A Fall of Shadows

by Nancy Herriman

  “Mother Fletcher will receive no kind treatment from him. I must go to her.” Bess Ellyott made to rose.

  Kit lifted a hand. “Stay, Mistress. Stay. Gibb and I will do what we can to protect her.” She retook her seat, and he glanced around, searching for ears attached to prying servants. “Mistress, you know a great deal about physic. Is it possible for someone to have poisoned Jellis, killing him but leaving no visible evidence?”

  “I presumed his heart … was he ill before his death?”

  “Not that I’d heard,” he said. “But could it be possible?”

  “It is not impossible to have poisoned Goodman Jellis,” she replied. “Though I cannot name, I confess, a poison he might have consumed without his stomach rebelling and leaving proof inside the jail. Further, would the true murderer—if Goodman Jellis was not actually responsible—seek to be rid of the fellow? The goodman was accused of the crime and, sadly, would likely have hung for it. Why alter the course of destiny?”

  Kit buffed the back of his knuckles along the length of his chin. She was right. If Reade’s purse had been left with Jellis to implicate him in the murder, the true killer had succeeded—Jellis had been taken to jail. Why kill him now?

  “I’faith, if he was old and frail, I am surprised his heart did not fail him earlier,” said Bess.

  “The burgesses want me to stop any investigation,” he said. “The man responsible, according to them, has died.”

  “But you will not stop, will you? For you are rigorous in the execution of your duties, Constable.”

  “You think too well of me, madam.” He’d not always been the man who sat before her. Reasonably prosperous. Adequately respected. Responsible and rigorous.

  “I know a good man when I see one, Constable Harwoode,” she said with a gentle smile, which lit her eyes. “But what do we now?”

  “ ‘We,’ Mistress?” he asked, as he’d asked her before. “It’s clear I cannot convince you to stop involving yourself.”

  “You came to me, Constable, with your question about poison.”

  “So I did.”

  Her smile broadened, and his gaze dwelled too long upon the curve of her mouth.

  “The knife the killer used has been found, but no owner for it,” he said, drawing his attention back to the task at hand. “Mistress Merrick says David Merrick supped with her the night of Reade’s death. The players claim that the master of the troupe, John Howlett, feuded with Reade over Howlett’s theft of a play. And Jeffrey Poynard—”

  “Ellyn has admitted he was the father of her child,” she interrupted. “But she would not wed him, loving Bartholomew Reade as she did and despising Master Poynard.”

  “Poynard insists that any number of his household can account for him the day of Reade’s death,” replied Kit. “Further, he claims he no longer had a dispute with the fellow.”

  “According to Marcye Johnes, the night of the troupe’s arrival, he came into the Cross Keys to declare he and Master Reade were boon companions.”

  “Suspicious.”

  “I have learned more. One of the Merricks’ dairymaids, Anna Webb, saw the master of the troupe with Master Reade. She tells me he appeared to be most furious,” said Mistress Ellyott. “Perhaps he is our murderer, Constable.”

  “Perhaps so.”

  “Anna also told me that it was she who was to meet Bartholomew Reade at the old fort hill. However, she fell ill that morning and was unable to go.”

  A coincidence he did not care for. “You are certain she was truly unwell.”

  “I tended to her. She did not feign sickness as an alibi, Constable.” She leaned her head against the high wooden back of the settle and stared at the beams overhead. The dog at her feet took to snoring. “Unlike Master Reade’s fellow players, Anna is no actor.”

  “I trust your judgment, Mistress Ellyott.”

  “Anna attempted to inform Master Reade she would not meet him, but …” She shifted her head to look at him, her brows tucking together. “I wonder who she entrusted the message to? I did not think to ask.”

  “It matters not, Mistress. Obviously that person did not complete their task, as Master Reade went to the trysting spot.”

  “True.” Footsteps tapped across the flags of the lobby that led from the rear courtyard into the house, and she waited until the person making the noise moved away. “But I must tell you this, Constable.” She scooted to the edge of the settle and leaned toward him. “I think Anna observed someone at the Merricks’ house acting most strangely that even, which caused her to mistrust what this person was doing.”

