“The knife … Master Howlett had one with him when we took him to the stocks, as did the other players,” said Gibb. “Would he or the others own two?”
“Add that observation to our list of irregularities,” said Kit. “At the Poynards’, the time for the entertainment approaches, but Bartholomew Reade is absent. Howlett sends the players to search. A while later, he steps onto the stage to introduce the play.”
“Could Master Howlett have returned to the Poynards’ hall from the druids’ mound so quickly and with time to spare to apply cosmetics to his face and pull on the clothes he wears for the play?”
“Beneath the robe, he may have already been dressed in his attire,” said Kit. “I continue. Dunning finds Reade’s body. He dashes for the Poynards’ and alerts us. We go there, find Jellis, and arrest him.”
“Poor old sot.”
Another crash overhead was accompanied by an unhappy cry.
Gibb winced. “Think you Alice means to destroy your hall so she need not prepare supper?”
“As long as my gittern is not among the victims of her recklessness.”
Alice pounded down the steps and popped into the parlor. “Fret not, sir. Naught of import is broken, I promise,” she announced, dropped a curtsy, and hurried off again.
“I fret more now than before, coz,” said Gibb.
As did Kit.
“Back to Jellis,” he said, determined to head up to his hall once he’d finished with Gibb. “He tells me he saw a woman near the mound, but is she real or a phantom? Then, not long before he’s found dead in the jail, the old man receives a visit from both a shrouded crone and Jeffrey Poynard.”
“He was frightened to death, was he not?”
“That is our only explanation,” said Kit. “Who was the shrouded crone, though?”
“The woman who left the poppet Mistress Ellyott found in the Merricks’ farmyard,” said Gibb. “Marry, Kit. Mayhap there is a witch!”
Kit sighed. “A few hours before Anna Webb is trampled to death by a cow, Mistress Ellyott spies Jeffrey Poynard at the Merricks’, incensed. He explains he was angry that David Merrick was bruiting about that he is Reade’s killer.”
“If so, I would expect Master Poynard to attack Master Merrick, to mend his honor,” said Gibb.
“Perhaps Poynard is not the rash fellow we imagine him to be, or his anger was a ruse,” said Kit. “Also on the day of Anna’s death, Thomasin notices a shadow in the trees. Anna’s killer lurking, perhaps. This shadow has vanished, though, when she goes to inspect the woods.”
“If there is no witch, who would threaten Mistress Ellyott with this second effigy?” asked Gibb. “The players? Master Poynard? David Merrick? Marry, I cannot fathom him threatening the woman who has taken in his sister.”
Too many pieces out of place in the mosaic Kit was attempting to construct. Damn.
“Do we have any fresh ideas now, Gibb?”
“A great Gordian knot of confusion, coz.” Gibb frowned. “Am I to release the players from the stocks, or do we yet suspect them of a hand in these murders?”
“Their punishment for brawling is not concluded, Gibb.”
“But it is to end on the morrow.”
“Leaving me scant hours to identify the killer,” he said, “and the person who has thrown a second poppet, enwrapped in red cloth, into Bess Ellyott’s garden, if they are not one and the same.”
Gibb was watching Kit with a puckered brow. “Want me to keep guard over her, Kit?”
“Aye, Gibb,” he said. “But discretely.”
CHAPTER 21
“You vowed, Ellyn, that you would not agree to wed him,” said Bess from the doorstead of the chamber the young woman had borrowed.
“I have given thought to that vow, Mistress, and find it was ill judged of me to make such a profession,” said Ellyn.
She collected what remained of the clothing she’d been wearing when Bess found her—her pair of bodies, a thinly padded waistcoat, her woven-tape belt. All the rest had been ruined, her kirtle and petticoats and chemise stained by blood. She’d not even had a coif covering her hair. A spare gown went into a satchel Bess had gifted her with, along with netting and pins for her hair, an old quilted petticoat.
“Do not do this, Ellyn. Prithee, stay with us awhile. Until you have had time to think further on your decision.”
Ellyn looked over. Wrinkles had formed on her skin as if by magic, the weight of her decision marking her face.
