Face Down among the Winchester Geese (4 page)

"Hot mutton pies!” a boy cried out, catching his attention.

Another lad called, “Hot oatcakes."

It occurred to Robert that he was hungry, and straight ahead, beyond Queenhithe, were cookshops. Diane could wait a bit longer.

By the time Robert hired a boat to take him across the river to Bankside, it was dusk. The best time to visit the stews, he thought. From the water, the area looked much as he remembered.

He'd not had any reason in recent times to resort to hired women, but years ago he'd been a frequent visitor. Back in the days when Queen Mary had sat on England's throne, the young bloods of the court had made many a nocturnal foray into Southwark. Robert had fond memories of one house in particular, the Sign of the Smock, where the whores possessed most inventive repertoires.

Paris Garden lay at the western end of Bankside, almost in the open countryside beyond. Paris Garden Stairs were situated between that same Sign of the Smock and the Falcon inn. Unlike most of its neighbors, the inn was only what it claimed to be.

Robert entered the large parlor and surveyed a familiar scene. Blue-coated boys served wine in glasses and ale in tankards under the supervision of a hostess. At some tables, dice or cards shared space with food and drink. Pausing only long enough to make sure no one was paying him any particular attention, Robert found the stairs. Diane would be in one of the private rooms above.

He did not have time for French plots and counterplots, he reminded himself. All his hopes now resided in a different direction. He would find out what Diane wanted, deal with her, and return home.

He rapped sharply on the elmwood door.

As if she had been watching for him, Diane opened it at once. She was more attractive than he remembered. She'd been young four years ago, he recalled. Now her beauty had matured into something fuller and more compelling.

"
Ma belle,
” he said. “'Tis good to see you looking so well."

She held out one slender white hand. In a throaty purr, she invited him inside.

"Madam?” Jennet stuck her head through the door and, seeing Lady Appleton was alone in the solar, came in. “Is there aught I can do for you?"

Though it was now long after dark, Sir Robert had not returned home. Jennet's mistress had occupied herself in the garden after his departure, coming inside to sup only after the light faded. Now she sat in the dim light of a single candle, no needlework to occupy her hands, no book open before her. Jennet had rarely seen her so broody.

"Come and sit beside me,” Lady Appleton bade her. “Keep me from mine own thoughts."

"Are they so troubling?” Jennet complied with her wishes, settling herself comfortably on the wide window seat. The cat, from one of Dame Cat's litters and bearing the name Ginger for her coloring, hopped up beside them, curling once about herself before she settled down to sleep. Jennet absentmindedly rested her hand on the soft fur, finding the steady rise and fall beneath her palm more soothing than a draught of Lady Appleton's daily elixir.

"Troubling?” Lady Appleton repeated. She turned to face Jennet on the window seat, drawing her legs up and resting her hands on her knees as she leaned back against the side of the recessed casement. “Say rather, tempting. I have been thinking about a spell I once read of, a spell for a wedding day. Someone among the guests secretly knots a leather cord in a certain way during the ceremony and utters these words: ‘Whom God hath joined together, let the devil separate.’ This is said to cause impotence."

Jennet felt her eyes widen. Her mistress was in a strange mood, indeed, not only in contemplating magic, but in speaking of such forbidden things aloud. “What wickedness! And is that not witchcraft, besides?"

"Oh, yes, especially now that we have a new law against sorcery.

Uncertain, Jennet said nothing. It had always been dangerous to dabble in spells. Potions, now, they were another matter.

"This incantation would save many a wife much trouble,” Lady Appleton pointed out, “and spare her the bother of children, as well."

"I'd not want to keep my Mark from his pleasure, nor myself, neither!” Jennet exclaimed. She felt color rush into her cheeks as soon as the words were out.

Lady Appleton chuckled. “You are a fortunate woman, Jennet. You married a man of your own choosing."

Jennet looked down at the hand still stroking Ginger as a small, secretive smile played about her lips. Yes, she was happy in her choice. Mark had proven himself a prince among men. Even when she'd told him she intended to travel to London with their mistress, and that she did not want to take the children with her, he'd not argued. Instead he'd arranged for his sister to come and look after them while she was gone.

