by S. D. Sykes
I froze until she removed her hand, surreptitiously wiping my nervous sweat onto the cloth of my habit.
She composed her hands into her lap again, aware that she had embarrassed me. ‘So, tell me, Oswald. How is it that I can help you?’
‘I wanted to find out more about the women who’ve disappeared,’ I said, trying to concentrate again. ‘To see if there’s anything that links them.’
Maud leant back on her chair and appeared to be thinking as she bit her lip. I’m ashamed to say this was another gesture that I found myself studying with too much attention. ‘I suppose they were all young. Under twenty.’
‘What were their names?’
‘I only knew their Christian names,’ she admitted. ‘But let me ask Johanna. She knew these women better than I.’ Maud rose to her feet, stepped gracefully across the parlour to call her maid from the doorway. We soon heard the girl’s feet trundling down the wooden stairs, before she dashed into the room at full speed. When Johanna saw that I was still there, she stopped dead and cast her eyes to the floor, as if the sight of me might turn her to stone.
Maud didn’t acknowledge this strange behaviour. ‘The girls from Stonebrook who are missing,’ she said. ‘Can you tell Brother Oswald their names please, Johanna?’
The girl hesitated.
‘Come on, Johanna,’ said Maud. ‘You knew them well, I believe?’
The girl trembled, mumbling their names to me, as if she had been asked to list the horsemen of the Apocalypse. I asked her to repeat these names three times so that I could commit them to memory. ‘Mary Ancoats, Mary Chandler, Winifred de Terre, Mary Brewer and Jocelin Baker.’ The list bore out a certain truth. If you wander into any village in Kent, then at least half of the women are called Mary.
‘Can you tell me how they disappeared?’ I asked. This question appeared to flummox the girl.
‘Let me answer that,’ said Maud, before turning to her servant. ‘Run along now, Johanna. Father needs washing and turning in bed.’
Johanna retreated at speed from the room, leaving Maud to share another smile with me. ‘I’m sorry, Oswald,’ she said, once the girl was out of earshot. ‘Poor Johanna can be afraid of her own shadow sometimes. But don’t let it alarm you.’
Maud returned to her chair, and began to tap the ends of her fingers together. I was half-afraid and half-hopeful that she would take my hand again, but she was lost in thought. ‘I believe the first two girls were on their way to market in Burrswood when they went missing,’ she said. ‘I’m afraid that I can’t remember which ones, though.’
‘Were they travelling together?’
‘No, no. It was on two separate occasions. The second disappearance was about one month after the first.
‘And the others?’
‘I believe that two of them were collecting firewood in the forest,’ she said. ‘And the last one was visiting an aunt in Crowbridge.’
‘And they were also travelling alone?’
Maud nodded. ‘That’s right.’
This didn’t surprise me. A man who attacks women is unlikely to pick upon more than one victim at a time. ‘How often were the disappearances?’ I asked.
Maud puckered her lips. ‘I suppose they have been fairly constant,’ she said. ‘About a month or so between each one.’
This was more revealing to me. It seemed that the man had developed a habit. Meaning, of course, that he would act again.
‘Have there been disappearances from other villages nearby?’ I asked.
‘No,’ she said quickly, before qualifying her answer. ‘Well. Not that I know of, Oswald. But then again, we don’t hear a lot from outside Stonebrook, as nobody is straying far from home these days. With the threat of plague, we barely see anybody outside of this parish.’
I wondered if she knew about the family who had died in Fallowsden, and then decided against mentioning this. There was enough darkness to this conversation already without talk of plague. ‘Is there anything you can tell me about the women themselves?’ I asked hopefully.
This prompted a bashful smile. ‘I’m sorry, Oswald. This is a small village, but I didn’t know any of them very well.’ She dipped her head for a moment, and seemed almost embarrassed. ‘I’m not a haughty woman. Please don’t think that. But equally, I have to keep my distance.’ She looked up again. ‘I have two hundred acres to manage in the place of my father, and therefore I cannot be too familiar with the other villagers. They would not respect my wishes, if I were to sit about the brook, gossiping with the other women as we washed our sheets.’ She sat up straight. ‘I have to maintain my standards. I hope you understand that?’
