by J G Lewis
But, as she suspected, the milking parlor was empty except for a few piles of fresh dung and the dairymaids and their master were busy churning milk into butter in the dairy. The dairy’s owner approached her and bowed. “Good morrow, my lady.”
He didn’t look surprised to see her entourage. No doubt the girls had filled him in on the local gossip.
“Good morrow, Master Nance.” Ela put a lot of effort into remembering names. Her father had schooled her in the necessity at a very young age. “We seek Alan Morse.”
“Ah. A sad business. It appears to involve two of my best customers. I do hope for my own business that neither of them is the murderer.”
“That will be determined by the judge, when the suspect is brought to trial.” She didn’t like the idea that Nance felt he had a stake in the outcome. And his attitude was a little too familiar. “Do you know where I might find Master Morse?”
“I suspect he’s out on his patch of common grazing.” He jerked his thumb down the road, in the direction opposite from the way they’d come, toward the damp water meadows. “His own grazing’s nigh eaten to bare earth.”
“Thank you, Master Nance. God go with you.” She turned her horse to preempt any more familiar chit chat on his part. Riding down by the water meadows would take them almost half the way home by a different route, which would be good except that she also intended to visit the Widow Nettles that the girls had mentioned on her last visit to the dairy. Perhaps they could drop in on her first, since Morse was hardly likely to abscond while his cattle grazed abroad.
“Annie, could you point me the way to Widow Nettles’s house?”
“Aye.” Annie pointed down a track that led into a small knot of woods. “She’s down that lane a quarter mile.” The girl’s eyes widened. “Is she a suspect, too?”
“Oh, no.” Ela laughed. “I wish to visit her and see if she has any unmet needs.”
“Oh.” Annie looked relieved. “She’s always in need of firewood.”
“Thank you.” Ela made a mental note to send her a cartload of wood when the road hardened. She didn’t mind Annie talking to her with a degree of familiarity. Why was that? “Good day to you, girls.”
“Thank you, my lady.” She and Mary both bobbed and bowed their heads politely. Probably the difference between them and Nance is that they seemed genuinely concerned and helpful, whereas there was something…sneering about their master.
Because she was a female sheriff? Or was she being too sensitive?
She shook off her petty concerns. “Will, please lead the way to Widow Nettles’s house so we can make her acquaintance.”
They trotted down the narrow lane until it became so overgrown that they were obliged to walk and bow their heads, then finally to dismount to pass under the low branches intertwined over the ancient track. A tiny cottage with a steep thatched roof rose out of the forest floor in front of them as the track tapered to an end.
Ela resolved to tell the cart bringing the wood to unload it at the top of the lane and carry it down here because there was no room for a cart to turn around. Or better yet she could send a team of woodsmen to open up the thick growth around the widow’s house and turn the burden of brush into wood and kindling for her hearth and space for her garden.
Ela dismounted and handed her reins to a guard. Then she approached the door and knocked. She felt oddly apprehensive as she waited. The wood of the door was black with age and as lichen-covered as the nearby treetrunks.
“Who is it?” A tiny voice called from within. No doubt the old lady was terrified by the sound of strangers at her door.
“’Tis Ela of Salisbury come to visit you.” Ela tried to sound friendly and reassuring. “And to see how well you fare.”
“Not very well,” the voice squeaked. “Not very well at all.” Ela heard the sound of feet shuffling across the floor and stiffened with anticipation as the door shifted on its rusty hinges and began, reluctantly, to scrape open across the hard ground.
Two rheumy eyes peered up at her from the darkness inside. The door was still only cracked open a few inches. “What can I do for you?” Widow Nettles looked impossibly old, her face as wizened and creased as the bark of an oak. “It’s all I can do to rise from my chair.” Ela tried to peer past her into the pitch-dark interior of the windowless cottage but could see nothing.
“You have no fire?”
“Not today.” Widow Nettles stared at her. How much she could see through the pale film that covered her eyeballs? At least she had more sight than Katherine Morse’s poor blind father. Loss of sight was a terrible affliction of old age. She wondered how long ago this poor widow lost her husband, and if she still felt his loss keenly.
Ela knew she was so blessed to be left with the means to provide for her family after her husband’s death. So many women were forced into remarriage or a demeaning job to avoid starvation. Poor widow Nettles was too old to have either of those options left to her. Ela’s heart hurt at the realization that this poor woman must have no children left alive to care for her. “Are you lacking wood to build a fire?”
“Aye. As you can see I’m surrounded by it but no longer have the means to cut it.”
“Do you have an axe?”
“I do. It’s around the back.”
Ela looked at Will, who left the reins of his horse on its neck and squeezed around the side of the house, past the brush encroaching right up to the walls.
“What sustains you, mistress?” asked Ela, half-suspecting she lived on acorns and water drunk from cupped leaves.
“The girls from the dairy bring me whey, and Master Nance sends food as well. He’s my great-grandnephew.”
“I am glad that you are taken care of in that way. Do you get lonely out here all by yourself?” How sad it must be to live long enough for your closest loved ones to have died.
“Nay.”
