The Holy Innocents
- Автор: Sedley Kate
- Серия: Roger the Chapman #4
- Год: 2021
- Язык: английский
- Год: Canelo
- ISBN: 9781800326026
- Жанр: Исторические детективы
Электронная книга - «The Holy Innocents». Краткое содержание книги:
A town paralysed with fear, two children gone missing. Roger’s most difficult case yet…
April, 1475. As Roger approaches the thriving village of Totnes, danger crackles in the air. A pack of cutthroats wanders the forest after a night of pillaging, and Roger barely manages to hide from them in the brush.
He soon learns that the marauding band has been terrorizing the countryside for weeks. And worse, they are believed to be responsible for the disappearance of two village children.
But how did the children get out of the house unnoticed in broad daylight? And would the outlaws really kill just for the sake of killing? Roger cannot rest – or rule out the possibility of more violence – until he solves the puzzle.
‘So,’ I prompted, ‘why did Master Colet come to see you?’
‘What? Oh! Yes. He came to ask me to reconsider that very decision of mine to sever business links with his late wife’s family. He wanted to become my partner, as Jasper had been. He would be willing, he said, to put a substantial part of the Crouchback fortune into the making of straights. The market in Brittany, he understood, was greater than it had ever been.’
‘You refused him?’
‘I’m afraid I did.’
‘May I ask why?’
Thomas stroked his chin, submitting, somewhat surprisingly, to this protracted catechism, but still keeping his voice low.
‘Well, for one thing, I should have found it difficult to work with a man I dislike so much. For another, I did not gain the impression that his heart was in the request. Don’t ask me why. It was simply a feeling.’
‘He had not approached you before that day? Not at any other time since Mistress Colet’s death?’
The grey eyes, inherited by his youngest daughter, were suddenly bright and shrewd.
‘You are suggesting that it might have been a trumped-up excuse to come and see me?’
I shrugged. ‘I find it… suspicious, shall I say, that it was that morning out of all the others that he was absent from home and in such reputable company.’ Thomas Cozin graciously inclined his head. I continued, ‘And that it was while he was here, talking to you, that the children vanished.’
My host thought about this, rubbing his nose with a bony forefinger. After due consideration, however, he pursed his lips doubtfully.
‘It alters nothing, chapman. Facts are facts. The children were there when he left the house, not there when he got back. If you doubt me, question Bridget Praule and Agatha Tenter, if you can shake their witness, you’ll do more than the Sheriff or any of his sergeants were able to do.’
I had every intention of speaking to both women, and would have asked him for their directions had not Oliver Cozin called peremptorily down the stairs, ‘Tom, what’s keeping you? Has the chapman gone yet?’
I put a finger to my lips, mouthed my thanks, tiptoed to the door and let myself out into the passage. As I quietly lowered the latch, I heard Thomas reply, ‘Oh yes, he’s gone. Now! What is it you wanted?’
I opened the street door, but was not allowed to escape so easily. There was a sudden scurry of feet on the flagstones behind me, and Ursula Cozin seized my arm.
‘It’s men’s turn to hock today, chapman. Aren’t you going to ask me for a forfeit?’
I tried to look severe. ‘Go back to your school books,’ I said. ‘You’re too young for such matters.’
‘I have nine summers,’ was the indignant answer. She smiled pertly. ‘Well, if I’m not old enough for your taste, would you like me to summon one or both of my sisters? I should choose Elizabeth, if I were you. She is younger and less of a tease. Joan’s very high and mighty at present, ever since she had her first proposal of marriage. Of course, Father refused the offer. The young man had no money and his way to make in the world, being nought but the Benjamin out of six brothers.’
I suppressed a smile at this ingenuous confidence. ‘If you wish to do something for me,’ I said, ‘tell me where I may find Bridget Praule and Agatha Tenter.’
