by B G Denvil
Kettle Lane
The Rookery Book One
B G Denvil
Copyright © 2020 by Gaskell Publishing
All Rights Reserved, no part of this book may be
Reproduced without prior permission of the author
except in the case of brief quotations and reviews
Cover design by
It’s A Wrap
For my daughter Gill, who came up with the idea and designed my beautiful covers.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
A preview of The Piddleton Unrest
By B G Denvil
About the Author
Chapter One
Brimming with a smile as wide as a cucumber, Alice told her daughter, “Well, Rosie, it has happened at last. The Rookery finally has a vacancy.”
Dropping the scrubbing brush in surprise, Rosie stared back at her mother. “How? No one ever dies. No one ever leaves. Has they built another room on the back or something?”
Alice shook her bedraggled black curls, her smile still wide enough to show off her vacant gums. “No, no, stupid child. At long, long last, Whistle Hobb has left us.”
“Wow!” Rosie gasped. “Did you upset him? Or has he discovered a long-lost daughter to go and stay with?”
“Whistle Hobb has finally died,” Alice announced, her smile now a sudden frown. “Utterly dead. Not a flutter of breath remains. And in fact,” and here she lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, “there are signs he may have been murdered. Cursed perhaps. Or something even more dramatic.”
“What’s more dramatic than murder?” Rosie ignored the scrubbing brush she had dropped and walked towards one of the many tiny rickety staircases. One foot to the first step, she turned. “Honestly, Mother, Whistle was probably the most powerful wizard in this house. Who had the capability of killing such a man?”
“You just go and clean up,” Alice said, flopping onto the nearest stool. “His rooms are sure to be a horrible mess, and I can’t advertise the vacancy while his room’s still a dump.”
Rosie sighed and continued up the creaking steps. She was half way up when her mother yelled, “By the way. The body’s still in there. You’ll have to think of somewhere to put it.”
“In a cupboard perhaps? Or the sewerage heap?” Stopping mid creak, Rosie gulped. “I can hardly bundle him off to church for a respectable burial. They’ll guess. He’s not exactly respectable, is he!”
“Perhaps a pyre in the back garden. Or one of those crossroads affairs.”
Rosie didn’t answer, but plodded along the small corridor to the two rooms previously, and apparently still, occupied by one of her favourite inmates. She stifled her increasing nausea. Rosie had liked Whistle rather a lot, she’d also admired him, being such a powerful and humorous wizard. Helpful too. Her own magical powers were shamefully small, but Whistle had taught her a thing or five.
The bedchamber contained a bed somewhere, but it took Rosie sometime to find it. The clutter of papers, scrolls, papyrus, rice paper and parchment, many of these documents floated and scrambled to arrive on the top of the piles, and generally called for attention. This made it a little difficult to actually collect them, let alone prioritise them. Some, Rosie decided, might be important or even give clues as to who, how and why the murder had taken place.
“Me, I’m important.” One parchment scroll was flapping in her face. She felt rather rude, pushing it away, but discovering roughly twenty thousand different papers of different kinds, she dismissed the idea of reading them all.
“But I am worth reading,” the unrolling scroll insisted, flicking its corner into Rosie’s face.
“You’ve put me off,” she replied firmly. “You scratched me.”
“Then read me instead,’ whined a small piece of rice paper containing a long inky list. “I’m only little. You could read me in just a moment or two.”
“I can’t read all of you,” Rosie complained. “Too many.”
“The others,” said a loud and deep voice, “are of no importance whatsoever. Just read me.”
“They’re all pathetic,” squeaked a folded parchment. “But me, I’m a big favourite. Master Whistle loved me dearly.”
“So, did any of you,” Rosie shouted over the clamour, “see what happened to Whistle? Or see who came into his rooms?”
There was a rather inane flapping of disappointment. “No,” said one sadly. “Master Hobb lies in the other room. He didn’t come to bed last night.”
“And no one visited,” said a large scroll. “At least, no one came into this room.”
Rosie sniffed. “Not even the maid?”
“’Tis usually you is the maid,” an illuminated manuscript pointed out, making a dramatic twist mid air. “And dear Master Hobb is lying in the other room. His study, he called it.”
“So did you hear anything odd?” asked Rosie, stopping suddenly. “Honestly, you could at least tidy yourselves a bit.”
“We don’t know who goes with what,” a few voices chimed together. “And we all have different subjects so how can we make one pile?”
“Because,” said Rosie, horrified, “it will take me all day.”
“Oh, bother,” muttered a small paperback from the future.
Chapter Two
Whistle Hobb’s study was an extension of the bedchamber, for he slept rarely and spent most of his two hundred and sixteen years investigating, reading and inventing. Somewhere under the thousands of papers next door, there had surely been a bed, presumably with blankets and pillows, a chamber pot, and a chest for clothes, money and other essentials. Beneath the endless papers, no bed had been visible, but it surely existed.
