by B G Denvil
Nine
“Just because you can fly and arrive in a few minutes,” Peg said, “it doesn’t mean you won’t still arrive totally soaked. I’m not coming unless you invent me a glass carriage.”
“Might be a good idea,” wondered Edna, searching for the last fallen feathers of her hat decoration.
“I had thought of getting a spell just to say, ‘Click – take me to so and so.’ and woppity-woozle – I’d just be there and appear on the spot.”
“You might alarm the humans perhaps?”
“Maybe only for the places without humans.”
“Rosie, dear,” Edna sighed, “don’t we have enough to solve without suddenly appearing in the middle of a market full of humans? We have a human in our own tree house, we have a murder to solve in case she gets arrested, we have Alice somewhere plotting and planning, and we have Mandrake making even more of a fool of himself than usual.”
“I must remember to talk to poor Mandrake,” sighed Peg. “We became the best of friends, you know. Not that sort of friend, if you don’t mind, Rosie. Just friends. I might be able to help.”
“Alright.” Rosie waved one hand, brushing away the irrelevancies. “I still intend going into the village. I want to find out what Dickon is up to and what the humans think of Maggs disappearing. Come – or stay here, but I’m still going.”
“I’m coming,” said Edna, still trying to stick her feathers back in their proper places around the brim of her hat.
“And I’m staying,” said Peg, leaning back in her chair.
It was not far away or much later when Mandrake, dressed in his best, flung open the door of the tree house. A large platter was balanced on one hand, as he made play of unlocking the door with the other hand. But the pretence proved somewhat unnecessary since he almost fell over Maggs, who was flat on the Turkey rug, clearly unconscious. Above her, perched on the back of a chair, sat Splodge, the younger amongst those born that year, who was originally reared by Alfred.
Splodge said, “I didn’t do nuffing naughty, honest, I didn’t. I just asked to come in ‘cos ‘tis ever so wet out there. And she done fell over right there and then.”
Mandrake cursed beneath his breath. He was also wet, although had flown, so only his hair dripped, and he’d managed to keep the breakfast platter dry. He placed the bowl of sugared porridge and the cheese and bread rolls with the cup of ale alongside onto the small table, shook the rain from his hair rather as Splodge had done and quickly bent beside Maggs. The fall had unpinned her stiffened hair band, and her soft brown curls lay loose around her head. Mandrake resisted the urge to bend and kiss her awake.
Dismissing the temptation, Mandrake turned to Splodge. “She’s a human,” he explained, rather crossly. “The poor child has no idea that our crows can talk. If you want to stay in here for shelter, then you’ll have to keep quiet.” He stretched out one hand to caress her face, but instead, Mandrake knelt and softly called her name. “Margaret, my dear,” he murmured close to one small pink ear. “Has something unpleasant happened?”
With a long-lashed blink, Maggs opened her eyes and gazed in confusion at Mandrake. She could hardly say the words, knowing that she would sound so utterly stupid, and must surely have been half asleep.
“I must have been dozing – but it was so strange,” she stuttered. “Someone wanted to come in out of the rain. I thought it was a bird.” She giggled softly. “I know – I’m a sorry case. Perhaps there was a full moon last night.”
She had not yet noticed Splodge. Mandrake pointed behind him to the open door and hoped the crow would take the hint. “I imagine you heard me, my dear, and became muddled. Pouring rain does disguise voices, you know.” He resisted no longer and smoothed her curls back from her face, then, hands beneath her, helped her up and into the chair where Splodge had been resting. He was no longer there. Maggs smiled, and Mandrake patted her hand. “I’ve brought your breakfast, my dear. But perhaps you should rest first.”
Knowing the quality of the food at The Rookery, Maggs was more than willing to eat first and rest afterwards. Also, since nothing was likely to happen until midday, and she would be obliged to sit staring at the wall and the leaves through the window, she decided that would be the perfect time to shut her eyes and listen to the birdsong. “You are – so kind,” she whispered as she took the bowl of porridge topped with expensive sugar and a cluster of early blackberries. Mandrake smiled. Maggs smiled back.
