“Do you accuse my son of killing that boy?” asked Mistress Langham of the constable, her voice rising in pitch. “Because of what I just told you? Bennett was not angry at finding Rodge Anwicke. We were all merely saddened that our family continues to be so despised. He would not revenge himself upon a child!”
“Your son may answer for himself, madam,” he replied calmly. “Provide an explanation for what you were doing that evening, Master Langham. If it confirms your innocence, I shall leave you in peace.”
Margery started to cry. Bess wrapped an arm around her and tugged her close. Joan watched them both with dread in her eyes.
Bennett lifted his chin. “I was that man your witness saw.”
“No, Bennett,” exclaimed his mother. “What do you mean by saying this?”
“Where did you ride from?” asked Constable Harwoode. “The ruins?”
Bennett, his body held stiffly, focused on the far wall. “No.”
“Then from where?”
“I am not free to say.”
Whom did he protect, wondered Bess, feeling Margery’s quiet sobs shudder through her body.
“And the Tuesday last, the day that Fulke Crofton died—”
“He was at Langham Hall. With me,” interrupted Mistress Langham. “As I have told Mistress Ellyott.”
The constable gave Bess a displeased look. “Master Langham, are there any others who can vouch for your presence at the hall that day?”
“A servant, mayhap, but would she be called upon to speak on my behalf at a trial?” he asked. “I doubt so. If you feel there is enough proof of my guilt, Constable, then I must submit.”
“Do not say these things, Bennett!” cried Margery. She tried to tug free of Bess’s grasp, but Bess held tight. “He will arrest you. Do not do this!”
The constable’s sober gaze passed over those assembled. He did not appear to welcome the task before him.
“I must arrest you, Master Langham,” he said, taking Bennett’s arm. His mother sobbed loudly. “I accuse you of the murder of Rodge Anwicke and the suspicion that you had a hand in the death of Fulke Crofton.”
* * *
“How can it be Master Langham, Mistress?” asked Joan, perched on a stool to tend Bess’s bruised wrist. “I have always imagined him a good man, but it seems he conceals the truth.”
“Lucy told me Bennett had a fierce argument with Fulke not long before he died,” said Bess, seated in Robert’s chair before the low fire in the hall hearth.
Shortly after a stony-faced Constable Harwoode had marched Bennett out of the house and down the road toward the town’s jail, his cousin had arrived to take Mistress Langham back to her home. The woman, whom Bess had thought unvanquished by Master Topcliffe, had looked diminished, frail, and old as she had leaned against Master Harwoode. She had insisted upon returning to Langham Hall well before Bess thought it wise. But to stay longer would bring more unwelcome attention and gossip upon the household, most likely in the form of the neighbor across the street. The first to speak good. The first to speak ill.
Margery had run upstairs to pace the chamber she borrowed and to cry. Bess could provide no comfort to her niece, and her own heart ached.
She held still as Joan finished winding brown paper coated with Bess’s black soap mixture around her wrist. “I cannot believe, though, that he would have actually killed my brother-in-law.”
Mistaken again, perhaps. Martin, when shall I learn?
“But he would not say where he had been,” said Joan, tying a strip of linen around the paper to hold it in place. “If he is not guilty, why did he not give a full accounting, Mistress? He must have killed that boy and attacked you. And possibly also killed Master Crofton.”
Bess met her gaze. “He protects someone. Unfortunately, I am forced to presume he protects the vagrant.”
“Recusants, then. Loyal to their religion above all else.” Joan rose. “Mayhap it is as well that Mistress Margery cannot hope to wed him any longer. The Langhams are dangerous to associate with.” She nodded at Bess’s injured wrist. “As you yourself have learned.”
A noise came from the entry passage, and Dorothie pushed wide the hall door and charged into the room. Quail, who had been sleeping near the front entrance, barked at her arrival but did not follow her. The dog had never taken to Dorothie.
