The Silent Murder (Master of Defence Book 4)

by Peter Tonkin

  ‘What now?’ demanded Ben, hopeful of a tavern and perhaps an ordinary.

  ‘The Plymouth Clink,’ said Tom roundly, heading down towards the ferry.

  The Clink was a big, solid half-fortified building that frowned down across the Sound in silent and disapproving warning to all the stout sea-dogs aboard the tall ships nodding there. It was of a size and in a place where it was most immediately needed, thought the Master of Logic.

  However, Poley was not within its dark and iron-barred bowels. Nor, indeed, was his Spanish prisoner. Tom spoke to the watch captain himself, who had time to indulge him because the docks were quiet and the market – and the trouble – was over at Saltash. Tom enjoyed their conversation, gleaning advice as well as information over a mug of ale and a pipe of the new tobacco, which he swiftly passed to Ben. As with the matters of boots and doublets, it was the information that he really wanted.

  ‘Ar,’ said the watch captain. ‘Master Poley’s been here with his passes and his troop; but he was sore disappointed, as I understand it. His hopeful Spanish spy was no more than a smuggler in from The Isles of Scilly, some half-starved fishwife from St Mary’s Port as has lost her man but not his boat, fallen in with tobacco smugglers and desperate enough to be shipping the weed under the noses of the men from Custom House. Swept her away with him he did, and her chained like a slave in one of them Spanish galleys that’s forever cruising along the coasts of Spanish Flanders hard by. And he’s like to return, with her or without.

  ‘Whither he’s gone in the meantime and when he’ll be back is more than I can say, but he expects to be in Plymouth through the rest of the week, so he tells me. He comes and goes as he pleases and at the pleasure of Her Majesty and the Council, but my writ only runs across the border into Cornwall in the case of national emergency. I’ve not been over to Torpoint or Saltash since Armada Year not in the way of business. You must needs report your murder to Trematon Castle, and ye can do that right enough if ye take the long road back from Saltash to Castle Cotehel. Though I think His Lordship’s away from home as well.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Tom. ‘I’ll tell the Countess. Thank you, Captain.’

  ‘It’s not much to have come all this way for,’ grumbled Ben as they boarded the ferry back to Saltash. The tobacco had made him queasy, and the ferry ride was not helping his constitution or his disposition.

  ‘No,’ said Tom, leaning against the rail and looking out towards the distant Channel; ‘but it is worth much to know where the players are positioned.’

  He turned and looked Ben full in the face perhaps for the first time in their brief friendship. ‘We are in the midst of a strange game of chess here. We know where the Queen, Lady Margaret, is – or we think we do, for the time being. Let us call her the White Queen. We also know where the White King, her son, is – to the extent that he acts alone and without undue influence.

  ‘We know where the White Knights are, for we are the White Knights – you and me, and peradventure Robert Poley, if I read his messages aright; and the Castles and the Bishops – as long as we can trust them to be what they appear to be.’

  ‘And the black pieces?’

  ‘Ah. The black pieces. Who they are and what their plans may be...These things are still...’

  ‘For us to discover?’

  ‘For us to prove, perhaps.’

  ‘But, master, how will we ever achieve such a thing?’

  ‘Because, apprentice, if we do not, then we will be dead by the end of the week, together with the Lady Margaret, the Baron, and all the other white pieces on our chessboard. Checkmated, slaughtered and dead.’

  ***

  Tom reported to Lady Margaret who, busy and distracted, sent him on to Tremanton to report Agnes’s death as the watch captain at Plymouth had advised; but this too proved something of a fool’s errand for, again as the captain had warned, His Lordship was away from home and not likely to return until the morrow.

  Side by side, and wearying at last, Tom and Ben trotted along the road to Landrake and Tideford before cutting across country down to Polbathic and then along the gathering spine of the land up towards Rame itself. It was a long ride, and to begin with they were content to continue in silence, for the afternoon was warm and the way full of shadowed pathways giving suddenly on to increasingly spectacular views.

  Tom mused on the abstruser aspects of the situation and tried to see ahead far enough to make some simple plans. As he had said to Ben on the ferry, he really thought that if they had not solved the matter satisfactorily by the end of the week, then they would all likely be dead; and this was Tuesday afternoon. He hardly considered his apprentice in the mastery of Logic at all – let alone what Ben was thinking.