  “Did she give you a name?”

  “No,” she whispered. “’Tis but a suspicion of mine, but I must conclude she spied one of the Merricks. ’Twould explain why she will not give me a name. Any servant would be reluctant to accuse a master or mistress of a crime. I wonder, though, if it was David Merrick she observed.”

  “His mother has vouched that he was with her at supper, Mistress, and I cannot act upon a suspicion alone,” he said. Though Mistress Merrick would have every reason to lie to protect her eldest son. “I need two witnesses before I can accuse him of the crime.”

  “Sadly, the man most likely to have seen the murder and its perpetrator has perished in the town jail.”

  Kit’s mouth lifted with a wry smile. They had returned to the curious, sudden death of an old drunk. “Jellis was most accommodating, wasn’t he?”

  * * *

  Bess stood in the street doorway of Robert’s house. She watched the constable stride off down the lane, skirting a bundle of thatching in readiness to repair a roof and startling a cat that had been stalking mice among the pile. The house owner tipped his cap at Kit Harwoode, who gave him just a fleeting glance. Unlike the overcurious stares of the kitchen servant of Bess’s neighbor across the way. She sat on the doorstep plucking feathers off a dead chicken, her gawping split between the constable and Bess.

  “Good morrow,” Bess called out to her, making the girl flush over her inquisitiveness.

  Bess went back inside and met Joan in the hall. “We are to be the gossip of the village again, if the constable keeps paying us visits.”

  Joan peered through the street-facing window. “That one, Mistress, knows not when to mind her own business.”

  “Come now, Joan, I’d be curious also,” said Bess. “And though the constable was here, he brought only more questions, no answers.”

  “Mayhap Simon will have an answer,” said Joan. “While you were with the constable, a servant from the Poynards’ house brought a message urging you to come tend to the lad and his fever.”

  “He is ill?”

  “Nay, Mistress. ’Tis the signal he and I decided upon, should he have aught to tell you.”

  “Can he not come here and tell me his news?”

  “He finds himself in trouble for wandering off, of late, and dare not leave the grounds,” said Joan.

  “Then fetch my satchel and place a bottle with my water of sorrel inside. We must make my visit to Simon appear as authentic as possible.” A visit that would also permit her, perhaps, a chance to observe Jeffrey Poynard.

  “Aye, madam,” Joan said, and hurried off.

  Bess headed for the entry door. She encountered Humphrey, who’d come in from the street with a bundle of branches in his arms.

  “They charge a great amount for firewood again, Mistress.”

  “I will make note of your complaint and tell my good brother when he returns,” she answered.

  “Mayhap you might tell the constable, as he could see them fined,” he said, his gaze narrowing. “He be here often enough.”

  “I will consider your recommendation, Humphrey.”

  “’Twould also be best for Joan to use less wood, Mistress.”

  Bess smiled stiffly. She’d no time for servants’ quarrels. “I will speak with her.”

  Grumbling, he stomped into the hall.

  Joan returned and handed Bess her satchel. “What d
id Humphrey want, Mistress?”

  “To complain. As ever,” she said.

  “Should Mistress Crofton arise from her bed and ask, am I to tell her what you are about?” asked Joan.

  “Most definitely not, Joan. Tell my sister anything except that I go to hear what news your friend Simon has gathered. Dorothie would not be happy with me involving myself in this affair.”

  Satchel in hand, Bess went out into the street. The neighbor’s kitchen servant pretended not to notice her, but no doubt squinted after Bess as she hurried along the lane toward the market square. Marcye was out sweeping the cobbles in front of the Cross Keys, her gaze tracking Bess’s passage. The girl spent more time, it seemed, outside the tavern than inside helping her father with his customers.

  Outside, observing.

  Bess redirected her steps and strolled over to Marcye. “Good morrow,” she called out.

  “Good morrow, Widow Ellyott.” She leaned against her broom. “Have you more questions for me?”

  “I may. About Goodman Jellis.”

  “Sad fellow,” she said. “Now he’s dead, the burgesses have demanded that the constable cease his inquiry.”

