The Gallows Curse (40 page)

    Finally,
the innkeeper shook himself, and seizing the maid by the shoulder, shouted at
her to go and raise the hue and cry, and send someone to find the bailiff. She
did not need any urging to run.

    It
took a while for the bailiff to appear and by that time half the street had
crowded into the courtyard to see what was afoot.

    The
bailiff peered at the body from several angles, though he did not attempt to
touch it.

    'Plain
as a pig's ear what's happened,' he announced to the crowd. 'Someone's whacked
him across the back of the head with something heavy, maybe while he was drunk
and taking a piss. That would have floored him. Then they throttled him to make
sure he was good and dead. He wouldn't have put up much of a fight, not if he
was already half-dead from the crack on the head, none at all if he was out
cold from the blow. Wouldn't have taken much strength to kill him. A boy could
have done it, just as easily as any full-grown man ... or woman, come to that.'
The bailiff stared pointedly at the cudgel in the innkeeper's wife's hand.

    'I'll
have you know I'm not in the habit of murdering my customers,' she said
indignantly. 'What profit would there be in that?'

    'One
of yours, was he?' the bailiff said, as if that explained everything. 'There'll
be no shortage of suspects then. Every rogue between here and Yarmouth passes
through your doors. I wager it'll be a falling out among thieves.'

    The
innkeeper's wife was about to retort to this wicked slander on her respectable
establishment when something caught her eye.

    'What's
that?'

    It
was half concealed beneath the corpse's hand, but it stood out vividly against
the dark muck and filth of the yard.

    With
evident distaste, the bailiff crouched down and wriggled the object out from
beneath the cold fingers. It was crushed and wilted, but it was still
recognizable. It was a single white rose.

    As
they stared at it, the buzzing in the air grew louder. It seemed that every fly
in Norwich was swarming towards the corpse.

    The
candles on the walls bled drop by drop on to the twisted mass of wax below. Ma
Margot sat enthroned in her snake chair, a goblet of wine untouched on the
table in front of her. She stared hard and long at Elena, her bulging
yellow-green eyes unblinking in the candlelight. Elena felt sick and she longed
to sink down into the chair in front of Ma's table, but she dared not do so
without being invited. She grasped the back of it, trying to keep herself
upright. Her stomach had been churning ever since Talbot had said Ma wanted to
see her. Not another gentleman, not so soon, she couldn't.

    'Please,
Ma, I can't! I can't—'

    'Wait
till you're spoken to, girl,' Talbot growled. Elena jumped, not realizing that
he was still standing behind her. But Ma continued to study her without making
any attempt to speak.

    Elena's
head was throbbing. Back at the manor she had once drunk too much cider at a
harvest-home and remembered the same dizzy, nauseous misery the day after as
she felt now. But she had scarcely drunk anything at all last night, just a
mouthful or two of the wine when the man had insisted. Could there have been
some herb or potion in it?

    Ma's
fingers caressed the carved head of the serpent on her armrest. 'Where were you
last night?'

    Elena
gaped at her, wondering if she had heard the question aright.

    'With
the gentleman . . . you dressed me, you and Luce.'

    'And
after he left?' Ma's voice was low, but sharp as a dagger.

    'I
was here, asleep.'

    'You're
lying. Luce swears you were not in the women's chamber when she went to bed and
she didn't retire until after the watch called midnight. Your gentleman had
long gone by then. Talbot says you were not abed when he made his rounds when
he returned. So I'll ask you again, my darling, where were you?'

    'I
... I was sleeping out on the turf seat in the courtyard. I couldn't bear to be
inside after . . . what he did.'

    'Never
mind what he did,' Ma snapped. 'It's what you did that matters.'

    She
beckoned to Talbot, the heavy blood-red ruby on her finger flashing like a
warning in the candlelight.

    Talbot
lumbered round and stood beside Ma. His broken nose seemed even more twisted
out of shape in the deep shadows cast by the candles.

    'Tell
her,' Ma ordered.

    Talbot
folded his thick, hairy arms, glowering at Elena. 'A corpse was found this
morning in the courtyard of the Adam and Eve. Been murdered.'

    'You
know who that man was?' Ma asked.

    Elena
shook her head. They were both staring at her so intently that she found her
cheeks burning with guilt even though she didn't understand why.

    'The
man's name was Raoul. He was in the service of Lord Osborn,' Ma said.

    Elena's
heart began to pound. 'Did he come to Norwich searching for me?'

    Ma
and Talbot exchanged glances.

    'He'd
been asking questions in the taverns about a runaway girl with red hair,' Ma
said. 'He wasn't very discreet about it. But last night it seems he was just
searching for pleasure.'

    Elena's
chest was so tight it hurt to breathe.

    'And
it seems, by chance, you were his pleasure,' Ma Margot added with relish. 'He
was the gentleman you entertained last night.'

    'But
he never told me his name,' Elena said, horrified. 'I didn't know. I didn't who
he was. He wore a mask, you know he did.'

    'Told
you,' said Talbot, 'no one ever gives their real name here. Not customers, nor
girls. Now you know why. If he'd heard your real name last night. . .'

    Elena
clung to the edge of the table, her head reeling. She had been forced to
pleasure one of Lord Osborn's men. Had Ma known who he was? But she couldn't
have. Ma was trying to hide her, wasn't she?

    'And
now Raoul's dead,' Ma said. 'So, what happened, my darling? Did you let your
name slip? Were you scared he'd recognized you, or did he tell you he was one
of Osborn's men? Is that why you followed him after he left here? Is that why
you killed him — to stop him talking?'

