Joliffe’s acceptance came willingly enough. To his mind, there could hardly be better chance of learning more than by going with the bailiff investigating the matter. Master Waldeve’s and Burbage’s acceptance was more a grudging acknowledgement of the inevitable. Master Grevile, his duty done for now, bade them all an easy farewell, saying in parting to Master Fylongley, “If I hold the body here until evening, will that be long enough? Can you let his family know by then it was not self-murder and they can have him carried to church after all?”
“By then I suspect our questions will have let folk know it’s murder we’re asking about,” Master Fylongley said. “So, aye, whenever his family sends for him, you can let them have him.”
As the five of them—the bailiff’s clerk coming with them—set off along the street, Master Waldeve said, “You’re going to need a few more of us for jurors if it comes to trial.”
“I will that,” the bailiff agreed. “But it would give too much warning just yet to gather more than you three.”
“Where are we bound?” Burbage asked. “Ned’s family first?”
“I’m not minded to start with them, no. I have to make this seem I’m looking for the reason why he killed himself. Better to ask around to those who knew him. It almost surely must have been someone he knew who did it.”
“Because how otherwise did they persuade him to put the noose around his neck if it wasn’t someone he trusted,” Joliffe said.
Master Fylongley gave a sharp nod. “Just so.”
As if this thought was altogether new to him—and possibly it was, given the odd way people had of refusing to look straight at a thing they did not want to see—Burbage muttered, “God have mercy,” and he and Master Waldeve both crossed themselves.
Master Fylongley, to whom the thought was plainly not new at all, said, “Therefore we’ll begin with the woman Master Eme was wooing of late. And her family. To see what they have to say.”
As they came to the corner of Much Park Street, Joliffe thought he caught glimpse of Sebastian among the flow and interweaving of folk and carts but was not certain. Given that talk of the death was probably spread widely through Coventry by now, Sebastian must know of it, but did he know yet how deeply Joliffe was wound into the business? Probably, knowing Sebastian, and Joliffe had no comfort in knowing that when the bailiff was finally done with him for the day, Sebastian was surely going to find him out and demand to be told everything he knew about Ned’s death.
Chapter 18
T
he Byfeld household might almost have been waiting for them, but more likely they were all gathered in the kitchen and around the table only because they were just finishing the mid-day meal when Cecily, having answered Master Fylongley’s heavy knock at the front door, brought him, the others, and his clerk along the passage. At either end of the table, Herry Byfeld and his mother rose together, Herry to slightly bow to the bailiff, Mistress Byfeld to slightly curtsy to him before she said to Cecily, “Bring ale for the men,” at the same time Herry said to Master Fylongley, “You’ve come to ask us about poor Ned Eme.”
“That I have, sir.” And to Mistress Byfeld, “Thank you. A cup of ale won’t come amiss. The day is warm for walking about.”
“Clear place for the gentlemen,” Powet said, giving Dick an elbow to the side and standing up from their bench along the table. On the other side, beside the empty place where probably Cecily had sat, Mistress Deyster was likewise rising, murmuring she would see to opening the shop again while they talked.
“Nay,” Master Fylongley said easily. “By your leave, this won’t take much time and will be quickest done if we do it all together.”
She sat down again. At the bailiff’s encouraging nod so did Herry and his mother. Only Powet and Dick shifted from their bench, going around to sit with Mistress Deyster, leaving their bench for the bailiff. He sat down as if there for no more than comfortable talk, crowding to one end to make room for the other men, who duly sat, except his clerk who withdrew to a joint stool beside the hearth, not far from Master Kydwa slumped in his chair and seeming to note nothing that was happening.
As Cecily, moving briskly, set out the cups of ale in front of them, Master Fylongley said, “Aye, it’s about poor Master Eme I’m here. All’s seen to but determining what was the set of his mind that brought him to his death. Before I trouble his parents, I thought to ask among those who knew him.”
That was as well done a slide around a matter as Joliffe had ever heard. All the bailiff had said was the truth without the full truth—that he was looking for a murderer.
