The Plymouth Cloak

CHAPTER 16

Edgar Warden stared at me, dumbfounded, the wound in his thumb for the moment forgotten. He also blenched, his weather-beaten skin turning a shade paler than when he had first entered the room.

'Eh?' he spluttered. 'What do you mean? Thinks I may be the murderer? What are you talking about, woman?' Isobel smiled maliciously. 'He thinks you found me last night with Master Underdown and killed him in a fit of jealous rage. When you know,' she added virtuously, 'that I was by your side all through the hours of darkness, as a good wife should be. You woke at least three times and I was always there.'

Edgar's eyes became two slits in a face as suddenly red as it had previously been white. He raised two clenched fists the size of small hams and advanced on me threateningly, kicking the door shut behind him.

'He thinks that, does he?' He thrust his congested features close to mine. 'I don't mind you calling me a murderer,' he said, 'because if any man fooled with my wife I would kill him. But I won't have you or anybody else casting doubts on her virtue, and for that, you're going to get the thrashing of your life.'

Now, if there was one thing I learned in the art of self-preservation during my years on the road, it was to react swiftly to any threat of violence. If a man said he was going to punch me, I wasted no time wondering if he meant it, but took him at his word and got my blow in first, as I did then.

The words were barely out of Edgar's mouth before my right fist caught him squarely on the jaw, making him lose his balance and stumble back against the foot of the bed, and while he was still dazed, I made a craven bid for the door. He was too quick for me, however, catching me round the ankles and bringing me crashing to the floor. Now it was my turn to try to gather my shaken wits, by which time he had lost control of himself and locked his hands around my throat.

Although I tried to tear them loose, his grip was too strong and the blood was thundering in my ears.

Isobel screamed, genuinely frightened by the fury she had unleashed, and joined her efforts with mine to get her husband off me. In the end, between us, we succeeded and I staggered to my feet while Isobel tried to calm Edgar, but was pushed roughly away for her trouble. He launched himself at me again, but I managed to step aside so that his fist crashed into the wall behind me. But he was beyond feeling hurt, and I doubt if he was even conscious of the pain until much later.

With a snarl of rage he drew back his arm for another attempt, but once more I anticipated his onslaught and sent him sprawling to the floor. And on this occasion I was through the door and heading for the courtyard before he had picked himself up.

'What's happened? What's been going on?' It was Janet Overy's voice, sharp with disapproval, as she approached the servant's quarters from the direction of the great hall.

I must have looked the worse for wear, with my hair and clothes awry and my hands tenderly feeling my neck where Edgar had bruised it. And Edgar himself, erupting furiously through the door behind me, showed a rapidly swelling jaw, while several dark red welts disfigured his face. When he saw Janet, however, he reluctantly lowered his hands, but continued to watch me with a malevolence that was in itself like a physical attack.

'It was my fault,' I said. 'I was making some inquiries of Mistress Warden and Edgar mistook my purpose. He thought I was accusing him of murder.'

'And my wife of adultery!' he spat.

'It was a mistake,' I said lamely. 'I just want to find out who killed Master Underdown, that's all.'

'I warned that you would do nothing but harm,' the housekeeper reproached me. 'Such questions are for the Sheriff's officer if he thinks it needful to ask them. Edgar!' She looked sternly at the bailiff. 'Go and get Isobel to patch up your wounds, then return to your duties.' She beckoned me. 'As for you, follow me and I'll find you some salve for that throat which seems to be giving you so much trouble. Let there be no more of this nonsense!'

Muttering under his breath in a manner that boded me ill, Edgar retraced his steps to his room and his wife's ministrations. Recollecting his pierced thumb, he stuck it in his mouth to suck it, then bit it at me in the time-honoured gesture of contempt and defiance. I pretended not to see and accompanied Janet back to her room where she kept her salves and unguents.

She reached up to a shelf and brought down a small earthenware pot from which she carefully removed the lid.

'Linseed oil and honey,' she said, scooping out a spoonful and holding it over her brazier. 'Applied warm, it will prevent injuries from swelling. Open the neck of your shirt so I can get at you. Those are some nasty bruises you have there.'

'My own fault, you think,' I suggested sheepishly, doing as she asked.

She spread a little of the ointment on her fingers and began gently to rub my throat. 'Yes,' she answered frankly, 'but I suppose you felt you had to do it. So, what did you learn from the fair Isobel and her husband?' I winced as she pressed a particularly tender spot, and was glad when she stood back, surveying her handiwork. 'That will do for now.

