“Ellyn Merrick needed to keep Anna quiet to protect her brother.”
“Or protect herself,” she replied grimly. “Anna had told me of a gift given to her by Bartholomew Reade when he first arrived in town. When she mentioned the item, I’d presumed it to be a trinket. But what if it had been a robe from the troupe’s stores?”
“A substantial gift.”
“And not easy to conceal,” she said. “Anna told me it was taken from her, though. She would not tell me who had done so, but she may have meant Ellyn.”
“She’d have a reason to seize the gift from Anna—bitter jealousy.” His grip tightened on his dagger. “However, did she keep it or give that robe to her brother?” The garment black as the shadows Merrick had hidden within while he waited for the perfect moment to strike Reade down.
“I pray she tells us the truth. I confess I no longer have faith she will.”
Gibb waited for them at the edge of the Merricks’ land. Though the hour was late, a lantern glowed inside one of the ground-floor rooms of the house.
“Kit?” asked his cousin, the brim of the hat he’d slapped atop his head drooping in the rain.
“Go to the courtyard, Gibb,” said Kit, a firm grip on the hilt of his dagger. “I want Ellyn Merrick stopped if she attempts to flee.”
“Ellyn Merrick … Marry, Kit!” His cousin dashed off.
“You think she will try to escape?” asked Mistress Ellyott, her cloak clasped tightly against the wet weather.
“We have arrested her brother. Locked him in the jail. But yet we come here once more,” he said. “She’ll understand what our arrival means.”
“I suppose she shall.” She looked over at the outbuildings and dairy barns, rainwater dripping from her hood, then to the house. “I suppose she shall.”
“Stay behind me, Mistress,” he ordered, and strode up the pathway.
“Ellyn is not going to jump out and attack me, Constable.”
Someone within the house marked their approach, for the door opened before Kit could rap upon it.
Jennet stood upon the threshold. “Constable?” Her voice wavered on his name.
Kit raised the lantern he’d brought. The girl had been crying. “Where is Mistress Ellyn?”
“She is in the cow shed. With Thomasin. Or she was there.” She sniffled. “They were fighting. Screaming at each other.” Jennet wiped her nose with the sleeve of her gown. “Thomasin was fiercely angry. Shouting, ‘It was you!’ Horrible it was!”
“Why was Thomasin so angry?” asked Kit.
“She … he … they …” She sniffled again and shook her head.
“I understand.” Damn. “Stay here, Mistress Ellyott,” he ordered.
Kit jogged to the side of the house where the drive led to the rear of the property and the yard. Bess Ellyott hurried after him, her skirts lifted high above the thick grasses.
“I told you to stay behind.”
“I cannot lend you help by standing upon the entrance path, Constable.”
Stubborn woman.
More candles and lamps were set ablaze in the Merricks’ house. An unseen hand twitched aside the rear chamber window curtains, and the faces of Merrick children appeared behind the panes of glass. A servant called for them to get back.
In the courtyard, Gibb waited for Kit and Mistress Ellyott. “Where is she?”
Kit, nodding at the barn to their right, set his lantern next to the back wall of the house. “Jennet says she and Thomasin were fighting in the cow shed.”
“I have heard nothing,” said Gibb. “All is silent.”
Not good.
“The shed is at the side of the barn where the hay is kept,” whispered Bess Ellyott.
Kit gestured for Gibb to circle around the back of the building. “With me, Mistress.”
He crept toward the shed, which was carelessly attached to the tall whitewashed barn as though it had been an afterthought of construction. Behind him, Bess Ellyott’s footfalls were soft upon the gravel. They reached the shed door, and he inched it open. The sweet-warm scent of hay filled the air, and mice scurried across the clay floor, disturbed from their evening meal.
Light from a small lantern flickered at the far end of the shed. An untended flame in a shed full of hay, but at least he could make out the bales, the beams, and the loft that stretched overhead on both sides. Bess Ellyott pointed at three enclosed pallet chambers, reached by a ladder. They’d been timbered from oddments of wood, and cloth had been nailed up to hang over their openings in place of doors. Crude and drafty sleeping spaces. Kit would have preferred a corner of the barn, which was warmed by the cattle. David Merrick’s lover and the other dairymaids apparently did not deserve warmth.
