[Roger the Chapman 06] - The Wicked Winter (13 page)

'Do you know,' he cried accusingly, as though it were somehow my fault, 'that last night, for the first time in my life, I failed to awaken to say the Matins office? Sir Hugh told us that there is a chapel somewhere in the house. I must find it at once and confess my sin of omission. It must also be nearly the hour of Prime.'

I realised that I, too, had slept so soundly after the rigours of the day that for once I had broken the old habit of waking in the small hours of the morning. I kept quiet, however.

Brother Simeon knew nothing of my past, and I had no wish to be taken to task over what he would undoubtedly regard as my backsliding. So I merely advised him to wait until one of the servants could guide him to the chapel, rather than go blundering about a house of mourning. That, anyhow, was the excuse I gave, but it had occurred to me that Mistress Lynom might well have passed the night elsewhere than in the guest room.

'Someone is bound to come in a moment,' I assured him.

The words had hardly left my mouth when I heard much shrieking and squealing outside. I hastily pulled on my boots and went to discover the cause, although I could guess it.

Martha Grindcobb, Jenny Tonge and the two other girls, Edith and Ethelwynne, were trying to negotiate the snow-covered steps which led down from the covered gallery and the female servants' quarters. Behind them, her red-rimmed eyes still heavy with sleep, trailed the young woman I had seen briefly the previous evening, Lady Cederwell's personal maid, Audrey Lambspringe. Their skirts were already soaked for several inches above the hems.

Stretching up, I caught the cook around her ample waist and managed to swing her into my arms. Her weight almost winded me, and I staggered a little as I struggled the foot or so to the open passage door and deposited her inside. After that, the other women presented no problem, but I was glad, all the same, to see Jude and Nicholas Capsgrave emerge from their ground-floor dormitory behind the great hall. It took them half a minute or more to wade through the snow drifts, which nearly reached the top of their boots, but when they had done so they helped Edith and Ethelwynne to descend the last few steps, leaving Audrey Lambspringe to me.

She was like a little bag of bones in my arms, as delicate and brittle as the tame sparrows I used to trap between my hands as a boy, and then release. The blue eyes gazing up at me had the same wide, terrified stare, and when I put her down, she darted away just as swiftly. The kitchen was filled with a babel of voices as everyone, including Ursula Lynom's two grooms who had by now joined us, exclaimed in wonder at the night's fall of snow, and Martha Grindcobb tried to press me to her bosom in gratitude for finding the fire already lit and water boiling. The noise was only quelled by the arrival of the housekeeper and steward.

'Silence, all of you!' Mistress Talke commanded. 'Have you no sense of decency? Do you think that this laughter and chatter is seemly with your mistress lying dead upstairs?' There was a general shuffling of feet and everyone looked uncomfortable. It was true, I think, that they had momentarily forgotten the fact in the excitement of the snow, and I sympathised with them. There is still something today, at my advanced age, which drives everything else from my mind when I see those sparkling white wastes outside my door.

'Has the body been laid out yet'?' the cook wanted to know, but Phillipa Talke shook her head.

'The upper part has lost its stiffness, but not the lower limbs. I have spoken to Father Godyer who informs me that it will take well over a day from the time Lady Cederwell died.'

The mention of the chaplain recalled Martha to a sense of her duties.

'I must take some food to the poor man. But it's little he's been able to fancy these past few days. How is he, Mistress Talke? Does he seem any better?'

'A little perhaps,' the housekeeper conceded. 'He's always suffered in his head, it's nothing new. These rheums pass in the end. Now, I think it high time we all got on with our work. We have a guest in the house. Mistress Lynom, Sir Hugh informs me, will break her fast with him in the great hall.'

She swept out of the kitchen, her household keys jangling at her belt, and I wondered if it were my imagination that she appeared even grander and more important than she had done the day before. But when she was out of earshot, Martha Grindcobb sniggered.

