Face Down under the Wych Elm (8 page)

She had no better luck gleaning information from the upper servants seated at her table. Arthur Kennison, the man Mistress Crane had said carried messages between Mill Hall and Edgecumbe Manor, was already deep in his cups before the meal had scarce begun. The broken veins in his nose and the ruddy color of his cheeks suggested to Jennet that his state was not uncommon. It would have served her purpose well if he'd been the sort of drunkard to grow verbose and loquacious when he imbibed, but he was a silent, surly lout. He took no notice of her and the rest of the company proved equally close-mouthed.

Even for a fish day, the food was uninspired. Jennet consumed it in sullen silence, wondering why she had not elected to remain at Leigh Abbey when she'd had the chance.

The unending dullness of their stay at Mill Hall continued after supper. Someone played a lute, but with indifferent talent. The boy who tried to sing mangled every tune. Master Garrard did at last begin to talk to Lady Appleton, but only of crops and the weather and the pinnace he'd recently hired to carry fruit and vegetables from Hythe around the coast of Kent and up the Thames to London. She'd stop at Maidstone on her return voyage, he said, to add on a cargo of that bulky local commodity, fuller's earth.

"Cheaper to move freight by water,” Master Garrard proclaimed. He became expansive on this dull subject, telling his captive audience ‘twas a penny a mile by water when the cost ranged from fourpence to twelvepence a mile over land. Even sailing the long way around the coast, he insisted, produced a great savings.

Bored by such talk, Jennet was glad when she had an excuse to escape.

On her return from the privy at the far side of the kitchen yard she found herself moving more and more slowly, reluctant to go back inside. Just as she paused to look up at the stars, a man stepped out of the shadows, startling her by grabbing her arm and causing her to drop the candle she carried.

"Unhand me, sirrah!” Jennet opened her mouth to scream but closed it again when he made a shushing sound. More intrigued than frightened, she held her peace.

"Hear me out, I beg of you.” He spoke in a whisper.

"Why should I?” Her heart beat at a furious rate. At last, something interesting was happening.

"Because you are curious?"

He had her there. “Well, fellow? What have you to say?"

She squinted, trying to discern his features. By the faint beams of the lantern hung by the door she could see that the stranger was tall, a head higher than most men she knew, and beanpole thin, even scrawnier than Master Garrard. By the feel of them, large, strong hands were appended to those sticklike arms.

"I know who your mistress is and why she came here and where she means to go on the morrow.” For all the cockiness of this whispered speech, he stumbled a bit over the words.Nervous? Fascinated out of any remaining apprehension, Jennet made no further attempt to free herself. “Everyone in this household knows as much by now."

"Warn her off. Do not let her go to the witch's cottage."

"Why should I take your advice? Who are you?"

He glanced from side to side, as if to make sure they were not observed. His grip tightened on her arm. “The cottage is located near the Street of Demons."

Jennet sucked in a breath. “How did it come by such a name?"

"How do you think? The entire area is a lonely and remote place well known to be the haunt of ghosts, smugglers, and witches."

"Who are you?” Jennet demanded again. “What do you know of witches?"

"I mean to know everything."

For some reason, that statement alarmed Jennet more than anything else her captor had said. She pulled, freeing herself from his grasp with surprising ease, and retreated a few steps. When there was a little distance between them, she spoke. “If Constance Crane was not afraid to visit her cousin, there can be no real danger."

"Constance Crane is also a witch.” The words exploded in quick bursts. Then he muttered something else that Jennet could not catch.

"What did you say?"

"Evil haunts this region,” the stranger repeated.

"Who are you?” she asked for the third time. The longer she was alone with him, the more he began to unnerve her, and yet she was resolved to learn more of his purpose.

"There are witches everywhere,” he said.

"Why should I believe you when I do not know who you are?” Jennet was appalled to hear a quiver in her voice.

The man seemed to consider her question. The silence lengthened between them and she shivered, although the night was warm. The notion that this fellow might himself be a witch ... or worse ... made her heart speed up and her breath catch.

When a door opened nearby, they both jumped.

