Face Down under the Wych Elm (18 page)

"Why did she turn him down the second time?” Lady Appleton inquired.

"They could not agree on matters of religion, or so I was told. ‘Twas long before I was born.” Mistress Damascin's eyes were full of mirth as she and Lady Appleton resumed walking and once more left their servants to trail behind.

Jealousy, Jennet reflected, was a powerful emotion. Had it been enough to drive Mistress Edgecumbe to kill her own husband and place blame on the woman she thought had come between them?

Lady Appleton deftly changed the subject. “I am sorry if it pains you, Damascin, but the reason I wanted to talk to you was to ask you about Peter Marsh. I am told you were the one who found his body."

"Indeed, I did. And horrible it was, too."

"How did you come to be walking by the wych elm."

"I was on my way to Mill Hall to meet Hugo.” She turned her head sideways, allowing Jennet to see her expression, and sent a coy look Lady Appleton's way. “Did you know we are to be married?"

If there had been any doubt about a betrothal, neither Mistress Damascin's voice nor her manner betrayed it. She spoke as if the matter had been settled for some time. Jennet wondered if Garrard was wealthier than he seemed. She could not otherwise fathom his appeal for a young and beautiful woman.

"You went alone?” Lady Appleton asked. “Unescorted?” They were well along the High Street now, nearly at the place where they must turn to reach The Ship or go straight for the Queen's Arms.

Stopping, Damascin Edgecumbe faced her inquisitor. Her hands clenched into fists at her sides. “I do not like it when people try to keep me prisoner.” A pout had crept over her face, souring her features.

Since it was Mistress Damascin's rebellious streak that had led her to arrange this meeting, Lady Appleton did not reprove her, nor even point out that ‘twas a dangerous route to take if she'd believed the witch who'd killed her father lived hard by the path between the two houses. Instead, she inquired as to the condition of Marsh's body. Jennet stretched her ears to hear the reply.

"He was dead.” Her voice was flat. Emotionless.

"Did you turn him over? He was lying face down, I am told."

"I thought I could help him but I saw at once I was too late.” She lowered her head to contemplate her hands, which were now held clasped in front of her.

Jennet moved closer, intent upon getting a better look at the young woman's face.

"But you did recognize him?” Lady Appleton prompted. “You knew Peter Marsh?"

She nodded. “He called upon my father many times."

"When he was still in Garrard's employ?"

"Then and after.” She glanced up, from beneath her lashes. “He said he loved to have an excuse to visit Edgecumbe Manor because I was there. But Mother never did like him. She sent him away the one time he showed up after Father died."

"A handsome man?"

"He was when he lived. Dead he was grotesque.” With an exaggerated shudder, she began to walk again, choosing the way that led to The Ship. “His legs and arms sprawled without dignity. His dead eyes were open and staring. ‘Twas most disturbing."

But she did not sound distressed to Jennet. She sounded as if the sight of the body had fascinated her as much as it had repulsed her.

"Did you note the pupils?” Lady Appleton asked.

"I did not tarry to inspect the corpse in any detail.” She quickened her pace. “I was grievous sick and then I ran home to Mother."

"And what did she do?"

"She sent our steward for the constable."

"And?"

"I told him what I'd found and he went and looked at the body. Then Mother gave me poppy syrup to calm me and I slept the remainder of the day."

"You must know something more.” Lady Appleton put one hand on Mistress Damascin's arm, but her quarry did not slow down. They were almost back at the inn.

"What more could I know?” Mistress Damascin sounded impatient.

"Something must have happened by that evening to convince the authorities that Marsh was bewitched, and that your father had been also. By nightfall, both Constance Crane and Lucy Milborne had been arrested and charged with those crimes. If you did not make the first accusation, who did?"

They had reached the innyard. The young woman now seemed anxious to get away. “Mother did. She knew from the first that Father had been bewitched. And by whom. She only hesitated to accuse Mistress Milborne for fear the old witch would cast an evil spell on me in retribution."

Jennet saw Lady Appleton's eyebrows lift. “Then you believe witchcraft was the cause of these men's deaths?"

"Why, what else could it have been?"

