New Blood From Old Bones (16 page)

Freeing himself from the boot with a final kick, Will stood up, barefoot, and seized Lambert by the shoulders. ‘The truth, boy!'

he demanded. ‘I've heard bawdy jests in plenty, but none to cause so much laughter before supper time. Tell me the truth.'

‘Sir –' said Lambert wretchedly. He hesitated, then burst out: ‘Master Ackland is the cause. He's been gone since breakfast, when he beat the cook sorely. And now we hear he's fled the town – and the cook is glad of it!'

Will stared at the boy. ‘Fled?'

‘Aye, sir.' Lambert would not meet his eyes. ‘On account of having murdered the prior's bailiff …'

‘God's blood!' exploded Will, angered by the spreading rumour and more so by the fear that it might be true. He flung the boy aside, but seized him again before he could fall.

‘Listen to me, Lambert Catchpole. There's no one in this town – not the justice of the peace, nor the constable, nor any other – who can say who the dead man is. As for your master, I have no doubt he'll return before nightfall demanding his supper. And woe betide the cook, and all of you, if it's not ready – and done exactly to his liking!'

By the time Will had changed his damp clothes and returned to the hall, he found it empty. It was a room that always darkened early, and the distant sound of women's voices told him that they had moved to Meg's parlour, where daylight lingered longest.

He was glad to be alone with his anxiety. Restless for Ned's return from Bromholm, he strode about, kicked the log on the hearth into flame, and conferred with the dogs. But presently Meg came looking for him. ‘Betsy is with us,' she said, and so he was eager to follow her.

His womenfolk had, it seemed, taken it upon themselves to provide him with garments fine enough to wear at Oxmead. From the clothing and stuffs piled on the table in the window, it appeared that they had ransacked every chest in the house. ‘Not just for your benefit, neither,' his sister pointed out. ‘We have the honour of the family to consider.'

Before he would look at any of it, he went to his daughter. Under the eye of her nurse Agnes, she was exploring the tumbled contents of the great oak chest in the parlour, her plump arms buried deep in old velvets and satins.

‘What have we here, Betsy?' he asked, kneeling beside her. The smell of dried lavender floated up from the chest as he discovered a gown of deep blue that had belonged to his mother, and one of emerald green that Meg had worn when she was young. ‘Do you know the names of the colours?'

Shy again at first, she gave him a half-smile and a nod.

‘Well then: what's this?'

‘Green,' she said instantly.

‘Good. And this?'

‘Blue.'

He smiled. ‘I see you know them all. One more, then.'

Betsy hesitated. Her budding lips tried to frame the ‘y'of ‘yellow', but found it difficult. Undaunted, she looked him mischievously in the eye.

‘Red!' she asserted. And then she chuckled, knowing that he knew she was teasing him, and he stroked her hair fondly and went to join her elders.

Meg and Alice had decided that they had time enough to make him a new shirt, out of some fine linen that Meg had put by, inset at the neck with a band of many-coloured embroidery they had found. As for doublet and hose, Alice offered what her husband had been married in, and had never worn since.

‘Gilbert will never know,' she said, though there was some apprehensiveness in her voice.

‘He cannot wear them again, for he's grown too fat,' said Meg. ‘They'll be large for you, even so – but we can have them altered to fit.'

‘I'll not wear Gib's hose!' Will declared ungraciously.

‘Then you must make do with your Sunday pair,' snapped Meg, out of patience with him. ‘But you need not turn up your nose at his doublet. It's as fine as any Norfolk gentleman could wear, for I ordered it from the best tailor in Lynn.'

It was indeed a fine garment, made of light blue velvet with bands of darker blue braid in the front and on the wide-puffed upper sleeves. Will tried it on, admiring it but finding it far too large at the waist. The women fussed round him, pinching and pinning it.

‘I thank you both,' he said. ‘But who is to alter it? There's no time to take it back to Lynn.'

‘Young Dickson, here in Priorygate, will do it,' said Meg, removing a pin from her mouth. ‘He's a much better tailor than his father was – why, I hear that the prior himself has some of his clothing made by him. If young Dickson's tailoring is good enough for my lord prior, it should be good enough for Master Will Ackland. There …'

She stood back to judge the alterations, conferring with Alice over the placement of a last pin. ‘You look very handsome, Will,' murmured his sister-in-law.

