Searcher of the Dead

by Nancy Herriman

  “’Tis the churchwarden’s decision on when he and his men will remove what the Croftons now owe the Crown.”

  “And you can tell the churchwarden a week, no sooner. Be generous.”

  “As you wish, Kit,” he said. “A pity for Mistress Crofton and her children though.”

  “They are to bury Fulke Crofton at the crossroads.” Kit leaned forward. Now to get Wat to commit to another task. “If you would truly prove your generosity, do what you can to have the fellow buried near the church.”

  Wat scowled. “Cousin, do not ask me to defy the law. ’Tis one matter to ask the churchwarden to delay, quite another to request that the vicar permit a man who has committed suicide to have his bones rest within the churchyard.”

  “Crofton was a gentleman and does not deserve such barbaric cruelty. Make it happen, Wat.”

  “You make too much of my authority,” Wat replied. “And I would not be so certain Master Crofton does not deserve such cruelty. I am only surprised he died by his own hand and not another’s. He owned more enemies than you have fingers on one hand.”

  Mayhap Mistress Crofton’s belief about what had actually happened was not without merit. And I should apologize to Mistress Ellyott, whose misgivings I so readily dismissed. “Who are these enemies?”

  “Anyone he ever had dealings with.” Wat considered Kit. “Why do you ask? The coroner has made his ruling. Fulke Crofton killed himself. ’Tis sad indeed but the truth.”

  “What if it is not the truth?”

  “Mean you to investigate a murder that has not occurred?” Wat shook his head. “Tend to your other duties, Kit. I hear the baker upon the high street has been adding bean flour to his wheaten bread again. He needs must be fined. That is your responsibility.”

  Kit bristled. “I am aware of my responsibilities.”

  “Good. Then I need say naught else.” Wat stood. “Good day to you. I’ve my own business to attend.”

  He marched off across the checkered tile.

  Kit rose. “Wat,” he called out to his kinsman, “see that Master Crofton is not buried at the crossroads. Do what is charitable. Not merely what the law insists upon.”

  His cousin hesitated at the doorway leading to his privy rooms beyond. But he made no promise and swept from the hall.

  * * *

  “Tell me again what the constable’s man said, Elizabeth.” Dorothie sank into the goose-down pillows at her back, her face hidden in the shadows of the tester bed. At Bess’s request, Joan had shut the window curtains, leaving the bedchamber dark save for the thinnest sliver of early afternoon light.

  Seated upon the bed at Dorothie’s side, the feather mattress sagging beneath her weight, Bess reached for her sister’s hand. It was cold.

  “Did you not hear me the first time?” Bess asked gently, unhappy to repeat Gibb Harwoode’s words. At least he had been kind and respectful as he had relayed his horrid news.

  “I would hear again.”

  Bess glanced over at Margery, who stood in the corner of the chamber, her tawny gown blending into the paneling behind her. Bess had not seen her shed a tear over her stepfather’s death as she moved around the house like a cipher, a shadow. Far more subdued than her usual self, her eyes bright with wit when she came to learn about physic at Bess’s side or simply to visit.

  “Margery, fetch a bite of dinner for your mother,” said Bess. “Joan will assist you.”

  With a nod, her niece left the room, quietly closing the thick oak door behind her.

  “I am glad Margery has returned so she can be here with you,” said Bess.

  “She dared, though, to tell me she was certain Bennett Langham would send his condolences upon hearing the news,” said Dorothie. “What does she mean, to mention his name at such a time?”

  “Margery is but seventeen years of age, Dorothie, and believes herself in love with him. She simply wishes you to regard him kindly.”

  “The Langhams are papists,” said Dorothie. “And they hated Fulke just like everyone else in this town.”

  The Langhams had more reason than most, Bess did not add.

  “And she should have nothing to do with them,” said Dorothie. “I have told her so, but she will not listen.”

  “Beneath all, she is a Marshall, and very much like you and me and Robert. Stubborn.”

  “I am not like you and Robert, Elizabeth.”

  Love each other better. An impossibility.

