Red Hart Magic (5 page)

“We are near there, girl.”

Nan jerked at the sound of his words, as she might have if he had laid a birch rod across her thin shoulders.

“This is a cunning rogue, and only wit will catch him, the foul traitor!”

Sometimes Nan was not sure whether Uncle Jasper was talking to her or just speaking his own thoughts aloud. But she knew better than to avoid listening. In the past he had caught her sunk in her own misery too much to attend to what he said and she had suffered for that.

“You know what to do, girl. Listen and watch. No one heeds such a creep mouse as you. We shall tell the same tale as at Penedon Manor. I must take you to your aunt and so am burdened with you, even when on the King's business. Is it all firm in your head?”

“Yes—yes, sir.” She tried to answer promptly enough so he would not say she was sullen and needed another lesson to stir up her slow wits.

“Well enough. You were the right key to open doors at the manor. See that you do as well here!”

“Yes, sir.” She did not want to think of Penedon Manor, of how they had looked at her afterward. She had watched and listened. Because she had obeyed her orders, and no one took threat from a young girl, Uncle Jasper had caught a man—a man who might die—and two other men to lie in
prison. She could not tell the right of it. Uncle Jasper said these priests were all from the Devil's own company and that they would send those who listened to them straight into the fiery pit of Hell. Nan was never sure of anything any more, save that she feared Uncle Jasper as much as she did the Devil of whom he was so fond of speaking.

The coach slowed, turned in under the arch of a building, jolted to a stop in the cobbled yard of an inn. Henry Mockell swung down and came to open the door, let down the steps. Her uncle lifted her without ceremony from the corner where she had wedged herself and passed her to Henry, who set her on her unsteady feet facing an open door where a tall man stood watching them.

Nan heard her uncle's voice and the man's, but she was too numb with the cold and her own misery to really listen. It was not until after the tall man had picked her up and brought her within to a small paneled parlor, where there was a fire to warm the air, that she paid full attention.

“This is cruel weather for a little maid to be upon the roads.”

She gazed into his face. Those words had been spoken as softly as her uncle might have said them. But his tone was somehow as warm as the fire before her, and his face was open and kindly. He wore no beard, and his cheeks were brown as if he were often out under the sun. The hair, which crept back from his high head in a way which left a graying peak pointed between his dark eyes, lengthened to the level of his plain linen collar; his coat was of a dark russet; his
breeches of leather; and there were thick knitted stockings above his square-toed shoes.

He smiled. “I am Peter Bowyer who keeps this inn.”

Nan flinched. “I am Nan Mallory, if it please you, sir.” He was dressed with the plainness of a countryman, and yet she felt that there was about him the manner of a squire.

“It pleases me very well, Mistress Mallory. Now bide you here where it is warm, and one shall bring you a hot posset to drink and an apple tart. Sukie has taken a batch straight from the oven. You shall find them very good indeed.”

He nodded as if they were already old friends, leaving with a quick step as if there was much to see to. Nan fumbled with the throat ties that held her hooded cloak. She did not know where Uncle Jasper was, and for the moment she did not care. But she could not help looking about her now with the eyes Uncle Jasper had trained to serve him.

The room was small, and the walls paneled throughout. Even the door, when it was closed, was covered by panels, so that it could hardly be told from the rest of the wall. There was a large fireplace, though the fire did not fill it, and the stone mantel was carved with a tracing of vine and flat roses.

But there was little furniture—a table pushed against the far wall with a candlestick on it, the bench Master Bowyer had pulled closer to the fire for her to sit on, a couple of stools. It was the walls, however, that would yield any secrets.

Those who held by the Old Faith had hiding places in the walls—places where a man might stand or lie when the King's Men hunted them. Those places were secret, but such
secrets could be discovered. And Uncle Jasper had taught her how one worked toward such discoveries. Nan uttered a small sound which was near a whimper. She would have to look—soon.

