Baynard's List (A Stephen Attebrook mystery Book 2) Page 11

  Stephen went to the window, bought two buns as instructed. He held out both but she accepted only one.

  “I forgot until now how hungry I am!” Margaret said. She licked her fingers, which were drenched with honey from the bun.

  Stephen watched fascinated at the way she pursed her lips. He had the sudden urge to kiss her right there in the street. He forced himself to look way. He really was going mad. He said, “Thank you.”

  “Which way now?” she asked.

  Stephen pointed to the left where the road forked. “Up Upper Galdeford Street,” he said.

  “Let’s not tarry then. I say, sir, are you going to eat that bun or wear it on your head?”

  “I look silly enough as it is without a bun on my head,” Stephen said, finally taking a bite. He started down Upper Galdeford Street.

  “That was good,” Margaret said, keeping pace. “I hope they have more left when we return.”

  “It’s even more delicious because it’s Sunday and forbidden,” Stephen said.

  Her elbow brushed his, an accident? “The forbidden is always more delicious, isn’t it?”

  “Sometimes it is.”

  Stephen only had to ask twice for directions to the Makepeese house and they were there in short order. The house was on the right some distance up the road toward Lowbridge. It sat just beyond a small ruined stone chapel surrounded by a wattle fence which cut a corner out of a broad meadow. The house’s timbers and the plaster-covered wattle that filled the spaces between them were mossy and gray with age, but it had been thatched during the late summer and its roof still retained that brown color which was so attractive and easy on the eye. The house sat back from the road behind a thick oak, bare of leaves now, but which in summer must provide pleasant shade in the front yard. Normally, the ground around an oak was littered with acorns, but not a single one lay here, as if the ground had swallowed them up. Two planks bridged the shallow ditch along the road. Stephen crossed them and held the gate open for Margaret. A goat looked up from grazing on a sprig of grass and eyed the open gate as though contemplating a bid for freedom. Stephen closed and latched the gate with its loop of rope to prevent the dash.

  A barefoot girl of about ten suddenly burst out of the house, glancing at them warily, grasped the goat by the ear, and towed it inside.

  Stephen followed her to the door. An overturned flowerpot lay on its side to the left, smashed and spilling its soil and occupant, a spray of primrose which looked healthy and green. Someone had paid close attention to that primrose. A circular watermark on the bench by the door told Stephen where it had sat. It was odd that it had been knocked off and just left to lie there, for the house and yard were carefully tended, just like the plant: obviously poor but kept up.

  The door was open and Stephen stood on the threshold, which was just a worn plank of wood that separated the dirt of the yard from the dirt of the floor inside. With the windows all shuttered, it was dim inside but he could make out the details. Directly to the right ran a wall pierced by a door which had to lead to the bier, holding goats from the smell. The living space opened to the left. A hearth smoldered in the middle of the floor, a black iron kettle dangling over it from a tripod. Beside the hearth were the house’s main furniture, a rickety trestle table and two benches. A bed, or more accurately a straw-filled sleeping pallet, lay on the ground on the far side of the fire beneath a shuttered window. Ordinarily during the day such pallets were rolled up and put in the loft, which hung over the far left end of the room, and from which four children furtively gaped at the visitors. But this bed was occupied, although Stephen could not see by whom, for his view was blocked by a crone of a woman sitting on a small stool by the bed. The girl who had secured the goat emerged from the bier, raced across the room, and clambered up the ladder to the loft to join the other children.

  The crone, whose brown cloak draped a bent and skinny figure, rose to face them. White hair writhed in disarray from beneath her linen cap. “Who are you?” she demanded in an unfriendly tone. “What do you want?”

  “My name is Stephen Attebrook, and I’m looking for Howard Makepeese. I’m told he lives here now.”

  “He’s not here,” the crone said. “Don’t bother looking around for him either. And don’t you dare touch her or one of the children, or I’ll have the law on you, quick as lightning. I’m not afraid to call them.” There was a long pause. “Like some.”

