A Fall of Shadows
Page 27
“What new did you learn from David Merrick, coz?” asked Gibb Harwoode.
“He admitted to hiding the knife—which had come from their house—and to delivering the blow that stunned Old Jellis.” He finished his glass of wine before setting it aside. “By this point, Ellyn had fled, and he rushed back to the farm, where Anna spied him from the window.”
“As I unintentionally informed Ellyn,” said Bess. “It was only a few hours later that I found the poppet at the Merricks’.”
Master Harwoode raised himself into a seated position to better listen. “With so much recent talk of a witch and curses, Ellyn Merrick meant the poppet to frighten the girl, tossing the thing into the yard. Right, Kit?”
“Even you believed there was a witch, Gibb,” said his cousin.
“Fie on you, Kit.”
“Anna was already affrighted by what she’d witnessed,” said Bess. “I’faith, there was no reason to threaten the girl with curses if she spoke out.”
“Ellyn Merrick was desperate to protect herself. Who would not be?” asked the constable. “Her brother did help the tale of a witch’s curse by visiting Jellis dressed as a crone.”
“Poor Mother Fletcher,” said Bess. “To be accused of being a witch.” God keep you safe, wherever you are.
“Did Master Merrick mean to frighten the old man to death?” asked Master Harwoode.
“I think not, Gibb.”
“He had gone to the jail whilst we all searched for Ellyn,” said Bess. “I wonder … had she meant to kill herself, or had she meant to escape?”
“We’ll never know her intentions now,” said the constable. “Merrick also admitted that he next donned his disguise to search for the black robe his sister had worn and tossed aside. Evidence to be disposed of.”
“Which is why I passed him so attired upon the highway two days after Master Reade’s death,” said Bess, finishing her wine and setting her empty glass on the stool at her side. “However, Master Dunning had already collected it, which Master Merrick did not know.”
“But who killed Anna Webb, Kit?”
“Thomasin,” he said, and described the argument she’d had with Anna in the barn.
“Thomasin could not admit to causing Anna’s death, could she? For that would require her to confess what they had fought over,” said Bess.
“So she and David Merrick created a story about a shadowy figure in the woods,” said Constable Harwoode. “A stranger who might have come into the barn and killed Anna. I could find no one else to support the tale, though.”
“And the second poppet?” asked his cousin.
“Ellyn again, I am sad to admit,” said Bess. “A warning to me, for she dared not threaten you, Constable.”
“It could have been an attempt to ensure we kept our attention upon anyone else as the murderer,” he replied.
Ellyn had been calculating from the start. And I was a puppet whose strings she pulled. “I trusted her, Constable. Dearest God, I trusted her. Defended her to you.”
He reached over to squeeze her fingers, his kindness lessening chagrin’s sting.
Joan returned with freshly warmed wine to serve around.
Gibb Harwoode accepted another glass. “Marry, Kit, I still cannot fathom why Master Reade sought to bring the troupe to town to be the Poynards’ guests. He endangered himself.”
“Poynard gave us that version of the tale. Howlett only knew they’d been in communication with each other,” he said. “I suspect the invitation was actually Poynard’s idea from the first. To show to Reade that he’d taken possession of Ellyn Merrick.”
An apt description, thought Bess.
Joan departed, and Master Harwoode sank into the settle’s cushions once more. “But Master Reade had lost interest in Mistress Merrick. He had chosen to take Anna Webb to London with him.”
“If that truly was his intention, Gibb, it just proves what a fickle fellow he was.”
Bess released a lengthy breath, the muscles and tendons that had been taut for so long relaxing. “All is hence resolved, if sadly.”
Kit Harwoode lifted his glass, the wine glowing from the firelight captured within its burgundy depths. “To you, Mistress Ellyott, without whom we’d yet be wandering in the dark.”
His cousin raised his glass as well. “Well done!” he cried. “To our Mistress Ellyott, the cleverest woman there is!”
“Nonsense, gentlemen!” She blushed, not so much at Gibb Harwoode’s effusive praise but at the esteem and compassion in Kit Harwoode’s eyes.
God save you, Bess. You have gone and fallen in love with him.
* * *
“One of the Merricks’ servants has come, Mistress,” said Joan. “Ellyn Merrick’s soul passed away before sunrise.”
Bess sat back on her heels. Last night’s rain had ceased, and fog crept across the garden, a sheer netting of white to soften the harsh angles of autumn’s barren branches. When she was a girl, she’d imagined that spirits lifted from their dead bodies in filmy trails of snowy white. After becoming a healer, she would catch herself waiting, hoping to see such proof of eternity. All she had ever observed was the flicker of life departing dying eyes, heard the final breath sigh through lips that would not again speak.
“God rest her,” said Bess. A Papist’s prayer, as the constable would point out. A habit she’d not ever shake.
“There will be no rest for a murderer,” said Joan.
Bess finished cutting the rosemary, tossed the last snippet into her willow basket, and got to her feet. “I suppose not.”
