The Heretic’s Creed

by FIONA BUCKLEY

  I was so very thankful to set off. To the last moment, I had had an irrational feeling that something might intervene to stop us. Christopher Spelton had been here and in the deep places of my mind, I was wondering if he still was, in which case – oh, poor Christopher! – he was probably dead. But if he had got away, where was he now? I hated and feared Stonemoor House and I was sure that Sybil and Dale felt the same. So, obviously, did Brockley. He was sitting very upright on Mealy’s back, with an air of looking sharply around him, as though he were searching for some source of danger.

  But no one hindered us. We rode unmolested out of the gateway and started down the hill towards Thorby. At the foot of the hill, the zigzag path straightened out and then divided just short of the tavern. One arm went straight on, becoming the village street, though it remained an earthen track. Cobblestones had not reached Thorby. The other fork veered right and shortly after that joined the track that would take us back towards the Thwaites. Just before the fork, we realized that our descent had been noticed. A small crowd had gathered outside the tavern. They were watching us. No one moved towards us and they were silent but they didn’t exude friendliness.

  In a low voice, Brockley said: ‘Pretend we’ve noticed nothing. Just ride on to the turn.’ I saw that his hand was on his sword hilt.

  We went forward, but just as we turned on to the right-hand path, away from Thorby and those staring eyes, one voice in the crowd did speak.

  ‘What sort of folk come visiting witches?’ it said.

  Out of the tail of my eye, I caught a sharp movement and something hit me in the small of the back. I twisted sharply and saw a crumbling clod of earth fall to the ground. Then the goblin figure of Will Grimes suddenly shot out of the tavern door, shouting: ‘Doan be fools, the lot of you! They’re folk from the queen’s own court!’

  He was answered by a chorus of angry voices, though no one actually attacked him, and Will, far from seeming intimidated, confronted them with his hands on his hips and shouted something back which sounded like a threat to close the tavern if they gave him any trouble, and where would they get their ale of an evening then? The enormous tavern dog also came bounding out of the building and planted itself beside him, where it stood angrily barking, head lowered, hackles raised and a fine array of fangs bared in a snarl.

  ‘Nothing like threatening to cut off a man’s supplies of drink,’ muttered Brockley. ‘Or having a hound the size of a small pony beside you. Let’s get out of this. Go ahead of me!’

  The path here was good enough for speed. I faced forwards again and Sybil and I stirred our mounts into a canter. I heard Mealy’s hoof beats following us. In moments, we were clear of Thorby and the sound of the noisy altercation outside the tavern was fading behind us.

  We were away. We were away. Whatever had happened to Christopher Spelton and presumably to Bernard Hardwicke too, had not happened to us.

  Well, not yet, anyway.

  SIXTEEN

  In Spate

  In sunshine, and without the covering of snow, the moorland looked different, though I wouldn’t say it looked more friendly. The heather distances were as dark and threatening as storm clouds and the frosty wind hissed across them. The pale stone outcrops were like bared teeth and the path, soaked by the recent snow and rain, was deep in mud. But every furlong increased the distance between us and Stonemoor. When possible, we put the horses into a canter, to increase it faster. We really were getting away. Nothing had happened to us. We were free.

  To do what?

  ‘What exactly are our plans now, madam?’ Brockley asked as we slowed to a walk after a particularly long canter.

  ‘I thought at first that I might send you straight to York,’ I said. ‘There’s the note that I got ready for Joseph, in case something went amiss last night – you could have taken that. But now I think it’s best that we should all ride back to the Thwaites to collect the coach. Then you can ride ahead of us to York. We shan’t lose more than a day, and I can’t see that that will matter. It’s a long while since the two Messengers disappeared, anyway. That means that you won’t have to find the way to York through moorland tracks! We’ll all be using the main road.’

  ‘As you will, madam. I think you are right.’

  We pressed on. We came to a little dip in the land, which I vaguely recalled from our earlier journey, where a few trees offered some shelter from the wind. Here, we dismounted, loosened the horses’ girths, and ate some food. Brockley said he thought he could hear water flowing somewhere and after reconnoitring, he found a stream where the horses could drink. It was a lively little river, which had obviously overflowed its banks as a result of the thaw and the recent downpours, and Brockley was careful, saying that its real banks were under the surface and he didn’t want the horses stumbling into it.

