Fallam's Secret

by Denise Giardina

  He stared as though he found her fascinating. After an excruciating—to Lydde—silence, he said, “And why would a boy defend women in such a manner? Would you subvert nature by placing yourself under their command?”

  “I would acknowledge them to be my equal,” Lydde replied hotly.

  “Do you know the work Malleus Maleficarum?”

  At her look of confusion, he added, “The Witches’ Hammer. Since they obviously don’t teach Latin in—um—Gloccamorra. A classic which I commend to you. The author sets forth all the wiles of women and explains how every woman is a potential witch. Like your Cousin Mary.”

  Lydde came forward and leaned over the desk, right hand clenched and finger pointed at his face. “How dare you! If any harm comes to Mary because of you, I shall make you pay for it!”

  “You forget yourself. Sir.” Fallam stood and shoved Lydde so hard she lost her balance and fell. She blinked back angry tears and willed herself not to look away as she stood slowly, rubbing her bruised elbow.

  “Mary is not a witch,” she said in a voice that barely seemed to work.

  “Cleyes!” Fallam called so suddenly that Lydde flinched.

  When the young man came to the door, Fallam said, “How warm is it outside?”

  “The day has turned quite pleasant,” Cleyes answered. “Autumn can be no more lovely.”

  “Then I shall continue this interrogation in the rose garden.” He walked to the door, then turned to the startled Lydde. “You. Follow me.”

  She looked at Cleyes, who shrugged as if to say, You heard what he said. Then she followed Fallam down the hall and out a small door at the back of the house that led to a walled garden. It was indeed a crisp sunny day—Indian summer, they would have called it back in West Virginia. Fallam headed for a bench, where he sat, propping his long legs on a table in front of him. He gestured toward a chair.

  “Sit,” he said.

  Lydde took an uncertain step forward.

  “Go on,” he said. “Sit.”

  She sat, feeling more uncomfortable than when she was on her feet. At least then I could run, she thought. In her nervousness she started to cross her legs but caught herself just in time and sprawled in the chair instead. She hoped her confusion didn’t show in her face, and knew that it did. Fallam’s attitude had changed to that of a solicitous uncle.

  “You really are a boy who needs to be taken in hand,” he said. “Wherever you are from, you have not been properly educated. And John Soane is a good man, but I would not say he is known as a disciplinarian.”

  Lydde sat up, growing angry again. “I continue to be concerned about Mary,” she said, “and your charges against her, and I will not be distracted by your criticism of me until you retract those charges.”

  He studied her a moment, then said, “Whatever your deficiencies, your spirit and loyalty are to be admired. As to Mary, they are not my charges. Since you failed to notice, I defended her in church.”

  At last Lydde felt free to look down at her lap. “You did,” she admitted.

  “Yet the man who accused her, Jacob Woodcock, is not alone. Though he is the one I would judge who is most intent on causing her trouble. She is a fanciful girl, from what I am told, and likes to tell stories.”

  “She does,” Lydde agreed again. “She tells stories before the hearth at Soane’s Croft. There is no harm in that.”

  “Stories of enchantment, of fairies and goblins and sorcerers and other enchanted creatures.”

  Lydde looked up and said nothing.

  “They have noted that she is left-handed.”

  “My God, what are you—”

  “She also is seen talking to animals.”

  “She loves animals!” Lydde protested. “What is wrong with that? She has a tender heart, that is all! Who dare accuse her of witchcraft on such grounds?”

  “Jacob Woodcock,” Fallam answered calmly. “And others he has stirred with suspicion.”

  “Then it is him you should deal with.”

  He sighed. “If you would not come here with your claws out ready to scratch, you might notice I am trying to help Mary. I have a proposal for you. No, not a proposal, an order. John Soane should have dealt with this, but he has not. As lieutenant major-general I am responsible for the well-being of the people of Norchester. If he will not manage his own household and thus inadvertently places its members in peril, I must intervene. Mary is no longer to be allowed to deliver medicines. It is not proper for an unattended girl of her age to be traipsing all over the district in any event.”

  “But she enjoys it. She loves to visit people. And why should she be kept home because of someone else’s ignorance? Women should not be kept in prison when the transgressors are others.”

