A Fall of Shadows

by Nancy Herriman

“Nay, see? You are indeed kind,” said the widow. “I ken well the villagers and countryfolk call me a witch. Though they did not always.”

  The chair had been placed so that sunlight from the sole window in the cottage’s front room could shine upon its occupant and lend some warmth. Women like the widow were often described as deformed and ugly hags, suspected of practicing witchcraft, their ill deeds shriveling their skin along with their souls. Mother Fletcher’s cheeks were withered and pale as paste, and her eyes red-rimmed and weepy. But the sunlight glimmered in their depths, the color of the cornflowers that bloomed among the fields and full of wit.

  Her eyes were also filled with loneliness, as the widow sat in her two-room cottage with its pounded earth floors and rickety furnishings and waited for patients who did not come. Who had not come, Bess imagined, for many a year.

  Who gives her money to survive? Someone must do. Mayhap a villager who remained grateful for a cure provided long ago or a dutiful relative gave help. She had no children to support her, for Joan had learned that they and Mother Fletcher’s husband had died in a fire. Perhaps the villagers believed she was somehow responsible for their deaths as well.

  Bess unbound the ties of the satchel that held the pot of iris root and rose water. She withdrew the physic along with a square of clean linen. “Those with sense do not call you a witch.”

  “Their sheep have died,” she said, folding her bony hands atop the apron pinned to her faded brown kirtle. “’Tis easier by far to cast blame upon me than to blame their own bad husbandry. Or to wonder if their prayers to God have gone unanswered for reasons they wish not to examine.”

  “Their fears will subside,” said Bess, soaking a corner of the linen with the physic. “I am certain.”

  The widow closed her eyes. “You are a good woman and young. Certainty comes easier to such as you,” she said. “Howsomever, I warrant the churchwarden will soon arrive to inspect my withered body for the marks on my skin that would prove their beliefs correct.”

  He might. He very well might.

  Bess bent over the woman and laid the cloth atop her eyes. Mother Fletcher startled at her touch. “Forgive me if the cloth is cold, Mother Fletcher.”

  “Do not make an apology, Widow Ellyott. I have suffered harsher trials than the press of a wet cloth, and your touch is gentle.”

  Bess daubed the woman’s eyes. “I do my best.”

  “But now the Reade lad is dead. They have found him upon that cursed hill.”

  The old woman, living at the distant edge of the village and too frail to regularly travel into town, knew a great deal.

  “You have learned the sad news,” said Bess, refreshing the cloth with the solution of iris root and rose water.

  “They accuse me of his death as well.”

  “How can you in your frailty have killed Master Reade? ’Tis folly to suggest it.”

  Mother Fletcher moved aside Bess’s hand and propped open one lid, the bright blue eye peeping at Bess. “Magic?”

  Despite her words and assurances, despite her belief she was not prone to superstitions, Bess shuddered.

  “A man has been arrested. None have come to burn you at the stake, Mother Fletcher, for the crime,” she said. “Nor has the churchwarden come to examine your skin for warts.”

  “Not as yet, Widow Ellyott. But ’tis true that Old Jellis is mistrusted as much as I,” she said, closing the eye she’d opened. “Och, ’tis so. I am a stranger, and he is lost and wandering. They find it easy to blame me for the illness which has killed their sheep. Easier still to accuse an unwelcome old drunkard of murder, rather than consider the culprit to be one of their own.”

  “Know you who killed Master Reade, Mother Fletcher?”

  “No. Even if I did, as a stranger to this place, my word is not to be trusted,” she replied. “Mistrusted despite the fact that my husband was born here, as were my children. But they have been lost to the plague.”

  Bess straightened, the cloth in her hand dripping onto the rushes beneath her feet. “I thought they had perished in a fire.”

  “Och, aye.”

  “Was the burned house near the abbey ruins once your home? The house they call the plague house?”

  The widow’s eyelids drooped as she became lost in thought. A cloud overspread the sun, casting her face in shadow. Bess waited and began to fear the woman might not speak again. But then her mouth moved, and the faintest sound came forth.