  We tightened the girths again and rode on. I could not remember clearly how far we would have to go to reach the next landmark that I could recall, which was the ford where the horses had drunk when we crossed it, coming the other way, and we came to it sooner than I expected, rounding the corner of a hillside and then reining in, in consternation.

  The lively little river where the horses had drunk, wasn’t the only watercourse that had broken its bounds because of the rain and the thaw.

  The ford was gone. In its place, a fierce torrent, running as swiftly as a horse could gallop, leapt and hurtled where the shallow crossing had once been. On its angry brown surface swirled broken branches and clumps of twigs, torn from trees and bushes on the overwhelmed banks upstream, while downstream, the flood plunged into its shadowed ravine, thundering on with its surface only a foot or so below its confining sides. The sound of the racing current all but deafened us.

  ‘We’ll never get across that!’ Brockley said, or rather, shouted, to make himself heard.

  ‘We’ve got to find a place where we can cross,’ I said fiercely. ‘We’re not going back!’

  ‘Rivers are usually narrower near their source,’ Brockley said, ‘and this must rise somewhere on the moors to the east. Let’s take a cast upstream.’

  Following the river upstream was difficult, for the top of the slope on our side was a mass of outcrops and loose stones and we could not ride close to the water. However, there was little chance of losing it for when we couldn’t see it, we could hear it. We persevered for something like a mile, and then, startlingly, even above the surge of the river, we heard something else. It was a shrill whistle, and was followed by a shout or rather, a call. It sounded like a command. We pulled up, looking about us. Then, rising up, as it were, out of a dip in the moorland, came a flock of sheep, bleating loudly and driven by a black and white dog, which was following them in a semi-crouch, its belly near the ground. Behind the dog, came the shepherd, crook in hand. The sheep veered when they saw us and the shepherd shouted another command to the dog, which at once began to herd them away from us. The shepherd strode over to us.

  He was an odd-looking man, dressed very roughly in cross-gartered hose and a heavy cloak. It fell open in the front, revealing a long, thick tunic, and on his head he wore a leather cap. The hair that showed beneath it was yellowish-white and as curly as the fleece of a sheep, and his eyes, disconcertingly, were also like those of a sheep, for they were almost amber in colour. They were not friendly

  ‘So, what would the likes of thee be doing, wandering on my moors, disturbing my flock?’ he demanded. ‘I doan’t like people,’ he added.

  I was too taken aback to answer, but Brockley was not. ‘Do you own this land?’

  ‘I live here. Same thing.’

  ‘I wouldn’t agree there,’ said Brockley sharply. I caught his eye and sent him a pleading look. Don’t offend the man. Ask directions!

  As so often, Brockley read my mind with ease and moderated his tone. ‘We have no wish to stay in this district. We wish to go to the Thwaites’ farm, on the other side of this river. Do you know it? We’re looking for a crossing place. The ford is flooded.’

>   ‘Aye, it would be, seeing we’ve had the thaw and the rain.’

  ‘Do you know of a crossing place?’ Brockley was keeping his temper with visible difficulty. ‘Do you know the Thwaites?’

  ‘Riding upstream, aren’t thee? Wrong way. Go downstream. Three miles or thereabouts. There’s a bridge. Thee’ll find a track t’other side, and it branches and one branch goes east to the Thwaites. Aye, I know of them.’

  Abruptly, after giving us all another unfriendly look, he turned away and whistled to his dog. A moment later, shepherd, dog and sheep were on the move again, going away from us, heading south-west across the moor. A fold of the land soon hid them from us.

  ‘What a rude man!’ said Dale indignantly.

  ‘I think he must be the shepherd Cecil mentioned to me,’ I said. ‘He told me there was such a man hereabouts and said that he didn’t like his fellow men. Well, he did at least give us directions. We had better turn round!’

  ‘I hope they’re the right directions,’ said Brockley. ‘That fellow looked capable of giving us the wrong ones just for the sake of it!’