Neither knew that Splodge was now upstairs drying off on the bed, but he would at least keep his beak shut.
Peg sat equally at ease in her own room, but Rosie and Edna had flown to the end of Kettle Lane and were now walking to Little Piddleton’s central green, looking just as soaked as though they had walked all the way. Both had their hoods up, and Edna’s mass of flowers and feathers was squashed beneath. Dripping like a bucket lifted from the well, they entered the Juggler and Goat and hurried to their favourite corner.
Bob came over as soon as he saw them. “Well, ladies,” he grinned, “in need of something to warm you up, I reckon. How about a hypocras each, then?”
“Wonderful idea,” said Edna, peeping out from beneath her feathers. “And maybe even a hot pie?”
“Right away,” said Bob, and strode off.
Rollo, Edwin, Martin and their usual crowd were huddled around the other table on the tavern’s opposite side, and a shivering young man stood by the inglenook fireplace, even though entirely empty of flame, and talked earnestly to his young female companion. Glad to have escaped the rain, everybody seemed content, peaceful and quietly enjoying their drinks. Bob brought two steaming cups of hypocras to Rosie and Edna, and Rosie asked, “Any more news come up about Master Trout’s death?”
Bob bent a little towards her, keeping his voice low. “Well, mistress, both yes and no. There’s bin not any idea as to who killed the fellow, though Dickon were mighty determined to pin the crime on the poor wife Margaret. No change there. But Maggs has disappeared, most unexpected, and Dickon is in a right fuss. Went to arrest her and found her gone. He’s bin prowling the village and the farms ever since.”
“But,” Rosie persisted, “has he ever explained why he thinks Maggs did it?”
“Same again, mistress. both yes and no. Says to me as how he found Godwin Trout bleeding on the cobbles, telling as how his wife did it, then drops dead right there and then. Seems fair enough. But then I heard from the lass’s brother, Alid, what lives in the farm right next door. And he tells me as how Godwin were found already total dead and couldn’t be talking to no one. Dead on the street, but no blood and no chatting to them ‘as passes.”
“Interesting.” Rosie was definitely interested, and the idea that Dicken was lying in order to grab a quick and easy solution seemed perfectly possible. She sipped her hypocras, disappearing into the steam as she tried to make her brain produce the truth.
Her eyes now invisible beneath the hat, Edna murmured, “That was just the sort of information we needed, dear. Any doubt that Dickon was lying?”
“Alid could have been protecting his sister,” Rosie said. “But I know Maggs didn’t do it. So someone’s lying.”
“Either Godwin, if what Dickon says is true, or Dickon, if what Alid says is true. But,” Edna said, face in her cup, “if you’re sure Maggs herself is not the liar in the nest, then we should question both Alid and Dickon. Humans lie all the time, of course, but they’re usually easy enough to see through with their shifty eyes and wiggly little expressions of guilt.”
Having been reminded of something else, Rosie looked up. “Yes, we’ll question both of them and compare opinions. But there’s Maggs too, and although I’m sure she didn’t do it, and you’re sweetly accepting that –what are we going to do with her?”
“She had a home of her own, I believe,” Edna replied. “She can return there once the risk of arrest and the gibbet has gone. And, speaking of risks, the girl has not discovered too much regarding The Rookery.”
“A hor
rible thought. But she’s locked in and separate from everyone else.” Rosie sighed. “Was I a fool?”
“You were your usual dear little ninety-eight,” Edna smiled back at her. “But just keep in mind that excess sympathy can lead to more problems, my dear. But I have no intention of lecturing a ninety-eight which exceeds my simple ninety-three.”
Rosie opened her mouth and shut it again. Dickon Wald walked in with rain pouring from every part of him. For a moment he stood, creating his own puddle. A few faces turned to look at him, and Rosie raised a fluttering finger, inviting him to their table. But the tavern had been as quiet as a church after Sunday Mass, with everyone talking softly with no more sound than the chink of cups to jugs. The peace had been gently amicable.
Everything now changed as Dickon glared at Bob, calling, “You, cheating pickle-brain. You’ll get me a strong beer, and you’ll not charge me, or I’ll arrest you for theft.”
