A Fall of Shadows Read online

  But how I wish you to be guilty of murder, Master Poynard, for what you did to Ellyn Merrick. For that you should suffer.

  Bess tugged her cloak tight about her body. The burial would take place in an unconsecrated corner of the yard, where common criminals were disposed of amidst weeds and prickling shrubs and inky shadows. Hasty and ignoble, unlike a ceremony for a man in good graces with his god. For such a man, the church bells would be rung, a meal served afterward, and gifts given out to those who’d attended. Goodman Jellis merited no such kindnesses. And no townsman would feel grief for the departure of a common drunkard who disquieted any who crossed his path.

  God have pity on us all that we do not come to such an end as his.

  Was the loneliness of his life and death the reason Bess had chosen to attend? Because she knew no one else, besides his daughter, would?

  No one except Master Poynard.

  He must have felt her staring at him, for he turned to look at her. He nodded and dared to offer a tight smile, sure enough that, with each passing hour, his complicity in any crime was becoming less likely to be proved. He deflected, with the ease of a master tilter, the lances of suspicion thrust his way.

  The breeze lifted, carrying the voice of the minister, who prayed over the open casket words that might appease his restless, bedeviled soul. Bess did not acknowledge Master Poynard’s regard, but resumed watching the service. Overhead, crows cawed from the lone oak standing guard over the churchyard. Their cries were as mournful a noise as the sound of the wind rattling the tree’s branches, shaking free the last of its autumn leaves. They drifted down like great orange flakes of snow.

  Brief prayers concluded, the minister stepped back. The sextant and his helper lifted the casket and tipped Goodman Jellis into the hole. The sheet tucked about his body snagged on a splinter, unraveling to reveal the man’s scrawny nakedness as he fell. His daughter cried out, and the sextant hurried to undo the snag. He and the other man quickly tossed dug-up earth over him and packed it with their shovels. Come summer, the grass would grow upon the dirt, leaving no evidence that he rested beneath it. Just like the many others whose bones occupied this yard, unmarked. Unseen. Perchance forgotten.

  Goodman Jellis’s daughter ran from the churchyard, ducking through the lych-gate behind the minister. The sextant and his assistant, carrying the bier and now empty casket, chatted as they made their way back to the church. The casket would be cleaned and made ready for another impoverished soul who could not afford to be buried in aught else but a sack or a coarse length of cloth.

  Jeffrey Poynard doffed his feathered hat at Bess and wandered off.

  Leaving her alone with a freshly made mound of dirt. “God rest you, Goodman Jellis.”

  “A Papist prayer for a supposed criminal, Mistress?”

  The man’s voice behind her gave her a start. “You walk on cat’s feet, Constable. Quietly.”

  “An ability that serves me well.” He nodded toward the grave. “You need not have come here to mourn for him, Mistress. You did nothing wrong this morning.”

  Mayhap penance for disturbing the peace of a dead man’s body was her true purpose for attending his burial. If so, the constable understood her better than she herself did.

  “Do the burgesses share your opinion of my actions, Constable?” she asked.

  “I have received no complaints,” he said. “As yet.”

  “I am not comforted by that response, Constable,” she said. “I hear they bury Anna on the morrow. I expect Ellyn Merrick will attend, if she feels well enough.”

  Should she tell the constable what Jeffrey Poynard had done to Ellyn? In truth, informing Kit Harwoode would benefit no one. Ellyn would likely fail to convince the law that Master Poynard had assaulted her. Her family would not want her to admit to the entire town that she’d been with child. The baby was gone.

  “It’s gracious of her to care about a servant,” said the man at her side.

  “She is not coldhearted in the least, Constable. I find her to be merely quiet and sober-minded.” Desirable qualities in an herbalist. Bess glanced about the churchyard. “Where was Master Reade buried? I see no disturbed plot of ground.”

  “His family buried him at a church near their farm.”

