12 - Nine Men Dancing (21 page)

Ruth considered this, swinging her feet, which failed to touch the ground by some three inches.

‘I don’t remember that she was like anything. Just her normal self, handing the dishes around, filling wine cups, doing whatever Mistress Merryman told her to.’ I had a sudden vision of this beautiful sixteen-year-old girl, composed, self-possessed, efficiently carrying out her orders, waiting for the moment when Nathaniel would make his earth-shattering announcement. Ruth went on, ‘She was always like that when the family was all together.’ Her voice grew more vindictive. ‘But I’d seen her, kissing and cuddling in corners with Master Tom and young Jocelyn. Mind, I never caught her with the Master. I don’t know when that went on.’

‘No,’ I agreed. ‘Nor does anyone else. They were obviously very discreet.’ She made no reply, so I continued, ‘You must have been present when Master Tom returned. You witnessed the terrible row between him and his father.’

‘I saw and heard it all, yes.’ She giggled nervously. ‘I thought someone was going to get killed. I thought Master Tom was going to murder one or the other of ’em. And Mistress Petronelle was screaming so loud I thought she’d have a fit. “Go home!” she kept yelling at Eris, and calling her a slut and a whore and anything else she could think of. It was awful! She frightened me as much as the men did. Then, later on, like the twins were telling you just now, she went for Eris and laid her cheek open with her nails. That’s when I decided I was going to bed. I’d leave the dirty dishes and wash them in the morning.’

‘Do you sleep in the kitchen?’ I asked, knowing this to be the lot of the majority of kitchen maids.

To my surprise, she shook her head.

‘No, in Dame Jacquetta’s bedchamber. I’ve a truckle bed under the window. She doesn’t like sleeping alone because sometimes she gets nightmares. Says she always has, since she was a girl. She likes someone to be there when she wakes up. She’s never married. Never found anyone round here good enough for her, I reckon. Thinks a lot of herself, does Dame Jacquetta.’

Which, of course, was why she could never stomach the idea of being just plain Joan; why she adopted the name of a duchess. And it was also why she would never have been able to tolerate the idea of her brother or nephew marrying Eris Lilywhite.

‘When you went to bed, did you go straight to sleep?’ I asked.

Once again, she shook her head. ‘No. I was too upset. And although I latched the bedchamber door, I could still hear them shouting and shrieking at one another downstairs. The noise was faint, mind you, but I could still hear ’em.’ She swung her feet some more. ‘I saw Eris leave the house,’ she said at last.

‘You saw her leave the house?’ I asked, my pulses beginning to race. ‘How … How did that happen?’

Ruth looked surprised. ‘Dame Jacquetta’s bedchamber window looks out over the front yard. I felt a bit queer, so I opened the shutters to get some air. Not much, mind you. It was blowing and raining too hard to open them very wide. Only a crack. But it was just then that I saw Eris run out. She was struggling to get her cloak on, but the wind almost tore it out of her hands.’

‘You’re sure it was Eris?’

‘Of course I’m sure. I could see her in the light from the open doorway, before someone slammed it shut.’

‘Was there any sign of anyone else?’ I pressed her. ‘Tom Rawbone, for example?’

Ruth shook her head. ‘No. Not that I could tell. But it was raining too hard to see much beyond the front paling. Once Eris was through the gate, I lost sight of her pretty quickly. The storm swallowed her up once she started to run.’

‘But in which direction was she running?’ I gripped one of Ruth’s hands and squeezed it. ‘You must have been able to get some idea. Downhill or up?’

She considered this, wiping her nose absent-mindedly on the back of her free hand.

‘Well?’ I urged. ‘Which was it?’

I was afraid she was going to claim that she couldn’t remember, but after a moment, she announced triumphantly, ‘She went downhill … Yes, I’m almost certain she did, because I thought to myself at the time that she’d taken Dame Petronelle’s advice, after all, and gone home.’

I was dreaming.

I knew that I was dreaming in the way that you do when you are very close to consciousness, but not yet quite fully awake. I was dancing with my two elder children as we had danced last August, through the streets of Bristol, at the end of the Lammas Feast. We were celebrating the safe bringing-in of the harvest, the cutting of the ripened corn. Adela was nearby with Adam, not as he was then, but the dark, determined seven-month-old that he had since become.