  “At one time,” she whispered. “I live now because I was away tending to a woman in a difficult and lengthy labor. In my absence, my family fell ill. I returned to find them gone and our house, burned.”

  Bess’s breath caught, a flood of memories and feelings stopping it in her throat. “Do you sometimes wish it had been you who’d died instead?”

  The old woman’s gaze was gentle. “You understand.”

  “My children died from catarrh. And my husband … from evil,” answered Bess. Evil that had a name. The name of Laurence. He’d been like a son to them. A treacherous son. “I would do anything to have them alive in my place.”

  The widow lifted a gnarled hand and rested it on Bess’s arm. Her fingers were as cool as parchment. “Then they would be wishing the same. That they had died and you were alive.”

  Bess contemplated the old woman who sat before her.

  “You did not send for me to offer sympathy for my loss, Mother Fletcher. Nor simply because your eyes needed tending,” she said. “You know the cures required to treat their rheum as well as I.”

  “I sent for you to warn you, Widow Ellyott.” Her fingers tightened around Bess’s arm with greater strength than Bess imagined the old woman possessed. “Your kindness and goodness have made you vulnerable.”

  “Do you mean Ellyn Merrick? How do you know about her?”

  Mother Fletcher released her grip and returned her hand to her lap. “Whispers travel faster than the wind.”

  “So I have come to learn.” Bess set aside the cloth. “But you cannot mean that I should have refused to help Ellyn. I must.”

  “It is what you do next that makes you vulnerable.”

  “I wish to do what is right,” she said. “That is what I have always done and what I shall do next.”

  “Certes, I doubt you not. But women like us … we are to be suspected. Widows. Healers. At one moment we are salvation. At the next, we are accursed.” The woman’s cornflower eyes held Bess’s. “They trust you now, for you are yet young, not wrinkled and bent like I am. But beware, madam, for one day they shall turn on you. As they have turned on me.”

  * * *

  Kit stared at the old fort hill, the so-called druids’ mound, its grass trampled by the feet of the dozens who’d searched for clues about a dead man. A knife had been found, tossed aside by a murderer. Its discovery had not brought Kit any nearer to identifying the person who’d discarded the weapon, however. Until he could make that identification, Jellis would rot in the jail while he awaited trial. As good a suspect as any, according to the burgesses and townsfolk who deemed the fellow a vagrant and, therefore, a criminal deserving of suspicion and punishment.

  As Bess Ellyott had pointed out, the area around the hillock was a quiet spot, and hidden enough from anyone passing along the road. In the distance, a plowman led his oxen to a field to be furrowed under for the coming winter. In the other direction, two women with empty baskets beneath their arms chattered as they trudged his way, bound for town. Quiet.

  He headed for the stand of trees where Jellis had been sleeping. A woodland animal scattered at the crunch of Kit’s footfalls, and rooks called overhead. His grandfather had once told him that if the rooks departed a place, ill fortune was soon to follow. Well, ill fortune had descended on this place and the rooks had not gone anywhere.

  Kit scanned the tree trunks and the dirt and leaves, searching for … only God knew what. Pale sunlight cast shadows across the golden leaves fallen to the earth. Jellis’s blanket—tattered, full of holes—lay
in a heap to one side. Surprisingly, none of the cottagers who lived nearby had taken it for their own use. The ground was as heavily trampled as the grass on the hill. If he sought the killer’s footmarks, he’d never find them among the many imprints of boots and wood-soled shoes. The gaggle of onlookers had obliterated everything by stomping about like a startled herd of cattle.

  He searched until his neck ached from examining the dirt.

  “Damn!” he shouted, causing the rooks to flutter their black wings and caw at being disturbed.

  He turned toward the hill. And spotted, in a sudden beam of light, a scrap of material hooked by a bramble bush. He tugged it free from the thorny branch and rubbed his thumb over the wool. A good black brocade. Not long stuck there, he’d wager, and perhaps a torn scrap from the outer garb of a killer.

  Tucking the bit of material into his belt, he turned toward the Merricks’ farm to ask about a feud.

  * * *

  I wish to do what is right.