You may find difficulty in swallowing for a while, but I doubt Edgar's done you any lasting harm.' She reached up once more to the shelf and brought down a small glass bottle from which she tipped a single pill. 'Here. These tablets are made from dried lettuce juice. Taken in quantity, they can put you to sleep, but one will relax you and ease the pain. So,' she went on, replacing her medicines in their accustomed place, 'you haven't yet answered my question.' I laced up the neck of my shirt again and swallowed the pill as I had been bidden. After a moment's consideration, I said: 'I think we may have been wrong in assuming it was to meet Isobel that Master Underdown left the house last night. Either she has greater powers of deception than I would credit her with possessing, or I am more gullible than I think I am. But either way, I now believe her innocent, and therefore her husband also. Nevertheless,' I added defiantly, 'there is still Silas Bywater.'

Janet heaved a resigned sigh. 'I suppose I can't stop you making trouble there either, even though you have the answer to the riddle under your nose.' She laid an affectionate hand on my shoulder. 'But tread warily with that one, lad. I've grown fond of you in the short time I've known you. My son should have looked like you, tall and fair and straight, with the same powerful muscles. I wouldn't want any harm to befall you, and I think Silas Bywater an unscrupulous man. So take care. But I'd much rather you believed in your own powers of discernment and accepted that this Jeremiah Fletcher is the killer, and for the very reasons you were set to guard Philip Underdown.'

I raised my hand and laid it over hers. 'I know what you say makes sense, but… ' I broke off with a lift of my shoulders.

She withdrew her hand with a sorrowful look. 'You must do as you see fit and I can only urge you to think twice about it. But if you need a friend, you know where to find me, either here or in the kitchen or about the house somewhere. Which reminds me,' she added in sudden consternation, 'the hours are slipping by and it will soon be four o'clock and time for supper. Heaven alone knows what those good-for-nothing girls are doing in my absence.' She smoothed down her apron and straightened her hood. 'You will find, I hope, that your room has been set to rights, so if you wish to rest for a while, you may.'

Once more I followed her from her room just as Edgar Warden emerged from his. I noted that his thumb was bound and that salve adorned the weals on his face. He gave me an evil look, but had evidently promised Isobel that he would make no more trouble because, with a curt nod to Janet Overy, he pushed past us and went on his way across the courtyard, and was lost to view beneath the archway. The housekeeper hurried in the direction of the kitchen, her step quickened by the sound of chatting and giggling within. I smiled to myself. While the cat had been away, the little mice had played, and I would not have wished myself into the shoes of either of the kitchen-maids. Janet's wrath, I suspected, could be formidable.

I glanced around, but Silas Bywater had disappeared. The groom was talking to the carter who had just arrived with fresh bales of hay for the stables, and these were being unloaded by two men whom I guessed to be the James and Luke referred to yesterday by Mistress Overy; village men who took their meals at home and not with the household servants. Judging by the way they gesticulated and their earnest, excited faces, they and John Groom were regaling the carter with news of the murder. How he was reacting to it was difficult to see, for, like all his kind, he wore a large felt hat with a concealing brim to protect him from the elements.

I gave them all the time of day as I passed beneath the archway.

I followed the path down through the woods to the village. I needed to be on my own; to try to get my teeming thoughts into some sort of order. But the more they chased one another round inside my head, the more I became convinced that Janet was right and that Jeremiah Fletcher was the murderer. He was a Tudor agent, that House being the one faint hope the Lancastrians now had of regaining power, even though it was through a bastard line which had been barred by King Henry IV from ever ascending the throne of England. But although that fact now seemed fairly settled in my mind, I was still left with the mystery of why Philip had escaped from our room last night. Who was it he had gone to meet, if not Isobel Warden? And the more I went over our talk together, the more certain I felt that she had told the truth; that the amazement she had shown at my suggestion of a tryst had been genuine; that her reading of Philip's character was sounder than mine.

I turned aside from the path to the river bank, to the spot where, last night, I had knelt beside Philip's body, and where, this morning, the sawyer had found him. The long grasses were still flattened, although beginning here and there to spring upright, and there were dark patches of blood on the ground. I made a methodical search of the surrounding area and, after some minutes, came to the conclusion that Philip had been struck down where he had fallen. There were no signs that I could see of the body having been dragged to its resting-place and no traces of blood elsewhere to indicate that that was where he had been killed. Furthermore, I suspected that if that had happened, Philip would have been turned on to his back, for it is easier in my experience to drag a man face-up rather than the other way around.

There were indications that the grass had been trampled by more than one person, but some of the damage could be accounted for by my own tracks, and it was difficult to say whether two or three people had been there before me. If Jeremiah Fletcher were the assassin, then someone else must surely have been present as well, for I held by my conviction that Philip would never have been foolish enough to be lured away from the house by any kind of message without first checking to see if it were false. And the only other person beside Isobel Warden whom he might have crept away to meet was Silas Bywater.

I repaired to the inn, partly to ease my aching throat and partly to consider this theory in comfort. As I had guessed, the ale-room was almost empty at that time in the afternoon, when most people were about their business on the manor.

