12 - Nine Men Dancing (24 page)

The latter nodded to the two elders and William Bush, but treated me to a suspicious stare as though she thought I might be up to no good, especially after I had treated her to my most winning smile.

‘I’ve put a honey, rue and borage poultice on his swollen knee,’ she informed the room at large, ‘and powder of puff balls, mixed with spiders’ webs to staunch the blood of a nasty cut to his upper arm. And there are some lettuce juice pellets to help him sleep when he’s finished eating. Father Anselm,’ she continued, turning to her patient, ‘I leave you in Mistress Bush’s most capable hands.’ She gave another nod, nearly tripped over Hercules, who had been skulking around after me all morning, and went on her way with the parting admonition, ‘Send for me if I’m needed.’

When the bedchamber door had closed behind the wise woman, Sir Anselm forestalled our questions by announcing querulously, ‘It’s no use asking me who did this. I didn’t see anything.’

‘You must have seen something, Father,’ Elder Hemnall objected. ‘The attack must have wakened you.’

‘I tell you, I didn’t.’ The priest sounded as though he might burst into tears at any moment. ‘It was the middle of the night. It was dark. I woke up to find someone was beating me black and blue. I remember crying out and putting up an arm to defend myself, but then I must have lost consciousness. I can’t tell you anything more. It’ll serve no purpose badgering me. Besides, I’m tired. I want to sleep.’

‘Lambert Miller was attacked in just the same way,’ Elder Hemnall told him. ‘He insists that Tom Rawbone was his assailant, even though the fellow was wearing his hood back to front. Sir Anselm, do you think it was Tom Rawbone who assaulted you?’

‘I keep telling you, I didn’t see anything,’ was the peevish (and frightened?) response. ‘Can’t you understand English?’

‘Tom Rawbone has run away.’ William Bush proffered the fact as though he hoped that it might reassure Sir Anselm. But the hope was doomed.

‘I didn’t see anything or anyone,’ the priest repeated in a fading voice, leaning back against his pillows and closing his eyes. ‘Now, will you please go, and allow me to rest?’

Mistress Bush took charge, shooing us from the bedchamber with sweeping motions of her hands.

‘Off you go, and let the poor man get some sleep,’ she scolded.

I was only too willing. My stomach was beginning to rumble, giving me notice that it was well past my dinnertime. I was debating whether or not to return to the Lilywhites’ cottage when William Bush tapped me on the shoulder.

‘I can hear you’re hungry, Master Chapman. Come and eat with me. Eel pie and a draught of good ale, how does that sound? My wife bakes excellent eel pies. I can recommend them.’

He didn’t have to ask me twice. We took our leave of the two elders, who had expressed their intention of paying another visit to Lambert Miller – I presumed that Rosamund had also returned to her suitor’s sickbed, and wondered what she would make of the news of Tom Rawbone’s flight – while we proceeded to the alehouse. This was, for the present, still locked, so the landlord led me up the outside staircase to the living quarters above.

The first room we entered was the kitchen-parlour with, presumably, two bedchambers somewhere beyond. My host sat me down at the table and from a cupboard produced a couple of wooden platters on which reposed two of the largest eel pies I have ever seen. I was famished. I took my knife from my belt and fell to with a will. Master Bush did the same.

It was several minutes before we were able to speak, and then only in grunts to signify the offering and acceptance of ale. But after a while, when both hunger and thirst had been assuaged, the landlord cleared his mouth and asked, ‘Well? What do you think, chapman? Is Sir Anselm telling the truth? Or is he bent on protecting Tom Rawbone?’

‘Or somebody else,’ I suggested.

William looked up, startled. ‘You think someone other than Tom might have been responsible for the attacks, then?’

‘Why not? Lambert didn’t see the man’s face, after all. And he assumes it was Tom because of their quarrel yesterday. He thinks, naturally enough, that Tom was getting his own back.’

‘Of course! Who else could it have been? No one else that I know of bears the miller that sort of grudge. And it was Tom’s hood we found.’

‘Maybe. But why would Tom attack the priest? Come to that, why would anybody attack Sir Anselm?’

But I could make a guess at the answer to that question. Someone who either knew or suspected that the priest had information about the disappearance of Eris Lilywhite. I was not, however, prepared to share that thought at present. Besides, it failed to solve the problem of who, apart from Tom Rawbone, had a reason to attack Lambert Miller.

