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

by Jason Vail

  James waved and nodded. Then he led the others into hiding on the north side of the house.

  There was nothing to do but wait and hold on.

  An orange glow began to emanate from the shed. It quickly grew in size and intensity as the dry hay within the shed began to burn.

  Presently, shouts of alarm were heard from within the house. There were thuds and clamoring. A boy, then a grown man emerged from the back door and ran to the shed.

  Stephen swung his legs into the dark hole in the roof before they had a chance to notice him and dangled for a moment. He could not see what lay below, but it was too late to do anything about that. His course had been decided as soon as he had climbed to the roof. He let himself drop.

  One foot landed on a barrel, another on a wicker basket. The barrel was too unsteady to hold him and the wicker basket collapsed. Stephen fell heavily on his side with a great thump, the wind knocked out of him. At least the floor’s dirt, he thought, glad he hadn’t broken a leg or twisted an ankle.

  He sat up, listening for the sounds of alarm and nursing his bad foot, which ached from the fall. But although he heard considerable commotion, none of it seemed to be aimed at his entrance.

  Despite the sealed shutters, light from the growing fire and the moon leaked through to provide some illumination, and Stephen was able to see that seemed to be a storeroom, filled with boxes and barrels and baskets and furniture all thrown together every which way, as if someone had just tossed it in the room without any thought to organization. He fumbled through and over the mess to one of the windows on the north side of the house, unlatched a shutter, and swung it open.

  The faces of James, Walter, and Gilbert appeared immediately.

  “We have to hurry, while they’re occupied,” Stephen said.

  “I can’t believe you’ve done this!” Gilbert said. “An arsonist! You’ve made me an arsonist!”

  “Can’t be helped, old man. James! Walter, come! Gilbert and Margaret, you wait here. Keep out of sight. Pretend you’re a stone or something.”

  “I can’t believe I let myself get involved in this!” Gilbert said. “I’m a law abiding man! This is madness! Arson! They hang people for arson!”

  “Get down and keep quiet, you old fool,” Margaret hissed as James and Walter clambered through the window.

  Stephen led them across the room to the door, which was plainly visible now that a window was open. He crouched at the door and listened.

  He eased up the latch and put an eye to the crack.

  It was dark in this room, too dark to see anything other than the faintly illuminated outlines of another door some distance away.

  Stephen pushed the door open and began creeping across the room on his hands and knees so as not to bump into anything and make unnecessary noise.

  He had gone about ten feet when the door opened and a young woman carrying an oil lamp entered the room. She didn’t notice him at first. When she did, she opened her mouth to scream.

  Stephen was on his feet and had her by the throat to stifle the shout of alarm before she could call out.

  “If you make a sound, it will be your last,” he said.

  The woman’s eyes were wide with fear. She nodded.

  Stephen motioned for Walter or James to close the door. He passed the woman, who was broad-waisted with pregancy, to Walter. “Bind and gag her,” he said.

  Stephen took the oil lamp and only then did he see what had brought the woman into the room.

  A woman was sitting with her back to a post behind him. A rope was tied around her neck and leashed her to the post. She was covered by a filthy wool blanket. Her hair was a disheveled corona and her face was badly bruised. One eye was swollen shut, her nose was broken, and there was blood on her face and chin. A disgusting looking rag had been used as a gag. Stephen had never seen a person look so miserable.

  Stephen knelt beside her so filled with sudden fury that he could hardly speak. The knot of the gag had been tied so tightly that he couldn’t untie it. He had to cut the gag with his dagger. He also cut the rope leash.

  The woman’s head sagged and she began to cry.

  “I’m so sorry, Olivia,” Stephen said.

  There wasn’t time to talk about what had happened. Stephen grasped her by the shoulders and lifted her to her feet.

  And got a second shock — for the blanket fell away and revealed that she was naked, her alabaster skin covered with bruises.

  Olivia cried harder at her embarrassment, although she had the sense to stifle the sound. She couldn’t even use her hands to conceal herself, because they were bound behind her.