    Elena's
legs would hold her up no longer. She sank into the chair beside her, burying
her head in her hands.

    'I
didn't... I couldn't have! I dreamed of a murder, but I couldn't really have
done it. It was only a dream, a warning . . . about the future. It wasn't
real.'

    'What
dream?' Ma asked sharply. When did you have it?'

    'Last
night when I was asleep on the turf bench ... I dreamed I killed someone. I
didn't mean to, but he was yelling and I had to stop him. But it was a dream,
that's all. I've had them before. I dreamed of killing my baby — that's why I
gave him away.'

    'So
you tell us,' Ma said tardy. 'But there are plenty who believe you murdered
your child in the flesh, else you'd not be with us now. And if you've killed
once, it makes it easier to do it again. In this dream of yours, how did this
man die?'

    'I
... he was . . . strangled.' Elena looked up in desperation. 'That wasn't how
Raoul died, was it? Tell me! Please, tell me.'

    Talbot
and Ma looked at each other again.

    'He
was strangled all right. Living breath choked out of him,' Talbot told her with
a grim satisfaction.

    Elena
gave a shuddering moan. 'But it couldn't have been me. I don't remember doing
it. I don't remember going out. I was asleep on the seat and when I woke again
I was still there.'

    'But
no one saw you there,' Ma reminded her. She reached behind her back in the
snake chair and pulled something out, dropping it on to the table. It was the
white linen shift Elena had worn last night, crumpled and stained with dried
blood. Ma fingered the stains and raised her black brows quizzically.

    'But
that's
my
blood,' Elena protested, '. . . from the thorns ... it isn't
his. It can't be his.'

    'And
the scarlet girdle you wore about your waist last night, my darling, where
exactly is that? It wasn't found with the shift. Luce has looked all over for
it, but it seems to have vanished.'

    'Handy
thing to strangle a man with, a girdle,' Talbot said.

    Ma
leaned forward, cocking her great head to one side. The candlelight flashed
from the ruby-headed pins in her coiled black hair. 'I understand, my darling,
murder is a terrible thing, a shock to a soul.'

    'Aye,'
Talbot said grinning. 'A bastard of a shock to the poor sod who snuffs it.'

    Ma
glared at him. 'They tell me that those who commit such dreadful deeds walk as
if they are in a sleep, not knowing what they do, and after remember it as a
distant dream. Fear can make us desperate, my darling. When you discovered that
Raoul was Osborn's man, you panicked. I understand that.'

    She
gave what might have been intended as a sympathetic smile, but to the terrified
Elena she looked more like a wolf baring her sharp white teeth.

    'But
you should have come to me or Talbot and told us what you feared. There's ways
to sort such matters without leaving bodies all over the city to be found by
prying eyes.'

    'But
I didn't know who he was, I swear,' Elena said desperately.

    Ma
ignored this. "You've put us all in grave danger.'

    'Dropped
us right in the midden,' Talbot growled.

    'If
Raoul told anyone where he was going last night, then —' Ma was interrupted by
a loud and insistent tolling of the bell at the door.

    'By
the sound of it they already know,' Talbot said.

    Ma's
heavy black brows flexed in a frown. 'Talbot, answer the door. But delay them
as long as you can before you bring them up here.'

    Talbot,
despite his bow-legs, could cover the ground as fast as a charging bull when he
had to, and he was out of the door and clattering down the stairs before Ma had
managed to scramble down from her chair.

    'This
way, my darling.'

    But
Elena was frozen to the spot with incomprehension and fear. Ma seized her wrist
and dragged her bodily towards the curtain hanging across the corner of the
room from which Elena had seen her emerge that very first night. The corner was
in darkness and Elena could see nothing behind the drape, but evidently Ma
didn't need light to find what she wanted. She was feeling for something on the
floor. Elena heard a trapdoor being lifted. Ma tugged her across to the hole.

    'Kneel
on the edge and feel for the rungs of the ladder with your feet,' Ma
instructed.

    Elena,
shuddering with the memory of the prisoner hole beneath the manor, used all her
strength to pull herself out of Ma's grasp. But Ma Margot was as strong as
Talbot. Exasperated, she gave a sharp twist on Elena's arm to bring her to her
senses.

    'It's
down there or be arrested for murder. And just you think about this: if they
were planning to hang you for killing a mere villein's babe, imagine what they
will do to a base- born villein who murders a nobleman!'

    'But
I didn't, Ma, I swear I didn't,' Elena sobbed.

    'You
can swear all you like, but they'll no more believe you this time than they did
last. Now, get down there and mind you keep as silent as the grave.'

    'At
least give me light,' Elena begged. 'I can't even see the ladder.'

    'No
time,' Ma hissed fiercely. 'Just seven rungs is all, then you'll be on solid
ground. Hurry, I can hear Talbot climbing the stairs!'

    As
soon as Elena's head was below the level of the trapdoor, Ma closed it, leaving
Elena in total darkness. She stood on the ladder, too afraid to take another
step down. But as she shifted her weight the wooden ladder rocked and creaked
under her. Scared of it falling, Elena felt for the step below, then the step
below that until, as Ma had promised, her feet touched solid ground.

    As
she turned, her hand brushed something furry, and remembering the caged beasts,
she stifled a cry of fear, shrinking back against the wooden ladder. But
whatever it was didn't move. She tentatively reached out again and felt thick,
silky fur, as soft as melting butter, but it was cold to the touch and she knew
that there was no animal beneath the skin.