The Player's Boy is Dead

by Leonard Tourney

  Later they whispered, neither able to sleep but both too drowsy to rise.

  "Saltmarsh is as guilty as sin," he said firmly. "Of that there's no more doubt than chickens have feathers. But he's a close man, mistrustful, and wonderfully subtle in his courses."

  " 'Twould be a bad one to do business with, but he's a devil as magistrate, for 'tis he that needs the watching."

  "Now that Big Tod and his girl have left town, we alone kndw of his dirty work."

  "And yet," she reminded him, "we know very little of that, hardly the why of it and not the method at all—and none of it will endure proving. Were we to accuse him, he might charge us back with slander, especially now that your dismissal permits him to lay any of our charges to resentment."

  "Aye, we have hardly ground upon to stand, and yet I am unwilling to let so great a devil have his will with us, and 'tis with us. He has abused us all, even though but one has died of it."

  "Two," she reminded him. "The girl at the inn would be alive to this day had the boy not died."

  "Who knows who else has met a bad end by his hands," he said in a hushed voice, as though the enormity of the crime forbade the utterance of it. "Unnatural courses such as his may well lead a man to any manner of act."

  "And yet what may we do?" she asked earnestly.

  The shop bell below prevented his reply. He sat up in the bed, feeling the chill of the air despite the sunshine on his bare chest.

  "Thomas will see to it," she said.

  "No, 'tis too long we have tarried now. I am a merchant, not a courtier who lies abed till noon and is most fond of love when the sun can bear witness to it."

  She laughed. "You are both merchant and lover, my lover, and 'tis to your credit that you understand the mystery of mixing pleasure with business."

  He pulled on his breeches and fastened his cotton jerkin. He felt under the bed for his boots and then, thinking the better of it, returned them to his closet for the more comfortable shoes he was used to wearing about the shop. He would not go from the shop that day on Saltmarsh's business or his own. Joan lay still under the covers.

  "I'm to work," he said.

  She sighed goodhumoredly. "Man—and woman—was cursed with it. Since there's no help, come let us work."

  "And yet," he said, hesitating at the threshold of their bedchamber, "there must yet be some way of bringing Saltmarsh to justice. My knowledge of his doings lie so heavily upon me that I can do little else but scratch among the facts of the case."

  She responded with surprising cynicism: "You may scratch long and hard, like Alice's hens of the yard, but since 'tis a gentleman's crime you seek to uncover you must not expect a ready hand from the law. That ground is hard."

  "Greater than he have met their ends by the rule of law," he called over his shoulder, descending the stairs to the shop.

  From his window, Saltmarsh watched the groom return with the coach, dismount, unharness the horses, and lead them to the stable. He watched still while the man began walking slowly toward the Hall, his face hard as usual, as though completely absorbed in the meditation of some private vice.

  Saltmarsh waited for the knock at his chamber door. The groom had returned quickly, just as the knight had thought the whole thing out upon seeing the priest flee from the house. Saltmarsh cursed his luck to have found himself surrounded by such incompetence in so few number of days. The priest would have served his purposes nicely had abject fear or something else, Saltmarsh knew not what, not driven him off and created the new threat of the disclosure of his affairs. Evidently that threat was now past.

  He admitted the groom, who on this occasion did not break his habitual silence.

  "Is it done?" Saltmarsh asked simply, to which the man nodded and held out his hand for the payment.

  Saltmarsh went to his desk and withdrew from a drawer a small coffer. From among the silver he picked what he thought the man's trouble was worth, reasoning that since the groom's regular duties involved driving of the coach a mishap on the road, at no risk to the driver, could hardly be worth much.

  The groom looked into his open palm and seemed not so much to reckon the amount of the money as to savor the heft of it. Then he bowed sullenly and withdrew.

  Saltmarsh had not asked about the details. And yet he regretted now that the priest was not available for service. Violence always made him itch in the groin, even when vicarious. In a day or so he would be back in London, where the satisfaction of his pleasures would be easy enough, but that was a day or two away.

