Baynard's List (A Stephen Attebrook mystery Book 2)

by Jason Vail

  Lucy herself was not in view, but that was no surprise, since after this road crossed a narrow field, the wood ahead closed in again, tall, gray and somber, filled with the sadness of autumn.

  Now that he was in the wood and she had not yet come in sight, he ran to catch up. The further he went, the more alarmed he became, because there was no Lucy. He must have run another quarter mile, and still there was no sight of her. He slowed to a walk.

  Ahead, a party on horses trotted into view — a man and three gentry women accompanied by servants.

  Stephen waved at the man and called in French, “Pardon me but could you help me?”

  The party reined up. The gentry man looked him up and down skeptically with that arrogant measuring glance that was so typical of a man of his class. At last the man decided to speak. “And how may I help you?”

  Stephen harbored secret satisfaction that his French was better than this fellow’s. In some small way, it made up for his rather shabby appearance. “Did you pass a young girl, green cloak and a basket on her arm, by any chance?”

  “No, we haven’t seen any such person today.”

  “Merci,” Stephen said, aghast.

  Lucy had left the road.

  “Is there some trouble afoot?” the man asked.

  “Not exactly,” Stephen said, “but I must find her.”

  The man snorted. “Well, good luck.” He heeled his horse, and he and his women and servants trotted off toward Aston.

  Stephen watched them go, suddenly sick. The horses were obliterating any footprints Lucy had left, destroying any chance he had of tracking her, which he should have been doing in the first place. He cursed himself for his overconfidence.

  Feeling foolish, he headed back toward Aston himself. It wasn’t long before he found Margaret and James. Margaret was in conversation with the man and women who had passed him earlier. Stephen felt like hanging back, but she saw him and beckoned. There was no escape.

  When he reached the group, Margaret said, “Cecil, have you had speech with Sir Stephen? I see you’ve passed him, but perhaps you haven’t been properly introduced.”

  “We spoke,” the man Cecil said coolly, “but of introductions, no. We did not take the time for them, unfortunately.”

  “Well, may I present my good friend Stephen Attebrook. He’s deputy coroner at Ludlow. Stephen, this is Cecil Marlbrook.”

  Stephen bowed slightly. Marlbrook returned the courtesy.

  “Your horse gone lame?” Marlbrook asked. It was a reasonable enough question, since James, who was obviously a servant, had a mount, but Stephen did not.

  Margaret answered for him, though, as if in an attempt to save him from the embarrassment of having to make up some lie. “We’re investigating a murder.”

  Cecil blinked in surprise. It was hardly the answer he was expecting. “The girl he asked about is a murderer?”

  “She’s an important witness.”

  Marlbrook did not seem to care much. “As I said, we didn’t see anyone like her.” Cecil played with his gloves. They were expensive calf skin and finely tailored. “Gone up in smoke, it appears.” He fixed his eyes on Margaret. “Will you be coming round for Christmas this year? Mother was asking after you.”

  “I may,” Margaret laughed.

  After a few more minutes of polite conversation while Stephen chafed, Marlbrook took his leave.

  “They are friends, Stephen,” Margaret said at the look on Stephen’s face. “I couldn’t ignore them.”

  “I know you couldn’t. But I can’t tell where Lucy’s gone now, and with every passing moment, she gets farther away.”

  “Well, if Cecil didn’t see her up ahead, it means she’s turned off somewhere.” Margaret looked up and down the road thoughtfully. “I wonder,” she said softly. She rode about fifty yards back the way they’d come. Then she stopped.

  A footpath joined the road there.

  “I wonder,” Margaret said, frowning.

  “What makes you think she went there?” Stephen asked, perplexed.

  Margaret didn’t answer. She shook her head as if she was having trouble believing something.

  Stephen, exasperated, walked a few paces up the path. And stopped dead.

  On a patch of dirt at his feet was the faint, crescent-moon impression of someone’s heel. Stephen bent down to examine it. The print looked fresh in the damp earth. A few feet beyond was a full footprint. It was a small foot in a small shoe. It looked exactly like the prints Stephen had seen only a short while ago at the stream.

