Kit trotted toward the church, dodging a girl dragging a cart overladen with the last of the season’s apples. One tumbled from the pile to roll across the cobbles. He stooped to retrieve it, tossing it to her as he angled to intercept David Merrick.
“Ah, Master Merrick,” he called out. “I was about to go to your farm to speak with you, but you have saved me the journey.”
“Constable,” said Merrick, raising himself to his fullest height.
Kit nodded toward the church. “Praying for mercy, were you?”
“We all need mercy, Constable.”
“Some more than others,” replied Kit. “Why did you not tell me about the fight you had with Bartholomew Reade the afternoon of the day he was murdered? In the Poynards’ courtyard.”
He flushed. “Who claims this?”
“A reliable witness.”
“The fight was of no import. A trivial disagreement.”
“The description I have heard did not sound trivial,” said Kit. “You make me reason that you hide something, Master Merrick.”
His flushed cheeks gained dark splotches of red. “I hide nothing!”
“My witness also informs me you shouted at Master Reade to ‘stay away from her.’ Who did you mean?”
Merrick blinked rapidly. The bell of All Saints clanged the hour, which made him blink all the more. Kit was not proud that he was finding pleasure in the man’s discomfort. He was becoming as loathsome as the queen’s master interrogators.
“One of our dairymaids,” he said. “Bartholomew plagued her with his unwanted attention.”
“The warning had naught to do with your sister Ellyn.”
“No.”
Kit considered him. “Remind me where you had gone the afternoon of Reade’s death and into the evening, Master Merrick.”
“I thought to go to the Poynards’ entertainment. Changed my mind. Instead, I supped with my mother. I believe she told you this as well.”
Indeed, she had. “You should have informed me of your argument with Master Reade.”
“I erred. I regret that,” he said. “Might I go now, Constable? I must return to the farm.”
Kit extended an arm and bowed over it. “Do not let me detain you, sir.”
Merrick scuttled off, resisting the obvious temptation to glance back.
* * *
Bess attempted to keep the suspicious-acting Jeffrey Poynard in sight without letting him realize that she was chasing him. If he noticed her, he might deviate from his intended course. Which appeared to be the Merricks’ farm.
He paid no heed to the old fort hill as he passed it. Did he avoid looking at the mound out of guilt? Or out of disinterest? She did not find it as comfortable as he did to pass by the hillock, and Bess crossed to the far side of the road.
She crested a low rise in the road. Up ahead, Jeffrey Poynard had halted his horse shy of the walkway to the Merricks’ front door. A spot oddly distant from the house itself. He tossed the reins over the fence that bordered the front yard and strode up the hill. But he did not go to the house. Instead, he skirted the building and headed for the outbuildings at the rear.
Crouching, Bess gathered her skirts out of her way and hurried forward. She chose a path that hugged the shrubs and fading grasses filling the ditch alongside the road. They provided a screen between her and the furtive Master Poynard.
The Merricks’ dairy cattle grazed in the meadow nearest the outbuildings, and smoke drifted from the kitchen chimney, a lazy curl of white. Bess crept between the stone wall edging the yard and an adjoining field, where a trod-way had beaten down the grass and weeds. The back of the house and the area behind it came into view. Two women were outside the dairy barn, just beyond its open door. They both wore the blue of servants. Bess was not near enough to clearly identify them, but she thought they were Anna and Thomasin. They stood very close to each other, deep in agitated conversation.
Just then, Jeffrey Poynard appeared around the far side of one of the barns. The women noticed him and stepped away from each other. He spoke to Anna for a moment, and she dashed into the dairy barn. He next went over to the woman Bess thought was Thomasin and began to talk to her. Not calmly, though, given Thomasin’s vigorous responding gestures.
How curious. What could he possibly want with a Merrick dairymaid?
Hunched low, Bess padded forward, along the fence which followed the curve of the yard and drew closer to the barns and sheds that sprawled behind the house. Without hopping over the barrier, she’d never get near enough to hear what they said to each other.