  “And that desire has caused you trouble before,” muttered Bess to herself as she trudged along the road, the strap of her satchel slung over her shoulder.

  She’d left Mother Fletcher’s and set out for the Merricks’ farm, her excuse being that she meant to see how Anna fared. However, Marcye Johnes’s declaration about David Merrick had put questions into Bess’s head she desperately wanted answered.

  Might Anna know the reason these particular men hated each other? And could that hatred have anything to do with Ellyn Merrick’s baby?

  She arrived at the Merricks’ farm. Cows grazed in the meadows, and washed linens had been spread atop bushes to dry. Somewhere unseen, a rooster crowed. No servants tended the animals or moved among the outbuildings, though. Bess climbed the path to the entrance and rapped upon the door. Raised voices echoed inside the house, but no one answered her summons.

  Bess skirted the house and headed for the outbuildings at the rear. Inside the nearest open-sided shed, wheels of cheese sat atop shelves, but the building was empty of the girls who would attend to washing and turning them. Bess continued on, her passage accompanied by the clucking of chickens pecking among the stones of the yard outside the hogbog, where pigs snuffled in the mud beneath the coop. A bored tan dog, sprawled in the doorway to a shed, let out a muffled bark. The smells and sounds of cows greeted her as she approached another barn, a massive whitewashed timber-framed building. One of its wide doors hung ajar, and Bess went inside. The interior was warmed by the bodies of the large animals, and languid dark eyes tracked her movement.

  Hearing Bess’s approach, a young woman halfway along the length of the barn exited a stall and stepped into the aisle down the building’s center. She’d tucked her blue skirts into the girdle tied about her waist, raising their hems off the straw and muck covering the dirt floor. About the coif she wore, she’d wrapped a linen kerchief. Her large eyes gave Bess a wary look.

  “Who are you?” she asked, wiping her chapped hands across the apron she’d tied atop her kirtle.

  “My name is Elizabeth Ellyott.”

  “How do you, Elizabeth. My name is Thomasin. Has the mistress sent you?” the young woman asked, casting a glance over Bess’s attire. “You are dressed too well to work with the cows. Were you not told what to wear?”

  “I am not here to work with the cows.”

  “If Mistress Merrick has not sent you, then I beg your leave, for I am too busy to chatter with wandering strangers. I must do Anna’s work in addition to mine own.”

  “I came to see how Anna fares. I was called to tend to her yesterday. I am a healer.” Bess pointed to her satchel. “Is she better?”

  “She is not out here to do her work, is all I know.”

  Thomasin made to step back into the stall holding her waiting cow.

  “I pray the news of that man’s death has not further harmed her health,” said Bess, eyeing the dairymaid.

  “Bartholomew. The fool …” Thomasin’s voice trailed off. The cow she’d been milking lowed in its stall and shuffled restlessly. The dog Bess had seen out in the yard poked its head through the open barn door to inspect what was happening but did not come nearer.

  “You knew Master Reade.” Well enough to refer to him by his Christian name.

  “Aye,” she answered. “He was known by one and all.”

  Bess stepped up to her. “I need your help, Thomasin,” she said in a low voice. “Mistress Ellyn has come to me, ill—”

  “By ill mean you mean that she has lost her child?” Thomasin interrupted.

  “You knew she carried a babe?”

  “Who did not? According to the housemaid, Mistress Ellyn was sick every morning and could not take breakfast. What woman does not understand the signs?”

  “Did her mother also know?” And what of David Merrick?

  A shadow crossed her face. “I am not privy to the conversations that pass between the members of the household, as my days are spent out here with the cows.”

  “Would her family have blamed Master Reade for Ellyn’s condition?” asked Bess. “For she has admitted to me she loved him.”

  “So God mend me, I’ll say no more about the Merricks. I need this work.” She gestured toward the cow chewing its cud. “I would not have the mistress dismiss me or see me locked in the stocks for gossiping, especially about them. So I’d ask you to leave.”

  “One more question, then I shall go,” said Bess. “Who do you think could have killed Bartholomew Reade?”

  The shadow on her face did not lift, but deepened. “Mayhap it would be better to ask Ellyn Merrick than me.”

