by April Taylor
Luke forced himself to smile. “I can see we shall make a merry party.”
The two men stayed only a few minutes longer, and Luke could not help noticing how much Corbin’s behavior had changed since Peveril entered the shop. It seemed obvious that he did not want the smooth-tongued trickster to slip through Bertila’s fingers if he would make her happy, even though Luke had taken an immediate dislike to the stranger. However, Luke soon forgot Corbin Quayne. His whole attention now was fixed on berating Pippa for her presumptuous behavior.
“How could you be so forward? Whatever got into you, girl? Your status in this house is that of a servant despite what that popinjay said. I understand he is paying court to Bertila Quayne, Corbin’s only daughter and the jewel of his eye. And, for your information, Bertila is a close friend of mine. I regard her as the sister I never had, and would not see her hurt for the world. Do not play fast and loose. I am not willing to lose a friend because of your fancies.”
Pippa bridled. “I have no intention of playing fast and loose. And as for being forward, once he looked at me, I could not seem to move my feet. I felt as stupid as I must have looked.”
“He did not seem that fascinating to me.”
“You are not a woman. Geoffrey Peveril is the handsomest man I have ever seen.”
Chapter Ten
The next morning, Luke once again headed for the Royal Mews. He had no clear idea of how to go about his mission, but common sense told him that the stables were where he should begin. He needed to get Robin Flete on his own and ask questions, but they must be couched in such a way as to not arouse any suspicion, either in Robin or whoever might overhear.
The guard was a different one and his sullen face told Luke that this deployment must be a punishment.
“How now? You look bored,” he said.
The man gave him a sharp glance, but Luke’s open smile seemed to make him relax. “You speak truly, Master, but now I am here, I must do my duty. What is your business?”
“I am the apothecary from the Outer Green and I want to speak with young Robin Flete.”
“Flete? He is not come to work this morning. I heard Master Bell cursing a while back.”
Luke’s thoughts raced. “Ah, his malady needs another dosing, I have no doubt. I hope he has not had to take to his bed. I will go and see him.”
He turned and headed for the steps at the side of the building leading to the upper story where all the boys had sleeping pads. Nobody was there. Coming back down the stairs, he hailed John Bell and asked where Robin was.
“I do not know,” the Mewsmaster said. “According to the others, he has been out all night. But if you find him, tell him that there are boys a plenty wanting a place here if he does not.”
Luke inclined his head. He wondered if Robin’s disappearance had anything to do with his comments regarding Goodwife Pitt. If so, then whoever Luke’s adversary was in this tangle, he had power, good intelligence and a long reach. Luke’s conversation with the boy the previous morning had been momentary and innocuous, but had it been enough for someone to order Robin to be silenced? Luke felt himself grow hot as fear spiked through his chest. If the boy had been killed, then Queen Anne was not one of those women prone to hysteria, seeing conspiracies everywhere, but clear-sighted enough to recognize reality when it presented itself. The faint hope Luke had entertained that her theories were smoke and mirrors vanished. He was the corn between the millstones, ripe for grinding should he make a false move.
For the first time in years, he wished he were back on the Heneage Estate in Lincolnshire playing with young Giles Heneage. Giles had been unseated in a gallop, but his foot had become entangled in the stirrups. Luke’s fast reactions had brought the pony to a swift stop and Giles was only shaken and bruised. Within days, Luke had found himself sharing Giles’s schoolroom. The two boys played together and stayed together. In public Luke played the deferential servant, but in private, they developed a deep abiding friendship. When Giles came to court, Luke accompanied him.
God did not grant the friends the chance to make their peace when they fell out about Alison, and now Pippa Garrod, already caught out in one lie and expressing partiality for Peveril, was shaping up to be just the same as her. A lying, scheming wanton.
“Master Ballard?” Luke came out of his reverie to find Bell’s frowning gaze full on him and Joss pawing at his hose.
“Ah, Master Bell. I was lost in thought. Mayhap Robin is ill. I will enquire. Come, Joss.”
The Mewsmaster grunted and walked back into the stables.
Luke had two known lines of enquiry, Gethin’s mother and Robin Flete. One of them was dead and he feared for the safety of the other. What was going on in the stables? Was Robin in danger? He hurried to the house where he had spoken to Goodwife Pitt before Gethin’s execution. He needed answers and here was as good a place to start as any.
He found Goodwife Corbet pottering in her kitchen, muttering to herself. Her greeting showed none of the volubility he had come to expect from her. The smile of welcome did not banish the shadow in her eyes. She settled him at the table with some ale and sat near the fire looking into it and away from him. Luke steered the conversation to Gethin’s mother.
“I gave the tunic to a friend in the palace who said he would try to get it to Gethin, but he did not think it would be permitted.”
“That was very good of you, Master Ballard. I know you meant kindly but it did not do her one iota of good. Ah me, poor creature. She believed in his innocence right to the end.”
“I did not find out she had died until yesterday. What happened?”
The woman’s lips pursed, but her face had paled. “It’s best left alone,” she said twisting her work-worn hands together. “She is past her pain now, in our Lord’s arms. We must leave all with God.”
