The Masque of a Murderer

by Susanna Calkins

  Theodora and Joan remained near, moving among the other graves, talking quietly. Seeing this, Sarah began to do the same. Fallen acquaintances, Lucy thought.

  Esther was still standing silently, watching the hole get slowly filled. She had stepped back to give the men more space to work. Lucy seized the opportunity to speak to Esther, repeating condolences for both her recent losses.

  Esther gave her a grateful smile. “Indeed, I will pray much for my soul to be replenished.”

  Lucy took a deep breath. “Did you know your husband’s sister, Miss Julia Whitby, very well?” she asked.

  Esther shook her head. “No, I met her only once.”

  “I suppose no one else here knew her either?” Lucy asked.

  Esther gave a short laugh. “Hardly.” She looked at Lucy curiously. “Thou hast many questions.”

  “Several years ago, a dear friend of mine was murdered,” Lucy said carefully. As she spoke those words, she felt a clenching in her heart and gut that she feared would never go away. “I still think about her all the time.” Lucy struggled to hold back the tears that threatened to spill.

  Seeing this, Esther patted her hand. “I’m truly sorry for thy heartbreak. ’Tis a terrible shame that such monsters walk among us. How sorrowful I am that my husband’s family has had to bear such loss and misfortune.”

  “The constable thinks Miss Julia may have known her murderer,” Lucy said softly. “Or, at least, that she may have been known to her murderer.”

  Jacob’s widow looked taken aback. “Indeed?” she said. “I did not know that.” Then she looked at Lucy curiously. “Why ever would he think that, dost thou suppose?”

  Esther must not know of the scold’s mask, Lucy realized, or its possible implications. “I’m not certain,” she said, not wanting to disclose more information than the constable had already given her. Improvising, she added, “I believe that they found her pocket still upon her person. The constable didn’t think she had been robbed.”

  “So her murderer wasn’t in pursuit of her money,” Esther mused. She leaned in toward Lucy. “Was her person otherwise violated?”

  Lucy shook her head, feeling the heat rise slightly in her cheeks. “I don’t know,” she said truthfully, kicking a stick from the stone path. “The constable did not tell me.”

  “Nor should he have.” Esther clucked her tongue. “My poor sister-in-law. My husband always spoke fondly of her. It wasn’t she who had banished him from his home. That was their father,” she said, practically spitting out the last word. “He would never understand that we had been called to the Lord, to spread our Inner Light.”

  “I’m so sorry that he was banished from his family home,” Lucy murmured. She could not help but glance at Sarah when she said this.

  Esther must have followed her thinking. “Sister Sarah must find following her conscience to be particularly troublesome, given that her father is a magistrate.” Her violet eyes were kind, troubled.

  “I have been worried,” Lucy confided softly, “that Miss Sarah and her father will grow divided, as so many Quakers seem to have become divided from their fathers.” Thinking that the conversation was turning a tad too personal, though, Lucy changed the topic. “Will someone be staying with you?” she asked.

  “I imagine that Deborah and her aunt would like to stay. Perhaps Joan, too. I am glad for the company.” Her eyes glistened. “Indeed, I will do as the Lord commands me. Recently, I have felt called to a new conviction. I will likely accompany the others when they return to the New World. They wish to leave in a fortnight, if the Lord permits.” Esther hesitated. “Truth be told, I do not rightfully know. I am a bit afraid of such a venture. Yet I will do as the Lord wishes.”

  Maybe this would be the right time to reveal what her husband had whispered on his deathbed. “Do you feel safe? With them?” Lucy held her breath.

  “Safe?” Esther looked puzzled. “Certainly. They took me in when I had no one. Why?”

  “Oh, the journeys just seem so long and terrible. You must take care that you choose companions with whom you may travel safely.” Lucy broke off, uncertain how to continue. She could not simply say, There is one among your acquaintance who may be a murderer, and you’d best take care.

  Esther searched her face. “Why dost thou feel concerned for my safety? Is there something thou know? Something the constable may have said?”

