by Alys Clare
Contents
Cover
Recent Titles by Alys Clare from Severn House
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Recent Titles by Alys Clare from Severn House
The Gabriel Taverner Series
A RUSTLE OF SILK
THE ANGEL IN THE GLASS
The Aelf Fen Series
OUT OF THE DAWN LIGHT
MIST OVER THE WATER
MUSIC OF THE DISTANT STARS
THE WAY BETWEEN THE WORLDS
LAND OF THE SILVER DRAGON
BLOOD OF THE SOUTH
THE NIGHT WANDERER
THE RUFUS SPY
The Hawkenlye Series
THE PATHS OF THE AIR
THE JOYS OF MY LIFE
THE ROSE OF THE WORLD
THE SONG OF THE NIGHTINGALE
THE WINTER KING
A SHADOWED EVIL
THE DEVIL’S CUP
THE ANGEL IN THE GLASS
Alys Clare
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
First published in Great Britain and the USA 2018 by
SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of
Eardley House, 4 Uxbridge Street, London W8 7SY
This eBook edition first published in 2018 by Severn House Digital
an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited
Trade paperback edition first published
in Great Britain and the USA 2018 by
SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD
Copyright © 2018 by Alys Clare.
The right of Alys Clare to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8804-4 (cased)
ISBN-13: 978-1-84751-930-6 (trade paper)
ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-984-8 (e-book)
Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.
This ebook produced by
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for Sue and David White,
bibliophiles,
in celebration of a quarter of a century of friendship.
ONE
Summer 1604
On a warm June evening of long, quiet daylight, I left my house and, with my big black ginger-eyebrowed dog Flynn beside me, walked down the path to wait for my sister. Celia had gone visiting, as she often did, and would be coming home soon. She knew I worried about her being out alone after dark – an elder brother’s right – and, although my anxiety clearly irked her, she endured it with no more comment than an occasional irritated sigh.
Few people could put as many unspoken words into an irritated sigh as my sister.
It was only a little over a year since she had been widowed, under the most terrible circumstances, and I found it hard to persuade myself that her apparently miraculous recovery was as wholehearted as she made it appear. But that, as Celia would have robustly reminded me, was her business.
I had reached the place where the path up to the house met the track that wound its way along beside the Tavy river. I went over to the grassy bank and sat down, my back against one of the big old oak trees that stand either side of the path. Flynn was off on pursuits of his own – sniffing out cony trails, probably – and the soft silence fell around me like a silky sheet.
It was good to have these moments to myself. The day – bright sunshine after a misty start – had been busy, not to say hectic, and now was the first chance I’d had to think. And I wanted to think, for in the space of the past fortnight two disturbing events had occurred. My instinct told me they were connected, although I couldn’t for the life of me see how.
The first event had been pretty unpleasant.
Two young lads from the village – Tavy St Luke’s – had trespassed on a farmer’s land, creeping down into a tree-shaded hollow, known locally as Foxy Dell, on the boundary of the property. If they’d had the sense to do it discreetly, refrain from causing damage and not steal anything, the farmer would probably have been none the wiser and no harm would have been done. But the lads – they were brothers, and aged about nine and seven – hadn’t had that sort of sense. They’d come flying home from their adventure, yelling about having found buried treasure – ‘Jewels of every colour, some big as your fist, all shiny and gleaming in the sunshine!’ – and bragging about how they’d enlarged the hole in the bank to get a better look and picked up a couple of the jewels to bring home to show their mates.
The farmer caught up with them just as they reached the village and the safety of their own front door. He’d heard their excited jabbering and he had a good idea of where they’d been and what they’d been up to. He caught hold of them by the worn fabric of their collars, tried to grab back what they’d stolen from the cavity in the dell’s side and then set about them, trying to lam into both of them at once and yelling that if he caught them on his land again he’d paddle their arses for them so hard that they wouldn’t sit down for a week, and that he’d had more than enough of folks sneaking into his dell and he’d set his dogs on the next ones to try it.
In the midst of the uproar the boys’ father had shot out of the house, shoved the furious farmer off his sons and gone for him. Abandoning the small fry, the farmer had turned his attention to the father, and the resulting fight had escalated swiftly and dramatically. A sensible neighbour had thrown a bucket of cold water over them – ‘It’s what I do for randy dogs,’ she’d been heard to remark, ‘and these two are little better’ – and brought the fight to an abrupt end, although not before both participants were bruised, battered and bleeding profusely. Someone had come to fetch me and I’d done what I could, setting a broken bone in the lads’ father’s right hand and, after patching up a long cut on the farmer’s palm, informing him that the best thing to do for his splattered nose was to keep applying cold compresses and hope that when the swelling went down, he’d be able to breathe through it again.
