by David Field
‘What do you plan on planting?’ the man enquired, and Giles was ready with an answer. ‘Beans, probably, which is why I’m opening the ground for the seed planting once the warmer weather arrives. It’s still cold and hard from winter, and I needs a fine tilth before I can plant any seed.’
‘I find that a deep early mulch helps,’ the man replied, betraying both his education and his knowledge of soil management. ‘Perhaps some of that rotted weed that you placed in that pile to the side there?’
‘You’re a gardener yourself?’ Giles enquired, and the man nodded. ‘My name’s Ralph.’
‘I’m Giles. Why are you here, or is the Master not happy with what I been doing?’
‘Just interested,’ Ralph replied guardedly. ‘It used to be my main activity.’ He paused, as if in acknowledgement that he’d said too much already, and changed the subject. ‘Those rose bushes out at the front certainly got a heavy pruning, didn’t they?’
‘The only way,’ Giles replied. ‘They say as how you should get your worst enemy to prune your roses, and them lazy lads from the village was going at it like they was cutting their Dad’s hair until I told them to go deeper down the stems.’
‘I must be going now,’ Ralph replied after a further moment of hesitation. ‘It was nice to have this little talk.’
‘You can come and talk to me about gardens whenever you likes,’ Giles replied invitingly, but Ralph shook his head. ‘I have to be leaving soon. I was only staying here for a brief while.’
‘Where are you from?’ Giles enquired, suddenly intrigued, but Ralph shook his head. ‘Nowhere in particular, these days. Good luck with the beans.’
He wandered off towards the house, and Giles became more alert when he noticed how the man tucked his hands crosswise in the sleeves of his cloak as he walked. It could simply be a means of keeping them warm, but the only men that Giles had ever seen adopting that habit had been monks and friars, although that was some years in the past now.
Young Ralph must be one of those priests brought in from France, Giles reasoned as his conscience stabbed at him. Tom had left word with Mary that Giles was to lose no time in following a priest to his intended destination, and so far he’d done nothing to that end. Life was too comfortable living with Mary in the room above the stable, and the weather had hardly been welcoming. But soon he’d have to stop being a gardener and go back to being a Queen’s Constable. After all, that was what he was being paid for.
His opportunity arose within hours. He was washing his hands in the water butt at the side of the stables when he overheard the Steward giving orders to the young stable groom who he always enjoyed bullying.
‘Off your backside and give all the horses the good rub down that you should have given them before you had the cheek to come up to the kitchen for your dinner,’ the Steward instructed him in his usual harsh tone. ‘And if they’re not gleaming by nightfall, you’ll get one of these horsewhips across your back - understood?’
Giles was unable to catch what the fearful young lad had to say by way of reply, but his ear caught the next angry response from the Steward. ‘None of your pathetic excuses, you useless wretch! If those horses aren’t fit to travel to Cambridge by nightfall, you’ll be back to begging in the streets. See to it!’
This was his long awaited opportunity, Giles concluded with a shiver of anticipation as he bent his head over the butt in a pretence of washing his face while the Steward strode past him with the complaint that ‘Those rose bushes look as if they’d been on a battlefield.’ Giles bit back the angry retort that came to his mind, and hastened upstairs, where Mary was resting flat on her back, the prominent swelling in her belly pointing at the ceiling as he began to explain that he would have to leave her once it got dark.
‘Where to?’ she enquired as her face betrayed impending tears, ‘and for how long?’
‘No idea how long,’ Giles replied as he reached down for her hand and kissed it, ‘but only as far as Cambridge. That’s just up the road from here, isn’t it?’
‘No idea,’ Mary admitted, ‘but make sure that you keeps out of danger, that you eats plenty before you sets off, and that you gets back here before the bubby’s due.’
‘You haven’t felt it coming, have you?’ Giles demanded in alarm, and Mary shrugged. ‘Who knows? I keeps getting these funny feelings inside, and I hope as how it’s only the bubby moving around. But since this is my first I doesn’t know, does I?’