“Simon tells me the players have been sent off, Mistress,” said Joan. “They departed the Poynards’ before sunrise, as well.”
With Bartholomew Reade’s play in their possession, for a more thorough search of the room he’d occupied in the Poynards’ house had exposed the manuscript secreted beneath a loose tile in the floor.
“And Mistress Crofton sends a message she awoke with head pains and begs you visit her with a physic,” Joan added.
Dorothie and her head pains …
“A busy morn, Joan,” said Bess. “At least peace is restored to our little village.”
“Peace?” Joan looked dubious. “I would that we had received word your brother, Master Marshall, is safe in London. Then we might have peace.”
“He is occupied with wooing his ladylove,” said Bess. Humphrey bustled out of the shed with a bag of feed for the chickens. She knew he must be counting the days until Robert returned. “And do not pull a sour face, Joan. I know you fret over Laurence, but my brother is not so incautious as to be taken unawares by any of his schemes. Robert shall be safe.”
“As you say, Mistress.”
Robert shall be safe. He must be safe.
And oh how angry he shall be to learn that we harbored a murderer beneath his roof.
Bess strode toward the house, the basket swinging from her arm. “Joan, do you think I should ever admit to Humphrey that Ellyn indeed made those poppets?”
They entered the house, and Bess handed the basket to Joan.
“You should admit that only if you wish him to smirk at you from now into forever, Mistress,” she answered.
Grinning, Bess shook clinging rosemary leaves and garden dirt from her apron, untied it, and handed it off as well before stepping into the hall.
Through the street-facing window, Bess noticed the constable out on the lane.
She went outside. “Constable,” she said.
“Good morrow, Mistress,” he answered, tipping his hat.
Quail heard his voice and trotted, tail wagging, out onto the lane to greet him.
Kit Harwoode crouched to accept the dog’s friendly licks. “My cousin sends his thanks for tending his ankle, Mistress.” He looked up at Bess. “Mistress Pollington has delayed her departure for Gloucester to oversee his recovery. Gibb, I must say, is enjoying the attention.”
“Ah.”
He stood. “Have you learned the news?”
“I have,” she said. “Sorrows upon sorrows.”
And what of Laurence and the sorrows he might bring?
“But for us, Mistress Ellyott, another successful resolution,” the constable replied.
“I most sincerely hope we have no need, in future, to resolve any other unpleasant affairs, Constable Harwoode.”
“As do I, Mistress, but what are the chances of that?”
She smiled, and they stood together in companionable silence watching the town stir fully to life and the fog dissolve into the brightening sky.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
“Double, double toil and trouble.” The lore surrounding witches and witchcraft long predates William Shakespeare writing about them in Macbeth. The objects we now call voodoo dolls, known as witches’ effigies in Bess’s day, are also ancient. They were just one of the many tools supposedly used to place curses. In a time of limited scientific understanding, a sense of helplessness led people to blame the devil and those perceived to be in his employ for everything from disease to drought to failed business ventures. Publishing treatises on how to identify and destroy witches was a profitable occupation. Women, especially elderly women, were most commonly accused. The peak of the frenzy occurred between 1550 and 1650 in Europe, but the most famous cases in America happened late in the 1600s. Because of the fear, many thousands of innocent women—and men—would die.
Though the particular mound where Bartholomew Reade was murdered is a creation of my imagination, Wiltshire is a county filled with iron and bronze age sites. Stone circles, of which Stonehenge is best known, barrows (burial mounds), and hill forts dot the countryside. People have always sought to explain who built the monuments and why. At one time, it was popular to link them to the legends of King Arthur as well as to the druids, which I mention in the book. Scientists continue to study the sites, trying to gain an understanding of the people who expended so much effort to create these works that still fascinate us.
Lastly, a word of gratitude goes to the team at Crooked Lane Books. Your tireless efforts whipped this novel into shape. “I can no other answer make but thanks, and thanks.”
ALSO AVAILABLE BY NANCY HERRIMAN
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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Nancy Herriman retired from an engineering career to take up the pen. She hasn’t looked back. Her work has won the RWA Daphne du Maurier award. When not writing, she enjoys singing, gabbing about writing, and eating dark chocolate. She currently lives in Central Ohio. This is her second Bess Ellyott mystery.
This is a work of fiction. All of the names, characters, organizations, places and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real or actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2019 by Nancy Herriman
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Crooked Lane Books, an imprint of The Quick Brown Fox & Company LLC.
Crooked Lane Books and its logo are trademarks of The Quick Brown Fox & Company LLC.
Library of Congress Catalog-in-Publication data available upon request.
ISBN (hardcover): 978-1-68331-966-5
ISBN (ePub): 978-1-68331-967-2
ISBN (ePDF): 978-1-68331-968-9
Cover design by Melanie Sun
Printed in the United States.
www.crookedlanebooks.com
Crooked Lane Books
34 West 27th St., 10th Floor
New York, NY 10001
First Edition: April 2019
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