Abruptly, as things happen in dreams, the crowds and my family vanished and I was standing alone by the well in Upper Brockhurst woods, holding a silver cup, twisting it between my hands. The day was dark and overcast, but suddenly a weak gleam of sunshine pierced the canopy of trees to strike the rim, and I could see that the figures carved around the bowl were moving. Little boys with tails and horns and goats’ legs twisted in and out of a maze of trailing vine leaves and olive branches, picking the silver fruit. From somewhere behind me, Adela’s voice called, ‘She went home … home … home … You promised to come home …’

The scene shifted yet again. I was back in the alehouse, moving with the other players around the Nine Men’s Morris board. Someone – I couldn’t see who – was saying, ‘Line up the three morrells and then you’ll know who killed Eris Lilywhite. Line up the three morrells …’

I woke, sweat pouring down my naked body, just as something heavy landed on my chest. For one brief moment I thought I was in my own bed, enduring one of the daily, early morning assaults of Nicholas and Elizabeth that were fast turning me into the most flat-chested man in Bristol. Then realization dawned that the weight belonged to Hercules, and that I was lying supine on a narrow pallet in Maud Lilywhite’s cottage, as I had done for the past three nights. I had just decided that it must be almost daybreak, when I heard a cock crow, but there were as yet no sounds of stirring from behind the linen curtain. Theresa was snoring gently.

I freed an arm from beneath the blankets and stroked Hercules’s head. He returned my greeting by enthusiastically licking my face and thumping his stubby tail, then settled down until such time as I should rouse myself. I continued to lie still, mulling over my dream and thinking about my promise to Adela that I would be home by the feast of Saint Patrick.

Tomorrow was the last day of February, and if I was to redeem my promise, I should be setting out almost at once. At this time of year, there was no reliance to be placed on the offer of some kind-hearted carter to give me a ride; at least, not for any great distance. It would be a few weeks yet before the improving weather lured people into making lengthier journeys. And if my legs were to carry me home, I should leave Lower Brockhurst today. This morning.

That, of course, would mean abandoning my search for the truth about Eris Lilywhite, and I hated being defeated: unsolved mysteries were anathema to me. But even more than that, I hated breaking my word to Adela. If she had been the sort of wife whose reproaches took the form of beating me over the head with a skillet, or refusing me my conjugal rights in bed, I could have dealt with the situation. I should have asserted my manly authority as head of the household, ranted and postured a bit and generally pranced around like a cock on his dunghill. But I knew very well that, whenever I turned up, Adela would greet me with her customary warmth, listen without comment to my excuses – and enjoy watching me squirm with guilt.

Just thinking about her, picturing that little half-smile that played around the corners of her mouth, remembering the occasional sardonic gleam in her beautiful brown eyes, recalling the feel of her soft body curled up against mine, was having the most embarrassingly physical effect upon me; embarrassing, that is, if either of the Mistress Lilywhites made any sudden appearance, wanting me to get up so that she could stow away my bed. Resolutely, I switched my thoughts back to Eris’s disappearance and the dream from which I had awoken ten minutes earlier.

What had it been about? Something to do with a silver cup with satyrs dancing among vine leaves and olive branches … It made no sense at present, but perhaps it would later. I sighed and tried going back to sleep. I had, however, barely lost consciousness before I caught the low murmur of Theresa’s voice, followed by Maud’s. Immediately I was wide awake and, heaving Hercules off my chest, swung myself out of bed and reached for my hose and shirt, pulling both garments on with expert rapidity. By the time Theresa and Maud appeared from behind the curtain, I had tied my points and was fingering my unshaven chin.

An hour later, having washed and shaved, cleaned my teeth with willow bark and combed my hair, finished dressing and taken Hercules for a trot around the yard – keeping him well away from the geese, to whom he continued to take great exception – I sat down to breakfast. This morning, alas, it was oatmeal and dried herrings yet again (not a favourite meal with me, I’m afraid – I like something more substantial).

‘Now!’ Theresa said abruptly, putting down her spoon. ‘Tell us again what you told us yesterday evening. You were too tired then to talk much sense. First, what did you learn from Sir Anselm?’

‘Not a great deal,’ I hedged, not wanting to confess that I suspected the priest of knowing more than he had admitted to. ‘As I said, I learned more from the Rawbone twins and their little kitchen maid, Ruth.’

