Death at St. Vedast

by Mary Lawrence

  “What do you mean the ale has run out? You were to take the stable boy this morning and secure more.”

  “It was raining,” she said.

  “When doesn’t it rain in this madding village? I gave you a task, and now there will be a house full of angry customers. Shall I tell them there is not ale because it is raining?” The wench turned away from Duffy’s spray of spittle. He grabbed her chin and jerked her face toward him. “Fie on thee, wench!” He took hold of her shoulders and shoved her toward the door. “Tell them you did not fetch the ale!”

  The wench said nothing; nor did she take a step.

  “Do this, or walk,” said Duffy.

  The kitchen staff froze in their duties. Here was the wench and Duffy hard by. It was not just the cook who did not care for her. More than one of them wished the woman slapped.

  The woman turned and faced Duffy. “Nay,” she said. “I will not go for ale, and I will not tell them we have none.”

  Duffy reared back to deliver a meaningful blow, but his arm was caught up by the owner. Unbeknownst to Duffy, Elgin had entered the kitchen through a back door.

  “Stay you, Duffy,” said Elgin. “I’ve got five barrels in a cart to be unloaded.”

  “The woman is a lazy, vicious jade,” said the cook in defense. “She is better suited to slop pigs than to serve our patrons. The staff likes her not. I like her not. Tasked to fetch ale this morning, she refused. Instead, what was her duty was left for you to tend. The owner should not have to waste time doing a serving wench’s chores.”

  Elgin got between the woman and Duffy and lowered his face to within inches of the cook. “What I may do for the Stuffed Goose concerns you not. Verily mind your kitchen.”

  The owner turned to the insolent bodge and cuffed her sharply. Her coif flew like a coot to the sky, sending her hair to tumble in her face. “Now shall you learn to bend, iron wench.” He grabbed her arm and pulled her through the kitchen to the back room where the casks were stored.

  After watching the owner haul the wench to the rear and listening for the sounds of a beating to commence, several sets of eyes returned to Duffy. It wasn’t the sound of a beating that the kitchen staff was privy to.

  “Well, get on with it,” he said, disgusted, looking round at them.

  Two of the boys whose task it was to unload the wagon shuffled up to him, hesitating. “Sir, should we wait to unload the casks?” they inquired.

  “What do you think?” said Duffy. “I work with a crew of fools,” he muttered.

  The boys hung back next to Bianca, who had succeeded in making herself nearly invisible. They stood by as she covered the mounds of dough and set them aside to rise.

  “Where you be from?” asked one of the boys. He was more genial than the other.

  “London,” said Bianca, taking a portion of lard and tying it in cloth.

  “Ot, someday I will go there. They say the streets are lined with desirous women.”

  “Not quite,” said Bianca.

  “Well, more than here,” he said. He laughed nervously, looking to his friend, who dropped his gaze to the floor.

  Bianca had started scraping the flour from the board when the door from the cask room flew open. The serving wench, lifting her chin, sashayed back through the galley, tying the strings of her bodice and ignoring the stares and snide remarks from Duffy and the staff.

  Elgin, the owner, appeared at the rear of the kitchen, his codpiece hastily tied so that it angled crookedly. “Get these kegs unloaded!” he yelled at the boys. “Do I have to do everything myself?”

  Once Elgin stalked from the room, Bianca approached Duffy, asking if she might return to her husband. He had nearly forgotten she was there.

  “Please do,” he said, glad to be rid of one more irritation.

  Bianca joined John, who was sitting with a man who turned out to be a cooper. The two of them glumly sat before empty tankards and, like the rest of the tavern’s patrons, had seen the serving wench strut past, her hair in a tumble, ignoring everyone’s requests on her way out the door.

  “I don’t suspect she’ll be back tonight,” said Bianca, squeezing in next to John.

  “Who will serve the clientele if not her?” asked the cooper, a man twice their age with half as many teeth.

  “I shall not go back in there,” said Bianca, taking John’s tankard and closing one eye to squint at its empty bottom.

  “She looked a bit disheveled when she left,” said John.

