by Paul Doherty
‘Oh, shut up!’ Colum snapped: his gaze never left Isabella as he pointed at Robert. ‘And you, sir, can stay where you are. Let me introduce myself, Mistress Talbot. I am Colum Murtagh, Royal Commissioner. Your husband died a dreadful death and for that I am very sorry. However, you have laid grave allegations against an old woman. You are correct: Mistress Swinbrooke may not have any powers to ask you questions, but I certainly have!’
Isabella gazed back, not one whit abashed.
‘In which case, Master Murtagh, King’s Commissioner,’ she cooed mockingly, ‘you must have your way in these matters, but when they are finished, I will still make my compliant!’ She glanced malevolently at Kathryn.
‘Good!’ Colum clapped his hands together. ‘In the meantime I wish to see all your household: apprentices, scullions, servants, kitchen maids. You have a hall?’
‘Of course, farther down the gallery where the apprentices sleep.’
‘Excellent, I’ll see them there.’
‘For what purpose?’ Robert bleated.
‘To ask them certain questions about the morning their master was killed.’
Isabella took a step forward. ‘You have our sworn statement on that.’
‘Aye.’ Colum smiled grimly. ‘Sworn statement indeed, but it is not the truth, Mistress Talbot, and perjury is an indictable offence. Now, do what I say!’
Isabella was about to argue, but thought better of it. She clawed at her black taffeta skirt, pouted and swept out of the room, snapping her fingers at Robert to follow. Colum watched her go.
‘Chaucer says “Truth is a dangerous thing”,’ he remarked over his shoulder. ‘I do hope, oh sharpest of physicians, that your suspicions are correct.’
‘They are,’ Kathryn replied confidently, sitting down on the window seat ‘Isabella Talbot is a murderess, a clever one, though on this occasion, too clever by half.’
They sat and waited for a while. At last a sour-faced housekeeper tapped on the door and told them all was ready. She led them down the ornately furnished passageway and into the small hall. Kathryn gazed appreciatively round at the polished wainscoting, which covered most of the wall, and the beautifully carved hearth with two mermaids supporting the marble mantel. All the furniture, cupboards, aumbries and chests were of brightly polished oak whilst fresh, green rushes covered the shining floorboards. At the far end, under a large rose window, was a long table with a slightly raised dais. In the middle of this stood a huge, silver salt-cellar in the shape of a tower. The servants had been gathered just below the dais, sitting on benches as if they were preparing to hear Mass. They turned as Kathryn came in.
‘You may sit here, beside me,’ Isabella Talbot declared, stepping elegantly onto the dais. She sat down in a throne-like chair, indicating two very small stools to her right.
Colum bowed. ‘I think we’ll stand.’ Before Isabella or Robert, who was standing behind her, could object, Colum and Kathryn stood on the dais, the table behind them, and faced the assembled household.
The sleepy-eyed apprentices, maids and scullions watched them open-mouthed as if Kathryn and Colum were mummers or jugglers come for entertainment.
‘I am sorry to disturb you,’ Kathryn announced, ‘but this is Colum Murtagh.’
‘I have told them that already!’ Isabella snapped.
‘In which case,’ Kathryn continued, ‘I’ll ask my questions.’ She glanced at the apprentices. ‘Who was responsible for the stalls outside your master’s house the morning he died?’
A large, gangly youth raised his hand.
‘I am the master apprentice, Mistress. We did nothing wrong that morning,’ he explained in a rush of words, ‘except . . .’
‘Except what?’ Kathryn asked.
‘We had a peeing contest up the wall of the adjoining house.’
Kathryn glanced threateningly at Colum, daring him to laugh.
‘We were seeing who could pee the highest,’ the lad continued. ‘But then we came back to the stalls. We finished bringing out the goods and arranging them there. There were some urchins around: the usual rogues trying to steal a buckle or one of the wallets. They buzz around like flies above a dung heap.’
‘And they come every day?’ Kathryn asked.
‘Oh, yes,’ the lad replied. ‘They are like the weather, part of the trade. We were shooing them away when we heard the master yell and a terrible crashing from upstairs. I told the apprentices to stay there and came rushing in. Sir Peter was lying on the floor, his head strangely twisted.’ He looked round at his companions. ‘I knows he was dead. I said as much, didn’t I?’
A chorus of assent greeted his words.
‘And then what happened?’ Colum asked.
‘Oh, she, I mean my mistress, told me to go back and look after the stalls.’
