A Traitor's Tears (12 page)

Sybil was always a calming influence. Christina quietened and wiped her eyes. Gently, she drew herself back from Sybil. ‘What
was
Jarvis doing on the Dover road?' she said. ‘And why should he have a cipher letter on him? It's crazy! I suppose it really was him?'

‘Yes, it was,' I told her. ‘I went to Cecil, to ask his advice – on how to get Brockley released. I was asked to see if I could identify a body, thought to be that of Jarvis. There was a doubt at that stage. I did identify it. It was Jarvis right enough. He'd been stabbed, just the same as … well …'

‘As my mother,' said Christina bravely. Then …' I could see her working it out. ‘Well, Brockley obviously didn't kill Jarvis! But both Jarvis
and
my mother? Both stabbed, within a few days? There can't be any link and yet there ought to be. You say Brockley is to be freed?'

‘For now, as I said. I don't think Sir Edward Heron is at all convinced that your mother's death and Jarvis's are connected. I fancy he can't see how, any more than we can, or your father.'

Sitting stiffly in a corner of a settle, Christina's small black-clad figure seemed to ask for comfort, but she tried to give it instead. ‘I shall pray for Brockley,' she said. Gallantly, she smiled. ‘Thomas is talking business with our steward,' she said. ‘But he'll join us soon. We might collect little Anne from the nursery and walk round the garden. The rain seems to be stopping. Meanwhile, how is that sand-coloured puppy faring at Hawkswood?'

I said, ‘I regret to tell you that he mistook my new fur slippers for a couple of rats and killed them very thoroughly.'

It was the lighter note that we needed. It made all three of us laugh.

A
t Christina's insistence, Sybil and I dined at White Towers. The rain ceased while we were eating, and when we left, late in the afternoon, the sun was out. However, as we neared Hawkswood, we were surprised to see a column of smoke which was not chimney smoke, for we could already see the chimneys. ‘What's that?' Sybil asked, sitting up straighter in her saddle. ‘It looks as if someone's lit a bonfire.'

‘But there was no pruning or lopping to be done today,' I said, puzzled. ‘We'd better hurry!'

We touched spurs to our horses and broke into a canter. The gate arch came into view and there indeed was a bonfire, just outside it, being vigorously tended by Joseph with a pitchfork. A gust of wind blew the smoke towards us, bringing with it a vaguely disagreeable smell.

‘Joseph!' I called as we came within earshot. ‘What are you doing?'

He stepped back and waited for us, leaning on the pitchfork. ‘Mistress Stannard! Brockley's home – but he said we were to burn his clothes.'

‘Burn his clothes? Is that what the smell is? But …'

‘He said he was verminous.' Joseph's fresh-skinned face split into a grin. He was young enough to be amused. ‘You never saw such a to-do. Brockley and Simon came in two hours since. They'd been riding since dawn – all the way from Lewes! Forty miles, Simon said! Brockley stood out in the courtyard and when Dale ran out to him, he sent her back inside with orders to get water heated for him to have a bath and to bring out two pailfuls to the tackroom as well, quick as she could! And he, Brockley, I mean, wouldn't go indoors till he'd groomed his cob, Mealy, within an inch of its life, and washed all his saddlery in hot water and soap and then rubbed in so much of that neatsfoot oil and beeswax mixture he makes that I reckon he used a week's supply in ten minutes. He went at it like a madman!'

‘But now you're burning his
clothes
?' said Sybil, astounded.

I said, ‘But I sent him fresh ones.'

‘Yes, and they're what's on the fire here. He said he'd dumped his old ones in a ditch just outside Lewes! He wore the ones you sent on the ride home but he said they'd got verminous just being on him.' He gave an encouraging jab to the bonfire, which was beginning to sulk. ‘When he was done in the stable, he took an old sack from a barn and went indoors and then sent Dale out with the sack, with all these things in it.'

‘Sybil!' I said. ‘Come with me!'

We clattered through the gate arch at speed. Arthur Watts and Simon hurried from the tackroom to meet us. ‘He's home, madam! He's home! He's having a bath!' Simon shouted.

‘See to our horses,' I said to Arthur. ‘Good to see you back, Simon. Come along, Sybil!'