I took a gulp of ale, trying to work out the equation. Firstly, Tom had every reason to avenge himself on Lambert in retaliation for the beating he had received the previous afternoon. Secondly, if I was right in my assumption that Sir Anselm knew something about Eris’s fate, then the person responsible might either want to kill him, or at least to administer a severe warning to him to hold his tongue. Therefore, if the two attacks were connected – and in the circumstances it seemed impossible that they were not – the same man stood indicted for both crimes …

It was the logical conclusion to make. And yet, somehow, I still wasn’t convinced that the perpetrator was Tom Rawbone, in spite of William of Ockham’s dictum that, in logic, assumptions should not be multiplied: the obvious answer is usually the right one. But in my experience, there were times when the solution to a problem was too obvious to be true.

I folded my arms on the table and asked, ‘Why would Tom Rawbone want to harm Sir Anselm? Can you think of a reason?’

William Bush shook his head. ‘I’ve been puzzling about that, myself. He and the priest always seemed to rub along together pretty well. He wasn’t involved in the church, like Ned, but he always attended every feast day and holy day and didn’t hold any of those heretical Lollard views that seem so fashionable nowadays. Leastways, not that I’ve ever heard of. Mind you, that’s all the good I will speak of him, after what he did to my Rosamund.’

‘Were you looking forward to having him as a son-in-law?’

The landlord shrugged. ‘It was a good match for Rosie, I have to admit. And she was mad to have him, so I couldn’t say no. I’ve never been able to deny her anything. But there was always something a bit wild about Tom that neither Mistress Bush nor I approved of. And it turned out, of course, that our fears were justified. Not that we saw it coming – his jilting Rosamund like that, I mean. And for Eris Lilywhite of all people!’

‘You didn’t like Eris?’ I enquired, although I had already guessed the answer.

‘No, I didn’t.’ The landlord emptied his beaker and set it down rather forcibly on the table. ‘To be truthful, I’ve never liked her mother much, either. I always thought Maud Haycombe a bit wild in her youth. Not as good as she should have been, if you know what I mean.’ He leaned across the table and said in a confidential whisper, ‘If you want my opinion, Eris’s arrival was much too prompt for her to have been conceived after Gilbert and Maud were married. It was barely nine months. More like eight, if my memory serves me rightly.’ He added defiantly, ‘And that’s always been Winifred’s opinion, too.’

I detected a touch of pique in Master Bush’s tone, and wondered if he might once have fancied Maud himself, but met with no encouragement. All the same, I saw no reason to doubt his memory concerning the date of Eris’s birth. If Maud had been as much in love with Gilbert Lilywhite as Theresa had implied, they might well have anticipated their marriage vows. They would most certainly not have been the first, nor the last, couple to do so.

‘What do you think happened to Eris the night she vanished?’ I asked. ‘Was she killed or did she simply run away?’

William returned the same response that I had received so many times in answer to that question.

‘Run away? That one? When she’d just got what she wanted, to be mistress of Dragonswick Farm? Of course, she didn’t run away! No, she was murdered, if you want my opinion.’

‘Then who was the murderer?’ I wanted to know.

The landlord poured us both more ale. ‘Tom Rawbone, I should guess. But it could have been Nathaniel or one of the twins. Or even one of the women. If Eris returned to the farmhouse for some reason – because of the weather or because she’d forgotten something – I wouldn’t it past the capabilities of any one of those three – Petronelle, Dame Jacquetta, Dame Merryman – to take a knife to her back.’

‘But no one’s mentioned that she returned after she’d left for home that night.’

‘Well, they wouldn’t, would they?’ William gave me a condescending smile. ‘Not if one of them had killed her.’

‘But would Nathaniel have covered up for them? He was supposed to be in love with the girl.’

‘Of course he would! You’re a stranger. You don’t know the Rawbones.’ The landlord’s condescension became even more marked. ‘Besides, I doubt if Nathaniel ever was in love with Eris. In lust, perhaps. And delighted at the prospect of serving Tom a backhanded turn. But he would never betray any member of his family into the clutches of the law. Whatever their internal strifes, the Rawbones always close ranks against outsiders.’

‘Would the family include Dame Merryman?’ I asked.

My companion nodded. ‘Oh yes! Elvina’s one of the family, all right. She was Nathaniel’s mistress for years. Probably still is. The fact is never referred to openly, of course, but most people in the village accept it as a fact. There used to be rumours that she paid regular visits to the village wise woman – not the one you met today; her mother – for infusions of pennyroyal in order to abort unwanted children. But it was only gossip, you understand. You wouldn’t repeat it?’