Kathryn looked at the maids. ‘Then what happened?’
‘I can answer for them.’ The sour-faced housekeeper spoke up from where she stood at the back, jangling her bunch of keys. ‘That morning,’ she declared pompously, walking towards the dais, ‘Mistress set all the maids cleaning the kitchen and hall. We, too, heard the crashing on the stairs. I came out.’ The woman’s voice shook. ‘The master was just lying there.’
‘What happened then?’ Colum asked.
‘Well, Master Robert was in the hallway already. He ran when his brother fell. My mistress shooed all the maids away.’
‘And?’
The housekeeper closed her eyes and jingled her keys.
‘Master Robert stood in the hall and supervised some of the servants whilst my mistress went back upstairs to prepare the master’s bed chamber. The corpse,’ the woman’s voice quavered, ‘was taken there. I asked if I should accompany her.’ The housekeeper glanced fleetingly at her mistress. ‘But I was told to stay downstairs.’
‘Thank you.’ Kathryn looked over her shoulder at Isabella. ‘We have finished.’ She smiled.
They all waited in silence as the servants and apprentices, chattering quietly amongst themselves, filed out of the hall. Isabella rose from her chair and swept around the table to confront them.
‘What is all this about? Why this constant questioning?’ Her pretty face was mottled with fury, eyes venomous, her lips tight. Nevertheless Kathryn detected fear beneath the anger whilst kinsman Robert was looking longingly at the door, as if he desperately wished to be elsewhere.
‘I’d like to go to the bed chamber,’ Kathryn asked. ‘I want to see it.’
‘Why?’ Isabella retorted.
‘A few minutes,’ Kathryn answered. ‘That’s all I ask, then we’ll be gone.’
Isabella, breathing noisily, swept down the hall, and with Robert following behind, they clambered up the steep stairs. At the top Kathryn bent down to look at the newel post and then at the plaster on the other side, just above the floor.
‘What is it?’ Robert stuttered trying to look round Colum.
Isabella came swiftly back to the top of the stairs, fearful rather than angry. She opened her mouth to ask questions but then thought differently.
‘I am waiting,’ she muttered.
‘Oh, yes, so you are.’ Kathryn smiled up at her and followed her across the gallery into the opulently furnished master bedroom. The drapes round the great four-poster bed had been pulled aside and, without any invitation, Kathryn sat down on the edge of the bed.
‘Your husband sat here, yes?’
Isabella, now playing nervously with a ring on her finger, nodded and glanced quickly at Robert. Colum stood by the door, watching Kathryn entice both of them into her web of questions.
‘And where were you, Mistress?’
‘I went across to the window and looked out.’
‘Ah, yes, you saw the urchins attempting to filch things from the stalls?’
Isabella shrugged. Kathryn glanced at Robert who had now sat down in a high-backed chair: his face was pallid as he nervously chewed the corner of his mouth.
‘And where were you, sir?’
> ‘I was downstairs.’
‘Where?’
‘I, I can’t remember . . .’ he stuttered.
Kathryn rose to her feet. ‘Everyone else can. Perhaps I should ask the servants?’
‘I was in the hallway. Yes,’ Robert stammered, ‘I was preparing for . . .’
‘Don’t lie!’ Kathryn walked over to the window. ‘It’s getting dark outside. But I can see the cobbles below.’ She glanced at Isabella, now standing rigid as a statue. ‘But I can’t see your husband’s stalls or where his apprentices would have stood. I can only do that by opening the casement and peering out. Yet, even if I did that, I would have to lean out far to see the stalls, never mind some quick-fingered urchins trying to filch your dead husband’s goods.’
‘What are you saying?’ Isabella sat down on the top of a large open chest, trying to compose herself.
‘What I am saying, Mistress,’ Kathryn replied, ‘is that you are a malicious and wicked woman who murdered her husband.’
Isabella kept her head down.
‘You deliberately evicted Mathilda Sempler from her little cottage near the Stour. You knew what her reaction would be. She would curse, speak her mind, and with her reputation as a witch, it would be easy to cast her into the role of some malignant warlock conspiring against your husband’s life.’
