Tempted though Joanna was to fill in the missing details for Ada, she knew this wasn’t the time. And, too, this revelation was inciting disturbing new questions in Joanna’s mind.
“I waited until the bells of curfew were rung, and then I waited some more, looking out at the dark street,” Ada said sadly. “Finally Aethel convinced me to get undressed and go to bed. I never did find out what happened that day.”
Ada was shivering; she was cold again. Yawning, Joanna tucked the blanket around her. “I must go now, but I’ll be back later this morning.”
“You’re coming back?” Ada looked pleased; she must get lonely.
“Aye—just to keep you company. Get your rest. And remember—don’t eat anything that’s brought to you, or drink anything, or—”
“So you’ve told me a dozen times this morning,” Ada said with an indulgent smile.
“And if someone brings you your tonic—Olive or your husband or anyone, even Aethel—”
“I know. I’m not to take it.” Ada’s brow knitted. “What has you so troubled, Joanna? What’s wrong?”
Joanna brushed some stray hairs off of Ada’s cheek. “I’ll tell you later, when everything’s resolved. You’re tired now.”
Ada nodded and closed her eyes.
“Sleep,” Joanna said as she turned to leave. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
When she returned home, she found Graeham in the shop stall talking to a bearish fellow with silver-threaded black hair whom he introduced as Nyle Orlege, an undersheriff dispatched by the sheriff in response to their note.
“Good morrow, mistress,” said the gruff-voiced Nyle, who got right to the point. “If the serjant has explained it correctly, a woman’s life may be in danger.”
“That’s right.”
The undersheriff scratched the graying stubble on his oversized jaw. Iron manacles and chains hung on one side of his belt, a gigantic sheathed knife on the other. “And you two think it’s the husband and his doxy that are poisoning her.”
“I hate to think of Olive as being involved in this,” Joanna said, “but I admit it doesn’t look good. She’s not evil, though, just young and impressionable.”
“She seems to be entirely within Rolf le Fever’s power,” Graeham said, touching Joanna’s arm comfortingly. “He coerced her.”
“Probably,” Joanna added.
Graeham regarded her with a look of puzzlement.
“Probably?” The undersheriff turned to Graeham. “You seemed pretty sure of things in your note—came right out and accused the man of attempted murder.”
“Is there something I don’t know?” Graeham asked Joanna.
“Perhaps,” she said. “It might mean nothing, but it struck me as odd.” She told the men what Ada had revealed about the mysterious journey she’d been readied for that had never taken place. “If le Fever had been in the process of poisoning his wife to death, he would hardly have wanted her to leave with Graeham. ‘Twould have made more sense to finish the job and be done with her for good.”
“Aye, but assuming he did want to finish her off,” Nyle said, “he very well may have hired those churls to ambush the serjant so he couldn’t interfere—and he’d get the fifty marks, to boot.”
“Yes,” Graeham said, “but then why did he prepare his wife for a journey? You’re right, Joanna. The pieces don’t add up.”
“Well, it’s my job to make them add up,” declared the undersheriff. “But I’ve got to proceed with caution, you understand. Rolf le Fever is an important man in this city. Can’t be making wild accusations with no proof.”
Graeham picked up the two bundles of herbs from the table and handed them to Nyle. “Surely any good apothecary can identify those and tell us whether they’re poisonous.”
“Undoubtedly,” Nyle said, “and if they are, that implicates the girl, but there still won’t be any proof that le Fever put her up to it. What I’ve got to do—what we’ve got to do, because you two are the accusers, so I want you there—is to go across the street and question this Olive. A confession would go far toward making my job easy, and if we can get her to reveal le Fever’s role in this, all the better.” He opened the door and led the way out. “Come along, then.”
“Can you make it across the street, do you think?” Joanna asked Graeham as he limped on his crutch toward the door. He wore his heavy riding boots, she saw; it was the first time he’d had them on in the six weeks he’d been here.