  “I am the law,” Stephen said, although from the look on the crone’s face she either was not impressed or didn’t believe him. “Why would I want to touch one of the children?”

  “Huh,” grunted the crone. She stepped to the fire and ladled some thick brown fluid from the kettle to a clay cup. She turned and knelt by the figure in the bed. Stephen caught a whiff of sulfur. “Here, dearie, try drinking a bit of this again. Let’s go now.”

  Stephen edged to the side and saw that a woman occupied the bed. Someone had beaten her terribly. There were cuts about her eyes and mouth and her forehead and cheeks were splotchy with fresh bruises. When she opened her mouth to drink, he could see that her upper and lower front teeth were missing, the gums scabbed with blood — more fresh wounds. Yet despite her ravaged face, Stephen could see Howard Makepeese’s handsome one in it, as if this was the feminine mold from which it had been cast.

  “Is that Howard’s mother?” he asked.

  “Go away,” the crone snarled over her shoulder.

  “What happened here?” he persisted.

  “None of your business,” the crone said. “None of anybody’s business.”

  The injured woman, who had been about to drink that thick stinking fluid, looked frightened at his questions. She shut her mouth and rolled painfully to face the wall.

  “Damn it, man,” the crone raged, “look what you’ve done! Don’t interfere!”

  “Stephen!” Margaret said. “Look here.” She was standing by the open door to the bier. “You must see this.”

  Stephen crossed the room and leaned around the door jam. The room held about a dozen dead goats. But all of them had their throats cut. The lone survivor — the goat rescued in the yard by the girl — chewed on some straw among the corpses.

  Stephen swung around. “Who did this?”

  “The devil did it,” the crone said. “That’s all you need to know.” She waved him away and tried to coax the injured woman to the cup. “Now be gone, or I’ll throw on a curse you. And I know how to make them stick, too, make no mistake.”

  “Someone came asking after Howard, didn’t they,” Stephen said.

  The crone ignored him.

  “Someone came and she would not tell. She would not tell and they killed the goats. First one, and when she still would not tell, another and another, until they were all dead, except the one, which they must have missed. When they did not have what they came for, they beat her. Isn’t that the truth?”

  “I’ll not say a word,” the crone said. “I wasn’t here.”

  “And now you think I might beat the children until she talks, don’t you.”

  The crone straightened up, having been successful at last in forcing her tonic into Mistress Makepeese. “The thought had crossed my mind, young man.” She gestured at the children in the loft. “Their’s too.”

  Stephen’s eyes had adjusted enough to the dimness for him to see that they were terrified of him. “I’ll not touch them. But I must find Makepeese. It’s urgent.”

  The crone sat down on her stool. “Why? Nobody’s ever thought much of him in the past. Just a rake and a wastrel, that boy. Good for nothing.” The woman on the cot groaned and raised a hand. “Hush, Beth, you know it’s true. Don’t try to defend him any more. Look what it’s got you. Years of fret and worry. All your beasts dead, your body wracked and ruined.”

  Mistress Makepeese tried to speak, but the noises she made did not form words that any of them could understand.

  But perhaps the crone understood them. She said, “She won’t talk because if sh
e does Howard will die. He’s her first born, you understand, and a charmer. The fool. She’d rather die herself than give him up.”

  While Stephen and the crone had talked, Margaret climbed the ladder so that her face was even with the floor of the loft. The younger children shrank from her, but the ten-year-old girl held her ground. Margaret implored, “We must find him. We mean no harm to anyone and will not touch you, regardless what you say. But if you keep silent the lives of many men and women, good men and women, may be forfeit. Your silence could condemn them. Please help us.”

  The girl spoke. “This isn’t about the dead man in town?”

  “No, not at all. It’s something different entirely. Something much bigger than one man’s murder.”

  “He didn’t do it. They were friends.”

  “We don’t think he did, but we think he knows who was responsible.”

