A Fall of Shadows

by Nancy Herriman

  “In truth, we gave his arrival only a momentary thought,” she replied. “His presence amongst them did persuade David, however, to not attend the Poynards’ entertainment yestereven. My son supped with me, though he greatly esteems such performances.”

  Her tone was disdainful. “Many people esteem the theater, Mistress,” said Kit.

  “My children have no time for such folly, Constable. This dairy requires many hands.”

  “To make light work.”

  “Indeed.” Footsteps echoed in the passageway. “Ah. Here is David now.”

  David Merrick entered the room. His gaze skipped between his mother and Kit, touching only briefly on the knife on the table.

  “Constable?” he asked. He bore a strong resemblance to Mistress Merrick—small in stature, blunt nose. He did not seem to possess her confidence, though, if the anxious way he stretched his neck to attempt to stand taller than Kit was any indication.

  “The constable has been asking about Bartholomew Reade, David.”

  “Do not trouble yourself any longer, Mother,” he said.

  “As you will.” She inclined her head and left.

  “A sad end for Bartholomew. A good fellow. And a good playwright.” Merrick shook his head mournfully. “I cannot believe. Jellis.”

  “Neither can I, Master Merrick. Not at all.”

  He stretched his neck again. “Oh?”

  “Can you name anyone else who had reason to harm Master Reade?”

  The muscles of his face moved but did not resolve into any particular look. “Bartholomew had his squabbles. Over women.”

  “He was a handsome fellow,” said Kit.

  “And had a winning manner.”

  David Merrick might guard the movement of his face, but his voice betrayed resentment. The resentment of a man who was neither particularly handsome nor especially winning toward one who was both.

  “Did he charm your sister?” asked Kit.

  “Ellyn is impetuous. But sensible, in the end.”

  “Was she the cause of the feud that existed between your families, Master Merrick? Your family and the Reades?”

  His brow furrowed. “There is no bad blood between our families, Constable.”

  “I hear otherwise.”

  “Tittle-tattle. That is all. Those who spread it should be punished.”

  “Did you see Master Reade after he arrived here?”

  Merrick rolled his lips between his teeth. “I am too busy with the farm. With my father and brothers at the fair. I must take charge, you see. No time for idleness with my mates.”

  “Ah.” Kit nodded toward the table against the wall. “Do you recognize the knife there, Master Merrick?”

  “Nay, I do not.” Merrick squinted at it. “I am most certain I do not.”

  “What might your servants claim?”

  “The same, Constable.” He tilted his head as if straining to hear. “Ah. My mother calls to me. I have work to oversee in the cheese barn. Good day, Constable.”

  Kit watched him go. He’d not heard anyone calling to David Merrick.

  And how telling that the fellow had not asked after his sister’s health, either.

  * * *

  Bartholomew Reade is murdered. Marcye accuses David Merrick. Ellyn accuses the supposed father of her child, Jeffrey Poynard. A witness saw a woman swathed in a dark gown.

  What does it all mean?

  Bess followed a bend in the road, drawing near to the outlying cottages of town, her thoughts twirling like the blades of a windmill in a gust. She was so distracted, her thick-soled shoes kept miring in patches of mud.

  Hiking her skirt, she slogged on. Ahead of her, smoke rose from chimneys into the sky, which clouded over with the threat of approaching rain, and church bells tolled. She marveled anew at the ordinariness of the scene. Why did not a man’s murder cast a visible pall over it all?

  She approached the lane upon which Robert’s house was located and nodded to the baker’s wife, who’d dumped a basin of wash water onto the roadway and now stared at Bess.

  “Good day,” she said to the woman.

  “God save you, Mistress Ellyott,” she replied without her customary smile.

  Well, now. The gossips must be aware that a strange woman is at our house.

  “It appears we might have rain soon,” said Bess.

  The baker’s wife did not answer, and Bess hurried on. She noticed Joan standing in the lane, waving her hand frantically.

  “Mistress!” she cried out. “Your good sister has returned!”

  “Dorothie has come? With Margery?”

  “Just Mistress Crofton,” she answered. “But you must hurry! Mistress Ellyn is gone! Vanished!”