“Did you not hear my knock?” She brushed water from the sleeveless woolen robe she had pulled over her fern-green gown. “The news is everywhere. So it is Bennett Langham who is the guilty one. As I could have told Margery. She thinks too well of him. A Langham. I suppose she is distressed.”
“She is. Joan, fetch wine for us,” said Bess, sending her servant away.
Dorothie eyed Bess’s bound wrist. “And this is what has happened to you because of them. Interrogated by Master Topcliffe.” She dropped onto the settle, cleared of the mattress Mistress Langham had reclined upon. “What did he want with you? Were you badly injured?”
“Based upon a rumor murmured into Master Enderby’s ear, Master Topcliffe wanted me to provide evidence that the Langhams continue to support the Catholic cause and harbor a priest. As for injuries …” Bess lifted her wrist. “This is the worst of it.”
“A rumor? Master Topcliffe had no cause to single you out when everyone knows this about them.” Dorothie eyed Bess. “Unless you do have particular evidence against the Langhams.”
She had a great deal of evidence, if one wished to make chains from links. The sight of a brown-robed stranger upon a staircase. A glimpse of the fellow near the plague house. The miller’s description, which matched that man—that vaporous spirit—and called him a priest.
However, uncertainty kept Bess from telling all she knew to Dorothie, who would happily forge the chain that would drag all the Langhams to prison to rot.
“It matters not what I think, Dorothie, as Master Topcliffe’s men found no indication they are hiding a priest now,” said Bess. “But it seems Fulke suspected they once again did. Mistress Langham has said that he hired Rodge Anwicke to spy upon them.”
“What? After Fulke’s death, she continues to defame him? Fulke never once mentioned hiring that cottager’s boy. She lies,” said Dorothie. “My poor, dead husband. Both he and that lad murdered. What manner of evil stalks this town? I thought it so peaceful here.”
So had Bess.
Dorothie exhaled a shuddering breath. “Forsooth, Elizabeth, what shall we tell Robert when he returns?”
“As little as possible.”
“That woman he hopes to wed will not wish to be associated with our family should she hear of this,” said Dorothie. “At last, though, Fulke can be placed in the churchyard as is proper. And I might be able to mourn him without shame.”
“I have not heard that the coroner has changed his ruling.”
“He is away at an inquest, I am told. Once he returns, he shall. Now that Bennett has been arrested. The churchwarden believes so, for his men ceased removing my goods and left my house not a quarter hour ago. The thieves.” She leaned toward Bess. “I told you I feared that they had pocketed coins. Well, I have indeed discovered that two pounds, three shillings are missing from Fulke’s money coffer. Master Enderby’s men have tallied how much it held, but the amount they claim does not match that recorded in Fulke’s recent ledgers.”
“Mayhap Fulke took the money with him to Devizes.”
Joan returned with the malmsey, which she served before once again leaving.
Dorothie set her glass upon a nearby stool. “He would not take so great a sum. Not when he planned to be gone but a few hours and needed no more money than that required to buy a meal at an inn. Five or six pence at most, Elizabeth.”
“You should show the ledgers to Master Enderby and demand a repayment,” said Bess. Would he comply? Bess no longer trusted the man.
“They also eyed my silver spoons. This is how little we can trust those in authority over this town,” she said, echoing Bess’s unspoken opinion.
“That one as well. No better.” Dorothie shook her head. “Oh, Fulke. Such enemies you made.”
Bess contemplated her sister, who had taken up her wine and sipped it. “I do wish I knew who whispered that rumor to Master Enderby.”
Dorothie cast a glance about the hall, empty now save for them. Visible through the rear-facing windows, the wavy form of Humphrey moved across the courtyard. In the service rooms, Joan was talking to Quail. “Eyes and ears and petty jealousies everywhere, Elizabeth. Even within our own households.”
“I cannot mistrust my servants, Dorothie.”
She arched an eyebrow. “Perhaps it would be wise to start.”
