The Mammoth Book of Jacobean Whodunnits

by Mike Ashley (ed)

  I hobbled downstairs, leaving the master to his bread and small beer. His room was as good as a trap these days. I’d had to slip a coin to Sergeant Briggs and Pikeman Walters, the soldiers who’d brought back Master Tom, to help him downstairs to receive the body: he’d never have been able to make the short journey down to the entrance hall and back without them. Another coin guaranteed their return tomorrow, to carry him in his chair across to the church.

  For all that, I dared not disobey him, whatever my own desires.

  In the dim light of the dairy, shrouded in a linen sheet, Tom looked so like the child I’d loved. But as I touched his cold face, smoothing back his now coppery hair, I knew he wasn’t. When had he grown those deep lines, which even the sleep of death could hardly soften? When had the anger creases become furrows? When his father had forbidden him the puppy he’d set his heart on, and he’d tried to tear it apart rather than let anyone else have it?

  Perhaps it was the scar of that on his conscience that transformed him into such a godly youth. Look at those long straight legs of his: made by the Lord to cut a sweet caper, if ever limbs were. But no sooner had Master Thomas – I must no longer call him Tom, he’d frowned – come down from the university, he’d stood apart from the heathenish maypole, staring down any maiden foolish enough to make sheep’s eyes at him. He was no stranger to the more tender emotions, however: he would pen verses he took care to lock away when I came to clean his closet. My letters never came easily to me, and I was never book-learned, but those times he forgot to hide his scribblings I could work out “To Mistress A –” or whoever she might be. And such things he wrote – many a blush would they have brought to my cheek, had I been that way inclined, and many a beating had his father found out. His father, or Master A – , of course. But he was my little Tom, and I would have done nothing to harm him.

  Now he was as cold as the marble monuments in the church. I folded his hands, so they were seemly in prayer. He lacked the armour and a little dog by his feet, but otherwise he might have been Sir Clifforde, his great-great-great-grandsire, whose tomb alone stood undamaged in the church. A justice Sir Clifforde had been: by all accounts a fair man, but stern and unyielding, he had made many enemies. He died the day he had some old woman bridled as a scold: some said it was she who killed him by her witchcraft, and drove her family from the village. Others said that it was an angry scullion had poisoned his master’s food to avenge his beloved mother.

  At least my Tom had had a swift, clean death. But who had hated him enough to stab him in the back, a fellow man at arms, fighting for the same just cause? Who must be punished as a murderer? – for even in these troubled times justice might prevail.

  Gathering my shawl about me, I went to stand, as I had on so many nights in my life, in the dairy doorway. I could smell the animals – not many left now, most seized by one army or another foraging legally or illegally – and hear the murmur of voices. Women tended to gather round the village well after the heat of the day had passed. If I moved closer I could identify them. Mistress A – might not be there, but Sally, her cook, might be. Like the parsonage, the Manor House had its own water supply, but Sally was never averse to a pleasant gossip. Soon she joined me in the dairy.

  “He makes a fine corpse,” Sally sighed, only just managing not to cross herself. “Has anyone else – ?”

  “Not yet. I’ve not long made him decent. And the Master doesn’t want any fuss. But you can’t just let the light go out from a life and not say your farewells. Do you think,” I began, dropping my voice even lower, so she had to crane forward to hear, “that anyone else might want to come? Anyone at all?”

  She jumped back as if I had put her hand in the fire. Then, more thoughtfully, she nodded. “But I cannot think that she will be able to leave the household. The master was wounded in the same skirmish. Not grievously, but enough to want his wife to bathe his brow. And she will – she will do what she must do.”

  “Is there still no ease between them?”

  “With her coming of Royalist stock and him as devout a Parliament’s man as your master? And the young master too sickly to know which side he’s supposed to be fighting for?” The young master’s carroty hair was something we all contrived to ignore. “There’s be some wanting to see him laid out like this just to make sure he’s dead – saving your presence, Mistress Biddy,” she added hurriedly.

  “Just let them say that to my face, Mistress Sally, and my poor Tom won’t be the only one awaiting burial tomorrow.”