  * * *

  “No greeting for me, Elizabeth?”

  Dorothie, the folds of her ruff as crisp as though freshly starched, her leaden-colored gown unsullied by travel grime—how did she accomplish such a feat?—stamped after Bess, who hurried through the second floor of the house to prove to herself that Ellyn had indeed run off. Quail danced alongside them, tail wagging.

  Bess paused. “Welcome, Dorothie. You did not bring Margery with you.”

  “No.” Dorothie held out her cheek, which Bess dropped a kiss upon. “And where is Robert? Has he left you alone again?”

  To become involved in others’ problems once more. “He has gone to his countinghouse in Cheapside,” she said, resuming her rush through the house.

  “So you are here alone.” Dorothie tutted. “Then ’tis well that I have come back earlier than I had planned.”

  “But I am not alone. I am at home with two servants. And a dog.”

  “Bah. Prithee, Elizabeth, can you not halt for one moment?” Dorothie swept down the staircase behind Bess, Quail close behind. “Fie, you know how you vex me. I am weary from my journey, and you will not—”

  “Then rest yourself in the hall. I seek answers as to where an ill young woman who has run away from my care has gone.”

  “A patient of yours has fled? Most discourteous.”

  Joan waited in the hall. Quail trotted over to her.

  “I could not find the constable, Mistress.” She bobbed the briefest of curtsies at Dorothie, who lifted a brow and went to recline on the settle. “But I did find his cousin, Master Harwoode. He will enjoin the townsfolk to search. And here. This is for Mistress Ellyn.”

  She handed Bess a woolen blanket.

  “My thanks, Joan. She will likely have need of it.” Joan had discovered a petticoat and loose jacket missing from the trunk in the room Ellyn had borrowed, along with the coverlet she’d taken from her bed. However, the items might not be sufficient to protect her from the damp and cold that rode on the wind. In her weakened condition, if it began to rain, Ellyn would suffer all the more.

  “What mean you to do with that blanket?” asked Dorothie, who’d been occupied in tucking cushions around her. “Take part in the search for this woman? ’Tis best left to those in authority, Elizabeth.”

  “Do not fret, Dorothie. I will not ask you to search for a stranger.”

  Dorothie’s brows rose again, arcs of light brown above her eyes. “I shall indeed not assist, you may be assured.”

  “We will return anon. Joan, come with me. Quail, stay.” Her sister might take some solace in the dog’s presence.

  She exited the room, Dorothie sputtering her dismay that she was to be left behind without food or drink to refresh her.

  “’Tis my fault Mistress Ellyn has gone off,” said Joan, trailing Bess out the rear door and into the courtyard. “If I had not been sitting in the lane before the front door mending your stockings this afternoon but instead been inside the house, I would have seen her slip away.”

  “She may have run away before then, Joan. While we were at the Cross Keys speaking with Marcye, or while I was with Mother Fletcher,” said Bess. “When did you last see her?”

  “Late this morning, Mistress,” she said. “After the constable left, I did try t
o bring her food at midday. She told me to leave it and not disturb her further.”

  Many hours. Too many hours. “She will not get far, Joan. She has lost too much blood and has not yet recovered.”

  “But, Mistress …”

  “Humphrey should have seen her. He was to plant out the cabbages in the garden today.”

  “You think he would have tried to stop Mistress Ellyn if he had been in the garden to see her depart?” Joan asked, sounding dubious.

  “Nay. I’faith, I do not.” He’d be content to see Ellyn Merrick gone. One less troublesome woman in the house.

  Bess strode across the courtyard, the gravel crunching beneath her shoes, bound for the gate set into the garden’s rear wall. From the upstairs parlor window, she’d noticed that it hung open, which suggested that Ellyn had run off through the gate.

  “She should not have fled,” said Joan, her set of household keys jingling as she chased after Bess. “She should not.”

  Bess paused to allow Joan to catch her up. “One of the Merrick servants claims the child was Jeffrey Poynard’s.”

  Her eyes went wide. “Oh! Would he not wed her?”

  “I have no idea. But I must wonder what Ellyn plans now,” said Bess. “What does your instinct tell you, Joan?”