“Do not think me ungrateful for all you have done for me, Mistress Ellyott,” she said. “The healing you have given. The concern and advice you have offered. These items you have gifted me.”
Bess crossed the room to her.
“You have told me how much you despise him. I have seen the pain on your face when you speak his name,” she said. “Do not punish yourself by now agreeing to marry the man who violated you.”
Ellyn wore but a sheer net over her hair, and the strands were black as night against her chalk-pale cheeks. She appeared nearly as wan and frail as the day she first arrived. “No one else will have me, Mistress Ellyott.”
“That is not so!” Bess exclaimed. “Other women have found husbands after … such a misfortune. You will also.”
“Other women in this town? Where gossip and slander are traded like wool or cheese?” asked Ellyn. “I will find no good man willing to overlook my misfortune, as you name it, Mistress.”
“Do not go with him. I beg of you.”
Ellyn’s chin trembled from withheld emotion, but she could not prevent tears from springing to her eyes. “’Tis too late to undo what I have done. What I have declared.”
“It is not too late.”
“But it is,” she replied. “I have been forced to realize I have nowhere else to go than with Jeffrey Poynard. For ‘tis certain I cannot remain a woman without a husband, mistrusted and disdained.”
“Oh, Ellyn,” whispered Bess, unable to deny the truth of Ellyn’s words.
“Forgive me. I beg you, forgive me. I hear your promises to help me, Mistress, but what can you truly do? My choice is marriage to him or try to return to my family, who will not take me back if I do not agree to wed Jeffrey. My mother sent a message yesterday telling me as much. If I were to try, she has vowed she will send me to my aunt in Salisbury, a most cruel woman,” she said. “So you see? No choice at all.”
“You can find a place elsewhere. I am certain. You could find solace in becoming an herbalist. ’Tis a worthy occupation.”
“At my age, who would take me in?” she asked. “Even were I to study at your side, who would entrust me with healing them? And I am too old to be a household servant, Mistress Ellyott, or to become apprenticed to a mantle-maker. Too stained by sin to be welcomed into a godly home.”
“I cannot change your mind?” asked Bess.
“I am sorry, but you cannot. At least marriage to Jeffrey Poynard will offer a measure of safety and respectability I sorely need.” She swiped away the tears that had fallen and gathered one final item—an ivory comb missing a tooth—to place inside the satchel. “And now my family will be happy with me again. I shall ask Jeffrey to take me to my house and beg forgiveness of my mother. She will be delighted,” Ellyn added bitterly.
“So be it,” said Bess, heart weary. “At least take my simple of organy and mint with you for your little brother. He drank from that yellow bottle out by the rubbish pit, Ellyn. Near to where Jennet also found a poppet.”
The other woman looked over at her. “He is unwell?”
“He will recover. Do not fret,” said Bess. “Its existence explains Anna’s sickness, though.”
Ellyn turned aside, busying her hands by picking up the satchel and pulling upon its strings to close it.
Bess stepped around her in order to best observe her face. “Before you leave this house, Ellyn, I must know this. Did you poison Anna, then drink the physic yourself to be rid of the babe?”
“No.”
“Ell
yn, honor me by giving me the truth.”
Her chin rose. “As you will, Mistress Ellyott,” she replied. “I did go into the servants’ hall and slip a small dose of artemisia into Anna’s ale to keep her from meeting Bartholomew. But I did not go in her stead, intending to strike him down. I would not ever wish to hurt him. I loved him.”
“Though he had hurt you by choosing her?” asked Bess softly.
“My heart will recover.” She grabbed the satchel. “I vow my heart will recover.”
She stormed from the chamber, calling out to the waiting Jeffrey Poynard her readiness to depart.
* * *
“Father will not be pleased you have turned our house into an extension of your offices,” said Frances, her hands folded primly over her heavily embroidered stomacher.