It wasn’t that unusual for fights to break out, but this had been a savage one. And what troubled me was that it had been, really, over nothing. I wasn’t sure what the lads had excavated from the bank – the farmer had grabbed back whatever it was and hidden it before anyone else could see – but I was quite sure it wasn’t valuable and most certainly not precious jewels.
And now we were suffering the aftermath, with deep, angry
resentment between the farmer and the village – almost all the villagers sided with the lads and their father – and no opportunity missed for one side to have a snipe at the other. Other than a few servants and farm hands whose loyalty probably owed more to fear than any appreciation of their master’s finer qualities, the farmer lived alone but, big, loud, red-faced and choleric man that he was, he could shout and bluster enough for half a dozen. Moreover, he had made good his threat of letting loose his dogs and now the boundaries of his land were guarded by two huge, mastiff-like animals who were terrorizing everyone going about their business on the track that ran alongside the farmer’s land.
The villagers had asked me to have a word with the farmer and I’d tried. His nose was still spread across the lower half of his face, however, and just now he wasn’t listening to reason. I’d been going to ask Jonathan Carew, vicar of St Luke’s, Tavy St Luke’s, to try, but there was something the matter with Jonathan.
That was the second event: only the previous Sunday, the one after the fight, the vicar had had some sort of attack, for want of a better word, in the midst of his sermon. Come to think of it, attack isn’t the right word, for it implies violence and there was nothing violent, or even dramatic, about what happened, and it’s possible that those placed further back in the church observed nothing. Celia and I, however, were near the front, and both of us saw Jonathan go pale suddenly and clutch at the sides of the lectern, hands white-knuckled, appearing to forget what he was saying and simply stand there, staring out blankly over the heads of his congregation. It was as if he had suddenly seen a horrible vision; as if something had reminded him of some awful memory he was trying not to think about. Or, as my sister said with a touch of the macabre, and not entirely in jest, as if he’d seen a phantom.
He was quick to recover himself, however, and, after a couple of false starts, resumed his sermon. Afterwards I heard one or two remarks – ‘Vicar had the hiccups, I reckon!’ and ‘Lost his train of thought, he did, and I thought we were going to get away with a short one this week!’ – but overall it seemed that my sister and I were the only ones to realize that something out of the ordinary – something quite disturbing – had happened.
The superstitious say that if two events of a certain type occur, then it’s only a matter of time before the third one. Well, I’d been more shaken than I should have been by these first two troubling occurrences, and I feared what might be about to come.
Which was why I was at the end of the track up to Rosewyke, waiting for my sister, in the twilight of a late June evening.
She came trotting up on her pretty grey mare, a smile on her face, her cheeks slightly flushed, and I knew without asking that she’d had a good time. The women she’d been visiting were wives of her late husband’s business associates, and they had rallied round her after Jeromy’s death. They didn’t know the whole story – hardly anyone still living did – and they had taken Celia to their collective bosom out of the kindness of their hearts, wishing, I think, only to help, comfort and support her in her loss. Some of them irritated my sister to distraction – Celia is quite easily irritated – but two or three had found their way under her protective shell and become valued, even beloved, friends.
‘You don’t need to act like my bodyguard,’ my sister greeted me. ‘I’m perfectly capable of riding home safely and finding my way up the path to the stables, you know.’
‘I know,’ I agreed. I also knew better than to defend or even explain my actions.
But she wasn’t really cross. She slipped off the mare’s back, handing me the reins as if I was indeed the bodyguard she had just spurned and tucking her arm in mine. We set off towards the house, and just for a moment she leaned in towards me in a rare demonstration of affection. I called to Flynn, and obediently he abandoned whatever fascinating scent he’d found and came trotting after us.
‘So, what’s the talk of the wives of Plymouth this evening?’ I asked.
She sighed. ‘I have no idea since, as you very well know, I haven’t been further than Dorothie’s house at Foliot, and I’ve only been talking to two wives anyway.’
I smiled. ‘Very well, then. What did the three of you speak of?’
‘Oh, you wouldn’t be interested,’ she said airily. ‘It was—’ She stopped suddenly. ‘Actually, there was one matter that you might wish to hear about.’
‘And what was that?’
She hesitated, and I had the impression she was slightly abashed. ‘Well, it’s going to sound as if we were being sour-tongued old gossips, but I promise you, Gabe, it wasn’t like that – we were really concerned because we like him.’
I had an idea what was coming. ‘Go on.’
