by S. D. Sykes
‘What are you doing here?’ I asked.
Mother huffed. ‘We’re coming to Somershill, of course.’
‘But why?’
‘The vapours. Versey is no place to raise a child. How many times have I said so? The castle should be rebuilt upon the hill. But no, it remains in the bottom of the valley, like a stone sucker swimming in the mud of the river.’
I looked over Mother’s shoulder to see a wooden cradle being shaken about the carriage like a ship at sea. ‘Is Henry in there?’ I asked.
‘Where else would he be, Oswald? Riding the second horse with a whip in his hand?’
‘You should have warned me that you were returning,’ I said.
She shook her head and began to retie the bow, in order to mark the end of our conversation, but I stuck my hand against the flap before she had a chance to fasten it completely. ‘How long are you staying, Mother?’
‘As long as we please, Oswald. As long as we please.’
I galloped back to the house to break the unwelcome news to Gilbert that Somershill would soon become filled with even more guests – a piece of information he greeted with the same enthusiasm as a boy being sent to vespers. Gilbert would round up some women from the village who we used occasionally for serving at table. I also suggested that this might be a good time to bring young Geoffrey into the house, though this proposal was greeted with a loud puff. Gilbert shuffled away into the great hall, muttering curses under his breath and twisting his finger into his ear.
I waited for the arrival of the carriage by the main door, and when Clemence stepped down, I offered her my hand. ‘Welcome back to Somershill, Clemence,’ I said, but she only smiled thinly in return.
Mother held out her hand to me. ‘Clemence has been sick all the way here, Oswald. The jolting and jarring of this carriage is enough to shake the bones of a bull.’ As I helped Mother put her feet to the ground, she leant against me and whispered in my ear. ‘And your sister will insist upon feeding the child herself, though she is making herself quite the drab donkey. She needn’t think about taking another husband. Nobody would look at her.’
Clemence wrapped her coat about her neck. ‘Be quiet Mother. I can hear everything you’re saying.’
Mother threw up her hands. ‘For goodness sake, Clemence. Why don’t you let Oswald find a wet nurse?’
Clemence ran her hands across her face and pushed the hair from her eyes. ‘I’m feeding Henry myself, Mother. How many times must I tell you?’
‘But there must be a nursing mother in this village.’ She turned to me. ‘Isn’t there, Oswald?’
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘What about that woman?’
‘Which woman?’
Now she scowled. ‘You know. The one whose child was murdered by that bird thing.’
I grimaced. ‘God’s nails, Mother. What a suggestion!’
‘Oh tush, Oswald! Don’t be so sentimental. Her milk won’t have dried up yet. And the woman might welcome the money.’
Clemence swept her cloak about her and strode towards the door. ‘I am not using the mother of a dead baby to feed my child. Do you understand?’
Mother raised her eyes to the sky and once again spoke in one of her perfectly audible whispers. ‘You see what I have had to contend with, Oswald? My nerves are spun to a thread.’ Then she grasped my arm. ‘Have you found that bird yet? I know how you like to investigate.’
I led her towards the door. ‘No, Mother. Because I’m not looking for a bird.’
Her face fell a little, and she poked a bony finger into my side. ‘Then I think you’d better get on with it, Oswald. Before it steals baby Henry from under our noses.’
Mother and Clemence climbed the spiral staircase from the great hall to the solar, closely followed by Humbert, who held the wooden cradle in his arms. I stopped Humbert in order to look upon baby Henry. The child’s cheeks were as round and red as two old pearmain apples, and a shock of black hair poked out from his knitted bonnet like a tuft of badger fur. As we watched Henry, the baby began to stir a little, so Humbert stroked his great paw of a hand against the boy’s head and tucked in his blanket, with a tenderness that was touching to watch.
‘Has he slept all the way here?’ I asked.
Humbert nodded and then lifted the cradle away, just as we heard Clemence’s voice at the top of the stairs. ‘Why is the ladies’ bedchamber locked, Oswald?’
‘I don’t know,’ I shouted back up to her, and then immediately remembered why. Gilbert must have bolted Mary and Rebecca into the room, just as I had suggested.