I looked about this room again, noting Maud Woodstock’s standards. I saw a carved oak coffer, fastened with iron bands. A dresser full of pewter plates. A glass decanter of spiced wine. Cushions made from green damask. A worsted carpet on the floor. All were of the best quality. This was not to mention the smell of the freshly baked ox pie that was now drifting through the air with tantalising appeal. Not the usual sulphurous stink of boiling cabbage that haunted the average village home.
‘Of course,’ I said. ‘You cannot be their friends. I understand.’
‘I sound so stupidly proud and conceited, don’t I?’ she replied. ‘But it’s difficult to be respected, Oswald. Especially when you are a woman doing a man’s job.’
‘I’ve heard that you do it very well.’
She bowed her head in response. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I try my best. But it has meant making many sacrifices. Sometimes I feel very lonely and isolated from the rest of the village.’ She heaved a sigh. ‘Sometimes I wish my life had taken a different course, and that I could have married.’
I didn’t know how to respond to this, so we sat in silence for a while – though the atmosphere wasn’t awkward. Instead it was intimate. I felt flattered that Maud had revealed something of herself to me, as she didn’t seem the type to do so readily. It prompted me to make a confession of my own. To reveal a secret that I had not intended to share with her. ‘There’s something else I wanted to tell you,’ I said.
‘Oh yes?’ she replied, looking up from her brief reverie.
I hesitated for a moment. ‘Agnes did speak to me,’ I said. ‘When I found her in the forest. Just before she died.’
Maud sat back. ‘I see. Why didn’t you say so before?’
‘I’m sorry,’ I replied. ‘I should have done. But it was too difficult for me to repeat in front of everybody. And…’ I hesitated again. ‘And I was worried that they would misunderstand.’
Maud leant towards me and rested her chin on her hand. ‘Go on, Oswald,’ she said. ‘Please. Tell me what she said.’
‘It was just before she threw herself into the river.’ I looked away feeling suddenly embarrassed, unable to hold Maud’s intense gaze. ‘She said, Keep away from me, priest.’
Maud narrowed her eyes. ‘Why do you think that she said this to you?’
‘It was more the way she said it,’ I replied. ‘Agnes was terrified. Almost as if she’d mistaken me for somebody else.’
‘You mean the man who attacked her?’
‘I do.’
Maud paused. ‘Then there’s something I should tell you,’ she said. ‘It might be relevant, now that you’ve shared this information with me.’ She cleared her throat. ‘There was a monk from Kintham who kept visiting the village until recently. A lay brother, I believe, given his clothing.’ She hesitated again, unsure about her next words. ‘To be honest, there was something about him that I didn’t like.’
‘What was his name?’ I asked.
‘Brother Merek.’
I coughed in surprise. Should I tell Maud that Merek was also missing, having allegedly run away with a woman? I quickly decided against it. ‘Why didn’t you like him?’ I asked instead.
Maud hesitated again. ‘It was probably nothing, Oswald. Perhaps I shouldn’t even have mentioned it.’ She gave a sigh. ‘It’s just that he spent far too much tim
e with the women. Particularly the poorest girls in the village. I used to see him hanging around with them at the edge of the forest. Or bringing them small gifts.’ She paused to frown. ‘I thought he was too friendly and generous, and…’ She looked at her hands as if the next admission embarrassed her. ‘I’ve seen it before, Oswald,’ she whispered. ‘Men who work very hard to build a relationship of trust with a woman. Only to then manipulate and exploit her.’
‘Do you know if Brother Merek befriended Agnes? Or any of the girls who are now missing?’ I asked.
‘Yes. I believe that he did,’ she said. ‘Though he tried to keep out of my way, so I can’t be entirely sure.’ She paused again. ‘I was about to make a complaint to the Abbot, and ask for him to be removed. But then he stopped coming. About six weeks ago,’ she added. ‘I don’t know why. Perhaps somebody else complained before I had the chance?’
