Face Down under the Wych Elm (13 page)

"Did he know Lucy Milborne before she was a nun?” Jennet asked.

"Might have,” the dairy maid told her. “They did quarrel like two old friends."

"How did he get along with the rest of his neighbors?"

"None had aught to complain of."

"I heard talk of marriage,” the cook put in. “Between Mistress Damascin and Hugo Garrard. ‘Till Master Edgecumbe changed his mind."

"Or Mistress Damascin did. She could do better, pretty as she is.” This from a plain-faced maidservant.

"And vain about it, too.” The dairy maid, whose complexion was appropriately milk white, seemed to think herself passing attractive.

"She's generous with what she has, is Mistress Damascin."

"When did she ever share anything that was hers?"

"Margery gets all her cast-off clothes, and some of them are scarce worn.” Envy laced the words.

"Who is Margery?” Jennet asked the maidservant.

"Mistress Damascin's tiring maid. She got to go to Maidstone, too."

Jennet resolved to make the acquaintance of this Margery.

"I would hear, in your own words, what befell your master,” Susanna said to the stableboy. He was a thin lad, still growing, and he had yet to develop much in the way of muscles. A few preliminary questions had established that he'd been employed at Edgecumbe Manor for only a few months.

"I know nothing, madam. I had naught to do with it."

"You found him, here in the stable, or so I am told."

A reluctant nod answered her.

"Was he already unconscious?"

That question earned her a negative shake of the head.

Gentling her voice, Susanna urged young Edmund to describe the symptoms he had observed. She was not surprised by what he revealed. Clement Edgecumbe had been wild-eyed, incapable of speech. As the servant had watched in horror, the master had fallen and been unable to rise. At that point, Edmund had at last run for help. By the time he'd returned, accompanied by Mildred and several other people, Edgecumbe had been deeply unconscious. He had never afterward regained his senses.

All this could have been caused by ingesting banewort.

"Did Master Edgecumbe arrive at this stable after you were already here? Or was he here before you entered?"

"He was here when I comed in to feed the beasts."

"Do you have any idea where he had been?” At his blank look, she clarified her question. “Was he dressed for indoors or out? For riding, mayhap?"

But the boy was no help to her. If he'd noticed, he could no longer remember. “He was a good master,” he mumbled. “The old master was a good man."

"And your mistress? Is she a good woman?"

Edmund would speak no ill of Mildred Edgecumbe and had only praise for Damascin. “She said I deserved a reward for trying to help her father. A week agone, she gave me an entire new suit of clothes and took away the old one I growed out of."

Susanna suspected the garments would be counted as part of the boy's yearly wages, but chose not to disillusion him. It was plain he adored pretty Mistress Damascin. Likely all the menservants here felt much the same.

When Susanna determined that she could learn nothing more from young Edmund, she thanked him with a new-minted penny and left the stable. Soon after, she departed Edgecumbe Manor.

Once Susanna, Jennet, and Fulke were on their way again, she asked Jennet for an account of everything she'd learned. The telling took some time.

"Hugo was courting Damascin?” Susanna exclaimed in surprise. No one at Mill Hall had so much as hinted that such a match might be in the offing. “I wonder if that is why Kennison was on his way to Edgecumbe Manor that morning."

"If Mistress Damascin became Mistress Garrard, that might have left Mistress Crane without a home.” Jennet advanced her latest theory with as much eagerness as she'd suggested earlier ones. “A younger woman might resent having an elder about and send her packing."

"But why would that be cause for Constance to kill Clement Edgecumbe, especially if Clement did not plan to give his approval to the marriage?"

Jennet's reasoning did not account for Marsh's death, either.

Had Clement stood in the way of the wedding? Susanna was not convinced of it. It seemed more logical that Damascin would have objected to the match. Such a pretty young woman might be expected to set her cap higher, angling for a knight, perhaps. And yet, in all practical ways, the union would be an excellent one. Both parties were gently born. Hugo was six or seven years Damascin's senior. More importantly, the marriage would combine Mill Hall and Edgecumbe Manor lands into one large and prosperous estate. Any father ought to be pleased by such an arrangement.