  There came a knocking at his door. It was the whey-faced secretary armed with letters and documents of various sorts.

  "You have been busy this morning, Master Varnell?" Saltmarsh asked with polite curiosity.

  "I have, sir, and am now done with four letters and as many contracts, which, if it pleases you to sign them, will bring my labors this day to an end."

  "Indeed, and have you no more work?"

  "No more to my knowledge."

  In that case, then," Saltmarsh said, "I may find something else to occupy you during the afternoon."

  Varnell looked up, his face contorted in a foolish grin, and placed the papers on the desk.

  Saltmarsh sat down and, taking the letters one by one, quickly perused their contents and signed each with a bold flourish.

  "I admire your hand, Master Varnell.'Tis neat and tidy, and yet I think manly as well."

  "Thank you, sir," the secretary replied, now all smiles. "I learned it at Cambridge from a tutor who had studied in Italy. There, he said, all the gentlemen practice it as an art."

  "Well," Saltmarsh said, not bothering to look up, "you have learned it well enough."

  Peter Varaell's smile broadened even more as he squirmed with delight at the compliment.

  Saltmarsh shuffled the letters and contracts into a neat bundle and gave his secretary his instructions: "See that Master Philips has the contracts before supper, and while you are in town you may post the letters. With luck you will not have missed the last coach for London.

  "Oh, Master Varnell," Saltmarsh called as the secretary was about to be off, "I may have more for you today. When therefore you return to the Hall I would appreciate it if you would wait upon me here. I would speak of the matter now but must consult my wife first. You won't forget?"

  The secretary, pleased with the prospect of another confidence, assured his master that he would not forget, that he would conduct his business with dispatch, and return to the Hall before dark.

  As soon as Peter Varnell had left, Saltmarsh went to his wife's chamber, where he found her supervising the packing of several large chests.

  "I see you have begun your preparations early enough," he said agreeably, anxious to put things right with her.

  His wife looiked up, shrewdly gauging her husband's mood before responding. "You see truly," she responded. "I shall be less likely to forget what I am a long time considering."

  Sensing that her husband's visit was prompted by more than a desire to chat, with a gesture of the hand she dismissed the new maid. Then she stood, arms akimbo, waiting for him to divulge the reason for interrupting her labors.

  "Your priest will not return," he began bluntly. "He has met with an accident on the highway." He hesitated, alert to her response, but she, catching the drift of his hesitation, put on a face of indifference, as though he had just reported a dead robin in the courtyard.

  "Yet the church may thrive," she said when she had held him sufficiently in suspense. She began to gather a pile of petticoats to stuff in the largest of her chests.

  "You are cold," he muttered, almost to himself.

  She turned on him suddenly, dropping her voice to a growl. "And do you think I know not by whom the accident was brought to pass? There are no accidents in thjs house not of your making. Say I am cold? Yes, in truth I am so, but made so by you, who have no fear of God that you so violate his laws."

  He parried to match the virulence of her reply. "Why, I'm damned if
you don't sound like the vicar's wife, more concerned for his salvation than he himself. Who taught you morality that lecture me for murder? In all these things you have always proved a ready accomplice. 'Twas you who agreed to let him join us here, providing him with such entertainment—and I use the word with caution—as he imagined in his heart."

  "Yes," she returned bitterly, her eyes filled with tears of rage, "but 'twas you, husband, who proposed it, and I may now ask you just why it was necessary to again dip our hands in blood."

  He breathed heavily, beginning to pace so that his anger might subside. "Because, wife, he knew too much of our affairs."

  "But did he not agree to stay on under the conditions you named? You told me thus yourself but only this morning. Will nothing please your fancy but you must humiliate me with these games of yours until I know not whom to give myself to nor why?"

