The Sweet Smell of Decay (21 page)

‘Would that not make him more determined to tell what he knows?’

‘No!’ snapped Prynne, tight-lipped. ‘For he has two daughters!’

Keeling murdered Anne Giles as a grisly threat that Mary Ormonde might suffer a similar fate? It explained William Ormonde’s agonised writhings, his determination to do and say nothing though his daughter lay butchered.

‘I am suspicious,’ Prynne prowled the floor again, his tail up like an arthritic goose.

‘Suspicious of who?’

‘Some misguided wretches were convinced that the execution of Charles I was a sign from God that the resurrection was at hand, the coming of the Fifth Kingdom. They were the Fifth Monarchists. Some of those were Baptists.’

‘Lord Keeling was a Fifth Monarchist? How could he keep such a thing secret?’

‘There are many secrets at Court, Mr Lytle. Sorting out truth from mischievous gossip is nigh impossible. That’s why the King encourages it to the extent that he does. He builds a haystack in which he may hide his own needles. Also, there were many that chose to conform upon the Restoration, and Charles was tolerant and forgiving. So!’ Prynne held up his arms aloft. ‘Were Keeling and Ormonde among those that plotted the new King’s downfall? For until the King was once more dispatched, then there could be no Fifth Kingdom.’

‘Plotted the King’s downfall?’

Prynne’s bright blue eyes fixed on mine, his expression lively and bright, all primness now dissipated. ‘The revolt of Thomas Venner. The King made merry of it and used it to advance his own agenda. In the end it was hardly a revolt.’

The revolt of Thomas Venner? A rabble that tried to storm Parliament. It lasted a few hours and Venner was hung. ‘Sir, forgive me, but this seems fanciful.’

‘So!’ Prynne waved his arms in the air, unable to restrain himself. ‘Now I will tell you of William Ormonde.’ He clasped his hands and took stage in the middle of the room. ‘Ormonde and Keeling both started off as Baptists. Ormonde espoused radical views for a while, until the Protector persuaded him that the radical agenda was a distraction to the commonwealth and endangered Godly reformation. Ormonde was still a close friend to Keeling, who continued to regard him as a like-minded fellow.’ Prynne wagged a finger. ‘But it wasn’t so. They remained friends until after the Restoration. What changed things was the death of Thomas Harrison.’

‘Major-General Harrison?’ Harrison was one of those that signed Charles I’s death warrant. He had been hung, drawn and quartered by Charles II shortly after the Restoration.

‘Verily. The leader of the Fifth Monarchists. It was about that time that Ormonde changed his views. I doubt if Keeling did, for he is a fanatic. I doubt that Ormonde supported the Venner affair, though it may have been his great misfortune to be privy to it.’

‘But how can you be sure that this concerns the Venner’s Revolt? It was such a pitiful affair.’

‘Keeling and Ormonde are at loggers. Remember that Keeling killed Ormonde’s daughter in bestial fashion. We
know that they were both Baptists and I know that something happened between them shortly after the Restoration.’

I was far from convinced. ‘If this is the case and Shrewsbury knows of it, then why would he not expose it, rather than go to the trouble of having the world believe another motive?’

‘He has no evidence of it. Were he to make such an accusation without being sure that it would stick, then Keeling would kill him. Sooner or later, by whatever means, Keeling would have his head. For the same reason he cannot bring forward witnesses. None would provide testimony against Keeling.’

It was bemusing and fantastic, yet I knew Prynne well enough to know that he would not be dissuaded. His chin gently rose, his lips thinned and his blue eyes glazed over with their customary stern disdain. That icy, patronising smirk returned. Slipping his fingers under his locks, he lifted them up so that the grisly stumps that served for ears were fully exposed. I didn’t want to look, yet he would not stop staring at me with his hair held up. ‘Do I look like a humorous fellow – or a fool?’

‘Neither, sir.’

‘Mr Lytle. Last time we met I told thee that thou art effeminate and whorish, a bawd Godless ruffian, that thee haunt plays and indulge in lust-exciting dancing, all of which is to Christ’s dishonour and sin’s advantage and that thee art abominable. Now I am hopeful for thee. Thine efforts have been noble and for that I commend thee. May God have mercy on thy soul.’ He held out his wooden cane by the tip. On the end of it was a silver handle, cast in the shape of a sheep. ‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and
thy staff they comfort me.’ He pressed the cane into my hand. ‘If I am right, then consider; Keeling will want you silenced, and Shrewsbury besides if you pull Keeling’s tail too hard. It is in Keeling’s interests that this whole affair is put to bed. Shrewsbury would have the world believe that Keeling killed Ormonde in revenge.’