I hastened to reassure him, then decided it was time to take my leave. I wanted to look in on Sir Anselm again, in the unlikely hope of finding him awake and alone. After that, I needed to be by myself for a while. I needed to clear my mind; to separate fact from assumption; to set my thoughts and ideas in some sort of order.

Sir Anselm was sitting up in bed, looking very pale and obviously feeling extremely sorry for himself.

Mistress Bush, who let me in, was busy in the kitchen, making soup – chicken and lentil if my nose was any judge – and anxious to return to it before it stuck to the bottom of the pot.

‘What do you want?’ she asked, none too pleased at being disturbed.

‘A word with Sir Anselm,’ I said.

She pursed her mouth and eyed me up and down in that infuriating, considering way women have when the power of decision rests in their hands.

‘Very well,’ she conceded at last. ‘As long as it is just a word. I won’t have you tiring him out. He’s still very weak. And don’t bully him.’

‘Who? Me?’ I was the picture of injured innocence.

She sniffed. ‘I’ve had experience of your hectoring ways.’

‘You’re thinking of somebody else,’ I assured her, obtaining and gallantly kissing one of her hands. I inhaled the mouthwatering aroma of chicken soup. ‘And your eel pies are sheer ambrosia, too,’ I added, with apparent irrelevance.

She gave another sniff and snatched her hand away.

‘That’s quite enough of that, Master Chapman. I know your sort. I wasn’t born yesterday. I’m just sorry for your poor wife, that’s all.’

‘I make her the happiest woman in Bristol,’ I protested.

‘Between the sheets, no doubt. But where does that lead? Only to more children. You said you have three, I believe. Any girls?’

‘Just the one.’

‘Then I’m sorry for you.’ Dame Winifred sighed. ‘Girls are the very devil to bring up. At least, modern girls are. It wasn’t so in my day, of course. We were much better behaved.’

‘As every generation of mothers has no doubt said from time immemorial,’ I laughed, and headed for the staircase.

‘What do you want?’ Sir Anselm demanded as I entered his bedchamber.

I ignored the peremptory tone and sat down, uninvited, on the edge of his bed. I didn’t beat around the bush.

‘Who did this to you and the miller?’ I asked. ‘And don’t tell me you don’t know. Or can’t guess.’

‘Well, I don’t know. I didn’t see his face. Go away!’

I put a hand over one of his which was lying, hot and dry as an autumn leaf, on the patchwork coverlet.

‘Father,’ I urged, ‘this man, whoever he may be, is dangerous. He’s most probably the murderer of Eris Lilywhite. If you know anything – anything at all – you must tell me. Or tell someone. Was it Tom Rawbone who attacked you?’

‘How many more times do I have to repeat myself?’ His voice rose peevishly. ‘I know nothing. I saw nothing. Now, will you please go away? Preferably,’ he added waspishly, ‘back where you came from.’ He turned his face to the wall. ‘I’ve no more to say.’

His protests carried no weight with me. Indeed, their very repetition made me more suspicious.

‘Father, you’re being extremely foolish,’ I chided him. ‘I suspected, when I talked to you yesterday, that there was something you were concealing; some knowledge gleaned, most probably, from things told, or hinted at, in the confessional. Was this beating a warning to you to keep your mouth shut?’

‘And if it were, I’d be a fool to ignore it, wouldn’t I?’ was the sharp retort. His head jerked round again to look at me face to face.

‘So you do know something,’ I said, seizing on his question as an admission of the truth.

He removed his hand from under mine. ‘I didn’t say that—’

‘In so many words,’ I interrupted.

‘—but if you wish to interpret it in that way,’ he continued as though I hadn’t spoken, ‘I can’t prevent you. But you’re forgetting Lambert Miller. Does such an argument apply to him?’

‘No, not as far as I know. But I think there might have been a different motive there.’

‘Might have been?’ He eyed me shrewdly. ‘I understood from Dame Winifred that the miller and Tom Rawbone had quarrelled over Rosamund. Lambert had attacked and beaten Tom severely.’

I nodded. ‘True! I was present when it happened. And Tom has fled the village. But suppose that someone wanted to throw blame on to Tom, hoping that amid the general condemnation, he’d panic and flee, then breaking into the mill and assaulting Lambert would be the way to do it. The attack on you would be for a different reason; a warning, as I’ve said already. But no one would stop to consider that. The thinking would be that if Tom assaulted the miller, then he also assaulted the priest. The “why” of it wouldn’t be considered. Most people, in my experience, can reason from one to two, but very few continue reasoning from two to three. Don’t you agree?’