  Marcye Johnes appeared to know a great deal about Kit Harwoode. More than made Bess comfortable.

  “The constable told me about their demand, but how did you learn of it?” she asked, wondering if she sounded jealous. Fie, Bess. Do not be a goose. Besides, Marcye was reaching above her station. Kit Harwoode was kinsman to the lord of the manor.

  “Several of the burgesses were in the tavern yestereven, after the coroner had made his ruling,” she said. “They complain that Kit … that the constable would likely continue as he pleased despite Old Jellis being accused and then dying. They mislike him, you know. For being headstrong. But I admire him for his stubbornness. And courage.”

  Oh, do you?

  “You can see the jail from here, albeit not too clearly.” Bess turned to point toward it, just visible around the corner of the weaver’s shop.

  “Aye.”

  “Perchance, did you observe a cause that might account for Goodman Jellis’s sudden death?”

  “I cannot see through stone walls, Mistress.”

  “Let me be more plain,” said Bess. “Did anyone visit him and, mayhap, distress the old man? Perhaps cause his heart to fail him?”

  Marcye tapped a broken fingernail against the broom handle and stared in the direction of the jail. “Jeffrey Poynard came to speak with him,” she said, a knowing smile curling her lips as though gleeful to be in possession of such a fact.

  Was that the information Simon also wished to share?

  “Are you certain it was him and not Master David Merrick?” asked Bess.

  “Master Poynard owns a bespangled doublet of silvery velvet,” she replied. “I would know that doublet and the stride of the man wearing it anywhere.”

  “Did they argue?”

  “I did not stand about and pry, Widow Ellyott,” she answered without irony. “There was the ado over Ellyn Merrick having gone missing, which dragged us all away to search.”

  A commotion that offered a perfect distraction from the fellow who visited Goodman Jellis. A visit that had ended in the fellow’s death.

  CHAPTER 10

  “I am Widow Ellyott,” said Bess to the Poynards’ maidservant who had answered her knock. “A servant named Simon has sent for me.”

  “Come to the garden gate at the side, Widow Ellyott,” said the girl. “He be in his room at the end of the outbuilding.”

  She shut the door on Bess, forcing her to find the gate that must be somewhere along the length of the stone wall. Bess passed the windows of the Poynards’ ground-floor offices but caught no glimpse of a man in a gray velvet doublet. She saw another fellow, possibly a clerk, but not Jeffrey Poynard. Besides, what might a glimpse gain her? Would guilt be writ upon his forehead? She needed more than a glimpse.

  The maidservant was waiting for Bess at the open garden gate, located halfway along the wall that enclosed the large rear garden and grounds.

  “Here, Mistress.”

  The girl hurried across the broad courtyard, Bess taking long strides to keep apace with her. Ahead stood a long outbuilding. A series of small windows and doors at either end of its length broke the building’s expanse of whitewashed cob walls. To her right, a gardener trimmed the lavender, rosemary, and winter savory of a knot garden. The steady clip of his shears accompanied his humming, audible over the burble of the garden’s central fountain. Beyond stood a small orchard of fruit trees, and land stretched all the way to the river at the far end of the property. A summerhouse had been built atop a small rise. From beneath its roof, the views guests would have of the garden and fruit orchard would be magnificent.

  “Simon took to shivering so, Mistress, though he was hale earlier this morn.”

  The girl’s comment broke through Bess’s reverie; she was not here to admire the Poynards’ garden. “It is good I was sent for, then.”

  The maidservant stopped a distance from the outbuilding and pointed. “He be in the room at the end.”

  She did not blame the maidservant for not wanting to get any closer to a supposedly ailing Simon. So Bess proceeded the rest of the way on her own, which also meant she and the boy might have privacy.

  She pushed open the room’s door, its hinges squealing. “Simon?”

  The space stank of moldering straw and the unseen animals that occupied the range of stalls beyond an opening in the wall at her left. Not only did the room stink, it was dank and windowless. Bess squinted into the shadows and made out a stool in one corner and a pile of rags in the other.

  “I am Widow Ellyott. Simon, are you in here? I received your message.”

