Nine Men Dancing

Four

Maud was on her feet immediately, shaking with anger or maybe fright, perhaps both. I couldn’t decide. But in the end, anger got the upper hand.

‘You’re a fool, mother-in-law, to say such a thing about your own granddaughter, and in front of a stranger, too! You could do untold harm. Not just to Eris but to us.’

Theresa had already realized the error of her ways and was looking at me, pleadingly.

‘I didn’t mean it, chapman. It was thoughtless of me. We all say stupid things when we lose our tempers.’

‘No one will hear it repeated by me,’ I promised and attempted a feeble joke. ‘Of course, I can’t answer for Hercules.’

They both smiled wanly, but were in some measure reassured.

‘I knew you were a trustworthy young fellow the moment I saw you,’ Theresa told me.

I laughed. ‘Not so young any more. Last October, I was twenty-six. I’ve been married twice and have three children, two of my own and a stepson. So … Tell me about the night Eris disappeared. I’ve gathered it was stormy.’

Theresa glanced across at her daughter-in-law. ‘You’ll have to tell him. I wasn’t here. Perhaps if I had been, things might have turned out differently. But I’d gone home to Gloucester the week before in answer to a summons from my sister, who was sick. When I returned here a month later, it was to find that Eris had vanished and the whole village was buzzing with gossip about her and the Rawbones.’ She glared at Maud. ‘No one had seen fit to send to Gloucester and advise me what had happened.’

Maud Lilywhite sighed wearily, as one who had grown accustomed to the accusation.

‘I’ve told you this many times, Theresa, but I’ll say it again. There seemed no point in worrying you. All that could be done to find Eris had been done. Ned Rawbone and other men from the village had spent days searching the woods and surrounding countryside. Some of them had been to Tetbury and Cirencester and as far afield as Dursley. Ned Rawbone had even climbed down the Brothers’ Well – that’s what we call it in these parts, Master Chapman – but found nothing. There was no trace of Eris, either alive … or dead.’ On the last word, her breath caught in her throat but she forced herself to remain calm.

I repeated my earlier question. ‘What happened on the night your daughter vanished, Mistress Lilywhite?’

She seemed reluctant to answer, but with some prompting from myself and a scolding from Theresa, she eventually told me what I wanted to know.

‘I wasn’t present, of course, either at the Roman Sandal or at Dragonswick Farm on the evening of September the first, which was Nathaniel Rawbone’s fifty-ninth birthday.’

I interrupted. ‘The Rawbones seem a large family. Seven in number, I think you said. Will you name them for me?’

‘Oh, I’ll do that,’ Theresa said, glad of an excuse to put herself forward again. ‘Nathaniel, he’s the head of the household. Fifty-nine now, as Maud just informed you, and a widower these many years, ever since Tom was born – or so I’ve been told – when Nathaniel and his wife were both well past thirty. The older son, Edward, must have been about fifteen at the time. Over forty, now, and the old man’s right hand. Runs everything at Dragonswick Farm, does Ned Rawbone. His father’d be lost without him. Not that Nathaniel would ever admit as much. Ned and his wife, Petronelle, their twin sons Christopher and Jocelyn – fourteen, fifteen, are they? – Tom, of course, who isn’t married, and Jacquetta Rawbone, Nathaniel’s elder spinster sister, all live under the one roof. There’s also Elvina Merryman – Dame Elvina, as she likes to be called – their housekeeper.’ Theresa gave a dry laugh. ‘Housekeeper, my foot! She’s been the old man’s mistress these many years, as everyone in Lower Brockhurst will tell you. So you needn’t scowl at me like that, Maud.’

I thanked the older woman for her contribution – like many outsiders she was more willing to talk about her adopted community than were the locals – and turned back to the younger.

‘So on the first of September, Nathaniel Rawbone’s birthday, I suppose everyone would have been present at the farm for such an important occasion. And your daughter was helping out because the housekeeper, Dame Merryman, had been ill?’

‘Oh, that was a year ago,’ Maud corrected me. ‘By the time of Nathaniel’s birthday, Elvina was perfectly recovered. It was the old man who was sick by then. Not seriously, but he’d had one of those rheums that always seem worse in summer, with a persistent cough that took him a while to shake off. I went up to see him during the day to pay my respects, and I remember he was sitting huddled over the fire, one of his sister’s old shawls wrapped round his shoulders. He was angry because he hates illness, in himself and everyone else. He’s always been such a virile, forceful man.’