  “I have no need for instinct, Mistress,” she said. “The penknife from her chamber is not ’pon the small desk in the room.”

  “It may simply be misplaced.”

  “The penknife was there earlier, for when I left Mistress Ellyn’s midday meal on the desk, I saw it.”

  “If she did take the knife, ’tis dull from sharpening quills.”

  Joan’s face sank into troubled lines. “It may be sharp enough, Mistress, for what she intends.”

  * * *

  Summoned by Gibb Harwoode, those who could readily leave their shops and their farms joined in the search. Children were among their number, chattering excitedly about the grand adventure that had freed them from their work or their studies for a while. ’Twas far from a grand adventure though, thought Bess. A woman’s life could be at stake. They had to locate Ellyn before she made use of the penknife she’d taken.

  The searchers spread out across the lands that stretched beyond the town boundaries. It was unlikely that Ellyn would walk openly upon the road. Bess also doubted that she’d sought refuge with anyone in the village, for if she had friends willing to take her in now, she’d not have come to Bess’s door in the first place. Which meant Ellyn would probably be hiding in the dense shrubbery near the river. Or perhaps within a barn or the friary ruins that loomed forlornly over the southern road. Quiet places to breathe one’s last, if self-murder was what Ellyn planned.

  Ellyn, do not do this. We will find a way to secure a hopeful future for you.

  Somehow.

  Bess paused. Where would I go? ’Twas a simple choice, were Bess to do the choosing. She would not huddle in a barn with dirty straw and animals or rest in the rubble of an old building. Bess would take her knife and lie down among the tall, thick grasses that grew up alongside the river, where the water burbled peacefully and birds sang among the trees.

  But she was not the one taking a penknife to her wrists or throat. Might Ellyn Merrick instead seek to end her life atop a mound where another man, a man she’d loved, had so recently died?

  In the distance, two men searched the outbuildings of a nearby farm. Even from where she stood, Bess could tell they were Kit Harwoode and his cousin. She drew comfort from the sight of them. Ellyn would be found.

  “Ellyn!” she cried. “Let me help you!”

  Off to her right, Joan crashed through a furrowed field, her skirts tucked high into her girdle. She had sharp eyes and scanned her surroundings.

  “Look for blood, Joan,” called Bess. “There might be a trail of it.”

  Joan nodded and continued her search.

  Bess paused again to scan her surroundings. Several dozen yards behind her was Robert’s house and their garden wall, which formed a continuous boundary with the other rear walls of their neighbors’ gardens. A trampled dirt path snaked from the properties to the river ahead of her. Could she possibly spy, though, the marks of anyone who’d recently trudged from the direction of their garden? The route was popular, and many trails had been trod into the grass and dirt. Too many to discern the path of one particular woman over another.

  A cottager, his tiny thatched-roof cottage situated alone past the last buildings that huddled along the town lanes, stood at his wattle fence. At his side yapped his dog.

  “Good sir, did you see a woman, possibly wrapped in a yellow coverlet, run by here?” she asked him.

  He scratched at his grizzled chin with filthy fingernails. “A woman? In a coverlet?”

  “As I said.”

  “May have done. Aye, may have done.” His words were accompanied by more scratching.

  “Did you observe which way she went?”

  “The river. I think.”

  The river. Mayhap Ellyn Merrick did choose to lie among the grasses, as Bess would.

  Thanking the cottager, she made for the river, taking a muddy path that led to the bank. In its dirt, she did not see any spots of blood or the markings of a barefooted woman.

  Joan joined her. “What had the old cottager to say?”

  “He thinks he saw Ellyn headed for the river.”

  Joan peered over at the fellow, who’d not moved from his fence. “That old man is blind as a beetle in a cowshed, Mistress.”

  “We have no better idea of where she might have gone, Joan. I will accept his comment as truth and continue to search near the river.”

  Joan moved off in the opposite direction. Bess toed aside twigs, bent to examine dark spots that proved to be nothing. Leaves continued to drift downward, obscuring the path, and the first pattering of raindrops landed. Bess drew up the hood of her cloak.