  The pile of rags in the corner moved. “Mistress?” a voice uttered feebly.

  Mayhap the boy was actually ill.

  She set her satchel on the earthen floor and bent over him. “How do you feel?” she asked, resting the back of her hand against her forehead. It was slightly warm but not hot to the touch.

  He shifted into the light cast by the open doorway. His head was covered by a mass of curling brown hair, and his eyes were the color of the moss that grew along the trunks of trees. If he were to grin, Bess expected a dimple would form in his cheek. He was very young, though. Still a child.

  “Are you alone?” he croaked. “You have not been followed?”

  “Aye, Simon,” she said. “I have not.”

  “Are you sure, Mistress?”

  “I will go see,” she said.

  Which she did, assuring herself that no one listened outside the doorway.

  “We are quite alone,” she said, returning to his side with the stool and taking a seat on it. “What is it you want to tell me? For my touch informs me you are not ill.”

  He elbowed himself upright from the straw mattress he was lying on. “I saw someone at the jail yesterday,” he said, leaning against the cob wall behind him. “Afore Jellis died.”

  “Marcye Johnes … do you know Marcye, Simon?”

  He flashed a grin, his cheek dimpling as anticipated. Two of his front teeth were chipped. “Everyone knows Marcye Johnes, Mistress.”

  Even the constable, it seemed. “On my way here, I spoke with her. She told me that Master Jeffrey Poynard had visited Goodman Jellis at the jail.”

  “Aye, he did, Mistress. I saw him there too.”

  “Know you why he would have done so?” she asked. “Goodman Jellis does not seem the sort of person Master Poynard would care a fig for.”

  “Old Jellis used to work for the Poynards,” he explained. “Before I came here. But he drank too much. Bungled up his tasks when he was cup-shotten. Then they blamed Jellis for stealing from the mistress, when she was still alive, and were rid of him. Or so I hear.”

  “Did you observe Master Poynard do anything that might have hurt Goodman Jellis?”

  “He weren’t there long enough to have hurt him,” he said. “Peeped in, ju
mped back in a fright, and run off, his face white as whale’s bone.”

  “Could the old man have already been dead?” she mused aloud.

  “Must have been.”

  “Why has he not told the constable, I wonder.”

  “He’d be blamed, would he not? For killing Jellis.”

  “Not if he told the truth about what he’d discovered. Master Poynard is a wealthy man.” And wealthy men were never to be doubted.

  “Master Jeffrey is afeard of the witch, Mistress. If he spoke out, he’d draw her curse upon himself!” Simon declared. “I have no fear of her, though. Not like my mates. This morn, they went to the old fort hill to look for that weasel what come from a witch somewheres. Wish I could have gone, but I couldn’t. They did not find one, though, because they turned tail afore they could.”

  “They should not be hunting about for familiars or witches that do not exist, Simon.”

  “But I saw her myself!” He lifted his chin, unhappy to be reproved. “Not a quarter hour afore Master Poynard was at the jail. Wrapped in her cloak, hiding her face.”

  “If you mean to claim you saw Mother Fletcher, she is too frail to journey into the village,” said Bess. “And do not tell me that she rode a broom to get there; she is no witch. Furthermore, though Marcye made note of Master Poynard at the jail, she did not notice this woman you describe.”

  He set his jaw stubbornly. “I know what I saw, Mistress. And the churchwarden will find warts on her shriveled skin when he goes to look.”

  Prithee, Constable, stop them from their madness.

  Bess pulled in a steadying breath and smiled at Simon. “My thanks, lad. You have given me much to think on,” she said. “If any should stop and ask me, I shall say that I gave you a physic to speed you to good health. That is our story.”

  “Aye, Mistress.”

  Bess rose from the stool and collected her satchel. “Take good care, lad.”

  “It was a witch what killed Jellis, Mistress.”

  “Take care,” she repeated.

  She departed, closing the outbuilding door behind her, and strode across the courtyard. The gardener had moved on from the knot garden to harvest pears from a tree growing by the far wall. No other servants were in sight, which hopefully meant that her conversation with Simon had not been overheard.