  “But Mistress Berry’s family –”

  “I dare them to show their faces here!”

  “But Master Thomas was overzealous, perhaps?”

  “He’s got his forebears’ blood within him,” I said, by way of apology or explanation – I hardly knew which. “And he was doing no more than his duty,” I insisted, lest she sense my weakness.

  “Indeed, it is every man’s bounden duty – aye, every woman’s too – to report witchcraft. But burning is a terrible thing, Mistress Biddy. A terrible thing. And there are many in the village who would say that Mistress Berry was more mad than bad.”

  “She was a witch,” I averred firmly.

  She nodded, her fingers twitching to cross herself. “I suppose there’s no news of –” she swallowed and dropped her voice even lower “– of his brother?”

  I answered question with question. “Is it likely? If he returned, the Master would surely be taken off with a seizure. Master Simon is worse than dead to this household, Mistress Sally. Worse.” The brothers had been as like as peas: Master Simon perhaps an inch taller, broader, and with hair a more lustrous chestnut, tumbling on to his shoulders in a manner of which no girl might have been ashamed. Modesty apart, of course.

  “But with your master now without issue? And Master Simon the first-born son, for all he’s in exile over the seas?”

  I shook my head. “When the time comes I shall know what to do.”

  Scarcely had she slipped into the deepening dusk than there came a scratch at the half-open door: in slid the wraithlike figure of Will, the verger.

  “I never thought I’d live to toll the bell for the young master,” he whispered. “And it’s a long grave young Luke and I have had to dig – and him no more than a lad, scarce able to wield a spade. Yet he’ll be off to join the army, soon as his mother’s back’s turned.”

  “And who will run the farm then?” Without the crops, without the animals, I could see nothing but starvation for us all.

  Will shrugged his shoulders, looking down at the pale face almost glowing in the dim light. “The wages of sin is death,” he said. “For us all, Mistress Biddy, for us all.” He took my hand, kissing it gently. We’d always had soft spots for each other, but my duty to the young master had always overridden all else.

  “Indeed!” agreed another voice.

  Sir Peter! My knees struggled to their lowest curtsey.

  “Enough, Biddy: we who are old are all equals in the sight of the Grim Reaper.” Despite his frailty, he lifted me firmly upright. “As I shall tell my brother in five minutes. I hear you’ve sent for Master Simon.”

  “Nay, sir! No I! You hear wrong! Not till Master Bulstrode –” How could it be, that in the presence of death I could not frame the word?

  “But they say he was seen – that was why I assumed my brother was on his death bed!”

  I shook my head dismally.

  “Are you sure, woman?”

  “Certain sure.” Without realizing I slipped into the assurance my young master would give when denying his latest exploit.

  He nodded, hardly anything visible of him now except the wisps of white hair escaping his hat, and the ivory of his gnarled hand on his stick.

  “Sir,” I blurted, “might I have a word of you?”

  “In private?”

  Before I could speak, Will touched his hat and slipped silently away.

  His face was full of pity. “Biddy, you do not have to be nervous speaking to
me: you are not my servant!”

  “And this is not your son. But he is your kindred, sir – and someone has murdered him.”

  “Woman!” he cried aloud.

  I lit the candle, and eased poor Tom so that his uncle might see the fatal wound.

  He shook his head, laying his hand on mine. “No man lives such a rackety life as Thomas without making enemies, Biddy. In these grievous times, leave well alone.”

  But leave it I could not. What were we fighting for, if not God, the fount of all goodness and justice? Someone must pay for this! Kissing my Tom gently on the forehead, I pulled my shawl about me and set forth through the now starlit night towards the camp.

  Camp! It was scarcely more than a straggle of improvized tents, with naught but a terrified boy on guard. Young Jacob Ashcroft! Indeed, he nearly shot me in his desire not to let me through what he grandly called the lines, but I reminded him of the tartlets I’d slipped him from my apron pocket during tedious long sermons, and very soon I was before the young man Jacob called reverently the Commander.