Bob charged like a bull in fury, running towards Dickon, who raised both fists. “You’ll not talk to me like that,” Bob shouted, standing face to face and glaring eye to eye. “You refuse to pay me, and I’ll not serve you now nor ever.”
“You.” Dickon whirled, abruptly pointing towards the quiet man by the empty hearth. “Buy me a drink or I’ll put you in a cell for a week.”
The quiet man, without the slightest hesitation, yelled, “Fair enough, sheriff. Here’s your drink,” and tossed his tankard of ale in Dickon’s face.
Another stride, and Dickon grabbed the man’s wife, tugging her to the doorway. “Out,” he told her, pushed open the door and literally kicked. She tumbled into the rain. The door slammed shut against her. “Now,” Dickon turned to the man, “apologise on your knees.”
The man hit Dickon over the head with his empty pewter tankard and pushed past him to open the door, hauling his wife in from the rain, and glared at both Dickon and Bob. “Is this how you let your customers behave?” he shouted at Bob.
As Bob lifted a large porcelain jug to smash over Dickon’s head, Rollo jumped up and ran at Dickon. With an abrupt jolt, he received the jug in his face. His nose began to bleed, and he fell backwards. He fell on Martin, and Martin kicked him away while making a run for Bob, heaving away the jug and smashing it over Dickon’s head. Dickon fell prone with chips of broken jug in his hair and eyes, and Bob turned to Martin and smashed one fist into his nose.
Several noses were now bleeding, and Dickon was bleeding from several places as he stumbled to his knees, half blind, while screaming every blasphemous and improper word he could remember.
Bob’s son, hearing the noise, ran from the back where the brewing was usually underway, saw his father’s nose dripping red and roared at Rollo and his group, assuming the wrong attacker. He used one of the brewing pots and banged it into the faces of everyone he saw. From behind, Bob grabbed at him, calling his son to calm down. But misunderstanding, Edgar sprang around and punched the bleeding nose which faced him, before realising that this was his father.
While hugging and apologising profusely to his father, Edgar slipped on the spilled ale, and both men fell together. Dickon, finally staggering upright, pointed a shard of broken jug at Bob, who still lay on the floorboards, and threatened to arrest him. Rollo grabbed him from behind, grabbed the broken porcelain from him and jabbed it into the back of the sheriff’s neck.
Once again Dickon tumbled, this time slipping on the wet floor as he fell, so sliding to the door and landing with the bent iron hinge in his face, fell backwards, slipped again and slid in the other direction, eventually falling on his back in the empty fireplace, with the rather filthy poker promptly falling onto his head.
Yelling as loudly as his injuries would permit, Bob called for everyone to leave the tavern immediately or be thrown to the wet street outside.
The young woman, however, who had been hurt by Dickon and then ignored by her husband, felt that this insult towards her, the one person who had made no attempt to attack anyone, was distinctly unjust. She wrenched the poker from beneath Dickon’s chin and shoved its point into Bob’s face, as though she was tackling him with a sword. Bob’s nose had already bled heavily, and long red stains decorated his apron and the shirt beneath. Now, with a scream of fury from the woman and a scream of pain from Bob, his injured nose cracked and spurted not only blood but a great deal more.
Edgar ran at the woman and snatched the poker, but the woman’s husband retaliated and grabbed Edgar by both hair and arm, swung him around in three wide circles and then released him quite suddenly. Edgar stumbled backwards, entirely dizzy, and smashed into Dickon, who still lay on the floor. Dickon peered up between wet hair and blood-filled eyes and croaked, “I arrest you in the name of the king,” and promptly lay back unconscious.
Smiling faintly, Rosie said, “Well, that was quite an interesting demonstration. But I must say, I’m glad I don’t have to sweep up the bodies.”
The small table in the corner had been neither touched nor involved. Both Edna and Rosie had suffered only a few flying drips of blood, beer and sweat. They flicked the unpleasant stains from their gowns and nodded.
“Time to leave, I think.”
“I agree,” Rosie nodded. “Even though we still haven’t been able to question Dickon.”
“I don’t think he’s quite in the right mood to be questioned,” decided Edna. “Perhaps we should leave that for another day.”
