Rhiannon (22 page)

Rhia bit her lip at the thought of spiders eaten alive, though she'd heard of it before. They'd tickle their way down to Granna's feet and then the easing would come up through the hide of her toes. That's how spiders were rumored to work, anyhow.

“I'll tell her for certain, Mistress Mopp,” Rhia said. Then, as Hilda Mopp was known to have her ear always cocked to the business of others, Rhia leaned closer to ask, “And mistress, have you heard tell of how our friend Jim Gatt came to escape to sanctuary?”

Hilda Mopp looked in all directions with her hands clasped beneath her large bosom, then she spoke all stealthy and shifty-eyed, though not so quiet as she might have.

“Well, Guy Dryer's a simple man. As bailiff that goes some in his favor, and some not. When Jim confessed, Guy had no stomach for a quick execution and let him slip. Now that Jim's got sanctuary within the church, by law no one can touch him for forty days, though that time will flee quick enough and then Jim'll hang anyhow, of course.”

Rhiannon's stomach fell at that last blunt pronouncement, and she was glad to have a band of customers walk up so's her mind could be put for a bit on her honey and seeds.

When those folk had made their purchases and walked on, Rhia whispered to Mistress Mopp, “Granna would have me find out exactly what was said by the vicar and bailiff at Jim's confession, and who witnessed it besides those two. She'd also have me find who profits, though none could surely profit by Jim's confession but the true murderer.”

Hilda Mopp heaved a great, disgusted
humph
and pulled her chins down so's they dwelt upon her bosom. She leaned some sideways and said from the corner of her mouth, “Oh,
one
other profits well enough, and that's Beornia Gatt, the selfish little hussy. Never a thought for other than herself when she was growing up here, and still never, so far as I can see. Poor Jim always gave her everything she wanted, that little brat. She pretends such grief over that dead husband of her'n.
Humph!
If grief well-acted is liable to buy her sympathy from the town, then she'll
act
grieved, and further I've heard that . . .”

Rhiannon had gaped at Mistress Mopp throughout this talk, trying to separate out the tangled threads of Mistress Mopp's information and opinions. So she was some abashed when something landed with a padded thunk on the table in front of her. Rhia turned around straight, ready to apologize to the customer who'd been neglected, and faced the tall young woman who'd been weeping in the burned lot next the church!

Her baby was balanced upon her hip. He sucked two sticky fingers, and along the front of his smock were drippings of honey. In one chubby hand he clutched a small mass of what looked like Granna's sweet rye bread, and under the other arm he held the missing wax effigy, cuddling it as though it were a playtoy.

“I brought your carrier back to you,” the woman said in a flat, unfriendly voice. Her chin was atremble, though she had a proud lift to it. “You'll find three pence inside it. I've got cabbages, and if they sell, I'll pay most of the rest of what I owe you today. If they don't sell, I'll pay the first moment I ever can.”

Rhia looked down and saw her lost pack upon the table, flat and empty. When she looked back up, the woman was already striding away, her shoulders high and her long hair swinging. She called back over her shoulder, “You asked if you could help me, but I mighta known your offer would prove as hollow as all else seems now in Woethersly!”

Mistress Mopp clucked her tongue. “Did I not tell you? All sass, that Beornia Gatt. You should not lend to her, Rhiannon dear, as she says she'll repay but is not to be . . .”

Rhiannon's forehead fell to her hands. “I fear she heard what you said about her,” she told Mistress Mopp with a great sigh of regret. “I
did
offer her help, and meant it.”

“And for
my
part, I hope she did
indeed
hear my words,” the mistress replied quite huffily. “And I also wager she'll hear more good earfuls e'er she walks the crowd! For it wasn't just my boy, Arnold, had his heart broke by her, but many another as well. Arnold might not be a looker, but he's not so dull-headed as some hereabouts, and further I believe that—”

“Mistress?” Rhia interrupted, having heard as much of this as she could stand. “I still don't understand why you'd say Beornia Gatt profits from Jim's confession.”

Hilda Mopp snorted. “Well, if a murderer dies denying his guilt, he loses all right to what's been his in life, now, don't he? Yet if he dies having confessed, he may at the vicar's pleasure keep what's his and so pass it to his children. Beornia will inherit all Jim owns, now that he's confessed to the crime.”

