Sword of Shame (43 page)

If not exactly a prisoner, I was no longer a guest. Accompanied by Abigail the housekeeper, Martha brought me some bread and ale and told me that, if the road to Cambridge was clear enough, the coroner
or magistrate would be summoned to Ickleton to take charge. She had been weeping for her uncle and cast frequent glances at his corpse. Abigail divided her gaze between me and the dead man, looking with disapproval on both. As a mark of respect for her dead master she had changed into a black overdress. I looked to Martha for some indication that the young woman, at least, did not think me guilty of murder but she gave none. She would scarcely meet my eyes. This, and the fact that it might take a day or more for a magistrate to reach Valence, caused a black cloud to drift over my spirits. I knew that I was innocent, certainly, but to judge by the wary manner which even Martha was showing no one else did. I realized that you can be as innocent as the day is long and yet still be accused and tried and…

I'm well aware that this is not exactly a fresh revelation, that the innocent are sometimes accused and…all the rest of it. I should know. I've even been imprisoned, on false charges, before now. I know the way the world wags. This time I had the creeping sensation that things might turn out badly. With a hostile coroner or magistrate, or an incompetent one, things might turn out very badly indeed. Particularly as none of the individuals in Valence House, with the exception of Martha and Elias Haskell, had been well disposed towards me in the first place. And now one of the two was dead and the other must suspect me of having a hand in her uncle's demise. As for the rest of the occupants, they either had some rank or they were local. How would a strange player from London be regarded? With suspicion even in the best of circumstances.

If I was going to be saved I would have to save myself. I cudgelled my wits to think of a way out of this predicament. I went over in my mind all the details to do with my discovery of Elias's body. I thought back over the
previous night when I'd been woken by that odd panting noise. I'd had no more than a glimpse of the figure standing in the yard but it had surely been Elias. Why was he outside? He was meant to have taken a soporific. Presumably he had not drunk it or it had been ineffective. Yet this was a minor point which didn't explain his presence in the courtyard on a very cold night.

I'd assumed he was bed-ridden, but no one had actually said as much. It was evident from the way he'd held the sword or gripped his niece by the wrist that he still possessed considerable strength. So he must have risen from his bed and struggled outside. Yet he had been wounded in the head, plainly wounded. He could not have received the injury out of doors, otherwise there would have been signs of a scuffle, more footprints besides his. And more blood on the ground perhaps, although it was likely that the snow had had the effect of stanching the flow. So did Elias stagger outside, mortally wounded as he was? Was it possible, that an old, sick man could move even a few yards with such an injury? I knew from a good friend of mine who was also a member of the King's Men and who had seen service many years ago in the Netherlands war that wounded men are capable of extraordinary feats in the heat of battle, even if they fall and die straight afterwards. So it must be that Elias had run out of the house to escape from someone. But that someone had not come after him, since there were no other tracks in the snow (apart from mine).

But somebody else had been down there in the hall. I knew this because I'd had to unbar the door in order to get outside. Which meant that a second person had barred it
after
Elias had left the house in the night. Had it been Abigail or Martha, making sure the house was secure and unaware that the body was lying in the
snow, dying or already dead? But I'd heard sounds outside in the early hours of the morning, long after the rest of the household should have retired to bed, all doors and windows secured.

Or–and this seemed the more likely event–had the person who'd had a hand in Elias's death stood by the entrance long enough to make sure the old man was good and dead before closing the door once again and barring it for the night? To leave a body lying on the ground was hardly satisfactory but to have attempted to remove it would have left even more traces in the snow. Perhaps the person, whoever it was, hoped that the death of Elias might be seen as accidental. And, except for the presence of the cursed sword (and a few blood stains), it might have been an accident. Men and women and children have died of cold on the London streets in winter. Why should it be any different in the wilds of Cambridgeshire?

But this looked like an unnatural death. How had it happened? I tried to think it through clearly.