She gestured at the parlor, which was all that Kit’s workaday space was not—elegantly furnished, warm, and spacious. Frances’s touch was everywhere. In the embroidered cushions. The selection of Turkey carpets tossed over tables, kept there until called into service to shield genteel feet and bottoms from cold floors, should a need arise to sprawl on the tile. She might have even chosen the painted cloths upon the walls. The one depicting the story of the prodigal son was similar to a painted cloth Kit’s father had on display. The image had long succeeded in chastising Kit; not enough, though, to cause him to hurry home and act the part of the repentant child.
“You were the one, Frances, who sent me a message to come without delay to speak with one of the Merricks’ servants.”
“I’d hoped you might take her elsewhere,” she replied. “The girl is in the kitchen having a bite of food. A startled bird of a creature and thin. Do not the Merricks feed their servants?” She cocked her head to one side. “I believe I hear her coming now.” She leaned toward him to whisper, her movement wafting the spicy scent from her silver pomander. “I shall not tell Father you are here conducting interrogations. Our secret, Christopher.”
Jennet entered the room, and Frances departed, softly closing the door behind her. The girl briefly scanned the space, her eyes wide with awe. A servant like her would not ever acquire the wealth of a Harwoode, or the more modest yet still enviable prosperity of a Merrick.
“What have you to say now, Jennet?” asked Kit.
“I must be quick, sir,” the young woman said. She pressed her bony hands against the coarse holland safeguard she wore over her kirtle. Her thick shoes had left a trail of mud across the floor. “The Merricks will note I am not in the house.”
“I will not delay you.”
“I must tell you what I know, but could not say earlier out of fear that one of the Merricks would hear me,” she said. “’Tis news about Master David.”
“Go on.”
“Master David left the house late the afternoon that Bartholomew died. To attend the play,” she said.
“His mother, your mistress, says he did not attend the play,” interrupted Kit. “That he turned back and sat with her at supper.”
Jennet shot a glance around the room, as if a Merrick might have suddenly appeared to eavesdrop on them.
“He might not have gone to the play, sir, but he did leave the house, only to return near to sunset. I was in the yard tending to the wash and saw him go,” she said. “Not so long later, I was preparing the table for supper and spied him rushing through the entry hall. Shaken, he was.”
“Was that why you thought the poppet you found near the barn was meant for you? Because you’d observed him behaving oddly and believed he’d left it to frighten you?”
Her nod was sharp. “When I heard of that player’s death, I did wonder.”
“Did Anna also spot Master David that afternoon, Jennet?” he asked.
Tears trembled. “I should have told you that also, but I was scared the Merricks would learn I spoke against Master David,” she said. “Since Anna died, I have had no chance to leave the house until now. All is in an uproar there, for Mistress Ellyn has returned with Master Poynard and plans to wed him.”
Now this is an interesting turn. “They will not learn what you say here, Jennet. You are safe.”
She pulled in a long breath. “Anna saw him from the window of the chamber she’d been given during her illness,” she said. “She’d arisen to make water and noticed him upon the house path. When news came of Bartholomew’s death, she was convinced that Master David had killed him. She told me so the next morning and would not be persuaded elsewise.”
“Did he realize she’d seen him?”
“Anna told me he looked up at the house and espied her in the window.”
Providing Merrick a reason to either frighten Anna into silence or eliminate the threat of her knowledge completely.
“You’re very courageous to tell me this, Jennet.”
“I had to, for guilt haunts me. I cannot sleep for it,” she said. “But if the Merricks learn I have come to you, I will be punished for my disloyalty.”
“I will protect you as best I can,” he answered. Although how well could he protect any servant from a master intent on punishment? “Mayhap you can answer me this, Jennet. Was Master David wearing a long black robe when he left the house that afternoon? Think carefully.”
“I need not think carefully, sir, for he was wearing his crimson-lined short cloak atop his puce-colored doublet and trunk hose,” she answered. “The attire he favors when he ventures out on a visit.”
“Did he return in the same outfit?”
“I am certain he did.”
Damn. He’d thought himself close to the evidence he needed. Although it was possible Merrick had secreted away the robe, retrieved it for the crime, then discarded it.
