by Paul Doherty
‘So, about two hours after midday.’ Kathryn paused. ‘Yes, it would be about then, wouldn’t it, that the alarm was raised?’
‘I tried to enter the maze,’ Gurnell confessed. ‘But Father John said it was futile. You’ve been through it, Mistress. The lanes twist and turn. You could become lost for days. Lady Elizabeth was informed. I sounded the horn time and again but there was no answer, so Father John had wooden boards brought from the stable and laid them across the top of the hedges. At first it was difficult but, I’d say within an hour, I had reached the centre.’
‘Was it hazardous?’ Colum asked.
‘Master Murtagh, you have crossed ravines, ditches, gorges, moats. We had to move slowly. One board being laid down after another.’
‘Tell me.’ Kathryn picked her wine cup from the table and moved it slowly, watching the bubbles wink and burst. ‘Can the maze be seen from the top of the hall?’
‘No.’ Gurnell shook his head. ‘If you go up, even to the garrets, and look down the maze is well constructed. The hedges are very thick at the top so they look closely packed. It’s like gazing at a forest, or a thickly wooded copse: you can see the leaves, the branches, but not the paths beneath. The only thing which can be glimpsed, very faintly, is the top of the Weeping Cross. I can take you up, you will see what I mean.’
Kathryn shook her head.
‘So, this maze was only known to Sir Walter?’
‘He loved it.’ Lady Elizabeth smiled bleakly. ‘He called it his great secret, a way to purge his mind, to feel that he was making reparation. I knew some of his story but not all the terrors which tormented his soul.’
‘Is that true, Father John?’ Kathryn ignored the Lady Elizabeth’s look of annoyance.
‘No one knew that maze, or Sir Walter’s mind.’ Father John shook his head. ‘I once asked Sir Walter how long it would take a man to walk from the entrance to the centre. He replied how he’d measured it once with an hour glass, only a quarter of the sand had passed through. And yet,’ he shrugged, ‘servants have tried it for a jape or jest and became panic-stricken. This was when Sir Walter first bought Ingoldby. After that, he gave strict orders, no one was to enter the maze.’
‘I once fought Yorkists,’ Gurnell observed, ‘along the warren of alleyways in Southwark. That was easy compared to the maze.’
‘I know,’ Kathryn agreed. ‘I went in there and experienced it myself.’ She glanced around. ‘The world seems cut off, nothing but a dark greenness, an oppressive silence. Whose idea was it to lay the ropes?’
‘Mine,’ Gurnell replied. ‘We had boards put over the hedgerows until I reached the centre. I took coils of rope with me and, helped by a retainer, moved to meet another who came through the entrance.’ He grinned, scratching his head. ‘Some confusion but, at least we met. It took about an hour.’
Kathryn stared down at the ring on her little finger. A brilliant emerald in a gold setting, a gift from Colum. I should be preparing for my marriage, she thought. My wedding day approaches but I am now in this maze of bloody murder. Kathryn fought against the burst of temper seething inside her. It was always like this, the lies, the masks, the riddle of half-truths and hidden desires which surrounded every murder.
‘How did Sir Walter learn to thread the maze?’ Colum asked. ‘Is there a map, a manuscript?’
‘Sir Walter owned a fine library,’ Father John replied. ‘But I have never found any manuscript or document about the maze, nor would Sir Walter tell how he found out.’
‘The former owners?’ Kathryn queried.
‘The hall had been left vacant for about six years,’ Lady Elizabeth replied.
Kathryn noticed how Eleanora was now heavy-eyed. Had the woman fallen asleep?
‘The former owners,’ Lady Elizabeth repeated, ‘were Lancastrians. A widower, Sir Thomas something, I forget now. Both he and his son died in battle.’
‘I see,’ Kathryn replied. ‘So, his estates were forfeit and the Crown sold them to Sir Walter? Did you ever ask him the secrets of the maze?’
Lady Elizabeth shook her head. ‘I asked him when we first moved here but he pressed his finger against my lips.’ She blinked quickly. ‘He said I was not to ask again.’ She tapped the psalter lying in her lap. ‘I respected his wishes.’
Kathryn glanced sharply at Colum, gnawing his lip, a sign of growing impatience.
‘And the Athanatoi?’ Luberon’s voice came out as a squeak.
Mawsby sniggered. Luberon coloured and cleared his throat.