Rhia knew that was the law, yet since Jim owned nothing, it didn't seem to apply. She might have asked Mistress Mopp for a bit of clarification on that score, but Mistress Mopp was hefting herself up off the bench, surely eager to discuss with more important folk than Rhia this chance encounter she'd had with the infamous hussy, Beornia Gatt.

And Rhia, to be honest, had no wish to slow her in her leaving.

Besides, a great commotion had just begun at the edge of the green, and now was progressing down the street that fronted the ale booth. All chatter and dealings stopped cold as folk turned to see what caused the ruckus.

A gang of running boys, it was, fair barreling along, careening like drunkards, kicking up the dust, scattering the geese and confounding the nearby folk as well.

“Make way! Make way and be quick about it!” those six gangly lads demanded of all, waving their long arms as if they were stuffed dolls come alive to scare the crows. They even whacked some folk in the face with their gawky, flapping hands. “Make way for Lord Claredemont's party to pass! Clear this street, you common lot, so's your betters may ride through unhindered!”

Paid way-clearers these boys were, then, and doing a fabulous job of it, as when else might they make such a nuisance of themselves and not be given over to the bailiff?

And then came the riders. Rhia recognized those same young squires that she, Granna, Jim, and Daisy had watched taking the creek. The galloping mounts brushed by and upset one of the market tables so the potter's wares were toppled. Dust and broken shards flew everywhere. Small children screamed and clutched their mothers' skirts, yet the horsemen rode the harder, heedless as mounted demons bringing on the apocalypse.

A little girl, confounded by the dust and noise, walked right into the path of a horse, and the rider of it, never swerving, instead used his whip to flick her away. The small girl's mother snatched her up in the very nick of time or she'd have surely been trampled, but her arm flamed red from the bite of the whip.

Then, in the time it might take for a jug to be filled with ale from the barrel tap, the gang had passed on. The crowd was quiet in their wake, somewhat stupefied. After a few moments, the small girl bawled with her pain and several women came unfrozen and hurried close to see to her hurt. The roiling sounds of market slowly started up again.

Rhia found her remaining two small rye loaves to be so filthed with dust that they'd not be edible by humans. Furious, she stood and threw them, hard, to the geese.

All the wares she'd brought were now sold, ruined, or stolen. She bought what she could with the paltry coin she'd made from her two meager sales stuffed that and her emptied pack into one light pack, and gladly left the green. Good riddance of it, as all had been mischance in her market dealings this day. Thaddeus could tell her what she needed to know of Jim, and without market gossip muddying the news just as surely as those horsemen had so muddied the market green.

 
She was surprised to find Thaddeus already standing where they'd agreed to meet at the beach, since she herself had arrived some early. He stood facing the wide water, and something about the set of his shoulders made Rhiannon reluctant to disturb him. He was clearly involved in thinking his thoughts, and the holy brothers' thoughts were always deep, surely never simple. Or indeed, he might be praying.

While she stood hesitating, Thaddeus bent and picked up a rock, then skimmed it hard across the water so it jumped four, five, six times.

“Thaddeus!” she called at that sign, and ran to join him.

He turned to her, but the stricken expression upon his face made her come to a halt while still some yards away. Her heart felt turned to ice.

“Has . . . something happened to Jim?” she whispered. Things could go horribly awry in sanctuary, as they sometimes did in gaol. Suicides, or escapes that ended bloodily.

Thaddeus dropped his head without making her an answer, then bent to take another rock. And when he threw this one, he hurled it so viciously it ricocheted hard several times against the cold sea before finally sinking within the waters.

He was angry, then. Rhia could not have been more shocked if he'd turned to a lizard or a dog. She'd not thought anger could find any corner in him, so mild did he seem. But there it was—in the white of his face, the blaze of his eyes, and in the ferocity with which he'd fight the very sea with his small stones.

David he'd become, but against what Goliath did he rage so fierce?

