Face Down under the Wych Elm (9 page)

To her amusement, her scrutiny seemed to discomfit the stranger. As she continued to assess him, a dull red tide swept up into his cheeks.

"Let us go down and see what he wants,” she said to Jennet.

"He's trouble,” Jennet predicted.

"Good morrow, sirrah,” Susanna greeted him when they reached the wych elm.

Having recovered his composure, he doffed his cap. “Lady Appleton, I presume?"

At the sound of his voice, Jennet went stiff.

"You have the advantage of me,” Susanna said, “but not, I do think, of my companion."

"You are the one who accosted me last night.” Hands on her hips, Jennet glared at him. “He is the one who told me this place was near the Street of Demons, and that it was haunted."

"And has he a name?"

"Not that he revealed to me."

They both looked at the stranger, expectant.

Through murky green eyes, he stared warily back.

"Well?” Susanna demanded.

"Norden. Chediok Norden.” Once he decided to speak, the young man's words flowed forth in such a rush that he stumbled over them, then turned scarlet as a cardinal's robes. “I am here to learn the truth about Mother Milborne and Mistress Crane."

"What are they to you?” Susanna asked.

He stammered his answer. “Bread and butter."

"Young man, I am not going to beat you, bewitch you, or berate you. Do me the courtesy of giving me a coherent answer to my question. Who are you and why are you here?"

Swallowing hard, he managed a cocky smile at odds with his nervousness. “I am a scribbler, madam. A writer of verses and pamphlets."

That was direct enough, but scarce pleasing to her.

"What manner of pamphlet?” She suspected she already knew.

"Accounts of trials."

As she'd feared.

These small books, printed in quarto and unbound, were produced by the thousands in London and sold for a penny to satisfy a voracious public appetite for scandal. They were hawked in the streets, along with almanacs full of prognostications and broadside ballads containing the dying words of penitent sinners about to be executed for their crimes.

Typeset in bold black ink and illustrated with woodcuts, they were so popular that they sometimes made their way into the country, even though only a few petty chapmen wished to be bothered carrying them. A quarto was an awkward size to fit into a peddler's pack. The one that had reached Leigh Abbey in April had both delighted and terrified the entire household.

Out of duty, being responsible for their moral character, Susanna had begun to read it. Once started, she'd felt compelled to go on, all the way to the end, even as she'd despised herself for wanting to know more. She was unable to explain the bizarre fascination the text had exerted over her.

The author, who'd signed his versified introduction with the name John Philip, appeared to have been present at the Essex Assizes the previous summer, when three witches had been tried and found guilty at Chelmsford.

To her sorrow, Susanna was all too familiar with the workings of the law. Even before she'd opened the pamphlet, she'd wondered how much of the tale Master Philip had invented to attract buyers for his prose. The more she'd read, the more convinced she'd become that his was a largely fictional narrative, rather than the “true relation” it claimed to be.

Actual events might have inspired the story, and the trial could have included some of the incidents Philip claimed, but she doubted it had been filled with as much innuendo and outright slander as were related in the pamphlet. In particular, she thought the amorous exploits of the accused were unlikely to have been taken up at their trial.

"In other words,” she now said to Norden, “you mean to exploit the accusations against Mistress Milborne and Mistress Crane for your own profit."

"Nay, madam. I perform a public service. I write only the truth.” Once again, he spoke too rapidly and stumbled over the last word.

"Hah!” This from Jennet.

"And what is the truth?"

Norden's Adam's apple wobbled before he got control of himself. “That these two women are witches.” He lowered his voice and leaned closer to Susanna. “Both women kept cats. Familiars."

"I saw no sign of one in Lucy's house."

There had been a cat, Sathan, in the Chelmsford case. According to Master Philip, a woman named Mother Eve had given this cat to her granddaughter, Elizabeth Francis, who kept him for many years before passing him on to one Mother Waterhouse. Calculating the figures Philip gave, Susanna had come to the astonishing conclusion that this cat must have reached the age of four and twenty. He was also said to have turned himself, on separate occasions, into a dog and into a toad. A most remarkable beast.

