The Saint John's Fern (23 page)

‘I know everyone says so! But have you, in all your long life, ever come across someone who’s done it? Eaten the leaves of the Saint John’s fern, that is, and been made invisible?’

Of course, I could guess his response even before he shook his head, sad at having to acknowledge defeat. ‘But,’ he added, brightening, ‘that doesn’t mean to say it hasn’t happened, does it?’

It was an argument I had heard before and which was virtually unanswerable, so I let the matter drop. Instead, I enquired, ‘Where are the other bedchambers in this house? How do I get to them from here?’

Robert looked alarmed and a scrawny hand shot out to grasp my wrist. ‘You’re not leaving me alone!’ he exclaimed. ‘You promised to stay the night with me!’ When I indignantly protested that I’d made no such commitment, his grip on my arm tightened; and although I could have shaken him off easily enough, there was a wild expression in his eyes that made me uneasy. ‘You’re not going anywhere,’ he continued. ‘I’ll have one night’s good sleep, even if I have to lock you in to get it.’

He was as good as his word. Before I had time to realize what he was up to, he had slid off the chest, rounded the corner of the bed and turned the key in the lock of the chamber door. He then put the key inside the breast of his food-stained gown, pushing it up under his left armpit and clamping that arm to his side.

Again, it would have taken little effort on my part to overpower him and seize the key, but it would have involved me in an unseemly brawl with a man old enough to be my grandfather, and one, moreover, who was in some sort my host. Besides which, there was the distinct possibility that if I went searching for Beric against Robert’s will, he would raise the household and reveal my purpose. I had learnt that crossing a very old person is like crossing a very young child, and often produces the same results: tantrums and tearful recriminations. (I shall be like that myself, one day. Indeed, the hour is already fast approaching, if my behaviour towards my children and their children is anything to judge by. But then, when you’re over seventy, why shouldn’t you have your own way occasionally? Time’s running out, after all.)

I considered arguing with him, pleading, cajoling, but eventually concluded that it would be a wasted effort. I could see that he wasn’t open to reason. Force was my only option, and I had already rejected that. So I took off my boots, swung my legs up on to the bed, stretched myself out, arms linked behind my head, and stared up at the ceiling.

‘You’re angry,’ he said with an attempt at pathos. But he made no effort to remove the key from its unsavoury resting place.

‘No, I’m not,’ I lied; but found, after a moment or two, that this was the truth. I was suddenly dog tired, caught in a lethargy of mind and body induced by the long day’s walk, the salt sea air and the fact that I had overeaten at supper. ‘Lie down and let’s get some sleep.’

Robert nodded happily, turning to open the chest with his right hand and pulling out an assortment of old garments. These, once he had produced the key and carefully placed it under his half of the pillow, he proceeded to pile on over his ancient house-gown.

‘It starts getting chilly at nights this season of the year,’ he explained. ‘And I can’t stand the cold like I used to. You’d do well to get under the blankets before you fall asleep.’ I did as he suggested, but he kept a sharp eye on me, just to make sure that I wasn’t feigning weariness, and wasn’t about to make a sudden grab for the key.

The last item he fished out of the chest was a flat-crowned, black velvet hat with which he covered his head, pulling it down by its narrow brim until it covered his ears.

‘This is better than an ordinary nightcap,’ he said happily. ‘Much warmer.’

I had been almost asleep, politely holding my eyes open with a tremendous effort, but suddenly I was wide awake again, raising myself up on one elbow.

‘Who does that hat belong to?’ I demanded. ‘Where did you get it?’

‘I didn’t steal it,’ was the indignant reply, ‘if that’s what you’re thinking. It’s Beric’s. Not that it’s any of your business, but it was given to me by the mistress after he disappeared. She told me he didn’t want it any more, and as we both have small heads, I might as well have it. It’s my guess he was wearing it when he killed his great-uncle, and now can’t bear the sight of it.’

I digested this, coming to the conclusion that Robert was more astute than he looked. I must be on my guard.

‘Was there an ornament in the hat when Mistress Gifford gave it to you?’ I asked, again already knowing the answer.

‘No,’ he said. ‘Should there have been?’

‘Don’t young men usually wear a jewel of some sort in that kind of hat? They’re so plain, otherwise.’