  It took a long time to retrace our steps. We passed the flooded ford and then continued on for so long, riding between the bleak moors and the torrential river, that Brockley began to mutter that he was sure we really had been given the wrong instructions. But he was mistaken about that, for a few moments later we arrived at a place where the hills gave way to a valley, allowing the river to spread out again. Here, the current, no longer so constricted, ran less violently, though it was still swift and had topped its banks on both sides so that it was wider than normal. It still looked deep. It curved round a spur of land, and then, wonder of wonders, there was a wooden bridge.

  ‘Thank God,’ said Brockley devoutly.

  We clattered across. ‘But where are we?’ said Brockley, when we had reached the other side. ‘Where is this bridge? It seems to be in the middle of nowhere!’

  ‘There’s a track leading on from here,’ I said. ‘It looks well used.’

  ‘And I can see chimney smoke over there,’ said Dale, pointing. ‘It could be a village. I expect there’s a landowner who maintains the bridge.’

  ‘It’s in the wrong direction,’ said Brockley. ‘It’s west of here, and the Thwaites must be well to the east. Well, that man said the track branched.’

  I had the maps in one of my saddlebags, and now got one of them out, which I should, of course, have done before. If I had, we wouldn’t have wasted time riding upstream and wouldn’t have encountered the disagreeable shepherd, either. The bridge was marked and so was the village, which was called Hickley. Also marked was the track we were on, and another which did indeed branch off not very far ahead.

  ‘That’s where we must go,’ I said. ‘Well, at least we’re across that river. I really was beginning to wonder …’

  Dale interrupted me. ‘What’s that?’ she said, and in such a tone that we all turned towards her. ‘What is it?’ I asked.

  ‘That!’ said Dale, pointing.

  Her forefinger was jabbing towards the river; to be precise to the bank on our side, and only a few yards away. Just there, a drowned bush stood in the flood water, and I saw that something seemed to be caught up in it. ‘It’s just an old boot,’ I said.

  ‘But there’s something sticking out of it!’ said Dale.

  Brockley and Joseph dismounted together. Sybil and I held their horses while the two of them went to the water and waded in towards the bush.

  ‘Careful!’ Brockley said. ‘We don’t want anyone falling in. It’s too cold to risk a wetting.’

  They disentangled the boot eventually, with little more harm to themselves than wet sleeves. The water, just there, wasn’t that deep. They laid their trophy on the ground. We all stared at it, registering varying degrees of horror. Dale clapped her hand over her mouth and Sybil gasped. I swallowed hard. There was indeed something sticking out of the boot. It looked remarkably like a bone. The top of a shinbone, I thought. A human shinbone? Only human beings wore boots.

  ‘Some poor soul fell in and drowned, I fancy,’ said Brockley. He had stood up and was now staring at the water. He gazed upstream towards the bend in the river, where it rounded the shoulder of moorland. ‘The current, coming round that curve, would have swept this poor relic into the bank.’

  I handed the reins of Brockley’s horse to Dale, to free my hands, and began to study the map again. ‘Where does this river come from and go to? It does seem to rise in the moorland to the east.’

  Brockley came to look, and I handed the map down to him. ‘Downstream it goes westward and ends up in a distant lake, according to this. Very likely the rest of him will never come to light. He’ll be all in pieces and the fish will get them.’ Dale squeaked. ‘We could ask, when we get to the Thwaites, if they know of anyone who has disappeared from this or any neighbouring district, but …’

  ‘We know of two,’ I said.

  SEVENTEEN

  Turning Back

  There was a fraught silence.

  ‘So,’ said Brockley at last, ‘you think, madam, that this could be one of them?’

  ‘And whoever did it just pushed the body into the river?’ Sybil frowned. ‘But it might easily have been found, in that case. Would a killer want that? It would have been better to bury it, surely?’

  ‘How?’ asked Brockley. ‘Look round you. Scrape at the ground. It’s muddy, but it’s sure to be frozen just under the surface, and around here, stones stick out of it every few yards!’

  ‘But who says he was killed?’ said Dale, her voice shaking. ‘Couldn’t he have had an accident?’

