[Roger the Chapman 02] - The Plymouth Cloak (20 page)

'Would you not?' I asked directly.

'No.' Her green eyes, wide and innocent, bereft of all coquetry, met mine in a candid stare. 'He was well-looking enough, I grant you. A handsome man in his time. But there was something about him which I did not like.' She gave a slight shiver. 'Something which repelled me.' She spoke with such sincerity that I was left with very little choice but to believe her. And I understood what she meant about Philip. I, too, had experienced that feeling of repulsion. It was as though he had had some deformity, not of the body but of the soul.

I rubbed a hand across my eyes. 'Do you swear,' I asked at length, 'that you did not meet Master Underdown on the river bank last night? That your husband did not follow? That there was no fight between them which resulted in Master Underdown's death?'

Her eyebrows rose again at this. 'So that's what you were thinking. That Edgar did murder because he was jealous?' She pulled herself into a sitting position and swung her legs off the bed so that she was facing me once more. She leaned forward and placed both her hands in mine. 'I swear to you, by God's Holy Mother, that Master Underdown neither asked me, nor did I accept such a proposal.' Then she slid off the bed, bent her head and planted a kiss full on my lips ....

I dropped her hands, sprang to my feet and withdrew hurriedly to the other side of the room. I could tell by the look on her face that she was unused to having her advances treated like this. In her own way, she was every bit as vain as Philip.

'I must go,' I said, edging towards the door. The room suddenly felt close and fetid; I could not escape quickly enough.

The door swung inwards and Edgar Warden stood on the threshold, his fight hand nursing his left.

'I've driven a nail into my thumb,' he grunted at Isobel. 'Do you have any of that sicklewort salve left that Janet gave you?" He became aware of my presence and turned with an oath to face me. 'What in God's name are you doing here,' he demanded, 'alone with my wife?'

Isobel was swift to take her revenge for my having spurned her. 'He thinks you may be the murderer,' she said.

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.