‘Ah, yes.’ Theresa resumed eating. ‘So how did you come to be at Dragonswick Farm? Something to do with Rosamund Bush meeting Tom Rawbone, wasn’t it? You’d better start again and explain what followed.’

Patiently, I went over the events of the previous day, aware that my fatigue had been so great last evening that I might possibly have been less than coherent. But I suspected the truth to be that Theresa enjoyed any story that redounded to the discredit of the Rawbone family and wanted to hear it for a second time.

‘The twins seem to have been good friends with your daughter when they were young,’ I remarked, finishing my account and turning to Maud.

‘They liked one another well enough when they were children,’ she conceded. ‘But they grew apart in later years.’

‘That was because you discouraged the friendship,’ Theresa cut in disapprovingly. ‘Some stupid notion of Eris not being good enough for the Rawbones. Laughable, considering what followed.’

‘You know nothing about it, Mother-in-law,’ Maud rebuked her sharply. ‘You weren’t here when Eris was small.’

‘I’ve lived with you since Gilbert died,’ Theresa retorted. ‘That’s almost seven years. Eris was ten, still young enough to be sneaking off with Chris and Josh Rawbone whenever she thought she could get away with it. That is, without you reprimanding her and confining her to the cottage.’

‘She was getting too hoydenish,’ Maud replied with heightened colour. ‘It was time she learned a woman’s skills and did her share around the house, especially with Gilbert gone.’

Theresa looked sceptical, but let the matter drop. She rapped my hand with the back of her spoon, to ensure my attention.

‘You made some comment about the Rawbones’ kitchen maid. That she’d seen Eris set off in this direction the night my granddaughter vanished. In the direction of home, was what you said.’

Maud snorted. ‘On such a night, no one could have seen which way Eris went once she was outside the Dragonswick pale.’

‘I think that’s probably true,’ I admitted. ‘Indeed, when I pressed her, Ruth owned that she would be unable to swear on oath that your daughter had set off for home. Nevertheless, it was her impression that Eris was heading this way.’

‘Well, she didn’t arrive,’ Maud said shortly, and began gathering the dirty bowls and spoons together. I thought I saw her blink back tears.

‘So, what next?’ asked Theresa, folding her arms on the table and peering at me intently. ‘What do you propose to do now?’

Her attitude that I was entirely responsible for finding out what had become of Eris irritated me.

‘It’s high time that I returned to Bristol,’ I answered. ‘If I’m to keep my word to my wife to be home by the feast of Saint Patrick, I should leave here today.’

‘You can’t do that!’ Theresa gasped. ‘You promised!’

Before I could speak, Maud sprang to my defence.

‘Master Chapman promised nothing, Mother, other than to do his best. Which he’s done. Like the rest of us, he knows that nothing can ever be discovered now. Thank you for all you’ve tried to do, sir, but you must get back to your wife, I can see that. We shall, of course, be sorry to lose your company, but we understand.’

I guessed that Maud Lilywhite would welcome my going. She had never wanted me to investigate Eris’s disappearance in the first place. She was happier in her ignorance. But my decision did not please Theresa.

‘You promised,’ she repeated.

‘I promised to do what I could in the few days I felt I could allow myself. That was all. My word to my wife must come first.’

‘Of course,’ Maud nodded.

Someone banged loudly on the cottage door, and a female voice called, ‘Maud! Maud Lilywhite! Are you in there? Theresa!’

Without waiting for a reply, the visitor lifted the latch and walked in – a round-faced woman with a coarse woollen cloak flung hastily and somewhat askew over her everyday homespun attire, whose plump features I vaguely recalled having seen in church on Thursday morning. She was pink-cheeked and panting.

‘My good soul, whatever is it?’ Theresa asked, guiding her to a stool and pouring her some ale from the jug on the table. ‘Anne, my dear, calm yourself. What’s the matter?’

The other woman gulped down the ale before gasping, ‘Such terrible doings … Down in the village … Came to tell you.’

‘Tell us what?’ Maud demanded, exasperated by the delay. ‘What doings in the village? What’s happened?’ She muttered for my benefit, ‘Goody Venables. Wife of the blacksmith.’

Mistress Venables nodded in confirmation and made a determined effort to impart her news.

‘Lambert Miller … Someone broke into the millhouse during the night and tried to kill him. Beat him half to death with an iron bar.’