‘Make sure that you eat proper while I’m away,’ Giles instructed her. ‘When I’m gone, just tell whoever wants to know that I’ve gone into the village to look for a midwife to come and look at you. If Tom managed to get that message to Walsingham, his men should be here in a day or two anyway, and they can set off behind me.’
‘How can you follow fellers on horses, anyway?’ Mary enquired. ‘Are you going to try and run behind them, or what?’
‘Don’t be silly,’ Giles smiled as he leaned forward and kissed her playfully on the nose. ‘I’ll take one of the spare horses from the stable down below.’
‘Won’t they miss it?’
‘I doubt it. But even if they do, it’ll be too late to warn the ones who’ve already left, won’t it?’
Mary shuddered. ‘I’ve got a bad feeling about this,’ she complained, but Giles ignored her as he looked out his spare clothes, and shook out his cloak, ready for travel. They both went to the kitchen for their supper, but while Giles followed Mary’s advice and took two hearty helpings of bread and potage, Mary merely picked away absent-mindedly at a single slice of manchet loaf.
After they’d retired for the night Giles kept his ears wide open as he heard the gentle heavy breathing from Mary at his side. His patience was rewarded when he heard the unmistakable sound of horses being saddled and led out into the courtyard, and he slipped from the pallet and looked down carefully through the narrow window. Seven horses were snorting and pawing with impatience, but all their riders were heavily cloaked as they swung into the saddles, wheeled the horses’ heads and set off towards the drive that led to the road. After counting to sixty, Giles turned back, hurriedly donned his cloak and leaned down to give Mary a goodbye kiss. She murmured softly in her slumber, and Giles tiptoed down the perilous wooden steps that led him outside, then ducked into the stables, saddled one of the remaining horses and set off at a fast trot after the departing party. As he did so, the stable boy raised himself from the straw that constituted his bedding, scratched his head to see the gardener departing in the dead of night, then fell back into the slumber that had already been disturbed twice.
Mary awoke to find Giles missing, and instinctively looked to where he normally draped his cloak over the only available chair. It was gone, and she realised with sadness and some concern that Giles had embarked upon what to her seemed like his foolish plan to follow priests out of Dunmow to some unknown destination in Cambridge. She eased herself off the bed, made use of the pisspot in the corner, then wandered off downstairs to wash the first dishes of the day once they came in from the breakfast table. She barely raised her head at the commotion in the kitchen, since it was fairly normal, given the cook’s short temper. However, this time one of the voices was the familiar one of the Steward, and she felt the first frisson of fear as he stormed into her scullery and brought his face within inches of hers as he demanded to know ‘Why has your man stolen a horse?’
‘Beg pardon?’ she replied as she began to tremble, but the Steward was in no mood for guessing games.
‘Your man – where is he?’
‘No idea,’ Mary replied truthfully, ‘although he did say as how he was going to ask in the village about a midwife. I been feeling the baby move, you see . . . ’
‘A pox on your baby!’ the Steward bellowed in her face. ‘The stable groom reports that your man stole a horse during the night. There’s no midwife in the village anyway, but why would he be seeking one during the hours of darkness – you’re not about to give birth, are you?’
‘Come with me!’ the Steward ordered her, and all but dragged her by the arm into the Morning Room, in which Sir Henry Felton was talking with another man. ‘Stand there and don’t move!’ the Steward commanded as he turned to address Sir Henry.
‘Sorry to interrupt, Master, but that new gardener stole a horse during the night, and his woman here can’t give a satisfactory explanation for his actions. I can only apologise if I made a serious error of judgment when taking on the pair of them, but I was unwise enough to believe their lies when they assured me that they were in search of work after being sent away from their former positions somewhere in Nottingham.’
‘Nottingham?’ the man with Sir Henry echoed. ‘That’s probably more than a coincidence, I think. The man Tom who was working with me on your new panels said he came from Nottingham. He’s been missing for several days now, and it looks as if all three of them may have been in it together. It may not only be a horse that was stolen, Sir Henry. Perhaps you should look to your silverware as well.’