Hoping the breeze might send a scrap of conversation her direction, she raised up to peep over the top of the stones. Master Poynard, his body taut, took hold of Thomasin’s elbow. He dragged her around the far side of the barn, where neither the occupants of the house nor Bess could spy on them.
She shifted her stance in hopes of bringing them into view again, and heard the loud crack of a branch breaking beneath her shoe at the same moment she realized she’d stepped upon it. The noise was as loud as a gunshot, and she dropped to her knees. Her pulse pounding in her head, she clapped hands to her mouth to silence the rasp of her breathing. Someone had to have heard. Any second now, the person would charge down the incline of the yard and find her hiding behind the fence. She could not run off without being spotted, though. She could only wait and meanwhile concoct a story that would explain why she crouched in the muck.
I am here because I’d chosen to walk across the fields toward the house and twisted my ankle. I am here because I thought I saw Anna out with the cattle and I wished to speak with her, but twisted my ankle. I am here because my servant told me I could find mullein growing in the disturbed patch of ground along the stone fence and I am in need of some for my physic.
God help her. She was there because she suspected Jeffrey Poynard of murdering Bartholomew Reade and sought proof.
Voices carried on the breeze, more voices than just the two belonging to Jeffrey Poynard and Thomasin. Did their owners come close to where she hid? A raven cawed in a nearby tree as if mocking her. Further, her ankle ached from her foot having twisted as it slipped on the breaking branch. She’d need to hobble homeward. Presuming no one dragged her from her hidey-hole.
The voices did not draw near, but instead grew fainter. After a few moments, Bess risked straightening enough to easily see over the top of the fence. Thomasin and Jeffrey Poynard were gone. More importantly, no one was headed her direction to examine the source of the noise she’d made. A dog barked, and the thrum of hoofbeats sounded. She dropped down again as Jeffrey Poynard galloped his horse toward town. Intent upon controlling his animal, he did not look her way and see her watching his passage.
Once he’d gone by, Bess straightened. She took another look at the house and its outbuildings. It was then that a small object caught her eye. It lay on the other side of the low stone wall, having come to rest beneath a clump of thistle as though tossed there. Mindful of her ankle, she lifted up on her toes and leaned over the fence. Her eyes had not been mistaken.
Bess glanced around. Though she was in clear view of the barns and house, no one appeared to mark her presence. Hastily, she stretched out a hand and grabbed the item, drawing it back over the wall.
It was a figure made of brown holland stuffed with straw and feathers, its length no greater than the width of a man’s splayed fingers. Wrapped in a pale cloth, it had a head and a torso, but no arms or legs. Nonetheless, she could tell the tiny effigy was meant to portray a person.
A shiver danced across her skin. It was an evil thing, meant to bring harm to someone.
For into its head and sides were stuck dozens of thorns.
CHAPTER 12
“Should you have touched it, Mistress?” Joan stared balefully at the effigy, which Bess had set atop her servant’s worktable in the kitchen. The hearth firelight danced over the figure, causing the shadows cast by the thorns jabbed into it to jig as though alive. “Should we even have i
t inside our house? ’Tis cursed.”
“It is but a poppet made of straw and wrapped in pale-blue cloth.”
Quail padded over to the edge of the table and sniffed at the object, then slunk away to sit on his haunches by the hearth. If both Joan and the dog were wary of the poppet, then mayhap Bess should be afraid as well.
“’Tis a witch’s creation, Mistress.” Joan picked up a nearby spoon to prod the item. One of the thorns fell out to land upon the table. “The person whose name has been given to it will die within the week.”
“We should not be superstitious, Joan,” said Bess. “It may be merely a jest devised by some mischievous person, wishing to frighten someone at the Merricks’ farm.”
Her comment did not appear to appease Joan. “Mayhap Simon spoke true about a weasel lurking nearby Master Reade’s body. An animal known to be a witch’s familiar,” she said. “This is evil, Mistress. We must be rid of the foul thing before Humphrey spies it and has yet one more excuse to make complaints to the master when he returns from London. Or before your good sister sees it and falls truly ill.”
