The Deathly Portent (4 page)

“After her’ve done for him with a hammer to his head,” said Tisbury.

This time the chorus of assent was louder, as if the villagers, having dared so far, grew the braver now it was said. They knew, then. And yet were prepared to add this prosaic fact to their absurd suppositions of witchcraft. Shock was uppermost with Aidan. He had not truly believed until this moment that there could be such ignorance rife in the village. How it was to be countered, he had no notion, but on one thing he was determined. No witch hunt would succeed in Witherley, if he had to stand personal guard to the young woman at present safely in his house.

He drew himself up, took time to run his gaze across the expectant faces, and allowed disgust to sound in his voice.

“I thought I had left savagery and superstition behind me when I departed the shores of Africa. I little thought I should rediscover them in a quiet backwater of England.”

With which, he turned from the company without another glance and walked calmly out of the tavern. The battle lines were drawn, and he felt oddly uplifted by the first skirmish. Until he reached the vicarage and discovered the bird had flown.

T
he smithy was a sodden, blackened ruin. Ottilia’s curiosity had begun to dissipate after trudging a good mile along a winding and muddy road. But she perked up instantly as they entered the village via a signposted lane. The first sight of Witherley presented a row of cottages to one side and a gleam of water beyond where a tributary stream from the Anker ran through. Once past the cottages, a turn brought them within immediate sight of the scene of last night’s disaster.

The blacksmith’s forge was situated just before a stone bridge, over which the lane led to a spacious green with what appeared to be the main part of the village set prettily around it. Ottilia gave it but a brief glance, her attention focused upon the wreck of the smithy.

“One cannot be much surprised the poor man did not come out of there alive.”

Her spouse was similarly struck, his frowning glance travelling over the relatively undamaged façade and the surrounding walls which were partially standing. A part of the
roof towards the front appeared intact, but the gaping hole beyond told its own tale.

“Take care, Tillie,” Francis warned as Ottilia headed for the slatted wooden double doors, which were standing open. “The place is clearly unsafe. You had better let me go first.”

Ottilia made no demur but waited for him to enter ahead, taking time to survey what she could see of the stabling area immediately inside the big doors, which was not much. It was small and relatively empty but for harnesses hanging on the walls. Francis had disappeared from sight in the direction of the big chimney at the far end of the building, but she could hear his footsteps.

“You had best come through here where most of the roof is already down,” came his voice, echoing eerily in the dark interior. “There is less chance of collapse, I think.”

Ottilia cast her eyes upward as she passed through and found the roof above her to be more or less intact, although the beams hung zigzag where they levelled with the main part of the coverless forge. The light was better here, and it looked to Ottilia’s critical eye as if the conflagration had been of short duration.

“The storm must have put out the fire,” she said reflectively, gazing at the partially burnt timbers, stark skeletons protruding from the rubble.

Francis had gone forward and was standing in a relatively empty space, looking up towards the open sky. “They were lucky. Others might well have been injured if the flames had not been doused.”

“And there would have been nothing left of this place or the blacksmith,” said Ottilia, lifting up her petticoats—the hems already a trifle mired from the road—to keep them off the filthy floor as she moved to join him. “And nothing to suggest his death was anything but an accident.”

Her husband’s keen glance found hers. “You are thinking someone set the place on fire deliberately?”

“Would not you, if you had a worse crime to conceal?” suggested Ottilia, as she looked around the ruined structure.

The accoutrements of the blacksmith’s trade were largely destroyed, apart from the heavy anvil near the ash-filled pit in the deadened forge at the far end and the huge bellows behind, which had miraculously escaped damage. This area was yet under a modicum of cover, for the chimney had not caught alight and the roof damage was not so extensive.

Ottilia glanced along the mechanism that permitted the blacksmith to pull on the bellows to keep the fire going while he worked.

“How long might the forge continue burning, do you suppose, once the smith was down and no longer able to work the bellows?”

Her spouse glanced across at the forge. “Half an hour perhaps, no more.”

“I wonder if the killer knew that.”

Francis did not appear to hear her, his attention apparently caught by the comprehensive damage to the roof. Ottilia traced a metallic gleam to a rack of soot-coated rods, and then again to a variety of half-wrecked implements still hanging on hooks on the discoloured walls. She made out horseshoes and a wide-bladed scythe. Below there rested a large rusting wheel and several farming tools which had presumably been awaiting service. Whatever else might be left was concealed under the layer of broken struts, smashed tiles, and the muddy residue from many pairs of boots.

Moving to one side, she examined the blacksmith’s table, a long wooden affair plated across the top with a sheet of metal. A deal of debris had fallen across the implements laid there, the whole blackened with a layer of soot and grime, but Ottilia thought she could recognise a collection of hammers, pincers, axes, and thick metal rods. Had one of these objects been used to bludgeon the blacksmith? Unlikely, for would not the killer have sought to conceal his weapon? Or dispose of it in some fashion?

Time would have been of the essence. Could he afford to carry the thing away and risk being seen? A thought occurred, and Ottilia took a precarious path towards the forge, stepping between a couple of massive empty buckets on the floor and slipping past the anvil. But before she could look more closely at the ashes of the fire, Francis’s voice interrupted her.

“This is where the body lay.”

Turning, Ottilia found her husband’s gaze had dropped to the ground, where the labours of the blacksmith’s rescuers were evidenced in unnatural piles of debris around the cleared area. He glanced up, his gaze piercing across at her.

“If the perpetrator knew the roof would fall, why bother to start a fire?”

“Assuming the doctor in the case is right, to conceal the blow to the head?” Ottilia offered, moving back towards where he stood. “He was taking no chances.”

“That, my love, is exactly my thought.”