‘A bully!’ Theresa cut in. ‘But a handsome one. Always been a devil with the women, I understand.’ She added with a half-smile, ‘He frightens a lot of people, but he’s all right if you know how to handle him.’

The inference was obvious, but I didn’t pursue it. Instead, I enquired of Maud, ‘The birthday celebration hadn’t been cancelled, then?’

‘Certainly not, but it had been confined to members of the household: the family, Dame Elvina and … Eris.’ Maud took a deep breath. ‘You must realize, chapman, that what I’m telling you now is, of course, only hearsay on my part. I stayed at home that evening because of the weather. The wind had been rising all afternoon, blowing up for an autumn gale, the clouds marching in across the hills and heavy rain threatening. Mid-evening, just as dusk fell, the heavens opened. I’d brought the dogs inside, as much for company as anything. But if I’d gone to the alehouse, as I’d intended to do earlier in the day, I’d have witnessed the terrible scene when Tom Rawbone announced that he was breaking off his betrothal to Rosamund Bush in order to marry my daughter.’ Maud’s hand stole up to her mouth. ‘It seems he just came out with it, in front of everyone. It was such a humiliation for the poor girl, it’s no wonder she became hysterical and attacked him with a knife.’

‘I thought Rob Pomphrey said that that was William,’ Theresa objected. ‘Or was it Winifred Bush? She’s every bit as volatile as Rosamund.’

Maud made a little dismissive movement with her hands, as though brushing away some irritation.

‘Well, whoever attacked Tom Rawbone, there was a terrible to-do, but for the truth of the matter, you’d have to ask the people who were present.’

‘Go on,’ I urged her.

‘Well … Tom stormed out of the alehouse and went home, where everyone was waiting for him. Nathaniel was none too pleased, according to Elvina, at having been kept waiting, and was just about to go for his son, tooth and nail, when Tom cut him short by announcing that he had something to say, and proceeded to tell them all that he was no longer betrothed to Rosamund Bush, but was going to marry Eris instead.’

‘And?’ I asked eagerly as Maud Lilywhite paused, suddenly disinclined to go on.

‘And then,’ Theresa put in, as her daughter-in-law still remained dumb, ‘Elvina tells us that the old man laughed. Nothing of the kind, he says; he’s going to marry Eris, who’s promised to be his wife only that very day. Well!’ Theresa spread her hands wide in a gesture that was half despair and half something that might have been admiration. ‘You can imagine the consequent uproar. No one approved of the match, but Tom Rawbone was beside himself with rage. It was the biter bit with a vengeance. Of course, at first, he refused to believe it. Thought it was a bad joke of the old man’s. But when Eris confirmed that she was indeed going to marry Nathaniel, it seems Tom went wild. Tried to choke the life out of his father, and after Ned had dragged him off, he turned on Eris and attempted to throttle her instead. Everyone was shouting and yelling at once. Then, Tom flung out of the house, cursing Nathaniel and my granddaughter in equal measure, Ned went out after his brother, but couldn’t find him and came back. Petronelle and Jacquetta rounded on Eris, calling her all the names they could lay their tongues to, while the old man swore at everybody and told them that if they didn’t approve of his choice of bride, they could all leave his house on the instant.’

Theresa paused to draw breath, and Maud took her chance to say repressively, ‘I’ve no doubt that Elvina Merryman did her share of abusing Eris, as well as the other two women. I’m sure she always hoped that Nathaniel, if he ever wed again, would marry her. She’s never scrupled to belittle Eris to my face, whenever we’ve met during the past six months.’ She buried her face in her hands and began to sob, rocking herself to and fro.

‘Pull yourself together, Maud,’ her mother-in-law advised sternly. ‘There’s nothing to be gained by making a spectacle of yourself in front of a stranger. Crying won’t bring Eris back or help us to find her.’ She looked at me. ‘Would you be willing, chapman, to see what you can do in this matter?’

I hesitated. I had promised Adela to be home before the Feast of Saint Patrick, but February was not yet out. A day or two’s delay would surely do no harm. I could make a few enquiries.

‘Master Chapman has better things to do with his time, Theresa,’ Maud said, raising her tear-stained face and wiping her nose on the sleeve of her gown. She gave me a tremulous smile. ‘We’ve no wish to detain you.’