Then he turned on his heel and left me, all alone. I had never been more confused in all my life.

Yet at the crux of all of this was this girl that died ten years ago. Jane Keeling – was she pregnant when she died or was she not? Which tale was true?

By the time the sun rose weakly to cast its white light on the grey winter countryside, I was almost at Epsom. Hiring a horse to ride myself I was oblivious to the possibilities of tobymen. I had nothing much left to steal. I felt more miserable and frightened than I had ever felt in my whole life, but also determined not to be humbled by the likes of Shrewsbury, Keeling and Hill. Dowling had refused to come with me, though he had, finally, at least ceded that I was sincere in my convictions. I had decided to dig up Jane Keeling’s corpse.

If I discovered that she was with child when she died, then I would accept the story as true. If not – then I would know that the story was false, arranged by Shrewsbury. Dowling’s idea was to press the surgeon John Stow, but that was no remedy. Stow was a weak and miserable fellow and would say
whatever needed to be said to save his skin. I had to be certain. Still – it was not a happy prospect that I had committed myself to.

Bleakness enveloped me like a damp blanket until, with just five miles to go, I came round a rolling curve in the road and saw a turnpike, a heavy gate with metal spikes on top of it, just a hundred yards in front. This was new. It had not been here before. There were three horses tied to it. Pulling up my horse I leant forward against its ears, peering into the faint light, listening. Three horses and no riders. No one would leave horses unguarded. Birds scrabbled in the hedgerows, an owl hooted, late back to its nest. Sitting a while I watched and listened. It was meant for me, this new construction. I was certain that men were out looking for me now that we had taken Hewitt. But why would they hunt for me on the road to Epsom? Had Hill betrayed me? Even if I cleared the turnpike, just being spotted would mean at least three men on my tail, each with a fresh horse. How many more were lurking further on? I considered kicking on anyway, in the hope that this was nothing to do with me at all, but I didn’t. That would be a final mistake.

Pulling the horse round I rode back the way I had come, looking for a different road. I felt panicked, for I had counted on arriving before dawn, that I might work in the graveyard undisturbed. I did not want to arrive late, I could not! Half a mile back I found a narrow lane to my left. It was chewed up and rutted but solid underfoot, still frozen by the freezing night airs. Hesitating for just one moment, I kicked at the horse’s flanks with my heels, forcing it into a trot, but before we had got a mile the lane had got narrower, the trees were shorter and the overhanging branches reached lower. Soon I
had to bend double over the neck of the horse to avoid being dislodged from the saddle. Then I cursed, screamed out loud in frustration as the lane petered out altogether. Forced to dismount I pulled the damned horse through clinging brambles and prickled bushes. Walking, I followed what I thought was a straight line for half an hour. My guts were churning and my temper was brittle, almost broken. As I watched, the pale sun rose sickly through the web of dead branches that spread their long, spindly fingers above my head. Veering left I prayed that the road lay in that direction, beyond the turnpike. But I was still walking another half-hour later, my soul dead, pushing on forwards, oblivious to the thorns and spikes that tore at my clothes and skin. Then the trees began to thin out, and the brambles gave way to low ferns. Remounting, I rode at a steady pace, but still all I could see was a wall of trees, the silent forest floor laid out before me like an endless twisting carpet of twigs winding a crazy path through the banks of still ferns. I was hopelessly lost.

I smelt the smoke before I saw it. It wafted gently through the woods, hanging in the windless air. Climbing down cautiously I looked for movements, listened for unnatural sounds. All I could hear was the sound of the horse’s hooves and my own feet. I walked to what looked like the source of the smoke and soon emerged into a small clearing. There was a hut. The smoke came from a makeshift chimney. Should I skirt round it? But what then? I had to rediscover the trail to Epsom. The soldiers would not have come this way, surely? I tied the horse and walked forward as quietly as I could, anxious not to scare whoever it was that lived in the ramshackle wooden hut with its pitched roof and crooked walls. The door was crudely hewn of thick wood.

‘Hello there!’ I called, with more confidence than I felt.

‘Hello.’ A pair of curious pebbly eyes emerged from inside and stared out at me from beneath a furrowed brow, above pursed, questioning lips. The man had wild, unkempt, straggly white hair and pouched cheeks. Nose wrinkled and twitching. ‘What do you want?’