The second room presented a sadly different drama. The body of a small man lay prone on the floorboards. Whistle wore a costume very untypical for the year 1484, which was the date of his death. The eighteenth of April, to be exact. But instead of the expected doublet and hose, he was wearing a pair of brightly striped pantaloons, a green satin shirt and a navy-blue duffle coat. His feet, however, were bare, and since he was lying flat on his face, the bizarre tattoo of a crow was visible on both soles of his feet. These crows had invariably whistled when Master Hobb walked around. But they whistled no longer and appeared deeply dejected.
His hair, quite white but rather bushy, covered the back of his head, along with a huge area of dried blood. There was more. Blood splatters decorated the entire room, and even the old beamed ceiling was marked with visible red spots. One of the beams appeared virtually repainted, and lying separate on the floor, Whistle’s black velvet wizard’s cape kept flapping in panic.
Since the only window was particularly minute with tiny green glass mullions, Rosie had lit a candle. The cape kept blowing it out. She wondered if Whistle would manage to come back as a ghost and haunt the place, giving clues as to his unexpected ending. Master Hobb wasn’t just some back-street necromancer. He was, had been, a mighty powerful sorcerer. To imagine anyone strong enough to slaughter him was a terrifying puzzle.
With the small flash of one index finger, Rosie turned him over. His face had been smashed. This had been a tortuously brutal crime, and Rosie ran
from the room.
“I’ll clean up later,” she told her mother. “But I’ll need help.”
“Don’t leave it too long. Perhaps get some of the crows in,” Alice suggested. She was reading Ye Olde Recipe for the Best Pottage and Pastry, but since Rosie knew quite well her mother usually cooked by magic and had probably never lifted a saucepan in her life, she was perfectly sure the old woman was simply pretending to be busy so she wouldn’t have to offer help herself.
“But I am getting quite a headache and must go back to bed. Besides, I have to word the advertisement for the new resident to take up the vacancy. Obviously, I can’t just write ‘Comfy cosy place available for an aging witch or wizard’. We’d all be carried off to Newgate.”
“And where are you going to hang this notice then?”
Alice considered the matter. “One on the outside of the old Guildhall, and I’ll stick another on the yew tree.”
“What happens if a normal human unenchanted soul turns up?”
“I shall think about it,” said Alice. The book on her lap (one of William Caxton’s early printings) was upside down, but this was often her preferred habit. “In the meantime, ask silly little Lemony Limehouse to help with the cleaning, and perhaps old Boris Barnacle will help with the heavy lifting. He can use all ten fingers, you know.”
“I can lift poor Whistle using just two,” Rosie said with a superior shrug. “But Boris might be useful with a wet cloth. Did you see that place? It’s a massacre.”
“I suppose,” her mother said after a short pause, “we should make some attempt to find out who did it.” She copied Rosie’s shrug. “I shan’t miss the wretched old show-off, of course, but we can’t risk having a killer on the premises.”
“I’d already decided on that,” Rosie said, small voiced. “But I need help with that too, and it won’t be Boris or Lemony I’ll ask.”
“Percy Rotten? The Butterfield woman? Or nice little Harry Flash?”
“None of them,’ answered Rosie. “You just get on with your advert offering a double room vacancy on The Rookery premises for old folk in need of care. Specialising in–?”
“The Rookery,” Alice said with pride, “is not just for old folk who can’t be bothered looking after themselves. This is a House of Care specialising in wiccan folk. We are, in case you have forgotten, a high quality wiccary. And since none of these medieval nitwits know what that means, they cannot apply.”
“Do what you like,” sniffed Rosie. “I’m off to find my wiccan accomplice. Not, not you, mother. You’re only a fifty.”
“No need to bring that up.” Alice returned to her upside-down book, but muttered, “Which is all you are yourself, my girl.”
“I’m not ashamed of it,” Rosie said. “But I’m hoping to team up with an eighty-five.” Scurrying out, she at least thanked her lucky stars, of which she only had a couple and they rarely came out, that her mother seemed in a good mood for once. Poor Whistle’s death evidently pleased some, but half the old house hardly knew him, for Whistle had kept himself to himself for many long years. He was far too busy making his own spells and inventions, and invented his own much nicer food as well.
Her mother’s watery gunge was not loved by many but most simply enjoyed meeting and chatting over the long dining table.
Rosie was deeply sorry she could never again privately meet and chat with Whistle.
Chapter Three
Peg lived in one of the attics, not that she climbed all those stairs. She used the window. Having a rather poor memory, sometimes she forgot to open the window first, but this usually made little difference, apart from a collection of multi-coloured bruises over her forehead.
She did, however, open the door when someone knocked. “Ah, dear little Rosie Scaramouch. What a surprise.” And then closed the door in Rosie’s face.
“I haven’t come in yet,” Rosie called through the keyhole. Then, since Peg already knew who she was, Rosie walked through the closed door and smiled. “I just wanted to discuss something,” she said, sitting on the unmade bed. “I have a proposition.”