‘Do that,’ Sir Henry instructed the Steward, ‘and while you’re about it, send two of the footmen in to guard this wretched woman while we decide what’s to be done with her, pending the arrival of the Constable. Master Owen, this man to whom you refer, who was helping you with the new panelling in the house here – where was he residing?’
‘The village alehouse, sir,’ Nicholas Owen advised him. ‘I had no reason to doubt that he had once been a carpenter, since his work was very skilled, and . . . . ’
‘Yes, yes,’ Felton replied testily, ‘no-one’s blaming you, so set your mind at ease for the moment. I want you to go back to the village and see if there’s still any sign of this so-called carpenter. If you find him, bring him back here on some pretext, and I’ll deal with him along with this whore who’s obviously one of his accomplices.’
‘I’m no whore!’ Mary protested without thinking, then howled with outrage as Felton slapped her across the face. ‘I’ll be the judge of your character,’ he sneered, adding ‘I begin to suspect that the three of you were involved in something deeper than the mere theft of a horse.’ He then called for two footmen to take her away ‘and store her for later where our former guests would have been hidden from view had we needed to do so.’
Mary was bundled out of the room, squirming and protesting that this was no way to mishandle a woman who was in the final few weeks before her lying in. Once out of the room she was blindfolded and led forward to a colder spot where she heard a strange collection of sounds. She was ordered to remain silent and not to move, then after a few moments she was further manhandled into what felt like a confined space. She was told that she might sit down, and as she was lowered into a sitting position she heard more strange sounds, followed by the unmistakable echoing of footsteps on a bare wooden floor as they retreated into the distance. She called out for someone to remove the blindfold, but all around her was silence. Silence, coldness and the uneasy feeling that wherever she was, she was about to be left to die alone.
At least they had not tied her hands, and she removed the blindfold, only to find that there was almost no light, that her prison appeared to be constructed of wood, and that there was a dark aperture of some sort above her head, from which came an unnerving fluttering sound that chilled her even further.
Back in the drawing room, Owen was receiving his final instructions from Felton, and the two footmen who had locked Mary safely away in another room were being detailed to accompany him to the neighbouring village. ‘It’s a pity that the armed men have gone as an escort to Cambridge,’ Felton advised him, ‘but the three of you should be enough to overpower a mere carpenter. Assuming that he’s still there of course, and hasn’t fled the coop with his companion in crime, leaving the little baggage to face the consequences all on her own, and her in that condition. Don’t bother involving the local Constable at this stage.’
After his return to Dunmow Village following his brief trip to Hendon, Tom was debating within himself whether or not to seek out Nicholas Owen and request more work in order to have an excuse to visit Felfield Manor again, unaware that Giles had taken off in pursuit of the group destined for Cambridge, and that Mary had been imprisoned within the house itself. Then he looked up with a smile from where he sat at the table in front of the alehouse as the question in his mind seemed to answer itself and he saw Owen walking towards him, accompanied by two other men who didn’t appear to be dressed for outside labouring.
‘Sorry I’ve been missing for a couple of days,’ Tom smiled at Owen, ‘but there were some business down south what needed my attention. Does you want me back up at the house?’
‘We most certainly do,’ Owen replied as he gestured with his head to the two men slightly behind him armed with cudgels, who walked round to stand behind Tom at the side of the table. ‘And these two have accompanied me to make sure that you don’t decline the invitation. Your dishonest scheme has come undone, and you’re to be taken in charge.’
‘Don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Tom insisted, ‘but if you reckon I done something wrong, then you’d best call in the local Constable.’
‘That won’t be necessary,’ he was assured by Owen, ‘since we intend to deal with this ourselves, up at the house. Start walking.’
