12 - Nine Men Dancing (26 page)

But if all these conjectures of mine were correct – and they were only conjectures I reminded myself severely – there still remained the question of how the Martin brothers had come by their treasure trove in the first place. Had they, or one of their forefathers, come across the bowls accidentally while digging somewhere? For truffles in the woods, maybe? Beneath their cellar floor, like the Roman sandal in the alehouse? Or – and here my imagination really did catch fire with the utter certainty of having hit upon the truth – had the two wellers from Tetbury dug them up while excavating the new well for the courtyard?

But if that were indeed the case, to whom had the right of ownership belonged? To the men who had found them? Or to the men on whose land they had been discovered? I could imagine only too well the dispute that might have arisen, the Martin brothers claiming the bowls as theirs, the wellers, seeing a potential fortune in silver slipping through their fingers, adducing the old law of ‘finders keepers’.

So stalemate would have ensued. Perhaps one bowl each would have been the answer; but men confronted by the prospect of sudden wealth are not that reasonable. Probably the Martins would have won the day. They were on home ground, after all, always an advantage. But perhaps the wellers, having finished the job and been paid for their labours, had started for home, only to return by stealth, purloin the Roman bowls and set out once more for Tetbury, hoping against hope that the theft would go undetected until they had put enough distance between themselves and Upper Brockhurst Hall to make successful pursuit impossible.

But, unluckily for them, the Martin brothers had discovered their loss in plenty of time to go after their former employees, whom they ambushed and bludgeoned to death in the forest. They had then carried the silver bowls home again with a triumph that had proved shortlived. Within days, a week at the most, they had both died of the bubonic plague that had spread like wildfire throughout Upper Brockhurst, leaving not a single soul alive.

And many months later, scavenging with his pastoral flock through the possessions of their dead neighbours, the Lower Brockhurst priest, Father Lightfoot, had come across two magnificent silver chalices that would not only grace Saint Walburga’s altar, but also greatly enhance and augment her insignificant store of plate. It would have been an opportunity too good to miss. The bowls would be used to the greater glory of God, and I doubted if the priest would even have thought of his actions as a sin.

Had ‘Light-fingered’ Lightfoot realized that the bowls were Roman? If so, would he have cared? As I had discovered on occasions in the past, in remote, isolated communities such as this, the people made their own rules, judged by their own standards and, while they were aware of the wider world beyond their boundaries, nevertheless considered themselves exempt from its laws. In times of trouble, they closed ranks against the outsider who would have imposed the King’s justice upon them and theirs, and, when necessary, meted out their own punishments. Tom Rawbone had fled from the wrath of his fellow villagers, not from the threat of trial and imprisonment in Gloucester.

I stood up, stretching my cramped limbs, slowly looking around me. I felt sure, in my own mind, that I had solved the mystery of the wellers’ murder, although I should never be able to prove it. Nor would my solution arouse much interest if I could. Most likely, it would only inspire incredulity and derision. The story was a part of the folklore of the district, and if there is one thing that people dislike more than another, it is having a good mystery ruined with a rational explanation. It is no longer any fun.

Instead, I reconsidered the totally groundless, but intuitive feeling that I had entertained since the very beginning of this case: that the disappearance of Eris Lilywhite was somehow linked to the 130-year-old murder of the wellers. So, now that I had, or thought I had, a solution to that particular problem, how were the two events connected? There was, of course, only one answer, provided that my instincts were correct, and that was the well. But I had climbed down the shaft and inspected it closely. There was nothing there. Nor, according to those who had helped in the search for Eris, had there ever been. This had to mean that the two were unconnected. My much-vaunted intuition had played me false …

Hercules came hurtling out of the undergrowth, whining and climbing up my leg in palpable distress. I picked him up.

‘What’s the matter, boy?’ I asked.

But even as I spoke, I could smell burning on the air and saw smoke curling up amongst the distant trees. I made my way towards it, the dog gibbering and struggling in my arms. Then I saw the flames.

A small wicker cage had been hung from a branch and set alight. Inside, on the bottom, was a charred shape, black and still. What it was I could not tell. But one fact was certain. If it had once been a living creature, it had met a horrible death.