His sister snorted. ‘At least he'll do the family no discredit,' she conceded. ‘Now, Agnes shall take the doublet straight to the tailor, so as to lose no time in the unpicking. And you must call there tomorrow morning, Will, for a fitting.'

As they divested him carefully of the pinned garment, and wrapped it in a cloth, Will caught sight of Agnes's wholesome face. She was a good-hearted young woman, and always ready to be of service, but her expression now was one of dismay.

She said nothing beyond a small ‘Aye, madam,' as she took the bundle Meg gave her, but her eyes were cast down and her mouth was tight. Will followed her out of the parlour and caught her up in the hall.

Some of the candles had been lit, and the tablecloth was in place, but the three serving women who were supposedly setting the supper had gathered in a muttering huddle, pewter plates and drinking cups and loaves of bread clutched to their aproned bosoms. As soon as Will entered the room they fell silent and scurried about their work, giving him covert glances.

He ignored them. ‘What's amiss, Agnes?' he asked quietly.

She looked away from him, her eyes wretched. ‘Oh, sir – I dare not go out, for fear of what folk will say! Here's Master Ackland fled, and the whole town calling him a murderer—'

The sound of hooves galloping into the castle yard made everyone in the hall look up, and stand as if frozen. Collectively – including even the dogs, or so it seemed – they held their breath.

Then the front door burst open and a great bellowing for attention reverberated through the house. His brother had not fled after all, and Will had never been so glad to hear his voice.

But it seemed that something untoward had happened during the day, for Gilbert bore the unmistakable marks of a brawl. He walked with a cautious stiffness, as though his back pained him. There was bruising on one of his cheeks, and on the other, extending across his forehead, was a livid weal.

Gilbert refused, that evening, to speak of it – or indeed to speak at all, except savagely to the servants. But Will took note that his brother did not leave the castle again that night, nor yet early the following morning.

After breakfast, when the priory bell was ringing for the monks' Chapter Mass, Will went out under an overcast sky to call on the tailor in Priorygate.

He chose to walk rather than ride. Unwilling to believe that all Castleacre considered his brother a murderer, he wanted to meet the eyes of everyone he came upon. But where yesterday there had been smiles and greetings, today there were none.

Townspeople pointed him out covertly, turning away at his approach or busying themselves so as to avoid speaking to him. True, Dickson the tailor rose from where he sat cross-legged in the window of his shop and attended to him eagerly, but he was a young man intent on building up his business.

While he was in the shop, with its coloured clutter of half-finished garments and reels of thread, Will negotiated for the making of a new cap for his visit to Oxmead, in place of the Sunday cap he was now wearing. He had persuaded Meg to let him have a good piece of the emerald green velvet from her discarded gown, and she had laughed and found him a peacock's feather to go with it.

The tailor promised that all would be ready by the next morning, Sunday, before Mass. Will left the shop with rising spirits. As he stepped out again into the street, a woman's voice, deep and warm, hailed him.

‘Why – Master William Ackland!'

He would not have recognised Sibbel Bostock except by her voice. The woman who was approaching him from the direction of the priory gatehouse was properly attired as the wife of a yeoman. Her gown was of a seemly length, and her hair was entirely hidden by her linen undercap and her gable hood. She carried an empty basket on her way to the market place.

Will's spirits sank again. He returned her greeting with the briefest courtesy, for he was reluctant to speak to her. With reason, he felt uneasy in her presence. It seemed that, living out of the town as she did, the bailiff's wife had not yet heard the rumours. Would the townspeople be quick to inform her, he wondered, that it was her husband who had been murdered, and his brother who was the murderer?

But he could not part from her at once, for she might later think of his haste as an admission of Gib's guilt. Better, he decided, to deny that part of the rumour by making conversation with her.

‘Young Dickson is a good tailor, I hear,' he said, conscious of a stiff formality in his voice. For all that her lustrous black hair was now completely hidden, Sibbel Bostock was a remarkably handsome woman. The black eyes, in the strong brown-skinned face, seemed larger and more bright than he remembered.