  He ran up the path.

  In less than a hundred yards, he came to a small clearing. He halted at the edge and looked around. There was a small hut at the other side of the clearing. Smoke curled from a hole in the roof. The door stood open. Lucy’s basket had been placed to one side. Stephen’s heart pounded. He fully expected Howard Makepeese to step into the light and take flight. Stephen was sure he couldn’t run fast enough to catch him. Makepeese might even elude James and Margaret in the woods. The list would be lost forever.

  But no one came out of the hut.

  Wind whispered in the branches, which clattered together, and stirred fallen leaves on the ground. The only other sounds were those of horses’ hooves faint upon the path. Margaret and James dismounted and joined him at the edge of the clearing. No voices, no sounds of movement came from the hut, however. It was as if no one was there but the intruders.

  Something was odd. Something about the scene was not right.

  Stephen motioned for James and Margaret to remain where they were. He drew his dagger and crossed the clearing.

  He paused at the door and glanced in the hut.

  It was a small hut, with room for a hearth on the floor and a straw pallet of a bed, which lay in one corner.

  But that was not all.

  There were two naked people in the hut. A man and woman.

  Both of them lay on their backs, the man beside the bed, the woman with her legs off its end.

  Both of them had been stabbed numerous times.

  Both were dead.

  Stephen pushed the door all the way to the wall, half expecting someone to be hiding behind it. The door clunked against a metallic object, then clumped against the wall. He put his dagger away and stepped into the hut. Two piles of clothes lay by the door, one for the man and one for the woman. A belt with an empty dagger scabbard lay beside the piles of clothes.

  Stephen knelt beside the bodies. What he had first taken for a woman looked on closer examination to be a girl of only fifteen or sixteen. She had been stabbed at least a dozen times in the upper chest and neck.

  The man was Howard Makepeese. Even the indignity of death did not rob him of his youthful handsomeness. He had what looked like more than two dozen wounds to the chest. Stephen rolled Makepeese over. There were three wounds in his back. One of them seemed to have severed his spine. That was probably the one that killed him.

  Silhouettes filled the door.

  “Good God!” Margaret said.

  Stephen looked up at her.

  Margaret asked, “Is that him?”

  “Yes.”

  “What . . . what happened?”

  Stephen rose and walked into the light. He was glad to get out of that hut. Death seemed to permeate every cranny and left him feeling unclean. He said heavily, “I think Lucy’s had her revenge.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The bodies are as warm as you and I. They’ve just been killed. I think Lucy found them here naked and lost control of herself.” He gestured toward the empty scabbard. “She used Makepeese’s own dagger.” He thought of the metal object encountered by the door. He went inside to retrieve it and came out with a dagger that had blood on the blade all the way to the cross. “Here it is.” He put the dagger on the ground by the door. “The question now is, where’s she gone?”

  “I know,” James said. He was at a corner of the hut, pointing toward something to the rear.

  Stephen and M
argaret joined him there and received another shock.

  Lucy was there, all right — hanging from a tree limb by a length of cloth torn from the hem of her skirt.

  Chapter 17

  Stephen held up Lucy’s body while James clambered into the tree and slashed the rope. Lucy collapsed across Stephen’s shoulder. He laid her on the ground and pried the loop of fabric from around her neck, where it had bitten deeply into the flesh. She was still as warm as life, as the others had been, and her eyelids fluttered. When the coil came off, her chest heaved as she tried to breathe, and by some miracle, her heart was still beating — Stephen could feel the pulse in her neck with his fingers.

  But it was for nothing. She slipped away under his hands.

  “Is s-she —?” Margaret stammered. Like anyone else she was accustomed to death, but three dead at once and so violently in such a peaceful place still was a shock.

  “Yes,” Stephen said. “We’re too late.”

  “A pity,” Margaret said. She wheeled about and marched back to the hut.

  Stephen rose quickly to follow her.

  He found Margaret paused at the doorway, hands on the sides. There was a stricken look on her face. He pulled her gently aside. “I’ll look for it,” he said. “No need for you to go in.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “I thought I could bear it, but I cannot.”