‘Wait a moment,’ I called to Clemence. ‘I’ll find Gilbert and get him to open the door.’ But Gilbert was nowhere to be found.
In the end I climbed the stone steps to find my sister pulling at the door of her chamber. ‘Is there somebody in there, Oswald?’ she asked me, curtly.
‘Yes. Mary and Becky.’ Clemence’s face fell.
‘Where else do you expect them to sleep?’ I asked. ‘They’re ladies. And this is the ladies’ bedchamber.’
She frowned. ‘Why are they locked in?’
I was reluctant to answer this, but it was pointless to lie. ‘They were misbehaving this morning, so I asked Gilbert to shut them in their room for a while.’
Her eyes flashed. ‘You should have locked them in the cellar.’
‘That’s what I said, my lady.’ We turned to see Gilbert standing behind us. I had not heard his approach and his words nearly made me jump.
‘Well I didn’t want to do that,’ I said. ‘It’s cruel.’
‘You’re too soft, Oswald,’ said my sister. We moved aside for Gilbert to open the door with a large iron key, but Clemence suddenly placed her hand upon his. ‘What’s that I can hear? They’re saying something.’
I would say Gilbert seemed a little awkward. He even gave a rare laugh. ‘You don’t want to listen to their cursing and calling, my lady. Nasty little things, they are. No better than a pair of screeching jackdaws.’
Clemence didn’t take this advice. Instead she shouldered the servant aside and put her ear to the door, although she hardly needed to, since we could all now hear exactly what the young girls were shouting. For the purposes of this account I will not repeat the exact wording of their foul language and uncouth insults. It should only be known that they were naming intimate parts of Clemence’s person and claiming that they smelt as bad as a stall at Rye fish market.
Clemence screwed her face in rage before she grasped the key from Gilbert’s hand and opened the door herself. But if we were expecting the girls to be cowering in the corner and waiting for their punishment, we were to be disappointed. As soon as the door was flung open, the two imps sprang past us at speed, raced down the stairs, and shot out through the back porch, bounding across the grass like a pair of startled rabbits.
Once again I turned to find Gilbert at my shoulder. He held his favourite club in his hands. ‘Would you like me to take some men and hunt them down?’
I shook my head.
‘You sure, sire?’
‘Just leave them. They’ll come back when they’re hungry.’
Mary and Rebecca de Caburn did not return, however. And by nightfall I was becoming increasingly worried by their absence. The sisters had not eaten anything since breakfast, having been locked in the ladies’ bedchamber from late morning. Gilbert admitted, a little shamefacedly, that he had not thought to take them a piece of bread and a mug of ale during their imprisonment. It was, at least, comforting to be informed that two loaves and a dried sausage were missing from the kitchen – a crime that was soundly blamed upon the sisters.
That evening I left the house with three servants, and we walked the fields and the nearby purlieu calling repeatedly for the girls to return. But if they heard us, they did nothing to come forward, though I repeatedly promised, at the top of my voice, that they would not be punished for their mischief. The night was brutally cold and a sharp frost was already settling upon the naked
branches of the trees. As my feet crunched across the frozen grass of the meadow, I tried to imagine the two girls, holed up somewhere warm and safe, laughing at their own daring – but instead the fear that they were cold and hungry came repeatedly to my mind. It didn’t matter how naughty and insolent the sisters had been, Mary and Becky were still the daughters of a nobleman, and should not be living in the forest like two little pucks. And then a darker thought crossed my mind. There was a child murderer on my estate, at just the moment I had managed to lose two children.
I made my way home as we gave up on the search for the night, taking my place beside the fire in the solar. At least there was one small mercy to be grateful for. John Barrow had ceased his wailing. In fact there had been no sound from the north-west tower for most of the day. When I asked Gilbert the reason behind this silence, my servant revealed, somewhat sheepishly, that he had given the man one of Agnes Salt’s sleeping potions. While I didn’t openly approve of this scheme, it had allowed a welcome peace to descend upon the house. A peace that was soon ruined, however, by the screaming bellows of Clemence’s baby son.