There was only one other man seated on a bench under the window, his thin legs stretched out before him, his head resting against the wall at his back. A mazer of ale, half drunk, stood on the table in front of him, his body was slack, his eyes drowsily closed, although now and then the lids lifted slightly as he cast a glance in my direction. I sat down on the other side of the room and ignored him.

The landlord was nowhere to be seen, but the determined, muscular-looking woman who attended to my needs could only be his wife, and I decided he might have good reason to be wary of her. When she had served me, I too leaned my head back against the wall and closed my eyes, but not to sleep. In my mind's eye I summoned up the image of Silas Bywater and considered him.

If he had indeed sent a message to Philip, when could Philip have received it without my knowledge? The answer was the same as before; yesterday morning after breakfast, when I was out searching for the man Philip was supposed to have seen from the bedchamber window, and when I presumed him to be asleep on his bed. So, having settled that, I came to my second question. Why had Silas summoned him to a secret meeting? Because, as he had hinted to me on more than one occasion, he knew something to Philip's detriment and was intending to threaten him with it in order to get the money he felt was his due. But why had Philip agreed to the assignation? There was, to my mind, and as I had told myself earlier, only one answer. The time, the place, could both have been at Philip's suggestion with one end in view; to rid himself of a man who had suddenly reappeared in his life and who threatened to become an embarrassment. Philip had set out to murder Silas, but had himself been killed instead, either by his intended victim or by Jeremiah Fletcher, who had accidentally discovered them together.

Before I had time to pursue this argument any further, to find out its flaws or lack of them, my thoughts were interrupted by my fellow drinker.

'Here's a to-do then, for the country. Though it's too far away to worry we, I reckon.' I realized he was referring to the Earl of Oxford's invasion and not the event uppermost in my mind, Philip's murder, which suggested that he was a stranger in the village. I nodded, loath to give him more encouragement, but he went on, undeterred: 'The King'll sort it out, no doubt.'

'No doubt,' I said and closed my eyes again, willing him to do the same.

"E's a good King, is Edward. Better for the likes o' we than poor old Henry, and 'e's got 'is brothers t'back 'im up.

Leastways, 'e's got Duke Richard. Don't know as I reckon much to t'other 'un.' Having disposed thus unceremoniously of George of Clarence, he asked: 'You from the village?' Cornered, I opened my eyes and answered grudgingly: 'No. Just passing through. I'm lodging for a day or so at the manor house. I have friends there among the servants.' This was no lie. I could certainly claim Janet Overy as a friend.

The information seemed to intrigue him. 'So you know 'em up there, do you? You'll be missing the fun.' I stared at the man stupidly. 'Fun?' I repeated.

He drank off the rest of his ale, then nodded. 'Aye. I come up from St Germans this morning with a load of hay for Sir Peveril Trenowth's stables. I'm a carter by trade,' he added. 'But a fellow stopped me just short o' the village and offered me this if I'd let 'im take my place for an hour or so.' He plunged his hand into the pouch at his belt and proudly produced a gold farthing, as the quarter noble used to be called in those days. 'Said 'e was a friend of Alwyn the steward and wanted to play a trick on 'im. Said Alwyn'd bet 'im two angels that 'e couldn't get into the house without 'im knowing.' The man put the coin away again and looked at me, a little shamefaced. 'Not sure I altogether believed 'im, but I don't get the chance o' many gold coins in my job, an' besides, 'e was well-spoken and well-dressed.' It was clear that the carter had allowed his greed to override his better judgement. 'A gentleman, you might say, so quite likely 'is story was true after all. 'E's quite likely to be a friend of this Alwyn. 'E borrowed my hat, as well, so's 'e could hide 'is face. "You'll want to take off that tunic, too," I tells 'ira. "No one'll think you're a carter dressed like that." So 'e did, but I don't think 'e quite trusted me. Took it with 'im, under the bales of fodder.'

I lumbered to my feet, almost overtuming the table in my hurry. 'A thin-faced man?' I asked. 'Narrow features?' "Es. You could say that. A bit weasely maybe, now you come to mention it. But a gentleman, for all that,' he insisted defiantly.

'That doesn't make him any less a rogue,' I snapped, yelling for the landlord's wife so that I could pay my shot.

'You fool! Do you think there aren't evil men among our betters, just as there are among the lower orders?' The carter had grown pale and his hand shook as he put his mazer down on the table. 'You know this man?' he asked apprehensively.

I nodded, turning to pay the goodwife of the inn, who had arrived breathing fire and slaughter at the imperiousness of my summons. I gave her over the odds to placate her. As I made for the door, I paused to lay my hand reassuringly on the carter's arm.

'Don't worry. You may have done me a service if I can catch this man. I know what he has come for and most probably where to find him. Where did you arrange to meet him to reclaim your wagon? No matter! You had better follow me to the house when you are ready.'

And I was through the ale-room door and running up the path before, now thoroughly alarmed, he could question me further.