Though John would have preferred that she dedicate more time to cooking savory meals instead of medicines, he was not so selfish as to demand that she give up her fascination with chemistries and herbs. He knew that her desire to experiment with different combinations of plants was a skill learned in part from her mother, who was a neighborhood white witch, and that adding unconventional ingredients such as salt of tartar then setting fire to the concoctions may have been influenced by the long hours she had spent assisting her father in his room of alchemy. John was not about to discourage her from this “dabbling”. Even though the king had made it treasonous to practice conjuration and sorcery, as long as she didn’t flaunt her discoveries or draw attention to her work she was safe from people misconstruing her efforts to help the sick. Besides, it was a means of making money. And with John gone, there was no more stipend from his apprenticeship.
Bianca rose from the table and bid Mackney and Smythe a good day. She collected her scarf and was winding it around her neck when the tavern door swung open and constable Patch’s deputy appeared. He was the kind of man who shied from scrutiny and as he stood discreetly surveilling the room, his conspicuous Adam’s apple traveled up and down his skinny throat. His eyes came to rest on Bianca, steadily watching him. The flash of recognition relaxed his face and he swiftly wove through the grid of trestles to get to her.
“Bianca Goddard,” he said, with a slight nod. “The constable requests that you accompany me to Castle Baynard ward.”
“In regards to what?”
“Mistress, he thinks there has been a murder.”
Chapter 5
Borderlands of Scotland
Almost a country away, John Grunt, Bianca’s husband, leaned against a rock and ate his rations of mutton, biscuit, and a pint of ale. It had been nearly a year since he had sailed for the Firth of Forth and stepped foot in this rugged yet majestic land. Sailing had been the first of many new experiences that had left him awestruck and even terrified at times. This terror, this gnawing, insidious fear--a constant of war--he struggled to hide.
Until then, he had never laid eyes on the sea stretching before him, sometimes blue, but most often gray. If the sea had been smooth with following winds he might have taken to a sailor’s life. But a vicious wind blew from the northeast, a sharp cold that lashed at his face and chilled him to the bone. For days the rain slanted sideways and he stayed below as much as he could, enduring the stagnant air and collective stink of men. Spring brought the change of seasons, when the wind turned over the ice in the lochs and brought men in galleons to wage war.
They arrived just after Edinburgh burned, the smoke still hanging over the town like a malevolent veil. The air smelled of destruction and decay, the rotting stench of death. A smell that would become so familiar as to lose its salience. Not a single house stood. Nearly every building had burned, the ash and smoldering timbers the only remains of what life once was. In the end, only the castle stood; it had been decided not to waste any munition trying to destroy it, for the fortress sat high above in a position of strength and its cannons warded off siege by pummeling High Street, its only access.
While Henry’s men continued to lay waste to every village within seven miles of Edinburgh, Sir Nicholas Pointz by order of the Earl of Hertford crossed the river and won the town of Kinghorn. It was John’s first battle and, with the smell of ruined Edinburgh still fresh in his nostrils, he rose to the occasion. It was kill or be killed. The time for introspection had passed.
He took no satisfaction in burning Kinghorn to the ground. He hung back when a rushlight was passed to him and he shook as he lowered it to light straw placed against a house. He watched the seed of his treachery grow; saw the flame run like a wild rabbit, hop sideways, and double, then triple again in its breadth and ferocity.
The screams of the dying, of women and children, cut through the roar of fire. His head filled with their agony, and his. He stepped back, shrinking from the heat of the flames, unable to stop what he had done, and disbelieving it.
Perhaps disbelief is the sustaining mindset of men at war. It is not I, but they. It is not you, but them.
And as his fellow soldiers ran willy-nilly, setting fire and slaughtering those who dared try to escape, John lacked the jangly intoxication of subduing his enemy. His veins did not run with the fever of power--they ran with the gravity of murder.