  “Ah.” He leaned back. “Defending women again.”

  Lydde looked away.

  “You shall take over the deliveries yourself,” Fallam said.

  She stared at him.

  “You are a lad. Soon you shall be a man.” He smiled slightly as though something amused him. “It is proper that you, not Mary, deliver the medicines. If she wishes to accompany you from time to time, I shall not forbid it. But no more than once a week.”

  “But—”

  He shook his head. “This is an order. A boy should do a boy’s job.”

  There was nothing for it but to agree. “Very well,” she said.

  He clapped his hands in dismissal. “Good. Now, Mother Bunch will be wanting her oysters.”

  He stood and began to remove his coat, for the day had indeed turned warm. And as he did, a silver chain caught in his waistcoat fell forward. It was a necklace, a small Celtic cross, identical to the one she had found with the skeleton in the cave. Lydde gasped.

  It was Fallam’s turn to be startled. “What?” he said.

  She stared at him, trying to gather her wits. You cannot say to a man, I know where your dead bones lie. Nor, as Uncle John said, should anyone be told such a thing, not even a man as insufferable as Noah Fallam. Though she was a little pleased to see how uneasily he watched her. It was the first moment of doubt she’d seen in him.

  “Nothing,” she managed to say. “That cross you wear. I have seen such crosses on tombstones in Ireland.”

  “Oh.” He looked relieved, took out the cross, and held it up a moment. “I got this in Ireland, as a matter of fact. It seemed to me a symbol of an earlier, purer form of Christianity.” He smiled and let the cross fall back inside his shirt.

  He stood there in that unguarded moment and she suddenly saw him as akin to the Virginia copperhead, dangerous for certain yet doomed to someday lie, a skeleton alone, beneath a cliff in the New River Gorge. Lost in the wilderness of Virginia, the memorial plaque had read, and something about God being mocked. She must tell Uncle John and ask if he recalled the date on the memorial. Not so close to 1657, surely, and yet not far either. Poor lonely person.

  WHEN Cleyes had fetched the boy’s basket and sent him on his way, he went back to the rose garden, where Noah Fallam paced back and forth. He sat and waited. Eventually Fallam stopped and absently tucked behind his ear the shock of hair that fell onto his forehead. He was remembering the delicate hand whose wrist he so easily encircled between thumb and forefinger. And the changeability of the face.

  “That’s no boy,” he said.

  “No?” Cleyes asked, surprised. “Surely he is too bold to be otherwise?”

  Fallam waved his hand dismissively. “At least I have got Mary out of the way. She should be in less peril now.”

  “Good,” Cleyes said. It was he who had begged Fallam to do something to quash the rumors about the girl.

  “And this one…” Fallam shook his head. “This one I shall watch like a hawk.”

  Chapter 11

  The Raven

  AT SOANE’S CROFT, Uncle John listened with concern to Lydde’s story.

  “Maybe Fallam’s right about Mary,” he said. “I’ve got to remember how differently people think here. It’s just
that John Soane before he left also let her do most of the deliveries, and Mother Bunch hasn’t objected either.”

  “I think Noah Fallam is behind this,” Lydde fumed, “not Jacob Woodcock.”

  “Now, now. He did Mary a good turn in church, the way he deflected attention away from her. On the other hand, he may be keeping an eye on us. Mary says she keeps running into Fallam’s servant, a young fellow named Simon Cleyes.”

  “Is he a thin young man? He was there today when I was being bullied. What do you mean, she keeps running into him?”

  “Well, she actually seems quite pleased about it. She’s told me on at least three different occasions over the past few weeks that Cleyes has spoken to her, or offered to carry her basket for her. And once he walked the entire route with her.”

  “That’s terrible!” Lydde said. “Mary’s only thirteen!”

  “Thirteen here is a lot older than thirteen back home. Here, Mary is only a year or two away from marriage.”

  Lydde flexed her aching elbow, rolled up her sleeve, and held up her arm.

  “A nasty bruise,” Uncle John observed.

