City of Ladies

by Sarah Kennedy

  “I am damned for a nosy hag anyway,” Catherine muttered to herself. She pulled the drawstring open. A smaller pouch fell out, tied at the neck with string. It was damp, and dried leaves clung to it. Catherine’s feet and hands went cold, and she fumbled at the knot. It was fast, and she tucked it back into the larger bag. “What do you know of this?”

  “I saw Master William place it there. That is all.” He stood and stumbled into the side room without ceremony, pulling the door closed behind him.

  Catherine ran down the hall and pounded on her chamber door until Eleanor opened it, trembling and white-faced. “What is it, Madam? What?”

  Catherine pushed her backward into the room. Eleanor was panting with fear. “Are the watchmen going to take us, too? I have done nothing, Madam, nothing.” Her voice thinned to a trickle of sound and soon she was moaning.

  “Eleanor, look at this. Tell me what you think this is. Use your judgment. What you have learned.”

  “What?” The girl stopped shaking. She still had the sleeping Veronica in her arms, and she wiped her eyes on the corner of the blanket. “What is it you have found?”

  Catherine went to her dressing table and, moving the ewer aside, shook out a clean napkin and spread it, smoothing the corners. “Hand me your knife,” she said, and Eleanor dug in her pocket and laid the instrument into her mistress’s palm. Catherine pulled out the small pouch and ripped through its neck. She dumped the contents onto the white cloth, then the drier bits from the larger pouch, and picked through them with the sharp tip. A few shriveled berries lay, blackened, in the mass.

  Eleanor bent over her shoulder with interest. “What is that? It looks like something little Robert’s Thomasina threw up.”

  “If that cat had eaten this, she would need to throw it up.” Catherine lifted a small, wilted leaf on the blade and held it to the light. It was almost unrecognizable. Almost. “That is nightshade, by my soul. And I wager the berries are mashed in here as well.” She put her nose close to the sodden pouch and inhaled. “Sweet heart of Mary, this is poison through and through.” She gingerly laid her tongue on the surface of the linen bag. Sweet. “This has been dipped in honey.”

  Eleanor stepped backward, clutching the baby to her chest. “Where was it?”

  Catherine sat back, trying to make sense of it. “Under William’s bed in the big chamber. It’s most irregular. If he meant to poison himself, why not do it and be done with the business?” Catherine rubbed the leaves between her fingers and spoke, more to herself than to her maid. “It’s sweet. Very sweet.” Catherine looked over at the sleeping baby. “Oh my God,” she whispered.

  60

  “We must find your Joseph,” said Catherine. “Now.” She folded the linen into a flat package and returned it to her pocket. She dragged the drape back farther and scanned the stable yard below but she saw no one. “Reg!” she called, running into the hall. “Reg, I say!”

  “Joseph will not be taken.” There was a tinge of the brag in Eleanor’s voice, and her chin went up a little.

  “He’d do well to learn better than that,” said Catherine, but at Eleanor’s dropped head, she added, “because even brave men find themselves on the block these days.”

  “I know where he is,” said Eleanor.

  “Lead on,” said Catherine, taking Veronica from her arms. Reg was in the hall, and he followed the women.

  The stable was fresh with the scent of new hay and horse sweat, and a clean breeze gusted from front door to back, but there was not a groomsman in sight. The horses were out at pasture for the day, but someone should have been cleaning the boxes or oiling harness. Catherine called out a hallo, but it echoed away with the cry of a swallow as it swooped a dark spiral and flew outside.

  “He’s not here,” she said.

  Eleanor crept through the main corridor to a small room at the back of the building. Catherine followed her through the door, which stood slightly ajar, the rope loop unlatched from its wooden knob. Bridles and bits and long strands of leather harness were shelved and hung on all the walls, almost concealing a narrow, steep set of steps at the far end. Eleanor climbed up and poked her head into the loft. All Catherine could see of her were her worn boots and her skirt’s hem. After a few seconds, Eleanor went all the way up and Catherine waited.

  Before Catherine could count fifty, a pair of brown shoes stepped down, followed by a pair of dirt-streaked hose and dark breeches. Joseph bent to show his face. “Please come up, Madam, if you would like.”