  Until, winding away south of Polbathic, Ben suddenly said, ‘Master, the only thing I cannot fathom is why Agnes was dressed in Lady Margaret’s undressing-robe.’

  ‘The only thing of what, Ben?’

  ‘The only thing of all, I believe.’

  ‘So, the entire matter lies before you as plain as one of Master Camden’s Classical texts at Westminster School; and the only phrase in all this transliteration that remains stubbornly Greek to you is My Lady’s robe?’

  Ben bridled at Tom’s gently mocking tone, but he was learning humility and self-control with all the rest and so he shrugged amenably enough. ‘I believe so, master.’

  ‘Very well, apprentice mine, expound your explanation. Tell me what all this matter means and I will translate the last of it for you so that we may approach the Lady Margaret tonight with everything laid plain.’

  ‘Well, master. We know that someone in My Lady’s household watches her constantly and closely; that he is what we have called a sin-worm, such as the Tom that peeped at Godiva in the legend; that he did so at Elfinstone and hollowed out an extension to a secret passage in the wall so that he might do so; and that he uses the system of gun emplacements in the outer walls at Cotehel to do the same. And, we assume, it is he that signals in secret while he spies on her.’

  ‘Very well, apprentice. Expound further.’

  ‘We know that the Earl of Essex sent Lady Margaret a portrait of her as a mark of – shall we say, affection? Certainly an apology for past wrongs. She reacted coolly but kept the gift. By chance she hung it in a place where the sin-worm spied on her from and so he stole it. He horribly defaced it and left it to burn. We rescued the portrait, however, as we plan to rescue the Lady, and you have directed your friend Ugo Stell in the matter of its restoration as you have requested him to send moneys and clothing after us to Cotehel.’

  ‘Well remembered and well reasoned again. Continue.’

  ‘But Lady Margaret became aware of these eyes upon her, grew fearful at the extra licence isolation in Cotehel and the tradition of the Feast of Fools might offer, and sent to you for help; but she was unaware that there were more legitimate eyes upon her: the eyes of the Council, as arranged and overseen by Master Poley. Not so the sin-worm. He also became aware that Master Mann watched both of them. And therefore, when he heard of the letter asking for your help, he arranged to have both missives and messengers stopped.

  ‘In these dark ambitions he was only partially successful – because of your ingenuity twice exercised on near-destroyed letters; and so it is at this point that we enter the story. The tables are now turned, therefore. He is no longer the master of the game. Now he finds he is not the hunter but the hunted instead. And yet he still has his plans and can vary but not change them. He is tight in the grip of his own devices. Thus, desperately and more desperately still, he begins to take more risks, to do things perforce that he had not planned to do, to take actions whose consequences he has not had the leisure to think through.’

  ‘Per exemplum?’

  ‘For example, master, his attempt to kill you at Winchester. How much more effectively could that have been achieved had the riot not distracted, had he chosen some other moment than that in which Percy Gawdy was branded.’

  ‘Thus
,’ Tom summated: ‘on the road to Cotehel, he was distracted by our pursuit. He had planned to be with Lady Margaret, perfecting his plans – for the Feast of Fools we surmise – but instead he has had to leave her unwatched and instead pursue his pursuers – to wit, ourselves. Is that what you believe?’

  ‘Is it not self-evident? Now that we are safely ensconced at Cotehel, he waits and watches and continues with his plans; but his control continues to slip away relentlessly as long as we remain alive. He cannot trust himself simply to watch and wait. He is beginning to take reckless action, as he did last night.

  ‘For a reason that I cannot explain, he saw a figure dressed in gold and supposed it Lady Margaret. He snatched his opportunity and killed her on the spot. Then he discovered his mistake, removed her from the place where the crime had been committed and hung her where we found her.’

  ‘Good. And when you tell me who the mysterious murderer is, then I shall tell you why Agnes Danforth was dressed in Lady Margaret’s robe.’

  ‘Well, let us first see who it was not.’

  ‘A logical place to start.’

