Nine Men Dancing

Twelve

Not for Ned Rawbone the servants’ entrance and the kitchen quarters. Supporting Tom between us, we walked round to the front of the house and went in by the door to the great hall, where our appearance was met with a flurry of women’s skirts and an outpouring of feminine concern.

‘Tom! What’s happened? Are you badly hurt?’ That was Petronelle.

‘Stupid boy! You haven’t been in yet another fight, have you? Sweet heaven! What a fool!’ But Dame Jacquetta’s anxious looks belied the harshness of her words. ‘Sit in my chair by the fire.’

The housekeeper said nothing, but tuttutted loudly and hurried away to the sideboard to pour a mazer of wine.

Her presence in the hall was explained as soon as I saw that Nathaniel Rawbone was seated in the chair facing his sister’s, on the opposite side of the hearth. He had removed his shoes and hose, and a bowl of water and a bottle of salve lay on a footstool alongside him. Elvina Merryman was evidently in the process of bathing and anointing his badly chilblained feet.

As Ned and I tenderly lowered Tom into Dame Jacquetta’s abandoned armchair, Nathaniel took one look at his younger son and let out a roar.

‘You quarrelsome young idiot! Who have you been laying into this time, eh? Answer me this minute, sir!’

‘Leave him be, Father,’ Ned advised quietly. ‘He’s taken enough punishment these last three days, without you yelling at him. And he wasn’t laying into anybody, as Master Chapman here will confirm. Lambert Miller set about Tom.’

The housekeeper came back with a tray on which reposed three beakers of wine, handing one to each of the Rawbone brothers and one to me. I savoured mine slowly, hoping that no one would realize that it was far too fine a vintage to be wasted on an itinerant pedlar. But they were all too preoccupied to give it a moment’s thought, the women fussing over Tom, and Nathaniel listening with a scowling countenance to Ned’s account of the day’s events as far as he knew them.

While Ned was speaking, the twins entered through the front door, their young faces healthily aglow from the cold and the wind, shedding their good frieze cloaks for their mother to pick up and tidy away, rubbing their hands and shouldering their way to the fire. They would have plunged immediately into an account of their afternoon’s activities, but were hushed by the simple expedient of their grandfather striking them across the buttocks with the stick he kept propped against his chair.

‘Silence!’ he yelled. ‘Your father’s talking!’

Hercules crouched, shivering, between my feet. I wondered if Nathaniel ever spoke in a moderate tone of voice.

While Ned finished his story, I took stock of the eldest and the two youngest members of the Rawbone family. The latter, Jocelyn and Christopher, were pretty much what I imagined fourteen-year-old boys to be all over the world, in any age and time: self-centred, self-absorbed, loutish young puppies, constantly on the lookout – at least, if they followed my example – for the chance to bed a girl. Any girl, anywhere; but not as yet absolutely sure what to do about it if and when the opportunity offered. (But, of course, the girls would know. They always did.) They were big, handsome lads, more like their uncle in appearance and manner than their father. And there seemed to be nothing of the whey-faced Petronelle in either of them until I looked more closely, when I could see that they had her eyes; eyes of a very much paler blue than the intense colour of their grandfather’s.

Nathaniel, himself, in spite of his fifty-nine years, was still of an upright, broad-shouldered physique, as I had noted in church the previous morning. I could see that Eris Lilywhite might well have been attracted to him, quite apart from the lure of his money and the status of being mistress of Dragonswick Farm. She could have found his high-handed, autocratic ways something of a thrill after Tom’s slavering devotion. But what had been Nathaniel’s feelings for Eris? Had he truly been fond of her or had he simply seen her as a way to demonstrate to his family that he was still the master? That he could make them all dance to his piping at any time he chose? More importantly, what had he felt when Eris disappeared?

‘What are you staring at, chapman?’ His voice cut across my wandering thoughts, making me jump.

I realized that Ned had finished speaking and that everyone was looking at me.

‘I-I’m sorry,’ I stammered. ‘I wasn’t meaning to be rude.’

Nathaniel snorted and turned back to Tom, first signalling impatiently to Elvina Merryman that she should continue bathing his feet.

‘You randy young fool!’ he exclaimed bitterly to his younger son. ‘Leave Rosamund Bush alone. You won’t do yourself any good. She’ll string you along for a while, just for the pleasure of knowing she has the upper hand again, and to annoy that great hunk, Lambert Miller. But you won’t win her back. Not now. Not ever. So don’t you think it! Use your common sense, boy!’