'Poor fool,' she said to no one in particular. 'Can't she see what's going on under her nose? Has been going on for years? Doesn't she realise that the master has never looked at her except as his housekeeper? Doesn't she know that Mistress Lynom is more to him than just an old friend?' No one seemed disposed to argue with her, or even show any particular interest in her words. Familiarity with the situation had bred indifference. The gossip was stale except to an outsider like me, and when Brother Simeon had been led away by Tostig to be conducted to the chapel, I sidled up to the cook where she was frying dried, salted fish in a skillet.

'Sir Hugh's very partial to herring,' she told me, and then, lowering her voice, added, 'I'll cook you a couple as well, if you like.'

I accepted with alacrity. I evidently stood high in her favour at present, so I took advantage of the moment and asked her to explain her words concerning Mistress Talke and Sir Hugh.

She was only too willing.

'The poor gowk thinks he's in love with her, although what encouragement the master's ever given her to believe so, no one knows but she. I've seen no sign of it, nor anyone else that I can discover.' Martha broke off for a moment to upbraid the girl, Edith, for not stirring the gruel vigorously enough, then returned to the subject in hand. 'There's few in these parts that don't know he's besotted with Mistress Lynom and always has been. I reckon she'll be the third Lady Cederwell within the year.'

I nodded. 'I, too, heard a rumour before I got here that Sir Hugh and Mistress Lynom were more to each other than simply friends.' I added that I knew him to have been at Lynom Hall the previous morning and repeated what Dame Judith had said.

'There you are then!' Martha tipped the herrings on to a plate and sent Ethelwynne running to the storeroom for two more. 'The world and his wife knows it for the truth, all but Phillipa Talke who's got this maggot in her head that she's his secret fancy.' Martha heaved a sigh. 'She'll learn better soon. '

Adela Empryngham entered the kitchen, having just struggled down the stairs from the women's dormitory, where she had spent the night. She had obviously benefited from the fact that Jude and Nicholas Capsgrave had been out clearing the steps of snow, for the hems of her gown and cloak were barely wet.

She grimaced at Martha Grindcobb. 'I'd best go and make peace with Gerard, I suppose, and try to hammer some sense into his thick skull. There's one thing, as long as this snow lies, there's no moving anywhere. I shall pray that it doesn't last beyond poor Jeanette's funeral.'

She disappeared into the storeroom and, a few moments later, we heard her open the door which led into the triangular courtyard. Ethelwynne returned with the herrings and Martha dropped them into the skillet.

'Nice plump ones,' she said. 'You'll enjoy these, Master Chapman.'

A blood-curdling scream rent the air. For a second no one moved, everyone staring at everyone else in wild surmise.

Another scream however sent us all pell-mell in the direction of the sound, following in the steps of Mistress Empryngham.

As we pushed and jostled with each other to get through the courtyard doorway, we saw her standing by the well, hands pressed against her cheeks, her mouth open and emitting a high-pitched wail. Something, two things rather, stuck up out of the well, stiff and frozen solid.

It took me a moment, as I think it did the others, to realise that it was a pair of naked legs.

Chapter Nine

Even now, I can clearly recall the sudden desire I had to laugh, so finely in this life is the line drawn between tragedy and comedy. But there was, for a brief moment, something very amusing about those seven or eight inches of leg pointing skywards above the low parapet of the well.

'Who . . .? Who is it?' quavered the voice of Martha Grindcobb behind me.

'Who was it, you mean,' Brother Simeon corrected in sepulchral tones. 'No creature could survive outdoors in his nightshirt in this weather.'

This bald statement of fact brought me up short, and any desire I had to laugh evaporated.

Adela Empryngham said between sobs, 'It's . . . It's G-Gerard! I recognise.., his.., his feet.'

Edith and Ethelwynne gave way once again to hysterics, and I was conscious of a small, cold hand tucking itself into one of mine. Glancing round, I saw Audrey Lambspringe, her face chalk-white, standing beside me. I closed my fingers over hers and squeezed them reassuringly.

By this time Tostig and Mistress Talke had appeared in the storeroom to discover the cause of the commotion. The steward immediately sent Jenny Tonge to the stables to fetch Jude and Nicholas Capsgrave, but before she could return with the grooms, Mistress Lynom's two men had arrived on the scene. Releasing Audrey's hand, I went forward to assist them in removing Gerard from the well.