  ‘I doubt it,’ said Brockley. ‘Madam is right. Two men have vanished, not just one.’ He stooped and picked up the boot, peering into it. ‘There’s something stuck inside this. Other than part of a leg.’

  ‘Brockley!’ Sybil protested. ‘That was … almost flippant!’

  ‘I’m an old soldier, Mistress Jester. It’s the way we sometimes talk. It doesn’t mean any disrespect. Let me just try …’

  Carefully, he pushed his fingers into the top of the boot. ‘It’s stuck very tightly … ugh! There’s still some flesh in there … ah. I’ve got it.’ He stood up, holding his discovery.

  ‘It looks like a wallet,’ I said.

  ‘It’s made of some kind of thin, oiled leather,’ Brockley said, feeling it with his fingertips. ‘And it was jammed fast. It’s survived the river very well. It’s mucky, though, and so are my fingers.’

  He crouched to dabble fingers and wallet in the water. I stood watching him. Cecil’s voice spoke in my memory. I handed it to him myself. And he winked at me, put it in a wallet, and thrust the wallet down inside one of his riding boots. That was where he always put confidential documents when he was asked to carry them.

  ‘Is there anything in that wallet?’ I asked.

  Brockley got to his feet and stood fumbling with his discovery. Finally, between a finger and thumb, he extracted a small scroll of paper, flattened by being inside the wallet and the boot. With it came a piece of vellum, not rolled but folded. He unrolled the scroll, cautiously. ‘It’s damp,’ he said, ‘and the ink’s run a bit but some of it is still legible.’

  He studied it for a moment and then handed it to me. I looked at it and at once made out enough to tell me what it was. ‘It’s the letter to James Douglas,’ I said. ‘It has to be. I can make out the greeting, and there’s something in the middle about precautions being taken to keep Mary Stuart well guarded. What is that piece of vellum?’

  Brockley gave it to me and I unfolded it carefully. It cracked along the folds but I was gentle and it held together. The black ink lettering inside had survived surprisingly well. ‘This is legible, too, just about,’ I said.

  It was a receipt, for three hundred pounds, made out to Bernard Hardwicke, for the sale of a book entitled Observations of the Heavens by John of Evesham.

  It was Dale, once more, who noticed that the current, surging round the
curve, had swept something else into the bank besides Hardwicke’s boot. This object wasn’t tangled in brambles, but had hooked itself over a bit of projecting rock. Joseph fetched it. It was a bridle, a plain one except for some metal trimming on the browband. The reins, by which it had been caught on the rock, were not scalloped in the fashionable style but plaited, to give a comfortable grip. It was a practical bridle, for long journeys. The bit had rusted, as though it had been in the water for some time.

  ‘It could belong to one of the missing horses, either Hardwicke’s, or the mare that the Thwaites have taken in,’ I said. ‘I wonder where Hardwicke’s horse is. Wandering on the moor, I suppose, poor thing. All these things will have to be carried to York, as evidence that Bernard Hardwicke met his death here.’

  ‘We’re not at Stonemoor,’ said Sybil thoughtfully. ‘We’re miles from there. There’s no evidence that the Stonemoor ladies had anything to do with this.’

  ‘Except that Christopher Spelton was there,’ I said.

  ‘It’s difficult to imagine any of the ladies murdering someone,’ said Brockley. ‘But Walter Cogge probably could. He’s their bailiff and groom and is said to be their priest. He clearly undertakes all kinds of things! Maybe murder as well.’

  ‘Yes. I see.’ Sybil frowned. ‘I do see. Stonemoor probably does come into it somewhere.’ She frowned even more, her brows drawing together, and then took us all by surprise. ‘We ought to go back to Stonemoor and confront them.’

  ‘Do what?’ said Brockley disbelievingly.

  I said: ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean,’ said Sybil, ‘that if we leave it to the York sheriff, well, yes, he’ll send men to question the ladies but they’ll surely have some story ready for him, about footpads in lonely places, and God knows I’ve never seen anywhere as lonely and benighted as these moors. Dozens of outlaws could hide among these hills. Or perhaps the ladies will tell some tale of murderous farmers who prey on wayfarers …’