Ursula pouted. ‘Oh, very well, but you won’t find either of them as pretty as me. Or as Elizabeth or Joan, if it comes to that. Yet am I, in my sisters’ case, being over-generous?’ She doubled up with mirth at her own wit, revealing herself as the child she truly was. Recovering her poise a little, and conscious of self-betrayal, she told me, with as much dignity as she could muster, that Bridget lodged at her grandmother’s cottage, between St Peter’s Quay and the Magdalen Lazar House. Agatha Tenter, now living once again with her mother, Dame Winifred, was to be discovered on the other side of the bridge, within the Pomeroy parish bounds.
‘And for that, I think I deserve a kiss.’ Ursula leaned forward, brushing my cheek with soft, petal-like lips. ‘God be with you, chapman. Oh, here are my sisters returning from the kitchen. You should escape while you can.’ She gave me a friendly push towards the open door.
I needed no second bidding and was out in the street almost before I knew it.
I left the town this time by the East Gate, pausing for a brief while to put the same questions to the gatekeeper as I had posed to his fellow on the West Gate. But I got no more joy than before. Yes, he remembered the day in January when the Skelton children had disappeared – who could forget it? – but he had seen nothing of them. All the gatekeepers had been interrogated by the Sheriff and all had told the same story. And yes, he supposed it possible that Andrew Skelton and his sister might have concealed themselves among the contents of a wagon, although he himself obviously inclined towards the idea of witchcraft. However, as he made it plain that he had no liking for Eudo Colet, I took this with a grain of salt and considered it more wishful thinking, rather than outright conviction on his part. I thanked him and passed through into the Foregate.
The street ran downhill to the town mill and the bridge across the Dart at the bottom. To the left spread the Priory fields and orchards, while to the right, another stockade enclosed an area known as the Pickle Moor and a straggle of shops and houses. It had been my intention to visit first Dame Winifred’s cottage, on the other side of the river, but a sudden thirst and gnawing hunger reminded me that it was several hours since I had eaten dinner with Grizelda. I could pay a visit to Jacinta at the castle tavern, but did not wish to retrace my steps. There must be ale-houses outside the walls, I had only to ask directions.
A cart, empty of any burden, lumbered through the gate behind me, a thin whippet of a man perched up behind the horse, the reins slack in his hand. A pair of brilliant blue eyes considered me dispassionately from a weather-beaten face beneath a thatch of dark hair, salted with grey. I hailed him with a friendly ‘Good-day!’ and he drew to a halt alongside me.
‘Can I help you, friend? You have a lost air about you.’
‘I’m looking for an ale-house,’ I confessed, ‘where I can quench my thirst. I thought you seemed like a fellow who might know of one.’
He roared with laughter at that, revealing a flash of surprisingly sound white teeth in the wrinkled, sunburned features.
‘Your instinct was right, chapman. I know every ale-house and tavern within a ten-mile distance of this town. But you need search no further than the one I’m off to, now, close by St Peter’s Quay. I note you were heading for the bridge, but it’s not so very much out of your way, and you can ride with me, if you’ve a mind to. I’ve just delivered a load of flour from the mill to the baker’s, and I’ve an hour to spare before my next journey. I’d be glad of your company.’ I thanked him and heaved myself up into the empty cart, where a fine dusting of flour still whitened the boards.
‘St Peter’s Quay will suit me very well. I have a visit to pay near there, in any case.’ My newfound friend twitched the reins and the horse plodded along a path to our right, between some cottages, and so to a gate in the stockade. ‘I think you must be Jack Carter,’ I hazarded.
‘The same.’ He grinned, glancing over his shoulder. ‘Who’s been speaking of me?’
‘I’ll tell you when we’re settled with our ale,’ I promised. ‘It might prove a longish story.’
We made our steady way around a tidal marsh whose land had been drained by a broad, stone-built dam, which kept back the encroaching river.
‘Is that the Weirland Dam?’ I asked my companion.
‘Aye, that’s it. Built more’n two hundred years ago, if accounts can be believed. ’Tis sure it’s been there all my lifetime and the lifetime of my father and his father afore him.’