  “She blames Jeffrey Poynard.”

  Thomasin let out a sharp laugh. “The father of her dead child?”

  Bess gripped the young woman’s arm. It was well muscled and strong. “How can you know this to be the truth?” And what would Bartholomew Reade have made of such information?

  “I have eyes. And ears,” she replied. “And before you pose your next question, Mistress, I have already said too much about what the Merricks might know.”

  “Pray answer me this. Why were Ellyn and Master Poynard not brought before the Church court to assess their guilt and made to offer penance, if what you say is true?” Bess asked. Since she’d been living in the village, she could not recall anyone having been made to do so.

  Thomasin laughed again. “A Poynard making public penance? ’Twould never happen.”

  “Thomasin?” a man called from the entrance to the barn.

  She dropped a curtsy as Bess turned to face the man.

  “Master David,” said the dairymaid. “I beg your pardon. I tried to get this woman to leave but she’d not.”

  Thomasin scowled at Bess.

  A burst of sunshine in the yard at his back cast the man in shadow, and Bess was unable to make out his features. The straightness of his shoulders and his firm stance suggested he was young and eager to show that he possessed a measure of authority. His unassured ways, as Marcye had described them.

  “What is your business here?” he asked Bess.

  “I came to see how Anna Webb fares, Master Merrick,” she said, walking toward him. “I tended to her yesterday. I am Widow Ellyott. Your mother may have mentioned me.”

  He was young, likely not even twenty years of age, and shorter than Bess. He had to lift his chin to level his eyes with hers. “Anna remains abed. Too ill to resume her work. As you can see, she is not out here in the barn.”

  He stepped aside to encourage her to pass by him and out of the barn. She kept her ground.

  “I am sorry Anna is still ill,” she said. “I should go to the girl and see what else I might do for her.”

  “That will not be possible. My mother is occupied. She cannot make you welcome.”

  Not that she had made Bess particularly welcome yesterday, either. “I hope Anna does not learn of Bartholomew Reade’s death. I gather that many in your household knew him, had befriended him, and such news might harm her recovery.”

&n
bsp; David Merrick’s eyes narrowed. “This is not your affair, Mistress Ellyott. It is not. And you had best leave. Immediately.”

  CHAPTER 7

  Mistress Merrick rested a hand upon her pregnant belly. Feet pounded overhead, and children’s voices chattered noisily in a distant room. She frowned at the commotion. “You wished to speak with me, Constable? As may be clear, I am most busy.”

  “I shall be brief.” He crossed to a table against one of the decorated plaster walls in the ground-floor parlor and placed the knife on it. “Recognize this, Mistress?”

  She stood as still as a stone. “Nay. Should I?”

  “Might anyone else in the household recognize it?”

  “I can name all of the items we own, Constable. ’Tis not one of ours. Besides, this type of knife is common enough,” she said. “David is occupied in dealing with a person who has trespassed on our dairy, else you could ask him. If you trust not my word.”

  Kit had noticed the trespasser. The parlor had large mullioned windows overlooking the courtyard. Windows that had given Kit an excellent view of Mistress Ellyott charging out of one of the dairy barns minutes earlier, her cloak snapping in the wind.

  “Rumors of a long-standing dispute between your family and the Reades exist, Mistress Merrick,” he said. “Is there truth in them?”

  She drew her attention from the knife. “Does your question have aught to do with the weapon you have brought? If so, I would ask Master Reade’s fellow players about the knife, were I you. Actors are a rough sort.”

  “Tell me about the feud, if you will, Mistress Merrick.”

  She lifted her chin. “’Tis an old tale. We no longer carry any animosity between, Constable. You will have no trouble from us. Especially at such a grievous time.”

  “You did not protest your daughter Ellyn’s attachment to Bartholomew Reade?”

  She flinched. The motion was slight but noticeable. Not fully as still as a stone.

  “They had no attachment, Constable. It was a misplaced affection on Ellyn’s part. She repented of it soon enough.”

  “Nonetheless, your family must have been unhappy to learn he was with the troupe staying at the Poynards’.”