“You’ve heard he was courting Anna,” Herry said in flat acceptance.
“And that she was refusing him, yes,” Master Fylongley said. “There’s been talk.”
“There’s always talk,” Mistress Byfeld said bitterly. “If he was fool enough to kill himself in despair at her refusing him, that’s no fault of hers. God have mercy on him,” she added, crossing herself.
Everyone else did likewise before the bailiff said, still easily, “I’m not looking for fault, only for reasons. If there can be ‘reason’ in doing self-murder,” he added as if mostly to himself before taking a sip of the ale. “This is good ale. Thank you for it. So, yes, he had been asking you to marry him, Mistress Deyster, and you have been refusing him. When was the last time you talked with him and, I presume, refused him?”
Anna Deyster looked down and aside, as if her answer had somehow escaped her wits and could be found by searching outward for it. Then she looked up again and answered, firmly enough, “Not yesterday of course.” She shuddered and crossed herself. “No. Three days ago. It must have been three days since he was here. Cecily, you remember?”
Cecily, who was tending to wiping her father’s chin, said without looking around, “Three days ago. Yes. In the afternoon while your mother was out.”
“I remember,” Dick put in. “Uncle Eustace and I came in as he was going out. You were both angry. You and him. Not Cecily. She’s never angry. Only she wasn’t here.” He sounded momentarily confused as that came to him.
“She’d taken Master Kydwa out to the necessary,” his sister said. “She came back with him as Ned was leaving, remember. And it wasn’t that
I
was angry at
him
.” She gave her younger brother a disgusted look. “
He
was angry at
me.
”
“You’d refused him again then?” Master Fylongley asked.
“Yes,” she said sharply. “But I wasn’t angry. I was irked. I had told him not to ask me anymore, that it wasn’t any use.” And now she was living with the thought that he had after that gone and hung himself in his despair.
“Two days ago,” Herry said with the suddenness of just remembering. “You met him in the street in the morning the day before yesterday, just when you were setting out to the shops.”
“Oh.” His sister looked at him, startled. “Did I? Yes, of course I did. I’d forgotten. We passed greetings, nothing more. No, that’s not true. He asked if he could come here again. I told him it would be best if he simply stayed away.”
“It was despair,” Powet said. “The young fool despaired, when what he needed was to be patient.”
“Patience or none would have made no difference!” Anna snapped, glaring at her great-uncle. “I would never have married him!”
“Is that what you told him?” Master Fylongley said quietly.
She startled around to stare at him. Joliffe saw both anger and tears in her eyes in the moment before she immediately dropped her gaze to her hands in her lap and said as if smothering on the word, “Yes.”
Master Fylongley nodded sagely, as if all were explained. He looked along the bench at his jurors. “Do you have any questions?”
Joliffe joined Burbage and Master Waldeve in saying they did not. Or, on Joliffe’s side, not ones yet fully formed enough in his mind for asking.
The bailiff gave their thanks to everyone, and everyone rose to his and the jurors’ departing, delayed only by Anna suddenly saying, “About when Ned was last here. That afternoon. Dick said we were angry, but I wasn’t. Ned was, but all I wanted was for him to leave me alone. I wasn’t angry.”
“Very good, mistress. Thank you,” Master Fylongley said with a respectful bow of his head.
Herry saw them to the outer door on his own way to open the shop for the afternoon. On the threshold, Master Fylongley paused to ask him if he could recommend who else, besides the Eme family, they might do well to ask about Ned.
Herry shrugged. “Our families have never had much to do with each other, save for Ned’s interest in my sister. When we were children we ran together some, but that was long ago.” Herry being all of in his middle twenties, Joliffe thought dryly. “Best you ask the Emes who his friends were, likely.”
“You were at one time interested in perhaps a marriage with his sister, I believe,” the bailiff said smoothly.
A tinge of pink moved up Herry’s face from under his doublet’s collar. “I was. But only briefly and some time ago.”