At the moment, Dorothie sat at an early supper in the upstairs parlor, unmindful of the presence of the poppet.
“I shall take it to the constable.” Who would likely lift an eyebrow and peer at Bess as though questioning the soundness of her mind.
“Mother Fletcher will be accused.”
“It matters not if she is accused,” said Bess. “She has fled the village.”
“The mob that would seek to hang her has chased her off, then,” said Joan. “What if they accuse you instead, Mistress?”
Bess had no answer to that.
Joan frowned at the poppet. “When you take this thing to the constable, Mistress, tell him to be rid of it.”
Bess fetched a basket from the corner of the kitchen. She took the spoon from Joan and used it to slide the poppet into the basket. Joan’s disquiet had spread to Bess and made her unwilling to touch it again.
“Also tell the constable that another will soon die.” Joan’s gaze met Bess’s. “For there is nothing which can be done to break the curse.”
* * *
“I persuaded the churchwarden to delay his visit to Mother Fletcher, coz.” Gibb leaned against the paneling of Kit’s hall and stretched out his legs. “But I know not how long he shall stay persuaded.”
Only so long as it suits him, thought Kit, listlessly plucking the strings of his gittern, which rested atop the room’s table. “Any news about the bloodied garment we seek?”
“No. I am sorry, Kit. We still have not found it.”
“No need to apologize, Gibb.” Kit twanged the gittern’s strings, the sound echoing loudly in the hall. He pushed the instrument away.
“Marry, we turn in circles, and I become dizzy from it all.” Gibb gazed longingly toward the open door. “Will not Alice bring up food for us? I am starved.”
“We should go to the tavern, if you want anything to eat,” said Kit. “Alice frets over your sister’s plans to descend on my household tomorrow with you and her friend. It’s all she thinks about, as far as I can tell, and she overlooks what she needs to do today.”
“Frances’s friend is rather pretty. You might like her.”
“I do not require a wife, Gibb,” said Kit. “You forget I used to be quite content living here alone before you and your family pressed me to hire Alice.”
“But your house was a great deal filthier back then as well, coz,” said Gibb. “Before long, you’d have perished from disease because of the grime.”
“Your efforts to throw Frances’s friend at me are rather obvious, Gibb,” said Kit. “The four of us at a quiet supper together. The girl will be expecting a proposal by the end of the evening.”
A grin stole across Gibb’s face. “Then invite Mistress Ellyott. Three women, two men. Intentions confused.”
Kit stood, grabbed up his hat, and slapped it atop his head. “I just might.”
Gibb rose as well. “I dare you,” he said, and exited the hall, laughing.
His laughter was suddenly cut short. Kit went out to the stairs to learn the reason why.
“Ah, Mistress Ellyott,” he said to the woman standing on the step right below Gibb, who wore a bigger grin than before. “I did not hear your knock upon the door.”
“Your servant was quick to answer.” She hoisted a basket. “I have come with a gift for you, Constable.”
* * *
“I have heard of witches’ effigies, but have not ever seen one.” Gibb Harwoode examined the poppet much as Joan had done, making a long neck but keeping any part of his body from brushing against it.
The constable had balanced Bess’s basket and its contents on the deep ledge of the room’s window to better see by its light. His regard, compared to his cousin’s, was far less apprehensive and far more skeptical. The exact look she had been expecting.
“Where did you find this?” he asked Bess.
“Ah …” A flush heated her cheeks. “Along the stone fence at the side of the Merricks’ farm.”
Kit Harwoode looked over at her, a scowl lowering his brows. “What, might I ask, were you doing out by the stone fence at the side of the Merricks’ farm?”
“I was following Jeffrey Poynard—”
“You’d been following Jeffrey Poynard?”