  “Sergeant Briggs and Pikeman Walters brought him home, you say?” he asked, graciously gesturing me to an ammunition box to sit on. His face was thin and weary, in another age a true model for the image of a saint. “Did they look furtive or guilty?”

  I remained on my feet. “Nay, sir, they carried him boldly – tearfully, in truth, but as men proud of their burden, reverent for all Sergeant Briggs had had to sit the whole of one Sabbath on the penitents’ stool, him and young Phoebe Dyve, after Master Thomas had seen them doing what I won’t soil my lips to speak of.”

  “So you don’t think it was they who, charged with taking an injured man for succour, took the chance to slay him? After all, no man likes to be publicly humiliated.”

  “True, there was blood on their hands, sir – but they had fought in the skirmish themselves, and how am I to know whose it is? Nay, sir, I want to know who fought alongside him, even behind him! For I know that such a man as Thomas Bulstrode would lead his men from the front.”

  “And would be in the midst of any action,” he agreed, “indeed, taking the flat of his sword to those who tarried, Mistress Biddy.”

  “And who might those have been?” At last I might be succeeding.

  “Many, truth to tell. We are all weary, in God’s name.”

  “Names, sir: I came for names.”

  He counted off on long, thin fingers: “The sergeant and the pikeman you know already. There were others from hereabouts. The Lord of the Manor.”

  “Master Ashcroft?” I gasped.

  “He, with that halfwit son of his; three young men by name of Berry; several strangers to these parts, all licked into something like shape by young Thomas. None loving him, Mistress Biddy. Except Sir Waller Massey – he and Thomas seemed something like friends.”

  “I thought he had defected from the Royalist side – can he have become a friend?”

  “‘There is more joy in Heaven over one sinner who repenteth’, Mistress,” he reminded me with the sort of smile I gave young Jacob. I would have rebuked him, had he not rubbed his hands over his tired face. “Oh, and but very lately come amongst us is a tall man, approaching but not in his middle years. Well set-up, knowing his weapons. Besides these gentlemen? The usual assortment of ill-lettered, well-meaning dolts with only their scythes as weapons. Dear God, what a rabble, to resist a well – led Royalist force.” He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. “Question them if you will, Mistress Biddy. But not now. Leave it till the morning, in the Lord’s name.”

  “Till the funeral?” I was appalled.

  “Why not?”

  “May I not speak to his friend? To this tall stranger?”

  He shook his head firmly. “I’ll give those who want it leave of absence for an hour – no more, mind – to attend his obsequies. I shall lead a detachment myself, in fact. And now, good night to you, Mistress.” He summoned Jacob to lead me home.

  If only I had a tartlet now. If anyone could speak without dissembling, it was Master Jacob. But he was so full of his new responsibility, I doubted if I could remind him how well he used to do my bidding.

  “You must see everyone who comes and goes,” I murmured, as we picked our way through the thicket protecting the camp.

  “Indeed I do, Mistress. But I may not tell who.”

  “May not? How so, Master Jacob?”

  “Because I may not. The gentleman told me.”

  “A gentleman!” I echoed. “Not a soldier?”

  “A gentleman may be a soldier,” he muttered. “And a soldier may be a gentleman.”

  “But this gentleman was not a soldier?” I prompted. “And did you know this gentleman?”

  “How could I, Mistress Biddy? He was swathed to the ears. And spoke thus.” Jacob laid his arm across his face, as if to muffle his mouth with his cloak.

  “But did you know his voice?”

  “No, Mistress.”

  “And what did the gentleman do?” Cool as the night was becoming, my palms sweated.

  “Nothing, Mistress. Except to speak to other gentlemen.”

  “And which other gentlemen might they be? Were they soldier gentlemen?”

  “I may not tell, Mistress. They said they’d slit my throat if I looked. But the one gentleman was kind, Mistress, and made them put up their swords so they might not get rusty in the dew, he said, and he laughed. But I know not why. And then he gave me a bright penny, and ruffled my hair and told me to run away.”

  “So you ran away and did not listen?”

  “I ran, but not very far, and did not listen – but I heard, Mistress, because try as I might I could not stop my ears.”