* * *
Kit stood in the doorway of the town jail, a circular stone building no more than eight feet across situated north of the market square. Inside, Bennett Langham slumped upon the space’s narrow wooden bench, his ankle chained to a thick bar affixed to the cold slab floor. The tiny room, which had no window apart from the barred one in the thick door, reeked of must and urine, the stench from those who’d been chained there before. Not even the rosemary that scented Langham’s clothes could mask the stink.
“Why will you not better explain yourself, Master Langham?”
Langham looked up at Kit, squinting into the light that leaked around the constable’s body. Not only did it smell inside the jail; it was dark. “All in this town think my family is guilty of some sort of crime. Why deprive them of the justice they seek?”
If Bennett Langham would not offer a story that Kit could make use of, the man’s assize trial would be swift and certain. “Do not shield the vagrant, Master Langham, if he is the reason you will not speak. Tell me where I can find him, and I will see him accused of the boy’s murder and you freed.”
“I did not answer Richard Topcliffe. I shall not answer you.”
Kit did admire the man’s bravery. Mayhap, though, it was foolishness masquerading as courage.
“You risk being accused not only of murder but of treason as well for harboring a priest. I have seen a man drawn and quartered, Master Langham. It is an unspeakably gruesome way to die.”
Langham blanched, but his gaze did not waver. “Topcliffe’s men found no evidence that we have hidden such a person. I cannot be accused based upon rumors.”
“I shall not accuse you based upon rumors, but others might.” Kit exhaled. “Here are the particulars of the accusations against you. Your father was jailed for aiding Jesuits. Upon your return home for Michaelmas, you learned that, once again, Fulke Crofton had employed Rodge Anwicke to spy upon your family. You sought vengeance upon the man you deemed responsible for your father’s death and who promised trouble once more. Therefore, you killed him and made the death appear a suicide.”
“I was angry with him. Hated him because of what he did to my father,” said Langham. “But I did not kill him. The man committed suicide.”
“There are two lines upon Crofton’s neck, one the mark of the ligature that strangled him, the other that of the rope he hung from.”
Langham did not appear so brave now. “You have seen this mark.”
“I have,” answered Kit. “You began to fear your plot was coming undone when you learned—perhaps from Margery Crofton—that Mistress Ellyott did not believe her brother-in-law had killed himself.”
He sat upright, the chains rattling as he shifted his legs. “Do not assign any fault to Margery. She is innocent.”
“It was then you decided to be rid of Rodge Anwicke, calling him to the ruins to carry out the deed,” said Kit, supposition on his part. “What I cannot decide is if you murdered Rodge to silence him because he’d discovered where you hid the vagrant, or because he’d helped you kill Crofton and you became concerned he would expose you.”
Langham said nothing, so Kit continued.
“Unluckily for you, Mistress Ellyott happened by at the moment you struck down Rodge, forcing you to attack her as well. You fled, and a woman of the village spotted you riding south toward home,” he said. “What do you say, Master Langham?”
“I would say I sound guilty, Constable,” he answered, the blood drained from his face. “God save me.”
* * *
They were walking, hand within hand, through an orchard not far from London’s boundaries. When they were first wed, they had gone there often, to escape the crowding of the city. To see green and breathe air that did not smell of refuse and the smoke from kitchen fires. They would speak of home and speak of their future. The one they would build upon their love. They had many dreams, and she would cling to Martin’s hand as if she could absorb through the touch of his skin his conviction that those dreams would all come to pass. He would not let her doubt. He would not let her whisper aloud her concerns. And she had believed him, believed in the rightness of their dreams.
But they were walking together again. She could feel his hand in hers. And Martin was speaking to her, though not about their dreams.
“Can you not see the flowers? The butterflies?” he asked.
She tried. She tried so hard, but however much she focused upon what he pointed to, she could not see. His features, too, blurred no matter how intently she stared. “I cannot see.”
“Certes, you can, Bess.” His hand clasped hers. “Do not doubt.”
She awoke with a start, the feel of Martin’s touch lingering upon her hand. She pressed her palm to her lips, but none of his warmth remained upon it.