  “Mistress!” Joan called, pointing at the ground. “Here! Come!”

  Bess rushed over, thistles and hawthorns snagging her stockings. “What have you found?”

  “Could this be blood, Mistress?” asked Joan.

  The splotches of dark red were at first difficult to see, but then they began to take form, vivid blots against the browns of dirt and twigs and golds of fallen leaves. A line that trailed toward the riverbank.

  “Aye.” Bess hurried forward, following where the trail of blood led. The spots were joined by the plodding footprints of the woman who had left them.

  Joan followed, dodging low branches, protruding roots, and slippery patches of ground. The contour of the river came into view, blue-gray beneath the cloud-filled sky. On sunny days, the water could be clear as crystal, minnows darting above its gravel bottom or dark-speckled trout swimming.

  They broke through the stand of trees. “There,” said Joan, pointing.

  A bundled pile, the yellow of the cloth atop it bright against the muted colors of its surroundings, lay near the edge of the river. Ellyn’s long hair had come free of the braid that had restrained it to flow in waves across the grasses and mud. Her right hand was outstretched, a knife tumbled to the ground next to it.

  “Ellyn!”

  Bess dropped onto her knees at the woman’s side. The penknife was clean, and Bess saw no cuts on her arms or her neck. She pressed a finger to Ellyn’s throat to feel for her pulse. Her skin was cool to the touch, and if her heart beat, Bess could not sense it. But then, her own fingers were numb.

  “Does she live?” asked Joan, leaning over Bess’s shoulder.

  “I cannot say yes or no, but at least she collapsed before she used the knife.” Bess gently rolled Ellyn onto her back. “And ’tis true she has lost more blood, but see? The amount is not so great.”

  She pointed out the red stain on the lower half of Ellyn’s dirty and water-soaked skirts. A greater quantity of blood than if she had stayed in bed and rested, but not enough to steal her life from her. Even if she might have wished to lose that life.

  �
�Think you, Mistress, that she will be grateful we have found her?” asked Joan, gathering up the wet coverlet the young woman had wrapped herself in and tucking the penknife into its depths.

  “Possibly not.” Bess draped the dry blanket she’d brought over Ellyn’s body. “And we shall watch her more closely from now on to stop her from attempting this again.” She lightly prodded the young woman’s shoulder. “Ellyn? Can you hear me?”

  She stirred, exhaling a low groan.

  “God be thanked,” said Joan. “She is alive.”

  “Run back to the roadway, Joan, and fetch the constable here.” Bess tucked the blanket around Ellyn’s body, which had taken to trembling. “I need help moving her back to our house.”

  * * *

  Joan Barbor’s cry pierced the air like the whistle of a hunter calling his dogs.

  “She’s been found, Gibb.”

  Kit took off at a run, Gibb sprinting behind him.

  “There. She is there,” Joan stammered, pointing toward the river.

  “Joan, all will be well now. Trust me,” said Gibb, in the soothing tone that always succeeded with women.

  She blushed. “She is there, good sirs. Alive.”

  A living Ellyn Merrick, an outcome other than the one Kit had expected. “Show us where.”

  Joan plunged into the thicket of trees that lined the bank. Her mistress knelt in the muddy grass lining the riverbank without heed for her dress. Ellyn Merrick, draped with a woolen blanket, lay insensible beside her.

  “Ah, God be thanked you have arrived so quickly. Constable, can you carry her back to my house?” asked Mistress Ellyott, collecting a muddied yellow coverlet that lay nearby. Gibb took her elbow to help her stand.

  “Most certainly, Mistress.” He bent to lift the senseless woman into his arms. She shuddered and moaned as he regained his feet. “Gibb, alert the others that Mistress Merrick has been found.”

  “Aye, Kit.”

  “Joan,” said Mistress Ellyott, “go ahead of us and see the fire in the hall stoked. Warn my sister that we return with several others.”

  With care to not drop Ellyn Merrick, Kit picked his way through the trees and out into the adjoining field. Gibb had spread the news of the discovery hastily, and several of the other searchers clustered together to watch Kit pass. The Merricks were not among those assembled.