A Maze of Murders

by Paul Doherty

  ‘One more thing.’ Kathryn smiled. ‘Or should I say two?’ She opened her purse and took out a coin and thrust it into the girl’s hand. ‘Would you be surprised, Amelia, to find a green mask amongst Veronica’s possessions?’

  ‘A mask?’

  ‘Yes, like a hangman’s,’ Colum remarked, ‘which covered the head and face with slits for the eyes, nose and mouth.’

  ‘Oh Lord, have mercy!’ Amelia shook her head.

  ‘What I want to know is, would you be surprised if we found such a mask in Veronica’s belongings? You cannot remember her taking part in some mummer’s play or revelry?’

  ‘By Heaven and all its angels!’ the girl replied. ‘Of course not, Veronica was a quiet girl.’

  ‘But you still thought she may have had your locket?’

  Amelia coloured. ‘I only said that because she was always admiring it. It was wrong of me.’

  ‘And last night,’ Kathryn asked, ‘you are sure there was no one in that chamber apart from Master Mawsby?’

  ‘Mistress, I went in, I filled the jug, I left and the door was locked and bolted behind me.’ The girl gazed fearfully down the passageway. ‘I really came back up here,’ she patted the pocket of her skirt, ‘to collect my ave beads. I am afeared, Mistress, these hideous deaths, some servants are leaving. Now I must go.’

  Kathryn watched her leave hastening along the passageway and clatter down the stairs.

  ‘Time is running out,’ Colum observed, ‘like sand through a glass. Amelia is correct. Servants are leaving. Lady Elizabeth will soon disband her household.’ He put his arm round Kathryn’s shoulder. ‘I watched you downstairs.’ He pulled her close and his lips gently brushed her hair. ‘And I wondered, what is all this to us, Kathryn?’

  ‘It matters,’ she replied. ‘I wouldn’t be a good physician if I only studied the ailments and never searched for a cure or, in this case, the cause.’

  ‘And?’ Colum asked.

  ‘We are not animals, Colum. One night out in the great meadow I saw a fox trotting by with a rabbit in its mouth. It reminded me of a wall painting in St. Mildred’s Church depicting death as an eagle swooping on its quarry. Now that I understand, I must accept that death is part of life – but murder? Swooping down to take a life before its time, without God’s consent?’ She gently pushed away his arm. ‘It matters, Colum, but come, I want to show you something.’

  They went downstairs and out through a side door. Kathryn had to ask a servant to direct them, but eventually they stood beneath the bay window of Maltravers’s chancery.

  ‘What are you looking for?’

  Kathryn examined the strip of grass which divided the path from the wall of the house.

  ‘An imprint of a boot or shoe.’

  ‘What?’ Colum crouched down beside her.

  ‘It’s possible,’ Kathryn tweaked the end of his nose, ‘that Mawsby invited someone into his chamber. This person poisoned the wine, without Mawsby knowing, then left secretly.’

  ‘And Mawsby politely closed the window behind him?’ Colum teased.

  ‘Possibly.’ Kathryn tried to hide her confusion. ‘Monkshood takes a little time to work but there’s nothing here except . . .’ She edged further onto the grass and plucked a few blades. ‘That’s wine.’ She sniffed at the grass. ‘Someone was here and spilt wine.’ She gently held one blade of grass and scratched at the stain with a finger nail and peered closer.

  ‘Anyone could have done that,’ Colum muttered.

  Kathryn got up, clutching her writing satchel. She walked to get a clearer view of the maze.

  ‘I’d love to know your mystery,’ she murmured. ‘And, perhaps, I will. . . .’

  Kathryn was about to go back into the house when she caught a flash of red from the line of trees. At any other time Kathryn would have thought she was mistaken, that she had seen only a trick of the sunlight. But she stared and caught it again, between two bushes, then it disappeared. Grasping her writing satchel, she raced down the bank across the great meadow, Colum hurrying behind her, shouting in alarm. They passed the maze and reached the line of trees and bushes. Kathryn held a hand up. At first there was nothing, then Colum heard the snap of twigs and the crackle of bracken.

  ‘I thought this was close grown?’

  ‘I put my faith in Peterkin the poacher,’ Kathryn replied. ‘There’s not a hedge which can’t be penetrated.’