  “I have rather a burden here,” Catherine said, showing the baby.

  “Bring her on, if you please.” He went up again, and Reg, behind Catherine, said, “I will wait here and keep the watch.”

  Catherine peered up and saw Eleanor staring down.

  “I’ll take her, Madam. Just come this way a little.” Eleanor knelt for Veronica, and Catherine climbed. The passage reminded her of the narrow steps to the room over the church porch in her old convent, and she suddenly felt peaceful. A corner of the loft had become Joseph’s private spot, and he had fashioned himself a rough bench against the wall where he could gaze through a high window over the west fields. He kept a cup and plate nearby, and a set of polished tools. From here, the fields seemed endless and gently fruitful, great swathes of green and gold, punctuated with knots of sheep in their pastures. Catherine thought of the draperies that William had meant to put into service down at Mount Grace, and her throat thickened with sorrow. Eleanor and Joseph sat knee against knee on the crude bench, Veronica on Eleanor’s lap. “By my troth, you look like the holy family.” Catherine coughed a bitter, short laugh. “We had better hide you indeed, or some soldier will put you to the sword for a pair of icons.”

  Joseph squinted up at her. “There’s goings on around here that aren’t holy, Madam. Not at all. I s’pose I come here to get away from it and find some kind of truth.” He opened his hands and revealed his calloused palms. “Eleanor tells me that you’re gentle, Madam, and that you don’t set your foot on the heads of the lower sorts. That you have loved her like a sister and that you don’t always speak as ladies speak. You don’t always speak in accord with the king of this land.”

  “My breeding is no better than yours,” Catherine said, “though my mother claimed a good birthright. So here I am, caught between heaven and hell, like every other mortal.” She pulled out a three-legged stool and perched on it. Eleanor was stroking Veronica’s head and the baby was grinning up at her in thoughtless delight. Eleanor leaned her head briefly against Joseph’s shoulder, and he patted the side of her hood. Any doubts Catherine had of the man fled in a moment.

  “We don’t all have a village named for us, though, do we, Madam?”

  Catherine smiled, but Joseph was sober-faced, waiting for her to answer.

  “The prioress made sure I had learning and some measure of freedom. If we had not had the convent, she could not have done so.” Catherine shrugged. “But she died a shameful death and her memory is stained among those who knew her. So what I learned in the end is that anyone can learn and anyone can sin. Priest or prioress. Or king. And I will be a bastard in some people’s eyes no matter how fine my dress.” She pinched a corner of her embroidered sleeve. “Or how many villages bear my family’s name.”

  He regarded her with a wary eye. “Some do speak of calling the village Overton.”

  Catherine nodded. “Joseph, did the constable stop you because of Geoffrey?”

  The young man sat back. “Maybe.”

  “What is he saying?”

  Eleanor nudged Joseph. “Go on. You’re in too far to back out. Tell it, so that the finger doesn’t get pointed at you.”

  “Me?” Joseph leapt to his feet, showing his palms again. “You think I could do such a deed with these hands? I can work a piece of wood or leather, but I have never killed anything bigger than a partridge.”

  “You talk of killing?” Catherine asked. “I have not accused you.”

  Joseph sat again with a sig
h. Dust burst around him and he waited until it settled. “I didn’t see. But I heard. I heard them talking. Up here, you can hear anything from down below. And not a soul can see. I come here to whittle. To think. They didn’t know I was here. I never saw anything. But I heard plenty. And I have held my peace as long as my conscience will allow it.”

  “Tell me,” said Catherine. “Tell it all before we go to the constable.”

  61

  When the small party rode around Peter Grubb’s house to the courtyard behind it, Benjamin’s Caesar whinnied from the stable. Joseph jumped down from his gelding and handed his reins over to the wide-eyed stable boy. Reg was on the ground already, putting out a hand for Catherine. He helped her to the ground expertly, his touch on her waist neither too light nor too familiar. Eleanor jumped from her fat cob without assistance.