  “And Noah Fallam gave it to me,” Lydde answered. “I think he’s setting some kind of trap. You should have seen the way he treated me, threatening one minute, pretending to be kind the next. He was trying to catch me off guard. And that fellow Cleyes is spying for him, I know it.”

  But their fear for Mary, who was on a delivery even as they spoke, forestalled any defiance. For when the girl returned she was breathless and clutching a black puppy, and was followed soon after by an angry Jacob Woodcock. Woodcock, a blacksmith by trade, was still wearing his apron, and holding a hammer, which he waved menacingly. Mary, meanwhile, darted behind Lydde, pressing the whimpering pup to her breast.

  “Here, here,” Uncle John said as he stepped in front of Woodcock. “What does this mean?”

  “You are harboring a witch!” Woodcock cried.

  “Don’t be absurd!” Lydde said, putting her arm around Mary. “There are no such things as witches.”

  “No such—no witches!” Woodcock sputtered. He gave Lydde a close look. “You do tempt Satan, foolish boy. The hand of the Devil lies heavy upon this household.”

  “Calm down, Jacob,” Uncle John said. “Mary and the boy here are still learning our ways. They are young and a bit foolish, perhaps. But surely it is no more than that. What has the girl done to rile you so?”

  “She has taken that dog.” Woodcock pointed at the puppy.

  Uncle John turned and said, “Mary? What have you to say for yourself?”

  Mary took a step back and held the dog tighter still. “Mossup at the stable gave it to me. When he”—she pointed at Woodcock—“saw me with it, he said he was going to drown it. So I ran home.”

  “’Deed I was,” Woodcock said. “It bears the mark of Satan. And this is an impertinent girl to disobey me.”

  “Why should she obey you?” Lydde said sharply. “You are nothing to her.”

  Woodcock stared at Lydde, his dark eyes looking her up and down. “I am a man,” he said, “and one of the elect. That is the only authority I need to deal with a wretched girl. Why do you think otherwise, boy?”

  Uncle John shot a warning glance at Lydde as she opened her mouth to reply. “Mary,” he said, anxious to draw attention away from Lydde. “Let me see the pup.”

  Reluctantly Mary loosened her grip and allowed Uncle John to take the whimpering animal. He held it up. The dog was a bitch, black, with a blaze of white on its chest, and it had no tail.

  “I see nothing demonic,” Uncle John said.

  “A female black dog born with a stunted cross on its chest but without a tail! That dog shall make a witch’s familiar,” Woodcock said. “Its master will be Satan and it will carry messages from its master to seduce this girl. Best to kill it now.”

  They were interrupted just then by the arrival of Constable Baxter, summoned by alarmed townspeople who had witnessed the spectacle of Jacob Woodcock chasing young Mary Soane through the streets with a hammer. And hot on the heels of the constable came Simon Cleyes.

  Baxter, a burly man, struggled to catch his breath. “Mr. Soane. Mr. Woodcock. What sort of disturbance is this?”

  Woodcock would of course be heard first, and when he was done, Uncle John held up the pup and said mildly, “The girl has a tender heart. She meant no harm except to save the poor creature.”

  Mary burst into tears. “Please,” she begged, turning to Simon Cleyes, “please don’t let Jacob Woodcock kill it.”

  Lydde glared at Cleyes. He pressed his lips together and looked grimly back but said nothing.

  Baxter had taken the dog from Uncle John and was turning her this way and that. “Poor bitch has no tail,” he commented.

  “A cursed dog,” said Woodcock.

  “Now, now, Jacob,” Baxter said mildly. “I knew of a tailless dog when I was a boy, and it was harmless. Nor would the good doctor harbor a creature of the Devil.”

  “You, Elijah Baxter, do enforce the law with partiality,” Woodcock fumed. “Since the doctor did save your child from choking, you will hear nothing against him or his household. It is not fair and I shall complain to Pastor Fallam.”

  Baxter turned to Simon Cleyes. “What think you, Simon?” he asked. “Is this charge worthy of enforcement?”

  “I think,” Cleyes said, “Pastor Fallam shall not wish to be bothered with it. If the Devil puts in an appearance, then Noah Fallam shall lead the fight against him. But lacking the Devil and beholding only a pup…” He shrugged. “He would take the same course as Constable Baxter.”

