Face Down under the Wych Elm (24 page)

With a sigh, he sank down beside her. “In my travels abroad, I have seen poverty, poverty more deplorable than anything to be found in England. There were far worse things you might have done to stay alive. But I cannot help but wish you'd been able to reconcile with your family. I'd have liked to have known them.” To have helped them, too.

"What's done is done. I do not have time enough left in my life for guilt or regrets."

"You do have time to correct a more recent ... mistake."

Her gaze sharpened. “What mistake?"

"Chediok Norden. You lied to me about him, Mother."

"Nonsense.” Even though she denied it, she could not hide the flash of fear in her eyes.

"This morning, before I talked to you, I sent Simon and Toby out to scour the town for Norden. They came back an hour ago to report that no one has seen him since Susanna encountered him in the common room at The Ship on the day I left Maidstone for Croydon."

When an expression of surprise flickered across her face, Nick's suspicions heightened. He forced himself to harden his heart against his mother. He had to find out the truth. The message Susanna had sent with Jennet seemed to indicate she'd found a way to save Lucy and Constance, but he could not quite shake off the sense that something else threatened Susanna herself.

"Charges of witchcraft are naught to trifle with, Mother."

"What mean you, Nick?"

"You must have heard someone arrive with a message earlier. Susanna has found out the truth. Hugo Garrard had good and sufficient reason to conspire to have his cousins blamed for the deaths of Clement Edgecumbe and Peter Marsh. It is only a matter of time now before we can prove that Constance Crane and Lucy Milborne had naught to do with it."

"They are not witches?"

"No.” Unless someone else came forward to charge Lucy Milborne with doing harm through her attempts to heal, both women would eventually be set free.

His mother's frown deepened. “That's naught to do with me."

"Is it not? Tell me what Norden said to you, Mother. Everything. I know you lied to me about other matters. I can forgive you for that, but if you deceive me again...” He let his voice trail off, leaving the threat unspoken.

Silence answered him.

"Did he accuse Susanna of witchcraft?"

"She's not the right match for you, Nick."

"I know you disapprove of Susanna. I even understand why. You need not concern yourself about my posterity, Mother. I mean to marry, in time, and there will be a child to inherit what you and Father built."

He spoke no less than the truth. Susanna was not yet past childbearing age. And there was always Rosamond.

The change in his mother was immediate. “Do you mean that, Nick?"

"Aye. I do."

"Then Lady Appleton did not bewitch you?"

"Is that what you thought? That she used a love charm?"

"I feared so, or a love potion, but I could find no proof of either."

"That is why you were searching my things at Whitethorn Manor?” Astonishment made his voice hitch.

His mother heaved a deep sigh and looked him straight in the eye. “When I did not find anything to incriminate her, I went to the local cunning woman and purchased a love potion. I meant for you to find it in her things, Nick. Nothing more. I thought you would realize then that she is not for you."

"There's irony!"

She looked bewildered.

"Father forgave you. Why should you think it so impossible that I would forgive Susanna?” Not that he'd have needed to. Susanna would have denied the love potion was hers and he'd have believed her.

"Can you forgive me, Nick?"

"For trying to protect me? Yes, Mother, I can. But this must stop now. You are not to interfere in my life again."

"There is more. I must make a clean breast of it. Norden saw me buy that love philtre. He followed me back here and threatened to have me arrested if I did not help him prove Lady Appleton a witch."

"What?” This was worse than he'd feared.

"Norden seemed certain that she was one and that she'd helped those two women in gaol to commit murder."

"How could you believe him?"

On the defensive again, only grudgingly admitting her own culpability, Nick's mother confessed the rest of it. Nick was still trying to make sense of Norden's mad scheme when they were interrupted by a vigorous pounding at the front door.

Amid great noise and confusion below stairs, Nick heard young Toby shout. “Master! Master! He's come here!” A moment later, breathless, the boy dashed into the bedchamber. “'Tis the fellow you sent us to seek, Master Baldwin. Goodman Norden. He's demanding to speak with you."

Winifred's face lost all its color. “Send him away,” she whispered.