Hands pressed to her lips, Jennet spun toward the sound. It was Lionel, on his way to the privy. The knowledge that he would hear her if she cried out gave her renewed courage. She turned back to her companion, meaning to insist he answer. If he did not, she'd order Lady Appleton's henchman to apprehend him.

But there was no longer anyone behind her. The stranger had vanished into the blackness.

Maidstone had entirely too many inns. Nick had to visit five of them before he reached the east side of Gabriel Hill and discovered Adrian Ridley had a room at The Ship.

Striking up a conversation with a stranger in that hostelry's common room, however, was not difficult. Ridley proved a personable fellow, if somewhat rigid in his beliefs. He also struck Nick as being deeply troubled.

"In town for the Assizes?” Nick asked him.

"In a manner of speaking."

"I've a civil suit pending."

"My employer sent me to Maidstone. I'd not have come else. I take no pleasure in being here.” Brooding, he drank deeply from his tankard, then looked more closely at Nick. “I have seen you before. Near the gaol. You appeared to be waiting for someone."

To delay his answer, Nick took a turn to drink deep. The same instinct that had made him a successful merchant told him Ridley was an honest man who would respond to the truth but meet evasive answers with silence. “I waited there for Lady Appleton to come out,” he admitted. “I believe you know the gentlewoman."

Momentary surprise flickered in Ridley's expressive eyes. “Aye, but I have no notion why she should interest herself in Mistress Crane's plight."

"Mistress Crane did not tell you?"

"Mistress Crane would prefer not to speak to me at all, let alone answer any questions I pose."

Something in his tone made Nick wonder if there was more to the clergyman's interest in Constance Crane than the concern of chaplain for parishioner. He put that intriguing thought aside to contemplate later and instead gave Ridley part of the answer to his question.

"They had friends in common when Lady Appleton was in the household of the duke of Northumberland and Mistress Crane served the marchioness of Northampton."

"I see.” It was clear he did not.

"I do not believe they had spoken since before Lady Northampton's death but when Lady Appleton heard Mistress Crane's name, she wished to know if the accused witch was the same woman."

"Vulgar curiosity?” Ridley inquired.

Nick shrugged. He hesitated to tell Ridley that Susanna Appleton was committed to the pursuit of justice. Such an uncommon passion in a woman might too easily be misinterpreted. When the charge was witchcraft, it was wise to take no chances.

"Does she believe Constance ... Mistress Crane?"

"I think she does,” Nick said cautiously. “Is it so impossible for the woman to be innocent?"

Ridley drank again. He sighed. He stared at his hands where they were clasped around the tankard. “I would like to believe she did no wrong. I would like to believe she never took Peter Marsh into her bed."

"Mayhap she did not. Unless you caught them there..."

"There was something between them."

"Who was this Marsh she's accused of killing?"

"He served in the household at Mill Hall before I came there."

"In what position?"

"Clerk. When Hugo Garrard decided to install his own chaplain, he assigned Marsh's tasks to me and let him go."

"Then if it had been you beneath that tree, Marsh would have been the obvious suspect."

Smiling at Ridley's horrified reaction to this suggestion, Nick signaled for more beer.

On a morning that was near perfect, Susanna and Jennet set out again from Mill Hall, this time on foot. A faint blue haze had hung over the countryside at dawn, but it had soon been dispersed by the breeze blowing inland from the sea, a bracing current of air that carried the invigorating tang of salt air and the sweet scent of thyme.

Susanna paused to look south over level marshland. Across a landscape brilliant with juniper bushes, fritillaries, harebells, and scabious she caught a glimpse of the Narrow Sea, its salt water glistening in the distance.

"I am told the edge of that inland cliff once marked the coastline,” she told Jennet, nodding toward the promontory. “Then the sea receded and created Romney Marsh."

At supper the previous night, Hugo Garrard had responded with monosyllabic answers to her questions about his cousins but later he had been somewhat more forthcoming on the subject of Mill Hall and its environs. What had once been shoreline, he'd told her, was now anywhere from a quarter to half a mile from the sea. Mudbanks and a great buildup of shingle had added to the land, filling in harbors. Where once ships could have sailed right up to the foot of a hill, now it was surrounded by marshland. As if to repay the inhabitants for the loss of convenient shipping, in time this came to provide a most luxuriant feeding ground for cattle. Grass grew in abundance hereabout.