Luke felt sure these were words that had been spoken to her and she’d repeated them like a catechism. He would have given much to know who had said them. He leaned forward and put his hand on her arm to calm her.
“You are right. I do feel responsible, though. I feel I failed her. Did she die here?”
“Oh, no. She was in church.”
“In church?” Luke was dumbfounded.
“Aye. The good Lord saw fit to put the poor creature out of her misery, so he took her up whilst she was at prayer.” The woman babbled on, more to herself than to Luke as she gazed into the fire, and all the time her hands twisted around each other.
Luke’s senses twitched and Joss, alert to any change in her master, stood up and placed herself in front of him. Luke found himself standing in an arched doorway. The door was ajar and this concealed him from the interior. Pushing it open he stepped forward down onto a stone floor. It was a church and he saw a woman, her head covered by a shawl, kneeling in prayer on the chancel step. Her quiet sobs echoed back to him. As he watched, a huge black hound appeared from the shadows to the right of the altar. It walked without hurry or sound to stand tall behind her. Luke saw an opaque black mist swirling to surround both dog and woman, hiding them from his view. When it cleared, the woman had fallen sideways and lay still. The hound turned and loped back into the shadows.
Luke felt the warmth of Joss’s body leaning against his legs as he came back to Goodwife Corbet’s kitchen. She was saying that in her opinion, Gethin’s mother had nothing to live for after her son’s execution and that, overcome by grief, she had gone to church and given up the ghost.
“Who found her?” Luke asked, shaking his head to clear it.
“A young woman. She fetched the Beadle. Now, when he turned Goodwife Pitt over, she looked like a wraith, with her black shawl and white twisted face. He said the sight of it sent him demons in his sleep.”
Luke leaned forward. “Did the Beadle know the young woman who found her?”
“No. Now my John,
him as works in the kitchens, he knows the Beadle, see, and he told John that when he looked up to question her, she had gone. Just like that. Slipped out when his back was turned. But he said she wore a cloak with a hood, so he don’t even know what she looks like.”
Knowing that he could gain no more from the woman and anxious to think in quiet about the scene he had witnessed in his vision, Luke left her. It seemed clear that Gethin’s mother had not died in any natural way, but proving that would be almost impossible. Although, mayhap the state of her face was a clue. He wondered how to find the maiden who had discovered the body. The best thing to do was ask John Corbet directly.
However, his main aim, and one that was beginning to assume more importance in his mind was to find young Robin Flete. Luke’s stomach was grumbling with hunger, exacerbated by the odors wafting from the palace kitchens. He needed food if he were to function effectively. He was walking across the green toward his shop when the door opened and Pippa beckoned him in.
“I thought you were never coming home,” she said.
“A problem?”
“No. A visitor.”
“Who?”
“A raggedy boy. Won’t tell me his name. I found him in the yard. Won’t speak to me. He’s in the kitchen. He needs your help. He won’t let me touch him.”
Going through to the kitchen, Luke saw a swollen bloody face beneath a mass of muddy sandy hair. The boy had squashed himself into a corner, and it took all of Luke’s discipline not to stride forward and grasp hold of him. Instead, he concentrated on talking to the lad as if he were a terrified infant.
“Robin, I thank God’s grace that I have found you. You are ill. Let me attend to your wounds. We can talk when I have physicked you and we have both eaten.”
It took some time to persuade the boy to come out of his corner. Checking first that he had no patients waiting, Luke put an arm around Robin’s shoulders and helped him into the shop. The door was open and the boy shied away from the light.
“What ails thee, lad?”
“I don’t want no one to see me.” He gazed up with such terror in his eyes that Luke called Pippa and asked her to stand outside the shop to give warning of any visitors. It might cause comment if he closed the shutter, and comment was the last thing he needed. Seeing that the boy felt more at ease, Luke hurried back to the kitchen and warmed water in a large bowl. He put this on the shop counter and added comfrey to it as well as a handful of his own concoction for wounds, containing peppermint, honey, sugar and lavender. As he bathed the boy’s injuries, he could see more evidence of ill-treatment.
“Have you upset someone, Robin? These are deep gashes.”
“You haven’t seen the worst, Master Ballard.”
“You’d better show me, boy.”
Robin threw a glance at Pippa, standing with her back to the door.
“I don’t feel safe in here,” Robin said. “Please can we go back into the kitchen?”
“I don’t treat my patients where my food is cooked. Do not worry, Pippa will give us plenty of warning. Show me.”
For answer the boy lifted his tunic. Luke looked at the welts, trying to discern any part of Robin’s body that was not a deep purple-black or red. The distinct outline of a square-toed boot stood out on one cheek of the boy’s buttocks.
“What in God’s name happened?”
“Some men set on me, said I’d been prattling when I should learn to keep my mouth shut. Said that if I ever spoke again of things and people that don’t concern me, they would know and it would be the worse for me.”
“Did they say what you should keep quiet about?”
“They knew I’d spoken to you about Gethin’s mother.”
“Would you know them again?”
“No, it was in the dark down by the stables. I’d sneaked out to see Meg...”