I stared into the fire and listened to the conversation from the ladies’ bedchamber next door, where Mother, Clemence and Humbert tried to settle Henry. The low mumble of Mother’s words of advice seeped easily through the thin wooden wall, accompanied by Clemence’s continual rebuffs to any of her suggestions. No, she wouldn’t stuff a brandy-soaked rag into Henry’s mouth. No, she wouldn’t bind Henry in furs and let him sleep outside. And no, not under any circumstances, would she allow Mother to send for her physician Roger de Waart.
As I began to close my eyes, there was a nervous knock at the door and young Geoffrey Hayward entered, holding a tankard of ale. He walked over to me with such care that he might have been carrying a vial of the virgin’s milk.
‘So Gilbert has found you some employment?’ I said.
He carefully placed the ale down on the table beside me and then bowed. ‘Thank you, sire. I am so grateful for this opportunity.’
I held up my hand, in case the boy was about to launch into one of his long speeches. ‘Do exactly as Gilbert tells you, Geoffrey. Keep on his good side and don’t get in his way.’
‘I will do, sire. Thank you for your wise advice.’ He bowed again. ‘Is there anything else I might do for you?’
‘No. Go to bed now. You will have an early start in the morning.’ He had nearly reached the door when I called him. A thought had just occurred to me. ‘Geoffrey. Come back a moment.’
‘Yes, sire.’
‘Was it you who raised Father Luke in the middle of the night? So that Catherine Tulley might be baptised?’
Even in this light I could see that the colour drained from his face. ‘Yes. That was me.’
‘You’re not in trouble,’ I said, in an attempt to reassure him. ‘I’m just curious. Why did you go to the priest’s house? You’re not part of the Tulley family.’
He relaxed a little. ‘I run errands for people about the village, sire. They give me a farthing, or even a half-penny, if they’re pleased with me. I wasn’t doing anything wrong.’
I took a sip of ale and studied the boy’s face. ‘Tell me the exact message you were given.’
He scratched his head. ‘I was to tell Father Luke that he must come straight away. To baptise baby Catherine. As she was near death.’
‘Did you see the child yourself?’
‘No. Thomas Tulley called me over from the street, and we spoke at their door. I didn’t go inside their cottage.’
Geoffrey shifted from foot to foot, as I took another long sip of ale. ‘What were you doing outside the Tulleys’ cottage in the middle of the night? You don’t live on the Long Ditch.’
He froze. ‘I can’t remember.’
I cocked my head. ‘That’s a feeble excuse, isn’t it?’
He was beginning to shake. ‘No. It’s the truth sire.’
I put down the ale and stared at his young face. ‘I think you’d better remember. Don’t you Geoffrey?’
Now he trembled from the knees. ‘It wasn’t my idea, sire. Felix Pavenham made me do it.’
‘Made you do what?’
He wiped an anxious tear from his cheek. ‘He wanted me to write some words on their neighbour’s door.’
‘What words?’
He blubbered something inaudible, so I made him repeat it. ‘He wanted me to write that Abigail Wolfenden is a whore.’
I rolled my eyes, for no doubt this transgression would be brought before the next manorial court, accompanied by an abundance of emotional recriminations. ‘Why did Felix want you to do that?’
‘He can’t write himself.’
This story made me want to laugh, but I repressed a smile. ‘It’s not a good use of your education, is it Geoffrey?’
Now he sobbed. ‘I know, sire. I shouldn’t have done it.’ His tears flowed liberally.
‘But he paid you, I suppose?’
He nodded and continued to cry, so I let this outburst blow itself out, before continuing my questioning. There were elements of Geoffrey’s story that still were not clear in my mind. ‘I need you to think back to the moment that Tulley called you over, Geoffrey.’ He stiffened again. ‘Was it definitely Thomas who asked you to raise the priest? Not his wife?’
‘I could see Mistress Tulley,’ the snivelling boy told me. ‘She was calling from behind Thomas. She said to make sure the priest knew how ill Catherine was.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me about this before?’
Geoffrey only bit his lip and threatened to recommence his sobbing.
‘You should have mentioned it, Geoffrey.’