"I am tempted to have him thrown in gaol for all the trouble he's caused,” Nick said, “but such an action would only cause more difficulties.” For both Winifred and Susanna.

Instead he descended to the lower level. Toby was at his side, but they left Winifred behind. Nick reached the small entryway in time to see Simon prevent an excessively tall young man with straw-colored hair from pushing past him into the main part of the house.

Norden.

But he had not come alone. He was accompanied by a plain-faced young woman Nick did not recognize, and by two young men who were most familiar to him—Fulke and Lionel.

"What means this uproar?” Nick demanded.

Everyone tried to answer at once. None of what they said made any sense, but when Lionel withdrew a folded sheet of inexpensive paper from the inner pocket of his jerkin, Nick seized it. It was the work of a moment to read the short message it contained. Several seconds more were necessary before he could fully comprehend what that message signified.

"Silence!” he bellowed. When they obeyed, he rounded on the hapless Lionel. “Where did you get this?"

"In Lady Appleton's chamber at the inn. It had fallen to the floor. She's gone, Master Baldwin. We know not where."

"How long ago did she leave the Queen's Arms?"

Neither Fulke nor Lionel could answer him, but Nick thought he could piece together what had happened. “She's gone to look for Jennet,” he muttered. Placing herself in danger. If he'd only met Susanna when he'd promised to, he'd have been there when she received this message.

"She's not at The Ship,” Fulke blurted in his gruff, terse way. “We went there when he told us what happened to him.” He jerked his head at Norden. “No one was there by the time we arrived. Not Lady Appleton. Not Jennet. Not Master Garrard nor Mistress Edgecumbe nor Mistress Damascin."

"Where did you find him?” Nick indicated Norden.

Norden stuttered out his own answer. “I found them."

Nick took a closer look at the pamphlet-writer. His face was uncommon pale, and from the smell of him he had recently been most horrible sick. The young woman clung to his arm not to support herself but to keep him upright.

Gentling his voice, Nick addressed her. “Who are you, girl?"

Bobbing a curtsey, she spoke softly, forcing him to strain to hear her words. “Margery, sir. Mistress Damascin's tiring maid."

"What is your part in this?"

"She rescued me.” Norden's voice was steadier now, stronger, but he held himself carefully, as if he might have a cracked or broken rib. “I have been held prisoner for most of the last two days."

"Start at the beginning.” Nick was impatient to go in search of Susanna, but if she was not at The Ship, where Hugo had been lodging, then he did not know where to begin. He hoped Norden's tale might give him a clue.

"I have been a great fool, Master Baldwin."

"I know of your intent to bring about Lady Appleton's arrest. And I know my mother saw no sign of you when she went to stand on the church porch."

Norden winced at his frigid tone. “After I encountered Lady Appleton in the common room at The Ship, I went to speak with Mistress Damascin. I had not seen her since I left Kent for London, though I'd tried to talk with her when I first came back. Mistress Edgecumbe turned me away.” He paused to gather his thoughts. Margery, whether to encourage him or to comfort him Nick could not say, patted his arm.

"At first, I thought she was all I remembered. Sweet. Beautiful. I told her of the arrangements I had made with Mistress Baldwin and she did praise me mightily for my cleverness. Said I had become a formidable witch hunter. But when I explained that I was a pamphlet writer and that I intended to tell her father's sad story, she told me I must not, that ‘twould be a disservice to her to call more attention to the case."

He looked so downcast that Nick might have taken pity on him if he had not been concerned about Susanna's safety. “Go on."

"I was certain I was right about Lady Appleton, sure she was a witch. And I believed the charges against Mistress Milborne and Mistress Crane because Mistress Damascin and her mother had made them.” He sighed deeply. “I adored her when we were young. When I left Kent, determined to make my fortune in London, it was to impress her. I even decided to become a pamphlet writer because of Damascin Edgecumbe. She loved to read them, you see—tales of wonders and disasters and sensational trials."

Damascin? Nick had never met her, but what Norden seemed to be implying about her stunned him. She was behind this? A gently bred young woman?

"Are you saying Damascin Edgecumbe is the one who learned the details of the Chelmsford trials from such a source and conceived the scheme to defraud old Lucy of her land?"