We used a small downstairs room for baths. The door to it was shut but the voices of Brockley and Dale could be heard inside. Adam Wilder had heard us arrive and joined us. ‘He's just let Dale in,' he said. ‘He would hardly let her near him before – not until he'd got himself clean. Ah. Here they come.'

The door opened and there was Brockley, dressed in fresh hose, and with a clean, loose-necked shirt on under his best quilted jacket. He was rubbing his hair with a towel. Dale emerged on his heels, with another towel, used and very wet, over her arm. ‘Oh, ma'am! Roger's home! Isn't it wonderful?'

‘I'm very happy to be here, madam.' Brockley's voice sounded weaker, thinner, than I had ever known it to be before.

‘Take him to your room, Dale,' I said. ‘Get his hair dry. I'll send up some dinner. Where are the Floods? There you are! Joan, Ben, get something hot ready for these two. Brockley, I am glad to see you –
thankful
! Sir Edward Heron kept his word. We'll talk later. Take him away, Dale.'

He and Dale must have their private reunion first but I badly wanted to talk to him, for I felt anxious about him. Brockley had been in Lewes gaol for only a week but a single glance had told me how much weight he had lost. Sybil said as he and Dale vanished upstairs: ‘I don't like that quelled note in his voice, and by the look of him, he hasn't had a square meal for days.'

Gladys had appeared at my side. ‘When his meal goes up to him, I'll put a wine posset on the tray for him, with my valerian and camomile mixture in it. He'll likely sleep this afternoon. It'll do him good, indeed. It's what he needs.'

‘Thank you, Gladys. Yes, do that.'

The posset must have worked because it was well on in the evening before the Brockleys came in search of me. They found me in the Little Parlour with Sybil.

‘We would have come before, ma'am, but Brockley has had a sleep,' Dale said.

‘I expect he needed it after that ride from Lewes,' I said, and held out a hand to him. ‘How are you feeling now?'

‘Better, thank you, madam.'

With a gesture, I invited them to be seated and Sybil smiled at them, but then a curious silence fell. It was an awkward silence, something that had never before happened between the four of us. We knew each other so well. In the end, I broke it by saying directly: ‘Was it very terrible, Brockley?'

‘I can hardly describe it, madam. The place was filthy, and I was crowded into a big underground room with half a dozen others, all filthy too, and there were fleas and nits. They gave us straw to sleep on and it was changed from time to time but it was always crawling after one night, because most of the prisoners were verminous. I had some money with me but I kept it hidden in case it was grabbed from me. Anyway, how could I send out for food just for me? So I just ate the gruel and bread we were given by the turnkeys. But the worst thing was the fear. Nearly everyone there was on a charge that could mean hanging and everyone was frightened to the point of sickness. Some of them
were
sick, literally, because of the prison food and out of dread. We had buckets …'

‘Oh, Brockley!' Sybil was horrified and I felt my face become grim. Both she and I knew what it was like to be imprisoned, with only a bucket to deal with personal needs.

‘Fran has been a marvel,' Brockley said. ‘I think she must have used magic to conjure up that bath I had, she had it ready for me so quickly.' He turned his head to look at Dale and I saw that one good thing had come out of all this. The way he was looking at her now was the way he had often looked at her in the past, before their estrangement, the estrangement I so bitterly regretted because it sprang from Dale's jealousy of me.

It was over. They were again as they had been and they would remain so. I would see to that.

‘Well now,' I said, ‘we have to decide what to do next. I've been allowed to put up bail for you, Brockley, but Sir Edward Heron has made it clear that he still thinks you're guilty. However, he has had orders to make new enquiries. Meanwhile, I've told Cecil and Walsingham that I mean to make enquiries of my own. Sybil and I started on that this morning. We avoided harassing Anthony Cobbold but we've talked to Christina Ferris, though I don't think we learned much. Sybil, you have a good clear memory. You tell them what we found out.'

‘Just the order of events on that morning,' said Sybil, and proceeded to recount them. ‘Only we knew most of it already,' she said unhappily, as she finished. We all sat looking at each other in silence, though this time it wasn't awkward but united. United, that is, in feeling defeated.