‘These Athanatoi?’ he repeated. ‘Do they exist?’
‘As I have said,’ Father John eased himself in his chair as if in pain, ‘such old legends are like the whispering of dry leaves.’
‘But do they exist?’ Luberon insisted. ‘The Athanatoi?’
‘I don’t think so,’ Kathryn intervened. ‘Until today, no one attacked Sir Walter. The Athanatoi are just a name. I’d be very surprised if they are flesh and blood.’
She refused to be drawn by the puzzled looks and hurried whispers amongst them.
‘So, who murdered my husband?’ Lady Elizabeth stared archly across. ‘Sir Walter had a great influence at court.’ She paused. ‘And so do I. I will ask for a Royal Justice to be sent down.’
‘My lady, if a Royal Justice arrives, he will ask the following questions: where were you all between the hours of noon and one o’clock today?’
Kathryn glanced out of the window. The evening was drawing on, still beautiful and golden but soon darkness would fall. And what then? Would she return to Ottemelle Lane?
‘I asked a question,’ she repeated quietly.
‘My maid and I,’ Lady Elizabeth spread her hands prettily, ‘were in the arbour of flowers, on the edge of the great meadow to the right of the maze entrance. I saw my husband go in. We remained there, playing musical instruments. Ask my household, Gurnell, Thurston, Father John.’
A chorus of agreement greeted her words. The rest followed suit, explaining their movements: Thurston was busy in the kitchens; although a Friday, it was the eve of the Transfiguration and a household banquet was being arranged. Gurnell remained on guard near the maze, as he always did; Lady Elizabeth and her maid vouched for him as did Thurston. Father John was in the library whilst Mawsby had been sent into Canterbury to buy some cambric cloth. He only returned after the alarm had been raised. Kathryn stifled her disappointment.
‘My lady.’ Kathryn picked up her cup and moved it from hand to hand. ‘Would you object if I took lodgings tonight at Ingoldby Hall?’ She ignored Colum’s sharp intake of breath. ‘I am sure I shall be safe.’ Kathryn kept her voice steady. ‘As you may appreciate, I need to question the servants.’
‘They were all busy in the kitchens.’ Lady Elizabeth smiled. ‘But, to answer your question, Mistress, you will be my honoured guest. I’ll certainly find you more congenial than a Royal Justice.’ Lady Elizabeth’s smile faded. ‘Mistress Swinbrooke, everyone in this chamber can vouch for where they were when my husband was killed, barbarously murdered. None had a grievance against Sir Walter. Yet,’ Lady Elizabeth’s voice rose, ‘someone entered the maze and carried out that hideous deed. If you search for answers so do I.’ She tightened her lips, her blue eyes hard. ‘Who killed Sir Walter? Why? And so barbarously? I have had his remains moved to the death house but there’s no . . .’ She couldn’t bring herself to say ‘head.’
Kathryn stared pityingly across. Lady Elizabeth was acting the grand lady; nevertheless, the horror of Sir Walter’s death would soon make itself felt in this luxurious mansion: it would cast a long, cold shadow over these opulent surroundings.
‘Did Sir Walter have any enemies?’ Colum broke the silence. ‘I mean, in the days before his death, were there any other threats or abuse?’
‘The Vaudois woman.’ Eleanora’s head came up, no longer heavy-eyed, her face tense and watchful.
Kathryn caught a slight trace of accent and wondered if Eleanora was of Spanish or Portuguese extraction.
‘The Vaudois woman,’ Father John explained, ‘is mad, witless. She was once the mistress of the former owner of Ingoldby Hall; his wife died, and she was a local girl who moved into the hall. She gave the lord a son, but both were killed in battle. After their deaths and her disgrace, she and her daughter moved into a small hunting lodge near the hall.’
‘Are they dangerous?’ Kathryn asked. ‘This mother and daughter?’
Father John gestured with his hand. ‘No. The daughter is slightly simple, the mother is witless. She does not even know who Sir Walter was. She thinks her lover and son will return from the wars and often wanders up to the hall demanding to see them.’
‘Sir Walter gave strict instructions she was not to be abused,’ Lady Elizabeth declared. ‘Even so, when Sir Walter would go out and ask her to be taken away she would shout threats and curses. The woman is confused. Sometimes she believes that her lover and son are sheltering here, even that Sir Walter had killed them. Mistress Swinbrooke,’ Lady Elizabeth suddenly broke off and rose to her feet.