It was a difficult business. The body was stiff; moreover, some part of it was wedged tightly between the stonework of the walls, and up to the waist it was below the level of the water which had frozen solid to a depth of several inches.

The ice had to be broken before any attempt could be made to free the corpse, and Jude Capsgrave was dispatched to find a long-handled mallet while his brother joined us in peering into the depths of the well.

'Sweet Virgin,' he breathed, awe-struck. 'How did this happen? What fool left the cover off?'

My heart gave a sickening jolt. Surely I had replaced the lid after fetching that second pail of water for Martha last night! Surely I had! I thought desperately, trying to recollect my actions. I had drawn up the bucket, tipped its contents into my pail, listening all the while to those raised voices behind the door of Gerard and Adela's chamber, and then
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. . And then? Had I bent down and picked up the heavy wooden cover, replacing it on top of the well? Or had I forgotten it, my mind elsewhere as I vainly attempted to make out a phrase or even a word of the Empryngham's quarrel? I tried to conjure up the feel of the handle against my palm, the lid's weight dragging at my arm as I lifted it, but I could not. Had my mother's often repeated warning at last come true; that my insatiable curiosity would one day prove to be the death of me or some other poor creature?

I was not the only person wondering if blame for the tragedy lay at my door. Raising my head, I encountered the reproachful and horrified gaze of both Martha Grindcobb and Brother Simeon
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Even Jenny Tonge was staring at me in wide-eyed speculation
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I hastily looked away again and concentrated on the matter in hand. Jude Capsgrave came back with the mallet, Sir Hugh and Mistress Lynom, together with Maurice Cederwell, in his wake.

Sir Hugh immediately took charge of the operation. Under his guidance, although without receiving anything in the way of practical help from him, Jude broke the encasing ice and then the five of us - the two brothers, Jasper, Hamon and myself - lifted out the stiff and frozen body, laying it reverently upon the coarse, grey woollen blanket which Phillipa Talke had sent for in the meantime. It was indeed Gerard Empryngham, or all that remained of him, eyes and mouth wide open in horror at his fate. He was naked except for his nightshift, or if he had been wearing a nightcap, it had fallen off and was now somewhere in the icy depths of the water.

'Well, here is another corpse we shall be unable to lay out for some time,' commented Sir Hugh
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'Carry him to his chamber and lay him upon his bed.' If he felt any grief at the death of his brother-in-law he concealed it admirably. 'Then all assemble in the great hall so that we may decide how this unfortunate accident could have happened. Breakfast must wait. Adela, my dear, cease that noise. Weeping and wailing can do no good either to Gerard or to yourself and is unpleasant listening for the rest of us. I give you all ten minutes to compose yourselves, but no more. Mistress Talke, have a word with those stupid girls.' And he glanced darkly at Edith and Ethelwynne before offering his arm to Ursula Lynom and escorting her back into the house.

Sir Hugh was seated in the centre of the long table on the dais, his guest behind him and Hamon and Jasper standing behind her chair. The rest of us were ranged in front of them, so that the general impression was that of a courtroom, judges aloft, accused below. And I was the chief suspect, the finger being pointed at me by both the friar and the cook, with Jenny Tonge in reluctant support. Adela tearfully explained how a quarrel with her husband had led her to seek sanctuary in the women's dormitory the previous evening, in the hope that a good night's sleep would bring Gerard to his senses, and the others attested to her presence.

'You are all aware that Gerard walked in his sleep from time to time,' she added, bursting into noisy sobs once more.

There was a murmur of assent from the regular inhabitants of Cederwell Manor, and Maurice, who was standing a little apart from the rest of us, one arm laid about Fulk Disney's shoulders, said, 'It was one of the reasons, my dear Adela, why it was thought better you and he should have a room downstairs. Isn't that so, Father?' And as Sir Hugh nodded curtly Maurice went on, 'Moreover, we know that Gerard was deeply distressed by his sister's death. Isn't it likely that such disturbance of mind caused him to walk? And if the cover wasn't on the well, it would be easy enough in those circumstances for him to fall headlong into it. The shock of the icy water alone might be sufficient to kill him.' This was the cue for everyone to turn and look at me.