  Stephen cut those bonds, too, and threw his cloak over her. It was the best he could do.

  The door to the front of the house opened again. A man rushed in, snarling, “Letti what the devil are you —”

  The words caught in his throat when he saw the tableau before him: Stephen standing protectively with Olivia, Walter binding the woman.

  Then James clouted him on the head. He stumbled, opened his mouth to shout, and Stephen had him by the throat, and stepping behind him, threw him hard to the ground.

  Stephen pressed his dagger blade to the man’s cheek. “If you make a sound,” Stephen snarled, “I’ll cut your face off.”

  The impulse to kill the man was almost overpowering, but Stephen resisted it with great effort, although he could not resist pounding the man above the ear with the pommel of his dagger before flipping him on his stomach.

  Stephen tied the man’s hands while James gagged him with the same disgusting rag they had used on Olivia.

  Then Stephen tied the door latch. It would slow, but not stop, people from entering the room and buy them some time if anyone else came to investigate.

  Stephen went ahead into the back storeroom with the oil lamp. James and Walter carried Olivia, who could not walk. James and Walter passed Olivia out the window to Gilbert and Margaret, while Stephen stood guard. Then they slipped through the window. Stephen blew out the lamp and followed.

  The yard around the house was filled with furious activity. Neighbors had turned out to fight the fire, as they always did in such emergencies. Someone had organized a bucket brigade. There weren’t enough people to pass the buckets hand-to-hand from the well across the road. Instead, people rushed by carrying buckets, in their hurry sloshing a good portion of their contents on the ground. So far, it did not seem that anyone had paid them any particular attention. They were just part of the crowd, and Stephen hoped it would stay that way, even though it must look a little odd to be carrying a woman wrapped in a cloak cross the yard to the fence.

  They were almost to the fence and relative safety when a gravelly voice called out, “Hey! You!” Then, “Will! She’s loose! She’s getting away!”

  There was no doubt who he meant.

  The little rescue party began to run.

  Gilbert vaulted the fence with agility he had not displayed before. Margaret leaped the fence as if it was not there. They turned to take Olivia, but James and Walter had stumbled and dropped her short of the fence. Stephen, right behind them, scooped her up, shouting at them to go, and they dashed and leaped and turned arms out. Stephen lurched to the fence and tossed Olivia, surprised at his own strength, for she literally flew through the air, losing the protection of the cloak, her legs and arms flailing, and would have crashed to the ground if Walter had not caught her in his arms.

  Stephen was about the vault the fence himself. Then James shouted a warning.

  Stephen ducked to one side. A club crashed into the fence where he had been only an instant before. There was a blur and he danced back, and another club swished an inch in front of his face, audibly humming in the air. He remembered his own club, which he’d put in his belt at the small of his back when he climbed to the roof.

  He drew out his own stave as the first man at him pulled back for a second blow. The attacker put all his weight into it, his face a rictus at the effort. Stephen slipped slightly
to the right as the blow fell and raised his own staff to the hanging point so that the blow ran off his weapon as water does a roof. Without pause, Stephen whipped his point around and struck the man on the top of his head. The blow sounded like he had knocked on a door instead of a man’s skull, and the impact jarred Stephen’s arm to his shoulder. Had the blow been from a sword, the man’s head would have been parted to his collar bone, but as it was, the fellow merely blinked as if surprised by something.

  Stephen was as surprised as his enemy, but more for the lack of effect of his blow than the damage it had done. He hesitated what might have been a fatal moment, which allowed a second man to close and aim another massive blow at his head that seemed to come all the way from the dung pile in the distance.

  He ducked beneath this attack and struck the fellow in the short ribs with his left fist. It was like punching a post, but the man grunted at the impact, giving Stephen some satisfaction. He did not linger to savor it, but rammed the point of his staff under the man’s chin and the second attacker toppled backward.

  Stephen did not pause this time to relish the fellow’s landing. He turned and vaulted the fence before any of the others had a chance at him.