  “We’ve had more folks here the last couple days than in the last year,” said the boy. “Don’t think I’ve had so many horses to feed in my life.” He led the new horses to the boxes next to Caesar’s.

  The constable’s manservant had opened the door by the time they walked up, brushing the dust from their clothes. “Lady Overton,” he said evenly. He bowed minimally and stood aside.

  Benjamin stood in the cramped entryway. He was not smiling. “What are you doing here? What do you do with the child in this place?”

  “We couldn’t very well leave her with the kitchen maids,” said Catherine, pulling off her gloves and handing them to the servant. “We had no idea when we’d be back. Where is he?”

  “Down at the inn,” said Peter Grubb, coming from the sitting room, “though I figure I have the authority to imprison man or maid, whatever the station.” He crossed his arms with satisfaction. “Master Benjamin here was telling me that I should disregard the counsel of a horse man. The horse master says he’s under a compulsion. Lady Margaret keeps saying your name, Lady Overton, and here you are, like a conjured thing. What have you got to tell me?”

  The entryway was airless, and the smell of wax and sweat and wool was making Catherine nauseous. “Give me some room to breathe,” she said, pushing past the constable to the larger room. She stopped in the middle of the musty rug. The rest of the company crowded in behind her. “I must speak to Benjamin alone.”

  “I figure anything you got to say can be said before me,” said Peter Grubb. “Or it will be said before the Justice.”

  “What Justice? There’s no court in session,” said Catherine. She clutched the package in her pocket.

  “Justice Sillon is coming from Mount Grace. He ought to be here on the morrow. He knows of these Overtons and what they get in to. He’ll hear the evidence.” He grinned, a triumphant gleam in his eye. “I think you know the man.”

  “He dismissed the charges against William before,” said Catherine, but her heart was knocking in her chest and her hand was cramping around the bundle in her pocket. “I will say nothing until I have seen Master Davies alone. I am not under arrest, and I am free to talk with my houseguest if I please.”

  “Not in our home, you aren’t.” Mistress Grubb had come in the other door and had planted herself, arms under the shelf of her bosom, behind Catherine.

  “Very well. Am I to be detained?”

  “Not yet,” said Peter Grubb.

  “Eleanor, stay here with Joseph.”

  Eleanor hugged the baby to her chest. “Of course, Madam.”

  “Master Davies?” Catherine offered Benjamin her elbow, and he stepped over to claim her arm.

  They walked down the middle of the high road side by side. She looked neither right nor left, unwilling to meet the looks from windows and doors as they passed. Her boots raised a storm of dust as they went, silent for a hundred yards or more.

  “It pleases me to be the one you turn to in need,” Benjamin said.

  “Don’t. Don’t speak of it,” said Catherine. No one came out of doors. Havenston, indeed. She wondered if anyone knew who her mother had been. If anyone cared. “Where is William?”

  “Grubb let him go on his honor.” They walked on, Benjamin keeping to Catherine’s pace. “What news?” he asked at last. “Something has happened.”

  “Geoffrey claims to have a story, doesn’t he?”

  “Mm, he does,” said Benjamin. They were nearing the inn, and he cocked his head in its direction. “There’s talk. Be ready if anyone sees us.”

  A figure moved across a downstairs window, but the sun spangled against the leaded panes, and Catherine couldn’t see who it was.

  Benjamin said, “Geoff’s gone back to his mother’s house, but he acts like a dead man already. Your Grubb wouldn’t rack him, would he?”

  “Rack him? This isn’t London, Benjamin.”

  The man shrugged. “Or whatever threats your constable has to hand.”

  “What has he said?”

  “Geoff White? That William wanted the women dead. That he was paid to do it.”

  Catherine felt the words like a blow to the chest. She staggered backward a step and Benjamin caught her wrist. She was dizzy and the sun came down on her head with a vicious heat. “He says that William gave him money? To kill?”

  “He said that instructions were left for him when William was too ill to come down. Your constable made him prove he could read enough for this to be true. He can read. He said the messages were sealed with the Overton mark.”

  Catherine’s throat was as parched as a roll of old linen, and she fought to swallow a wad of bile. The sky was scarred with cloud, and she put her hand over her eyes so that she wouldn’t see it. “Where are the men?”

