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 you will require me to quit the house?’ I asked, speaking as steadily as I could.
Grizelda raised her eyes to mine, holding them with a look which was half amusement, half defiance.
‘That will be up to Master Colet when he gives his yea or nay to my request.’ She grew sober, her lips compressed. ‘I hate having to throw myself on his mercy, but I know of nothing else to do. I have lost everything, even my clothes. I have only what I am wearing. Without a roof over my head, I am like to become a parish pauper.’
I said thoughtfully, ‘Before you commit yourself to sleeping once again in your old home, there are things I must tell you. But first, are your friends at hand? Would they, from the kindness of their hearts, supply me with food and drink? I have had no breakfast. I have money in my purse. I can pay them.’
‘Were they here, they would be offended by any such suggestion,’ Grizelda assured me. ‘But they have already returned to their holding. They are poor people and cannot afford to waste the daylight hours unnecessarily. They know my intentions. We have said our adieus. But I have some acquaintance with the goodwife you were speaking to earlier. I might prevail upon her to provide us both with bread and ale.’
The stout woman proved obliging, and Grizelda and I sat on a wooden bench outside the goodwife’s cottage eating oatcakes spread with honey and drinking mead. Our ears were filled with the gentle humming of the bees from the hives at the bottom of her garden.
When I had finished recounting to Grizelda the events of the previous night, she sat silent for several minutes, frowning into space. The sun was hot on our faces, and all about us the woods which surrounded the village clearing spread warm and fragrant, sloping down to the banks of Bow Creek.
At last, she said slowly, ‘You think now that it was Eudo Colet, trying to frighten you away?’
‘To maim me, injure me, so that I could no longer pursue my inquiries. Yes, I’m sure of it. The stay of the gallery had been cut clean through. It had not broken.’
‘And you think this attempt was made because of your visit to Dame Tenter’s cottage?’
‘Again, yes. There was time enough for him to follow me and enter the town before curfew. He must still have keys to the house in his possession. He could easily have entered the back yard and concealed himself in one of the outhouses, or in the kitchen building itself. What would there be to stop him?’
Grizelda chewed her lower lip. ‘But what of the child you heard singing? That could not have been Master Colet. His voice is not deep, I admit, but it has nothing of a green boy’s high pitch.’
‘Nor of a young girl’s.’ I nodded. ‘No, it’s that that worries me and makes me still a little fearful for anyone remaining alone in that house at night.’
‘You think he employed witchcraft?’ Grizelda asked, her breath catching in her throat.
I shrugged my shoulders. ‘That’s a question I can’t answer. We all know that the powers of darkness exist, and can be harnessed. But to accuse a man without proof is not something I should wish to do. It’s a hanging matter.’
‘You believe, however, that I should be on my guard if Master Colet agrees to my lodging there?’
‘I think you must take care. I should prefer it if he’d let me stay there with you, but I think he’ll seize on your request as a means to rid himself of an unwanted guest, without having to resort to any more of his tricks.’
Grizelda’s head reared up sharply. ‘Do you suspect Eudo of trickery? For trickery’s not witchcraft, although I sometimes think that there is kinship between them.’
I pressed a hand to my forehead. I had a nagging pain between my eyes and a slight feeling of sickness in my stomach, the undoubted results of a disturbed night and a delayed breakfast. I took another long draught of the goodwife’s excellent mead and felt a little better.
‘The truth is,’ I admitted, ‘! don’t know what to think any longer. I am confused, and cannot see the part played by Master Colet in the disappearance of his stepchildren. Indeed, except for last night’s occurrence, I might begin to think that there was none. Now, why does that vex you?’
‘Because I think you too easily fooled,’ Grizelda responded tartly. ‘There is some connection between him and the outlaws if only we could find it. But enough of that for now. I must get to Totnes without any further delay and present myself at Dame Tenter’s.’ She smiled suddenly. ‘Will you give me the pleasure of your company on the journey? I’m sorry for what I said just now. I don’t really think you easily fooled. Far from it. But I think you won’t regret getting back on the road and putting these unhappy events behind you. You’ll be your own man again, Roger, and I believe that to be the most important thing to you in the whole wide world. And dare you look me in the eye and tell me that I’m not right?’
Chapter Fourteen
I accompanied Grizelda as far as the Foregate, where we separated just beyond the stockade, she to cross the bridge to visit Eudo Colet at Dame Tenter’s cottage, I to make my way uphill to the East Gate. During our walk together, she had shed a few tears over the loss of her own cottage, a weakness she immediately condemned, and which she attributed to the shock of seeing Innes Woodsman’s charred body.
‘For you must understand,’ she apologized, ‘that I despise women who cry. And Our Lady knows that I have had enough unhappiness in my life to give me practice at controlling my grief. But I cannot help feeling responsible for Innes’s death.’
‘Nonsense!’ I declared stoutly. ‘And as the Novice Master used to tell me, in the days before I gave up the religious life, it’s as great a sin to take too much guilt upon your shoulders as it is to take none at all. Every man and woman must accept responsibility for his or her own actions.’
This seemed to comfort her, and she was calmer by the time we parted company. After seeing her safely over the bridge, I climbed the hill and sought out the keeper of the East Gate.
He, too, was busy, diverting as much of the afternoon’s traffic as he could away from the town in anticipation of the Sheriff’s visit.
‘For you never know,’ he said, mopping his forehead on his sleeve, ‘his lordship might make all speed from Exeter, and the sun’s well overhead. It must be turned midday already.’
‘I doubt we’ll see anything of him much before evening,’ I offered by way of consolation, quoting the cowherd. ‘His Worship’s messenger has to reach Exeter first, and you know how ponderously the law reacts to any situation. Tell me. Did you, by chance, let Master Colet into the town last evening, shortly before sunset?’
The gatekeeper gave a final wipe to his face and sniffed.
‘Aye, that I did, and let him out again first thing this morning as soon as the Angelus sounded. Last in, first out. But I thought you might have know that. Aren’t you the man lodged in his house by Lawyer Cozin? It came to me that Master Colet must have passed the night there.’
It was on the tip of my tongue to answer, ‘And so he did,’ but instead I merely asked, ‘Was he mounted?’
‘No, afoot, now you mention it.’ The gatekeeper sounded surprised. ‘Now that’s strange, for he’s proud of that beast of his and rarely walks anywhere. Odd, but I thought nothing of it at the time.’
I murmured my thanks and made my way through the postern gate, before I could be questioned more closely. So! I had my answer. Nevertheless, I thought it prudent to make inquiries of the Priory porter, for Eudo could have sought a bed in St Mary’s guest-hall. The porter, however, disclaimed all knowledge of Master Colet.