Ela waited for more, but Widow Nettles didn’t seem keen to expand. Maybe she worried that Ela would try to pry her out of her home and settle her in an almshouse in the new town. Some people were strangely resistant to the prospect of comfortable new housing that wasn’t their own home. Her mother would tease her that she was the same way, preferring the windy castle mound to one of her comfortable manors.
Will returned with the rustiest axe she’d ever seen. He handed it to one of the guards who had already pulled a whetstone from his saddlebag and used it to hone the dull blade. Her son then set to the branches of a gnarled hawthorn starting to crowd the door.
Ela was proud of her him for knowing how to do a task that might well be left to servants. Bill Talbot, his tutor in the knightly arts, had insisted that a man must be able to survive in foreign territory and had taught him well. Will chopped the branches into usable-size pieces and set on the next bush.
Many of the branches were dead and already good for a fire. “Would you like me to send a woodcutter to clear the area around your house and stack it for you?”
“That would be too dear. I have nothing to pay.”
“It would be a donation in memory of my late husband.”
Widow Nettles hesitated. Perhaps she was afraid of being tricked into something or out of her home. If she’d lived long enough someone had probably tried to do that before. “No obligations or recompense due. My husband was always concerned for the welfare of the parish elders.”
“If it pleases you.” She didn’t sound too happy about it. No good deed goes unpunished. That was one of Alianore’s favorite phrases.
“Indeed it does please me,” Ela tried to sound warm. “I’ll have someone come within the week. Is there anything else you need, Widow Nettles?”
The old woman was silent for a moment, and Ela had time to take in the ragged state of her tunic and her old shoes worn almost to vellum thinness. She resolved to send a warm cloak and new shoes along with the woodcutter.
“There is one thing.” The woman’s tiny voice rose higher, sounding eerie in the quiet of this wooded hollow.
“What’s that?” Ela’s ears pricked, imagining what she might request. New thatch for her roof? A new broom to sweep her bare floor?
“I’d like a cat. My old cat died a year ago, and the mice are swarming.”
“You shall have one.” Ela was delighted that her request was so easily fulfilled. Of course, cats weren’t as biddable as dogs and were liable to disappear unexpectedly, but the widow’s supply of fresh whey was a good enticement, especially if accompanied by a warm hearth. “In fact, one of our cats at the castle had kittens just after Epiphany. They’re ready to leave their mother. I’ll make sure one is brought to you.”
The old woman’s thin, dried lips creased into a tiny smile. “The Lord’s blessings be with you, my lady.”
“And with you, Widow Nettles.” Will, who had been hewing away at the bushes, leaned the axe, handle up, against the side of the cottage, and retook his horse. “Good day to you.”
Ela rode off, feeling pleased to have brought a little succor to the elderly widow, if only in the form of promises. They traveled back under the sinister canopy of gnarled branches, then remounted their horses and rejoined the road that led to the water meadows.
Dark clouds gathered above the trees, threatening rain, as they topped a rise and looked down to see Morse’s cows scattered across the grassy plain below. “Perhaps you can reveal our news to him, Master Haughton.”
“What news is that, my lady?”
“The news that his wife lay with John Brice.”
Haughton shifted in his saddle “That’s not news a man is like to take kindly.”
“He may well know it already.”
“I doubt it. Not many will want to tell a man who his wife was tupping.”
Ela felt a nasty sensation crawl up her spine. Did he think she was cowardly in pushing the task onto him. Was she? It was surely something a man might take better coming from another man. “Are you afraid to tell him, Master Haughton?”
“Of course not.” He looked affronted. “As long as you’re sure it’s for the best.”
“Do you propose that we keep it a secret?” She was growing impatient. Surely Morse could see them watching him from the brow of the hill.
Haughton glanced at the guards. Ela wondered what thoughts were passing through his mind.
They rode down the long, shallow hillside toward Morse’s herd of cattle. Morse himself had spotted them and stood staring at them. She could swear she could feel daggers borne on his gaze pricking her skin.
“Good day to you, Master Morse.”
“Ye rode a long way to find me.”
“Not so far.” Ela turned her horse to allow Haughton to come to the front. She hoped Will would keep his mouth shut as she’d gently schooled him before they’d left. He didn’t have the experience and wisdom to say the right thing under difficult circumstances.
Haughton halted his horse close to Morse, who peered at him with a mixture of curiosity and insolence. He seemed overconfident for a man still under suspicion of murdering his wife.
“Are you familiar with John Brice?” asked Haughton, his voice low.
“Owns the farm next to mine but one. Be odd if I didn’t know him, wouldn’t you think?”
“We believe he’s the man your wife was visiting.”
Morse’s whole face darkened. “What’re you trying to say?”
“You said your wife might be pregnant by another man.”
“Did I?” He sounded confrontational.
“Well, that was the conclusion that we, ah—” Haughton glanced back at Ela, who remained impassive. She knew it would only make things worse if she took control at this moment. “It seems that Brice is the likely father of your wife’s child.”
The suggestion did sound terrible spoken aloud in the bright midday air.
“Says who?” The words exploded out of Morse in a rush of air.
“Brice’s wife accused him of adultery in public yesterday.”