The footpath was wide enough to allow Susanna and Jennet to walk side by side. As they followed it, the cries of gulls and guillemots faded, replaced by the song of a yellowhammer. Soon they came to a small chapel built of golden gray sandstone that gleamed in the sun. Two gigantic elms rose one on either side, each higher than the spire.

"A remote spot for a house of worship,” Jennet remarked.

"When it was built, this area was more populous. There are Roman ruins atop that rise.” She pointed to the ancient walls, only just visible from their vantage point. They were lost from view when the trail meandered into a small wood.

Trees clustered thick around them, ivy clinging to many of the trunks. Here and there roots were exposed, some of their gnarled surfaces big enough to sit upon.

Jennet kept glancing back over her shoulder. When they surprised a squirrel, causing it to dash across the path and into the underbrush, she let out a little squeak of alarm.

"We should have brought Fulke and Lionel along,” she mumbled.

"Why?"

"This is an evil place, full of ghosts and witches. And there are smugglers, too."

"Smugglers I will believe. And no doubt they are the ones who've spread rumors of ghosts and witches, the better to keep curious folk away."

Jennet chewed on her lower lip as she contemplated whether to accept the logic of this argument. She said no more until the path descended into a rectangular clearing. They had reached Lucy Milborne's cottage.

"Are you certain this is the right dwelling?"

Susanna could understand her confusion. What everyone had called a cottage was in truth a substantial black-and-white timber-frame farmhouse with an upper story.

Before entering, she surveyed the lay of the land. There was only one wych elm in sight. It stood less than a bowshot from the door but the ground beneath it was obscured from sight by a heavy growth of bushes. It was possible that a body might have lain under this tree and not have been seen by anyone at the cottage ... unless they chanced to glance out an upper window.

Had Peter Marsh been there while Constance and Lucy dug in Lucy's garden? Susanna also had to wonder if he had arrived alive or had been put in place after he was already dead.

The door to the cottage was not locked.

Two rooms, linked by a passage, ran the length of the north side. If anyone before them had been in to look at Lucy's possessions, they had taken care not to disturb anything. The authorities, Susanna thought, might have decided to rely upon the examination of witnesses. Others would have been put off by their own superstitious fear.

Moving through the lower level, she came to the well-equipped stillroom in a separate building at the back, next to the herb garden Constance had told them about. Susanna examined both, then reentered the house to climb to the upper story, pausing on the landing to note that the window there did not face the wych elm. What she could just make out over the tops of the surrounding trees was the spire of the chapel they had passed and the chimneys of Mill Hall on the high ground beyond.

At her mistress's heels, Jennet continued to grumble to herself. Susanna heard her mutter something about a “street of demons” but ignored this obscure reference in favor of exploring Lucy's bedchamber. It had its own fireplace and a comfortable feather bed, a chair, and several storage chests. A brief search of the contents of the latter revealed no incriminating evidence—no wax poppets, no pentagrams, no human bones ... and no books or papers. There had been none in the stillroom, either, which struck Susanna as passing strange. Had someone been here, after all, and seized any writings and books? Or had Lucy managed to secrete them somewhere before her arrest?

A speculative gleam in her eyes, Susanna studied the hearth more closely. Was there a hiding place concealed behind the stones? She'd heard of fireplaces constructed with secret compartments big enough to hold a man. She was about to cross the room and test the stones for looseness when Jennet, at the window, gasped out her name.

"What is it?"

"There is a man under the wych elm."

Susanna discovered she had been right. From this height, one might have been able to see a dead body lying beneath the tree. Jennet's man, however, was very much alive, lounging against the trunk and staring back at them.

She took her time studying him. A young man, somewhere in his early twenties. He was so slender as to be almost skeletal, that build emphasized by his excessive height. She shifted her attention to his face and concluded she had never seen him before. Lank, straw-colored hair framed features notable for a nose that looked as if it had been broken at least once. He was clean shaven but would, Susanna decided, have looked better with a beard.