  ‘It cannot have been her own brother. Martin Danforth has been here in Cornwall all the time; we have no reason to believe he was ever in London or was ever at Elfinstone able to watch the Lady Margaret. Besides, he is Agnes’s brother. I do not even consider the Reverend Wainscott, for he is a man of the cloth and again, like Danforth, was never at London nor Elfinstone, as far as we can tell. By the same token, it cannot have been Doctor Rowley the Tutor or Percy Gawdy the Secretary, for neither of them has been at Cotehel since we arrived.

  ‘Quin or St Just must be our man, therefore. And there is a strong case to be made against St Just, is there not? We know he has unnatural desires that are aimed at the Lady, for he has taken as lover a girl who bears her a striking resemblance. We know he would have drowned the Baron yesterday, had you not been there to stop him. We know he has been at both Elfinstone and Cotehel – and that, while Lady Margaret went down from one to the other, she gave him leave and freedom so that he could have been at the burning house in Water Lane and the cathedral square in Winchester with equal ease. Finally, we know that the man who sought twice to kill you wears hat and cloak to hide his face – and St Just has more reason than any man alive to do that. St Just is your man, therefore, master. Now, can you explain to me why Agnes was in My Lady Margaret’s robe?’

  ‘Alas, Ben, I find I cannot,’ admitted Tom, his voice quietly amused.

  ‘Master! Is it because I have overlooked some detail in my own poor exercise of logic?’

  ‘You have overlooked surprisingly little, Apprentice Ben.’

  ‘Then, master, why? Surely it is not that you do not know why yourself?’

  ‘That’s as may be, Ben. But the real reason I cannot tell you is because we are just about to be joined by two of the suspects whose names you have just discussed.’

  Ben craned round to see that two riders had very nearly caught up with them as they had talked. Seeing their hesitation, the riders spurred on apace, one of them waving a bandaged hand, coming right up beside them, even as Tom called. ‘Doctor Rowley! Master Gawdy. Give you good evening, sirs! Are you bound, like us, for Cotehel?’

  ‘Indeed we are, sir,’ came Dr Rowley’s cheery reply. ‘Where else? Percy’s thumb is near-mended, as you see, and I am myself in much more hearty spirits. We could not miss the feast tomorrow!’

  ‘Nor,’ added Gawdy with a broad grin and a broader wink, ‘the Feast of Fools that comes after it!’

  Twenty-five: Preparation

  The return of Rowley and Gawdy brought a frenetic air to Cotehel through Tuesday night and Wednesday. For, as the others were all involved with the readying of the castle for the guests tomorrow or the preparation of the feast that would greet them, the doctor and the tutor seemed primarily concerned with semi-secret preparations for the castle’s special Feast of Fools.

  ‘It is as well these two are but lately returned,’ huffed Ben on Wednesday evening, ‘for their presence would have added a touch of simple madness to the doings of the last two days.’ He was secretly satisfied to have Gawdy back, however, so that he stood in no further danger of soiling his hands or his cuffs with secretarial work.

  Though to be fair, he observed, nor did Gawdy – even though his lightly bandaged branded hand was not his writing hand. Lady Margaret was far too busy with her silent regimentation of the new housekeeper and her myriad minions, and with equally silent but exacting oversight of cook, butcher, boutellier, baker, candlestick-maker – that worthy especially busy preparing light best suited to so many honoured guests, and all the rest.

  Ben perforce made this observation unto himself, for as Lady Margaret and the two new arrivals seemed to be everywhere, so Master Musgrave himself suddenly seemed to be nowhere, except, in the night, on guard.

  This upset the Apprentice Master of Logic, for he ached to get his mentor on one side and complete the conversation Rowley and Gawdy had interrupted. So absolute did the impossibility of achieving this aim become, however, that Ben began to suspect darkly that Master Musgrave must be avoiding him on purpose – unable, as like as not, to fault his pupil’s explanation of the case and to explain as promised the significance of the golden undressing-robe Agnes Danforth’s corpse had been wearing when they found it. And was still wearing now, in fact, as she lay stiffening on the old table in the locked and little-used cellar that remained her resting-place until the full weight of the local law came into force.

