12 - Nine Men Dancing (15 page)

I declined. ‘I must get back to the Mistress Lilywhites’,’ I said. ‘They’ll be wondering where I am.’ I scooped up Hercules, who had been sitting patiently and protectively at my feet. ‘But, like I said, next time, miller, just make sure you have the right person before you try to throttle him to death.’

I slept soundly, after being fussed over by Maud and Theresa, and woke to a quieter, sunnier morning.

My long absence of the day before, which I was sure the younger woman had barely registered – except, perhaps, to hope that I had changed my plans and quit the district – was more than forgiven when I had been able to recount, at first hand, the evening’s events at the alehouse. This, together with details of my visit to Dragonswick Farm and my conversation with Jacquetta Rawbone, had kept them entertained until it was time for bed. My torn lip and bloody nose were bathed with a sicklewort lotion; very good for cuts and bruises, so my mother had always told me; and my hoarse voice, the reason for which I didn’t divulge, was treated with a linseed poultice. The result was that, by the next day, I was feeling much better than I could ever have anticipated.

The women and I followed the same procedure as on the previous morning, with the result that we were all three able to wash and dress in comparative privacy. While I shaved, I reflected that, come evening, there were only forty-eight hours left before it was March, and then just over a fortnight before the feast of Saint Patrick. By which time, I had faithfully promised Adela I would be home.

‘You’re very quiet, chapman,’ Theresa commented while we were eating breakfast. ‘Are you any nearer to finding out what has become of my granddaughter?’

I was forced to admit that I wasn’t. ‘But you must give me time,’ I protested. ‘There are other people I have to talk to. This morning I’m visiting Father Anselm, who has kindly invited me to share his dinner with him.’

Theresa was dismissive. ‘You won’t discover anything by talking to that old fool.’ I suspected that the priest was younger than she was. ‘He knows nothing of what goes on in this parish. Nothing of importance, anyway. Lives in a little world of his own. Sometimes I wonder if he’s quite … well … you know!’ She tapped her forehead.

Maud was up in arms immediately. ‘You know nothing of Sir Anselm, Mother! He’s been living here, in this village, for many more years than you have. He’s a good friend to all his parishioners. A man who can be trusted.’ I reflected that this was the first time I had seen Maud Lilywhite display anything akin to real emotion. Not even when discussing Eris’s disappearance and the possibility of her murder had she been roused to such a pitch of animation. She went on, ‘I should prefer it if you refrained from criticizing him in my hearing.’

Even Theresa seemed taken aback by her daughter-in-law’s vehemence. She hummed and hawed and spluttered a bit, but evidently thought better of renewing the subject. Instead, she filled her mouth with another spoonful of gruel, looked across at me and said thickly, ‘We shan’t be having the pleasure of your company at dinner, then?’ She added, ‘I still say you’re wasting your time. You won’t find out anything from Father Anselm. You should be sniffing around the rest of the Rawbones.’

‘I must do things in my own way and my own good time,’ I remonstrated, finishing my fried herring and oatmeal. I hoped it didn’t sound too much like a snub, but Theresa was beginning to irritate me.

She took it, however, in good part. ‘Oh, I know I’m an interfering old woman,’ she mocked. ‘It’s just … It’s just that I want to know what’s happened to Eris.’

There was a note of genuine pathos in her voice and I immediately felt ashamed of my spurt of annoyance. As I rose from my stool, I pressed a hand on her shoulder.

‘I’ll do my best,’ I promised. ‘But that’s all I can do. You must reconcile yourself, Dame Lilywhite, to the fact that we may never know for certain what’s become of your granddaughter.’

I left my pack at the Lilywhites’ cottage and set out with Hercules, encumbered only by my cudgel. It still being not yet half-past seven, and barely daylight, I went in the opposite direction to the village, climbing the slope past Dragonswick Farm to the wooded heights above. I was beginning to know my way by now, and had no difficulty, this time, in locating the ruins of Upper Brockhurst Hall. The place drew me to it as if by some enchantment. The silence this morning was almost total, except for the trees dripping gently in the early morning mist, their leaves unstirring in the windless air. A squirrel appeared, woken early from its winter sleep, and stopped in front of me. Its wary gaze, more full of bright-eyed intelligence than seemed natural in so small a creature, encountered mine for a fleeting instant before it scrabbled through a pile of last year’s leaves and vanished from sight. Hercules made no attempt to give chase. It had moved so swiftly and quietly, I doubted he had even noticed it, busy as he was about his own concerns.