She glanced across at Colum who had now closed the bed chamber door and stood with his back to it. ‘Mathilda Sempler,’ Kathryn continued, ‘did not disappoint you. In the full view of the parish, she cursed your husband and sent the same malediction to this house. After that it was easy for you and your paramour Robert. Sir Peter, I suppose, had his usual routine and you had yours. On the morning he died, you ensured that the maids and the servants were kept below stairs: that’s why Robert was standing in the hallway, making sure no one went upstairs. What you did, Mistress, was come upstairs and tie a piece of twine across the top, wrapping it round nails on the newel post and in the plaster on the wall opposite. Robert had probably put them there.’
Isabella lifted her face. ‘Is that what you were looking for, woman?’
‘Yes,’ Kathryn answered. ‘Oh, the nails have gone as has the piece of twine but not the holes. You set the trap and came in here. Your husband was already agitated and nervous. You looked through the window, exclaimed that thieves were pilfering his goods. Sir Peter, of course, rushes out. A heavily built man, he catches his foot in the clever snare you have set.’ Kathryn paused. ‘You went down first, didn’t you?’ she asked quickly. ‘That would certainly remove any suspicion of foul play. But your husband was trapped. The stairs are high and steep. Down he goes, crashing and banging his head and neck against the wood till he smashes his head on the stone floor of the hall way. You hurry back, acting the distraught wife. Whilst your accomplice here tends to the corpse, you go back upstairs, cut the twine with a small knife you probably had in your purse. No one would notice. They’d see you pause, bend down but, there again, you are so overcome with grief, your moods and movements would be strange. Your husband’s corpse is brought up and laid on the bed. Everyone goes downstairs, not noticing the innocuous small nails which you or Robert later remove.’ Kathryn went over and looked out of the window. ‘A clever murder. I really must thank Torquil the carpenter’s wife.’ She looked over her shoulder.
Isabella was glaring evilly at her whilst Robert sat, head in hands.
‘The ways of the world are strange, Mistress Talbot. If I had not looked out of a carpenter’s window earlier today, I would never have guessed.’ Kathryn shrugged. ‘The rest is merely surmise.’
Isabella sprang to her feet, but instead of approaching Kathryn, she went and leaned over and whispered quietly in Robert’s ear. Then she turned, walking towards Kathryn like some angry cat.
‘Mere surmise, Mistress Swinbrooke!’ she spat. ‘Your story is a failure. You have no evidence, no proof for these filthy allegations!’
Kathryn held her ground. Colum walked softly across, his hand dropping to the hilt of his dagger. Kathryn studied Isabella Talbot and wondered what could turn such a beautiful woman to murder.
‘I have no evidence,’ Kathryn declared. ‘And now I am going to leave you.’ She walked round Isabella and went towards the door which Colum opened.
‘What will you do now?’ Robert shouted anxiously.
Kathryn turned, trying to ignore the malicious smile on Isabella’s face.
‘What can I do? I can prove that Isabella could see nothing from that window. I can point to the nail holes in the plaster. I can reflect on how strange it was that, on that particular morning, no one was allowed to come upstairs or that you were hanging about in the hallway as if waiting for something to happen.’ Kathryn pointed at Isabella. ‘That murdering bitch is correct, it’s all surmise.’ Kathryn paused to secure the clasp on her cloak. ‘Tomorrow morning I can go in front of the justices. I and Master Murtagh here will go on oath to reveal our suspicions. Mathilda Sempler may yet burn, but oh, Master Robert, how the tongues will clack. The servants will begin to remember certain items, happenings, occurrences, and the whispering will begin. At first a few murmurs but then it will grow into a roar: adulterers, fornicators, murderers, assassins! And what happens then, Master Robert, eh? Will the local priest refuse to give you the sacraments? Will people stand aside from you in the street, the church and the market place? Your apprentices will stand idle, your stalls unvisited, a slow malingering death.’
Colum walked across to where Isabella now stood beside Robert; just studying their faces he knew they were murderers.
‘As God is my witness,’ he murmured, thrusting his face only a few inches away from Isabella’s. ‘If Mathilda Sempler is not free by the time the market horn sounds tomorrow morning, I will go before the King’s Justice and swear to what I have seen and heard this evening. Mistress Talbot, that is not a threat, it is my solemn promise!’
Kathryn and Colum went down the stairs and let themselves out into the darkening streets. Household lamps, lit and placed on the hooks above doors, bathed the narrow alley-ways in circles of light. The crowds had now disappeared, the shops closed, the stalls withdrawn. Even the great cathedral had shut its gates to pilgrims who now thronged into the taverns and alehouses. For a while Kathryn and Colum walked in silence. Then the Irishman ruefully began reflecting how the bitter rivalries and deadly jealousies of court were mirrored in the lives of ordinary citizens.