There were some highly unnatural explanations. The sword had a legend attached to it suggesting that it could fly through the air of its own accord. Also, it was said to bring bad fortune in its wake. So maybe the sword had lifted itself clear of its brackets above the fire and attacked Elias. Divine–or demonic–intervention? Pah, superstition! (in Cuthbert's words) would be my rejoinder to that. Another freakish thought which passed through my head was that Elias might have inflicted the wound on himself prior to staggering out of doors. An even more freakish idea was that Grant the monkey might have had a hand in all of this. He had certainly been present in the hall during the early hours of the morning. His footprint was in the ash which had blown out from the dying fire as the door had been opened. It was very likely, therefore, that
Grant had witnessed his master's last moments, or some of them. Of course, this was knowledge that the monkey could not impart. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that no one could have interpreted his gibberings.

So much for clear thinking.

No, leaving aside flying swords and the testimony of monkeys, this was murder through a human agency and the finger was pointing towards one N. Revill. Now, it wasn't me, presently moping on a chest in the dead man's chamber. So who was it? Who had a motive to do away with Elias Haskell? The answer to this was obvious, any of his would-be heirs, frustrated by his game-playing, hoping to lay hands on his supposed fortune.

Clear thinking once again.

I rose from the chest where I was sitting, uncomfortably. Andrew shifted from his slouching posture but I paid him no attention. I wandered across to where Grant the monkey was moping in his cage. ‘Cage' was really a misnomer since he was free to come and go as he wanted, and there was no catch or hasp on the door. At the moment Grant didn't want to go anywhere. He crouched in the corner, head hanging down, his brow wrinkled in perplexity. It struck me that his grief at Elias's death was probably deeper than that of anybody else in the house apart from Martha. However, he hadn't completely quit his old habits for there was something gleaming on the floor inside the cage. I opened the door and reached for it but the beast let out a great shrieking and I withdrew my hand quickly. Nevertheless I had a fairly good idea what it was. I moved away from Grant and ambled across the room. I moved casually so as not to alarm Andrew, who continued to lounge by the door.

I was looking for signs of struggle or some distur
bance in the chamber. There was nothing evident. Some of the furniture might have been shifted slightly but because the room was packed with stuff it was hard to tell. Nor could I see any evidence of blood, although the floorboards were already old and stained, and covered in a haphazard mixture of rushes and herbs, some of which had been freshly laid to dispel the scent of death. I glanced towards the chimney-piece. Above it were the iron brackets in which the sword had lain. A ghost image of the weapon seemed to be imprinted on the wall. It must have hung there for many years. But unlike Elias's body, the sword hadn't been restored to its resting place.

I recalled holding the implement out in the open air and looking at the inscriptions on the blade. They were in Latin and hard to read after so much age and wear and tear. But my Latin is good–my father, a parson, saw to that (with his rod if necessary)–and my eyesight is keen. I hadn't paid much attention when I was outside but I recalled the gist of the words now. One said something about the false speaker forfeiting his honour while the other side of the sword offered a different quotation to do with God loving a cheerful giver and everybody hating a miser. Who was the miser in this case? Elias Haskell, hoarding his tributes and playing games with his heirs? Who were the lessons on the sword for, I wondered. The man wielding the weapon or the unfortunate individual on the receiving end of it? Did they mitigate the act of killing or salve the wound?

Another aspect of the sword occurred to me too. It had been damaged. The end of one of the cross-pieces, depicting a dog's head, had been broken off. Now, this might have been its condition on the previous evening when I'd first examined the blade and hilt in this very chamber but I was almost certain that the cross-piece
was whole and undamaged then. If that was the case, the dog-end must have been snapped off during the night. Not surprising, considering that the weapon had seen action before being discovered next to Elias's corpse. But, in that case, what was the missing piece, the dog's-head, doing in the monkey's cage?

