“What for?” asked Julian gently enough. “If Brother Stephen’s dead—for which I’m sorry—he must be buried long since.”
“That’s just it,” said Tom. “He’s not buried at Medfield wi’ all the Marsdons, they’ve got the coffin at Ightham Mote, an’ my sister-in-law, Emma Allen, won’t give it up. Keeps it i’ the chapel. I rode to the Mote when Sir Christopher notified us, had hired a hearse too, but I got no satisfaction. Emma ’ouldn’t see me, and old Kit, he didn’t want her disturbed. Said she was ill an’ must be humored. I can have the law on ’em, I believe, but don’t rightly know, bein’ ’tis not this county. I thought m’lord Montagu might write a word to Lord Cobham, who is Lord-Lieutenant o’ Kent.”
“I see . . .” said Julian slowly. “What did your brother die of?”
Tom’s face set, his hazel eyes, so like Stephen’s, grew more somber. “I don’t think Christopher knows. He just said ’twas unexpected . . . but I saw the nursery maid who was watching the boy Charles while he caught frogs in the moat. I asked her, an’ she gave a kind o’ shriek, turned gray as glass, then had hysterics. She knows sompthin’ ain’t right, an’ so do I. M’heart’s heavy, an’ Nan, m’wife, she weeps a lot an’ won’t be comforted. She had a fear o’ Stephen’s going as chaplain to her sister. Still an’ all—” added Tom with an attempt at a smile, “women’s fancies don’t mean much. Nan’s breedin’, too. On’y the whole business ain’t
right
somehow, an’ I want m’brother buried proper wi’ his forefathers.”
“So he should be,” said Julian. Intuition, which had served him so well for diagnoses, seeped through his wall of inert resistance. He was certain that far more was wrong at Ightham Mote than a menopausal woman’s idiotic refusal to part with a coffin.
“Was there any mention of a girl called Celia, or did your brother ever speak of her?” Julian asked quietly.
Tom blinked and frowned. “Nay, never heard of such. What’d
she
have to do wi’ Stephen? He was a godly monk, we was proud o’ him. There’d
he
no girl in his life—an’ by the Blood o’ Christ I’d kill anybody who said so!” His heavy-boned face reddened as he grabbed his dagger hilt.
“Softly, softly,” said Julian with a faint smile, stepping back. “Don’t make mincemeat of
me,
my friend, I but asked.”
Tom’s face cleared, he looked sheepishly at the gaunt dignified doctor with his gray beard, his gnarled hands. “I be hotheaded,” he said apologetically. “Us Marsdons’re proud, there’s bin no slur on the family sence ’twas founded afore the Normans come.”
Julian inclined his head. “I understand, Master Marsdon, and will approach Lord Montagu for you tomorrow.”
He silently acknowledged Tom’s thanks, and returned to Cowdray.
The next morning he waited until Anthony had recovered from the previous day’s revels, and caught him in the privy parlor, just before he set out stag hunting with some of his guests.
“Will you spare me a moment, my lord?”
Anthony did not conceal impatience. The huntsmen had reported four fat stags running in the park, the hounds were already baying below, the horses were waiting, the horns a-winding. Indeed, he had forgotten that Master Julian was still at Cowdray, not having seen him in days. “What is it?” he said, settling his big shoulders in the new sapphire-colored velvet hunting costume, and pulling his plumed cap firmer on his head. Besides the blood sport there was other sport to pursue. The Fitz-Allans had brought with them an uncommonly toothsome young cousin who was to join the hunt. Anthony had enjoyed a few kisses the night before when Magdalen had gone upstairs to see how the baby did.
“’Tis Brother Stephen, my lord—he’s dead.”
Anthony, who had been motioning an usher to bring the quiverful of yew arrows, let his hand drop, and after a moment crossed himself. “How—how can that be?”
Julian told him briefly of his talk with Tom Marsdon.
“Shocking . . .” said Anthony. “Truly regrettable. Must’ve been plague for them to act that way at Ightham. I’ll have Dr. Langdale say a Mass.”
Magdalen came out from the bedchamber. “Did ye say ‘plague’?” she said in a whisper, her amber eyes rounded. “
Where?
”
She was dressed in a bed gown—she did not care for hunting, her coarse red hair hung in a plait, and her robe was milk-stained owing to her insistence on feeding the baby herself, despite the wet nurse who had been hired. “Not at
Cowdray?
” Her plump cheeks whitened.
Julian reassured her. “And I do not believe it was plague, Lady.”
“Weel, then . . .” she said, and accepted the silver mug of breakfast ale one of the hovering servitors offered her. “’Tis sorry news. He should niver ha’ left my lord when he was begged to stop on.”