  “Thank you,” Uncle John said with relief.

  “Do not thank me,” Cleyes continued, “for the lieutenant major-general has also expressed his strong disapproval of the way you conduct this household. The girl Mary is no longer to be allowed such unsupervised freedom. This boy here is to take over her deliveries. If these orders are not followed, Pastor Fallam shall have you up on charges before him, respected in Norchester though you may be. Is that clear?”

  Uncle John glanced at Lydde. “It is,” he said.

  “Will that satisfy you, Mr. Woodcock?” Cleyes asked.

  Woodcock shrugged ill-naturedly. “It shall have to,” he said.

  Cleyes nodded. Then he doffed his hat. “Mary,” he said with a slight bow.

  Through her tears, Mary smiled and blushed.

  Oh, Lord, Lydde thought.

  DESPITE her anger at Noah Fallam’s order, Lydde found she enjoyed the delivery of Mother Bunch’s herbal concoctions. It was a change to leave Soane’s Croft—poor Mary, who no longer had such a diversion. It was good exercise and Lydde loved the feeling of striding along on her newly young legs. Some of the people she met were regular customers and soon became familiar, hailing her if they saw her in the street (though she sometimes forgot to respond to a call of “Lewis!”), and seemed to look forward to her visits. With new customers she must ask directions and often found herself exploring a different part of the countryside, to her great enjoyment.

  But some of those needing medicines lived several miles outside Norchester. Uncle John sent these by a man on horseback from the livery stable, or sometimes went himself. He had learned to ride horses when he was a boy. Lydde did not ride. That should change, she decided. A young man in the seventeenth century who could not ride was at a severe disadvantage, and only the poorest men would be in such a position. Women, she noted, were forced to ride sidesaddle, yet even these were more proficient than she was. She put the matter to Uncle John.

  “I could teach you,” he said, and began to give her lessons on the mare, Lady, who was the only horse living at Soane’s Croft. For several days thereafter she made her rounds with a rump sore from the unaccustomed bouncing. But gradually her body became used to the pounding. Another day or two with supervision, Uncle John said, and he would send her out on her own.

  Lacking a horse, her longest trek was to Mother Brown, who had just begu
n to receive Mother Bunch’s tonic for rheumatism. Mother Brown lived in a cottage in Oxgodby Forest two miles beyond St. Pancras Church. She was a widow whose children had all died or left home, and she was lonely and loved to talk. Sometimes Lydde had difficulty getting away from her.

  On her last visit without a horse she found herself outside the city walls as darkness was falling. She was alarmed to realize, as a blue twilight came on and she hurried along, that she could hear the sound of horses following her. She stopped to listen and could just make out the forms of two men on horseback who paused when she did. They seemed to be wearing cloaks of some sort but were too far away to see clearly. She turned and walked on as though she were not concerned. Travelers on their way to Norchester, most likely, and meaning no harm. Besides, she must pretend not to feel the fear that any woman of any time knows when alone on a road with no protection against a rape. As a boy she should not possess, nor show, such fear. She forced herself to keep a steady pace as the clop-clopping of horses’ hooves came closer.

  She was just about to emerge from the forest and into the clearing of St. Pancras churchyard when the horses quickened their pace and drew abreast of her. One pulled in front and stopped, while the other behind her stopped as well. Alarmed, she turned around to see the rider of the rear horse dismounting. Beneath his hat he wore a black hood that covered his head save for slits for his eyes and mouth.

  He came forward with hand raised. “Don’t be alarmed. We mean no harm,” he said in an odd guttural delivery which Lydde assumed was meant to disguise his normal speaking voice.

  Lydde spun around to run, but the other horse and rider continued to block her path. The second man was also hooded.

  The man spoke again. “Don’t be afraid. You are the doctor’s lad, Lewis, are you not?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Who are you? Why are you disguised?”

  He took a step closer and she retreated.

  “I am the Raven,” he said. “You have heard of me?”

  “Yes,” she whispered, her heart beating quicker. He was an extraordinary figure with his cloak wrapped around him and a sword strapped around his hips.