Ela couldn’t understand why it had taken so long for Elizabeth Brice to explode in rage over his cheating. Why now?
“And John Brice named my wife as his—partner in crime?” Morse looked suitably appalled.
“No, not in public. But later, when we interviewed him in the castle.”
Morse looked from Haughton to Ela and then to the rest of the group. “Why are you telling me this?”
Haughton looked at Ela, who rode her horse forward a couple of steps. “We seek your wife’s murderer. Do you not think Brice might be a suspect?” That wasn’t her reason for telling him, entirely, but it was a good enough excuse.
“You think he killed her?” Now he looked interested. Of course, if Morse himself was guilty, he would leap on the idea of an alternative suspect.
“It’s a possibility.” Ela fixed her gaze on him. “He seemed upset that she’d broken off with him almost as soon as she learned she was pregnant.” She waited for a second, watching his response. “He seemed to think that perhaps you and your wife had planned for her to lay with him so that she could become pregnant and give you a baby.”
Morse’s face betrayed nothing but astonishment at first, but it morphed into anger as she watched. “You think I would encourage my wife to break her vows in another man’s bed?” His voice was deep and carried more than the hint of a threat.
“It would be quite understandable, if you were worried that you might never have an heir.”
Morse laughed, then spat on the ground, which made Ela flinch in her saddle. “I’m not the lord of the manor, worried who I’m going to leave my great estate to.”
“But every man wants a child to look after him in his old age.”
“Not Katie’s father! That old cuss don’t want no one near him.”
“Perhaps he’s just proud. Losing one’s sight can be humbling to a man.”
“So can having his wife’s sexual misdeeds broadcast before all of Salisbury.” Morse’s face was now bright red. “Are you going to arrest me for murder? Because if not I need to drive my cows back home.”
Ela glanced at Haughton, who resembled a stone effigy. Ela cleared her throat. “Who do you think killed your wife?”
“John Brice, I suppose. I don’t know who else could have done it.” He spat the words at her. “Who would want to kill Katie?”
“Except her angry cuckolded husband?” suggested Ela boldly. She’d come here to gauge his reaction, after all. “Who didn’t come forward with the information that she was missing.” That alone should banish the idea that he and his wife had plotted to use Brice as a breeding boar. “Why didn’t you raise the hue and cry?”
“I thought she ran off with her lover.”
“But if her lover was just down the lane you’d have still seen her every day.”
Morse’s eyes narrowed. “I didn’t know it was him. Miserable milksop that he is.” She watched him closely for signs of rage—tightening fists, lips whitening with fury—but saw none. Odd.
Disappointment spurred her to probe deeper for a reaction. “Did you beat your wife, Master Morse?” The question came out rather shriller than she’d intended.
He looked at her like she was demented. “Only when I had to.” His eyes narrowed, and he apparently realized the implication. “But I never hurt her. Why would I injure or kill the woman who cooks my meals and drives my cows for me? If I were going to kill anyone, I’d kill John Brice, wouldn’t I?” He shook his head as if unable to believe her idiocy.
Ela’s heart ached for poor Katie Morse. It was easy to see why she’d seek a few moments of escape in another man’s arms, even a man as insubstantial as John Brice. At least he might be tender. And Katie was a young woman, no doubt with desires that her impotent and hard-hearted husband could never satisfy.
Her husband had motive to kill her for cheating and becoming pregnant by another man. But would he kill his cook and chambermaid and cowherd and only companion?
And he seemed to have very little emotion about her death or her adultery.<
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None of this made sense.
Ela drew in a steadying breath. Morse was already whistling commands to his dog and beginning to gather up the cattle scattered across the large meadow.
Should they arrest him? Part of her wanted to, but they had no more evidence of his guilt now than they had before. Will’s expression gave her pause. She wanted to ask what he was thinking, but if he expressed a strong opinion she didn’t want to feel obliged to act on it or offend his youthful pride. Safer to find out later when he expressed it in private.
Morse turned to glower at her, and Ela shuddered. This was a violent man who beat his wife. Perhaps he’d like to lay his hands on her right now if she weren’t guarded by armed men. But he turned and strode away, driving his cows back toward the footpath.
We should arrest him and bring him into custody. But then who would take his cows home and tend to them in his absence? She could have them brought to one of her manors, where she might face whispered accusations of stealing them. The situation was a complex one.
She glanced at Haughton, who now had a troubled look on his face. “Your thoughts?”
“It’s a bad business, my lady. He’s liable to take revenge.”
“On me?”
For a moment Haughton looked dumbfounded. “On John Brice. He’d be within his rights, by the ancient laws.”
“What laws are these?”
“The laws in the Bible.”
Ela frowned. She didn’t remember any passages that sanctioned a man taking another man’s life for adultery, but then she was no biblical scholar. She had read enough to know that in those days the woman might well have been stoned to death for her transgressions. She shivered almost as if the dead woman’s ghost had laid a hand on her.
Who killed you, Katie?
There was an old woman in the village who claimed she could talk to spirits, but naturally such dabbling in the spirit world was frowned upon by the church. Ela had no desire to run afoul of the ecclesiastical authorities or endanger her own soul.