  In the face of his master’s irritating invisibility, Ben did the thing that seemed to him to be the most logical: he fell to watching the man he most suspected of being the sin-worm and the murderer. Inevitably, therefore, he also watched the young Baron, for although the boy’s academic tutor had returned, he had other business elsewhere.

  Idly at first, Ben watched St Just teaching the boy with blunts the rudiments of fencing. All blade-work, edge against edge, showy but old-fashioned, thought Ben, from the superior heights of his new-learned knowledge; none of Master Musgrave’s vaunted point-work at all. Then to the castle butts beside the powder store. Here, at the foot of the straightest section of wall, the lad practised with his longbows and his crossbows. He did some brisk work with pike and quarterstaff. Then St Just disappeared into the powder store – only to reappear with Master Musgrave at his side, deep in conversation.

  ‘Aye,’ St Just was saying when Ben hurried up to them, ‘there is cellarage deneath – all the way along the outer wall as far as the gate.’

  ‘With tunnels?’ persisted Tom.

  ‘Aye. O’ening out in the cliff face on the ph’ath and stets we went down for the sailing lesson.’

  ‘The iron-bound gates on the level sections open into them?’

  ‘Indeed,’ lisped St Just. ‘Fron the days when the castle ceased deing a defensive estadlishnent and was ada’ted as store-house to the Outran family’s cargoes. Ye can cun down to look again in half an hour. We’ll have finished shooting then and we’fe a sailing lesson to finish.’

  ‘Is there no other lad in all the castle you can take as crew with you?’ asked Tom easily. ‘One that can sail and help you show His young Lordship? One that can swim?’

  ‘Kit Newman the butcher’s boy,’ called Hal, overhearing this.

  ‘Ben,’ said Tom at once. ‘Go to the shambles and bring the butcher’s boy.’

  Ben didn’t hesitate, but when he returned with young Kit and handed him over to St Just, Master Musgrave was gone again. So Ben spent the next hour outside the sally-port gate under the overhang that held the walls here, watching the little boat tacking safely and steadily this way and that across Whitsand Bay as the Baron became a confident helmsman. After the hour he got bored and wandered away.

  At the stroke of six, as though by magic, for there was no castle clock, therefore no actual audible chime, and – without the rope – no bell to summon worshippers, Lady Margaret came to evensong. She brought a fair number of the hou
sehold, including the Baron, lately returned from his second sailing lesson, safe and sound. Master Musgrave did not appear, however.

  It was cold cuts and catch-as-catch-can for dinner. Everyone in the kitchens was full of the needs of tomorrow night, and ordered by Lady Margaret’s terse notes to let tonight take care of itself; but unsatisfactory though the meal might have been, at least it brought Master Musgrave out again. At a table in the great hall which seemed like a piece of flotsam miraculously strewn right-side-up in the storm-wrack of the preparations, Ben sat down at last beside his master, far enough removed from all the rest to allow a secret whisper.

  ‘So, master, of the golden robe...’

  Tom looked down at the eager face with its slightly bulbous, fiercely clever eyes. ‘Ah yes,’ he said, airily waving a chicken drumstick as he talked. ‘The importance of the golden robe. It depends entirely – does it not? – on who was murdered.’

  ‘But, master! We know who was murdered. Agnes Danforth was murdered.’

  ‘You fail to follow close enough, Ben. Agnes Danforth died; but who was supposed to die? That is where the importance of the robe lies, is it not?’

  Tom took a bite of the cold chicken and chewed reflectively as Ben wrestled with this conundrum; but before the apprentice could deliver any further thoughts, the master continued.

  ‘For if Agnes was wearing the golden robe when she died, then it was Lady Margaret who was being murdered. There was little light in the corridor, but the robe would have glistered, and our sin-worm would have known that sheen. If, therefore, the woman was wearing the robe when he struck, then he was murdering the Lady Margaret – which is what we have been led to expect, is it not? That Lady Margaret will be murdered? Defaced, perhaps, burned conceivably, ravished almost certainly and finally murdered.’

  ‘But, you are saying, master,’ asked Ben at last, ‘that if Agnes was not wearing the robe when she died, then maybe it was she herself and not the Lady Margaret who was designed to be the victim?’