  “Ah.” Bess headed for the lych-gate. The constable followed. “I told Ellyn about Jeffrey Poynard’s anger with her brother. She admitted they share a mutual dislike but nothing more.”

  “She protects her brother, just like their mother does,” he said as they left the church behind and made their way across the market square.

  “Ellyn also suggested that her mother caused the marks on Anna’s body,” said Bess. “Apparently, she strikes the servants.”

  “Not unexpected that Mistress Merrick beats her servants, but an interesting admission by her daughter, nonetheless.”

  “So who are we now to greatest suspect, Constable?” asked Bess.

  “If you have a suggestion, Mistress, I welcome it,” said the constable.

  They turned onto the lane leading to Robert’s house. Joan had been watching their approach from the parlor’s street-facing windows. She flung open the front door. “Mistress. The churchwarden is here to see you.”

  Bess looked over at Kit Harwoode. “Constable, you may have spoken over-soon about not receiving a complaint. I warrant the churchwarden is at my house to deliver his in person.”

  * * *

  “Widow Ellyott, it pleases me not to be required to meet with you.”

  It did not please her, either.

  She stood in the hall alone with the churchwarden. He had insisted that Kit Harwoode return to his duties, and Bess had assured the constable that she had naught to fear from Master Enderby. Had Constable Harwoode heard the tremble in her voice as she’d spoken, though?

  The churchwarden paced the room’s patterned rush matting. The air inside the hall was thick with the scent of camphor that clung to his black gown, black doublet, and black hose. Bess fought back a sneeze.

  “You cannot be here to condemn me for my absence from services, Master Enderby.” He’d accused her before and threatened fines … and worse. Her prior mistake had taught her the cost of rebellion against the church she had little faith in. “My servant and I have diligently attended these past weeks.”

  “And I am heartened by your conformity,” he said, not sounding heartened in the least. “I am not here, though, to condemn you for your laxity. I am here on another, equally serious, charge.”

  The door between the entry passage and the hall hung ajar, and from outside it came the sound of Joan gasping. She could not help but eavesdrop.

  Bess twisted her hands together at her waist. “What is this serious charge, good sir?”

  “A witch’s effigy has been discovered.” He halted before the bank of windows overlooking the courtyard. “I have been told that it was you who crafted the abomination.”

  Her stomach tightened around his words, and her senses spun. When she was a young girl, Robert would turn her around and around until she stumbled and collapsed onto the ground, her head twirling. When he did so, she’d squeal with laughter. She’d not laugh now, and she must not stumble, for the ground she would collapse upon was rife with rocks rather than the soft grass of her childhood home.

  “You accuse me of being a witch,” she said with more composure than she felt.

  “You do not deny it.”

  “By my troth, Master Enderby, most certainly I deny such an accusation. I am no more a witch than you are.”

  His nostrils flared with a hastily indrawn breath; she’d spoken wrongly. The rocks were desperately near.

  “I crave your pardon, sir,” she said. “I despair that any in this village would think I had made the poppet and speak over-boldly.”

  Master Enderby tilted his head to stare at her. “You are a stranger in this town, Widow Ellyott. Someone not well known by those of us who have lived our lives here. A woman who dabbles with herbs.”

&n
bsp; Women like us … we are to be suspected. Strangers. Healers. At one moment we are salvation. At the next, we are accursed. Mother Fletcher’s painfully wise words.

  “I have lived here more than a year now, Master Enderby. Both my brother and my sister have lived in this town for many years. Further, my grandmother was from just outside this village. I am hardly a stranger,” she replied, her composure cracking. Martin, I am in desperate trouble. “And I make simples for those who cannot afford the help of a physician or the apothecary. I vow I do not make magical potions or cast curses. I wish no harm on anyone.”

  Her pleas did not sway him.

  “A woman was observed upon the highway yestermorn, skulking about in a mysterious manner,” he said. “Then you appear in town with a witch’s effigy in your possession. Not long after, the young woman cursed by that foul thing is trodden to death by a cow.”