Chris watched the men tramp into the kitchen. Sukie did not look up from the table where she was setting out the loaves, hot and smelling so good, which she had just brought in from the oven. Twice her fingers jerked, and she nearly tumbled a round of fresh bread onto the sanded floor. Yet she did not glance at the men, and her lower lip was caught between her teeth. Chris felt her fear, though he could not understand it. Surely they had nothing to fear here, they were not sheltering any enemy of the King. Let this officer and his men clatter through the Red Hart from attic to cellar and leave with empty hands.

He could not understand what story had brought them here at all. This was a quiet village, strung out along the Rye road, the cottages fronting each other across the highway, the church at one end and the Red Hart at the other. Everyone knew that Squire Kenton, up at the Manor, was no lover of the Pope. His own brother had been killed in Spain by a priest's urging.

Master Bowyer had raised no protest when they had tramped in with their officer, that sour-faced man now standing in the doorway, his never-still eyes darting about the room as if he expected the Pope himself to rise up from behind the dresser with its heavy burden of pewterware. To think of this being a traitor's hiding hole was so foolish a
thing that Chris had stared open-mouthed when he understood they were serious about this search.

Sukie took up a small tray and loaded on it one of the steaming apple tarts, a small tankard of ale, and a spoon. She snapped her fingers to Chris as if she dared not speak aloud. When he came to her, she moved the light burden toward him.

“The parlor—”

“What's to do, slut?” The officer gave Chris a look hard enough to make him drop his eyes. He had seen such before when he had been afraid of being dragged before some parish constable for a homeless rogue.

“Master—he says it be for the maid.” Sukie flashed a scowl at the officer. “Master has a kind heart; more than some—”

For a moment the man looked as if he were not going to allow Chris to pass, his gaze straight on the boy as he pulled at the point of his small beard. Then he motioned him on.

‘Take it then, fellow.”

Chris was glad to be out of the kitchen. Though there had been unusual activity there to watch—such as one of the men briskly measuring the length of the fireplace on a marked stick and another prodding along the stones. As he passed the small chamber where Master Bowyer kept his accounts, he saw another of the King's Men lounging by the half-open door and caught a glimpse of russet sleeve. Master Bowyer must be within, and they had a guard on the door! Chris longed to trip the fellow as he went, but there was no need,
he knew, for such tactics. They would discover soon enough that this was a fruitless hunt and be gone about their business. He saw the guard watching him, but as Chris put hand to the latch of the small parlor door, the man relaxed.

Chris entered. Maid, Sukie had said. But did the King's Men bring with them
women
when they hunted? Or was she some prisoner or witness they kept in guard? Yet there was no man before
this
door—

“Oh!”

Here was only a girl! No bigger than Bess the last time Chris had seen her. She stood by the table, staring at him as if he had frightened her. Her dress was creased and crumpled. She might have been traveling for several days, and it was dingy dark gray, its cuffs and collar of linen grimy.

While she was not only plain but near ugly. Her hair was strained back tight under her cap. What little of it showed was a sandy red, as were her brows and her scanty eyelashes. There were thick freckles across her nose and cheeks. Why, Bess had been far prettier. This girl looked as if she were afraid of her own shadow.

“Something to eat, mistress.” Chris set down the tray.

“Thank—thank you.” Even her voice was like the shadow of a real one. “It is—it is kind of Master Bowyer—”

Chris swung around, taking a step closer to her. “What do you know of Master Bowyer?” he demanded fiercely.

She shrank a little. “Naught. He—he was kind to me. He said someone would bring me food—”

“What are you doing here?” Chris was oddly heartened
by her obvious signs of fear. “Why did you come to trouble Master Bowyer?”

The girl shook her head. “I—I came because Uncle brought me. He—I must go to my aunt; it is in this direction. So I travel with my uncle.”

Chris snorted. “You know what he is, this uncle of yours? He takes men to kill them. But why does he come here? Master Bowyer is no priest lover! So who sent him to seek what he is never going to find?”

Nan kept shaking her head. “I—I do not know. He tells me nothing.”