Kathryn, followed by Colum and Luberon, did likewise. Lady Elizabeth rubbed her brow, her fingers fluttering round the white band which circled her beautiful throat.
‘I do not feel well, and there are things I must do.’
‘I understand.’
Lady Elizabeth nodded, whispered a few words to Thurston, and swept out of the chamber.
A short while later Kathryn sat on the top step leading down to the great meadow, her gaze fixed on the entrance to the maze.
‘I have never seen anything like that,’ she whispered.
‘I have heard of similar in France and the Low Countries.’ Colum scratched his chin. He sniffed the air. ‘What’s that fragrant smell?’
‘From the kitchens,’ Luberon said. ‘The cooks are making potted swan.’ He smacked his lips. ‘Claret and butter, mace and nutmeg, small rolls of well cooked bacon.’
‘You are hungry, Luberon,’ Katyrn teased.
‘I am also inquisitive,’ the clerk replied, munching on a piece of bread seized from the kitchen. ‘The stories we heard were correct. Everyone was where they claimed to be. Thurston was in the buttery making sure the milk and cream were kept cool from the heat. One maid took a cup of malmsey to Father John in the library. Mawsby definitely went to Canterbury whilst Lady Elizabeth and Gurnell never left the great meadow.’
‘You shouldn’t stay here, Kathryn.’ Colum abruptly changed the subject. ‘And, if you do, so shall I. Do you remember that hideous business at the Friars of the Sack? You have no one to protect you.’
‘There, my passionate Irishman.’ Kathryn squeezed his calloused hand. ‘Sir Walter had his household to protect him but he still died. I’ll be safe. Anyway, you’ve got to mend the drenching horn for that sick mare.’
‘Aye,’ Colum agreed. ‘And the blacksmiths are out to shoe the yearlings. I have to make sure they do it properly and don’t drink too much smithing ale.’
‘What’s that?’ Luberon demanded.
‘Part of the custom,’ Colum replied. ‘For every yearling they shoe for the first time, the blacksmiths demand a quart of ale. I have seen them so drunk they can hardly stand.’
‘Why?’ Kathryn asked. ‘No, not about smithing ale. Why should Sir Walter be killed so barbarously? Decapitated, his head taken? The killer must seethe with hate.’
‘Could it have been a hired assassin?’ Luberon asked. ‘It must have been a man.’
‘Nonsense,’ Colum intervened. ‘I have seen women in Ireland with a scythe or a sharp blade take a man’s head off in one clean cut. The blood,’ he continued. ‘The assassin must have been drenched in blood.’
He ignored Luberon’s exclamation of disgust as the clerk took the bread away from his mouth.
‘Blood from a severed neck spurts high like water from a fountain.’
‘Yet,’ Kathryn declared, ‘we found no bloodied clothes on the ground, either in the maze or around it. Nor, indeed, was there any trace of the killer. The ground must have been scuffed and torn by the servants searching for their master’s corpse as well as bringing up those planks to lay across the tops of the hedgerows.’
Luberon returned to his munching. Kathryn stared across the great meadow. It must have been late in the evening; the sun was now dipping into the west, filling the sky with bursts of scarlet-gold, and the shadows of the trees lengthened across the grass. She repressed a shiver as she recalled a childhood tale of how, at sunset, the gargoyles slithered down from their pillars and crept across the churchyard to meet evil goblins and wood sprites from the trees. She wondered if her father had ever come to Ingoldby. Now she was here she recalled scraps of gossip about its grandeur and the maze, yet the place had been nothing but a name to her.
‘Murder will out,’ Colum remarked.
‘Don’t start quoting Chaucer,’ Kathryn replied.
‘Women desire to have sovereignity,’ Colum teased.
‘I am not the Wife of Bath,’ Kathryn retorted. ‘But, to quote the poet’s words: ‘the sword of sorrow’ certainly hangs over Ingoldby. So strange,’ she mused loudly. ‘They are all shocked, disgusted by Sir Walter’s death but. . .’
Kathryn watched a raven swoop over the grass and land a few feet away to dig at the grass with its yellow, swordlike beak.
‘You don’t think Sir Walter was loved?’ Luberon asked, swallowing a mouthful of bread quickly.
