Tabula Rasa

Chapter 34

Enica had abandoned the bonfire and was gazing out over the gate. “I thought I heard horses,” she said. “And then I thought, I’ll ask Branan to climb the tree and look.”

Tilla rested the cup and platter and on the gatepost. They watched in silence as a blackbird flew down onto the track and glanced round before stabbing at something in the mud. It flew up again at the sound of Enica saying, “That is a great deal of food.”

For the first time Tilla looked at what she had piled onto the platter. Bread and cheese and ham and bean pottage and two chicken wings. Enough for four people. “I wasn’t thinking.” Back in the house, they would be saying she was greedy. She offered the platter to Enica. The hands that tore at the bread were rough and ingrained with dirt. Senecio was no fool, for all his singing to trees: He had married a hard worker. And perhaps he knew those other women well enough to know that Enica would need Tilla for support. It was good to think that someone, at least, had faith in her.

Enica led her toward the old bench outside the house, the place where, in better weather, women might sit chatting in the sunshine, spinning fleece or preparing supper while they kept an eye on their children playing in the yard. The hens began to strut around them, stabbing at invisible food between the cobbles and watching for tidbits.

Tilla balanced the cup on the bench and placed the food between them to share. “I have been thinking,” she said. “I do not know what the soldiers are doing beyond searching the forts and questioning their own men. But I am wondering if there is another way to search that nobody has tried.”

Enica put down the slice of ham she was about to place in her mouth.

Tilla hoped she was not about to give her a new threat to worry about. “If the story about the body in the wall is true,” she said, wondering how much of this Enica had worked out for herself, “then-”

“Then your husband should look there for his missing soldier.”

It was a good point, but not one Tilla wanted to discuss. “If it is true,” she continued, “then there is somebody who did it, and that person wants his name kept secret. If he heard that Branan had seen him, perhaps he took Branan to make sure he was not betrayed.” She moved swiftly on to the next part, not dwelling on the thought of Branan in the hands of someone who disposed of bodies in secret places. “But when he finds out he has the wrong boy, and that Branan knows nothing, perhaps he will go looking for the person who really did see him.”

“What will he do to Branan?”

“If we can find the witness who really did see what happened at the wall,” said Tilla, not answering the question, “then perhaps that person will lead us to the man we should look for.”

Enica looked up. “Or woman.”

“It could be,” Tilla agreed, “but there is a man involved somewhere. Your neighbor’s boy saw him take Branan.”

“How can we find this person? You may as well dig for the roots of a mountain as try to find the source of a rumor. Everyone will say it is the friend of a friend. Or a traveling tinker, or a stranger in an inn whose name they never knew.”

“But whoever it is knows the name of your son,” put in Tilla, hoping that Branan’s name was not a piece of decoration that some gossip had added further down the chain. “We must think about who might want to place him in such a rumor.”

Enica picked up the ham again. “Somebody who saw a body being laid where it could not rest.”

Tilla said, “Somebody who wanted to tell but did not want to be punished for the telling.”

“Somebody who can watch the wall when most of the soldiers are not around.”

“Yes!” Tilla agreed. “Nobody could bury a body while the soldiers are working up there.”

“Somebody who does not think kindly of my family.”

“Or was just choosing a person to blame,” said Tilla. “How many people know your son?”

Enica looked at her as if the question did not make sense. “Everyone,” she said. “All the neighbors. People at market. The shopkeepers outside the fort where he makes deliveries.”

“The soldiers?”

She nodded. “They come here to buy cheese and milk and sheepskins. Then they come here as guards with the tax collectors. Then your husband’s men, searching for the missing soldier.”

Before Tilla could answer, Enica continued, “Conn thinks the soldiers made up the story and lied about Branan starting it to cause trouble for us. But I have been thinking: Why do that?”

“It does not seem likely,” Tilla agreed, glad the women from the house were not here; no doubt they would say that if something bad could be done, the soldiers would do it. “So it is most likely one of our own people who started the rumor. We have a place to start.”

“Maybe a hundred places,” said Enica, ripping the ham into shreds. “Maybe five hundred.”

Put that way, it did not sound so good.

Enica flung the scraps of meat out into the yard and there was a flurry of eager wings and beaks. “I cannot understand why someone would want to blame a child.”

“Perhaps they thought a child would come to no harm,” Tilla suggested. “Or would never find out.”

“Perhaps they chose a name and it happened to be my son’s.”

Tilla looked up. “Or perhaps because this rumor maker is a child too.”

“A child? Another child is behind all this?” Enica sounded horrified. “A child we know?”

“It is just an idea.”

“We must get there first,” Enica said, getting to her feet, “before whoever who made the burial finds this child for himself. I will talk to the neighbors.”

It might not last long, but Tilla was glad to see Enica’s renewed energy as she hurried across the yard.