Read Music of the Distant Stars for Free Online Page B

purplish-red mark around the throat. It had bitten deep into the soft flesh. Below it, the skin was white. Above it, the dead face was a different colour, as if stained with dark blood. I wondered why I hadn’t noticed before; I had, I supposed, been too busy staring at the features in that face made for fun and laughter.
    ‘What—’ Sir Alain coughed and tried again. ‘What was she strangled with?’
    Edild pointed again. ‘A thin length of plaited leather, I believe. In some places there are the marks of a regular pattern. See?’
    I spotted what she meant. Someone must have wrapped a plaited thong round the girl’s throat, strangled her and then removed it. Unless—
    Sir Alain had had the same thought. ‘You have not found such a thing, I imagine.’ He sounded as if he already knew we hadn’t, and no doubt he realized Edild would have shown him straight away if she had.
    ‘No,’ she confirmed. ‘The killer must have taken his weapon away with him.’
    ‘And the shroud?’ He picked up the edge of the linen in which the body had been wrapped.
    ‘It appears to be an old piece of fabric,’ Edild said, ‘something previously used for a different purpose, for there are seams in it. It’s been torn so as to make a long strip.’
    ‘Did the killer bring it with him, knowing he would have need of it?’ Sir Alain said. ‘Or did he tear up his shirt and use that?’
    Edild was smoothing the fabric. ‘It is too long for a shirt,’ she said. ‘My guess is that the killer prepared it earlier and brought it here, knowing he would have a body to wrap.’
    Sir Alain did not speak. I wondered why. I was bursting with questions, but then I was not in the habit of trying to discover how people had met their death and perhaps he was; the things I was so desperate to know were probably clear as daylight to him.
    ‘He came here knowing he was going to kill her, then,’ I said, trying to prompt a reaction.
    I got one. Sir Alain spun round to me and said sharply, ‘Why do you say that?’
    ‘Because, although anybody might have a piece of plaited leather on them, not many people carry lengths of linen except their clothes, and Edild thinks there’s too much fabric in the shroud for a shirt.’
    I sensed him relax. ‘Well reasoned,’ he said with a quick smile. ‘Yes, you speak with good sense.’
    Then I had another thought. ‘Maybe Ida had the cloth with her!’ I exclaimed.
    Both Sir Alain and Edild glared at me. Edild could be forgiven, for she did not know and must have thought I was being foolish. I would, however, have expected Sir Alain to see the relevance. ‘You just said, Sir Alain, that Ida was a seamstress,’ I said. ‘She was helping Lady Claude prepare linens for her marriage, so maybe she’d brought some sewing out here to do while she sat in the sunshine.’
    ‘But this cloth is old,’ Edild pointed out.
    ‘Yes, but she could have been using it as a practice piece,’ I said eagerly. ‘You know, perfecting some new stitch before she sewed it into the object it was intended for?’
    ‘Hmm,’ said my aunt. She did not seem convinced.
    Sir Alain was about to speak but, too carried away by my own argument, I did not let him. ‘Perhaps this lady Claude is a perfectionist and very fussy about her linens, so Ida felt she had to make sure her work would be acceptable and had to practise on this old linen. Perhaps Lady Claude is—’
    ‘Your speculation is interesting,’ Sir Alain said, interrupting my flow of words. ‘However, we can readily test your theory. Edild, have you noticed any fresh stitching on the shroud?’
    Edild gave me a glance in which pity and irritation were perfectly mixed. ‘No.’
    Sir Alain turned back to me, eyebrows raised as if to say, Well ?
    ‘Perhaps she hadn’t started yet!’ I cried desperately. ‘Perhaps she was just threading her needle when he jumped on her! Perhaps—’
    But I had run out of possibilities. I don’t know why I was so keen to believe