  He rifled through the piles of clothes, pulled up the blanket from beneath the girl’s body and shook it out, then brought the straw pallet out of the hut and into the light. There was nothing on the ground under it so if the pallet had been used to hide anything, it was inside. Like most such pallets it was a linen sack sewn shut at only one end; the other was left open and folded over so the stuffing could be replaced periodically. Stephen and Margaret upended the sack and dumped the contents on the ground. They found only straw.

  “He doesn’t have it,” Stephen said at last, trying not to sound as crushed as he felt. He had been certain that when he found Howard Makepeese he would find the list.

  “Perhaps it’s still inside,” Margaret said. “Perhaps he’s hidden it somewhere.”

  Stephen went over every inch of the walls, but he found no niche or cranny that held hidden secrets, and there was no sign that anything had been buried under the floor. Stephen even kicked the smoldering fire aside and probed the ground underneath in case Makepeese had been so clever as to conceal the treasure there, where most people wouldn’t think to look.

  Margaret put her head on his chest when he had finished. “I’m sorry, Stephen. I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s all right,” he said, although it didn’t feel all right. He was lost, without any idea what to do. There was always Muryet’s lover, but he doubted that fellow knew anything useful.

  “Might as well eat,” James said. “Those poor bastards got no use for all this now.” James, who had seated himself by the door, was exploring Lucy’s basket. He pulled out a small ham, a large round of goat cheese, and two loaves of dark bread. There were also a couple of clay pots. One of them held bean paste and the other honey. “No butter. Too bad.”

  Stephen’s galloping hunger reasserted itself at the sight of all that food and the old soldier in him would not allow the presence of death to interfere with a meal. Margaret hesitated, then after a moment, joined them.

  “We can’t leave them just to lie here,” she said, spooning bean paste with the help of the only spoon in the basket. “My, this is good. Oil and mustard, I think.”

  Her voice seemed calm, but Stephen noticed her hands trembled ever so slightly. “I’ll have to contact the local authority,” Stephen said, “once I figure out who holds this land. He’ll summon the hundred bailiff for this area who’ll get a jury together. It will be a short inquest, though. A formality, really. But formalities must be observed.”

  Margaret was quiet, staring into the bean pot. Then she said, “I can help you with that.”

  “You can?”

  “Yes. I know who holds this land. You’ve met him, in fact. This is Marlbrook land. That fellow you met on the road holds it — Cecil Marlbrook.”

  “Ah.”

  She went on, “There’s a path behind the tree where we found . . . her . . . Lucy. At the fork bear right. It leads to the Marlbrook manor. His steward should be there. He’ll help you.” She stood suddenly, wiping her hands on her skirts. Her voice was agitated. “I must go. I can’t stand it here. You’ll forgive me if I don’t accompany you. James!” she said and turned toward the horses, which were grazing on grass and weeds at the edges of the clearing, their mouths a sickly greenish white.

  James lifted her to the back of her mare. He mounted the other and followed her down the path. Within moments, the soft thuds of the horses’ hooves were swallowed by the forest and it was quiet.

  Stephen hated to see her go. Even in such a distressing place, he felt drawn to her, and that attraction caused him to wander down the path after her, lost in fantasies about what might be between them but probably, he had to admit, never would.

  He had gone about twenty yards before he came to his senses and turned back. The path curved sharply before it reached the hut, and Stephen cut across the center of the curve, which took him through a brief tongue of forest. He had taken only three steps off the path before he had to leap unexpectedly over a pile of horse dung. It was fresh dung, still moist and green and smelly with that unmistakable odor of horse manure. When he held his palms over it, he found that it was still warm. The animal that had left this pile had been here only minutes ago.

  But neither his, Margaret’s, nor James’ horse had stood here. They had been tethered in the clearing.

  Stephen stood up and scanned the forest but saw nothing human or horse concealed within the undergrowth or behind the bare trunks of the trees.