  "He so agreed," Saltmarsh responded more calmly, "but had no sooner done so but took flight from the house.I saw him from the window, confirming what Daniel had told me earlier, that the priest was in his chamber packing with great haste. Daniel thought he might be carrying off the silver in his pack. To us he is a greater risk than the Welsh girl, whose mind to marriage may make what passed here stale in a month's time. But the priest, and thanks to your cold treatment of him, would be hot to report our doings to the first bishop he could catch by the coattails, Roman or no."

  "My cold treatment of him!" she protested wildly. "And were you also beyond the arras on that occasion that you so misjudge me?"

  "I judge you by solid inference. Had he found you to his liking, or you to his, he would have stayed, for that man's priesthood is a thin stream to the river of his lust. I know such when I see 'em, reading it in their eyes."

  She sat down on her bed, arms hung between her legs, her golden hair loose about her bare shoulders. He had defeated her, he thought, at least for the moment. His sense of victory invited mercy, so he approached her slowly and deliberately and joined her on the bed.

  "I have only done what must be done to protect the both of us" he said. "By this time tomorrow we shall be well on our way to London, and if we return here in less than six month's time 'twill be because the town has burned or the plague come again. I promise you that."

  "Will there be no public outcry at the man's death?" she asked weakly.

  "He was a stranger. He knew no one in the town, save for those he met here, and they seemed to take little interest in him. To my knowledge, the body has not been found, and may not be; and when it will be found, who can say it was else that killed but the London coach, not ours. If the body is ever found. Thickets abound along the road."

  "Still I like not the idea of killing a priest."

  "Even such a one as he?"

  "He was a priest," she said.

  "Well, let them all die, for me," he said with disgust. "I never knew one of the cloth that was no less hypocritical than the Puritan sort. All words to candy o'er their appetite."

  She sat silently, as though her energy was spent, and Saltmarsh suddenly realized that although her sharp tongue was often hard to bear her silence was a weapon as well, and one that he might feel more painfully. He groped for something to pull her from her melancholy but could think of nothing. He was about to broach the topic of the secretary, who while he regarded the man with no little contempt yet he was a man who had cast fond glances at his mistress and breathed hotly in her presence. But it would not do to bring up that possibility now, even though the scene it conjured up in his imagination had the virtue of being bizarre, the man was such a pallid, effeminate creature. Saltmarsh turned to go, but she prevented it with a final word, softly but deliberately phrased.

  "See to it, Harry, that there be no more deaths in this house or hereabouts. If there be, you may find yourself in want of a wife, for each day poverty without you seems more appealing than wealth with you."

  "You say that in the midst of plenty," he said sharply and turned to go, relishing the irony of his words.

  Eleven

  " 'Tis CHADWICK, the carrier."

  "What? This early?"

  "He says they have found a dead man by the road, a gentleman. He wishes you to come and see it. They've brought the body up in Chadwick's cart." Joan had that morning been long dressed before him, supervising the baking in the kitchen below. Now her face was heavy with concern.

  "I told them you were no longer constable—which they had not heard but insist that there be no other yet appointed. You, it seems, must do for them."

  Matthew fastened the last button of his coat and brushed his coal black hair straight back from his forehead. Joan followed him down the stairs into the shop, where Chadwick waited with several other men of the town whose names and faces Matthew knew well.

  " 'Tis another dead 'un, Matthew." Tall, angular Spencer Beam leaned upon one of the counters surveying the little clothier with his narrow face screwed up in a frown. The other men, Will Freeman and Cyriac Smythe, looked on solemnly.

  "I would 'ave missed 'im most entire had not Joty missed 'er footin' and near stumbled by the way. There 'twas, only his white hands sticking from 'neath the thicket. Like claws. When I lifted im, I knew in a minute 'twas dead as stone, so heavy 'twas."

  While the carrier was completing his account, Matthew nodded a greeting to the men. He called Philip to fetch the lantern and then led the group into the street. It was dawning in the east.