I wasn’t so sure that he was right, but felt obliged to hold my tongue. It was none of my affair. Besides, I was too busy wondering how I could have a private word with those two budding young bravos, the Rawbone twins. I suspected that they might have a productive line in indiscreet chatter if only I could get them on their own.

For once, fate played into my hands. Petronelle suggested to her husband that they take Tom, who still looked extremely green about the gills, upstairs to lie down. Ned agreed and she had to push past her sons in order to reach her brother-in-law’s side. The contact obviously reminded her of something she wished to say.

‘You two!’ she ordered; and I could see that for all her timid appearance, there was a virago lurking somewhere underneath, just waiting to be let loose. ‘Out to the saw-pit. We need more logs, and Jack Sawyer sent word by Billy Tyrrell that he and his son wouldn’t be able to get as far as Dragonswick today. So off you go.’

The twins would probably have argued about it if their grandfather had not been present. They each sent him a sidelong glance and grumbled under their breath; but they were palpably in awe of the old man and did not dare risk his displeasure.

‘Let me help,’ I offered, picking up my cloak which I had shed shortly after entering the house. ‘Two to work the saw, one to stack the logs. It will be quicker.’

I saw Ned glance at me suspiciously, as he and his wife hoisted Tom to his feet. But apart from the twins, who greeted my offer with a surly gratitude, no one made any comment. Dame Jacquetta was too concerned with resuming her seat by the fire, while the housekeeper was engrossed in her task of treating Nathaniel’s chilblains. And the elder Rawbone was having too much fun nagging Elvina, and grumbling about her clumsiness, to worry his head over any ulterior motive I might have.

I followed Christopher and Jocelyn across the yard, where the household animals were penned, to the saw-pit on the other side of a wattle fence. Here, a pile of fair-sized branches were stacked, waiting to be sawn into smaller pieces by the local sawyer and added to the dwindling mound of logs ready for use indoors.

We found the family saw, a blade of fearsome proportions, in a lean-to shack that also housed a long- and a short-handled pick, together with other implements. I took off my cloak and volunteered to work in the pit, holding the bottom end of the saw, while Jocelyn bestrode the planks above me, grasping its handle. That left Christopher the task of dragging the branches into position across the saw-pit, removing the cut pieces and shifting the branch forward as required.

As I had anticipated, a little of such backbreaking labour went a long way as far as the twins were concerned. After we had sawn up three branches, they suggested, as one man, that we repair to the kitchen for refreshment.

‘No one’ll be there except Ruth,’ Jocelyn said. ‘And she won’t snitch on us. Mother will think we’re still working out here. Coming, chapman?’

I certainly wasn’t going to argue, and picking up Hercules, who had been patiently watching us from a safe distance, guarding my cloak and cudgel, I followed the twins back the way we had come, through the rear door and into the warmth of the kitchen.

Ruth was busy cutting up winter vegetables – leek and water parsnip and turnip – and throwing them into a pot of boiling water, bubbling over the fire. She took no more notice of us than the twins did of her. I nodded and smiled, but elicited no response.

Christopher disappeared, returning after a few minutes with a leather bottle and three wooden beakers, which he placed on the floor near the hearth. We seated ourselves on the rush-covered flagstones and held our hands to the flames, letting our numbed fingers thaw out before toasting each other on a job well done (as well as we intended to do it, anyhow). Hercules settled down beside me with a satisfied grunt and was soon asleep and snoring.

I decided there was no point in beating about the bush, or letting the twins seize the initiative in the choice of conversation. So I asked, straight out, ‘Do you remember what happened the evening that Eris Lilywhite disappeared?’

The question took them by surprise and Jocelyn choked into his beaker. Christopher just stared at me as though I’d enquired about the Great Cham of Tartary.

‘Listen,’ I said patiently. ‘Dame Theresa Lilywhite wants me to find out, if I can, what has happened to her granddaughter. That’s natural enough, you must agree!’ Even these unfeeling young brutes could surely understand that. ‘Wouldn’t you want to know what had become of someone you love?’

Christopher scratched his head. ‘I s’pose,’ he conceded eventually.