Robert sniffed. ‘Well, there was nothing pinned to this. I don’t remember that there ever was, although I might be wrong. Beric was a fashionable dresser, I grant you. Liked to follow the London trends, when he could find someone to tell him what they were.’

He closed the shutters tightly, then clambered into bed. A sourish, musty odour emanated from the motley collection of garments he was wearing, and I hurriedly turned my back on him. I am not naturally squeamish – I cannot afford to be in my calling – but this was a particularly unpleasant smell. Some of it came from the clothes, but I suspected that it was many a long month since Robert himself had washed any part of his person. My stomach heaved. The stuffy darkness was all-embracing, and I knew a moment of unaccustomed breathlessness and panic.

‘You have the door key safe?’ I demanded.

I heard him pat the pillow. ‘No one can get in – or out,’ he assured me.

‘In that case, why don’t you lock yourself in every night? Surely, you’d feel safer?’

‘If a person’s invisible, locked doors are no bar,’ Robert claimed, thus revealing Beric to be the source of his fear. ‘But tonight,’ he added confidently, ‘I have you to protect me.’

I was either too tired or too cynical about the magical properties of Saint John’s fern to be alarmed by his words. I merely grunted and let the first wave of sleep wash over me, sinking thankfully into its billowing folds.

*   *   *

I was awakened by a cock crowing somewhere on the manor, its piercing cry penetrating even the tightly closed shutters of the steward’s by now fetid little room.

I lay quietly for a moment or two, gathering my wits about me, but my overfull bladder was making me extremely uncomfortable and I slid out from beneath the blanket, groping for the chamber pot under the bed. When I had relieved myself, I opened the window and stared down into the still silent courtyard.

In a prosperous household, at this time of the morning, it would have been bustling with life as the servants prepared for the coming day. But Valletort Manor was deserted, and I decided that now was my chance to poke about on my own. Unfortunately, the thought had barely entered my head, when Mistress Tuckett appeared, hurrying across to one of the outbuildings. The groom followed hard on her heels, making his way to the pump that stood in a corner of the yard.

My plans being thus thwarted, I glanced behind me at the figure in the bed, but Robert Steward was still snoring, and I decided to wait until he awoke naturally, rather than ferret about beneath his share of the pillow in order to find the bedchamber key.

It was many years since I had been what my mother scornfully termed ‘a lie-abed’ (with the inevitable rider about laziness and the Devil), but this morning I had an ulterior motive for once more closing the shutters and climbing back beside my night’s companion. I wished to prolong my stay at Valletort Manor, but had no real excuse for delaying my departure. Berenice and Katherine had bought as many of my wares as had taken their fancy the previous evening, and they would therefore expect me to be on my way this morning as soon as it was light. I felt, however, that if I were able to postpone my leaving for as long as possible, something – some unforeseen opportunity, perhaps, or some piece of luck – might eventually lead me to Beric. So I stretched out beside Robert Steward without any expectation of going back to sleep, and with every intention of rousing him within the next half-hour or so if he failed to awaken of his own accord. I closed my eyes and began to mull over the events of yesterday …

It was the babel of upraised voices and the clattering of horses’ hoofs that eventually roused me from this second slumber, and I opened bleary eyes to see my bedfellow, still wearing his motley collection of garments, the shutters flung wide, leaning halfway out of the window, his mouth agape, staring down into the courtyard. The position of the sun told me that the morning must be well advanced; probably almost ten o’clock, and dinnertime.

I sat up and swung my legs out of bed. ‘What’s going on?’ I demanded.

Robert turned. ‘Oh, you’re up at last, are you? You were sleeping like a baby and I didn’t like to wake you.’ He nodded in the direction of the window. ‘I don’t know what’s happening down there, but something’s wrong. I recognize the Sheriff’s man from Modbury. And I heard him say that perhaps he ought to send to Plymouth for more men.’ He sucked his toothless gums in alarm.

My interest was by now thoroughly aroused, and I rather rudely elbowed him aside, taking his place at the open window. Below me I could see an agitated knot of people: Berenice Gifford and Katherine Glover, still, surprisingly, not dressed and with cloaks flung on over their night-shifts; Mistress Tuckett, fully clothed but with her hood slightly pulled awry; the groom, dismounted but holding the reins of Berenice’s bay horse, which showed signs of having recently been ridden hard, judging by its heaving flanks and the flecks of foam around its mouth; and, finally, a man, a stranger to me, whom I presumed to be the Sheriff’s officer, still up in the saddle. He it was who was speaking, his words clearly audible in the windless air.