He paused to listen for any sound besides the scamper of mice. Nothing.
“So quiet,” murmured the woman at his side.
“Too quiet, Mistress.”
He set a toe on the first rung of the ladder and climbed, Bess Ellyott watching his ascent from the aisle of the shed.
“Be careful,” she mouthed.
Beneath his boots, the rungs creaked. What would he find at the top? A dead Thomasin? A waiting Ellyn Merrick?
I do not want to have to kill her. I do not want her to attack me. Or hurt Bess. Damn, he should have demanded she go back to her house.
He clambered onto the plank that fronted the pallet chambers and crouched, alert to any movements. Not hearing any, he withdrew his dagger from its scabbard and swept aside the cloth at the opening to the first cubicle. Unused. As was the next. Which left the last.
Using his dagger’s tip, he eased back the curtain. The space held a pallet and chamber pot and a stool. Not unused, then. Knife extended, he slipped around the edge of the opening. And saw her, slumped upon the ground, one arm outflung as if reaching …
“Bess! It’s Thomasin!”
An angry red bruise swelled her cheek where she’d been struck hard. The girl was insensible but breathing.
The ladder rungs creaked beneath Mistress Ellyott’s feet, and she hurtled into the cramped space to drop beside him. “Thomasin?”
The girl’s eyes opened, and she moaned. “Mistress?”
“I believe she will be all right, Constable. But where is Ellyn?”
“Elsewhere.”
He sheathed his dagger and retreated down the ladder as fast as he could, jumping to the pounded-earth floor.
Out in the courtyard, Gibb shouted. Kit ran for the door. He skidded around the corner of the shed in time to see Ellyn Merrick, astride a horse, bolt from a stable.
“Stop!” yelled Gibb, jumping into the animal’s path.
The horse shied, lurching sideways. Ellyn screamed and kicked its flanks to spur it on. The horse bucked and charged, slamming into Gibb and knocking him to the ground.
“Gibb!” cried Kit.
He clutched his lower leg. “I am fine, coz. Get her!”
Kit chased after the woman. She struggled to control the horse pelting across the yard toward the side path, her rain-wetted kirtle tangling about her legs.
“Ellyn, stop!” He lost his footing and slipped. Damn. “Stop!”
She looked back over her shoulder at him. In that instant, another voice joined his command to halt. Jennet stepped into the path and shouted at the horse. It reared wildly, tossing Ellyn Merrick from its back.
With a scream, the woman fell, her head striking the ground with a sickening thud.
CHAPTER 24
The shriek, the whinnying horse, shouts and running … something horrid has happened.
Bess pressed her hand to Thomasin’s shoulder. “Do not move. I will return as soon as possible.”
Bess clambered down the ladder and out into the yard. Gibb Harwoode sprawled in the muddy courtyard.
“Master Harwoode!”
“Is she dead?” he asked between clenched teeth, twisting to reach for his lower limb, his foot bent at an unsightly angle.
“Thomasin?” she asked.
&
nbsp; “No.” He shook his head. “Ellyn Merrick.”
“Dearest God.”
Bess collected the lantern the constable had left near the house and ran for the path. “Constable!”
He had hold of the reins of a horse. The animal snorted and danced, his breath clouding the air in bursts. At the edge of the path, Ellyn lay unmoving. Her siblings had gathered, and Jennet came to herd them back inside the house. She gave her young mistress the briefest glance before shepherding the children away.
Bess dropped to the ground next to Ellyn and set the lantern nearby. Blood oozed from her nose and ears, the rainwater streaming down her face and neck running in thin rivulets of red.
“Constable, attend to your cousin,” she said, slipping a hand behind Ellyn’s head to feel for a fracture. Her fingers met more blood and the depression where the woman’s skull had cracked against a jagged stone. “Master Harwoode has broken his ankle.”
“Is she alive or dead?” asked a female voice behind Bess.
“Thomasin, I told you to not move. You risk your own health.”