  Benjamin looked away. “Which men?”

  They’d reached the far village gate, and Catherine put her hand on the squat stone pillar to steady herself. A sleek weasel burrowed into the underbrush, and she saw the tip of its tail disappear. She thought she might vomit. “You know which men. The king’s men. Cromwell’s men.” Silence for a few seconds. “Adam Hastings.”

  “Come, let’s walk back,” said Benjamin. “You need some shady place to sit and something to drink. You’re pale as vellum.”

  “Wait.” The road before them was empty, the light thick and shifting with motes.

  “You need to be out of the heat. You need your strength, Catherine.”

  “And what does Margaret say to this charge? She has been in the house the whole time.”

  Benjamin contemplated the road. “Margaret is all smooth cream and sugar, blinking like a newborn kitten.” He wiped the sweat from his forehead. “You know, I think she means to have me marry her.”

  “If you do, you will have to become an Overton.”

  “God’s blood, I can think of lesser reasons than that to refuse her.” He took Catherine’s arm for the return. “The men you ask about are quartered at the inn. Geoffrey’s been among them. Don’t provoke them and they’ll go. There’s no reason for them to stay.”

  Catherine was shaking, but she had to ask. “Who will be arrested?”

  “Maybe no one. It depends on what the charges are. No one will care about dead women if they are proved to have been witches. Or Roman.”

  “So the suspicion falls upon me next.”

  “Not for murder. It’s clear that you were at Hatfield when the last two were killed.” Benjamin pulled on her arm. “But you are better off if you don’t appear to be hiding anything.”

  “I will hide from no one. But Benjamin, I want to say—”

  “Don’t. Whatever it is. Don’t. Not now. Let’s go back.”

  “Wait,” Catherine said, drawing back. “I have something to show you before we return.”

  62

  The light was fallen deep into the west by the time Benjamin and Catherine returned. Catherine did not lift her eyes to the inn, though she could feel the men at the windows. He was in there. She knew it. She tugged her hood closer to her cheeks and walked on.

  Eleanor and Joseph were waiting for them in Peter Grubb’s yard, and the young pair seemed to sag under the dis
mal leftovers of the sun. Reg was leaning against the doorframe of the stable, looking out at nothing. Catherine took Eleanor aside. “I have told Benjamin all. You get your man and go home.”

  Eleanor bobbed her head. “Yes, Madam.” She started away, then turned. “We will all be a family.”

  “All of you?”

  Eleanor nodded, and Catherine said, “That, at least, is decided.”

  Eleanor whispered, “But my father will not be asked to give me away.”

  “No? Why not?” Catherine asked, but when she saw Eleanor’s eyes, she knew. “He is your father in blood?”

  Shame streaked Eleanor’s cheeks. “Yes. I could not bear to have him at my wedding.”

  So that was it. “God, what men will do, thinking no one sees.” Catherine put her head back to smell the clean air. “No. He will not be there,” she said. “I will strike him if he shows his face.”

  The night was already coming down like a heavy curtain, the stars punching through the fabric of the darkening sky. Joseph gathered the horses, and Eleanor said, “Shall I take Veronica?”

  “I’ll keep her. Come back in the morning.” The sky had blackened at its eastern edge, and Catherine had to squint to see her maid as she rode off. She was still watching and listening to the silence when Benjamin touched her arm. The baby squirmed, stinking in her dirty clouts, and Catherine stretched out her arms to let the child kick. “I need to clean her.”

  “You will want to sup, Catherine. Let’s go inside.” Benjamin pushed open the door with his arm and met Peter Grubb in the narrow front hall. “The lady needs food,” he said, “and a place to bathe her child.”

  “Well, come on, then. Mistress Grubb! Get these folks some supper.” The constable led them back into his sitting room and flung his arm toward a side room. “There’s water on the side board.”

  Catherine took the child into the bedchamber and wiped her down as best she could. She had only one fresh clout, and she folded the soiled one into a tight square and, slipping past the men, delivered it to Mistress Grubb in the kitchen.