But what if Clement Edgecumbe
had
changed his mind? Susanna considered this possibility and its ramifications as they continued on toward Canterbury. If he had objected to the match after favoring it, something must have prompted the change of heart.

Had that something also been the reason he'd been murdered?

Stone Street, the old Roman road from Aldington to Canterbury, was straight and paved but not as well-maintained as Jennet had hoped. It was overgrown with trees and bushes and in places was well nigh impassable. Worse, by the time they'd entered the twelve mile stretch she'd contemplated with such longing on the way south, it was already well past noon. They had to ride hard the rest of the day in order to reach their destination by nightfall.

The pace might have been bearable if it had meant going home to Leigh Abbey on the morrow. Instead they would be returning to Maidstone. Lady Appleton had intended to go there all along, and now that Mistress Edgecumbe and her daughter were already en route, she would make even greater haste to get there.

Jennet was ready to fall from her pillion by the time they arrived in Canterbury, too exhausted to admire the majesty of the cathedral or take particular notice of any less dominant surroundings. All that mattered was that Master Martin Calthorpe welcomed their small party into his house and made them comfortable with food, drink, and soft, cushioned places to sit.

Indeed, Master Calthorpe showed a flattering eagerness to be of service, even after Lady Appleton explained that she'd come to him in search of information about a convent. This announcement momentarily took him aback.

"St. Sepulchre's? Why, that's been gone since the Dissolution.” He stroked his long silver beard and looked bemused.

"But you remember it. Someone in Canterbury must know more. Something about the nuns who lived there."

"Only the most notorious.” At Lady Appleton's questioning look he chuckled. “The Nun of Kent was at St. Sepulchre's for a short time. Before she was burnt to death for treason."

Lady Appleton frowned. “The Nun of Kent?” she inquired.

"You would have been a baby at the time. ‘Tis no wonder you do not remember. Her real name was Barton. Elizabeth Barton."

At the surname, Jennet looked up, startled, for she had been born a Barton herself.

"She had visions. Made prophecies. For several years she was lauded as a holy woman. She lived near the archbishop's palace at Aldington and so came to his attention. She was brought here and put in the Benedictine priory of St. Sepulchre's and called a nun, though I do not believe she ever took holy orders."

"When I was a child,” Lady Appleton murmured, “just before King Henry closed all the nunneries and monasteries."

Master Calthorpe nodded. “She spoke out against the king's divorce. That was why she was executed. For treason."

"She would have been at the convent when Lucy Milborne was a nun there. And Lucy Milborne lived near Aldington before she was a nun."

And after, Jennet thought. Did any of this have significance? The dissolution of the monasteries had been complete well before she'd been old enough to care about matters more immediate than her next meal or a new poppet to play with. The only time in Jennet's memory when Catholicism had been openly practiced in England had been during the brief reign of Queen Mary and even then, at Leigh Abbey, their household had continued to observe the tenets of the New Religion.

"How can I trace a woman who was a nun in this convent?” Lady Appleton asked.

"There are few documents left from that time. Indeed, had it not been for certain churchmen with a desire to increase their own libraries, all the contents of the religious houses would have been destroyed."

"They saved books?” Lady Appleton looked hopeful. “Where there are books, there might also be papers. Records."

Her injury, which had been too tender to hide inside a glove, caught Master Calthorpe's attention as she touched her fingers to his arm. At once he made a fuss over her, which seemed to pain her as much as the hand did, and it was some time before they returned to the subject that most concerned her.

"There may have been something written down back then,” she explained when she had given him a brief account of the events she was investigating, “that will explain why someone would falsely accuse Lucy Milborne of being a witch."

But Master Calthorpe shook his head. With nervous fingers, he twisted one strand of his beard. “The books, many of them old and valuable, and most of them dealing with religious subjects in Latin or Greek, were deemed worthy of preservation. But all else the Papists had was destroyed. Even the tomb of Thomas Becket here in Canterbury was torn apart. In the year of our Lord fifteen hundred and thirty-eight, it was. The monastery at Canterbury was dissolved two years later."