‘Can you tell me how to get back onto the road? I’m headed for Epsom.’

‘Oh aye? What you doing here?’

‘I got lost back there in the forest.’ Beyond the small clearing there were woods in all directions. ‘Is this where you live?’

‘Aye. Where I live and where I work. What were you doing riding your horse in the forest? What do you want here? You ain’t from around here.’

No one was from ‘around here’ – there
was
no one around here. ‘I got lost.’ In the hut I saw four rabbits and a pheasant strung up hanging from the ceiling. A poacher. Scum.

His upper lip curled up, revealing thin yellow pegs growing out of shrivelled grey gums. Contemptuous eyes skinned me. ‘No you din’t get lost. You din’t get lost. You came ridin’ down the road, saw the turnpike, thought you’d try and ride round it. I saw yer. I was there, weren’t I? You was trying to avoid the soldiers. There’s a reward on you, I reckon.’

‘There’s a reward on you too, I reckon,’ I snorted.

Eyeing me up and down, he blinked slowly. Then he grunted and withdrew into his cabin for a moment, returning with a large skinning knife, very sharp and with a wicked serrated edge. His legs were very short –
really
stumpy. Carrying the knife in the palm of his hand he looked me in the eye. There was neither malice nor anger in his expression, just the same matter-of-fact puzzled sneer. He was going to kill me with that knife.

‘I wasn’t threatening you,’ I said quietly.

Staring at me for what seemed like an age, the little man stood his ground. He was in control, this poacher, not me. ‘Don’t matter if you was,’ he said at last, plunging the knife into his belt then beckoning me to follow him into his hut. I didn’t want to go with him, but wanted to ride around the woods in circles all day even less. There was a small stove in the centre with a pot on it. The little man spooned out two bowls and handed one to me. The broth was thick and grey with bundles of herbs sticking out of it. I took a sip. It tasted of unlawful rabbit.

‘Now then. Who are yer? Dressed nice. Why are the soldiers after yer?’ The poacher sipped at his bowl gracelessly, spilling the thick soup down his shirt.

‘I’m trying to get to Epsom. I have to get there quickly and don’t want to be bothered by soldiers at turnpikes.’ I ate. I was ravenous.

Drinking noisily then smacking his lips, the poacher stared at a point about halfway up the wall in front of him. ‘Well that’s very interr-restin’. Also it’s a load of old cobblers. Wandering off into these woods rather than have a chat with a load of sleepy soldiers. What sort of story is that? Unless you be the one they’s lookin’, for of course. You don’t want to be tellin’ me your business, then that’s fine by me, mister, and I won’t be tellin’ you mine. Part of my business is knowin’ how to get from here to Epsom without using the main road.’

‘They are looking for me because I took a man prisoner, a man who killed a woman. He has friends in high places it seems, determined to set him free.’

‘What’s he ever done to you, this prisoner of yours?’

‘He sent two men to try and kill me.’

‘Why’d he send two men to try and kill yer?’

‘Because he saw me following him, I reckon, watching him at his place of work.’

‘Why’d he be bothered by the likes of you watching him at his place of work? You don’t look much of a danger to me.’

‘Because I was hired by the Mayor himself to find out who killed this woman. I was watching him to see what he might be doing.’

‘Why’d the Mayor hire you? You got soft hands and the wit of an old chicken, if you ask me. A fellow what goes riding into the woods to avoid three soldiers what all be fast asleep anyway, then gets himself lost, is not a sharp fellow. I took three shillings and a pair of new boots off those fine soldiers without them knowing it, while you go running off into a forest you don’t know and get lost. Reckon the Mayor should hire me, I’d find out who killed this woman quick enough.’

I was not in the mood for hearing how stupid I was. That I knew already. ‘You asked me my story, now you have it.’

‘Some of it. One thing I’ll let you knows for nothin’ is I ain’t no poacher, though I sees it in your eyes you be thinkin’ I am. I live off these woods legitimate. Rabbits are powerful breeders. What I take off the land gets put back just as quick. I work when there’s work, I eat when there isn’t. Why you going to Epsom?’

I looked into his cunning eyes. He held my gaze without discomfort. I felt like he was listening to me think, counting the seconds, waiting for the lie.

‘I have to dig up a corpse.’

He coughed. Just once. Then resumed his chewing. The lines on his forehead were thicker and deeper. I smiled to myself, though he was onto it like a snare.