‘Well, if you don’t want to know what’s become of Eris, then I do,’ the older woman retorted fiercely. ‘Chapman, what do you say? Will you see what you can make of this business?’

‘If it doesn’t take too long,’ I agreed cautiously. ‘I must be in Bristol by the middle of March … You haven’t yet told me how it was that your granddaughter disappeared. What did she do when the Rawbones turned on her?’

‘It seems she said she was going home and ran out into the storm. Nathaniel was going after her, but Ned told him not to be a fool; he’d go. It was half an hour or more before he reappeared, soaked to the skin, to say he hadn’t found her.’

‘Did he call here?’

Maud nodded. ‘Yes. He warned me what had happened. I was shocked, as you can imagine. I had no idea of what must have been going on, right under my nose, for the past weeks, or perhaps months, between Eris and Tom Rawbone – let alone her and Nathaniel. He stayed with me a while, but … but Eris hadn’t returned by the time he left.’

‘You must have been worried.’

‘Yes. But we both thought she’d turn up eventually. You know how it is when you’re young and distressed. You don’t notice things like bad weather.’

Theresa snorted. ‘That wasn’t bad weather,’ she scoffed. ‘That was one of the worst storms of the autumn. In Gloucester, it took the thatch off several houses and blew over George Thomas’s hen coops.’

I leaned forward, my hands dangling between my knees. Hercules got up and licked them, just to reassure himself that I was still there, then settled down again with a sigh of contentment.

‘But Eris didn’t come home?’ I asked softly.

Once more, Maud covered her face with her hands. But her mother-in-law, who plainly had no patience with such displays of emotion, said sharply, ‘No, she didn’t. And she hasn’t been seen since. She might have run away, but I don’t think that’s likely. Eris was a strong-minded girl. If she’d made up her mind to become mistress of Dragonswick Farm, that’s what she’d have done. She may have been a bit upset at the time, but she’d have gone back next day and faced down the lot of them, especially with Nathaniel to back her.’

‘You believe she was murdered?’

‘Of course I do! Tom Rawbone had already tried to strangle her once that evening. And he was out there somewhere, in the dark. He probably saw her leave the house. He was probably lying in wait for her.’

‘Mother-in-law! You must not say such things!’ Maud cried despairingly. ‘There’s no proof against Tom! If he killed her, what did he do with the body? Why has no one been able to find it? Where has he hidden it?’

‘I don’t know,’ Theresa said shortly, then added defiantly, ‘But I’m convinced he murdered her, all the same.’

I asked Maud, ‘When Eris didn’t come home, what did you do?’

She shivered. ‘Around midnight, when the storm had eased a little, I went up to Dragonswick Farm and roused the household. Ned … Ned dressed and came out with me. He made another search, around the pastures and up into the woods, but there was still no sign of her. He said he’d have another look as soon as it was daylight, which he did, although the weather had worsened again by then. He opened up Brothers’ Well and climbed down the ladder, right to the bottom, but it was empty, except for a foot or two of water. A couple of other men from the village were with him. They didn’t do more than peer in, but they confirmed that Ned was telling the truth; that there was nothing there. So, if Eris was murdered …’ Maud broke off, shrugging.

‘Her body wasn’t concealed in the well,’ I finished for her.

‘More’s the pity,’ remarked Theresa, getting up and starting to damp down the fire before we went to bed for the night. ‘If it had been, we could have been sure that Eris was dead. There was no way she could have fallen in accidentally, because of that great lid … So, Master Chapman, I ask you once more, will you help us find out what really happened to my granddaughter?’

‘I’ll do my best,’ I agreed. ‘But I can’t promise anything, and my time, as I told you, is limited.’

Theresa seemed content with that, but I suspected Maud would prefer me to leave matters as they stood. I didn’t blame her. She had no doubt come to terms with her daughter’s disappearance and would rather not know the truth. While this remained hidden, she could persuade herself that Eris was still alive somewhere, perhaps even happy and contented. It was better to travel hopefully than to arrive.

But she didn’t know me, nor that terrible curiosity the good God had given me in order to use me as His instrument in bringing felons to justice. I used to resent deeply the Almighty’s deplorable habit of pushing me in the way of unresolved crimes and mysteries, but I had learned, gradually, the futility of either arguing with, or trying to ignore, Him. He always won, so nowadays I just got on with it. Of course, He had me by the short hairs, anyway, because He knew I enjoyed solving puzzles.