  “No, no,” Lucy said hurriedly, seeing that the others were drawing near. “It’s just that I worry for Miss Sarah’s safety, when she travels with the others. She is unmarried, unprotected. I worry whether her traveling companions will be faithful to her. Whether they will watch over her and shield her.” She gulped, hearing her long-standing fears expressed. “I imagine your husband would have been worried for you, too.”

  “Yes, I can understand that,” Esther agreed, dabbing at her eyes with a bit of linen. “Thy words are true. Jacob was always anxious that some harm would come to me. I can’t imagine how worried he would be if he knew.” With a rueful laugh, she touched Lucy’s arm. “I know he trusted and loved Sister Sarah, long before he knew me. Perhaps she and I could look after one another, even as we trust in the Lord to guide our path. Certainly that is what my husband wanted. I should do more to make sure his dying wish is fulfilled.”

  Sarah approached them then, a middle-aged man following her. He was one of the men who had gathered around them silently when Jacob was interred. Lach stepped out of the building as well and moved toward them, untying his pack as he walked.

  “Lucy,” Sarah said, “this is one of the Quaker printers. Robert Wilson. He’s just arrived back in London. I told him that you were apprenticed to Horace Aubrey and that you and Lach had brought some tracts to trade.”

  Lucy opened her pack and began to untie the small interior sacks to show the printer what they had brought. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Esther walking off with Sarah, returning to the warmth of the Quakers’ building. Jacob’s widow had drawn Sarah’s arm into her own, and the two were pressed companionably together, their heads bent in what seemed to be a closely whispered conversation.

  Seeing their intimacy, Lucy felt a twinge of misgiving. Suddenly, she wanted to grab Sarah’s hand and drag her forcibly from the group. Wanted to pull her back to the magistrate’s home, where she would be protected and safe. Instead, Lucy remained silent and watchful as Esther opened the door to the Quaker house and the two women disappeared inside.

  Hearing the printer cough, Lucy turned her attention back to the exchange. “I suppose you’ve known these Quakers well,” she asked idly, her thoughts still on Sarah.

  The printer was glancing through an Anabaptist tract. “Hmmm,” he muttered, flipping through the pages before handing it back to her. “I knew Jacob Whitby and Sam Leighton a long while. Both good men. A few of the others from the meeting. Sam’s wife. Joan. Ahivah. I had never met her niece, though. Still a few I didn’t know. Say, do you have any pieces that might be a little more … entertaining?”

  Reaching into her pack, Lucy pulled out another small sack. Hesitating, she untied it and handed the printer the stack of tracts and ballads neatly packed inside. She studied the printer. “Are you interested in that one?” she asked in surprise.

  Master Wilson was now examining The Rogue’s Masque, a play about the romps that had been orchestrated in the court of a barely veiled King Charles. She’d brought along only a few of the merriments in case she had a chance to sell in the market on her return.

  The printer grinned. He had a friendly twinkle in his eyes that Lucy liked. “Yes, I enjoy merry romps such as these. Rest assured, I will sell these to others than those present here. I’ll take this one, too.” He pointed to one of the murder ballads she’d kept at the bottom of the pack. “Everyone loves a good murder,” he said, winking at her. “I have heard your own master say that on many occasions.”

  Lucy nodded. That was certainly one of Master Aubrey’s favorite expressions. “You said you didn’t know
all the Quakers who were here today?”

  Master Wilson shrugged. “To be honest, I don’t know his widow all that well, although I had met her. That man Gervase. Deborah. Your friend,” he said, nodding his head toward the meetinghouse that Sarah had just entered.

  “Oh, she and Joan only just returned to London. They were traveling in the New World.”

  “Well, that explains it, then. Usually I get to know them at meeting. Though they must have all been recently convinced. All right now, let’s make our exchange.”

  He pulled out a number of Quaker tracts and pamphlets from a peddler’s sack that looked remarkably similar to Lucy’s own. “We’ve had little success printing since the Fire, I’m afraid,” he said apologetically. “These are some we saved before we lost everything.”