  “Aye that.” Bianca set the tankard down and looked at the cooper. “How long have you lived in Dinmow?”

  “As long as I could walk,” he said.

  “Are you familiar with the recent deaths?”

  “I wish I wasn’t. Frightful, they were.” He crossed himself.

  “What do you think caused people to suddenly act out, then die?”

  “If I knew, then I wouldn’t live in fear of it happening again. Some blame the priest because it happened at the church alehouse. But I’m one of the few who suspects”—the man put his hand next to his mouth so no one could see—“Elgin.” He nodded knowingly. “He might have had something to do with it.”

  “And that doesn’t stop you from coming here?”

  “That is expressly why I come here. I’d rather be a sheep and keep an eye on the wolf than be a dead troublemaker.” The cooper smiled nervously.

  “So you are not with the majority in thinking the man innocent?”

  “I am not with any one man or the other. I think for myself, but foremost I am a man who knows how to survive. But I also know of what Elgin is capable. And I like him not.”

  “Say you, not so gently.”

  The cooper ran a grubby finger around the circumference of his pottage and licked it off his finger. “I have special cause,” he said, setting down the bowl. “He got my sister with child and wouldn’t marry her.”

  “Truth be, sir, she is better without him,” said Bianca.

  “Nay, my lady,” said the cooper. “A woman shunned and her bastard child is never better off.”

  Across the way, Duffy entered the dining room and was immediately set upon by a table of thirsty patrons. The cook attempted to pacify the men while scanning the room—Bianca thought probably for an able female, namely, her. She turned her back toward the cook. “I am certain Duffy is desperate to find help to serve the patrons. We need to leave before he suggests I take her place.”

  The two acknowledged the cooper and rose from the table to scoot along the periphery toward the door. They slipped out just as Bianca thought she heard Duffy call after them. The two made for the stairs, starting at Elgin and a woman in conversation beneath the risers. The owner stopped talking and watched them pass.

  “We certainly learned a bit between us, today,” said Bianca when they got to their room. She removed her coif and ran her fingers through her thick hair.

  “I wouldn’t mind being a miller.”

  “There are no gristmills in London.”

  “But imagine if I could build one close by.”

  “John, you need a quick-flowing stream or river.”

  “Maybe there is one near Southwark.”

  “What? Morgan Stream? That sludgy runnel?” Bianca flopped onto the bed. “Rats would forever be clogging your paddle wheel.”

  “I mean south of Southwark.” John pulled off his boots. He dove onto the bed beside her.

  “I miss my chemistries. Someday, in the not so distant future, I will return to making my balms and salves. And I can tell you now, after seeing a village such as this, that I would be hauled off and burned at the stake if I tried making my medicinals here. There are too few people in this place. Everyone knows about everyone’s business. It is easier for me to conceal my work in London. There is safety in numbers.”

  “There is also danger in numbers,” John reminded her.

  Bianca got up on one elbow and looked down at John. “True, but I understand the dangers better in London than I do here. I do no
t want to be a miller’s wife.”

  “Perhaps you do not want to be my wife.”

  “Perhaps I only want you to understand that I am unhappy unless I dabble with my chemistries.”

  John sighed. It was little use to argue the point. He wished he were her passion—solely and without concession. He understood this would never be the case. Even his near death from the sweating sickness had not dampened Bianca’s desire to devote time to her concoctions.

  “John, you have always known this. Why do you frustrate yourself? Why do you try to change me? Being an indulgent wife is not my inclination.”

  “You have always been my dream, but I shall never be the reason for you to get up in the morning.”

  Bianca leaned down and kissed him long on the lips. “Do not doubt your worth to me.”

  CHAPTER 24

  “Does it ever stop raining in Dinmow?” John stared disconsolately out their window the next morning. A permanent storm cloud seemed fixed in the sky overhead. The pair had agreed to leave for London provided the rain had stopped. An intermittent rain would have sufficed, but the steady, heavy downpour held no prospects for a tolerable journey home.