The two women dragged a narrow pallet bed from behind the linen curtain and positioned it close to the dying fire. Maud fetched a pillow and blankets from a wooden chest and piled them on the mattress, took me outside to show me the privy and the pump in the courtyard, then vanished with her mother-in-law into the farther recesses of the room.

Their preparations for the night were made in almost complete silence, with only an odd murmur here and there, and I wondered if they were always as quiet when they were on their own. I suspected that they were. The antagonism between the two couldn’t be mistaken.

I went to bed in both shirt and breeches, in case of any unforeseen accident during the hours of darkness that might throw me into my hostesses’ company (as Adela said, there was no point in making a laughing-stock of myself unnecessarily). But I lay awake for a while, listening to Hercules snuffling and snoring, and watching the shadows, made by the last flare-up of the fire, tremble and curtsey across the walls. My mind was full of all that I’d been told that evening, but, for the moment, the facts were like bits of flotsam bobbing around on the incoming tide of sleep. Suddenly, however, I found myself sitting bolt upright, asking myself a question that seemed, on the face of it, utterly absurd, but which had popped into my head as sharp and as clear as the chime of a bell.

What did the disappearance, last September, of Eris Lilywhite have to do with the murder of two men over a hundred and thirty years ago?

The answer, of course, in the sane light of morning, was nothing. How could it? The idea was preposterous. And yet, the question continued to vex me.

I was awakened by Maud Lilywhite, in a chaste house-robe of the same unbleached linen as the curtain, shaking my shoulder and telling me that there was hot water in the pot over the newly made-up fire if I wished to shave. I thanked her, and she then retired to dress, reappearing once more by the time I had visited the privy and held my head under the pump. The jet of water was icy but not freezing, waking me up sufficiently to chase Hercules indoors before he could wander off to inspect the geese and trade a few insults with them. Theresa had also emerged from behind the curtain and was busy coiling two long, grey plaits of hair around her head, preparatory to putting on her cap.

‘Did you sleep well, chapman?’ she asked.

‘I did, thank you. I hope I didn’t snore too loudly and disturb your rest.’

‘I snore myself. Or so Maud complains. I hope you’ll be coming to church with us this morning.’ She saw my look of enquiry and smiled. ‘It’s the twenty-fifth of February. Saint Walburga’s Day. Saint Walburga is the patron saint of our church in Lower Brockhurst.’

Of course! I recollected that Rosamund Bush had mentioned the fact the previous evening, but I hadn’t taken much notice at the time. Saint Walburga, like Saint Dunstan and Saint Alphege (or Aelfeah to give him his proper name), had been a West Saxon, Wessex born and bred. The daughter of an Ealdorman of Devon, she had been educated at a nunnery in Dorset, and had eventually embraced the religious life herself. Later, she and her brother, Winebald, had answered Saint Boniface’s call to go to Germany and convert its heathen tribes. She was so successful, and became so beloved, that when she died, on the twenty-fifth of February in the year of Our Lord 779, her fame had spread throughout the whole of Europe. But there was a curious postscript to the story of Saint Walburga. On the first day of May following her death, it was decided to transfer her body to a more prominent tomb at Eichstatt, but the eve of May Day was a great pagan feast, when witches and wizards were said to ride the skies on their broomsticks and hold their revels. By some odd twist of fate, Walburga became associated with this pagan feast, which is still known by a corruption of her name, Walpurgis Night.

I thought of the corn dolly and the bunch of mistletoe laid at the foot of the oak in the woods above, and again experienced a little shiver of unease, as though someone had walked over my grave. I told myself not to be so foolish: as long as I had God’s protection, the forces of darkness could not hurt me.

After a breakfast of oatmeal and fried bacon collops, and after the dogs and geese had been fed, I walked with the two women down across the gently sloping pasture to the village, leaving Hercules to guard my pack and enjoy yet another snooze, curled up beside the Lilywhites’ fire. The weather had improved somewhat from the stormy conditions of the previous night. Through a watery break in the clouds could be glimpsed a shaft of iridescent light and the broken stump of a rainbow that seamen call a wind-dog. But rain still hung in the air. The outlines of the hills on the opposite side of the valley were smudged and misty, as though they had been flattened by a giant hand. A flight of crows circled above the distant trees, cawing and beating the air with black, sweeping strokes of their wings, and to our left, the Draco glistened with a faint silver radiance as it purled its way down from the ridge above.