‘We haven't discovered anything useful,' I admitted. ‘Heron and Wyse came in the morning and dined. Wyse left, Heron stayed. Mistress Cobbold went to see Jarvis but came back and went straight into the garden. The gardeners had left before she arrived. Later, she was found there, dead. And now Jarvis is dead as well!'

‘Jarvis?' said Brockley, and I realized that he didn't know. Simon had gone off to Lewes before I left for London. Quickly, I explained. Brockley scratched his head and said: ‘So no one can question him any further, though they can question the gardeners. Maybe they're lying and somehow got Jarvis to back them up … I can't seem to think clearly yet.
Someone
came into that garden and killed Mistress Cobbold.'

He paused, puckering his brow as though sustained thought was actually painful. Finally, he said: ‘No one saw a stranger lurking about? There's a shrubbery, isn't there? Someone could have hidden there.'

‘Wyse hasn't been questioned. What if he noticed something?' said Sybil slowly. ‘He can't have done it himself – Christina said he left for London straight after dinner. But he might have seen someone … or talked to Jarvis! He'd pass the cottage on his way to the London road, wouldn't he?'

‘I've seen him give alms to Jarvis in the past,' I said. ‘He might well have stopped at the cottage for a word. That's a point. But Wyse is away in Norfolk now. His mother sent for him, I understand.'

‘Do you know where he lives?' asked Brockley.

‘Near Kenninghall – where the Duke of Norfolk used to live when he was in the country.'

Suddenly, I was inspired with new hope. Here at last was a new trail to follow. Not a good one, but it was there. It was something to do and it might – it
might
– lead to something useful. ‘Brockley, are you thinking that we should talk to him ourselves? We'd have to find him. I don't think Walsingham knows exactly where he lives – we'd have to go straight to Norfolk and enquire for him there. But yes! It could be worth it. It's a faint spoor, so to speak, but it's all we have. Yes, it might be worth it!'

There was another silence, until Brockley said: ‘Do I sense the thrill of the chase?' He attempted to smile as he said it, though it was only a shadow of Brockley's rare but broad and infectious grins. It nearly broke my heart to see it.

But I put all the vitality I could into my voice as I said: ‘I think you do.'

D
ale said, rather plaintively: ‘But just where is Norfolk? Have we ever been there? And once we do get there, how do we find Kenninghall?'

‘We've been to Cambridge,' I replied. ‘Norfolk is north-east of there. Finding the Duke of Norfolk's country seat ought to be simple enough and Wyse comes from somewhere near it. There are maps in Hugh's old study. Let's look at them.'

We found a map that was informative. Principal towns were clearly shown and there was more than one possible route. ‘Kenninghall's marked,' I said. ‘It's just over the southern border of the county. We'd better go by way of Colchester. The road that leads to Norwich would take us too far north. Now, which of us will make the journey?'

We decided that Sybil should stay at Hawkswood, in charge of it as my representative, while the Brockleys accompanied me to Norfolk. We would take our own horses all the way. I would ride Jewel, while Dale would, as she preferred, travel pillion behind Brockley on his sturdy cob, Mealy. Joseph could come with us to help with the horses. He could ride one of the serviceable geldings that we used at times to pull the coach, on the rare occasions when we used it. Rusty and Bronze were both good-tempered animals with plenty of stamina. Joseph chose to ride Rusty. We need not take much luggage. Saddlebags and satchels that we could carry on our backs would do to hold changes of clothing. Dale and I would each wear one small ruff, carry a spare, and dispense altogether with farthingales. The weather was warm again, as it should be in July, but we took felt travelling cloaks. They could be rolled up and pushed into our satchels when we didn't need them.

Harry was upset when he realized that I was going away. He was growing rapidly and had lately become very knowing. I hugged him hard, promising to be back soon, and gave both Tessie and Sybil such a stream of instructions about keeping him amused and safeguarding his health that I probably made them feel dazed. He cried when the horses were brought out for us. I was full of silent rage against whoever had killed Jane Cobbold, against Jane herself for so inconsiderately getting herself murdered, and against Sir Edward Heron for fastening on Brockley. I didn't want to make this journey. I wanted to stay at home in peace with Harry.

As we were preparing to mount, Brockley said to me: ‘Are you still carrying your picklocks and dagger in your hidden pouch, madam?'