“I made it up that ladder, didn’t I?” With a glance outside to make sure the undersheriff had his back to them, he leaned down and kissed her, quickly but thoroughly. “As Brother Simon used to say, to him that will, ways are not wanting.”
Graeham’s will may have been strong, but by the time he finally made it across Wood Street—with Joanna supporting him on one side and his crutch on the other, Nyle Orlege was already inside the apothecary shop, interviewing a cowed and wide-eyed Olive.
“Mistress Joanna!” the girl exclaimed when she and Graeham appeared. “This man says he’s an undersheriff. He says he might have to arrest me. Do you know—” Her gaze lit on Graeham, recognition flicker¬ing in her eyes, still swollen from last night’s bout of crying.
“Do you remember me?” he asked.
“I...I think so. Weren’t you at Master Rolf’s a while back?”
“That’s right.”
“You were going to take Mistress Ada away.”
“I say, can I please get a headache powder?” asked a squirrel-faced little man standing outside the window.
“Shop’s closed.” Reaching through the opening, Nyle pulled away the support poles, causing the upper shutter to slam slut. He raised the lower shutter and latched them, plunging the shop stall into eerie semidarkness.
Olive wrapped her arms around herself, her panicky gaze taking in the three of them. “What’s this all about? I haven’t done anything.”
“We know you didn’t want to, Olive,” Joanna said.
“Didn’t want to what?”
Nyle held up the two bunches of dried herbs. “Do you recognize these?”
Olive’s milky complexion grew even paler. “Oh, God.” She backed away from them. “Oh, God.” Clutching her stomach, she said, “I feel sick. I’m going to be sick.”
Joanna moved to the girl’s side and sat her on a low wooden stool. “Put your head down. That’s right. Take deep breaths.”
“I didn’t want to,” Olive moaned, sinking her head into her trembling hands. “He said there was no other way.”
“We know, Olive.” Joanna leaned over her, patting her back. “He talked you into it. That doesn’t make it right, but ‘twill help when you’re tried. You might get some lashes, but I’m sure they won’t hang you, not given that—”
“Hang me!” she wailed, looking up with tear-filled eyes. “I didn’t know you could hang for...oh, God. Oh, God. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t want to. But he said if I went ahead and had the baby, he could never marry me, because of the shame.”
Joanna glanced at Graeham and Nyle, who looked as confounded as she felt.
Someone knocked on the door. “Can someone sell me an elixir of—”
“No!” Nyle bellowed.
Joanna kelt next to Olive, who was rocking back and forth as tears slid down her cheeks. “You’re with child?”
Olive pressed a hand to her mouth, her eyes squeezed shut, her waxen face sheened with sweat.
Graeham handed a large tin bowl to Joanna, who thrust it under Olive’s face just in time. When the girl’s bout of retching was over, Graeham took the bowl and passed her a damp cloth, with which she bathed Olive’s face and throat.
“Are you pregnant by Rolf le Fever?” Nyle asked her.
“Isn’t that why you’re going to arrest me?” she asked raspily. “Because I was going to...to get rid of the baby?”
Joanna, Graeham and Nyle all exchanged looks.
Another knock sounded at the door. “Can I get some—”
&nbs
p; “No!” all three of them yelled at once.
“Olive,” Joanna said, “tell us what happened.” Graeham handed her a handkerchief; she dabbed the girl’s face with it, then opened Olive’s fingers and stuffed it into her hand. “From the beginning. You and Rolf le Fever...” she prompted.
“Aye,” Olive sniffled, wiping her nose with the handkerchief.
“For how long?”
“Since Christmastide. ‘Twas around the time his wife took sick with her head cold, because that’s when he...he noticed me, was when I started bringing her her tonic.”
“He seduced you?” Joanna said gently.
Olive closed her eyes and nodded. “At first I...I tried to resist him, mostly because he was a married man, but also because I was in l-love with Damian. And I c-could¬n’t believe a man like that could see anything in someone like me. He’s a guildmaster, and rich and handsome and he dresses so fine. But Rolf, he wouldn’t give up. He said he loved me, he needed me. His wife took a turn for the worse, what with the black bile and all. He said it looked like she was dying, and he meant to marry me after she was gone.” Olive shook her head. “I let him have his way with me. And now I’m in love with him and I’ve got his babe in my belly and I’m ruined.”