Tom quickly thought through his options as they walked up the long drive, Tom in the lead with the two house servants behind him brandishing their cudgels threateningly every time he turned round. He might be able to overpower the two armed men, and perhaps Owen at the same time, but then what? He’d still have to approach the house in order to find out if Giles had gone after suspected priests, and he needed to reassure himself that they hadn’t hurt Mary or the baby she was expecting. Best to wait until Walsingham turned up with reinforcements, and for the time being at least it suited Tom’s requirements to go along with being a prisoner. He might even succeed in bluffing his way through it all by clinging to his pretence of being a carpenter fallen on hard times.
As they approached the main building, Tom looked in vain for any sign of Mary. What he could see was the face of Sir Henry Felton, red with anger, as he glared at him from the entrance doorway. Sir Henry didn’t bother to wait until they’d reached the door, but bellowed down the driveway.
‘Never mind any more pretence – who are you, and who sent you?’
‘Don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Tom insisted. ‘I’m just a carpenter – didn’t you like the work what I done on your new panels?’
‘You come from the same place as the man who stole my horse, and his woman who was working in my scullery. The three of you were clearly in league with each other, and I want to know what for!’
‘I don’t know who told you all that shit,’ Tom replied defiantly, ‘but it’s a lie.’
‘Really?’ Felton demanded, then looked over his shoulder at the two men with cudgels.
‘Take him into the back room and confront him with that woman we confined in there. If she shows any sign of recognising him, kill the pair of them!’
Tom was obliged to think quickly again. From what he had just been advised, it seemed that Giles had somehow escaped, and was perhaps chasing after priests on their way to their allocated positions in English Catholic houses. Why else would he have stolen a horse? And Felton obviously had Mary held captive in some place – probably inside the false cabinet that Tom had helped to build in front of the old fireplace – and if she, in her innocence, betrayed the fact that she knew him when they were brought face to face, then they were both likely to be killed because of what they knew.
Somehow or other he had to avoid that confrontation, and buy time before Walsingham got here with his soldiers, hopefully tomorrow or the day after. So when he was led into the back room he began to struggle with the two men who were holding him, one arm each. As he had hoped, he sensed the mo
vement of an arm behind him, and heard the swish of the cudgel as it was brought down onto the back of his head. Then it all went black.
When he came round, it was to the sensation of almost total darkness and a pounding in his skull. But at least he was still alive, and he was not the only one, to judge by the rustling noises close by as he felt a soft hand on his forehead in response to his groans.
‘Tom? Is that really you, and are you still alive? Thank God!’
‘Sh!’ he urged her, then continued in a hoarse whisper. ‘They may be listening outside, trying to find out whether or not we knows each other.’
‘Outside where?’ Mary whispered back. ‘Where in Hell are we?’
‘A false cupboard in front of the old fireplace,’ Tom whispered back. ‘If it can open to let in a priest what needs to be hidden, then I reckon as how it can be opened from inside here as well, somehow or other. But it’s too dark in here for me to find out how, so we got to keep quiet until we knows that there’s nobody in the room out there.’
‘I keep hearing these horrible scrabbling noises from somewhere above our heads,’ Mary complained hoarsely, and Tom was quick to reassure her. ‘It’s only birds, nesting in the chimney breast.’ Then he remembered something else, and smiled in the darkness as an idea came to him.
Chapter Eight
Giles sat by the side of the stream, allowing the horse to drink its fill, and thanking God for the fact that the one he’d stolen at random, and in the dark, had proved to be a good one. No doubt the best had been taken by those he’d been following, but Sir Henry obviously kept a good stable, and this chestnut gelding certainly had certainly demonstrated its stamina for two days or more, although Giles was fearful that it might be tiring with Cambridge still ten miles ahead of him, to judge by the milestone he’d passed shortly before ducking down below road level to the side of the water.
The party he was following was somewhere behind him, and he dared not venture any further in case he had already passed the house to which they were heading. He’d overtaken them at the end of the first day spent following their dust cloud a safe half mile to the rear, when they’d stopped off at a local inn at a place called Linton. Giles’s first instinct had been to pull on the reins and take cover under some overhanging trees, but then inspiration had kicked in.