‘An excellent tailor,' she agreed. ‘And perhaps I can be of assistance to you, Master Will? Should you need any fine cloth or velvet for Dickson to make up, my husband's aunt has the best you can buy this side of Lynn, at her shop by the church in Swaffham. She will be sure to give you a fair price if you mention my name.'

Will muttered his thanks. The image of the mutilated corpse hovered unbidden before his mind's eye. Was it her husband who had been buried unknown before dusk yesterday, with only the constable, the sexton and his son to attend him during the last rites?

His unease doubled as Sibbel Bostock continued, smiling and lowering her voice confidentially though there were none to hear.

‘I have placed an order with Dickson, secretly, for a new cap for my husband. The prior's bailiff is like most men – except young gentlemen such as yourself, of course – and always favours his sad old cap … Now there'll be a new one for him, will-he nil-he, when he returns from Bromholm!'

Will smiled as best he could, feeling compassion for a good wife who might well, unknowing, have been a widow for some days. ‘And when will that be?' he asked, for something to say.

‘Tuesday at best, or Wednesday more like. Unless of course he's delayed on business for the priory. He may be required to go to Thetford, or even further afield.'

They had conversed enough, he hoped, for her to doubt any rumour she might hear about Gilbert. Possibly she would hear nothing, for the townspeople might shun her as they so often shun the newly bereft, not knowing what to say beyond
God ha'mercy
. But to make it plain that Gib had not fled, Will said that his brother was waiting for him to return and discuss a matter of business. He bade her farewell and walked quickly back through the town, his head held high and looking neither to right nor to left.

In the castle yard, he found Jacob hissing through his toothless gums as he rubbed down a strange horse. It was near exhaustion, and white with sweat where Jacob had not yet reached.

‘Is Ned Pye returned?' Will asked, half eagerness, half dread.

‘Aye, sir – he's now indoors, eating and drinking his fill.' The old yardman snuffled with amusement. ‘But I wager he'll be standing up to do it, for he's been a long time in the saddle.'

Will ran to the house and in through the front door to the screens passage. ‘Ho there, Ned!' he shouted.

His servant appeared, making his way slowly and exaggeratedly bow-legged through the archway from the kitchens. He was chewing a mouthful of food and carrying a flagon. His chin was unshaven, his eyes were bleary from lack of sleep and his yellow hair clung to his forehead, darkly matted with sweat.

Will beckoned Ned into the hall, occupied only by the old dogs stretched on the hearth in front of a smouldering bough. ‘You've done well,' he said, clapping him on the shoulder. ‘Sit down and tell me your news.'

‘I'd sooner stand,' said Ned ruefully. Grimacing, he rubbed his behind. ‘Mass, I'm as raw as a sliced onion!'

He paused to swallow ale, and Will guessed that the pause foretold bad news. ‘You did not see Walter Bostock?'

‘No, Master Will. As you feared, he's not at Bromholm.'

The hall, with its heavily beamed ceiling and hazy window glass, was always dull when the sun did not shine. Under today's overcast sky it seemed to gather gloom, foretelling a long dark winter.

Ned drained his flagon before taking up his story.

‘I heard the news first from two disorderly monks, drinking at the sign of the Sun in North Walsham. They'd been sent – or so they said – from their priory at Bromholm to find whether the bailiff was on his way, for he was late. I rode on as far as the priory to make sure, but Walter Bostock had not arrived. On the way back I enquired wherever I stopped to change horses, but none of the innkeepers had seen him since last Michaelmas.'

The news was no worse than Will had expected, but to hear it told was a grievous blow. He shook his head in dismay. ‘Now, good St Christopher …' he muttered, invoking the aid of his favourite saint as he always did in time of trouble.

‘I doubt there's much the saints can do to help,' said Ned bluntly. His low opinion of the church had been reinforced by the Lutheran beliefs he had heard during their travels in Europe, though Will had observed that Ned was instantly devout whenever they'd had cause to fear for their lives. ‘This will go ill for your brother – unless you discovered anything to his advantage while I was away?'