‘He can’t have got far, although I have to confess neither John Groom nor I had any sighting of him on our way back from Modbury.’ He dismounted abruptly, revealing himself to be a stocky, powerful, barrel-chested man. ‘I’d best take a look at the body.’

His last words failed to register with me as they should have done, and it was without any great sense of urgency that I leant out of the casement and called down, ‘What’s happened, Mistress Gifford? Is anything amiss?’ Five faces were lifted to mine, frozen in amazed disbelief. ‘Is something wrong?’ I repeated.

‘What … what are you doing up there?’ Berenice asked huskily, stammering as though her voice was reluctant to obey her.

‘I slept here,’ I answered. ‘Your steward invited me to share his bed last night. When I refused, he locked me in and hid the key. It didn’t seem worth the effort or discourtesy of forcing him to give it up, so here I am. Isn’t that right, Robert my friend?’

He squeezed under my arm and poked his head out of the window.

‘I don’t like this room, Mistress,’ he complained querulously. ‘You know I don’t. I don’t like being up here all on my own. I’ve told you so a dozen times, but you refuse to listen to me. There’s something evil in this house and it frightens me, so I made the chapman keep me company last night.’ He let out an ear-splitting cackle of laughter. ‘I hid the key. He couldn’t get it from me. I was too cunning for him. I put it under my pillow, where he couldn’t get at it.’

The Sheriff’s officer asked, ‘Master Steward, are you sure the chapman couldn’t have stolen the key and returned it again without your being aware of it?’

Before Robert could reply, Mistress Tuckett cut in, shaking her head and addressing the lawman. Her back was towards me and I couldn’t catch all that she said; but I heard enough to know that she was explaining how the key of the outer door, leading from the kitchen passage to the courtyard, was removed for extra safety once it had been turned in the lock.

I saw Berenice and Katherine glance at one another. Then the former addressed her quondam steward.

‘Robert, do you know if Roger Chapman had left the house at all before you first spoke to him?’

I butted in furiously. ‘No, I hadn’t. What’s all this about? What are you suggesting?’

‘Allow the steward his say,’ the Sheriff’s officer demanded. ‘Come on, old man! Let’s hear you! Did you understand your mistress’s question?’

‘Of course I did!’ Robert snapped. ‘I’m not senile.’

‘Well then? What’s your answer?’

Robert waved a gnarled hand at me. ‘He’s already told you. I saw the chapman come out of the kitchen and spoke to him before he had time to go outside. He followed me upstairs and I wouldn’t let him out again. I was too quick for him. Too clever!’ He sniggered and began rocking to and fro in a paroxysm of self-congratulatory mirth.

I was half afraid he might reveal why he had locked me in in the first place, and I felt that my desire to go poking and prying around Valletort Manor would not be well received by its mistress, But the old man was by now too far gone in his own conceit to remember what, to him, were merely trivial details.

I called down peremptorily, ‘Would you mind, Mistress Gifford, telling me what this is about? It seems more and more as if I am suspected of some crime or misdemeanour.’

She stared up at me and, for a fleeting second, I thought I saw a look of baffled rage and frustration cross her face. Then, suddenly, it was gone and she gave me a tremulous, apologetic smile.

‘I’m sorry, Roger. I must confess that I’ve wronged you. I hope that you can find it in your heart to forgive me, considering the circumstances.’ She covered her eyes with both hands, and I could see that her whole body was shaking. Katherine Glover slipped a comforting arm about her mistress’s shoulders.

‘What is it? What’s happened?’ I cried, on fire with curiosity and impatience.

‘It’s Master Champernowne,’ Mistress Tuckett said, as Berenice seemed in no fit state to reply. ‘He’s been murdered.’

*   *   *

We were all gathered in the great hall, standing or seated about the high table on its dais. The Sheriff’s officer had accompanied us, for now that I was no longer his quarry, he seemed uncertain what course to pursue.

‘But what made you suspect me?’ I asked angrily, my first flush of bewildered indignation beginning to turn to a slow-burning fury.