“My husband propositioned me once,” Peg remembered, with a faraway smile. “But that was a very long time ago. He went off to discover the New World ninety-eight years gone, he hasn’t come back yet.”
“My proposition is a little different,” Rosie admitted. “Did you know that Whistle Hobb was murdered last night? I want you to help me find out who did it. No one else seems much interested, but anyone powerful enough to smash the head of a ninety, is a very dangerous person.”
“A ninety? Yes, A ninety-two, if he told me the truth. But, my dear, I am only an eighty-five.”
“I’m a fifty, like my mother,” Rosie mumbled with a faint blush. “But together we’d make a hundred and thirty-five. Now that’s a reasonable power-house, don’t you agree? Poor Whistle. I think we should.”
With a brief fiddle of her fingers, having momentarily forgotten the right order, Peg made the bed and changed her clothes. “Ping Pong, now we’ll be gone,” she said loudly, flicking fingers on both hands, and immediately they both appeared in the kitchen.
Alice looked up and jerked awake. “I wish you wouldn’t do that,” she objected. “It’s most disconcerting. Besides, you usually use the window.”
Peg shook her head. “It’s raining.”
“Bother.” Alice closed her eyes again.
“Which means,” Rosie interrupted her, “we can’t bury poor Whistle in the back yard yet. Can’t light a fire, the ground will be as sloshy as your pottage.”
Her mother became steel-eyed and opened her mouth to shout, but this time Peg interrupted. “Thing is, my dear,” she said, discovering another stool under the table and sitting down with a bump, “our dear Whistle was a mixed bunch of daffodils. A little know-it-all, which annoyed some. But that was just because he really did know-it-all. He was a ninety-two. Now who, magical or human, is clever enough to kill a ninety-two? So,” and her smile grew as she clasped her thin fingered hands in her emerald velvet lap, “I suggest, my dear Alice, it is you who should clean up, since you are our much appreciated hostess, and do sort poor Whistle’s funeral too. In the meantime, with a little help from our friends, Rosie and I will solve this mystery.”
Alice kept glaring, though saying nothing which might come back against her in the future. Peg, after all, was probably now the strongest witch in the entire house, and it would be most unwise to antagonise her. Although she had a poor memory and was known as completely scatty, Peg was a proven wonder house of oddities. So Alice stood, the glare fixed, and walked to the door. Here, she rang the large brass bell hanging high at the door jamb, and waited for some of her more helpful inmates to come rushing to see what she wanted.
The Rookery was an old cottage, thatched in large parts, tin roofed in patches, and covered by slate on the rest. Although from the outside the cottage appeared to contain perhaps thirty small rooms or less, in fact, there were forty very large rooms tucked inside. There was a kitchen naturally, a spacious meeting hall with a huge inglenook large enough for Cinderella, and the garden outside which was huge and ran almost the length of Kettle Lane. The house itself was called The Rookery, but the actual rookery surrounded the house. There were nests for a hundred crows or more. Most of the time there were indeed a hundred crows or more. Though some of them kept to themselves and minded their own business, there were one or two who expected to have regular conversations with the witches. And besides, their own business often coincided.
Amongst the rooms within The Rookery, lived a large community of aged witches and wizards, all of whom had far more need to be looked after than any wish to do it for themselves. Yes, you could summon up a reasonable dinner with a click of experienced fingers, but that didn't mean to say it always turned out in a good state. The roast lamb could be burnt. The pork chops could be underdone. And worst of all, the rainbow trout, instead of being stuffed with sage and onion could suddenly arrive stuffed with hollyhocks and rhub
arb.
Not that Alice’s cooking was trouble free, frequently it was either entirely lacking in taste, or tasted of toe nail clippings and sardine scales, but at least all the inhabitants could then blame Alice and not themselves.
The wiccan inmates were all content to live in one or two rooms each, and be thoroughly looked after. Most were graded a little above sixty, since this was considered the average in magical power. But some, like Peg, were a good deal stronger, even if they were forgetful and apt to say their spells muddled.
As a few of the more obediently helpful inmates came running or appearing to see what Alice wanted, both Peg and Rosie left the kitchen and went quickly into the communal salon. A huge room with a huge Inglenook fireplace large enough for Cinderella, it was more spacious and comfortable than the others. But it was distinctly chilly and the fireplace was empty even of a few hot sooty ashes. It was officially spring, and once spring had sprung, whatever the weather actually decided to do with itself, no fire was lit and the common salon remained hot or cold depending on the sun, or lack of it, through the windows. There were chairs and rugs and even a mottled mirror on one wall, but this did not mean the room was cosy. Indeed, it was distinctly chilly.
"Now," Peg said, clapping her wizened hands, "if we're going to do this, let's get started. Are we looking for a human or a wizard?"
“Everyone. Everything,” Rosie answered, rubbing her hands together. She had often attempted magical self-warming over the years, but so far had never succeeded. Now the rain was hurtling against the windows, and Rosie stared out with irritation. "I suppose we will just have to talk indoors," she said. "I doubt you have the power to stop the rain?"