‘I think he was respected,’ Kathryn replied. ‘But he was a stranger to his own household. I believe the older he became the more he lived in the past.’ Kathryn paused. I used to do that, she reflected, after my marriage with the drunkard Alexander Wyville; her Father dying, then Wyville joined the Lancastrians, going off to war. She had lived in a dream until Colum had arrived, swaggering into her house like sunlight bursting through a darkened chamber. Yet, even now, betrothed to this man she so passionately loved, preparing for her wedding day, the darkness of the past would occasionally draw her back. She recalled vividly Wyville’s flushed face, his ale-drenched breath, and the nagging suspicion, despite every confirmation to the contrary, that he may not have died and been buried in some pauper’s grave in the west country. Kathryn rose to her feet.
‘Colum, leave the cob here. You must go back to Canterbury. Tell Thomasina what I am doing and ignore her protests. Ask her to fill a saddlebag with some fresh clothes, my green woollen cloak, and my writing satchel.’
Colum got to his feet and turned her face gently with the tip of his finger. Luberon, who’d always been fascinated by Kathryn and quietly doted on her every word and touch, glanced away in embarrassment.
‘Kathryn.’ Colum’s puzzlement deepened. ‘You look pale.’
She shook her head. ‘Nothing, nothing at all. I will be well. Hurry now.’
A short while later Kathryn accompanied Colum and Luberon down the winding path towards the main gate. This had now been opened, and they stood aside to allow a wine cart, pulled by two drays with hogged manes, to rumble by. Kathryn was giving Colum further instructions about what was to happen at Ottemelle Lane when she heard a scream. A woman appeared through the gates garbed in a long, red gown, its sleeves tattered, the ragged hem hanging above dirty bare feet, a mass of grey hair falling down to her waist. She was thin-faced and yellow-skinned with high cheekbones. As she ran towards them, Kathryn noticed the spittle at one corner of her mouth and the wild, frantic look in the staring eyes. Another woman, a cowl pulled over her head, hurried after.
‘In God’s name!’ Colum breathed.
The grey-haired woman stopped and fell at their feet, head bowed. Kathryn noticed the leaves and twigs sticking in the coils of her grey hair.
‘Have you seen him?’ The woman’s face came up. She wiped the spittle on the back of her hand. ‘Have you seen him? My son? My master? So many,’ she blinked, ‘riders galloping about. Have they brought messages from the war?’
Kathryn’s hand went out to stroke her face but the woman recoiled.
‘Yo
u must be the Vaudois.’ Kathryn crouched down and stared into those mad, blood-flecked eyes. ‘We bring no news, Mistress.’
‘You must.’ The woman’s bony hand grasped Kathryn’s. ‘So much excitement.’
‘She means no harm!’
Kathryn glanced up. The other woman had pushed back her cowl to reveal a dark brown face framed by a mass of unkempt auburn hair. She was comely but her gaze was rather vague, and her mouth hung slack. She was better dressed, with sandals on her feet, and Kathryn smelt fresh herbs.
‘She is the Vaudois woman?’ Kathryn released the old woman’s hand and got to her feet.
‘She is.’ The young woman’s voice had a marked Kentish twang. Her eyes were now more guarded, her face more determined. ‘She’s been excited all day. Talks of messengers coming and going, of news from the great hall.’
‘You’ve heard what happened?’ Colum asked.
‘Aye, I’ve heard. My name’s Ursula.’ She forced a smile. ‘Sometimes my mother is quiet, she helps me, but today . . .’
‘The news must have disturbed you?’ Kathryn asked.
‘I hated Ingoldby!’ Ursula spat the words out. ‘Sir Thomas, its former owner, used my mother. He and my brother were strangers to me. Theirs was a man’s world of iron and fire, of armour and sword.’ She grimaced. ‘But I am sorry for Sir Walter’s death. He was kindly enough. He sent us delicacies and money. The news is all abroad now. A bloody death, but that’s what happens to the men of war, mistress, they all die bloody deaths. Those who live by the sword die by the sword.’
‘And you know nothing of Sir Walter’s death?’ Luberon became all efficient.
‘Plump man! Appleman!’
Ursula raised her mother up and drew her away.
‘I live in peace and I go in peace. What would the likes of us have to do with Sir Walter?’ She turned and walked down the lane, stopped and looked over her shoulder. ‘Wars come and wars go,’ she intoned. ‘And as the tree falls so shall it lie!’