Pippa came back into the shop, saying nothing, but gesticulating over her shoulder with her thumb. Hearing the tramp of feet, Luke thrust the boy into a dark corner as far away from the door as possible and pulled some gallipots across. Joss curled up in front of where the boy was hiding. By the time a tall, dark yeoman guard entered, Pippa had vanished into the kitchen and Luke was mixing an ointment. The man stood, hands on hips, his sharp eyes flicking round the shop.
“Good morrow, can I aid you?” Luke asked looking up with the pestle in his hand.
“I am Captain Byram Creswell, of His Majesty’s guard. We hunt a thief.”
“Well you won’t find one here,” Luke said, putting the ointment in a jar. “Not unless he has a headache or some other ailment.”
Creswell walked up to the counter. “We know you spoke to Robin Flete yesterday. What was your business at the stables, Master Apothecary?”
“I wanted to see Goodwife Pitt.”
“Why?”
“Because the last time I saw her, she seemed disordered in her wits and I thought she would benefit from some of my medicines.”
“Disordered? In what way?”
Luke put the pestle down and frowned at the man. “How do you imagine your wits would be if you were a mother and your son was about to hang?” he asked in a quiet voice.
The man nodded, looking slightly abashed. “We know that women get these strange fancies. What did she say to you?”
Luke dared not keep anything back. “She had a tunic of the boy’s that she wanted him to wear for his execution. She asked me to send it to him.”
“And?”
“And I knew there was no chance, but she was in such a pitiable state, so I promised to take it to a friend in the palace and see if he could get it to the boy.”
“It is a fortunate thing that I know you are telling the truth.”
“Why should I lie?” Luke looked down at the man’s hand. “You’ve a deep gash there that needs attention, Captain.”
“It’ll mend. We know your sympathies were with the traitor Pitt. Tread carefully, Master Apothecary. And if you see our thief, the same Robin Flete you spoke to yesterday, send word to the guardhouse immediately. One of the royal harnesses and a saddle are missing from the stables, and now he is missing too.”
“And you have proof that it was Flete who took them?”
Creswell gave him a sharp look. “What proof do we need when he has gone on the run?”
Chapter Eleven
Luke waited until he was sure the man had truly gone before he put down the pestle and dared peer out of the door. Nobody in sight. He went into the corner where Robin hid. Joss skipped to the door and sat in the entrance.
“You can come out now—he’s left.”
The boy struggled to his feet. “I never stole no tack,” he said before he was upright. “That’s a lie.”
Luke, staring into the boy’s clear eyes, believed him.
“So why do you think they chose to make you the scapegoat?”
“Don’t know.”
“Think. Did you speak to anyone yesterday you don’t see every day, and if so, who could have been listening?”
“Only you, and anyone could have heard that, or the guard could have spoken of it.”
“Sound logic. So, you spoke to nobody else?”
“No.” The boy frowned. “Us boys’ve talked about Gethin amongst ourselves, but not to outsiders.” He paused, looking askance at Luke. “You’re an outsider,” he added.
“Yes, and if you were beaten because of me, then I feel responsible for keeping you safe. I think that first of all, we need to finish cleaning you up. Some of those wounds will fester if we do not. Go back into the corner. I will return shortly.” Luke stayed long enough to make sure the boy was hidden from view. Then, clicking his fingers to Joss, he went through to the kitchen, where Pippa was busy with the pot hanging over the fire. He beckoned to her. “What are you cook
ing?”
“Eel pie.”
“I have a fancy for carp today.”
“We don’t have any carp.”
“We will if you go and buy some. Here.” He handed her some coins. “I have a fancy for it baked with spices and garnished with bay leaves. Hurry—otherwise it will all be gone.”
“Where’s the boy?”
“Apparently, he has stolen from the royal stables and is on the run. As soon as the guards left, he legged it before I could stop him.”
“Idiot child. Do you think they will catch him?”
“I hope to God they do not. He would be bound to tell them that I had hidden him. It wouldn’t be only Flete in the Tower. I’d be in the next cell and you wouldn’t be far away, either. Go and buy the fish.”
He waited until she had grumbled her way out of the kitchen through the backyard before bringing Robin in from the shop.
“We must make haste,” Luke said. “Pippa will not be long. She is not one to stand gossiping.”
He spent as much time as he dared cleaning the rest of Robin’s wounds, finally anointing them with arnica. Then he rummaged round and found an old cotte and hose. “Here, put these on. There’s an apple store in the orchard beyond the east side of the palace. They will have cleaned it out ready for this year’s crop, so nobody should go in there for another month at least. Hide up today. Sleep. I must try to think of how to get you away from here.”
Luke hacked a chunk from the ravelled and gave it to Robin with some cold roast mutton, and filled a stone bottle with ale. “This will have to keep you going for now. Whatever happens, talk to no one. We need to get to the bottom of this, which we cannot do unless you are a secret from everyone. If questioned, I will say that I discovered you hiding and you ran off before I could tell the guards. Keep up your courage. I will come to you tonight, but it will be late so do not fret.”
He opened the back door into the small yard and strolled to the gate. There was nobody in sight, so he gestured to the boy peeping round the door.