  She left the lawn and began to push aside the bushes; bracken, brambles and nettles blocked her way. Kathryn paused, recalled what she had glimpsed, and tried once more, pushing her way through the undergrowth to the two bushes between which she had glimpsed the splash of red. The bracken caught at her gown. Colum, muttering and cursing, drew his sword and began to hack either side. Kathryn reached one bush and edged along.

  ‘I thought as much!’

  The small area between the bushes was trampled down. Kathryn forced her way through and found herself on a winding path over a foot broad, a clear trackway through the undergrowth. In winter, after snow or rain, it would be muddy and slippery, but now the ground was firm underfoot. Kathryn felt as if she were entering an ancient forest with only patches of sunlight, the occasional call of a bird, and a sinister sound of rustling from the cool, green darkness, well sheltered from the strong sun. Colum, mystified, followed. The trackway turned and twisted. At times Kathryn had to walk sideways so her clothing wouldn’t be caught by the brambles. The path led to a small clearing of moss-covered ground which stretched to the curtain wall of Ingoldby Hall. Kathryn walked along this and stopped at one place.

  ‘See, Colum, the cracks and crevices. Even I could climb it.’ And she began to gingerly make her way up.

  ‘Kathryn,’ Colum pleaded. ‘Get down please. I can do it.’

  ‘It’s not often I climb a wall,’ she called back. ‘When I was a girl, I used to raid Widow Gumple’s orchard. The apples were sour but I loved her to chase me.’

  Kathryn, scratched and perspiring, at last reached the top of the wall and pulled herself up. Beyond was another grassy verge, trees and bushes, and through these she could see the trackway leading up to the crossroads and the road to Canterbury. Kathryn was about to climb down when she glimpsed the red threads caught in the sharp stones on the top of the wall. She picked these up, grasped them in her sweaty hands and made her way down. Colum, impatient, grasped her by the waist and helped her then, turning her around, pulled her close.

  ‘You enjoyed that, didn’t you? Colour to your cheeks, a sparkle to your eyes?’

  ‘That’s not the wall, Irishman, it’s you!’

  Colum kissed her fully on the lips, hands gently caressing her back. Kathryn, unresisting, rested her head against his chest.

  ‘It’s a wonder no one saw us,’ she murmured.

  ‘Oh, I am sure they did.’

  ‘In which case, Irishman, I don’t want to be caught playing naughty with you in a wood.’ She gently pushed him away.

  Colum would have continued to tease her but Kathryn held out her hand so that he glimpsed the red threads.

  ‘The Vaudois woman?’

  ‘Yes, the Vaudois. I am sure she was here just now. I wager she knew this path like Sir Walter knew the maze. A poacher’s trackway or, indeed, for anyone who wants to leave or enter the hall without being noticed.’

  ‘Could she have been the murderer?’

  Kathryn put the red threads into her wallet and adjusted her headdress.

  ‘Remember what you said, Colum. A woman can swing an axe or sword as deftly as any man. Is the Vaudois as mad as she pretends to be? Did she have some grudge against Sir Walter? Does she know her way through the maze?’

  ‘But, if that’s the case,’ Colum said, leaning down to pick up Kathryn’s writing satchel and hand it to her, ‘how did she enter the maze?’

  Kathryn chucked Colum under the chin.

  ‘One day I must introduce you to Peterkin the poacher.’

  ‘You’ve mentioned him before.’

&n
bsp; ‘Let me show you something.’

  Kathryn and Colum left the copse and stood on the edge of the great meadow. Kathryn stared at the rearmost hedge of the maze, with its blackened, shrivelled branches, then let go of Colum’s hand and walked across. She crouched, and saw that the fire had been so intense some of the roots and stems had been burnt through. Nothing more than charred stakes were left, the branches above a mere tangle of dead bracken. Kathryn rose and went along the side. Every so often she would kneel, pull back the grass and peer carefully.

  ‘What are you looking for?’ Colum demanded.

  Kathryn recalled doing this the morning she had been attacked at Ingoldby.

  ‘Well?’ Colum insisted.