Jocelyn lowered his beaker, having recovered his breath, and eyed me narrowly. He had a less open expression than his twin. I felt that of the two, he would be better at concealing facts he thought I didn’t need to know. But on the surface, he seemed willing enough to humour me.

‘What do you want us to tell you?’ he asked.

‘Suppose you begin by describing what you both felt about Eris. After all, she was nearer to you two in age than to any other member of your family.’

‘She was all right,’ said Christopher. ‘But she was more fun when she was younger. We used to play together when we were children. She’d come birds’ nesting with us in Upper Brockhurst woods. She could climb a tree as well as we could. Better, in fact. And kick a ball or hit a shuttlecock. And she could whip a top with the best of us. She was bossy, mind you. I suppose because she was that bit older than we were.’

‘You were close, then?’ I suggested.

Christopher pursed his lips. ‘Maybe. People who didn’t know us very well – strangers to the village – used to think we were brothers and sister. But then she grew up, and men started noticing her and telling her how pretty she was, so she didn’t have time for Josh and me any more. By the time she came to work at Dragonswick, a year ago, she was behaving like she was the Queen of Sheba.’

His twin said grudgingly, ‘Be fair, Chris! She had cause. She was beautiful.’

‘Oh, I know you thought so.’ Christopher’s tone was suddenly spiteful. ‘I saw you trying to kiss her sometimes when you believed no one was looking. She wouldn’t have anything to do with you, though, would she? Called you a silly little boy once. I heard her, so there’s no point denying it.’

Jocelyn flushed painfully. ‘The only reason she wouldn’t have anything to do with me was because she was a mercenary little wretch who had set her sights on Uncle Tom. And then on Grandfather.’

Christopher laughed and his brother looked murderous. I hurriedly intervened before there was a major falling out between the pair of them.

‘I know all this. What I want you to tell me, if you can remember, is about the night she disappeared. What happened after your Uncle Tom arrived home that evening and after your grandfather announced that he was going to marry Eris?’

‘You mean after Uncle Tom tried to murder them both?’ Christopher scratched his chin, ignoring a mumbled protest from his brother. ‘Well, Uncle Tom rushed out of the house without his cloak or anything. It was a terrible night, pouring with rain. And then Mother started shouting at Eris to go home. She wouldn’t stop. It was like she was hysterical. Father couldn’t go to her because he was attending to Grandfather, but he kept telling her to be quiet. I think Great-Aunt Jacquetta managed to calm her down after a while.’

‘But then Great-Aunt rounded on Eris.’ Jocelyn had evidently overcome his scruples and decided to join in. ‘She hated Eris because Eris had found out that her real name was Joan and not Jacquetta, and always insisted on calling her by it. And the way she used to say “Dame Joan” made it sound like an insult.’ He shrugged. ‘Silly, really! But women seem to set a lot of store by such things.’

I concealed a smile at his weary-man-of-the-world air, and asked, ‘What happened next?’

They thought about this. ‘I believe Father went out to look for Uncle Tom,’ Jocelyn decided, looking at his brother for confirmation. His twin nodded.

‘That’s right.’ Christopher rubbed his chin again, where his former scratching had made a pimple bleed. ‘But he couldn’t find him, and it was too stormy to stay out for long. Then Mother attacked Eris. Physically, I mean. Mistress Merryman and Great-Aunt Jacquetta pretended to hold her back, but I don’t think either of them could have been trying very hard because Mother managed to claw Eris’s cheek open with her nails. That’s when Eris said she was going home and left … We never saw her again,’ he added, regarding me with his direct, ingenuous, boyish gaze.

It was impossible to tell if he were speaking the truth or not. I turned to Jocelyn.

‘Your grandfather was all for going after her, so I’ve been told. But your father wouldn’t let him and went instead.’

Jocelyn nodded. ‘Yes. Father was gone about an hour that time …’

‘Longer,’ his brother put in.

‘Possibly. He’d called on Maud Lilywhite to tell her what had happened, and waited to see if Eris came back. But she hadn’t returned when he left. Grandfather was beside himself. Said Father hadn’t done enough to find Eris. But Father just grabbed hold of Mother and they went to bed. So then Grandfather said he was going out to search for her. Great-Aunt and Mistress Merryman pleaded with him not to go, but he wouldn’t listen to them. Wouldn’t listen to us, either. So we went with him. There was nothing else we could do.’