Then Thaddeus suddenly reached and grabbed her by the hand. He began running, and with her free arm she hefted her pack more securely then held her skirt above her ankles and struggled to keep up. He veered from the sand, where folk walked and idled the time in conversation, and sped across the rough rocks, right toward the wilderness. He then veered into the narrow passageway where the bluff met the water, a place too rough for common use, ventured into only by pirates who would hide from other folk.

The boulders here were slick with sea brine. The path was a ledge of tumbled rock where, Granna claimed, mermen and mermaids basked in the light of each full moon.

Finally, when no trace of Woethersly or the castle or the quay was visible behind them, Thaddeus slowed and let go her hand. She dropped to her knees, out of breath and dizzy with the run. He bent with his hands on his own knees, winded as well.

Presently, he got his breath back enough to wheeze out, “I beg you forgive me, Rhia, but I
had
to put Woethersly at my back! I could not
breathe
in its surrounds.” He sat down hard, put his chin into his hands, and stared at the sea. “I
am
sorry to have brought you along so roughly,” he murmured. “What a fool you must think me.”

Rhia murmured, “Well, you didn't rush to deny
my
foolishness earlier today, so I think neither shall I deny yours now.”

She smiled and he looked at her and smiled back. But his smile was forced and lasted only a moment. He looked down and rubbed at a paint stain upon his palm.

“We're fools both, then,” he murmured. “Yet to be a fool may indeed be the wise course in a topsy-turvy world like ours is become of late. These days princes think they can buy heaven and priests sell the truth as fast and cheap as two-day-old fish.”

She was shocked at the bitterness of his words when he was never bitter. “What on earth are you talking about, Thaddeus?”

He stared out at the endless chop, still rubbing his palm. When he finally spoke, his voice was so hollow and flat that she almost wished his earlier bright anger would return.

“Jim's
sold
his life to the local priest, Rhiannon. I've heard it with my own ears, just this past hour.”

“Sold . . . his life? Oh, Thaddeus, whatever can you mean by such a thing?”

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then turned to her.

“I was a fly upon the wall, unnoticed as I painted high up in the west corner of the nave this afternoon,” he began. “The scaffolding was still in place from the recent plastering, you see, and I thought I'd climb up, test my colors, and maybe, if the plaster seemed set enough, start a bit of rough sketching upon it with my brush.

“At first I was alone and glad to be, but then I heard conversation below. I looked down through the ribs of the scaffold and saw the vicar walking down the aisle, speaking with a man sent from the earl. I knew the man as such because he wore the earl's livery, beribboned here and there in mourning black. I might have called down to alert those two of my presence, but I guess I was hesitant because I thought the vicar would be angry, seeing me perched where I was without his prior knowledge or permission. And soon enough it would no longer have been wise to call out, as I'd heard too much.

“Rhiannon, the earl's man had come with gold for the vicar to give to Jim's daughter after Jim's death! They said it out clear enough. ‘I've brought what the poor wretch has asked as the cost of his full confession, ' the earl's man said, pouring out coin into his own hand. The vicar leaned to count it, then nodded, saying, ‘God will be pleased. The daughter will have it at the father's burial.' Then, as the vicar stood waiting for the earl's man to repouch the coin and to hand
him
the pouch, he added, ‘And by the way, my son, I must correct you. This is not the cost of his confession, as his guilt was clear and the confession a mere formality. This is merely alms given in Christian charity to the convicted man's orphaned daughter. God will note the earl's largesse in this matter.' The vicar then took the pouched coin from the other and tucked it into his sleeve.”

Thaddeus looked harder at Rhia, his hands out before him. “You see, don't you, Rhia, that your vicar has surely
bribed
Jim into confession with the promise of this money for his daughter and grandson?”

She nodded, tapping her chin with the cross Mam had given her. “Jim was already broken of spirit when he was arrested, and I doubt he'd bother to defend himself much,” she murmured, figuring as she went. “Everyone knows the manor court practically never finds a prisoner innocent when the vicar's ordeal of laid hands has pointed to guilt. If the vicar came to the gaol yesterday morn to offer ‘charity' for Jim's daughter, Jim would know that the offer would stand only upon his confession, as nothing can be given to the family of those dying unconfessed. He'd probably figure he had nothing to lose by confessing and suddenly would have much to gain.”