  It seemed as though the fence would hardly slow the other two down. But then they hesitated, as James arrived at Stephen’s elbow to even the odds, for it was really now two against two, as the man Stephen has struck on the head sat down while a stream of blood ran down his face and dripped from his nose.

  “Check, Will,” Stephen said, directing this to a short muscular fellow with graying black hair. Stephen recognized him as one of the attackers in Bell Lane.

  “What?” Will asked.

  “Never mind. Figure of speech, not that you have much use for that sort of thing.”

  “I have use enough when it suits me.”

  “All right, then. Let’s talk with words rather than staves. I’ve got Mistress Baynard back. Found her in your house. Odd thing that.”

  “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You’ve a short memory. Clement put you up to it?”

  “Don’t know a Clement.”

  “I’ve known liars in my time, but you’re one of the worst. If you don’t talk fast, you’re going to have to answer to Valence why you and Clement had Lady Olivia prisoner in your house and why she was so abused. And then there’s your storeroom. I don’t think you’re going to want the shire bailiffs rummaging through there. You’ll have to explain where it all came from.”

  Thumper’s face twitched. It was as though he had suddenly realized what tonight’s events could cost him, which was plenty, since the goods in the storeroom were undoubtedly stolen.

  Stephen said gently, “If you tell me what I want to know, I’ll forget what I’ve seen and we’ll call it even.”

  “What about the lady?”

  “I think she’ll be satisfied if Clement alone pays for what’s happened.”

  “He’s got powerful friends. You don’t know.”

  Stephen suddenly became aware that everyone who had come to fight the fire had stopped to watch the fight. Beyond, the shed was a forgotten ruin, the sides and roof fallen in, flames leaping up like an All Hallow’s Eve bonfire. He leaned close now so that only Thumper could hear and snarled, “I don’t want your testimony. I just want to know. It was Clement, wasn’t it.”

  Thumper licked his lips. “Yes,” he said at last.

  “Behind all of it — that business at Bell Lane the other night, Mistress Baynard’s kidnapping.”

  Thumper nodded.

  “Why did he kidnap Mistress Baynard?”

  “He thought she knew where some letters was.”

  “Did she know?”

  “She said she had them at Helen Webbere’s but they was lost.” Thumper looked apologetic: “He pressed her pretty hard. If she knew anything more, she’d have said so.”

  “She . . . you say she took it to Webbere’s?”

  “Aye. Was going to sell them.”

  “To whom?”

  “Look, I don’t know the whole of it. Clement did the asking himself and wouldn’t let us listen. Only way I know is I had my ear to the door a little. I can’t tell you more than that.”

  Stephen couldn’t tell how much Thumper was holding back. But he had to trust that what he’d heard was true. He said, “You and I will forget about what’s happened between us. If that’s not satisfactory to you, we’ll continue this discussion with steel — at a time and place of my choosing.”

  Thumper paused a moment, his eyes flicking to the unconscious men lying on the ground. He nodded.

  “Good night, Will. My apologies about the mess.”

  Chapter 22

  Stephen put his stick in his belt. His bad foot ached badly and he wished he could sit down. He was so tired all of a sudden. But there still was a lot to do yet.

  James fell in beside him as Stephen strode through the orchard in the direction of Lower Galdeford Road. “Are you all right, sir?” he asked in a respectful tone that he had never used before.

  “I seem to be in one piece,” Stephen said. “Where are the others?”

  “Gone on ahead, sir. I held back to see if you needed help, but things happened so fast I’m afraid I was useless to you.”

  “Things have a habit of happening fast. But I appreciate it.”

  They caught up with Margaret and the others as they were passing the unfinished church.

  “That’s the Augustine priory, isn’t it,” Stephen said to Gilbert, who was helping to carry Olivia.

  “It is,” Gilbert gasped.

  “I thought I saw a couple of friars among the crowd who’d come to fight the fire,” Stephen said.

  “Do you mind if someone takes over for me?” Gilbert panted. “I’m nearly at the end of my rope. I’m sorry, my lady, but you seem to have gained twelve stone in just the time it’s taken to come this far.”