He looked to his feet and let his shoulders drop. ‘I’m sorry, sire. I just didn’t think it was important.’
With the boy gone, I was finally alone in the solar, watching the flames as they crackled and spat in the hearth. The light of a wax candle made shadows dance upon the wall, while a draught picked at the corners of a tapestry, forcing its way behind the cloth and causing it to billow out occasionally into the room, like a bed sheet in the wind. I pulled my cloak about me, since it was too cold to remove the garment, and leant back against the stone of the wall. The ale that Geoffrey had delivered was flavoured with cinnamon and mace and was pleasant on this miserable evening. Whilst I sipped at its warmth, I only hoped Mary and Rebecca were somewhere that was safe and dry, with their stolen sausage and pieces of stale bread.
I dozed for a while, and then woke to find Clemence had come into the room. ‘Where’s Mother?’ I asked when she had settled down on another chair.
Clemence closed her eyes and heaved the weariest of sighs. ‘Mother won’t leave Humbert alone with Henry, as she doesn’t think we should allow a servant to sleep in the ladies’ bedchamber.’
‘It is unusual, Clemence. Does he stay in there all night?’
She opened one eye. ‘He can stay there, if I want him to. Henry likes to sleep in his arms.’
‘And you allow that?’
Now both eyes opened and she sat forward. ‘If it means that my son is contented, then I don’t object.’When I didn’t answer, she leant against the back of her chair and stared at the ceiling. ‘I feel safer with Humbert in the room. We don’t want any more children to disappear, do we, Oswald? Another two lost today.’
I ignored her sarcasm. ‘I just hope the girls are safe.’
Clemence sighed. ‘They will be fine, Oswald. Mary and Becky are as feral as wildcats.’ She looked over to me and attempted a smile. ‘Tomorrow they will run back here, with ripped gowns and muddy feet.’
I wished Clemence’s confidence could have reassured me, but it didn’t. Instead we sat in silence for many minutes while I tried to forget about the girls – but the stillness of the room only served to shake another shadow from the corner of my mind. Something that had been lurking there since my visit to the priest that morning.
My legs must have been fidgeting, since Clemence let out the sort of gro
an she used to emit when we had shared a bed as children. If I had been sitting any closer, she might even have thumped me. ‘What’s troubling you, Oswald?’ She held out her hand for my mug of ale.
I passed her the ale. ‘I had an odd conversation today.That’s all. It disturbed me a little.’
‘What sort of conversation?’ she asked.
‘I was visiting Father Luke, to ask him some questions about the murder.’ I hesitated. ‘The priest suddenly mentioned Brother Peter to me. For no reason.’
Clemence cocked her head slightly. ‘Why Would Father Luke say such a thing?’
I coughed to clear my throat and tried to settle my unfaithful voice. ‘He claims to have known Peter from years ago. At Rochester. He even asked me if I missed the man.’
‘And do you?’
I wiped my face and rubbed my eyes. ‘Of course I don’t.’
Clemence yawned. ‘As it happens I’ve also been asking around about Brother Peter.’ Her nonchalant delivery did not soften the blow of this disclosure.
I sat up in my chair. ‘You have? Why?’
She hesitated. ‘To see if he still lives.’
This was unwelcome news. ‘Peter died, Clemence.You threw a pan of boiling water over his face.’
‘Where is his body then?’
‘Probably in the forest. He could not have survived such injuries.’
Clemence stared at me for a few moments. I felt the weight of her eyes upon my cheeks. ‘But you wish he was alive. Don’t you?’
I turned away so that she could not see my face. ‘Of course not. Don’t say such things. I hate him.’
Clemence touched my arm. ‘I know you have inconstant feelings about the man, Oswald.’
‘Well I don’t wish he was alive,’ I said, pushing her away. ‘You’re wrong about that.’
Clemence tried again, but this time she caught my hand in a firm grip that I could not throw off. ‘I think he still lives, Oswald.’
‘You’re wrong.’
‘Perhaps so. Perhaps not.’
‘And what if he is alive? What would you do if you found him? Try to kill him again?’