‘Couldn’t let him go alone,’ Christopher confirmed. He shivered. ‘Holy Virgin! It was a terrible night. Pitch black and blowing a gale. The rain doused the lanterns and we got separated in the dark.’

‘What did you do?’ I asked, turning my head enquiringly from one to the other.

There was a moment’s hesitation on both their parts. At least, it seemed so to me.

Jocelyn was the first to answer. ‘Oh, I stumbled around a bit, then decided it was a fool’s errand and went home. I didn’t feel so guilty when I discovered that Chris and Grandfather had returned before me.’

‘Go on,’ I urged, when neither of them seemed inclined to continue.

‘That’s all,’ Jocelyn said.

His brother agreed. ‘Then Josh and I went to bed. I think everyone did. There was nothing else that could be done that night. Nothing until morning.’

I jogged their memories. ‘Maud Lilywhite told me that she came up to the farm later, when Eris still hadn’t come home, and roused the household. Dame Jacquetta confirmed her story. Didn’t her knocking wake you?’

‘Once we’re asleep, even the Last Trump wouldn’t wake us,’ Jocelyn announced proudly. ‘That’s what Mother always says.’

‘That’s right.’ Christopher finished the wine in his beaker and up-ended the bottle to drain the dregs. ‘We didn’t know anything about it until we got up next morning. Father came in just as we were sitting down to breakfast, soaking wet and absolutely filthy, plastered with mud and muck. He was exhausted. He’d been searching all night. Mother and Mistress Merryman heated water and filled the bathtub, here, in the kitchen, and scented it with herbs to ease his aches and pains. Afterwards, Mother wanted him to go to bed to get some rest; but he wouldn’t. He went off out again, down to the village to tell people what had happened and raise a posse to search the district. They hunted for days. Weeks.’ Christopher brought his headlong narrative to an abrupt halt, then shrugged. ‘But they never found her.’ He gave a callous laugh.

There was something shocking in his lack of concern, especially in one so young. But then, of course, the young are more honest, less hypocritical, than their elders. He knew very well that Eris’s disappearance, and probable death, had been a blessing for himself, his brother and his parents (and possibly for others). He wasn’t going to pretend to a grief he didn’t feel.

I allowed the silence to stretch between us for as long as one might count to thirty. Then I enquired, ‘What do you two think happened to Eris?’

They both stared at me as if I had asked them if they really believed the moon was made of green cheese; then they glanced fleetingly at one another. Finally, Christopher shrugged again and said, ‘Dunno. Never thought about it.’

‘Oh, come! You must have done,’ I protested. ‘It was a puzzle that was occupying everyone’s waking thoughts for weeks.’

‘Not mine,’ Christopher replied with devastating simplicity. ‘She’d gone. That was good enough for me.’

I decided he was telling the truth. Christopher Rawbone had an uncomplicated philosophy of life. His needs, his desires were all that mattered. He was never going to waste time entering into the feelings of others.

I looked at his twin. There was nothing simple about this one, I decided.

‘Do you think your Uncle Tom murdered Eris Lilywhite?’ I asked without preamble.

Jocelyn was shocked by the directness of the question. They both were, as I had intended them to be. But I had defeated my own object: I had frightened them into circumspection. Mumbling some sort of half-hearted denial, Jocelyn scrambled to his feet, followed immediately by his brother.

‘Thanks for your help with the sawing,’ he said ungraciously. ‘Come on, Chris! Everyone’ll be wondering where we are.’

They slouched out of the kitchen, banging the door behind them. The empty bottle and beakers were left where they were, on the floor. With a sigh, Ruth came across and picked them up, carrying them over to the table.

I got up, stretching and yawning, and stood with my back to the fire, enjoying the warmth. Hercules raised his head from his paws enquiringly, but, deciding that I was not yet ready to move, lowered it again and once more closed his eyes. I could hear the vegetables simmering in the pot behind me, and realized that while I had been talking to the twins, Ruth had finished her chores and was now snatching five minutes well-deserved rest, seated on an old, three-legged stool. She gave me the slow, sad smile of someone who was overworked and tired to her very bones. I could almost feel the ache in her weary limbs.

I glanced around for my cloak and cudgel. ‘I must be going,’ I said.

‘I heard what you and the twins were talking about,’ she remarked abruptly. ‘I couldn’t help it.’

I paused. ‘No, I don’t suppose you could.’ I regarded her thoughtfully. ‘Ruth, where were you on the night of the great storm? The night Eris vanished.’