  James took Gilbert’s place. Shortly they reached the crossroad before Galdeford Gate. They descended to the ditch and went round the town the way they had come. Linney Gate was not barred or latched when they reached it, as though the watch never ventured down College Lane to check it during rounds. Margaret went ahead, followed by Walter and James carrying Olivia, then Gilbert. Stephen paused at the gate while the others hurried the few steps to the front door of Baynard House. He nodded to himself, drew the gate shut, but did not slide the bar into place.

  When Stephen reached the hall, he found Gilbert sunk into a chair. The boy Tad was sitting in another with his hands and ankles tied. The groom who had been set to watch him had fallen asleep in the master’s high-backed chair. Stephen cut Tad loose and led him to the front door.

  “You can go now,” Stephen told him.

  “What’s happened?” the boy asked suspiciously as he stepped into the street.

  “There’s been a fire at your house. The shed burned. Your father will be wanting you.” Stephen tossed him his knife. “You can get out Linney gate. Just be sure to shut it behind you.”

  “Asshole,” the boy spat and ran off toward the gate.

  Stephen returned to the hall, climbed the stairs and went down the hallway to Olivia’s bedroom. A manservant was posted outside the door, who said, “Sir, Lady Margaret left strict orders — no one’s to go in.”

  “That doesn’t apply to me,” Stephen said and brushed by him to enter the room.

  Olivia lay on a big canopied bed with the covers drawn up to her chin. Margaret was seated beside her, applying a linen compress to her bruised face, which was illuminated by a single candle flickering on the night stand by the bed. Margaret whirled and stood up at his entrance.

  “Stephen,” she said with alarm. “Olivia’s gravely hurt. She mustn’t be disturbed.”

  “She needs to tell what she told Clement,” Stephen said grimly. “I need to know. Now.”

  “I can’t allow it. I’m sorry.” Margaret balled her fists. “You must wait — at least till morning. Let h
er have her rest, I beg you.”

  There was a commotion at the door. It swung open. Walter appeared momentarily then stepped back and a thin, pinch-faced man in a black cloak entered, followed closely by a very short and very broad woman also in a black cloak but carrying a wooden box by a leather strap, an herbalist by the look of her.

  “Ah, the physician,” exclaimed Margaret. “Stephen, he’s going to examine her now.” She put a hand on his arm and pulled his head down to reach his ear. The lilac scent of her perfume made him giddy, despite his fatigue. She whispered, “She may have been violated.”

  It was a pointed demand for privacy. In the face of these requests, Stephen didn’t feel he could object. He would have to wait until morning. He retreated to the hall, kicked the sleeping groom awake and confiscated the chair. Brooding, he tossed another split of oak on the fire. If Olivia had told Clement anything useful, morning might be too late to learn what it was and to profit from it himself. But there was nothing he could do about that.

  Sometime later, he awoke to the gentle brush of a soft hand on his face and the scent of lilac. Margaret was leaning over him. Her hair had been taken down and fell over her shoulders in a heart-stopping tumble. The hall seemed to be empty, except for the two of them.

  “Come to bed, Stephen,” she smiled. “I know you’re tired.”

  Taking his hand, she led him upstairs to her room.

  They made love again that morning after they woke up and bathed each other in the basin. Margaret had never had a man bathe her before. The water brought by one of the servants was only warm rather than hot and the wash cloth raised goose pimples on her perfect skin. She grasped his shoulders, shuddering as he cleaned her stomach, buttocks, between her legs, and her thighs. She returned the favor eagerly, then drew him into bed once more. They did not leave the room till after the normal time for breakfast.

  On the way down to the hall, Margaret paused at Olivia’s room and went in. She did not let him follow. Stephen caught a glimpse of the short broad woman seated in a chair by the bed, and Olivia’s pale, mottled face in the midst of the brown blossom of her hair, which was sprayed across the pillows. It was so neatly arranged that he was sure someone had combed it during the night. Then Margaret shut the door. She came out a quarter hour later to report that Olivia was sleeping and should not yet be disturbed.