  They had asked the stable if any wagons might be headed to London that would be willing to share a ride. But this had proved fruitless. The weather had put a crimp in their travel plans.

  To pass the time, they spent the day downstairs playing tables. Bianca had an innate sense where to move her pieces, so that she easily won every game against John. Others challenged her, and the matches became a source of entertainment for the patrons. Raucous betting and swearing filled the room and kept spirits high despite the incessant rain. Bianca blithely defeated every challenger. Her playing was so effortless that at one point John pulled her aside and told her she had better lose a few games or risk being accused of cheating—or worse, reading people’s thoughts. Losing on purpose, she found, took greater concentration. After a sufficient number of defeats to keep everyone in good cheer, Bianca announced she was bored and quite done.

  If the endless hours spent mindlessly moving chips around a board had any benefit, it was that Bianca was able to rehash what she had learned in Dinmow. Elgin was not the blameless man Grayson, the farrier, thought him to be. She believed the owner of the Stuffed Goose was capable of discrediting the church alehouse and brewery for his future benefit. Why should he pay for his ale when he could buy a ruined brewery on the cheap and control the production and cost in all of Dinmow? Any man capable of docking a woman within earshot of his staff did not think in terms of moral conscience.

  But was Elgin scheming the alehouse’s ruin? Or were the unfortunate deaths a result of something else? Nearly all the victims had been distraught. Only Odile had not exhibited the madness that they, the young boy, and the woman at St. Vedast had shown. Neither did Odile speak of vipers or dance until she wore herself to exhaustion.

  Bianca thought back to her time at the brewery and then in the kitchen of the Stuffed Goose. Both cooks claimed to have gotten their food from the same sources. She wondered if she should pay a visit to the farms.

  “John,” she said, partaking of yet another bowl of mutton stew. “I think we should visit the farmers who provide food to the tavern and alehouse.”

  “They may live a distance from here. Must we slog through muddy fields to find them? Why not question the cooks? That would save us the misery.”

  Bianca poked at a turnip floating in the broth. She was beginning to think the trip to Dinmow had been a waste of time. Not only had she not found any answers to her questions, but now they were mired in a disagreeable village with only mutton stew on the menu.

  “What could have caused all of these people to act so strangely?” she mused.

  John shrugged. “There is no outbreak of vermin, from what I’ve observed.”

  “Nay,” said Bianca. “All of the victims suffered from a disease of the mind. An inexplicable madness that consumed them. They gave no thought to the danger they put themselves in. Most often when people get sick, they feel so poorly they lie in bed. But nearly all of the victims became strong and fearless.”

  “Remember the man with the snakes in his stomach?” said John. “He showed plenty of fear.”

  “He had an imagined fear, and yet he gave no thought to the consequences of his actions.”

  John shuddered in disgust. “I prefer to leave tomorrow, rain or nay. Nothing is accomplished sitting here. I fear what may have become of Boisvert in Newgate.”

  The two fell into contemplative silence. Around them, the tables began to fill with people wanting an evening meal. The lethargy caused by the tedious damp had dulled everyone’s spirits, and it seemed the villagers knew instinctively that they needed the company of others in order to stay content.

  Business at the Stuffed Goose picked up, and soon the tavern rang with laughter and camaraderie. The serving wench was back, albeit more subdued, but the previous night’s incident had not deterred her from returning to work.

  John and Bianca had finished their last ale for the evening and rose to head back to their chamber, when a woman abruptly blocked their passage. Her face appeared pained and ashen.

  Bianca recognized her as the woman in conversation with Elgin under the stairs the previous night. She touched her arm. “Good lady?”

  The woman swayed unsteadily, started to speak, but then bent over, holding her sides. John helped her to sit.

  “She is not well, sir,” said Bianca as her husband made his way over. “She looks to be in pain.”

  “Meg!” said the husband. He shouted into her ear. “What ails you?” He, too, was unsteady—but from drink.

  The woman pushed him away, which did not sit well with her husband. He shook her by the shoulders. “Aw, Meg will be right in a bit,” he said. “She be a little puny, that’s all.” He’d started to wander off when Meg threw her head back and laughed at the ceiling. Her husband turned, thinking himself to be the butt of her jest.