‘So much hate,’ he murmured, ‘in someone so beautiful.’ He linked his arm through that of Kathryn’s. ‘The Pardoner said the love of money is the root of all evil.’
Kathryn glanced up at him and smiled. ‘I think you have chosen the wrong tale, Colum. The Nun’s Priest spoke truth in his story about Chanticleer the cock; arrogance, rather than avarice, is the open wound festering in Mistress Talbot. Spoilt and pampered, Master Robert undoubtedly gave her what her husband was unable to. Sir Peter became an encumbrance, an obstacle to her own desires, so she cleverly removed him.’ She sighed. ‘But it’s all conjecture, very little proof.’
‘I don’t know.’ Colum squeezed her hand. ‘Those two murderers will never forget that we know and the good Lord knows. Vengeance will follow them.’ He donned his cloak against the cold night air. ‘Aye,’ he added softly. ‘The Furies will come when they are alone at night and their lusts have been slaked.’ He paused and winked down at Kathryn. ‘Aided and helped, of course, by a little gossip and chatter.’
‘Will Mathilda be freed?’ Kathryn asked anxiously.
Colum walked on, pinching his nostrils at the sour smells from the heaps of refuse awaiting the dung-collectors in the morning.
‘Oh, she’ll be freed all right,’ he replied. ‘I wager Master Robert is already drafting a letter explaining to the justice how a terrible mistake has been made. How the allegations laid against an old woman are spurious. Mathilda will be released, she may even get her cottage back. Sweet Isabella is a cunning vixen. She would like people to gossip about her magnanimity a
nd clemency.’
‘And Tenebrae’s death and that of Fronzac?’ Kathryn asked.
Colum walked on for a while. ‘Is there nothing?’
Kathryn shook her head. ‘I cannot fathom it, Colum. Fronzac’s death, yes. I am sure he went out to the hog pen, opened that gate and admitted the killer. I am also certain Fronzac had seen the Book of Shadows, hence his salacious remarks to young Louise. But, for the life of me, I cannot see how he murdered Tenebrae. There’s something missing. It’s like those tricks the mountebanks play in the market-place, sleights of hand, which you can only detect if you know what you are looking for.’
They entered Ottemelle Lane. Colum stopped and grasped both of Kathryn’s hands, pulling her close to him. He leaned down and kissed her gently on each cheek.
‘I didn’t want to tell you,’ he began, ‘but Master Foliot has returned to London. He came out to Kingsmead and took two of the swiftest horses.’
Kathryn’s heart skipped a beat. ‘And?’
‘By now,’ Colum replied, ‘he will be closeted with Her Grace the Queen. He will tell her the Book of Shadows has gone. Tenebrae is dead and there is no solution to the mystery.’ Colum stared up between the houses at the sky. ‘I know Woodville,’ he continued meaningfully. ‘Foliot will return. He may be back by tomorrow evening bringing tokens of the Queen’s displeasure with him.’
Chapter 10
Once she was home, Kathryn closeted herself in the chancery office, ignoring Thomasina’s chatter about what mischief Wuf had been up to. She then sat for at least an hour, scribbling down all she had learnt about the murders of Tenebrae and Fronzac. Colum came in to wish her good night. He received an absent-minded reply whilst Kathryn sifted the evidence she had collected.
‘Nothing fits,’ she murmured to herself. Fronzac was killed by one of the pilgrims: the dead clerk had undoubtedly read the Book of Shadows. Therefore Tenebrae must have been murdered by one of Sir Raymond’s group, the Book of Shadows stolen, and Fronzac must have been involved in it. Kathryn conceded defeat and wearily climbed the stairs, still absorbed in the mystery. She undressed and slipped between the linen sheets. Sleep came fast, but her troubled mind soon plunged into a whirlpool of fitful nightmares from which she woke in a sweat. Kathryn sat up, staring into the darkness. Outside she heard the tap, tap of some beggar’s cane as he made his way up Ottemelle Lane, followed by the cries of hunting cats and the lowful baying of a dog. Kathryn smoothed the blankets in front of her. Fully awake, her mind and body were still plagued by the nightmare and a deep feeling of unease. One conclusion she had reached before retiring was that Tenebrae was not only a professional warlock, but a most skilful blackmailer: one or more of Hetherington’s company were in his pay. Kathryn eased herself down between the sheets.