She had followed Bess from the shed. Water dripped from her unbound hair and soaked through her night rail. “I pray God she is dead. She would let David hang for her crime!”
She lunged toward the woman on the ground. Constable Harwoode grabbed Thomasin and dragged her back. She slumped weakly against him, her strength spent.
Bess leaned close to Ellyn Merrick’s face. “She breathes, but barely.” She withdrew her hand, easing Ellyn’s wounded head onto the muddy ground. Bess probed her throat for a pulse. Weak. She looked up at Kit Harwoode through the rain that collected upon her lashes. “She may not ever awake again. She has not long to live.”
Thomasin cried out, a sound both triumphant and pain-filled, and crumpled to the earth.
* * *
“She killed him, did she not, Constable?” asked Thomasin.
The young woman—a mere dairymaid who smelled of cattle and manure and soured milk—had been allowed to rest in the Merricks’ parlor while Agnes Merrick shrieked and howled her anguish elsewhere in the house. Bess Ellyott accompanied Gibb to her brother’s house, where she could tend his ankle.
“I believe you know the answer to your question, Thomasin,” he said, standing across from the stool she occupied.
The bruise upon Thomasin’s cheek was already turning from red to purple, and she momentarily pressed her fingertips to it, wincing.
“The black robe. David—” She caught herself in her familiarity. “After your visit this morning, Master David kept muttering about a black robe. That you had found one. He was distressed, and I presumed the item was connected to Bartholomew’s death.”
“Why think that?”
Her pale gaze was clear-eyed and intelligent. “Because I saw her with it the day he was murdered, Constable. Mistress Ellyn,” she replied. “At the time, I had no care for where she might be headed wearing the black robe she had taken from Anna. In truth, I hoped she might be leaving. She’d threatened to, often enough.”
“You did not like her.”
“Should I have done?”
“Was she cruel to you because of your relationship with her brother?” he asked.
She blushed. Difficult to imagine a woman with Thomasin’s pluck strapping herself to man with so little. Marriage to him, though, would have brought her creature comforts beyond her grasp as a dairymaid.
“She was cruelest of all to Anna,” she said.
Because of Bartholomew Reade. “I didn’t realize you were friends with Anna Webb.”
“We were not friends, ’tis true. But I vow I did not mean to hurt her,” she said. “It was an accident, what happened with the cow.”
Kit leaned against the wall at his back and folded his arms. “What did happen with the cow, Thomasin?”
“Anna had seen him. Da … Master David.” She twisted her hands together. “After he had come upon Bartholomew’s body and rushed home, distraught. ‘I saw her,’ he said to me. ‘She killed him.’ ” Thomasin exhaled. “In my stupidity I thought he meant the witch, my kinswoman.”
“Mother Fletcher.”
“Aye,” she answered. “But I feared what Anna had begun to suspect. That she would accuse David. I tried several times to get her to tell me what she’d said to Mistress Ellyott, but she refused.” She stared down at her hands. “That night in the barn, I tried again. I was scared. David had told me you had confronted him outside the church. I feared you thought he was guilty. I demanded Anna tell me, but she was obstinate. I had the prod in my hand and I hit her.” She shook her head fiercely. “She jumped up and grabbed it. We struggled. The prod struck the red cow, startling it. Anna stumbled and fell beneath its hooves. I could not control the animal. It hates me. So I ran, screaming.”
“And David Merrick helped you concoct a proper story about the events that night,” he said. “Including spying a shadow in the woods.”
She lifted her eyes to meet his. “Master David did not kill Bartholomew Reade, Constable. Mistress Ellyn did. She was jealous he would take Anna to London instead of her. She’d found the note Anna had sent saying she could not meet Bartholomew because she was ill. She knew what they planned.”
So powerful an emotion, jealousy. “Why did David Merrick visit Old Jellis dressed as a crone, Thomasin?”
“He did not explain to me,” she said. “I suppose because he wondered if Old Jellis had recognized Mistress Ellyn.”
“He hadn’t recognized her, though,” said Kit. “He only said he had seen a woman.” However, the old man’s feeble eyes hadn’t deceived him, after all.