As we crossed the footbridge over the nameless stream and cleared the surrounding belt of trees, I could see that Lower Brockhurst was a slightly larger hamlet than I had at first imagined in the fading daylight of yesterday evening. There were ten cottages, not half a dozen, and besides the church, the mill and the alehouse, there was also a forge, albeit a modest one.

Together with Maud and Theresa Lilywhite, I joined the flow of people entering the little thatched church, where the priest – Anselm I remembered Rosamund had called him – was waiting to greet his flock in a rusty black gown that had seen better days. The interior was gloomy and musty smelling: there were a couple of side altars, one supporting an image of the Virgin, but the other I was unable to see very clearly. Saint Walburga must usually have graced the central altar, but she had been removed ready to be carried in procession around the church. Lamps and candles burned in various wall niches, and in spite of its small size, there was a general atmosphere of peace and prosperity that characterized most of the Cotswold churches I had visited during the past few weeks.

Someone pushed past me wearing an amber-coloured cloak and hood, her nose held high in the air. Rosamund Bush was pointedly ignoring me as she swept forward to stand at the front of the congregation, in what I assumed was her accustomed place, closely followed by her parents. William gave me an apologetic smile as he went by, obviously embarrassed by his daughter’s behaviour. He paused to whisper, ‘Take no notice of her, Master Chapman. She’s annoyed that you’ve chosen to stay with the Lilywhites. She’ll get over it, never fear.’

I liked him, so I forbore to say that his daughter’s airs and graces made no difference to me. I was not in the market for female approval: I was a happily married man. I smiled to myself as I noticed Lambert Miller edging his way forward through the crowd – for three dozen people were a crowd in that tiny church – to stand beside Rosamund.

There was a stir behind me and a murmuring amongst the congregation as though somebody important had come in. Turning my head, I saw that it was not one person, but seven or eight, and realized without Theresa Lilywhite hissing the name in my ear that this must be the Rawbone family. The rest of the people parted like the Red Sea before Moses to allow them to take their place at the front.

The leader had to be Nathaniel, tall, well set-up and with a spring in his step that might have belonged to a much younger man. But the abundant reddish-brown hair was iron grey at the temples and threaded with silver all over the leonine head that sat so proudly on his broad, sturdy shoulders. The handsome, weather-beaten face was seamed with the deeply carved lines of fifty-nine winters and summers, and his intensely blue eyes looked out on the rest of mankind with a certain contempt. This was a proud man, a confident man, a man who needed no convincing of his merit and worth. In this particular little pond, he was, in his own estimation, a very big fish. How others viewed him, remained to be seen.

Immediately behind him walked a man who could only be his son. Slightly shorter and stockier, Ned Rawbone nevertheless had the same shock of reddish-brown hair, the same very blue eyes, the same handsome, weathered face as his father. He did not display quite the same ease and self-confidence, but that was only natural in someone who must always have been overshadowed by his father.

Clinging to her husband’s arm was Petronelle Rawbone, a thin, nervous woman, who was probably younger than Ned, but could have been older. Sharp-featured, with a sallow complexion and eyes of a nondescript colour that might have been grey or a very pale shade of blue, I doubted that she had ever been more than passably good-looking, and guessed that her marriage with the heir of Dragonswick Farm had been for commercial, rather than romantic, reasons. Her twin sons, however, had inherited the Rawbone looks and colouring. I discovered later that they had just passed their fourteenth birthday and were as arrogant as their grandfather, encouraged by a mother who thought them as perfect as they thought themselves.

The second and much younger of Nathaniel’s two sons, Tom, I had already encountered. Suffice it to say that he was a Rawbone to his fingertips, although his hair was a little less red and his eyes fractionally less blue than his sibling. But he was handsomer than both his brother and father. I could see why Rosamund Bush had set her cap at him.

Bringing up this little procession, but only because she walked slowly and used a stick, was Jacquetta Rawbone, Nathaniel’s elder sister. Her expression was every bit as proud as her brother’s, and she stared haughtily down the long, straight nose that was such a prominent feature of all her family. With her upright carriage, she followed the others to the front of the church and imperiously waved away the stool that the priest had hurried to offer her.

‘I’ll stand, man, like everyone else.’

Father Anselm beamed around at his flock. Now that the Rawbones were present, the service could begin.