  They had thrown a blanket over the body, but from its frayed edges hands and feet protruded. Matthew shuddered and lifted the blanket to look at the man's face. By lantern the priest seemed younger than Matthew had remembered.

  Joan had quietly stolen up behind him to peer over his shoulder. "Why 'tis the priest," she gasped.

  "Priest or no," muttered Spencer Beam, "the man' has met an ugly death. Doubtless the London coach caught him in a fog. It looks as if he were drug a ways."

  Mutely they watched the still corpse, as though expecting any moment that the priest would come alive to report on his own mishap. Matthew reached over to shut the eyes, but they would not shut. He pulled the blanket back over the face.

  "As my wife has said"—Matthew began looking about him into the sober faces of the townsmen—"I am no longer constable of this parish. Word of this must go to the Hall. I cannot think it but mischance, and would so report it myself"

  "I wonder that the coach did not stop. The priest is no small man. He would have made a noise when the coach hit. Surely no blame would have fallen upon the coachman for what was never his fault."

  At this the men turned to look at Joan, as though they expected her now to put into words the vague uneasiness they all felt. Made bold by her perception of their uncertainties, she proceeded: "Had the night been that dark, I should think the coach would have traveled slowly and thereby seen the poor man. Besides, if I remember right, yesternight the moon was full and the sky cloudless."

  "Why right she be," Cyriac Symthe affirmed in a thin voice. "I saw clearly, and the wind did not suffer clouds, not as I recall."

  "But 'tis certain," a deeper voice began, "that the man's been hit and drug, or one would think 'twere highwaymen. See if he has his purse about him."

  Matthew pulled back the tattered blanket and found the priest's purse attached securely to his belt.

  "The purse is safe," he informed them. " 'Twas not robbery that did this. And now I am of my wife's mind that 'twas no accident either.''

  "Will you look into the matter, Matthew, or should we proceed direct to the magistrate?"

  Matthew did not respond to Spencer Beam's question at once, simple though it was, for it was his question as well. That he had no authority now to act officially for the parish was sure, and yet he wrestled still with a vague sense of obligation. Besides, this new death had pricked his curiosity. That it had some connection with the death of the players' boy he had no doubt.

  "I will proceed to Sir Henry with this," he decided even as the words tripped from his mouth. "Th
e priest's been brought to my own door and 'tis true I have as much interest in the parish as the next man."

  "Or woman," Joan said behind him. "In faith, we have had more deaths of unnatural causes this one week than in my recollection."

  The men murmured their agreement and, satisfied that the matter was now in capable hands, bid farewell to the clothier and his wife and went about their business.

  "Bear the body to the curate," Matthew instructed the carrier. "The man had no relations in these parts. 'Tis the parish must pay for his burial."

  "Will you have breakfast before going to the Hall?" Joan asked.

  "Aye, I will, for what I am about to say to Sir Henry in this new matter has yet to come upon me. It may do so while I eat."

  The aroma of bread drew them into the kitchen, where Alice had furnished the sturdy oak table with bowls of hot porridge, cheese, and mugs of ale. Husband and wife took their usual places, Matthew said grace, and both began to eat in silence.

  Then Joan said, "I wonder what might the priest have done to bring him to this end?"

  Her husband shrugged and cut himself a large share of the soft cheese. "I thought once that the ways of those who take others' lives were as simple to be known as why a man should wish to eat, or heap up gold, or go to heaven when he died. Now I understand less."

  She contemplated this remark between swallows of porridge. Then she reasoned, "If Sir Henry's hand has done this, you will have little from him beyond a curs*, for your persistence."

  "Indeed," he responded flatly, finishing his cheese and beginning in earnest on his mug of ale. "Yet will I speak with him and be damned, for though I be constable no more, yet I am a townsman with a townsman's rights."

  "But now you have no office, no authority," she protested, glad for his determination but fearful of where it might lead him.

  "True. Yet will I speak with him nonetheless, for I be as sure the priest's death was conceived at the Hall as the death of the players' boy."