  His discovery was disquieting and more than a little unnerving. He had no answer why a horse had been there without any of them being aware of it. His shadow, that boy, had not had a horse, and he doubted the lad could ride in any case. Perhaps it had been one of Marlbrook’s foresters, pausing to see what they were about.

  He reached the clearing, passed the hut, and paused at the head of the path Margaret had told him was there. It was an old path and not well worn; hardly more than a depression in the leaves of the forest floor, as faint and subtle as a game trail. He gazed around the clearing, with its tumble-down forester’s hut and the corpse by the big tree, as if it might speak its secrets to him. But no sound came, not even the call of a bird, nor any illumination of the mind.

  Leading the gelding, he turned and started down the path to Marlbrook.

  Chapter 18

  Stephen remained at Marlbrook for two days. It took until late Tuesday to assemble the hundred’s jury and hold the inquest, with Stephen acting as his own clerk. And then, surprisingly, Cecil Marlbrook, despite his initial reserve, proved to be a congenial host and insisted that he stay overnight. Stephen allowed himself to be persuaded. Now that Howard Makepeese was dead, he had lost his last lead to the list. There was no point in rushing back to confess his failure to Valence, and it would be some time before Gilbert returned from his errand. And it was pleasant to lose himself in games and drink. It had been years since he had just lolled around an English manor as if he had nothing in the world to do.

  By the time Stephen took his leave, it was late afternoon, the sun less than an hour off the western horizon, casting long mournful shadows through the bare trees. There had been so much drinking after dinner that Stephen had trouble climbing into the saddle, although he had the benefit of a mounting block to assist him so he didn’t have to suffer the embarrassment of mounting on the right. He swayed a bit, which drew laughter from Marlbrook’s male guests, but it was good humored and not malicious. They were young men Stephen’s age or younger, most of them still without property, and because of that lack prone to the landless young gentryman’s sense of irresponsibility. Of their group only Marlbrook had come into land, and that only a few
years ago. There seemed to be a story behind his inheritance, but nobody was willing to talk about it. Two of the men found a child’s ball they’d found lying in the yard and started a game of catch, then one of them impulsively threw the ball at Stephen, who ducked, nearly falling off his horse again, to an even greater outburst of laughter.

  Marlbrook held the gelding’s bridle to say his farewell. “I apologize for my loutish friend,” he said. “I’ll have him thrashed if you like.”

  “It’s all right,” Stephen said. “No danger there. He couldn’t have hit himself with that ball if he’d held it over his head.”

  It was a poor joke, but everyone was so drunk that they thought it was funny.

  “Please feel free to come again,” Marlbrook said, releasing the bridle. “I’d like to hear more of Spain. Fascinating country.”

  “Indeed it is,” Stephen said, suppressing a hiccup. “Beautiful place, filled with beautiful women of easy virtue!” That was a lie, but men loved to think there were countries where women were eager to throw themselves at them. In truth, there were no such places, but fact was always less comforting than illusion.

  “Here, here!” Those who had cups raised them and drank again to easy Spanish women.

  Stephen waved and rode out of the yard. Marlbrook manor sat off the road at the end of a long track that ran through the village fields. When he reached the road, he halted. He got off the gelding. He walked up and down trying to think. A thought had been bothering him for the last two days, like a burr under a saddle or a splinter in the hand. He wasn’t sure what to make of it, but now that he was away from Marlbrook, he had to face it. He looked around, surveying the land. The ground was fairly flat here, good for farming, except parts were a bit marshy and wet. A section of the field had been plowed up for planting winter wheat. But the day was so far gone that the villagers had all gone home for supper. Their thatched houses, where smoke drifted from holes in the roofs, were visible a couple hundred yards to the north. About an equal distance away, the manor house stood before a backdrop of forest, which curved around to enclose the southern field. The road south entered the forest as if into a tunnel. Above the forest to the south loomed a large hill about half a mile away that was covered with trees. He had trouble seeing all these things clearly. He had to cover one eye with the palm of a hand so they came into focus. The air was growing noticeably colder. He breathed deeply. He wished he had a drink of water.