"Plain murder, mistress."

If Lady Appleton expected some reaction to this charge, she was disappointed. Mistress Damascin was no longer paying attention. Her gaze shifted to something behind Jennet and Margery and she smiled with genuine amusement. “Oh, look. There is that silly fellow who was wont to follow me about like a lovesick sheep. I wondered what had become of him."

By the time Jennet turned, there was no one in sight.

"What fellow is that?” Lady Appleton asked.

"His name is Chediok Norden. A man well grown now,” she added in a thoughtful voice, “but as a boy he was in service at Egdecumbe Manor."

"A servant lad?"

"Aye.” Mistress Damascin preened. “He thought I was uncommon pretty."

Jennet could not deny that the young woman had the sort of looks men fancied, but she also had an inflated opinion of herself. Any sensible fellow would find that trait most unappealing.

"Did Norden know Lucy Milborne?” Lady Appleton asked.

"You might say so. Once, I remember, he threw rocks at her house on a dare. One broke a glass window. She was most annoyed at him."

No doubt she had been. Glass was expensive. Expecting to hear that Mistress Milborne had put a curse on Chediok Norden, or had him arrested, Jennet was surprised when Mistress Damascin proceeded to claim credit for instigating his act of vandalism. “He thought to impress me with his bravery by taunting a known witch."

For the first time, Jennet wondered if she'd been wrong about Lucy Milborne. Surely a witch with any power at all would have known of the young woman's involvement and taken revenge by sending the morphew to mar her complexion, mayhap. Or tormenting her with something else exceeding nasty. Boils on the buttocks. Griping in the guts. A disfiguring cast to one eye.

"Have you talked to Chediok Norden during the last few weeks?” Lady Appleton asked, interrupting Jennet's speculations.

"Oh, no. It has been years since I last saw him."

"He did not come to Edgecumbe Manor to ask questions?"

"If he did, Mother must have turned him away. She never did like him."

A chill crept up Jennet's spine at the words. Mistress Damascin had said the same thing about her mother's feelings toward Peter Marsh.

As soon as Damascin and her maid went inside the inn, Susanna beckoned to Fulke and Lionel. “There was a young man following us. Did you notice him?"

Fulke nodded.

"Good. Find him and persuade him to visit me at the Queen's Arms."

With two stout fellows to enforce his cooperation, Chediok Norden soon became Susanna's guest. She sat in the chamber's single chair. Norden took a stool. The others remained standing.

"I am told you were once a servant at Edgecumbe Manor.” She made a tsking sound. “You lied to us, scribbler."

"She remembered me?” Hectic color suffused his cheeks.

"Why did you leave your post there?"

"To better myself. To become wealthy."

"You were not sent away?"

"Nay."

Susanna was not sure she believed him. Not after what she'd heard from Damascin.

Questions about Peter Marsh and Hugo Garrard and Clement Edgecumbe yielded no information she did not already have. Norden proved passing unobservant for a man who claimed he meant to make his living by describing people and events.

"Where have you been since we last saw you?"

Norden hesitated, then appeared to decide there was no harm in telling her. “To Bethersden and Boughton Monchelsea.” With sudden eagerness, he leaned toward Susanna, ignoring the fact that Fulke moved closer, alarmed by the abrupt movement. “I sought links between Mother Milborne and the others who stand accused as witches."

So, like the clergymen, he thought he would find connections. More sensational details for his pamphlet. “You are a menace to all women,” she told him, “even your beloved Damascin."

"Not Damascin. She is pure and fine."

"And her mother?” Jennet asked.

Norden gaped at her. “Have you learned something? Is she a witch, too?” A hopeful gleam appeared in his eyes.

"A poisoner, perhaps,” Susanna told him, “but not a witch. Nor is Lucy Milborne. Use the brain God gave you, Norden. If there were as many witches as you seem to think, their presence would have been detected long before this."

"They are clever.” He nodded, sure of himself, and then, before Susanna's eyes, belatedly leapt to a foolish conclusion. She could not have been more sure of it had he spoken his thought aloud. His eyes widened in sudden fear. He trembled and turned pale and swallowed so hard that his Adam's apple bobbed.