Of course, I knew exactly why Merek had stopped coming to Stonebrook, but once again I stopped short of sharing this information with Maud. The story was too incendiary in the current circumstances – not to mention the fact that the brothers had been forbidden to speak about Merek outside of the monastery. According to the Abbot, his disappearance was a potential embarrassment to Kintham – especially if he had genuinely absconded with a woman. And so I thanked Maud, assuring her that her concerns about Merek were probably something and nothing, before telling her that I needed to get back to Kintham Abbey for Nones. I wanted Peter’s advice before acting on this new piece of information. I should have sought out my tutor’s help when Agnes died, and I wouldn’t make that mistake again.
Maud offered me another slice of the custard pie before I left, or even a secret slice of the ox pie that was increasingly filling this chamber with its delicious, savoury smell. But it was time to leave. Otherwise I might never have found the heart to go – especially as Maud grasped my hand in hers again and earnestly thanked me for taking an interest in the lives of these women.
With her touch still warming my skin, I made my way back to the monastery, my feet feeling heavier with each step. I should have been thinking about Brother Merek and his unexplained visits to Stonebrook. I should have been thinking about the missing girls and making sure that I committed their names to memory. But instead, I was thinking about Maud Woodstock. The mounds of her breasts and the intensity of those beautiful blue eyes.
Chapter Seven
Somershill, November 1370
Mother sat up and rearranged her pillows, pummelling the bolster with surprising energy and giving me the impression that she wasn’t quite as ill as we had all imagined. Then again, she had retired to her bedchamber each winter for the past three years, with the announcement that she was preparing for death, only to make a miraculous recovery by the following March.
‘You always were a fool when it came to women, Oswald,’ she said, flopping back against the bolster, her face now losing some of its colour. ‘This story doesn’t surprise me in the least.’
‘I was very young,’ I said in my defence. ‘I didn’t know what I was doing.’
She pulled the linen sheet over her chin, as if it were a shroud. ‘Yes, but you don’t get any better, do you, Oswald? That’s the trouble.’
‘What do you mean by that?’ I said, rising to my feet. I had become distracted by a noise outside in the courtyard below. Two of the kitchen boys were shouting at one another, and it sounded as if a fight were brewing.
‘Are you listening to me, Oswald?’ Mother asked, as I looked out of the window.
‘What was that?’ I said absentmindedly.
‘I said, You don’t get any better, do you?’
‘At what?’
‘At dealing with women, of course.’
I ignored this comment, as the fight had intensified. One of the boys was clutching a cat to his chest, while the other boy tried to grab the creature. My old steward Gilbert was sitting on a stool to one side of this spectacle, and whittling a chestnut branch into a pointed rod as he scowled in their direction. Gilbert was said to be nearly eighty, though nobody, including Gilbert himself, was sure about his age. Ever since I could remember, he had been ancient. In fact, he should have retired to the village long ago, to be cared for by his daughters and grandchildren. Instead he remained at Somershill, as much a feature of the house as the curtain wall and the north-west tower. Unable to part himself from our company, he was usually to be found in some corner, cleaning a roasting spit or sharpening a knife. This was the sort of quiet, undemanding work that suited his age, but Gilbert could still summon the energy of his younger years when the need arose. I watched as he sprang to his feet and approached the boys – whipping the chestnut branch through the air and threatening to thrash the pair for their behaviour. As usual, his idea of peaceably breaking up a fight was more violent than the altercation itself.
I decided it was time to intervene, so I quickly crossed the room, heading for the door when Mother dealt her blow. It was accurate and deadly, aimed at the heart. ‘So, you don’t want to know what your wife has been up to, then?’ she asked me.
I let my hand fall from the latch, but didn’t turn around. ‘What do you mean by that?’ I said.
She paused. ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t say?’
‘Shouldn’t say what?’
I could hear Filomena’s voice in my head, urging me to leave the room and ignore this provocation. Don’t take the bait, she was saying. Don’t fall for her tricks. But I was weak. Too easily hooked. ‘What’s your point, Mother?’ I asked, turning around to face her.