Leigh Abbey had been church land once, Jennet remembered. Lady Appleton's grandfather had received it as a reward for service to King Henry and erected his fine great house where the abbey had once stood. He'd probably torn down the old building and used its stones in the new. That was what most builders did.

"Over four hundred relics used to be kept in Canterbury,” Calthorpe continued. “It was a destination for thousands of pilgrims. All gone now.” He sighed. “You must not think I miss the old religion but Canterbury's prosperity has declined without shrines to visit. No one comes here anymore."

"There must be someone who remembers the nuns at St. Sepulchre."

"It was suppressed over thirty years ago. Dame Philippa John was the last prioress, but she died in the same year as King Henry."

"Lucy Milborne is alive. There may be others."

Master Calthorpe shook his head over the hopelessness of Lady Appleton's quest and reminded her that she might be wrong about the accused witches, but he assured her he would do all he could to find any convent records.

The next morning, Lady Appleton's party set out for Maidstone.

"I will make further inquiries and send on whatever I discover,” Master Calthorpe promised, “but have a care in the interim."

"Does he think you are in danger?” Jennet asked as they rode north.

"He believes Lucy Milborne may indeed be a witch and that I risk contagion by helping her."

Jennet saw that this troubled her mistress, but she also knew that Master Calthorpe's warnings would do no more to persuade her to desist than Jennet's had.

Their route took them past the former convent, a quarter mile from the city walls and almost adjacent to Watling Street. As far as Jennet could see, there was little left in the buildings to suggest a nunnery.

A little later, after Watling Street had veered northwest toward Faversham, Lady Appleton lifted her hand, now covered with a soft and supple leather glove, to point toward the east. “That way lies the Forest of Blean. Master Calthorpe told me that the nuns used to gather fuel there, in an area called Minchen Wood."

Jennet's ears perked up. “What else did they do there?"

"What do you suppose?” Lady Appleton asked.

Jennet lowered her voice. “Pagan rites? Witchcraft?"

"You confuse your religions, Jennet. Next you will tell me that Mildred and Damascin are witches, too. That they place blame on Lucy and Constance to hide their own evil doings."

In the face of Lady Appleton's gentle mockery, Jennet said no more. The thought
had
crossed her mind and she could not entirely dismiss it.

They traveled on, endlessly, it seemed to Jennet. For long stretches they saw no sign of life, unless one counted an occasional red squirrel or a fox. Once, Lady Appleton stopped to admire a field of lavender but for the most part she kept up the same killing pace she'd set the day before. She was anxious now to get back to Maidstone and find out what Master Baldwin had discovered.

Jennet was of two minds about Master Baldwin. She remained concerned that a liaison between her mistress and the London man was a mistake. On the other hand, he might be the only person left with enough influence over Lady Appleton to persuade that gentlewoman to abandon her championship of Constance Crane and Lucy Milborne.

They'd all be gathered in Maidstone for the Assizes, Jennet realized. All those who would give testimony against the witches. All those Lady Appleton suspected of killing Master Edgecumbe and Master Marsh by poison. And Lady Appleton, in her quest for justice, meant to delve into their private lives and confront them with whatever secrets she uncovered.

Such meddling could only lead to trouble.

Still, Jennet was glad to see the rooftops of Maidstone when they appeared up ahead. She remembered the comfortable accommodations at Master Baldwin's house and decided she would indulge herself and take advantage of the water left in the hot bath Lady Appleton was sure to ask for. She'd discovered a leather tub during their last stay.

With a little sigh of anticipation, Jennet imagined herself sitting in it before the fire, surrounded by steaming, scented water. She inhaled deeply, but the only smell that reached her was that of fish. While she'd been daydreaming, they'd entered the town. They were riding through the marketplace.

"Lady Appleton!” a man called from the corn cross at the top of the High Street, where those engaged in the grain trade gathered. It was Master Baldwin's servant, Simon. “I've been waiting here to head off your party before you reached the house.” He doffed his hat and handed over the note he'd been keeping inside it.