracle it had landed on its base and remained upright, the candle still burning brightly inside it.
    'What have you found?' Friar Simeon repeated. His voice was shriller than before.
    'I don't know yet.'
    I crouched beside the object and once more held the lantern high. Even in that dim light, and without touching it, I knew it was a body; a woman's body. Several long strands of hair had been shaken loose from the plain lawn hood and veil which normally confined them. She was lying prone, the head turned away from me, the splayed hands seeming to claw at the earth in a kind of final desperation. I crossed myself, then put out a hand and felt the shoulder nearest me, but the flesh beneath the clothes was unyielding. That stiffening which afflicts the dead within a few hours of the soul's passing had already taken hold, hurried on no doubt by the icy weather.
    Simeon had come to kneel on the other side of the body, his eyes two great pools of blackness in his haggard face.
    'You were right,' he whispered. 'who... who is it?'  
    'I don't know for certain,' I answered grimly. 'But I should guess it to be Lady Cederwell.' I lifted my head and looked at the sheer wall of the tower beside me. 'She must have been leaning over the battlements for some reason, lost her balance and fallen.' I rose awkwardly to my feet, still feeling a little bruised from my own tumble. 'We have to go back to the house and inform Sir Hugh.'
    Simeon did not move at once, but stayed kneeling. Then he, too, made the sign of the cross and started to intone the prayer for the dying. 'Go forth, O Christian soul, out of this world, in the name of God the Father Almighty, who created thee, in the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, who suffered for thee, in the name of the Holy Ghost, who sanctified thee...'
    'She's gone, Brother,' I interrupted forcefully. 'She's been dead for many hours. You can do nothing now.' I helped him to his feet. Just for a moment, I thought he was going to faint. He staggered and fell heavily against me, so that I had to support him with my free arm, but he recovered quickly, pushing me away almost angrily, ashamed of his momentary weakness.
    'Lead on, Chapman,' he said in a husky whisper. 'Let us do what has to be done. The sooner this unhappy business is resolved the better.'

    The turmoil of the past hour had subsided, to be succeeded by an abnormal