She knew, though, what she must do that day.
She must look again. And try to see.
* * *
Bess approached the ruins of the priory and the plague house warily, feeling the chill of the wind biting through her cloak, the layers of her gown and petticoat, and smock. The cure to her blindness resided within their walls.
The old priory was nearest, and she chose to search there first, though the brown-robed stranger had not disappeared from within its walls.
She hesitated. Off to her right was where she had fallen after her attacker had struck her. Through the portal, she could see the dark-stained patch of earth where Rodge had fallen, his skull crushed. She said a swift prayer in honor of a lad even more reckless than she was being right then.
Pulling in a breath, Bess passed through the old entry and scoured the lifeless and unwelcoming surroundings. A prior no longer lived to greet the vagrant, the Jesuit, and bid him warm himself by the fire or find consolation in shared prayer. The crumbling walls and vacant windows would offer meager comfort against the wind and the autumn fogs, or the chill rains.
Bending as much as her tightly bound pair of bodies allowed, she examined packed earth that might be where a man had trod. Over there, a handful of stems wedged in a corner might have come from a berry bush and been picked clean of their fruit. Here, a white sliver could be a fragment of bone from a hasty meal of chicken. They were inadequate evidence of anyone’s presence though.
Through a break in a wall, Bess peered at scattered stands of trees, including those where Fulke had died. Highcombe Manor peeked between the baring tree branches, and if she leaned through the break, Langham Hall would come into view. If her attacker had sought refuge at the hall, he would have had to dash across harvested farmland, or through sheep- and cattle-cropped meadows lined with hedges, or down an open road hemmed in by low growth. All of which would have left him exposed to observant eyes. But the cordwainer’s wife had spied only Bennett upon horseback, his cloak streaming out behind him like a banner, no one else.
I should accept his guilt.
For Margery’s sake, though, she would persist a while longer. Until she was freed of the nagging belief she had forgotten an important clue. Or until she found an earthly explanation for how the vagrant managed so often to elude detection.
Bess left the ruins. Unsheltered by its partial walls, she felt the wind snatch at her cloak. Nearby, a plowman coaxed h
is oxen across furrows without heed to what she was about. In the distance, a fellow walked along the highway. She would be quick in her examination of the plague house should he turn toward town, grow curious, and decide to intrude upon her attempt to discover the priest’s secret.
A skittering of leaves, tossed by the winds that blew through the gaps and breaks in the roofless walls, greeted her.
Stepping across the threshold, Bess sought to remember precisely where she’d last seen the brown-robed stranger. She had chosen to first examine the parlor at her right but then had heard a noise that had drawn her toward the opening between the two main rooms. The room on her left had been the kitchen, the melted remains of pewter and charred earthenware pots indicating its past purpose. But he had not been there, once again slipping from sight.
She recalled Fulke’s description of the priest hole at Langham Hall. Such a device was what she sought now. A hidden slot cut into a thick wall, like the one that abutted the brick hearth and chimney that still stood tall in the center of the building.
“Come out!” Bess shouted before she proceeded any deeper into the house.
There was no answering sound or movement.
Placing each step carefully, to not twist her ankle again, Bess made her way into the kitchen. If the fellow did leap at her from a hiding place, it would be difficult to escape the building, as it was littered with rubble. She consoled herself that the rubble meant it would also be difficult for him to give chase.
But a man who could vanish with the ease of mist turning to air might have other curious skills.
“Do not be dull-witted, Bess.” And do not turn this man into some fantastical creature.
Gathering clouds threaded across the morning sun, dimming the light and making it difficult to see as clearly as she would like. With the toe of her shoe, she prodded at timbers that did not yield. Bess hiked her skirts and stepped around what appeared to be the remains of a narrow bed—a servant’s, perhaps, or a child’s—and wondered what had happened to the family who had once lived there. Had they died in the fire? Or had they already been dead and the fire set to consume their polluted bodies in order to safeguard the other villagers?
Searcher of the Dead Page 21