I wondered if she might resent being questioned, but she seemed pleased, rather than otherwise, by my interest. She leaned forward, clasping her hands between her knees.

‘In the early part of the evening, I was helping Eris to serve the Master’s birthday feast. The family was late eating, because Master had waited for Master Tom to arrive, but he hadn’t turned up. The old man was furious. Called Tom all the names he could lay his tongue to.’

‘What was Eris like at this time?’ I asked. ‘Was she excited? Nervous? Upset?’

Ruth considered this, swinging her feet, which failed to touch the ground by some three inches.

‘I don’t remember that she was like anything. Just her normal self, handing the dishes around, filling wine cups, doing whatever Mistress Merryman told her to.’ I had a sudden vision of this beautiful sixteen-year-old girl, composed, self-possessed, efficiently carrying out her orders, waiting for the moment when Nathaniel would make his earth-shattering announcement. Ruth went on, ‘She was always like that when the family was all together.’ Her voice grew more vindictive. ‘But I’d seen her, kissing and cuddling in corners with Master Tom and young Jocelyn. Mind, I never caught her with the Master. I don’t know when that went on.’

‘No,’ I agreed. ‘Nor does anyone else. They were obviously very discreet.’ She made no reply, so I continued, ‘You must have been present when Master Tom returned. You witnessed the terrible row between him and his father.’

‘I saw and heard it all, yes.’ She giggled nervously. ‘I thought someone was going to get killed. I thought Master Tom was going to murder one or the other of ’em. And Mistress Petronelle was screaming so loud I thought she’d have a fit. “Go home!” she kept yelling at Eris, and calling her a slut and a whore and anything else she could think of. It was awful! She frightened me as much as the men did. Then, later on, like the twins were telling you just now, she went for Eris and laid her cheek open with her nails. That’s when I decided I was going to bed. I’d leave the dirty dishes and wash them in the morning.’

‘Do you sleep in the kitchen?’ I asked, knowing this to be the lot of the majority of kitchen maids.

To my surprise, she shook her head.

‘No, in Dame Jacquetta’s bedchamber. I’ve a truckle bed under the window. She doesn’t like sleeping alone because sometimes she gets nightmares. Says she always has, since she was a girl. She likes someone to be there when she wakes up. She’s never married. Never found anyone round here good enough for her, I reckon. Thinks a lot of herself, does Dame Jacquetta.’

Which, of course, was why she could never stomach the idea of being just plain Joan; why she adopted the name of a duchess. And it was also why she would never have been able to tolerate the idea of her brother or nephew marrying Eris Lilywhite.

‘When you went to bed, did you go straight to sleep?’ I asked.

Once again, she shook her head. ‘No. I was too upset. And although I latched the bedchamber door, I could still hear them shouting and shrieking at one another downstairs. The noise was faint, mind you, but I could still hear ’em.’ She swung her feet some more. ‘I saw Eris leave the house,’ she said at last.

‘You saw her leave the house?’ I asked, my pulses beginning to race. ‘How … How did that happen?’

Ruth looked surprised. ‘Dame Jacquetta’s bedchamber window looks out over the front yard. I felt a bit queer, so I opened the shutters to get some air. Not much, mind you. It was blowing and raining too hard to open them very wide. Only a crack. But it was just then that I saw Eris run out. She was struggling to get her cloak on, but the wind almost tore it out of her hands.’

‘You’re sure it was Eris?’

‘Of course I’m sure. I could see her in the light from the open doorway, before someone slammed it shut.’

‘Was there any sign of anyone else?’ I pressed her. ‘Tom Rawbone, for example?’

Ruth shook her head. ‘No. Not that I could tell. But it was raining too hard to see much beyond the front paling. Once Eris was through the gate, I lost sight of her pretty quickly. The storm swallowed her up once she started to run.’

‘But in which direction was she running?’ I gripped one of Ruth’s hands and squeezed it. ‘You must have been able to get some idea. Downhill or up?’

She considered this, wiping her nose absent-mindedly on the back of her free hand.

‘Well?’ I urged. ‘Which was it?’

I was afraid she was going to claim that she couldn’t remember, but after a moment, she announced triumphantly, ‘She went downhill … Yes, I’m almost certain she did, because I thought to myself at the time that she’d taken Dame Petronelle’s advice, after all, and gone home.’