At that moment I heard a noise behind me and a hand brushed at my knee. Fortunately I wasn't altogether unprepared and, unlike the last occasion, didn't leap back in shock. Grant was hunched behind me, his arms dangling along the floor, his furrowed brow raised expectantly. I noticed Andrew watching us. When Grant was sure he had my full attention he started to bounce up and down, and to gesture and gibber.

What was he trying to tell me? I was standing near the fire (which was not lit). Perhaps the monkey was outraged that I was stationed in his favourite spot. But, no, it wasn't that. He was trying to tell me something else. I looked behind me. There was the chimney-piece with the great capital H in its centre. There were the tapestries on either side of–ah, I had it! Or I thought I had it. One of the pictures depicted Judith in the act of holding the severed head of Holofernes. A bloody story it is too, when the beautiful widow insinuates her way into the camp of Nebuchadnezzar's general so as to to take him by surprise and deprive him of his noddle. The tapestry showed her grasping the general's head in her left hand. She held it by the hair. The other hand gripped a sword which she held erect. There was fresh blood on the blade. Judith was wearing a red hat, the same shade as the blood. This was undoubtedly what Grant was trying to draw my attention to. Someone had killed his master, old Elias, with a sword like the one depicted in the tapestry. Elias hadn't been decapitated but he had certainly been struck around the head. The only trouble was that
Grant wasn't telling me any more than I already knew. Still, never let anyone say that monkeys are dull-witted or unfeeling creatures.

And then another idea occurred to me. What if…

The door opened and Martha Haskell entered the room. This time she looked full at me.

‘It is all right, Nicholas.'

‘All right? What's all right?'

‘You were seen.'

She nodded to Andrew that he should go, and the stable-hand grinned his empty grin and slipped from the room.

‘Before you were seen standing by my uncle's body–' she swallowed hard then had control of herself once again–‘you were seen in the courtyard coming out of the house.'

‘I don't understand.'

Swiftly she explained. It was my good fortune that the lodge-keeper's boy Davey Parsons, the one with jug ears, had been gazing out of the little window which gave onto the courtyard at the very moment when I'd emerged to examine Elias's body. He had seen me pick up the sword and then discard it as the rest of the household appeared at the door. Davey had gone not to his father, who would most likely have cuffed him about the head or booted him in the rear, but to his sister in the kitchen who had, in turn, reported to her mistress. I could only suppose that Davey was grateful to me for having saved him from a kicking on the previous afternoon. Or perhaps he had a disinterested regard for justice. Whatever the reason, his testimony, haltingly delivered to Martha and then repeated to Cuthbert Haskell and the others was sufficient to exonerate me from blame. Davey had particularly noticed that I'd shed a tear over the cold corpse of Elias Haskell. He had seen it glittering on my cheek. Perhaps he
wasn't used to the sight of tears. I did remember wiping an eye which had watered at the sharpness of the winter morning. But it might have been watering for Elias also.

In addition there was another reason why I was being permitted to leave this place of confinement, Martha said. Cooler heads had prevailed. Although my guilt seemed to speak loud and clear when I'd been discovered clutching the sword over the body of the master of the house, a short period of reflection had been enough to convince the Haskell cousins that there could be no strong cause for me to do away with Elias. No cause at all, in fact. I was a stranger to the house, I had no interest in whether the old man lived or died, he was not going to leave me any portion in his will. This, combined with the jug-eared boy's witness, was enough to set me free.

‘You should leave here, Nicholas,' said Martha. ‘There is no reason for you to stay the arrival of Mr Fortescue.'

‘Mr Fortescue?'

‘The magistrate from Cambridge.'

‘The road is clear then?'

‘It is passable now. Parsons in the lodge has been despatched to request his presence. Even if you don't get as far as Cambridge there is an inn on the road. You could put up there. Get on with your business. Leave now. Visit the Maskells.'

‘I'd almost forgotten about the Maskells. Forgotten I was in the wrong house.'

‘If you don't go now, Nicholas, you may be stranded at Valence House for longer, much longer.'

‘You'd like me to go, Martha?'

‘This is a family matter.'