‘What you got to smile about?’ he demanded. ‘Best not laugh at me, mister.’

Staring at the bottom of the bowl, I didn’t care whether he believed me or not. Nor did I much fear him bringing soldiers to capture me in return for a reward. I could lose myself in these woods in a second – that much I had proved already. ‘I’m not laughing at you. I have been told a tale that a girl that died ten years ago died with child. I am not inclined to believe it, but I know not which way to turn if I cannot be sure of it.’

‘You going to Epsom to dig up a grave.’ He laughed and stood staring at the floor with a hand on top of his head. Then he looked up at me sharply to make sure I wasn’t lying. ‘Where’s your shovel?’

Good question. ‘I will get one at Epsom.’

Sitting opposite me he regarded me with pity. ‘Aye. So you will ask for a shovel there, and worry not that your face will be the first they think of once they find a grave has been disturbed. And you planning to dig in the daylight?’

‘I had hoped to be at Epsom before dawn. I did not count upon the turnpike being there.’

‘Don’t think you counted on much.’ He continued to stare at me like I was a strange animal. ‘Din’t count on the turnpike, din’t count on finding a shovel, din’t count on the fact it takes half a day to dig a grave. You know where in the graveyard is the grave?’

‘The plot of Lord Keeling.’

‘You know where it is?’

‘No.’

Sitting back, he lit a pipe then turned away from me and gazed into the oven. We sat in silence a while, just the sound of birds singing. Then he moved, with purpose. Turning his pipe
upside down, he emptied the bowl onto the floor of the hut.

‘You can stay here until nightfall. I’ll get you a shovel, not from Epsom. I’ll get you clothes too, clothes you can dig in, and I’ll go with you tonight to watch out for you, make sure you isn’t disturbed. And I’ll find out where in the graveyard this body is buried. You has to pay for that though, pay a lot, ’cos I don’t like yer.’

I had pissed a quarter of my entire wealth into the gutter in just the last few days. A small fortune had gone on coaches and horses and gratuities and none was likely to be repaid. I watched the little man lick his bowl clean. ‘I haven’t any money with me.’

‘Twenty pounds,’ he said. ‘A promise is fine.’

I looked at the bottom of my bowl and reckoned I ought lick it clean too. This was becoming absurd. ‘A promissory note, you mean?’

‘No, I mean a promise. You promise to give me twenty pounds and I’ll save your neck from the noose.’

‘That’s very trusting of you.’

‘No it’s not. You make me that promise and don’t show up inside a day with my money then I’ll come and find you and take you for fifty, leave you a little souvenir for nothin’ too.’

‘Very well.’

‘Very well, indeed. Then I must be gone. Stay here. We leave an hour after nightfall.’ He marched off into the forest and out of sight without looking back.

Left by myself, I reflected. It was possible that he had gone to do what he said he would do. Far more likely he had gone to fetch soldiers and collect the prize that was no doubt on offer for my head. But there was something about this little man with his big knife that I trusted. Were he to betray me
and stare at me with his cold eyes, tell me I was simple, then I would not have been surprised. Yet I didn’t think that would happen and I resolved to trust my instinct. So I waited.

Simon with the big knife was true to his word. That is what he called himself – Simon with the big knife of Little Millpond. Little Millpond was a very small village between his hut and Epsom, which we passed through on our way to the town as the sun went down. A vain and self-important little fellow, he was never shy of relating a story that cast him in a heroic light. He was a poor fellow that took pride in being without riches, would rather have been cast into the pits of Hell than live the life of a wealthy nobleman. The tales he told were tedious and vainglorious, yet I was careful not to betray my disrespect, for he was also very strong and clearly both brave and efficient. I needed him.

Though I had done little that day other than sit in a forest, still I was tired and bleary-headed by the evening. I had never dug up a grave before, nor had I fully imagined the task that I had committed to. The hole would have to be dug deep and the earth would be hard, set solid after so many years. Far worse, though, was the thought of what I would do once I got to the bottom of that hole. Would the wood be solid still, or would it be rotten and broken? How would I open the box? Would I seek to lift it – no, for it would take several men to achieve that, so I would have to break it open with my shovel. And what would I find inside the box? In what state would I find the corpse? I had imagined a pile of bones, neatly set, either with or without a miniature set within. But what if the body was still fleshy and clothed? How would I establish that that I sought to establish? These were the thoughts that haunted me all that day.