  Lucy glanced at them. She could tell that they had been handled more than the ones she sold. Most likely, he’d already passed them out among the Quakers so that they could read them, but had collected them back, hoping to make a few coins. Spying two that were familiar, she seized them with a sharp intake of breath. Humphrey Smith’s Vision of London and A Lamentable Warning to London and Its Inhabitants. She had found copies of these two tracts in the chest in Julia Whitby’s bedchamber. “I’ll take these,” she said.

  Lach raised an eyebrow, but to her surprise did not say anything, although he watched her closely.

  “Excellent eye, my dear,” the printer said, giving her an approving nod. “Those two tracts sell extremely well to Quakers and non-Quakers alike. Not as well as murder sells, perhaps, but visionary tales can be difficult to resist.”

  “I do not suppose you would remember who had recently bought either of these from you?” she asked with little hope.

  The man threw his hands in the air. “Heavens no, lass. Do you remember who you sell to when you are out and about?” When she shook her head, he chuckled. “I thought as much. Although—” He paused. “Now that you have pressed me, I do remember who mustered up a coin for them.”

  “Who was it?” Lucy asked.

  “Sam Leighton. He purchased several a few weeks ago, including these. I remember him saying how he wanted these tracts specifically.”

  “Sam Leighton?” Lucy repeated. “I wonder why.”

  He grew more businesslike. “I do not know, nor, to be honest, do I particularly care. There are many reasons people seek out specific pieces, and I am sure I should not like to know most of them. Come now,” he said, shivering. “Let us haggle. This freeze is starting to tear my bones from the inside.”

  After a few minutes of bargaining, Lucy and Lach left, having been relieved of all their penny merriments, a few religious pieces, and several last dying speeches of condemned murderers. In exchange they were bringing back a number of Quaker warnings to Londoners, including the ones she’d found among Julia Whitby’s effects.

  Although Lucy wanted to look at the tracts right away, a cold rain began to fall. Master Aubrey would be none too pleased if she let the tracts get wet and mussed. Sighing, she made certain that her pack was tightly knotted. Any secrets that the Quaker tracts held would have to wait.

  10

  Several hours passed before Lucy had the chance to look at the tracts. When she showed them to Master Aubrey, he was too distracted to look at them properly. It seemed the stationer had been late on a shipment of paper, and the matter needed to be sorted out. Lach was to accompany him to the stationer, having been told by the printer that “you must learn to deal with these deceitful rapscallions, lest you never have any paper when you have started your own shop.”

  For her part, Lucy was instructed to clean the typeset and break down the typeface. “Ensure that each letter, quoin, and woodcut has been returned to its proper place,” he said, pointing to the great wooden trays stacked along the wall. “Mind you be finished by evening,” he added as he and Lach prepared to leave. “Best be done before the light begins to fail. I will not have you wasting candles.”

  “Yes, sir,” Lucy replied, eager to be alone in the shop.

  When the door shut, she turned to the task at hand. Breaking down the typeface was quite tedious, but she had found ways to make the chore pass a little quicker. She liked to start with the largest font, picking out all of the same letters and placing them in their section of the tray. Then she’d pick out all the same letters in the next size font, usually picking out two that lay next to each other, to make the process quicker.

  When the tiny font began to slip through her numbed fingers, however, she knew it was time to rest for a few minutes. Grabbing a red apple from the basket, she moved over to the bench below the shop window and sat down with the sack of tracts she had acquired from Master Wilson earlier.

  After she slid the contents of her sack onto the table, Lucy picked out the copies of the two tracts she had seen in Julia Whitby’s bedchamber and began to examine them more closely.

  Why would Miss Whitby have hidden such pieces away? she wondered again. Both The Vision for London and A Lamentable Warning to London and Its Inhabitants were fairly typical warnings from the Quakers to the citizens of the city. Since she was more familiar with the Vision for London, Lucy set it aside and focused on the Lamentable Warning instead.