John thought back to that first week, where there was no rest between raids upon villages along the coast. He recalled his commander repeating the Lord Lieutenant’s words in a rallying cry to justify their cause--
“Whereas the Scots had so many ways falsed their faiths; and broken their promises confirmed by oaths and seals and certified by their whole parliament, as is evidently known unto all the world…our Lord Lieutenant, the Earl of Hertford, was sent thither by the King’s Highness to take vengeance of the Scot’s detestable falsehood…that unless they would yield up their town unto him frankly…he would put them to the sword, and their town to the fire.”
And after these exploits had been done to Edinburgh and the immediate countryside, the Earl of Hertford determined the Scots had not been punished enough. The men could not rest until every ship or boat belonging to any village or haven on either side of the Firth was burned or brought away. Some fifty miles of humanity and its accoutrements were razed and destroyed.
This endless campaign on every village in southern Scotland had taken its toll on John. While his comrades had resigned themselves to the destruction and followed their orders with as little thought as pulling on their shoes, John still struggled with the taking of innocent lives. After Kelso and Roxburgh, he became more withdrawn, grateful for any time to rest or do anything other than plunder and pillage. He watched his fellow soldiers grow more confident and cruel. They believed wholeheartedly that their cause was just. They hated the Scots with as much vehemence as their king.
John finished his ale and rested his head against the boulder.
He thought of Bianca and counted out the months since last he’d laid eyes on her. Ten. Nearly a year had gone by. She would have had the baby by now. He wondered if his little boy was strong--for he was certain their child was a boy. The certainty came only from a feeling, but it had become unshakeable. A thrill of pride swelled inside of him and he smiled at the thought of seeing his family when he was at last sent home.
“Methinks we have a monkey in our midst. Look on his mad bliss.”
John didn’t answer for a moment. He had no desire to release the happy scene floating in his head. Besides, he recognized the voice. It belonged to the persistent burr in his side; Roger the archer, blowfart—and, sadly, Cammy’s lover.
He felt a kick to his thigh.
John opened his eyes to glare at the offender.
“Ha, there is no time for idle pleasures,” said Roger. He was joined by two other archers who stood on either side, sneering down at John. The disagreeable trio were never content to while away their free time mending their quivers or resting before battle. Instead, they made the rounds antagonizing the very men tasked with protecting them. That they had lived so long unnicked by combat spoke better of their billmen than of any special talent with their bows and arrows.
For as much as John would have enjoyed punching Roger’s sarky face, he commendably refrained from doing so. There were plenty who would have cheered him on and who would have merrily contributed a few punches, but the trouble he would have heaped upon himself was not quite worth it. Because in Henry’s army, the archers were the favored mavens, the men who were to be protected at all costs.
“You would do well to give me leave,” said John. He resisted reminding Roger of a billman’s duty, for Roger was the kind of man whose belief in this imposed hierarchy of ascendant archers, meant that he could disrespect those beneath him and think them expendable.
“Pray tell me why…thou sapless foot-licker?”
It was enough to stir the most phlegma
tic of men, which John was not. But John had survived too many years on the streets of London to risk himself more misery by lashing out. If there was one thing that he had learned in the past ten months, it was that no one escaped being affected by war. Let the churl plant his seeds of discord, for he would eventually reap the reward of his false conduct. Of that John was certain. For John was not the only underling to suffer Roger’s tongue.
John spoke. “Because soon we march for Melrose. And while you trouble yourself with me, I see a monkey yonder, with more malicious intent, inspecting your quiver and bows.” John tipped his chin towards the direction from which Roger and his lunkheads came. Plenty of men were milling about, but it did appear that someone was looking over their abandoned weapons. “Methinks he supposes they would serve him better.”
The surly expression on Roger’s face fell like a rock in water. A second later, he abandoned John, and his hapless cohorts trotted after.
“Droch áird chúgat lá gaoithe,” said Glann McDonogh, an Irish pikeman, one of the many foreigners Henry had hired to fortify his army. He gave John a hand up.