She looked at the boy who faced her with only the short space of the table's edge between them. He looked very rough—frightening—in spite of the apron belted about him and his rolled-up sleeves. Who was he? Some inn servant? But why was he asking her all these questions? This was the first time Uncle Jasper's story had been suspect. She was sure that the kind-faced innkeeper had believed it, that she was merely in Uncle Jasper's company because it was necessary that she travel a short distance in his charge. She swallowed.
She
must do as she had elsewhere, begin to ask questions of her own. But always before she had dealt with serving maids who had felt sorry for her and were willing to believe the part she played. In the weeks she had been with Uncle Jasper, she had never met face to face one who was angry and suspicious from their first meeting. Nan made a great effort to summon courage.

“Who are you?” Her voice came out firmly enough to give her more confidence. “Master Bowyer's son?”

He shook his head. “I'm the potboy.” He made that answer short and did not say his name. But then he added, “Master Bowyer is not married; he has no family.” Now he came a step closer, watching her so intently that she wanted to retreat again. “Who lied about him?”

“I do not know—” she began. Then he interrupted her hotly, “It is
your
uncle who has come a-hunting here. Who said that the Red Hart shelters Papists?”

Nan could only stare. “He—my uncle—tells me nothing. I do not know why he has come here.” That was a lie, one of the many which always lay heavy on her mind. Uncle Jasper said that such were not lies when they were told in the good cause, yet Nan hated to speak them.

She wondered if this potboy guessed she lied, he continued to stare at her so fiercely. What lay between him and his master that he was so ready in Master Bowyer's defense? If they were not kin, and he had said so—

“The master, he is a good man!” He paused as if to dare her to deny that. “He should not be troubled thus.”

Abruptly he swung around and left, shutting the door behind him with a decided bang. Nan stood shivering where she was. The good cinnamony smell of the tart on the table only made her stomach feel the worse. Yet she must force herself to choke down at least part of it, so there be no suspicion roused that she was not what Uncle Jasper had said she was—a young maid innocent of all his work, on her way to her aunt.

She reached for the tankard and sipped at the mulled ale. The brew was warm, spicy. For the first time she felt warmth
within her. Taking the horn-handled spoon, she broke through the flaky crust of the tart. But she ate with no pleasure, only the need for playing her role here. Let it be done and quickly—Oh, let it be done quickly, so they could be away!

All the time she gulped both ale and food, her eyes sought the wall panels. She knew well what had brought Uncle Jasper here: his belief that Master Bowyer himself was other than he seemed—one of the traitor priests perhaps—and that the Red Hart had a secret which served those who came and went within its walls.

There were those who in the days of Queen Elizabeth had gone from place to place fashioning hiding places for priests, cunningly concealed, but some large enough to hold a man in safety; others to hide only those things that each priest must carry if he was to serve the false services he held. If Master Bowyer was himself a priest, as Uncle Jasper believed, then what she must seek was not a hiding place for a person, but rather one for the vessels of the Mass.

Nan could eat no more. The shadows which lay in the corners of this small parlor were drawing in upon her as if determined to push her out. The girl squeezed her hands to her breast and stared wildly around. It was there somewhere— what she sought, what she must find. She knew that as much as if some voice shouted to her out of the very air.

It had been this way before—twice. Something had sent her directly to a place of secrets. She was afraid, bitterly afraid, of that queer knowledge that slipped slyly into her mind, sent her in the right direction. At least that was one secret she had
managed to keep hidden from Uncle Jasper. It was—like witchcraft, this being able to find the hidden. And witches were even more of the Devil than priests. If Uncle Jasper knew— Nan shivered and gave a small moan, the sound of which frightened her even more.

Let her just be able to find what she had to, so that they could go from this place! Let her do it quickly—quickly—!

She closed her eyes and waited, allowing that knowledge to come, not fighting it, in spite of all her hatred of what would possess her. Then, staring straight before her, though she did not really see the room, she went, her fingertips sliding across the panels. It was when she approached the fireplace, on the far side, that she found it. Here—somewhere—

Up and down the panel her fingers went. She had found it. She might not be able to open it, but Uncle Jasper would see to that. Sighing, she wavered back to the bench where her cloak trailed down to the floor.