  “I discovered the poppet at the Merricks’ farm. I had gone there to visit Anna Webb, only to learn that she was recovered and at her work in their dairy barn,” said Bess, not the truth but a worthy explanation. The veracity of her tale mattered not, for it seemed her words bounced off the churchwarden’s ears like raindrops bounced off stone. “As I readied to leave, I noticed the poppet near a fence and brought it with me to give to the constable.”

  “To deflect suspicion, Widow Ellyott. The curse had been cast, the damage done,” he replied. “You ensured that you would not be blamed by supposedly discovering the thing and taking it to Constable Harwoode.”

  “However, Master Enderby, I have clearly not ensured that I would deflect blame, as someone you will not name has accused me,” she said.

  “I do not hide the fellow’s identity. ’Twas a plowman of good standing in this town, despite his humble birth, who saw the strange woman on the highway. He claims it was you, and that you are the effigy’s creator.”

  “If I had wished to harm Anna, Master Enderby, I would have done so when I first went to tend to her,” said Bess. “It would have been sadly easy to give her a physic that worsened her illness rather than cured it. But that is not what happened, is it?”

  He did not reply, and she felt a moment’s fluttering of hope that she might survive.

  “Further, before the morning that Mistress Merrick summoned me to heal the girl, I had never even heard of Anna Webb,” she continued. “How could I have developed a hatred for her, a desire to curse her, so quickly?”

  “Another paid you to craft the effigy and cast the curse on the girl.”

  “I vow no one paid me to cast a curse upon that gentle young woman,” she said. “You may question my servants. They will attest that I have not been making poppets or cursing villagers.”

  He stared down the length of his nose at her. “I did speak with them before you arrived here. They could not say that they had seen you craft the poppet. But I warn you, Mistress, I watch you closely.”

  Before Bess could reply, the churchwarden turned on his heel and swept from the room. Joan bolted from her hiding spot to throw open the front door.

  Bess rushed after him. She should be happy to see him gone, but she’d had a thought.

  The churchwarden moved quickly and was many paces up the lane already. “Master Enderby, wait!”

  He stopped. “Have you aught to tell me?”

  She did not intend to make a confession, if that was what he hoped from her. “I have a question about the woman that the plowman noticed skulking upon the highway. Did he provide you a description of her?” Other than to merely claim it was me.

  “A woman like any other,” he said. “A countrywoman with a clout over her face, to protect her nose against the dust and dirt of the road.”

  “Which I was not wearing yesterday, Master Enderby, so it could not have been me he saw.”

  His lips puckering, he turned and stomped off.

  “’Tis ever good to see the back of him, Mistress,” said Joan, who’d crept up behind Bess. “Pricking and poking me and Humphrey to confess we had seen you make that evil thing. Someone, though, must stand accused.”

  “Past question, if I am not responsible, then Mother Fletcher must be. Thanked be God she appears to have left the village and cannot be punished.” Bess watched Master Enderby until he turned the corner onto the market square. “I also saw the curious woman he described, Joan. On the highway yestermorn as I headed for the Merricks’. A countrywoman in simple sturdy clothes with her face protected by a clout and a forehead cloth that dipped low. She walked upon a road that was not dusty that day. So why the coverings?”

  “Was the woman Mother Fletcher?” asked Joan.

  “No. I am positive she was not,” she said. “But who?”

  * * *

  “You cannot mean to delay tonight’s supper, Christopher.”

  “Good day to you, Frances,” Kit said to her, unpinning his cloak to toss it over the nearest stool. He missed, and it fell to his parlor’s floor in a heap.

  “Tush, Christopher, this is why you need a wife,” she said, hurrying to pick up the discarded garment and brush the dust off it. “You care naught for your belongings.”

  “I do not need a wife, Frances, when you and Gibb have so kindly pressed Alice on me. As I have said before.” He gestured at the room’s lone chair that was fitted out with a cushioned seat. “Prithee, take a seat.”

  “I do not intend to stay long,” she said. “If you need sit, you are welcome to.”