“Jennet, do you think Master David could also be responsible for Anna’s death?” Kit asked. “That is why you sent for me, isn’t it?”
Jennet chewed her lower lip. “It may be so, sir. Because of the cat.”
“The cat?”
“Aye. His brindled cat,” she answered. “The one which follows Master David everywhere. Much like a dog might do. It did not come into the kitchen when we prepared supper that day. I know not where it was. Unless it was outside the house. With Master David.”
* * *
“Mistress, how can we let Mistress Ellyn wed him?” asked Joan.
“We cannot stop her, Joan,” said Bess, dipping her needle in and out of the linen of the shirt she sewed for Robert.
She sat by the hall’s street-facing window, where the light was strongest. Strong enough to easily read in Joan’s eyes her troubled thoughts.
“Harm will come,” said her servant.
Am I not aware of that possibility?
“At least Mistress Ellyn is safe from Humphrey’s grumbles that she should be punished for making those poppets,” said Joan when Bess did not reply.
Bess set down her stitching and stared out the window. A cold wind had risen, scattering leaves along the road that startled the neighbor’s orange cat.
“Yet we cannot name who should be punished for making them, Joan.”
“The clout-covered woman you saw upon the highway before finding the first one, Mistress,” said Joan. “She must be the maker of that one. And the lads who wish to play imitators and frighten you, the second.”
“Aye.” Bess narrowed her gaze and set aside Robert’s shirt. “My sister approaches, Joan. See her inside and bring warmed wine for us.”
Joan made for the entrance and hustled Dorothie into the house, who made a great ado about entrusting Joan with the hood she’d secured atop her coif.
“Elizabeth?” she called.
“In here, Dorothie. Come into the hall.”
Dorothie swept into the room, causing Quail to leap up from where he’d been sleeping beneath the window to bark at her.
She scowled at him. “Hush, now. Hush!”
“Quail.” Bess signaled for the dog to sit at her side. Quail padded over. “What brings you here, Dorothie?”
“The curse a witch has
placed upon you.” Dorothie went to the settle and perched on its edge, her black skirts spilling across the seat. “My servant girl heard the news from Humphrey.”
“Ah.”
“First a fellow is murdered the day before my return, then one of the Merricks’ dairymaids is crushed by a cow, and an old widow’s cottage is burned down,” listed Dorothie.
In her list, she had omitted the death of a vagrant locked within the jail. However, Dorothie would give Goodman Jellis little thought beyond her story of a cottager and a hawthorn.
“And now this poppet!” her sister added.
“I can assure you I am not cursed by a witch.”
“Someone seeks to have you believe you are.” She exhaled, and it was then that Bess realized her sister was trembling. “At least that Ellyn Merrick has gone.”
More gossip she had gained from Humphrey? “She went home and plans to marry Jeffrey Poynard.”
“She has yielded and agreed to wed him? I am surprised. I assumed she was like the rest of them. Strongheaded.” Dorothie tutted. “I recall when Agnes Merrick had just delivered her fourth—or was it her fifth?—child, yet she chased an escaped sheep and wrestled it into its enclosure. She risked the health of her babe. For what? To prove her fortitude? Bah. All the Merricks are unsensible.”
“I pray the Poynards treat Ellyn well.”
“They will treat her as she deserves, Elizabeth.”
Joan returned with two cups of warmed and spiced wine, which she handed out.
Dorothie waited until she’d gone to continue. “And what intends the man who watches this house from across the way?”
“A man watches the house?” Bess peered through the window and marked the fellow Dorothie meant. He hid himself poorly, if he meant to not be observed. “’Tis Master Harwoode, the constable’s cousin.”
“God be thanked for that, then.” She paused to sip her wine. “Does he spy on you because of the poppet?”
“To protect me, I suppose.” My thanks, Kit Harwoode, for your care and concern.
“From a witch’s curse,” said Dorothie. “See? I did tell you.”
Bess caught Gibb Harwoode’s eye and smiled at him. He hastily crouched behind barrels stacked alongside the street gutter.
A Fall of Shadows Page 23