  “You won’t hurt him?”

  “No,” Margaret said, “I promise.”

  “We don’t know where he’s gone. They wouldn’t tell us.” They — Howard and his mother.

  “Oh,” Margaret said, disappointed. The trail had struck a dead end.

  Suddenly, the girl lunged forward and kissed Margaret on the cheek. Margaret gave a start, but she did not draw back. The girl lingered close for a moment, then withdrew.

  Stephen could see they were going to get nothing useful from any of these people. But he asked anyway more out of frustration than anything else, “Who did this? Who did this to you and your mother?”

  The girl peeked at him over the lip of the loft. The struggle whether to answer him played across her face. She spat full of an adult hate, “Clement! Clement did it!”

  In a daze, Stephen did not remember leaving the house or crossing the yard. The world did not seem to swim into view until he was some distance down the road toward town.

  “It seems Valence has set two seekers after the list,” Margaret said.

  “No,” Stephen said, sucking thoughtfully on his front teeth. “Clement is doing this on his own. He broke Mistress Makepeese’s face only after he was sure she wouldn’t tell him what he wanted to know. He did it so she wouldn’t be able to tell me if she had a change of heart. He must think that if he recovers the list, he improves his chances of escaping the hangman. He also discredits me.” He told her briefly how he had discovered Clement’s complicity in the death of a certain Patrick Carter, an Irishman, and how that led to Clement’s imprisonment on a murder charge. “He holds a grudge, you see.”

  “What will you do now?” Margaret asked.

  “I don’t know. Muryet had a secret lover. Perhaps he knows something.”

  “He did? Who is it?”

  Stephen shook his head. “I promised not to reveal his identity.”

  “Surely you owe such a person no pledge of secrecy.”

  “I didn’t make the pledge to him.”

  “To whom then?”

  “I’m not free to disclose that either.”

  Margaret pouted, but the expression was more playful than serious. “Well, then, before you continue the hunt, you should at least have some refreshment. Let’s stop in at Olivia’s house. I’m sure that the cook will have something prepared.”

  It was past noon by the time they reached the house on College Lane. They let themselves in and emerged into the hall, which was empty. Their footfalls echoed in its vastness. No voices sounded anywhere in the house and no one came to see who had arrived.

  The emptiness of the house did not seem to bother Margaret, although she must be used to servants rushing to attend her. She removed her calfskin gloves and laid them on the arm of one of the chairs before the fire. She turned to face Stephen. She said, “It seems Olivia has not come back. Dinner must have been a success for her. I’m so glad.”

  “You’ve known her a long time?”

  “Since we were children. Our father’s houses were near Adforton, less than a mile apart. We were together constantly. We had a secret place in the forest where we used to meet, an old forester’s hut.”

  Stephen nodded, trying to think of something clever by which to take his leave. But nothing came into his mind, which was frozen by erupting desire. Here he was alone with her in this vast house, well, as much alone as anyone could be in such a place, because there had to be servants lurking somewhere.

  Margaret took a step toward him. Her blue porcelain eyes were suddenly misty. Her lips parted with an odd uncertainty, a strange hesitance. She said almost in a whisper, “Stephen, if you want to kiss me, there’s no one to see.”

  He crossed the narrow interval between them with quick, decisive strides. He put his hands on her thin waist and bent his face to hers. With a tremulous exhalation that was almost a gasp, she raised her face to his.

  Their lips touched.

  A long time afterward, Stephen sat up in bed. The shutters were closed against the chill of late October, and the room was dark, lighted by only a single candle on a table across the room. Feeble light leaked in around the edges of the shutters. It must be late, very late. Perhaps, he thought with alarm, too late.

  Margaret rose to an elbow and touched his arm. The woolen blanket and linen sheet fell away to reveal her breasts and shoulders, white as ivory, smooth and perfect and miraculous. “Don’t go yet. Please.”

  “I’m sorry. I have to. There’s something I have to do. Something urgent. I can’t put it off.”