  Kathryn broke from her reverie and explained Peterkin the poacher’s principle, how somewhere along this hedge, there must be a place where the trunks of each hedgerow allowed a small gap. Colum joined in the search and eventually found a place where a gap of at least a foot stretched between the roots of the hedges which formed the maze.

  ‘It’s wide enough,’ he murmured. ‘But the branches come down low, no more than nine inches above the ground. A child could squeeze through – but a fully grown man or woman?’

  They continued their search and found other places.

  ‘And, even if they got through,’ Colum asked, ‘what then?’

  Kathryn clambered to her feet and stared back at the darkened copse with its secret paths.

  ‘Inter liberos sub pede. The Vaudois woman misled me. Was it an accident or deliberate? You see, Colum, in Latin liberos stands for children, but ‘Underfoot amongst the children’ didn’t make sense. However, libros is the Latin for books. I realised that when I was examining Sir Walter’s will.’ She winked at Colum. ‘So, now, the Vaudois’s comment means ‘Underfoot amongst the books,’ and I think that library holds the key to the maze.’

  ‘A manuscript? A map?’

  ‘Sub pede,’ Kathryn murmured. ‘Under foot.’

  Chapter 9

  ‘Though clerkes preise wommen but a lite,

  There kan no man in humblesse hym acquite

  As womman kan.’

  —Chaucer, ‘The Clerk’s Tale,’

  The Canterbury Tales, 1387

  Kathryn closed the library door, drawing the bolts across. They had met Father John in the corridor and he had offered to help, but Kathryn had tactfully refused. Tugging at Colum’s sleeve, Kathryn led him along the polished wooden floor to the far end of the library. She paused just before the stone mosaic which covered a huge square of the floor in front of the broad writing desk.

  ‘Sub pede inter libros,’ she repeated. ‘Under foot amongst the books.’

  Colum stared appreciatively at the manuscripts and calfskin covered tomes on the shelves and stands.

  ‘I haven’t seen a library like this since I guarded Richard of York, but Kathryn, finding a map amongst these books will be like finding berries amongst brambles.’

  That’s what I thought.’ Kathryn pointed down at the mosaic. ‘It’s not amongst the books but underfoot.’ She placed the writing satchel on the floor and crouched down. ‘See, Colum, the green border, the white squares, the blue cross in the centre and what appears to be haphazard red lines, a decorative motif which pleases the eye but doesn’t intrigue the mind.’

  Colum crouched down and studied the mosaic.

  ‘Sweet Fintan’s bones! It’s the cross, Kathryn! That’s the Weeping Cross; the green border simply marks the confines, but these white squares and red lines indicate the hedges or paths. It’s the maze!’

  ‘Underfoot amongst the books,’ Kathryn repeated. ‘The man who laid out the maze and built this beautiful hall did have a map which he used for this mosaic, then he destroyed the map. It’s an illusion really,’ she continued, ‘Strange geometric symbols, but notice,’ Kathryn moved to the bottom right hand corner, ‘there’s only one entrance, one gap.’ She traced her finger along the white squares of the mosaic. ‘These mark the path, the red indicates the hedges, the blue cross lies in the centre, whilst the green border marks the great meadow. Once you realise what this mosaic represents, it’s very easy to thread the maze! What we do, of course, is start at the centre. Colum, pass me one of those pots of ink.’

  Colum fetched the copper container. Kathryn shook it gently, lifted the cap, dabbed a finger in and began to trace a path leading from the blue cross. Sometimes she went wrong but eventually her finger, twisting and turning as it stained the miniature white tiles, reached the end.

  ‘Thurston will complain,’ she breathed, getting to her feet and wiping her fingers on a yellow cloth used for dusting. ‘But now we know how to solve the mystery of the maze. Sir Walter discovered this and so did our assassin.’ She took a small writing tray with a piece of vellum and traced the path she had delineated on the mosaic. ‘I once heard,’ she murmured, ‘that if you get lost in a maze, you keep turning left to reach the centre and turn right to get out, I’m not too sure if that’s true. . . .?’

  ‘But the assassin didn’t enter the maze by its entrance,’ Colum declared. ‘Gurnell told us that was guarded.’