For a while, I wandered around the ruins, trying to pace out the different rooms, attempting, without much success, to reconstruct the building in my imagination. But there was too little of it left, nature and the scavengers from Lower Brockhurst having done too thorough a job in either smothering or removing the ancient stones. The courtyard well was the only thing that remained intact; the well that had cost two men their lives and which had never had a chance to be of benefit to its owners before they were struck down and killed by the plague; the well that had dried up and lost its function when the bed of the Draco had been diverted; the well that had once nearly claimed the life of the young Ned Rawbone.

I sat down on the heavy wooden lid that had been fashioned by the village carpenter after that accident, carefully avoiding its handle, my legs sprawled out in front of me, and listened again to that silence which, in the countryside, is not truly a silence, but filled with a hundred tiny sounds, some of them barely audible to the human ear. The thin February sunshine slanted through the latticed branches of the surrounding trees, striking on a patch of dark ground-ivy in points of polished steel. I remembered what Lambert Miller had said to me the previous night; that Eris could be buried anywhere in these vast tracts of woodland, and it would be nigh on impossible to find her grave.

And yet … And yet … Why could I not believe that this was indeed the case? I felt in my bones that she was dead; murdered. The people who had known her in life were positive that she would not voluntarily have run away; that she would not simply have discarded everything that she had so obviously schemed for. Similarly, the idea of suicide was most improbable. Having accepted, therefore, that she had been killed unlawfully, why did I find it so difficult to believe that her body was buried anywhere other than here, in the ruins of Upper Brockhurst Hall?

There was no rhyme or reason for this feeling that amounted very nearly to a certainty. Any rational person would have laughed it to scorn. But it persisted and grew stronger the longer I sat there, refusing to be intimidated by any logical argument my brain put forward. In the end, angry with myself, I jumped to my feet, startling Hercules, and began a second detailed search of the ground, looking for some disturbance that might give the slightest hint of a recently dug grave. But of course, I found nothing. I returned and stared for a long time at the well, then lifted its lid and peered once more into its depths. Nothing. Nothing at all. It was as empty as when I had climbed down the ladder yesterday.

Hercules barked at me, plainly afraid that I was contemplating another descent. I thanked him for his concern and patted his head. ‘Not this time, lad,’ I reassured him.

Nevertheless, the feeling that Eris was somewhere close at hand persisted, refusing to be shaken off. It grew so strong that I began to sweat profusely, in spite of the morning chill, and I was suddenly aware of a mask-like face that stared at me from between two tree trunks. I froze with fear. It took a moment or two for me to realize that the face was indeed a mask, made from straw, the bulging eyes two black pebbles from the bed of the stream. When at last I could move, I approached it slowly and saw that it was hanging from the lower branch of an oak. There was other evidence, too, that someone had been here since my visit yesterday. There were fresh strips of cloth tied to neighbouring twigs and a corn dolly pinned to the trunk, the nail, as in the one I had seen on Wednesday afternoon, driven straight through the heart. Hercules was whimpering, lying flat on his belly.

‘Come on, boy,’ I said, ‘let’s go.’

He didn’t need a second invitation.

It was still too early, when I reached the village, to present myself at the priest’s house for dinner. Besides, I could hear that the morning service had not yet finished, so I decided to call on Alice Tucker to enquire after Tom Rawbone. If people saw me entering her cottage and drew the wrong conclusion, that was up to them. A clear conscience is all that matters in this life. (Do I really believe that? Perhaps. Then again, perhaps not. But it’s nice to dream.)

‘He’s gone home, dear,’ Alice said as soon as she saw me, guessing my mission. She beckoned me inside. ‘First light this morning. Mind you, he still looks a mess. Brother Ned’ll scold him, but I doubt the others will take much notice. They’re all used to Tom being in trouble. Been the same ever since he was a little boy. Comes of being so much younger than Ned, I reckon. Must have been like having two fathers. Enough to make any red-blooded young fellow rebellious.’

‘You’re sure he’s gone home?’ I asked.

Alice shrugged. ‘Can’t think where else he’d be. He isn’t going back to the alehouse, at least not yet awhile. Though I doubt he’s given up on Rosamund. A beating won’t deter Tom, not if he’s really set his heart on winning her back.’