Resigned to the fact that she'd get no more out of him, unless she chose to lie and confirm his obvious misapprehension and frighten him into some further revelation, Susanna sighed.

"No, Norden,” she said with as much firmness as she could muster. “I am not a witch, either."

Monday, July 7, 1567

It was not difficult to discover where one might purchase a love potion but getting there required dedication. Winifred crossed Maidstone's bridge to the west bank of the Medway. There were few buildings, except around the hospital, and as she made her way upriver she encountered only scattered signs of habitation.

In this direction, the river was navigable by small vessels for another five miles, but the passage of larger ships was obstructed by a series of weirs and fulling mills. The clay called fuller's earth was plentiful in these parts. Tall, prickly teazles, used for raising the nap on woolen cloth, grew in great abundance.

A mean hovel had been erected near the riverbank a mile from the town. Winifred had no doubt this was her destination. It did much resemble the place, built into the corner of what had once been a London garden, where she had bought the charm she'd used on Bevis. She wrinkled her nose at the stench of the laystall in front and came close to changing her mind about entering.

This was worse, she thought, than any place in London. At least, in the city, the raker blew his horn before every door on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, to remind citizens to bring their offal out into the open streets and throw it into the channels that ran down their middles, there to be washed away with buckets of water drawn from the householders’ wells. There were days it took more than a dozen bucketfuls from each to do the job, but it did get done. Maidstone and its environs would do well to enact similar regulations on their rubbish and dunghills.

Winifred was honest enough, however, to allow that London was filthy in other ways. Vaults and latrines hanging over the town ditches turned the water below black. Dead animals floated there, too. Pudding-wives and tripe-wives threw out paunches, guts, and entrails, which did not always wash away. A few of the city's rakers were not as diligent as their fellows about carrying away dirt and refuse before six in the morning. And some butchers were a disgrace, throwing offal into both street and ditch while blood ran in streams from the slaughterhouses in the Shambles. Kites, carrion crows, and ravens did more to clean up after them than the rakers did.

The direction her thoughts had taken did nothing to shore up Winifred's courage, but she was here now. She told herself she might as well go in.

Bracing herself to face the unknown, she pushed aside the curtain that served as a door and stepped into the cunning woman's lair. Two homely, prick-eared shepherd's curs looked up from their places on either side of the entry but neither barked. One lolled on the dirt floor, offering up his stomach to be scratched. The other bared his teeth.

Both smelt of dead things they'd rolled in. Combined with the odors of musty grain and tainted fish, it was enough to make Winifred's stomach turn and have her thinking again of retreat.

"Had a warner once,” a low voice declared.

Winifred squinted through the dust motes and made out a small, wizened woman sitting in an enormous carved chair. “A warner?"

"A mongrel sort of dog. Good for naught but to bark and give warning when anyone stirred in the night season."

"It is morning.” Winifred felt a sense of unreality. The conversation made no sense.

"Aye. But you've time to do your business here. I'll wait until noon to gather the leaves and flowers of the blessed thistle. Needs must be done on a dry day."

"I've come for a love philtre.” Even to her own ears, Winifred's voice sounded strangled.

"Such things are expensive."

"I've money."

They settled on a price without much haggling, and a few minutes later Winifred was on her way back to Nick's house, a small vial hidden in her pocket.

Her step grew jaunty as she neared the bridge. Her plan was simple. It was not necessary that Susanna be arrested or charged with any crime. It would be enough if Nick found this evidence of her scheming hidden among her possessions. Later this day, Winifred would slip into Susanna Appleton's chamber at the Queen's Arms and secret the vial somewhere it would not at once be noticed. The difficulty lay in making sure Nick thought to look where Winifred had hidden it, but she was confident she would contrive some way to manage that. Once he found the love potion, tangible proof that woman had used unnatural means to win his affection, he'd have no choice but to heed his mother's warning.

Afterward, she supposed, he would need time to mend his wounded pride. Perhaps the length of his trip to Hamburg would accomplish that purpose. But when he returned, he would be ready to settle down. She intended to have a suitable young woman all picked out for him.