Norden blinked at him in confusion. “Defraud?"

"Never mind. Go on with your story. How did you come to be made prisoner?"

Disillusionment showing in his slumped and defeated posture, Norden continued in a monotone. “She must have thought I knew more than I did. When I protested that I must write the true relation of these events, she accused me of attempting to extort money from her to keep my silence. Said I was as bad as Peter Marsh. It all burst upon me then, that she must have lied about Mistress Milborne and Mistress Crane. In print, you see, my account could be compared to the Chelmsford pamphlet. I backed away from her in horror, tried to flee, but it was too late."

"She struck him on the head with her father's old walking stick,” Margery said.

"How do you know this, Margery? Did you help her?"

At Nick's accusation, Margery flushed. “I was watching. Hidden. I was curious, and Jennet said—"

Nick held up a hand to stop the flow of words. “Say no more. If you sought to emulate Jennet, I can guess the rest."

Without warning, Margery began to cry. “She catched Jennet because of me."

Between sobs, Margery confessed that she'd listened in on more than one conversation between Fulke and Lionel in the common room at the Queen's Arms. She'd been the one to tell her mistress, before Norden confronted her, that Jennet was more to Susanna than a mere servant. Margery was no fool. Once she'd heard the content of the note they'd found in Susanna's room, she'd known it came from Damascin, that Damascin had realized, thanks to Margery, that Susanna could be controlled by threats against Jennet.

Nick could offer no comfort. She was right. Without the inside knowledge Margery had provided, Damascin would never have guessed that a member of the gentry would place the life of one of her retainers above that of a gentlewoman.

Norden tightened his grip on the girl's waist and continued with the story her confession had interrupted. “Unconscious, bound, and gagged, I was moved from Damascin's chamber to Hugo Garrard's. I overheard enough when I regained my senses to know they'd decided they must kill me in order to keep their secret. They meant to make it look like an accidental drowning. When Margery helped me escape, she saved my life."

"How is it you went first to the Queen's Arms and not to fetch a constable?"

Margery wiped her eyes. “We did not know then that Mistress Damascin had catched Jennet. We thought she'd be at the Queen's Arms. That she'd tell us what to do. Passing clever, Jennet is."

"I agreed with Margery's reasoning,” Norden said. “And I assumed Lady Appleton would be there to advise us, too."

"Then we found the note,” Lionel said, speaking for the first time. “When we heard what had befallen Goodman Norden, we went straight to The Ship, thinking they must be holding Jennet where they'd kept him, but we were too late. Everyone was gone."

A renewed sense of urgency gripped Nick. “We will return to The Ship now. There may be some clue you missed, something that will tell us where Susanna and Jennet have been taken."

He thought he could guess what had happened. When they'd discovered Norden had escaped, the murderers had panicked and fled. But why take Jennet, and presumedly Susanna, with them?

He did not care for the most obvious answer to that question.

It seemed to take eons to cross Maidstone. The streets were still crowded with spectators. Moreover, the second procession connected with the assizes had just begun. This time the justices were on their way to church, attended by the sheriff, his chaplain, and an extensive entourage.

Nick debated stopping them to ask for help, but explanations would take too much time. He hurried on, followed by his own retinue. Even his mother had insisted on coming along, having overheard Norden's tale from a listening post just out of sight on the stairs.

"Baldwin? What's amiss?” From his place among the local ministers, Adrian Ridley had noticed them. Now he broke ranks to trot alongside Nick. By the very make up of Nick's party, he could tell they were bent on some business related to Lucy and Constance's trial.

Without slowing his steps, Nick summarized what he now knew of the conspiracy and what he surmised about the danger to Susanna. To his surprise, Ridley did not need much convincing to accept the truth of the story. How much, Nick wondered, had Garrard already confessed to his private chaplain?

There was no sign of Susanna, Jennet, Hugo, or Damascin at the inn, but Mildred Edgecumbe had returned. She stared at Nick and the others as if they'd lost their minds.

"I have been out enjoying the festivities and have only just returned,” she told them. “I know nothing of what my daughter might have done in my absence, but I do assure you that she is an innocent. A sweet young girl incapable—"