Mother couldn’t resist the shortest of victory smiles, though she quickly lifted her hand to her mouth and smothered her delight with a yawn. ‘Filomena is very close to Sir John, wouldn’t you say? I’ve seen them laughing and whispering in the courtyard.’
‘What were you doing out of bed?’ I replied. ‘You’ve been told to stay there.’
This accusation threw her, but my small triumph was not to last for long.
‘A woman must stretch her legs on a daily basis,’ she said. ‘Particularly if she’s to maintain some dignity. I refuse to sit in bed and urinate into a pot.’
‘Then take care to stay away from the window,’ I said.
‘I wasn’t spying, Oswald,’ she replied. ‘If that’s what you’re suggesting. It’s just that I couldn’t help but see what’s been going on.’
‘You need have no concerns about my wife and our guest,’ I said firmly. ‘Sir John is staying here for the winter at my invitation.’
Mother gave a huff. ‘So you say.’
‘Sir John is my friend,’ I insisted. ‘Filomena is as fond of him as I am. He likes to entertain the household with his tales. That is all.’
Mother closed her eyes. ‘I hope you’re right, Oswald,’ she said. ‘I would hate to see you taken advantage of again. By another woman.’
I lifted the latch and quickly stepped into the passageway before I said something that I would subsequently regret. I was about to close the door when she called me back.
‘Oswald!’
‘What is it?’ I said tersely.
‘You will come back later, won’t you? I want to hear more of your story.’
I closed the door and didn’t answer.
* * *
I didn’t return later to Mother’s bedside. I suppose it was my idea of punishment – the removal of my company in revenge for her mischievous story. But she won in the end, for I spent a miserable afternoon, worrying about something that had never occurred to me before – a romance between Filomena and our house guest, Sir John.
That evening I watched the pair closely as we sat about the fire – noting how greatly Sir John entertained my wife with the stories of his travels. Noting how she chose his company over everybody else’s. Spotting an incident where she touched his arm lightly and then let her hand linger on his sleeve. I had never even considered this man as anything other than amusing company before, but now I was watching his behaviour like a hawk. And I was
n’t the only person showing an interest. When I looked about the fireside, I also saw Henry keeping their relationship under observation with a pair of watchful, jealous eyes.
And what of our love rival himself? It wasn’t as if Sir John was a handsome man. His face was dominated by two bulges at his forehead that looked like the podia for a pair of horns. His mouth was wide and thin, and his complexion was an odd shade of pinkish brown – where the strong sun of the Mediterranean had weathered his skin into a patchy leather. It was his personality that was captivating, however. When Sir John began to tell a tale, this strange arrangement of features was immediately transformed into a different face completely. At this point, it was barely possible to keep one’s eyes from him.
That particular evening, he had promised to tell us about travelling to Sinai to visit the monastery of Saint Catherine. Usually his tales began with some mention of Venice, my wife’s home city and the place where we had met one another in 1357, after my first wife had died in childbirth. Venice was the port of embarkation for every one of Sir John’s journeys about the Mediterranean sea – whether he had travelled to Jerusalem, Egypt or Tartary, and so it had never surprised me previously that he began each of his accounts with a preamble about the many fascinations of that incredible city.
But now, following Mother’s insinuations, I began to wonder if this scene-setting were Sir John’s genuine motivation, or whether he mentioned Venice so often to please my wife? It was clear to all that Filomena was enchanted by his descriptions of Venice, to the point of closing her eyes and sighing with delight upon hearing about the Piazzetta or the Molo. I could see that Sir John enjoyed Filomena’s response, so, rather churlishly, I asked him to quickly move on to the monastery visit when he mentioned Venice that evening, claiming that I was feeling tired and needed an early night.
John graciously complied, since he was always keen to keep his audience happy and never be seen to dominate the conversation (though he often did, at everybody’s insistence), but I could tell that Filomena was disappointed by my intervention. If we could never return to Venice in person, then at least she could travel there in her mind.