  Right away she found the reading to be slow going. The tract described at length the terrible treatment that the Quakers had received under Charles’s reign, but most of the interesting bits were only punctuations in a sermon as boring as what the ministers preached on Sundays. Lucy could feel her eyelids beginning to droop—the long walk from the morning was taking its toll.

  Although she wanted to rest her head on the table, Lucy forced herself to turn the fourth page of the tract. Unexpectedly, a familiar name jumped out at her. Ahivah, the Woman in White.

  Straightening up, Lucy read the passage out loud. “As our own prophet Ahivah, whom our own King Charles did call his Woman in White, has warned: ‘If ye have not sinned, get ye to a safe place, for the Lord’s righteous anger will be soon upon us.’ Heed Ahivah’s words, for the Day of our Lord’s judgment does rapidly approach.”

  Startled, Lucy read the words again. “Get ye to a safe place.”

  She sat back, placing the tract on the table, trying to make sense of it.

  Could it be coincidence that such words of warning had been delivered to Julia Whitby? Was it strange that the person who had uttered them was Ahivah, a Quaker in her brother’s own close circle of acquaintances? More important, how had Julia Whitby read these words? Had she taken this message as a personal warning? Was that why she decided to flee the house?

  “I need to show this tract to Duncan,” she said out loud just as church bells began to ring in the hour.

  Jumping to her feet, Lucy finished putting the type away as fast as she could, praying that she had not mixed anything up. She was not entirely sure when Master Aubrey would return, but she rather hoped that he and Lach would stop at a tavern for a bite and some ale. She had learned that the master printer liked to celebrate his victories over the stationer with a pint, and she hoped that this time would be no different. He’d be none too pleased if he came home to a cold hearth and empty stew pot.

  Nevertheless, Lucy said a small prayer and left the shop, hoping to find the constable at the jail.

  * * *

  When she arrived a few minutes later, Lucy found Hank in the front part of the jail, looking unusually haggard. “Hank, are you well?” she asked.

  The bellman tried to smile, but his eyes looked bloodshot and weary. “My wife and wee ones—they have all been sick. This deathly cold has been taking the life right out of them. I’ve been at home with them these last few days. The worst of it is over though, thanks be to God.”

  Lucy murmured her agreement. She hoped that the sickness did not return, although Culpeper said it was not uncommon for illness to linger in a household, even after it was believed to be gone. She turned her attention to the matter at hand. “Is the constable in?”

  The bellman began to
cough, a dry hacking sound, as he gestured to the back room. “Th-there!” he managed to sputter.

  “Thank you,” she said. “Best take some honey for that cough,” she added as she passed him by.

  She knocked on the door.

  “Yes, come in!” she heard the constable call.

  When she entered, Duncan looked up from his table in surprise. “Lucy!” he said, standing up. “What brings you here?”

  “Constable Duncan,” she said, crossing the room toward him, “look at these tracts.” She handed him the two Quaker penny pieces.

  The constable glanced at the tracts, and back at her. “Quaker warnings. What of them?”

  Not replying, Lucy boosted herself up onto one of the overly large barrels that the constable kept in the room, smoothing her skirts after she did so. The barrels had been salvaged from the ruins of the Cheshire Cheese, an old tavern that had burnt down during the Great Fire. A few months ago, a body had been found inside one of the barrels, a knife through its chest. Having been one of many Londoners helping with the cleanup of the Great Fire, Lucy had been there when the body was discovered. The memory still made her shiver. She almost asked the constable if the barrel she had perched herself on was the barrel, but she opted against it.

  Instead she answered his question. “I found them both in Julia Whitby’s bedchamber. Well, not these exact ones,” she added hastily when he frowned at her. “These are copies. I remembered their names. I saw them today when I was trading tracts with a Quaker printer, Master Wilson, and I thought we might learn something from them. And I did—” She was about to explain when he cut her off.