  “My thanks, Frances. I shall.” He dropped onto the hard wooden chair at his desk. Through the window above it, he could see the churchwarden’s house and watch for the man’s return.

  Perhaps he shouldn’t have left Bess Ellyott to be bullied by him. But she was clever, and Kit was not her protector.

  “Christopher, are you listening to me?” asked Frances. “No, so I will repeat my question—why must you delay the supper? My friend remains not long in town. Moreover, I have already purchased all of the fish, as we were to eat this day, a Friday. If I had known you’d attempt to move the supper to tomorrow, I could have procured pheasant or venison instead.”

  “It can’t be helped, Frances.” He squinted, thinking he saw Enderby striding across the market square. “Another murder to look into.”

  “Another murder? I have not heard such news. Are you certain?”

  “Hmm.”

  “I shall allow you to delay our meal until tomorrow, but not a day later.”

  “As you wish, Frances.” It was the churchwarden, already finished with Bess. Enderby shoved through a clutch of schoolboys who’d run into the square to play a boisterous game of blindman’s buff. The grammar school master shouted profuse apologies to the churchwarden and yelled at the boys to return to their studies.

  “Christopher Harwoode, can you not attend to me? What is it outside that draws your attention so?” she asked, her tone rising with impatience.

  “A minor matter,” he replied.

  “Dearest cousin, you weary yourself with this role you have taken on. See the distraction it causes you.”

  He turned to face her. “I did not take on this role willingly.”

  She crossed to where he sat, his cloak still folded over her arm. “Then why engage in such work if you were so reluctant? Not for pay, for I know you receive the barest of fees to cover an expense here or there. You tire yourself only to satisfy your pride.”

  “My pride requires a great deal of satisfaction, Frances.”

  Her smile slipped from her face, and she set his cloak atop his narrow desk. “Your father is not moved by your dedication, Christopher. I admire you, ’tis true, but he believes you ignore your business and risk ruin.”

  He now had no reason to read the letter his father had sent, as he could readily presume it was filled with complaints about his negligence.

  His gut clenched hard around all the feelings he’d ever had about his father. “I do not care what he thinks or feels.”

  She looked at him with pity. “Bah, ’tis certain you do. W
hat son does not?”

  The front door latch clanked, and the door itself swung open. Gibb charged into the narrow entry passage, bringing with him a blast of chilly air and the noise of the square outside. Kit called to his cousin before he bounded up the stairs for the hall.

  “Gibb. In here.”

  “I have succeeded in frightening the entirety of the village, coz,” he said, dropping the basket he carried onto Kit’s desk.

  “Does your visage alarm them, brother?” teased Frances. She peered at the contents of the basket. “Merciful God, what is that?”

  “A witch’s effigy,” said Kit. “Did anyone know where it came from, Gibb?”

  “To a person, they blamed a witch. A plowman I showed it to became agitated, left his plow and his ox in the field, and ran to talk to the churchwarden.”

  “Who has only just left Mistress Ellyott’s house.” No coincidence, I’d guess.

  “Christopher, what do you think is going on out there?” asked Frances, whose attention had shifted from the effigy to the square outside Kit’s window.

  Kit turned to look. Villagers clustered together, staring and pointing at something east of the village that had drawn their excited interest. Some began to run that direction. “Nothing good, Frances. Gibb.”

  He rushed outside with his cousin. Thick black smoke curled in the distance.

  “Fire!” someone shrieked.

  Fire.

  CHAPTER 16

  Master Enderby had been gone from Robert’s house no longer than five minutes when Humphrey lumbered into the hall where Bess sat by the window, idly watching the chickens in the courtyard.

  “Mistress?”

  Bess looked over her shoulder. “Aye, Humphrey?”

  “There be a fire. Near to the highway to Avebury.” His face pinched with a look she could not decipher. Distress? No … gloating.

  “The farmers have been burning the residue of their fields,” she said.

  “Nay, Mistress. ’Tis a cottage that is ablaze.”