“Smooth out your briary tongue. Its sounds are strange.”
McDonogh’s eyes narrowed looking after Roger. “May he be badly positioned some windy day.”
John smiled. “Aye. Mary make it so.”
The Irishman slapped John on the back. “Would I sit with six Scots to one of those,” he said, and John agreed.
“Take care when you say that,” said John. “Though we men of sticks oft think it.” The two walked across the field, away from the immediate camp. They looked out over the gently rolling hills in the direction of Melrose, their next conquest. “We are nearly five thousand strong and we have not known a defeat since I’ve been here. There is hardly a village that has not been touched. Surely the Scots have had enough.”
Glann McDonogh picked up a pebble and threw it as far as he could.
“These Scots have seen everything they’ve worked for destroyed in a matter of minutes,” said Glann. “If it was by God’s hand, then they would accept it. But it wasn’t God’s hand that did this to them—it was ours. We’ve ruined a people and a land. And if we stay here long enough, they will find a way to avenge their dead.”
“For a lowly billman, you are wise, my friend.”
McDonogh found another stone and aimed it at a raven picking apart a field mouse. The stone landed short and the bird flapped its wings before settling back to its meal. “We’re like that bird. It’s going to take more than a rock to move us on.”
Chapter 6
Bianca sat opposite Constable Patch’s minion as the boatman steered their skiff toward the stairs at Baynard’s Castle. Cyndric informed her that a body had been found hanging from St. Mary Magdalen’s Church and that it would take some time to get it down.
It had been nearly a year since she’d done any criminal inquiry. With John gone, she had settled in to a predictable and innocuous routine--that of making medicines, collecting herbs and various ingredients, and experimenting to her heart’s content. John had always argued against her pursuing any sort of skullduggery; he worried for her safety. If she had to keep her inquisitive mind busy then he preferred that she occupy herself with herbal remedies instead. (Though, truth be told, there was plenty of danger in brewing some of her medicines; a recent mishap had caused a percussive boom that brought her neighbor running to investigate. The fire was easily dashed with a bucket of water, but it took Bianca a good day to recover her hearing.) But, in a sense, John would be glad to know that for several months she had concentrated on her medicines, and when she hadn’t, there had been a good reason why. She sighed, feeling a twinge of regret as she smoothed down her kirtle over her now flat stomach.
When they landed, she followed Cyndric up to the church on Milk Street. They arrived just as the body was cut loose from the window’s dripstone. The sexton was of stocky build but agile enough to drape the lifeless body over his shoulder while sawing at its tether. Beneath him, the ladder bowed and bounced precariously as two men held fast to the bottom wearing anxious looks on their faces. All the crowd had fallen silent, held spellbound and breathless watching him balance on the bendy ladder halfway up the exterior of the church.
“Bianca Goddards,” said Constable Patch seeing her approach.
“Constable Patch.” Bianca’s eyes flicked up to the sight overhead. After a moment she said, “Mayhap you might consider clearing the crowd if he or the body should fall.”
“I have assurance that this fellow knows what he is about. Besides, the crowd would break his fall.”
Bianca gave Patch a weighty look, and without another word he began shouting for people to move back.
“I hope I am wrong,” she said when he returned to her side.
Patch informed her of what he knew, and while he was talking to her Bianca noticed a priest standing within earshot, watching them. She met his gaze and tucked her chin in acknowledgement. “Is that the priest?”
Patch glanced over his shoulder. “It is a priest,” he answered, rolling his eyes. “Father Foxcroft,” said Patch loudly, while turning toward the man. “This is Bianca Goddard. She often assists me. She is of keen eye.”
Father Foxcroft obviously noticed Patch’s irreverence, for his expression showed mild annoyance at his handling. The priest was a tall man, somewhat thin, but like Bianca’s husband possessed the complexion of a healthy man. For a priest, his attire looked new, or perhaps he was a meticulous dresser. Guessing from his marten-lined gown and cuffs, he was a man pushing the limits of sumptuary law.
