The Deathly Portent

Murder of a Blacksmith

“There’s a blacksmith, all right, m’lord,” the groom said, removing his hat and wiping his hand across his grizzled and sweaty head. “Only he’s dead.”

Ottilia saw renewed vexation leap quickly into her husband’s eyes, and made an immediate effort to deflect his attention. “Recently, Ryde?”

“Last night, m’lady.”

“What happened to him?” Ottilia asked.

“Seems the roof caved in on him, m’lady. And they’re saying he had his head bashed in.”

“Good God,” uttered Francis, startled.

“Was it the storm, Ryde?”

A faint twitch attacked the groom’s mouth and his eye gleamed. Noting these rare signs of amusement, Ottilia waited with burgeoning interest.

“The storm, m’lady, or a witch’s curse, if the villagers are to be believed.”

A spurt of laughter was surprised out of Francis, but Ottilia was intrigued.

“Don’t dismiss it so lightly, Francis,” she said. “Perhaps the woman has second sight.”

“Tillie, I will not have you embroil yourself in this business.”

“I promise you I only mean to satisfy my curiosity.”

“Promise forsooth! Do you take me for a flat? If I allow you to set foot in the place, as sure as check you will be hobnobbing with all and sundry and hunting down this witch.”

“Not necessarily,” objected Ottilia without thinking. “Merely because the villagers are silly enough to fall for a lot of superstitious nonsense does not make the woman guilty.”

Berkley Prime Crime titles by Elizabeth Bailey

THE GILDED SHROUD
THE DEATHLY PORTENT

Elizabeth Bailey

BERKLEY PRIME CRIME, NEW YORK

ALWAYS LEARNING

PEARSON

To my mother,
Shula Bailey,
for her unfailing support and inspiration.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

I
t was an ill night to be abroad. The shouts of men, one to another, echoed into the dark, along with the stamp of heavy feet over ground sodden with the droning rain. Here and there, a remnant flicker of the dying fire and the gleam from a shuttered lantern pierced the relentless black, and a distant rumble promised worse to come.

Out of the troubled voices rose a chorus of youthful jeers, closing on running feet as they hastened away from the commotion. Huddled in her cloak, with Tabitha’s strong arm about her shoulders urging her on, the young woman raced for shelter. Not from the storm, although its unkind advent had precipitated just the outcome she dreaded. Rather, from the familiar appellation burning in her ears and the sting of the stones thrown by the village boys.

She knew not whither they were headed, except that it lay in an opposite direction from the little cottage she now called home. What with the darkness and the snarling wind, the wetness falling on her face and flattening the hair to her head,
and the cries behind ringing in her brain, she could scarcely see to set one foot before the other. Not that it mattered. Not if fate’s decree had set a man’s life to her account.

Of a sudden the world around her slashed into view as the skies were cut asunder. In the sheet of white, poised for a brief instant while the lightning struck, she saw the spire above the rooftops.

T
he flash lit up the bleak interior of the parlour, throwing into high relief the boxes in the centre, half unpacked, and the stark outline of the wooden settle, bare of cushions.

The Reverend Aidan Kinnerton, on his knees beside the growing pile of books, glanced up at the window, as yet uncurtained, just as the rolling thunder crashed overhead. He blinked in the dim shadows left behind after the massive glare, the candles struggling to do adequate duty in its stead.

The rain gained momentum, and for an instant Aidan imagined himself back in Africa, with one of its swift and violent storms raging over the crude thatched hut where he had lain, helpless and weak with fever, while his pathetic little flock of converts reverted to their heathen gods and the insane mutterings of the witch doctor.

A second crack of light startled him out of remembrance, and the instant rumble that followed reverberated in his head. Sighing, he turned back to his task of sorting the books, struggling to read their spines by the light of a candelabrum he had set upon the floor. He would undoubtedly do better to leave it until morning and go instead to his bed, but Aidan knew he would not sleep with the intermittent thunder and the persistent dinning rain. And if he did by chance drop off, the raging skies must inevitably bring on his dreaded nightmares. Those lurid dreams of dancing black warriors armed with spears and the call of the tom-toms beating into the night.

The sounds of the storm were abruptly superseded by a violent knocking that seemed to come almost out of his
thoughts. For an instant he lost sight of his present situation, and it took a moment to realise that the noise was penetrating through the hall from the front door.

Aidan leapt to his feet, obeying the impulse of shocked question. His footsteps echoed on the bare boards as he crossed hastily through the dimness of the big square hall. Beyond the front door he could hear shouts, and in quick succession there came two thuds against the wooden barrier just as he reached it. Instinct told him these were not made by fists hitting the door. Someone was throwing missiles.

His fingers were numb with cold, he realised, as he fumbled in his hasty effort to turn the large key, and the fleeting thought passed through his mind that he should have kept the fire going in the parlour. Throwing back the bolts, Aidan wrenched open the door.

Two bedraggled figures stood without, one huddled in the protective arms of the other, who looked a trifle more robust. Both were drenched. The larger of the two let out a thankful gasp as she caught sight of Aidan.

“Sanctuary, good sir, for my mistress, else the little beasts will stone her to death.”

Aidan’s gaze turned automatically to the woman she held, whose head lifted just as another fork of lightning lit up the sky, revealing a brief image of a ravaged face, streaked dirty and wet, with hollow cheeks and wounded eyes, and long hair plastered to her head.

“Come in, come in,” Aidan uttered as the dark enveloped them again and the thunder rattled above them.

He swiftly pulled the two women through the door and then thrust outside, putting up a hand to keep the wet out of his eyes as he sought for the perpetrators of this vicious assault.

“Who are you? Show yourselves!”

He could just make out a coterie of figures inside the gate. From their stature, Aidan took them for boys. He raised his voice.

“I see you there. Who are you? Be sure this will not go unpunished!”

At this a hoarse crack of laughter emanated from one of the group.

“It be her as’ll be punished,” came in retort.

“You watch yourself, Reverend,” shouted another. “You don’t want nowt to do with her. A witch her be.”