“I don’t understand,” Graeham said. “He told you he couldn’t marry you if you had the baby?”
Olive nodded, her gaze fixed on the damp handkerchief as she twisted it in her hands. “I’d be a fallen woman. A man in his position couldn’t marry a girl who’d had a babe out of wedlock, even if it was his. He made me promise to g-get rid of it.”
“With those herbs?” Joanna asked, indicating the two bundles that Nyle still held.
“Aye.”
“That’s what you were talking to le Fever about in the alley last night?” Graeham asked her. “Ending the pregnancy?”
“You heard us?” Olive asked, aghast.
“Aye. I thought...well, I thought you were talking about something else.”
“You want to have the baby?” Joanna asked her.
“Oh, yes.” Olive raised her tearful gaze to Joanna. “But if you hadn’t shown up when you did last night, I’d have gone ahead and got rid of it. I was that upset when I saw you’d taken those herbs. I couldn’t figure out how you knew what I was doing with them. But once I thought about it, I realized you did the right thing. You kept me from a terrible sin.”
Joanna was at a loss for words.
“After you left,” Olive said, “I asked myself what you would do if you were in my fix. You’re always so wise and strong. You always know the right thing to do. I decided you’d have the baby even without a husband, even if it meant living in shame. You’d lift your chin and make the best of it. And that’s exactly what I’m going to do.” Olive sat up straight and gave Joanna a watery little smile.
Joanna squeezed her hand.
“Only now I’m going to be arrested for trying to oust the babe from the womb,” Olive said mournfully.
“That’s not something women get arrested for,” Joanna assured her.
Olive pointed to Nyle. “But he said he was here to arrest me—and he had the herbs. I thought—”
“He was mistaken,” Joanna said. “We all were.”
The undersheriff stepped forward. “Not necessarily.”
Graeham exchanged a quick look of dismay with Joanna and rubbed his forehead.
“You two are satisfied with the wench’s explanation because you know her and you’re disposed to believe her,” Nyle said. “But in my vocation, I’ve had to learn to cultivate skepticism.”
“She’s an innocent girl,” Graeham said. “A bit impressionable, a bit lacking in judgment, perhaps, but she’s young.”
Joanna stood, her hand resting on Olive’s shoulder. “She’s certainly no murderer.”
“Murderer!” Olive said.
“When did Rolf le Fever propose to you that you begin adulterating his wife’s tonic with poison?” Nyle demanded, standing over the cowering girl. “Was it before or after you became his mistress?”
Olive closed her eyes. “I’m going to be sick again.”
Joanna held the bowl for her and wiped her face. “Leave her be,” she told Nyle. “She didn’t poison Ada de Fever.”
“Perhaps,” said the sheriff. “But think about it. A young girl with a babe quickening in her belly, desperate to marry the father—only he’s already got a wife. The girl happens to be the apothecary’s apprentice. The wife’s laid up with a rheum of the head. ‘Tis a simple matter to lace her tonic with something that’ll make her gradually sicker, and when the time comes, she gets enough to kill her, and none’s the wiser. Le Fever may not even know she’s been doing it. Perhaps she conjured up the scheme all on her own.”
“Can you look at this trembling, weeping girl,” Joanna said, “and honestly think she’s capable of such underhanded doings?”
“Mistress,” Nyle said wearily, “I’ve served as undersheriff in this city for nigh unto twenty years. I’ve seen grisly, cold-blooded murder done by sweet little grannies and pink-cheeked children who laughed about it afterward. More than once, I’ve seen men protest their innocence so fervently, with tears in their eyes and their hands clutching holy relics, that they were judged innocent and let go, only to turn around and murder again.”