"'Tis said Mistress Crane told her familiar to touch Peter Marsh's body,” Norden related in an earnest voice. “When it did so, Marsh fell down dead with no mark upon him."

Something very like that had happened, at least according to Master Philip's pamphlet, in Chelmsford. Frowning, Susanna glanced at Jennet, who looked as if she, too, had been struck by the similarity.

"Who says this?” Susanna asked Norden.

"Why ... everyone. They say—"

"They? I know not this ‘they’ and trust those gossips even less. You repeat rumor, sirrah. I demand proof. Where is this cat you speak of? Produce it."

"Doubtless it turned itself into a bird and flew away, else it should have been arrested with its mistress."

"More likely it never existed at all."

"Then how did Marsh die? He was found just here, beneath this tree."

Susanna looked up into the branches over her head. The wych elm was very large but in no other way extraordinary. Next she surveyed the bushes surrounding it and for a moment her heart constricted. She could not fail to recognize them. Banewort grew throughout Kent, its coalblack berries tempting the unwary to taste them.

Many years ago, Susanna's sister had eaten just a few of those shiny fruits. She'd been dead in a matter of hours.

"How did Peter Marsh look when he was found?” she asked Norden. “Was his body contorted with pain? Were his limbs straight or did he lie curled into himself?"

"They say...” He stopped himself and began again. “The constable who came to examine the body told me that he lay sprawled on his face on the ground, that he looked as if he had been picked up by the scruff of the neck and dropped by a giant hand."

"Who found the body?"

He hesitated. “I am told it was Mistress Damascin Edgecumbe, the daughter of old Clement, the man Mother Milborne did bewitch to death."

An interesting coincidence, Susanna thought. When she spoke, her tone was critical. “You are told, you say. Did you not speak to the woman yourself?"

"Not with her dragon of a mother on guard."

"Just how well do you know the people of this area?"

His color heightened once more as he mumbled, “I dwell in London."

For the nonce, Susanna let the evasive reply stand. She turned to Jennet. “We must go on to Edgecumbe Manor at once. It should be just beyond those trees.” She indicated a break in the woods at the far side of the clearing, the point where the track she and Jennet had been following resumed.

A visit to Lucy's neighbors had been the next logical step in her investigation, although she'd originally meant to complete her search of the cottage before going on. That would have to wait for the return journey. She felt a sudden, urgent need to first discover the details of Clement Edgecumbe's last hours.

"If you follow the footpath,” Norden said, confirming the directions Susanna had received at Mill Hall, “you will reach the manor house in less than a quarter of an hour."

The distance between the two estates, she realized, was comparable to that between Leigh Abbey and Whitethorn Manor.

She expected Norden to come with them but when she looked back through the thick growth of elm and beech, he was nowhere in sight. She shrugged off her sense of unease. If Norden had wanted to search Lucy's cottage he could have done so at any time. She continued on, Jennet at her heels.

By its style of architecture and the choice of building material, Edgecumbe Manor looked to have been constructed sometime within the last thirty years. White stone alternated with the glossy faces of split flint to make a distinctive checkered pattern.

"A goodly house,” she murmured.

"Aye. And a busy one.” Jennet indicated the kitchen yard, where two huge copper cauldrons and a bucking tub had been set up. “Laundry day. One of the two big washes of the year, if I am any judge of such things."

A few minutes later, standing beside the bucking tub used to wash sheets and tablecloths, Susanna got her first look at Mildred Edgecumbe. To work with her women, Clement's widow had put on an old gown of Naples fustian. Her hair was completely covered by a wimple, which served to accent piercing gray eyes. These grew ever more wary as she listened to Susanna's apologies for intruding on her unannounced.

After talking to Hugo, Susanna had decided she'd have better luck extracting information from the Edgecumbes if she did not present herself as Constance's defender. She affected an incredulous, somewhat addlepated manner and gushed at Mildred.

"Constance Crane was an intimate friend of my late husband's family. We were most distressed to hear the news of her arrest and I felt I must go straight to dear Hugo to find out if it was true."