‘He’d better watch out for Lambert Miller, then,’ I said feelingly.

Alice raised her eyebrows and I found myself telling her about last night’s encounter. When I’d finished, she pulled down the corners of her mouth. (By this time, we were sitting side by side on the bed, there being only one chair in the cottage.)

‘I wouldn’t be too sure it was a mistake, dear,’ she said, patting my hand. ‘Got a very nasty temper, has Lambert. How could he possibly think that you were Tom Rawbone? You’re much too tall.’

‘It was dark,’ I pointed out, ‘and Hercules was under my arm, beneath my cloak.’ Hercules, lying at my feet, thumped his tail at mention of his name. ‘The miller wouldn’t have seen him.’

Alice pursed her lips, carmined with a mixture of raspberry juice and white lead, which, although early in the day, was already beginning to crack.

‘I still say you’re too tall to be mistaken for anyone else in this village,’ she insisted, adding shrewdly, ‘Was Rosamund flirting with you in the alehouse last night, when you were playing Nine Men’s Morris?’

‘She was very friendly,’ I admitted, ‘but nothing more.’

‘It wouldn’t need anything more if Lambert’s now decided that Rosamund’s his property,’ Alice sniffed. ‘And I’ve no doubt she’s been encouraging him to think so, just to get her own back on Tom. She’d do anything to prevent people thinking she still cared. You and Lambert won’t be the only two she’s giving the eye to, but you’ll be by far the best looking.’

‘I’m married,’ I repeated wearily. ‘With three children.’

‘And far from home.’ Alice slewed round so that she could see me better. ‘I’m not saying Rosamund has designs on you, dear, just that, since last September, she’s been salving her wounded pride by setting her cap at any man who can still walk and has more than three teeth in his head.’

I laughed. ‘You don’t allow a man much self-delusion, do you?’

‘Will you be serious?!’ she exclaimed impatiently. ‘All I’m saying is that I’d keep away from Rosamund if I were you. I told you, Lambert Miller has a nasty temper. He’s attacked people before. I like you. I don’t want to see you hurt.’

I thanked her, but abstractedly. My mind was only half on what she was saying.

After a moment, I asked, ‘You say Lambert has a reputation for being aggressive?’ Alice nodded. ‘You also say he’s set on people before?’ She inclined her head again. ‘So …’ I clicked my teeth thoughtfully. ‘In that case, I wonder where he was the evening that Eris Lilywhite disappeared.’

‘Oh, now, wait a minute!’ Alice looked alarmed. ‘Lambert was in the alehouse, along with everyone else. I was there myself. I saw him.’

‘I daresay. But he wasn’t there all night. He might well have gone out later looking for Tom Rawbone and come across Eris, instead. From something he said to me, he holds her equally responsible for what happened. Which, in a way, she was. If he was in one of his rages, he could easily have attacked her, just as he attacked me yesterday evening. Maybe he didn’t mean to kill her, but found she was dead all the same.’ I rubbed my throat reminiscently. ‘He’s very strong. He almost did for me. A defenceless young girl would stand no chance.’

Alice shook her head. ‘You’re wrong, chapman. I told you I had a customer that night, who didn’t leave until late, almost midnight – which was how I knew Tom couldn’t have been here before. Well, that customer was Lambert Miller. He made the assignation before we left the Roman Sandal.’

‘What time did he arrive?’ I persisted.

Alice hunched her shoulders. ‘I don’t know. An hour, maybe an hour and a half earlier. Contrary to what you might think, Lambert isn’t the in, out, thank you and I’m off sort. He likes to take his time. And that night, of course, there was a lot to talk about before we got down to business.’

‘What kind of mood was he in?’ I asked. ‘Angry? Vindictive?’

Alice blew her nose on a corner of the counterpane, managing, at the same time, to wipe her mouth clean of most of its white lead and raspberry juice coating. The lips beneath were very pale, almost bloodless.

‘As a matter of fact, no,’ she answered. ‘Of course, he called Tom and the rest of the Rawbones all the bad names he could lay his tongue to for Rosamund’s sake. But I’d say that really he was delighted that Tom was going to marry Eris – because, of course, we didn’t know
then
what had gone on up at Dragonswick Farm. Lambert just saw that at last the way was clear for him to start courting Rosamund on his own account. He’d always been fond of her. More than fond.’