  But her laughter was not from mirth. The entire tavern grew quiet watching her. When her amusement ended with a shriek, the silence that followed was more disquieting than her laughter.

  As if she found them mesmerizing, Goodwife Meg smiled at the rafters. Her muscles tensed. Her body grew rigid. Her eyes stared without blinking.

  “His evil breath blows upon us,” someone said. “He has not gone.”

  Goodwife Meg turned her smile on the speaker, finding him instantly in the room of patrons. What was a smile twisted into a leer, reminding Bianca of Odile at her wedding.

  With a sudden start, the woman got to her feet. She shouldered past Bianca, lurching for the door. When she got there, she threw it open and paused at the sight of the rain. A sour look came over her, and she doubled over, heaving her stomach’s contents onto the stoop. Wiping her mouth with her hand, she glanced over her shoulder with wild eyes and stepped around her sick as she stumbled out the door.

  A troop of citizens filed out of the Stuffed Goose in pursuit of Goodwife Meg. No one gave a care about getting drenched. The madness had returned. Meg stumbled and danced down the muddy lane of Dinmow, one arm drawn up against her chest, fingers curled like claws.

  Meg’s husband begged her to stop, to come inside, but she ignored his pleas and laughed at the rain, her head thrown back, her face to the sky. She continued a stilted parade down the street, oblivious to the town folk trailing after.

  “This feels similar to the exorcism I witnessed at St. Vedast,” said John under his breath. “Family members in pursuit . . . and she’s headed for the monastery.”

  “He’s returned,” someone cried. “See how he leads her to the church grounds? He’s back to wage another battle with Father Paston.”

  The couple followed the crowd filtering through the archway onto the monastery’s grounds. Bianca feared the woman was going to the church alehouse. After spending time with Felton, the brewer, she thought kindly toward the man. The alehouse could ill afford another accusation
.

  At the steps of the monastery, Goodwife Meg stopped. She lifted her eyes to the massive structure, ignoring the rain pummeling her face. Bianca remembered the similarly stricken woman dressed in a sheer linen smock at St. Vedast. The witness had said she hadn’t noticed the cold, that her feet were bare and blue.

  Meg looked around, and, seeing her husband, she stiff-leggedly hobbled down the steps in the direction of the alehouse. Her husband grabbed her arm and held her fast, calling for men to help. A half dozen men came to his aid, restraining and lifting her, carrying her kicking and screaming across the monastery grounds toward the gate.

  “John, follow and see where they take her.”

  “And you?”

  “I want to speak with the brewer.”

  * * *

  The two parted ways, Bianca taking a few steps, then watching until John disappeared through the gate. She turned and followed the path beside the monastery to the church alehouse. Finding the door locked and the shutters bolted, Bianca skirted the perimeter to the rear of the building and dashed across the yard to the brewery.

  At first, the brewery seemed abandoned too. Bianca knocked on the door, and after a disagreeable minute during which she was further soaked from the roof’s eaves, the door cracked open. Felton peeped out.

  “Oh,” he said, moving his head to see behind her. He opened the door. “Come in out of the wet.”

  “Sir, a woman, Goodwife Meg, has taken ill. I was at the Stuffed Goose when she suddenly began acting queer. She left the tavern and made it to the steps of the monastery before anyone could stop her.”

  The brewer’s mouth opened, and his wide eyes swept the floor.

  “I’m wondering if the owner of the Stuffed Goose may have a part in this.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “I spent last evening working in the kitchen at the tavern. My feeling is that Elgin is the sort of man who might intentionally stage a woman to act foolish in order to cast the monastery and your brewery in an unflattering light.

  “Last night I saw him speaking with her under the stairs. They pretended nonchalance when they saw me. Then, when the goodwife became ill, she was careful to step around her sick on the way out the door. Would a person so afflicted possess that kind of wherewithal? If nonsensical and morbidly ill, they would take no care.”