  ‘You are correct,’ Kathryn said. ‘But we have just resolved the problem. The assassin committed this map to memory, learning it by rote. He or she didn’t enter the maze by its entrance.’ She smiled at him. ‘Like Peterkin the poacher, the assassin searched for a weakness and found it in the rearmost hedge.’ She put down the writing tray and raised her hands to describe it. ‘There was a gap between two of the hedges, large enough for someone to enter. In the days, even weeks before Sir Walter’s death, that gap was secretly widened. The assassin either cut through the base of the hedge, or worked to lift the bottom of the hedge further up, in order to create a hole large enough to go through.’

  ‘But wouldn’t that be noticed?’

  ‘No.’ Kathryn shook her head, emphasizing the points on her fingers. ‘Firstly, it was at the back of the maze where people don’t go. Secondly, the grass and weeds grow long and thick around the maze, too close to the hedge for a scythe. Thirdly, the assassin would make sure that his handiwork was carefully hidden; branches can be pulled down or pushed together. Fourthly, no one’s looking for that gap, so why should they find it? Even if they did, as people keep saying, getting into the maze is easy but, if you don’t know the way, you are really walking into a trap. Our assassin entered the maze by that secret entrance. Once inside, the murderer knew the paths, and he, or she, easily reached the centre and hid near the Weeping Cross. Sir Walter entered the maze to carry out his penance. He reached the centre, the assassin struck, took his head and left.’

  ‘But who?’

  ‘It could have been anyone. Did Gurnell wander off and creep along the far side of the maze, turning right along the rear hedge to this hidden place? Might Father John have done it? Thurston?’

  ‘Or the Vaudois woman?’

  ‘Yes, the list of suspects is long. Did the murderer take Sir Walter’s head, place it in a leather sack and hide it somewhere in the maze along with the hunting horn as well as the sword or axe used for the killing blow?’ Kathryn rubbed the side of her face. ‘This is only a theory, a hypothesis.’

  ‘But what makes you think it was at the back of the maze?’

  ‘The fire! At first I thought that was used to alarm the household, a sinister pointer to Sir Walter’s head placed on the pole.’

  ‘It was,’ Colum declared. ‘But it was also a way of destroying evidence, to prevent someone like you stumbling across that secret entrance.’

  Kathryn picked up the writing tray and finished the details of the map.

  ‘Yes, my wild Irishman, that’s what happened. The assassin entered by the back of the maze, then used that fire to hide the secret entrance. The details of how he or she got in,’ she shook her head, ‘I still don’t know.’

  Kathryn finished drawing her map and placed the parchment on the desk so the sun pouring through the window would help dry the ink.

&
nbsp; ‘Lady Elizabeth will return soon.’

  ‘Aye, she will, and we must be gone.’

  Kathryn sat down at the desk to study her map, now and again getting up to compare it with the mosaic. Once satisfied, she took the yellow rag and began to remove the ink stains. Some had begun to dry but she did her best.

  ‘Fetch some wine please.’

  Colum left the library and returned with a small jug. Kathryn used the contents to finish her cleaning.

  ‘Take it back to the kitchen, Colum. Put the rag amongst the rubbish and tell one of the maids to clean this jug carefully.’ She stared down at the streaked floor. ‘Perhaps the assassin will notice, but he or she is going to find out anyway. . . .’

  ‘Why?’ Colum asked.

  ‘Because we are going to enter that maze again using this map. I want to test this part of my hypothesis.’

  Colum hurried off to the kitchen and came back. Kathryn was still staring down at her crude map.

  ‘If we get lost . . .?’ Colum inquired as they left.

  ‘If we get lost,’ she replied impishly, ‘then just imagine it, Colum, you and I, all alone, lost in a maze. What on earth will we do with ourselves?’

  His hand went out to grasp her arm but she danced away, hurrying ahead along the polished floor to the main door of the manor. The sun was now at its zenith, the great meadow and that sinister maze sleeping under the late summer heat, and even the birds sheltered in the coolness of the trees. No one was about as Kathryn and Colum went down the steps, across the meadow and into the maze. Colum picked up the guide rope as they walked. When they reached the centre, he threw it down the steps near the Weeping Cross. Kathryn used the map to follow the path which would lead to the rear hedge. Once or twice she made a mistake and became lost but, eventually, they reached the swathe of charred hedgerow. Kathryn, peering through the branches, glimpsed the copse at the far end of the meadow.