“Do you know the priest of St. Mary Magdalen?” asked Bianca.
“I do,” replied Foxcroft. “I am sorry he must deal with such a troublesome incident.”
With a final flourish, Phinn succeeded in cutting through the rope and a piece of it fell into the crowd below, causing some excitement. He then began climbing down, struggling under the weight of the lifeless body.
“Do we know who the victim is?” asked Bianca, keeping her eyes trained on the sexton.
“Nay,” said Patch. “No one seems to recognize ‘im. Then, toos, all we could see was the bottoms of his feet.”
Just then a loud crack issued overhead. One of the rungs broke and Phinn rode the ladder down to the gasps of the spectators until his feet caught a foothold several rungs below. His hands raked the weathered sides, and he must have gotten them riddled with splinters for he cursed loudly and shook out one hand, then the other. After a few ‘Hail Marys’ he eventually calmed himself enough to continue his descent.
The closer Phinn got it became obvious that the victim was not a man.
“He looks familiar,” said Patch. “I feel as if I have seen this lad before.”
Bianca’s heart dropped. The victim was a child.
She was used to examining and thinking about adult fatalities, but a young boy robbed of life, tore at her heart. The familiarity of a mother’s loss struck painfully close. Bianca prepared herself to look upon the child, hoping at the very least that she did not know him.
The child wore threadbare, ill-fitting clothes, too short for his growing limbs, exposing his wrists and ankles to the elements. One shoe was missing, and the other seemed of little use with a gaping hole and two gray toes poking through.
Cyndric moved forward to help Phinn with his burden and they laid the body on the cobbles next to the ladder. Immediately, the crowd surged forward for a better look. Constable Patch and Bianca had to squeeze through the tightly packed throng in order to get close.
“Stand away, give us leave!” shouted Patch. He and Cyndric managed the crowd enough so Bianca could crouch beside the body. It took several more minutes and the help of a few additional men to back away the mob before Bianca finally got enough light for a good look at the victim.
Father Foxcroft wormed his way next to her. The toes of his fine leather shoes peeked from under his cassock--a gentle reminder of his
presence. Bianca ignored his imposition and focused on the poor victim lying before her.
The first thing she noticed was a rosary wound around the victim’s neck. Two loops, tightened enough to suffocate, ended in a carved wooden cross. The remnants of the noose lay on top. Bianca lifted the crucifix off his shoulder and saw that it was made of boxwood. She slid the wooden beads along a cord made of hemp.
Bianca studied the boy’s dirt-grimed face and pushed back the lips of his slightly open mouth. He had his adult front teeth, but from the size of the others and with some missing, Bianca approximated his age.
“He must be around nine or ten years,” she told Patch who had just returned to her side.
Instead of acknowledging this, Patch issued a warning to onlookers that they were encroaching. His irritation extended to Father Foxcroft.
“Unless ye is planning to bless the poor boy, there be nothing ye can do, Father. In facts, we needs some privacy to fully disgust the findings.”
Bianca heard a quick exchange between the priest and Patch, then saw the man’s fine leather shoes step away.
Relieved of his intrusive presence, Bianca rocked back on her heels for a general look. His unevenly shorn dark hair clung to his head and he wore no cap. Besides the overall grime of his face, dried mucus crusted his nostrils like he had been sick or perhaps crying.
However, as she considered his overall appearance, she was struck by how peaceful he looked. If she didn’t know better, he could have been mistaken for a sleeping child. She pulled back his eyelids and saw no swelling or broken vessels. A victim of strangulation would have looked markedly different. Bianca loosened the paternoster revealing a telltale furrow from the noose where it had dug into the skin, angling up to the jaw. She then ran her fingertips down his spine. A break indicated the boy had been dropped a sufficient enough distance to have caused a fairly quick death. Given the length of the rope and height from which he was hanged, it was lucky he had not been decapitated.
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