She missed them more than she'd thought she would. The eldest had been named Susanna and was Lady Appleton's godchild. The second girl was named for Catherine, Lady Glenelg. Jennet's third child, a boy, dutifully named Robert, was still in swaddling clothes.

"'Twould almost be worth the price of another babe to share a bed with Mark again,” she murmured.

"There are ways to prevent conception,” Lady Appleton announced.

Startled, Jennet gaped at her mistress. Close as the two of them had been over the last few years, they had never discussed anything this personal before.

"Some,” Lady Appleton continued, using her most matter-of-fact voice, “are said not to diminish the pleasures of lovemaking for either husband or wife. The great physician Maimonides wrote of a two-step process. Before the act, the man must anoint his pintle with the juice of an onion, or wood tar, or the gallbladder of a chicken. Afterward, the woman must insert inside herself a suppository made with juice of peppermint, or with pennyroyal, or with seeds of leek.” Her brow furrowed. “I would advise against using pennyroyal, I do think. The wrong amount might cause much damage."

Ask Mark to rub an onion on his man's yard? Jennet could not imagine herself suggesting such a thing, let alone Mark doing it. “I do not think I—"

"You need not be embarrassed, Jennet,” Lady Appleton said. “Knowledge is a good thing.” Then she fell into what Jennet privately called her lecturing tone and continued to share the fruits of her research.

"All manner of mixtures have been used by women through the ages in attempts to keep the size of their families small. Some have no effect at all. Some do harm. Beware of potions containing wormwood."

Jennet's initial embarrassment faded, replaced by curiosity. “Do any of these remedies work?” she heard herself ask.

"Some say a mixture of one obol of rocket and one-half obol of cow parsnip, drunk with oxymel, will prevent conception. Oxymel is a vinegar-and-honey mixture."

This was but a recipe for an ailment of an intimate nature, Jennet told herself. No harm in that. But an obol was quite a lot. It took eight drams to make one, and each dram was the weight of sixty grains.

"One might also make pills the size of a bean for this purpose, out of myrtle, wallflowers, and bitter lupines in equal quantities, mixed with water.” Lady Appleton smiled at her housekeeper. “These pills are said to be most effective, but I'd not wish to experiment on a friend."

Jennet's answering smile was halfhearted.

"The same is true of a mixture made of three drachmas of rue leaves, two drachmas of myrtle, and two drachmas of laurel mixed with wine."

Six obols to a drachma, Jennet recalled. “I'd not drink that much of anything but beer or ale,” she said in a firm voice.

"If you do not wish to use potions at all, there is still one simple way to avoid conception. Insist that Mark spill his seed on the bedclothes. ‘Tis messy, but better than breeding too often."

A little silence fell between them.

"I cannot regret having had my children,” Jennet said, “though ‘tis a great pleasure to be away from them this little while."

"And I must confess,” Lady Appleton confided, “that I have never had any great desire for motherhood.” She seemed to read Jennet's thoughts in her face. “No, Jennet, I have done nothing to prevent it. In truth, there are times when I feel I have failed in my duty to my husband because I have not given him an heir."

In Jennet's view, Sir Robert's failing was greater. A faithful wife deserved a faithful husband. She did not say so, nor did she admit that she'd once thought Lady Appleton's daily elixir a potion to keep her from breeding. She'd long since learned that mixture was no more than a healthful tonic, an infusion made of chamomile, St. John's wort, and gingerroot.

"I have done naught to change God's will when it comes to having children,” Lady Appleton said, her voice sad. “Neither to prevent my chances of conception nor to increase them."

Jennet was already aware that there were ways to increase fertility, but she could not contain a shudder at the thought.

Noticing, Lady Appleton chuckled and shook off her melancholy mood. “Neither of us, I do think, have need or inclination to speak of the treatments for barrenness. Let us raid the cook's store of comfits instead. I have a sudden craving to taste something sweet."

Susanna stared at the scrap of paper a burly constable pressed into her hand. Dismay suffused her features as she absorbed what he'd just told her. A woman's body had been found near Paris Garden.

"You say this writing was in her cloak?"