  Dorothie, her dismay over Bennett Langham spent, slumped farther into the pillows. She looked drained and hollow. I must have looked the same after losing Martin. She should ask Joan what she remembered of Bess’s actions after his death, for Bess could not recall. One day, they were in London, packing to leave. The next, it seemed, in a foreign town in Wiltshire, a chill rain upon Bess’s face.

  “Might I light a candle, Dorothie? It is near black as night in here.”

  “Tell me again what the constable’s man said.”

  Bess gripped her sister’s hand more firmly. “Come next Tuesday, the churchwarden and his men shall begin to remove all of your goods and take possession of the contents of Fulke’s warehouse as well as any leasehold property—”

  “But not my house. And not my plate.”

  “Not your plate.” Merely all else that could be transferred. Perhaps she had misjudged Dorothie’s affection for Fulke, after all; perhaps she had been mourning the potential loss of her silver salt cellars and spoons. “Robert has gone to speak to the men who will take the inventory of your belongings. He has promised to secure whatever clothing of yours they will allow you to keep.”

  Dorothie’s eyes widened. “The queen’s men are at my house now?”

  “To ensure you do not attempt to hide any of your goods from them before they begin the inventory on the morrow. Robert claims they are most generous to allow you a week to adjust to your circumstances before removing everything.”

  “’Tis not so generous seeming to me. The thieves.” Beneath Bess’s hands, Dorothie’s fingers bunched into folds the blanket draped over her legs. “Roland will not let them into the house. Robert need not have gone. Roland will not let them into the house.”

  “Your manservant cannot keep out men performing a duty for the Crown.”

  Chin drooping, Dorothie lifted a hand to her bare throat, her fingers splaying.

  Bess stared at her sister, the image of Fulke’s throat suddenly coming to mind. His throat. That was what had been wrong. What had been bothering her. “Dorothie.”

  “I am tired and would like to rest, Elizabeth, before I return to my house. The one being pawed over by the churchwarden’s villains,” said Dorothie. “I am done speaking.”

  “No, Dorothie, wait and hear me out. Fulke’s throat.”

  “How can you mention that?”

  “The line around his throat. It was where your fingers were just resting against your skin. Right above his collar.”

  Dorothie looked down at her hand as if it were a poisonous creature about to strike. “My fingers?”

  “Yes. Yes. There.” With her forefinger, Bess traced a line across her sister’s neck about halfway down its length. “If Fulke had died from hanging, the rope would have left a mark beneath his jaw, not here, so much lower.”

  “What are you saying?”

  Bess said what was obvious and what the coroner should have noted yet had not. “Fulke was strangled, Dorothie. And not by his own hand.”

  Dorothie sat upright and grabbed Bess’s wrist. Her grip was tight and made Bess’s fingers tingle. “We must tell the constable. And the coroner. Tell Robert and get those awful men out of my house.”

  “’Tis possible I recall falsely.”

  “Why have you told me if you are not certain? You vex me, Elizabeth. You always have.” Dorothie groaned and flopped against the pillows, sending a puff of feathers flying.

  “Then I must be certain,” Bess said, though the dangers of obtaining sureness did not bear thought.

 
; “Yes. Yes!” Dorothie sat upright again. She threw off the blanket and swung her legs over the edge of the mattress. “Let us go and see Fulke now. Confirm what you believe.”

  “A man is guarding him. He will not allow us near Fulke. They expect we would wish to spirit him away so they cannot desecrate him by burying him at the crossroads.”

  Dorothie lay back down. “Then we shall wait until they do bury him and dig him up and see. I know where Humphrey keeps the garden shovels.”

  “Dorothie, consider what you say.” A widow should not examine her husband’s corpse; she would faint dead away.

  She paled. “No. You are right.” She clutched the blanket to her chin. “You can tend to this matter. You have the taste for such unhealthy things. But you will be prevented. Since none of us are to be allowed near to him, you will not be permitted to examine his body. Perhaps you could ask the coroner—”

  “He would not aid my efforts,” said Bess. “No. I must examine Fulke under the cover of dark.”

  “But what of the curfew?”