“The Emes did not favor your suit? Or the young lady did not?”
“It was unsuitable on many fronts,” Herry said, stiff with a dignity that made him seem much younger than a few moments ago. “I did not pursue it.”
“She’s quite a beauty,” Master Fylongley said lightly enough to give no offense and turning away as he said it, sparing Herry any need to answer. Joliffe saw that did not keep Herry from going a deepening red as they left him.
“We’re going straight to talk to Ned’s family?” Master Burbage asked as they went. “You don’t mean to ask more folk about Ned?”
“Afterward,” Master Fylongley said. “But I’ve kept his family in misery long enough. I’ll ask my questions there after I’ve told them.”
They made their way through the early afternoon bustle to Gosford Street. Master Fylongley knew the house so they did not need to ask for it. The serving man who answered the bailiff’s knock at the Emes’ door beside their shuttered shop started to say the family was seeing no one, but Master Fylongley said who he was and who the men with him were, and the man let them all into the passageway, then asked them to wait while he went to tell the family. “They’re above,” he said as he went. “In the parlor.”
Accordingly, it was to the parlor he shortly led them—the bailiff, jurors, and clerk—a small procession of officialdom into the heart of the grieving for Ned’s death. The parlor was a pretty room, with a wide window facing toward the street. The white-plastered walls were pargeted with swirls and cross-patterns. Cushions, some brightly embroidered, some of richly woven cloth, were on the bench beneath the window and another beside the hearth of the small fireplace. Thick rush matting covered much of the wooden floor, and a small carpet of Italian weave was laid over a square table set with well-polished pewter pitcher and goblets on a tray now splashed with wine, as if the hand pouring it had been unsteady. It was the one thing in the otherwise bright and well-kept room that went with the black-clad knot of people gathered at the hearthside bench in a grieving huddle, holding to each other for what comfort or strength they could find among themselves.
The center of it was a woman who had to be Ned’s mother. She had probably once been plumply pretty, but her face in the tight surround of her wimple was now soft, sagging, and tear-marred, so that Joliffe’s eyes went more readily to the girl sitting beside her, her hands clasped with her mother’s in her mother’s lap. She was as gowned in black as her mother but without the wimple, her golden hair pulled back but only partly hidden by a simple black veil and, yes, even reddened with weeping as she was, she was as lovely as Joliffe had gathered from talk.
Richard Eme sat on his mother’s other side and was withdrawing an arm from around her shoulders and standing up as Master Fylongley and all came into the room. The man who must be Master Eme, burly in a prosperous townsman’s long gown, was already on his feet behind the backed bench where the rest of his family sat, a hand resting on his wife’s shoulder. He stayed there, saying only, “Master Fylongley. Gentlemen.” Sounding somewhat uncertain why there were so many of them but adding, his voice heavy and weary with grieving, “Have you come to tell us we may have our son’s body now?”
Master Fylongley made somewhat of a bow to the women and answered, “I’ve come to tell you that, yes. But also that we have determined beyond doubt that he did not die by his own will or hand. It was not self-murder. The Church will have no reason to deny him funeral rites and sanctified burial.”
Mistress Eme gasped, let go one hand from her daughter’s to reach up and grasp her husband’s. He grasped it willingly while taking a deep, unsteady breath as he gathered himself toward the beginning of hope, gasping, “He didn’t—” only to break off as he caught up to the full meaning of the bailiff’s words. If his son was dead not by self-murder, then it had to be by . . .
Mistress Eme, with fresh tears running down her face past a broken, quivering smile and not yet gone as far as her husband, cried out, “I knew he had not. I knew it. Goditha, I said so, didn’t I? Richard”—letting go of her husband’s hand to reach out to her son—“I told you, didn’t I? He was in a play. He would never have killed himself while he was in a play!”
“You did, Mother. You did. But—” Richard Eme was looking not at his mother but at Master Fylongley. “But if he didn’t kill himself and yet he’s dead—”