Mildred gave a disdainful sniff. “'Tis true. No doubt of it. He'll have told you so. Why come to me?"

"To hear of it firsthand. Will you disclose what you know to me, that I may understand how Mistress Crane came to such a pass?"

Uncertain what to make of such a request, Mildred put her off. “You will have to wait. The water has been drained and it is time to pour in the lye.” She nodded toward the bucking tub, which perched on a stand raised a foot off the ground. Linen, Susanna knew, had to be folded and placed inside in a precise manner that ensured water would flow freely around it. She wondered if Mildred's women used sticks to hold apart the bundles, as Susanna's grandmother had taught her to do.

Getting a whiff of the strong solution, Susanna wrinkled her nose. She retreated a few feet. There would be opportunity for questions after the lye had been added and the linens were left to soak.

"A long, tiresome process,” Jennet remarked as they watched servants scurry to obey their mistress's exacting orders. “Rinse and soak. Drain. Turn. Rearrange. Rinse in running water. Even then the job is not done. Wet linens must be spread out on the ground or over bushes to be bleached in sun. And wetted down. And bleached again. And then—"

"Enough.” Susanna had never had a great deal of interest in such domestic duties and was happy to let Jennet supervise them at Leigh Abbey. Her passions were her herb garden and the business of running her estate. She was happiest in her stillroom and in the study where she kept accounts and records.

That did not mean she was ignorant of what went on in her laundry. She had been taught how to clean clothing and linens, just as she had been instructed in the rudiments of embroidery and sewing a garment. That she avoided all such dull chores whenever possible did not mean she could not call upon dozens of half-forgotten skills, but only if it became necessary to do so.

While they waited for Mildred, a young woman came out into the kitchen yard. Tears flowing down her cheeks, she held a gown clasped to her bosom.

"Mother,” she wailed. “I cannot get this stain out of the velvet."

So this was Damascin, the one Norden claimed had found Marsh's body. Susanna studied her with critical eyes. She could be no more than twenty and had a delicate prettiness Susanna supposed would make her attractive to men despite the whine in her voice. Long, blond hair flowed down her back in ostentatious proclamation that she was an unwed, innocent virgin.

"Use the pot with the mertum cudum,” her mother instructed. “Wash the spot in it and let it dry in the sun."

Startled into a protest, Susanna found herself the focus of every eye and perforce was obliged to explain her outburst. “The compound you suggest contains raw red arsenic, a poison. Use too much and there may be unfortunate consequences. The juice of soapwort, left on a spot for one hour, washed with clean water, reapplied, then washed out with lukewarm water will produce the same result with less hazard to the health."

"And how do you know so much about it?” Mildred demanded.

"She wrote a book on poisons,” Jennet bragged before Susanna could stop her. “'Tis called
A Cautionary Herbal
."

Susanna had not intended to make that known, given what she'd seen at the wych elm. Arsenic, since it did not come from a plant, had not even been included in her herbal. But the damage was done now. She kept silent.

"Well,” Mildred Edgecumbe said to her daughter, “you heard Lady Appleton. Go and use soapwort."

The young woman scurried back into the house.

Susanna started after her. “I can show her how—"

"No. Leave her be. My daughter has had a difficult time of it. I'll not have her badgered."

"I've no intention—"

"If you have questions, ask them of me."

A dragon indeed, Susanna thought, and abandoned her earlier pretense. “Very well. Tell me how Lucy Milborne caused your husband's death."

"She bewitched him."

"You will need to be more specific, madam."

Apparently sensing that Susanna would not give up until she had heard the entire story, Mildred first took a moment to give further instructions to her servants, then drew her uninvited guest aside, into the shelter of a rose arbor, and launched into an account so clipped that it sounded as if she had learned it by rote. She did not notice that Jennet had sidled up behind her to listen.

"Lucy Milborne had a familiar. She bade it do her evil deeds for her. Every time it carried out a task, she rewarded it with a drop of her own blood. She pricked herself, sometimes in one place and sometimes in another, and where she pricked, there remained for some time a red spot, for her familiar did suckle it like a woman's teat, drawing blood rather than milk."