Ottilia put up a finger. “But according to Ryde, it was the witch who had foreknowledge of the roof coming down.”

Unexpectedly, Francis grinned. “Then she was not the only one. Unless the woman is a skilled woodsman.”

In some surprise, Ottilia watched him pick his way through the piles of debris to one side of the smithy. He pointed upwards.

“See the remains of the crossbeam? Look at the foreshortened end.”

Ottilia squinted up at a short projection of wood which was relatively free of soot, training her eyes upon the blunted end. It struck her as unnatural, but she could not immediately see why.

“Now look at what is left of the thinner beams,” instructed Francis.

Ottilia did so, and instant comprehension struck her. Everywhere but on that crossbeam the stub ends were jagged.

“It was severed.”

“Precisely. And not by supernatural means. Either the
beam was sawed through or hacked, perhaps with an axe. We need a ladder. Unless we can find the other end of that beam somewhere in this shambles.”

A sliver of excitement shot through Ottilia. “Fan, you are a genius!”

His lips quirked. “With such a tutor, how could I avoid learning?”

She let out a ripple of laughter. “You are an apt pupil, my dearest.” Then a new thought crept into her mind. “Would the storm have been forceful enough to bring the roof down, do you think, once the beam was cut through?”

Francis’s eyes narrowed. “A good question.” He cast a glance about the surrounding debris. “A stout rope tied off around the beam perhaps. Unless it burned.”

Ottilia’s pulse pattered unevenly. “Or not entirely. Nothing appears to have burned altogether. Should we not try to search for a fragment or two?”

“Futile, I fear. And much as I love you, I am not minded to get up a sweat heaving this filthy debris about, besides ruining a perfectly good pair of gloves.”

A chuckle escaped her. “I would not dare ask it of you. It can very well wait until we can engage the services of a likely local.”

“Within your allotted two hours?”

She had begun an unconscious hunt, casting her eyes here and there among the fallen timbers, but at this Ottilia looked quickly at her spouse and was relieved to discover the familiar teasing look. A laugh escaped her.

“I think we had best go and find this inn Ryde spoke of and get some food inside you.”

With Francis applauding this suggestion in no uncertain terms, Ottilia turned to step inside the relative dark of the roofed stable end just as a figure loomed upon the threshold. Ottilia gasped in surprise and fell back.

The outline of a woman stood there, half in silhouette but for a stark white countenance illumined in a freak shaft of
light from the roofless area. A slim, cloaked creature, with tragic eyes.

For a moment Ottilia could not speak, struck by an air of haunting agony in the girl’s pose as she allowed her gaze to flick here and there about the wreck of the smithy. She was young, Ottilia judged, but the hollows and planes of her pallid features made her appear older. At length, the eyes fell upon Ottilia and widened. Her mouth formed an O of surprise, and she frowned.

“Who are you? I have not seen you before. We do not have strangers in Witherley.”

She spoke with rapidity, and her voice, which had a husky quality, was a meld of suspicion and fear. Ottilia pulled herself together and moved forward, catching her upheld petticoats into one hand so that she might hold out the other.

“I do beg your pardon. We must have startled you. We are indeed strangers. Our coach broke down on the post road, and we have come in search of rest and refreshment.”

The girl made no move to take the proffered hand, although she glanced at it briefly.

“A man died here last night.”

Ottilia weighed a lie in the balance and decided against it. “Yes, so we have been led to believe. Our groom came here seeking the blacksmith, you see.”

The frown intensified, and a sickened look crept into the woman’s face. “Are you ghouls, then, that you come to gawp at a man’s misfortune?”

From the corner of her eye, Ottilia saw Francis stiffen and quickly put out a hand to prevent him from speech. She spoke with gentleness, feeling instinctively this creature would recoil from confrontation.

“We are here rather to help, if we can.” A wild thought flitted through her mind, and she acted upon it without conscious decision. “Forgive me, but are you—now what was the name?—a Mrs. Dale, I think? Yes, that is it. Are you Mrs. Dale?”

Ottilia saw from the girl’s expressive eyes that she had hit the mark. The “witch” put the back of her hand to her mouth in a gesture suggestive of nerves strung taut. Her voice became vibrant and low.

“How could you know that? Did you see it? I saw nothing of your coming.”

“Perhaps you don’t see everything,” Ottilia suggested gently. “And no, I do not have your skill.”

A laugh escaped the girl, cracking in the middle. “Skill? It is a curse, not a talent.”

“But why? It cannot always result in such grave consequences as this.”

Mrs. Dale sighed deeply. “They are saying I killed him.”

Ottilia moved swiftly, forgetting the danger to her petticoats as she dropped them and caught at the woman’s unquiet hands, holding them firm. “They, whoever they are, are mistaken, my dear Mrs. Dale. I will so prove it, I promise you.”

The girl stared at her, a bewildered look in her dark eyes. “You? How can you do so? Who are you?”

“My name is not important, but you may call me Lady Fan.”

Mrs. Dale did not immediately avail herself of this permission. She continued to study Ottilia, the crease deepening between her brows.

“You have seen evil,” she said slowly. “The images are cloudy, but there is blackness underneath.”

Ottilia did not speak. She was aware of Francis behind her, and a certain quality in his intake of breath told her this was dangerous ground. Rather to her relief, they suffered an interruption.

“Miss Cassie? Are you in there? I do wish as you wouldn’t run off like that. You know I can’t keep up.”

The scolding note was pronounced, and Ottilia was not much surprised to see the bustling figure of a woman peering in at the wide doors. Mrs. Dale glanced back but did not answer.

“Cassie?” Ottilia said quickly. “Is that for Cassandra? How apt.”