  “The constable’s men have not been enforcing it strictly of late. They make their rounds but rarely.” Unlike London. “Should I be stopped, I could claim I am on my way to attend to an ill person.”

  She had done so before, but not because she meant to sneak out of town and dig up a body.

  “When shall you go? Tonight?” Dorothie asked.

  “Tomorrow, for I do not know precisely when they intend to bury him tonight, and I would not risk encountering them.”

  “Do not tell Robert,” said Dorothie. “He would lock you in your chamber if he knew.”

  “He leaves for London in the morning.” An even better reason to wait.

  “Well, make certain Humphrey does not learn of your plans either. He would send the news by fastest courier to Robert and have him back here in a trice to punish you. Tush, knowing Humphrey, he might even alert the constable himself!”

  Bess leveled her gaze at her sister, whose cheeks were now spotted with color, visible even in the dim light of the room. “I’faith, Dorothie, I have no intention whatsoever of letting either Humphrey or Robert learn of my plans.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Undoing the latch of her chamber’s mullioned window, Bess swung open the casement and leaned through the narrow opening to stare at the street below. The air outside was fresh and cool, and birds sang in the apple trees behind the cottage across the way. Afternoon was fading into evening, and the townsfolk either gathered for their suppers or were completing all the tasks that must be finished before they went to their beds. Peace would soon settle upon the town. But Bess feared peace would not settle upon her heart.

  Beneath her, a servant hauled buckets of water taken from the town well to her master’s house. Two men, one a fop with a towering feather tucked into his hatband and his doublet pinked in so many places it threatened to fall from his body in tatters, ambled by, chortling over the new serving girl at the corner tavern. At the end of the lane, they encountered Kit Harwoode, whose sudden appearance caused them to straighten and march on. She thought to call out to the constable, but he moved out of her sight before she did so. What a curious man. She did not understand why, instead of delivering the news himself, he had sent his cousin Gibb to tell them the outcome of the coroner’s inquest. Perhaps he had not the stomach for upsetting widows. He had not seemed weak though. Merely inscrutable. And unwilling to listen.

  Joan stepped into the road to toss a kitchen scrap to the neighbor’s cat. The animal streaked, a blur of orange and white, to retrieve the food and hare off with it to a secret spot. Smiling, she wiped her hands on her apron and returned to the house. Bess little understood Joan’s affection for the creature, which spit and snarled at everyone else. Mayhap she felt a kinship with the animal, its ill-tempered manners disguising fear and mistrust. Joan had been as ready to strike out when Bess had taken her in. However, months of kind treatment had worn down the young woman’s defenses.

  Laurence, though … forsooth, he had been altogether another animal.

  Joan had understood who he was, what he was at first blush. It was because of her success with Joan that Bess had taken to him though. Because Bess had thought, in her naiveté, that she could save another urchin. Rescue him from a destiny that could lead only to Newgate or death in an alleyway. What did she, the cosseted youngest child of an Oxford academic, know of such folk though? What did she know of those who scraped and begged in the streets, whose sole friend was their own cunning? Bess had seen them as she made her way from the house she shared with Martin, slinking through the shadows that filled every lane of the city. Or in the market, ragged creatures that darted among the vendors’ tables and carts, their fingers fast and their feet faster. Bess had thought herself so wise that she noticed them when others of her station paid them no more heed than the rats that scuttled among rubbish piles or the curs that snapped and growled over butchers’ scraps at the Leadenhall Market.

  Joan, though, had tried to warn her about Laurence. That he sought the companionship of dangerous fellows. Bess had—so very, very foolishly—presumed her complaints came from jealousy. That she feared her mistress was to replace the affection she felt for Joan with affection for a new pet. Bess had told her not to have concern. Had told her that Laurence, whose curling hair and shining eyes had charmed her, would make them proud. Joan had ceased arguing, but she had watched him carefully, each time he came to sup or sit at Martin’s side, learning his trade and Bess’s as well. Soon, Martin treated Laurence as he might a son, a son Bess would never give him. Loved him as one as well.