  “So you heard the gentlemen say things. Now they are not here, now you are safe, you can tell old Biddy, who makes you tartlets and other sweetmeats, what they said.”

  Was I wrong so to question the child? If I was, think how much worse they were who used children as messengers, even though they knew the enemy recked not for youth or innocence, and tore out their fingernails if they caught them.

  “The stranger asked for what he said he’d come for. But the other gentleman – the kind one – said he’d get no more. That he’d done wrong and would not do it again. I would not have dared speak thus to the first man, lest he kill me. For that was what he threatened to do, Mistress – kill the kind man. But at last he thrust him away, and seemed to leave the camp. But then he spoke to another man, and he gave him something in a bag.”

  “And would you know that man again, Jacob? You may tell old Biddy, you know.”

  He nodded, hard. But try how I might, I could not lure him into an answer. So I kissed him on the cheek, and promised more sweetmeats if he came to my kitchen, and left him guarding the camp.

  Although the night was now old, and the candle I’d set surely long guttered, a pale light still filled the dairy. I saw the shadow of a familiar profile.

  He had risen! He had risen indeed! And with the rushing in my ears and the lights blinding my eyes, I knew no more.

  Someone was burning feathers under my nose. Choking, eyes awash, I found myself awake once more, a beaker of water pressed to my lips, my back supported by a strong arm.

  “’Tis not Thomas, dear Biddy. ’Tis I, Simon,” a familiar voice whispered.

  I struggled to my feet. “Then ’tis you who slew him! You, you monster!” I beat at his chest with my fists, but clasping my wrists with one hand he pushed me away.

  “Hold your peace, Biddy! Do you want them all about us?” He pressed a finger to my lips. “Nay, nay – enough of your shrewishness. You were never wont to be like this.”

  “I was never in the presence of a – of a brother-killer before.”

  He shook his head. “I’m no fratricide, Biddy. Though were I one, I would be one amongst many. This terrible war – to what hideous crimes have men been driven! All in the name of God knows what.”

  “You, Master Simon – a man of the cloth and you say th
at?”

  “A man of the cloth so saddened by the excesses of his brethren he has left his church behind and sought a better life in the New World. I returned – never mind why I returned. Let us say it was to say farewell to my brother. That is why I came to say farewell to my father. And now, it seems, to my brother.” He covered the face with the shroud.

  “If you did not kill him, who did?” I asked.

  “Biddy, you loved him dearly, but even you must grant that there were many who did not. And men fall dead every day. Why not leave it at that?”

  “Would you, in my position?”

  “Nor I, in my position!” he admitted with a grim smile.

  I recounted the events of the night. “The commander says I may question them all in the graveyard,” I concluded. “But, dear Master Simon, I think I may do better than that.” As I explained my plan, his eyes rounded in horror. Then I saw him nod, slowly at first but then with enthusiasm.

  “But first I must pay my respects to my father. What time does he awake, Biddy?”

  “If he gets two hours’ sleep together, he’ll do well. Many is the night I’ve watched with him, or read aloud to take his mind off the pain.”

  “Will you go and tell him I’m here? God forbid I give him the shock I gave you.”

  “Indeed, it would kill him, Master Simon.”

  But nothing now could touch my old master. Shock, grief, joy were now all as one: fled, as it were, a shadow. I closed his eyes gently, and – privately, secretly – prayed for his soul.

  “Send for Master Will,” I whispered to the new master. “We will need two graves.”

  Will grumbled and grouched his way through the following hours, sending his lad to the next parish for a clergyman to replace Master Bulstrode. The news of the double tragedy seeped through the village with the morning mist, and by the time milking was over and the beasts fed, a regular trickle of mourners made their way to the church.

  Sir Peter took his place in the pew he’d long since abandoned: you could hear the gasp of shock from those who knew of the family bitterness. He looked bleakly around him but once before burying his face against his clasped hands. Perhaps he could not bear to see the violence inflicted on the fabric of a building he loved more than his home. At last he looked up, stood as if searching for something – and then limped down the aisle to where I stood at the back of the church.