“I was worried about Mother Fletcher and had gone to her cottage. She did not respond to my knock, and I made to leave. ’Twas then I saw Master Poynard ride past along the highway in great haste. His manner was so strange that I thought to see what he was about,” she replied. “And before you chastise me yet again, Constable, there was little harm in walking along the road behind him in the middle of the afternoon. And well you know it.”
“So, what was he about?”
“He made a visit to the Merricks’,” she said. “But not the Merricks themselves. In fact, he avoided the house and its occupants most carefully. I saw him speaking with one of their dairymaids. The one named Thomasin, I believe.”
“Did you hear what was said, Mistress Ellyott?” asked the constable.
“You wish that I’d crept near enough to have eavesdropped on them?” Did Kit Harwoode want her to be careful or not?
“As you went to the trouble to slink after him to spy upon his actions, you may as well have.”
His cousin was pinching his lips tightly together to keep from chuckling.
“I do not know what they said,” she replied. “All I know is that their conversation was brief and agitated. ’Twas then I noticed the poppet beneath a clump of thistle.”
“This thing means to tell us that a witch did indeed play a part in Reade’s death,” said his cousin.
“Someone may wish us to believe that, Master Harwood, but do not blame Mother Fletcher for its creation,” said Bess. “She is innocent. Furthermore, as I said, I went to her cottage but she was not there. I could be mistaken, but she appears to have abandoned her home and departed the village.”
Gibb Harwoode frowned. “Mayhap she left the effigy at the Merricks’ on her way.”
“The widow limps and shuffles,” replied Bess. “She would have had need to walk a considerable distance to the rear of their grounds without being seen in order to do so.”
“A Merrick or one of their servants, then, left this thing where you found it, Mistress,” said the constable.
“I crept behind the wall without notice, Constable Harwoode,” she said. “Anyone hale enough to do likewise could have tossed it over.”
“Hmm.” The constable lifted the poppet, which caused his cousin to gasp.
“Kit! Leave it be! ’Tis dangerous!”
“It does not bite, Gibb.” He turned it about in the window’s light. “What do you make of the material it is wrapped in, Mistress Ellyott?”
“What do you mean, Constable?”
“The fineness of the fabric.”
A prickle of wariness creeping across her skin, she fingered the material
. “A good linen of a fine weave,” she said. “Dyed this pale blue by woad.”
“A common material that any person might have a scrap of?” he asked her.
“Not everyone in this village and the surrounds, no. ’Tis more costly than a simple buckram, for instance.” She looked up at him. “Which means that we might assume none of the cottagers made this, for they’d not possess such good linen. But, Constable, we have excluded a mere handful of folks from suspicion.”
He returned the poppet to Bess’s basket. “’Tis better than suspecting the entire town.”
“Not by much,” she replied.
“Who do you think it is meant to be?” asked Master Harwoode.
“Its clothing could represent either a man’s tunic or a woman’s gown.” The constable shrugged. “We would have to find the person who left it in the Merricks’ yard in order to discover the answer to that question.”
“It cannot have been there long,” said Bess. “We had a smattering of rain yesterday, but the cloth is dry.”
“So today sometime.” He picked up the basket and handed it to his cousin. “Gibb, take this around and see if anyone has anything of use to say about it.”
“Now? It is time for supper.”
“On the morrow, then.”
His cousin gingerly took the basket and held it at arm’s length. “The witch’s effigy will alarm the citizens, Kit. If Mother Fletcher has fled, it will secure her guilt in their minds. They will hunt her down and see her hanged or burned for certain.”
“Constable, there must be another explanation than she is the one who crafted this object,” said Bess.
“Which is why I’m having Gibb ask questions about it,” said the constable. “Be cautious with anyone you speak with, cousin. Choose only those who can be trusted to remain quiet.”
“In this town, can any be trusted to remain quiet?” he asked.
“Threaten them with jail, if need be. Whatever works.” He turned to Bess. “I thank you for your help, Mistress Ellyott.”
“Be grateful for his kind words, Mistress,” said his cousin, the basket still held at a distance. “Kit never thanks me for my help.”
A Fall of Shadows Page 13