‘Well, we were all in church on Sunday, and the others also noticed Jonathan’s strange moment of … inattention? Absent-mindedness? Fear? Anyway, whatever it was, we agree it was out of character and we were wondering if someone ought to go and see him and make sure he’s all right. That he’s not ill, or something.’
‘I see,’ I said. ‘So, me being a physician and you being a physician’s sister, you suggested it should be I who goes to visit Jonathan and—’
‘Don’t flatter yourself!’ she interrupted. ‘Your name wasn’t mentioned. In fact I offered to go, since we live nearest, and I’m going to do so tomorrow morning, with a pot of Sallie’s strawberry preserve and a posy of roses. I shall rise early in the morning,’ she added, ‘because roses are at their best picked with the dew still on them.’
‘It’s a kind thought,’ I said cautiously.
‘He’ll probably invite me in and offer refreshment,’ she went on, ‘and I’ll find the right moment to say I’d noticed he looked rather pale on Sunday and is there anything I can do to help?’
I wasn’t sure how to reply. On the one hand, Celia’s impulse was a good one, for Jonathan Carew is a regular visitor at Rosewyke and my sister and I enjoy his company. Besides, he had been extremely kind to her when she was widowed, and I know she had been very grateful. But on the other hand he was our parish priest, a person of standing in our community, and, above all, a reserved and private man. While he might recognize Celia’s enquiry as having a generous inspiration, how would he feel at this evidence that his brief lapse in the pulpit on Sunday hadn’t gone unnoticed?
In the end I just said, ‘Be careful.’
She turned to me, and I saw from her expression that she understood. ‘I know, Gabe,’ she said softly. ‘I know what he’s like. Of course I’ll be careful.’
We reached the courtyard, where darkness and deep silence, other than tenor snores with an accompaniment of reverberating bass ones, told us Samuel and Tock were already asleep. My outdoor servants have their quarters off the yard, and they don’t keep late hours. I helped Celia stable the mare, rubbing her down while Celia filled the water bucket and put the saddle on its tree and the bridle on the hook. Then, still moving quietly out of consideration for Samuel and Tock, we went into the house. Sallie must also have retired for the night, for no light showed around the door to her room off the kitchen. As usual, she had left her domain in an immaculate state and the stone flags of the floor were still slightly damp from the final mopping of the day. Her snores, too, were audible, although in a higher register than those emanating from Tock or Samuel. My servants all work long hours, and they earn their rest.
But I wasn’t ready for sleep, and I didn’t think Celia was either. I led the way through the kitchen, across the hall, then through the parlour to the library, where I took a bottle of brandy from behind a row of books and poured a measure for each of us. My sister took her glass with a nod of thanks, then went to stand by the open window, where the sweet, clove-heavy scent of gillyflowers rose up from below.
After a brief pause she said quietly, ‘You feel it too, don’t you? This sense that something’s about to happen?’
‘I do,’ I agreed.
She turned to stare out through the window. ‘Is there a storm brewing?’ she asked. ‘Is t
hat what’s oppressing us?’
I shrugged. ‘Possibly, although there’s no wind tonight and the weather seems set fair.’ I too looked out over the peaceful land. A mist was rising, emanating out of the earth like thin smoke.
She nodded slowly. ‘I believe you are right. Besides, if this apprehension were due to an approaching storm, then others too would feel it, yet neither Dorothie nor Phyllis mentioned an awareness of anything amiss.’
I went over to her and put my arm round her, drawing her to me. ‘It’s only to be expected that you are fearful,’ I said. ‘It is not very long since the events of last year, after all.’
‘I know.’ She put up her hand to take hold of mine. Then, with a sound that was a mixture of a sigh and a sob, she added, ‘I wonder at times if I am even the same person.’
‘You are,’ I said firmly. ‘You are my little sister, and much as you have always been, save that you are older, wiser and have a better understanding of what you can endure, and do, and still survive.’
She nodded, but didn’t speak.
After a while she finished her brandy, bade me goodnight and went to bed. I sat a while longer, then followed her upstairs and into my own chamber.
Eventually I slept.
I wasn’t there to see her rise early to pick her roses and I didn’t even know if she did, for something happened just before dawn that took me away from the house.
I was awakened by what sounded like hailstones hitting the diamond-shaped panes of my window. Roused from deep sleep, my first thought was that the storm had come after all. But then the pattering sound came again and a voice called my name.
I got out of bed and went across to look down.
There, foreshortened so that he looked even bigger and broader than he is, staring up anxiously and in the act of picking up some more little stones to throw up at my window, stood Theophilus Davey the coroner.
‘Gabe? Gabriel Taverner?’ he hissed again. ‘Is that you?’