“What will happen to David, Constable?”
What will happen to you, Thomasin?
He shrugged. “A justice might decide he meant no harm to Old Jellis.” And no one would bother to waste time amending the already stated cause of a drunken vagabond’s death. “But he did shield his sister, a murderer, from suspicion. I think he knocked Old Jellis senseless, placed Reade’s purse and belt near him, then went to dispose of the knife.”
She squeezed her hands until her knuckles went white. “Will he hang for helping her?”
Kit straightened; he could not lie to her, soften his words. “Aye, Thomasin. Just so.”
* * *
Joan buzzed around Bess and the constable, who’d just returned from the jail. She brought warmed rugs to lay over their laps and warmer wine to drink. Gibb Harwoode stretched upon the settle, his ankle wrapped securely, a second glass of wine in his hand. With a wagon and male servant borrowed from the Merricks, they had transported Master Harwoode to Robert’s house, where Bess could treat his injury.
“My father will not ever permit me to assist you again, coz,” said Master Harwoode, downing his wine.
Joan promptly hurried over to refill his glass, earning a smile from him, which made her blush. As ever, she tucked her face behind the protective cover of her coif so that the scar upon her cheek was hidden. Would that she could find a man who’d see beyond the mark.
“Given the coroner’s opinion—and the burgesses’ as well—about my work, Gibb, I doubt I’ll require your assistance in future,” the constable replied.
“Ha!” exclaimed his cousin. “Who else will do the job? No one.”
“Constable, ’tis too late in the evening for you to fret over what might occur on the morrow,” said Bess.
“Evening is the best time to fret, Mistress,” he said. “Were you not aware?”
Joan curtsied and left them to their discussion, softly closing the hall door behind her.
Bess leaned into the cushion Joan had placed between her and the chair, burrowing into the comfort of the bolster. The scent Robert wore upon his clothes lifted from its fabric, and she longed for her brother’s consoling smile. They’d not received any news from him as to when he might return from London. In truth, they’d not received any news from him at all.
“Should we not have comprehended all along that the killer was Ell
yn Merrick?” asked Gibb Harwoode, the color restored to his face by the three glasses of sweetened wine he’d consumed.
Servants had carried Ellyn to her bedchamber at the Merricks’ home, and the priest from All Saints had been summoned to provide last rites. Bess could do naught else for her, except mourn the desperate folly that had led to the deaths of a young man and an innocent servant.
“I confused matters, Master Harwoode,” said Bess. “I would not allow your cousin to accuse her. I believed her innocence too greatly. Even though I suspected from the very beginning that she’d rid herself of her unborn babe, I trusted her. I remained convinced she’d had naught to do with Master Reade’s death. The blood upon her skirts solely her blood, not any of his.”
“Come now, Mistress. Don’t blame yourself for being deceived,” said Constable Harwoode. “We all were. Master Reade had many enemies, and it was easy to suspect others.”
“However, Anna would still be alive if I had seen more clearly,” she replied.
“You do not know that for certain.” He bent to ruffle Quail’s ears, the dog lolling at his feet. If Robert did not soon return, he’d find that his dog had chosen a new master. “Merrick did warn Reade to stay away from Ellyn, but the advice didn’t save him. In the end, her jealousy struck him down,” he said, reclining in the chair again.
“She may not have intended that outcome when she departed for the old fort hill that night, Constable,” said Bess.
“You think not?” he asked. “She’d brought a knife with her and had gone wearing the perfect garment to conceal herself—the troupe’s long black robe, which she’d earlier taken from Anna.”
Gibb Harwoode propped himself on his elbows. “She might have meant to cast blame upon one of Master Reade’s fellow players by wearing the robe and by thrusting that pen into his neck.”
“She had accused Jeffrey Poynard, not any of the players,” said Bess. What did all that matter now, though?
I will never understand how love can turn to such fierce hate.
Laurence had loved Martin, yet had poisoned him to flee the queen’s justice. And now Ellyn had killed Bartholomew Reade to keep him from the arms of another woman.
A Fall of Shadows Page 26