Olive leapt to her feet. “I didn’t do it! I did want to marry Rolf, but I would never sully my soul with murder—never! Tell me how to prove my innocence, and I’ll do it!”
Indicating the herbs, Nyle said, “‘Twill help if these are what you say they are, and not poison. I’ll have them analyzed by a master apothecary. In the meantime, you’re to be incarcerated at the Gaol of London—”
“The gaol!” Joanna exclaimed. “You don’t have to take her to—”
“She’s a suspected murderer,” Nyle said, unhooking the manacles from his belt.
Olive whimpered.
“You don’t need those,” Graeham said. “She’ll go with you quietly, won’t you, Olive?”
Olive nodded vigorously. “Yes, I swear I will. Please don’t chain me.”
“All right, then.” The undersheriff grudgingly replaced the manacles. “But if you try to escape on the way to gaol, I won’t hesitate to use deadly force.”
“I won’t try to escape.”
“What of Rolf le Fever?” Graeham asked. “You can’t arrest Olive and let him off scot-free.”
“I have every intention of questioning Master Rolf,” Nyle said. “He lives in that blue and red house on Milk Street, yes?”
“Aye,” Joanna said, “but you’ll find him at the silk traders’ market hall. He’s there’s most mornings until nones.”
“I’ll go to the market hall, then, after I escort this young woman to gaol. Are you ready?” he asked Olive.
The girl nodded.
Joanna embraced her. “You’ll be out of gaol before nightfall. I’ll make sure of it.”
* * *
After everyone was gone, Elswyth pushed aside the deerskin curtain she’d been listening behind and stepped into the apothecary shop.
It was dark in here, with the door and window closed. Dust motes hovered in the narrow shaft of sunlight squeezing in between the window shutters. They looked like little sparkling stars; Elswyth trailed her hand back and forth through them, making them dance and spin.
The sunlight shot through the stack of blue glass phials on the work table, making them glow from within like sapphires. How beautiful they were, exquisite really. They came from Venice. That’s why they cost so much. No wonder the silk merchant’s widow had tried to steal one. But Elswyth had stopped her. That’s ours, she’d told her, and Joanna Chapman had seen she was caught and put it back.
Afterward, Elswyth had counted the thirty-four phials five times to make sure they were all there. And that evening, after her gardening, she’d counted them again, just to make sure.
That thieving bitch mustn’t be allowed to get her hands on something so precio
us. That would be very bad, very bad.
Elswyth picked one up and looked around. The tiled-lined fire pit was empty even of ashes, having been swept out that morning by Olive; the broom still leaned against the kettle rack. Hauling back, Elswyth hurled the phial into the pit, where it fractured in an explosion of startling blue shards.
She smiled and smashed another one, and another, and another, until the pit was filled with crushed glass that overflowed onto the earthen floor.
Her breath came faster now, but because it was a tiring business, shattering thirty-four glass phials, not because she was excited or upset. The time for fury was over. The simmering rage that had bubbled and bubbled in her brain for the past year was gone now, replaced by a cold, clear certainty—a resolve that felt wonderfully sharp and hard and glittering, like the fragments of blue glass in the fire pit.
She knew what she had to do; it had come to her while her daughter was weeping over that lying, crawling whoreson who planted his bastard in her belly. He’s a guildmaster, and rich and handsome and he dresses so fine...He said he loved me, he needed me...He meant to marry me...
Elswyth fetched a sheet of parchment and a quill and the ink pot and brought them to the work table. Uncapping the ink jar, she dipped in the quill and wrote To Olive at the top of the sheet.
You will wonder why I have done what I have done, she wrote in the elegant hand that had always been her pride. That is why I am writing this letter before I do it...
Chapter 23
Thomas Harper, sitting in the sun on his barrel in front of Mistress Joanna’s kitchen hut, inhaled the unhappy smell of scorched porridge and wondered where she was. She and the serjant both, for when he’d peered through the windows into the storeroom, he’d found it empty—the first time in a month and a half that Graeham Fox hadn’t been there.
Lords of Conquest Boxed Set Page 29