  By the time Bess’s eyes were opened and she came to agree with Joan’s opinion, it was too late to change the onward rush of events that would sweep away her husband and her pleasant life. Too late to escape the entangling schemes of Laurence’s dangerous fellows, men who plotted against the monarchy. For the serpent had lived alongside Martin and Bess, its fangs already drawn.

  Bess latched the window and turned to lean back against the cold panes of leaded glass. She prayed she was not being blind again. That it would not again be too late before she learned whom to trust, what to believe at all.

  * * *

  “I did not have to speak to Mistress Crofton,” said Gibb, quaffing a mouthful of beer and looking content. At the beer and at having succeeded in dodging a difficult situation. “Her brother, Master Marshall, heard what I had to convey. Along with Mistress Ellyott.”

  Kit sat across the table from him, his stool teetering upon the uneven stone floor of the Cross Keys. The tavern consisted of the large front room of a timber-frame building set upon the town square, the tavern keeper and his family having their private chambers on the floor above. It was far more spacious and comfortable than the cramped room of the alehouse. The drink, however, was proportionately more expensive.

  “How did they take the news?” he asked. The hum of conversation from their fellow patrons masked their own conversation. Which was why he often chose to meet Gibb here to talk—though they were surrounded by others, they were not so easy to hear.

  “Well enough, though they were most displeased with what is to take place tonight.” Gibb looked toward the tavern’s windows, out at the darkening sky. “Not long from now, if you could not persuade Wat …”

  “I could not.”

  “’Tis cruel.”

  “’Tis the law, Gibb.”

  “Fie on the law.”

  The tavern keeper’s daughter Marcye sidled over. She had a winning smile and lively eyes, which were focused upon Kit as though she were a cat and he a spot of cream. “Need you more drink, Masters Harwoode?”

  Behind his tankard, Gibb snickered. He regularly teased that she meant to snare Kit as a husband. In turn, Kit would regularly remind his cousin that he’d grown skilled at evading the most cunning female’s snares. He’d seen what an ill match had done to his parents, turning them bitter and hard, ever wounding each other with their words and their slights. He wo
uld not make the same mistake.

  “My cousin might,” said Kit, winking at Gibb.

  “Ah,” she answered, crestfallen. “Then I shall fetch more.”

  “Me?” hissed Gibb, once she had left them. “I’ve no interest in Marcye Johnes.”

  “Neither do I.”

  Gibb sipped at his beer, looking thoughtful. “However, that Mistress Ellyott … She is a fair one. Think you not, coz? Fine brown eyes.”

  “’Od’s blood, Gibb. I did not send you to Master Marshall’s to become tender-eyed over Mistress Ellyott,” he said. “I thought you pursued the apothecary’s youngest daughter.”

  “I merely make an observation.”

  “While you were observing Mistress Ellyott, what did you make of the rest of the family?” asked Kit.

  “You know Robert Marshall.”

  “I know him,” said Kit. But he’d not ever noticed Mistress Ellyott before. She did not try to draw attention to herself with loud laughter or coy glances, unlike other townswomen he knew. Simple of dress and measured of voice, she was an unshowy bird among pheasants. But he suspected that, like the feather of a raven, which revealed secret colors when turned into the light, she had a hidden side as well. “Not the rest though.”

  “They seem refined and respectable people, though there are rumors that the Crofton daughter forms unwise liaisons.”

  “And what of Mistress Ellyott, besides her fine brown eyes?”

  Gibb swallowed more of the beer and swiped the back of his hand across his mouth. “A mystery. She arrived in town last year with only the thinnest of stories as to why she departed London. Some mistrust her, and I’ve heard that often the only patients who search out her physic are the ones no other healers will attend. A few weeks past, she treated the boy with the birthmark.” Gibb gestured at his cheek; Kit knew the lad he meant. “The one whose family lives on the lane behind the churchyard.”

  “How much gossip do you listen to, Gibb?”

  His cousin chuckled and finished his beer. “Did you not ask me to listen?” he asked. “Because gossip has told me that there is a vagrant. The wheelwright off Church Lane says he’s seen this fellow. Not far from the priory ruins. Tried to chase him down, but the man escaped him.”