"Aye. In ‘er pocket. Soon as ‘e read that, crowner's clerk sent me ‘ere straight away.” He used the old term for coroner, which might have amused Susanna here in modern London if the neatly written words had not directed the bearer to Sir George Eastland's house in Catte Street.

"My husband did but lately lease this property from Sir George's widow,” she told the constable, a short, red-haired fellow of indeterminate years, his only claim to distinction a great beak of a nose that had been broken more than once.

"Is ‘e at ‘ome, then, madam? Mayhap ‘e could come and ‘ave a look at ‘er. Clerk said to fetch what person do live ‘ere to see if ‘e knows who she be.” He'd doffed his hat when she came to greet him and now mangled it between his hands as he spoke.

"My husband has gone ahead to church,” Susanna lied. Believable enough. It was Sunday morning. She had been about to walk to St. Lawrence Jewry herself. The truth, however, was that Robert had not returned to Catte Street the previous night, and for that reason news of a dead woman in Southwark made Susanna uneasy.

"The victim. What does she look like?"

"She were dead, madam."

"Her hair, sirrah? What color is it? How tall was she?"

The constable's face blazed bright as his unkempt locks. He mumbled something Susanna did not quite catch, though it sounded like a name. Petronella.

"Do you mean to tell me you know who she is?"

"Nay, madam. Only that she do resemble ... someone. Dark ‘aired, they be. And little.” Running a dirty thumb under his collar, the constable tried to peer into the house. “'Ave you no man to send for your ‘usband, madam? Crowners clerk, ‘e'll be wanting to move ‘er from where she fell."

The image of a dead woman left lying in the street, where her body could be gawked at by all and sundry, spurred Susanna to a decision. Someone must go, and quickly, for decency's sake.

And if the little, dark-haired woman was Diane?

Susanna reasoned that she would cross that bridge when she came to it.

"I will accompany you to Southwark,” she informed the waiting constable. “Jennet!” she called over her shoulder. “Fetch my cloak and bring your own."

A short time later, attended by Fulke as well as Jennet, Susanna followed the constable through London's Sunday morning bustle. Her mind raced ahead to what she would find on the other side of the river. No one but the mysterious Diane was likely to have had a paper with Robert's address written upon it. If Diane was dead, what should Susanna do?

Diane had come to Robert for help. Susanna had wondered at the time if the other woman was afraid of something. If she had been slain, it followed that what she had feared had come to pass, and further that if she had asked Robert for protection, he had failed her. To Susanna's way of thinking, that made it the Appletons’ responsibility to find out what had happened to her and why, and if possible to see this wrong righted.

As she stepped aboard a wherry for the final leg of the journey to Southwark, and the constable once more expressed his reluctance to take a gentlewoman to the scene of the crime, Susanna was forced to turn her thoughts to Robert's whereabouts. Where was he now? More to the point, where had he been last night? If he had gone to visit Diane, as Susanna supposed he had, he might have been the last person to see the Frenchwoman alive.

Except for her killer. Unless Robert was—. Susanna attempted to censor that line of inquiry, to assure herself that although Robert might have done many unpleasant things in his time, he was not a murderer. And yet, common sense forced her to be realistic. Anyone could kill, given adequate provocation. She did not know enough about what had happened to Diane to draw any conclusions.

She did not even know for certain that the victim was Diane. As the constable led them past disreputable-looking tenements and lodgings interspersed with a sprinkling of alehouses and taverns, she clung to the faint hope it was not.

Winding dirt alleys crisscrossed narrow streets surfaced with mortar and oyster shells. Up ahead, in single file, a ragtag band of men, twelve in number, came out from between two tall buildings.

"Crowner's jury,” the constable said.

A crowd had gathered at the end of the alley, held back by two more constables and a bailiff. Avid, they shouted questions at the jurors and stared as a gentleman emerged from the same location and hurried off without even looking in Susanna's direction.

"Crowner,” the constable said. “Master Speedwell. ‘E likes to live up to ‘is name."

The constable gestured for Susanna, Jennet, and Fulke to precede him into the narrow passageway that had just been vacated. A man she took to be the coroner's clerk waited there, a tall, lanky fellow, clean shaven, with a mole at the side of his nose and a tablet appended to his belt. He moved aside, revealing the body.