I set Hercules down and he scurried, whimpering, under the nearest bush, his eyes reproaching me for abandoning him so callously. Then, with my cudgel, I slashed out at the last fiery remnants of the wicker cage, hitting them to the ground. They fell in a shower of sparks and charred black specks that clung to my hands and sleeves, the wet grass effectively dousing the rest of the flames. Reluctantly, I approached the remains and stirred them with the end of my stick, prodding cautiously at the burned lump, half expecting to uncover what was left of some small animal or bird. To my relief, however, it disintegrated, and I could only guess that it had been another of the corn dollies that I had previously seen, along with the rag ‘clooties’, tied to the branches of the trees.

I knew what the wicker cage and the corn dolly were meant to represent. It was a re-enactment, in miniature, of the old Celtic practice of human sacrifice, burning the victims alive. Often, the wicker cages had been woven in the shape of a giant man – or, at least, so had said Julius Caesar in his condemnation of the ancient British Druids. (Which, when one considered the barbaric customs of the Romans was like the pot calling the skillet black.)

But that was beside the point; the point being that I was not alone here, on the Upper Brockhurst ridge, as I had fondly imagined. The hairs began to lift on the nape of my neck. Someone had been very close, and recently enough to set light to the little cage so that it was still burning when I found it. Its woven twigs would most probably, at that time of year, have been damp, but nonetheless, it would have burned quite quickly. Had that mysterious someone realized I was near? Was the ‘sacrifice’ a warning to me?

I took my cudgel in a firmer grip, hissed at Hercules to follow me – an injunction he resolutely ignored: did I really think he was that much of a fool? – and walked forward along the track that led out of the opposite side of the clearing. After advancing two or three yards, I paused to listen, but the only sounds were the sighing of the breeze through the leaves, the faint, barely audible rustling of grasses and the twittering of birds among the branches.

A sudden rush of wings made me start, as one of the birds flew low overhead. I called out, ‘Hello! Is anybody there?’ But it was a stupid question, and silence was the only answer. As I had realized once before, endless acres of woodland stretched all about me; and for anyone who was familiar with its secret paths and tracks, overgrown and invisible to the eye of a stranger, remaining concealed would pose no problem. I was wasting my time and possibly endangering my person, as well. It was time I returned to the Lilywhites’ cottage. If I had signally failed in what I had come here to do – to sift through what I knew of Eris Lilywhite’s disappearance – I had at least solved one mystery to my satisfaction, even if the solution was of no benefit to anyone living.

I retrieved Hercules from under his bush and tucked him beneath one arm. He remained unmoved by my accusation of cowardice, licking my face in slavering subservience as we started downhill, across the pasture, heading for the smallholding near the bottom of the slope. The winter day was fading, the darkening sky riven by a shaft of light as cold as steel. It was also beginning to rain, the drops slanting against my face like splinters of ice, yet another reminder that winter had not yet given up the ghost, even though tomorrow, Sunday, would be the last day of February. And the feast of Saint Patrick was only seventeen days away. I had to leave Lower Brockhurst soon or break my promise to Adela.

I tilted my head, looking up at the white sword of light drawn through the leaden clouds, and demanded irritably, ‘Well, Lord? What is it you want me to do? Am I performing Your work here? Or are You simply playing at cat and mouse? Is Eris Lilywhite safe and sound somewhere, while You’re just laughing up Your sleeve to see me running around in circles? I mean, I’d like to keep my word to my wife, if it’s all the same to You. So for pity’s sake, give me a sign!’

But, of course, nothing dramatic happened. Why did I think it might? God doesn’t work like that. Not ever. You have to wait, slowly and painstakingly piecing together the scraps of information that He condescends to give you until, finally, you can see the picture, whole and entire.

The bright day had settled into a stormy night of wind and driving rain. The Mistress Lilywhites and I huddled close to a fire where the logs crackled and sparked across the red-hot sods of peat, while the wind moaned and whistled through the hole in the blackened roof, blowing showers of woodash into our laps and faces, causing our eyes to water and smart.

The two women had received news of the invalids’ condition when they had visited the village during the course of the afternoon, in order, so they said, to purchase flour from the mill. Their information was therefore more recent than mine, and they were able to reassure me that both Lambert and Sir Anselm were making good progress. Indeed, the priest insisted that he would able to conduct all services the following day and also to hear confessions first thing in the morning. Mistress Bush, who was still dancing attendance on him, had pursed her lips and shaken her head doubtfully, but her patient was adamant.