  “What is it?” She stroked his hair and kissed his shoulder.

  “Family business,” he said.

  “Family always comes first, doesn’t it,” she murmured and lay back on the pillow.

  “I’m afraid so.”

  But as he rose, she grasped his arm and pulled him down. He thought she only wanted a kiss, which he gave her, long lasting and passionate. When they broke, her lips remained close to his.

  Margaret said softly, “The girl told me something before we left.”

  “What?” Stephen said, surprised. He thought he had heard everything Howard’s younger sister had said. “When?”

  “When she kissed me.”

  “What was it?”

  “Lucy knows. She said Lucy knows.”

  Chapter 13

  Lucy was not at Baynard House and none of the other servants knew where she had gone. So there was nothing more that Stephen could do but attend to his other, truly urgent business.

  When Stephen emerged onto College Lane, he saw from the angle of the sun and the long shadows that there was less than an hour till sundown — barely enough time to do what needed to be done. How could he have let himself be so distracted? He felt foolish and weak, but not so much that it drowned his exhilaration.

  Gilbert, Edith, and Harry were waiting at the stables to the Broken Shield with the horses when Stephen hurried in the yard.

  “Good lord, man,” Gilbert said, “what have you been up to? Do you not know the hour?”

  “I’m sorry,” Stephen said. “I was detained.”

  Harry looked at him closely. “Detained at what?”

  “None of your business.”

  Harry cackled, then sneezed violently. “Bet it wasn’t business that detained you!”

  Stephen could feel himself getting red despite the fact that there was no way Harry could know what he had been up to. “Back to your nest, you gutter rat, before you infect the rest of us.”

  Harry wiped his nose on a rag. “Nest, rest, that’s not bad. But the meter’s all wrong. Sorry, as a poet you’re a flop.”

  “Your opinion is noted.”

  “Testy!” Harry said. “Edith, where is my supper? This fellow is too thick headed and irritating to be worth a man’s conversation.”

  Edith smiled thinly. “Jennie will be out soon enough with your scraps. Now you keep quiet.” She turned to Stephen, holding out a coil of rope. “Up with that shirt of yours then. We haven’t any time to waste, young man, if you’re dead set on doing this idiotic thing.”

  Stephen raised his shirt and she
wrapped the rope around his middle, muttering repeatedly, “Stupid plan, really stupid plan.”

  When she was done, Stephen lowered his shirt, grateful for its protection against the chill, which had grown worse with the retreat of the sun, and checked the girth on the saddled mare. The other mare carried only extra blankets, for it would be cold during the night, and food.

  “Makes you look fat,” Harry said. “It won’t fool anyone.”

  “Shut up, Harry,” Gilbert said.

  “Fool’s idea,” Edith said stepping back.

  “Remember,” Stephen said to Gilbert, “the western base of the north watchtower. I’ll show no sooner than two hours after sundown.”

  “It’ll be a damn cold night,” Gilbert grumbled.

  “I know. I’m sorry. Godspeed to you now because we won’t have a chance to speak again.” Stephen paused. “And thank you.”

  Gilbert nodded.

  Stephen hurried out of the yard.

  The warden at the castle gate was just closing its massive, single, iron-studded door when Stephen stumped across the wooden bridge spanning the ditch. The warden held the door cracked for him, then drove it closed and dropped the bar. “Cutting it close there, aren’t you?” the warden asked.

  “I forgot the hour, Ben,” Stephen said.

  Now that he was inside, Stephen could relax a bit. With the closing of the gate, it was Ben’s time to knock off, so together they walked up the path toward the inner keep, leaving his replacement for the first watch to settle into the guard’s niche.

  “Got some late business with his lordship?” Ben asked, meaning Valence.

  “Something like that, yes,” Stephen said. He asked carefully as if he didn’t care, although he was worried that Valence might have had a sudden change of heart and left unexpectedly: “He’s still here, isn’t he?”