Page 38 of The Forsaken
“Unfortunately, we couldn’t get a whole follicle, but we ran whatever tests we could on the hair strands themselves. Our lass had auburn hair and light eyes—either blue or green. She was fair-skinned, as people with her coloring tend to be. Her DNA shows traces of Saxon, Norman, and Scottish ancestry, which, given the area where she was found, is very common.”
“Did she have children?” Quinn asked as her hand automatically went to her stomach, where baby Russell was in the middle of a particularly exuberant somersault.
“I don’t believe so.”
“How did she die?” Gabe asked, fast forwarding to the most important question.
“I haven’t a bloody clue,” Colin replied, spreading his hands in a gesture of puzzlement. “She was as healthy as a horse, from what I can see. Her skull is intact,” he added, caressing the gleaming skull tenderly. “There are no nicks on her bones, which would indicate a knife or sword wound. There are no fractures, recent or well healed.”
“So, what would a very healthy young woman die of, if she didn’t die in childbirth?” Gabe persisted.
“A fever, perhaps. The plague wasn’t rampant in that area during the second half of the fifteenth century, so I don’t think that would have been the cause. She might have drowned,” Colin added thoughtfully. “A drowning would leave no visible traces after all this time. I can’t help wondering why she was buried with a sword though,” he continued, cradling his chin in speculation. “My theory would be that someone wished to honor her. Perhaps it was her husband’s sword. If he died in battle, it might have been the only thing she had left of him, so it was buried with her. What I can’t figure out is why she was buried in the kitchen.”
“I think we can answer that,” Gabe jumped in. “We believe the kitchen was, in fact, the chapel back in the fifteenth century.”
“Really? That would make sense then,” Colin said. “Was there just the one body?”
“As far as we know. We’d have to dig up that entire section of the ground floor to find out for sure.”
“I don’t think your mum would be too pleased with that plan,” Colin said with a chuckle. “My mum goes ballistic if you so much as move one knickknack out of place.”
“She refused to stay in the house until we removed the remains,” Gabe said.
“Understandable. It’s not pleasant knowing you’ve been walking over someone’s grave all these years. Well, do let me know when you have the sword back in your possession. I’m dying to see it.”
“Will do,” Gabe replied.
“Perhaps you and Logan can come to our place for dinner,” Quinn suggested.
“That would be lovely. See you soon.”
Quinn and Gabe thanked Colin and left the mortuary, grateful to be out in the fresh air and sunshine after the windowless confines of the morgue. They had time for a quick bite before Gabe was due to return to work, so they found a Costa and placed their order.
“You didn’t seem surprised when Colin said the remains were those of a woman,” Gabe said as he unwrapped his sandwich and added sugar to his coffee. He lowered his voice so the other patrons wouldn’t hear him discussing such a grim topic, but a woman at the next table threw him a look of pure venom nonetheless and moved her chair further away, scraping the floor loudly in the process.
“I didn’t know the skeleton was of a woman. I assumed it was Guy, just as you did.”
“Do you think it’s Kate?”
“I couldn’t say. I’ve seen very little of her story so far.”
Quinn felt reluctant to talk about Kate. She supposed that after getting emotionally involved with Elise, Petra, and then Madeline, she’d tried to keep Kate at bay and look at her through a lens of professional detachment. She had to avoid stress, for the sake of the baby, and she handled the rosary for brief periods and mostly during the early hours of the day, so as not to dream of what she’d seen when she went to bed. She had enough bad dreams as it was.
“Gabe, what do you know of Guy?”
Gabe shrugged. “I know that he existed, and I know that he was the brother of William and Hugh, and the son of Armand and Marie de Rosel. Not much else is known about him.”
“Do you know when he died?” Quinn asked cautiously.
“Yes. Shall I tell you?”
“Not yet. And what do you know of William and Hugh?”
“Not a whole lot. William de Rosel died at the Battle of Towton, which you already know. He was thirty-two at the time, and left behind a son, Adam, from whom I’m descended. It was Adam de Rosel who changed the name to Russell in the sixteenth century.”
“Why?”
“Probably because he wished to anglicize it. De Rosel sounded very French, and given the ongoing animosity between France and England, it made sense to fit in, if he meant to remain in England. Previous generations of de Rosels had maintained their ties to France, but Adam put a stop to all that.”