‘And she won’t dent the old man’s determination, once he’s made up his mind,’ said Theresa. ‘Sir Anselm’s as obstinate as they come.’ She added reproachfully, ‘We expected you back by dinnertime, Roger. We didn’t anticipate having to go chasing after the news ourselves.’

‘Don’t be silly, Mother-in-law,’ Maud begged her tartly. ‘The walk did us good. Besides, Master Chapman’s our guest, not our errand boy.’

‘No, no! Dame Theresa’s right,’ I apologized. ‘I should have had the courtesy to call in and tell you what I’d learned. But is there any more news, do you know, of Tom Rawbone? Has he been found yet? Have the village elders organized a posse?’

The older woman shook her head. ‘We’ve heard nothing on either count. Between ourselves, I think the Rawbone family – Ned and his father, to be more precise – have brought pressure to bear on members of the Village Council to let matters rest as they are. Or, at the very least, to delay sending anyone in pursuit until it’s far too late to catch up with Tom. No one’s dead, after all–’ her voice faltered for a moment, thinking of her granddaughter no doubt, but she rallied and went on – ‘and, so long as Tom doesn’t return to Dragonswick, there’s no occasion to make an enemy of Nathaniel. Generally speaking, communities like Lower Brockhurst – isolated, dependent on one another’s goodwill, especially in winter – prefer to keep on speaking terms with their neighbours. Tom’s the one people have it in for. His treatment of Rosamund Bush disgusted them: she’s well liked in the village. And in many ways, they secretly admire the old man for being able, at his time of life, to sneak Eris from under Tom’s nose. They feel it served him right.’

I asked, ‘Do you both believe it was Tom who attacked the miller and Sir Anselm?’

‘Of course!’ Maud exclaimed sharply. ‘What other explanation can there possibly be? He’s run away, hasn’t he? And the mask he wore was discovered in the Rawbones’ undercroft.’

‘But why would he beat up the priest? Lambert I can understand, but Tom seems to have had no grudge against Sir Anselm. At least, none that anyone has mentioned to me.’

Maud shrugged her thin shoulders. ‘To make people ask that very question, I should suppose. To throw dust in their eyes so that, like you, they begin to doubt that it was Tom who assaulted either man.’

Theresa gave a snort of derision.

‘Tom Rawbone hasn’t the brains or the subtlety to think up a plan like that.’ She turned to me. ‘So what are you implying, chapman? That someone else wanted to make people believe that Tom Rawbone was the culprit?’

‘Something like that,’ I admitted.

‘But why choose the priest as his second victim, when there’s no known quarrel between Tom and Sir Anselm?’ She laughed again. ‘It seems to me we’re going round in circles.’

‘Perhaps. Or perhaps the priest knows something he shouldn’t. The beating could have been in the nature of a warning.’

‘I’ve never heard such nonsense!’ Maud’s tone was abrasive. She had never spoken to me in so disrespectful a manner before, and it shook me. ‘You’re making a mystery where none exists, Master Chapman! I’ve no idea why. But I’ll tell you now, for what it’s worth! I hold Tom Rawbone responsible for my daughter’s death.’

‘You do believe that Eris is dead, then?’ I intervened quickly, before Dame Theresa could ask the same question, as she was obviously about to do.

The tears welled up in Maud’s tired eyes, overflowed and spilled slowly down her cheeks.

‘Of course, I believe she’s dead! What sort of a fool do you take me for? Do you really think that she wouldn’t have tried to get in touch with me, during all these months, if she was still alive?’

‘And you say you hold Tom Rawbone responsible for her death?’

Maud took a deep breath and closed her eyes. ‘Who else?’ she asked in a stifled whisper.

‘Well, that’s an admission,’ her mother-in-law remarked with quiet satisfaction. ‘But if that’s what you believe, Maud – what you’ve believed from the very beginning – why are you so set against Master Chapman, here, making enquiries? Oh, don’t bother to deny it! It’s been apparent to me, as it must have been to him, that you’d have preferred it if he hadn’t meddled. You’ve encouraged him from the start to be on his way, to go home to his wife. Why?’