Standing carefully, avoiding the various stretched arms and legs on the floor nearby, both Edna and Rosie managed to leave the tavern and step back outside into the spangle of sun clipped rain. The clouds were dispersing, the sun was peeping through, the birds had reappeared, and even the rain itself was fading.
“After you, dear,” said Edna.
They both raised their hoods, clicked their heels and swept up into the budding sunshine. Flying home took little enough time, and within minutes, they landed at the front doors of The Rookery. Here, they pushed their hoods off once more, hurried inside and went first to the cosy warmth of the kitchen. They were, however, briefly surprised seeing Mandrake sitting at the table, speaking to the cook.
Agnes, sitting astride a stool which barely held her, was a recently employed and very ample chef, a word she liked, although not actually French. She was a sixty, which fitted her admirably as someone who could conjure up the most magnificent meals without using any more ingredients than a pot of boiling water, some lettuce and occasionally some herbs. Her relentless smile was now directed towards Mandrake. Yet Mandrake was not smiling.
“Glad to see you back,” Mandrake grumbled at Rosie with a nod towards Edna. “Poor Maggs is having problems. First of all, she’s bored silly. Secondly, she’s upset about the danger she might be in from Dickon. And thirdly, Splodge had a conversation with her this morning, and she fainted flat on the floor. It’s taken me all morning to convince her she isn’t bonkers.”
Ten
Edna, Peg and Rosie carted the specially made supper, each with their hands full. Edna carried a large platter of cheeses, bread, spiced fruits, peas, sliced ham from the bone and boiled codlings stuffed with bacon and leeks. Peg brought a large jug of ale and another of wine, with four cups all waiting to be filled.
Coming last and beaming with smiled, Rosie carried a tray of custards, cakes, tarts, toasted creams and fruit dumplings, all with an array of small non-speaking spoons.
Nobody had any intention of explaining how they had managed to climb the very long ladder while supporting this amount of food, and luckily Maggs did not ask, Once her tray was on the table, Maggs flung her arms around Rosie, and turning to the other two, was delighted to be introduced to the most charming and helpful of the old folks.
“This is Edna,” Rosie waved a hand. “She’s clever and smart and knows absolutely everything, and this is Peg. She knows a lot too, but is inclined to forget her own name and mine too.”
“But I was wondering,” said Edna, making herself comfortable on a small chair facing the table, “how we’r
e going to solve the puzzle of your husband’s death. Clearly, dear Mistress Trout, once we find the actual killer, then you’ll be free to return home and do whatever you wish without fear.”
“I’ve thought about that so much,” Maggs nodded earnestly. “I even wondered about my own brother. But if he did it, he’d never let me be accused instead. Lots of folk disliked him. Godwin wasn’t popular with anyone, except my nasty sister-in-law.”
“So he rejected her, and she killed him?”
“I don’t think she’s capable. A huge knife in the neck! How would Godwin let it happen?”
“He couldn’t have just stood there watching.” Rosie poured the wine. “Either someone took him by surprise, or there was a fight. Did he have scratches and cuts? And has anyone else got small injuries as well?”
But Maggs had no idea. “I’ve not seen him since he died,” she said. “Dickon had him into the church and buried before I even had an opportunity to say goodbye. I mean,” she spoke around a mouth full of bacon codlings, “I was never going to grieve. But after living five years with a man, I should have said goodbye.”
“So say goodbye and good riddance. You don’t need to see him. Imagine his face.”
“In spite of his overbearing pride and confidence, he was a bit of a wastrel,” Maggs said. “He sometimes worked a bit on my brother’s farm. Sometimes he stacked barrels at the tavern. He worked at the market erecting the stalls, and a couple of times he had my brother’s stall and sold eggs and chickens for him. He never had a proper job, though he’d started as an apprentice for an ironmonger in the village. But too much like hard work – so he stopped,”
“And no family left? Mothers? Fathers? Brothers?”
“He had none of them, and as an ill-behaved brat, his father had beaten him severely on a regular basis. Godwin grew up accepting a habit of both the bad behaviour and the beatings.”