“Aye,” said Anthony, his boot tapping as the horns let forth another blast below. “He would’ve been useful to me i’ Spain, yet I found other men to serve me . . . Oh,” he went on, in response to Julian’s reproachful look, “tell the secretary to write a line to Cobham. You’ll know what to say, give it to the Marsdon brother, tell him there’ll be a Requiem Mass here soon, after all the guests’ve left.” He hurried from the parlor.
“Si,
Excellenzia, como vuole,
” said Julian under his breath: Magdalen did not understand the words, but she caught the bitterly sarcastic tone, and saw the look in the Italian doctor’s eyes.
“I’ll thank ye not ta mutter,” she said coldly. “My lord ha’ gr-ranted your r-request—an’ iffen ye be discontent at Cowdray—Och, ye’ve altered, Doctor—last week I asked ye ta look at wee Mary’s foot . . . ye didna coom nigh her, nor ha’ ye been ta Mass lang time I hear-r.” Magdalen’s northern burr got harsher when she was angry. Her ire now was straightforward. Julian had brought a note of death into the house; he had seemed to reproach Anthony. Though well recompensed for his piddling services, he yet was malcontent and lazy.
Less clear to Magdalen was her resentment of Julian’s presence during the time of Celia’s wicked behavior—her flight, her shameful treatment of poor Edwin Ratcliffe—and of the unease she had felt about Anthony and Celia.
Julian bit his lips and shut his eyes a moment. “You will no longer have to suffer me, Lady,” he said. “I regret—I regret—” he did not finish.
Magdalen stared after his departing back, which was slightly bowed under the furred doctoral robes. She noticed his limp. He was old. A momentary qualm of pity passed into relief. She had never much liked the doctor. She went to the nursery to see her baby and give it suck.
A week later, Julian and Tom Marsdon descended the hill into the demesne of Ightham Mote. Tom was armed with an order from Lord Cobham, and the hearse, again hired in Ightham, rattled behind them.
They all drew up before the moat bridge. The porter lumbered out to inquire their names and wishes. Tom had expected the same vaguely hostile reception of his first visit but they were readily admitted.
Sir Christopher and Lady Allen were at supper, and would certainly be glad to receive anyone sent from Lord Cobham.
Julian, though stiff from days in the saddle, felt better than he had in months, and Tom had been glad of his company on the dreary mission.
They crossed the courtyard and entered the Hall, which contained only the Allens and a lanky young servitor hired at Wrotham Village by Sir Christopher himself. Dickon had vanished weeks ago; the scullery maid—so briefly at the Mote after Lammas—had also disappeared. Doubtless they had gone together, Emma said. On top of that, old Larkin the steward had taken to muttering and weeping and soiling himself when he wasn’t in sodden sleep. He had had to be banished to a cottage near the blacksmith’s, and tended by one of the dairymaids.
What with Brother Stephen’s inexplicable death, and Emma’s sullen refusal to leave her bed, or speak for days, except to demand another flask of the fiery-smelling drink brought up from the cellar, Christopher had been forced into command. He was now seeking a new steward, and expected one from London shortly.
He was pleased to receive the visitors, and relieved that Emma was greatly improved. “Welcome—hearty welcome, my brother Tom,” he said to Marsdon as the two men entered. “And—Doctor . . .? I remember ye kindly . . . at King’s Head, wasn’t it—time o’ Queen Mary’s procession and before that at Midhurst. Emma, m’dear, ye remember Master Julian, the physician?”
“Aye . . .” said Emma. She was dressed in black velvet, and much bejeweled. She had been cracking hazelnuts and eating them—carefully, because they hurt her loosened crooked teeth. “Pray sit down,” she said, and turned to the servitor. “Bring sack.”
“Glad to see ye better, Sister Emma,” said Tom uncertainly. “I fear I’ve returned on no pleasant errand. There’s a hearse a-waitin’ at the bridge—for Stephen’s coffin. I—I’ve an order from Lord Cobham.”
Christopher looked anxiously at his wife, but she smiled the same bland half-smile with which she had greeted the visitors. “Lackaday,” she said. “To be sure. Ye needn’t have troubled Lord Cobham. ’Tis natural, dear, ye’d want the poor priest buried at Medfield. How fares Nan—and the babes?”
So reasonable a speech at once reassured Tom, but Julian looked at Emma and saw the tremor of her square muscular hands as she pried out a hazelnut with a silver pick. He saw the dilation of pupil in the strange eyes. And he felt an emanation of ancient evil—not entirely from her, though he felt she was its focus.
The Hall was commonplace—small applewood fire burning pleasantly—the October night was chill—carved oak table and benches, the twin high chairs, the court cupboard, garish painted wall hangings, a greyhound curled up on the rushes near the fire, pewter plates and flagons on the board, the silver saltcellar—all details to be found in any well-to-do manor in England.
What then was wrong? His glance was drawn towards the south end of the Hall, near the entrance. There was a large rectangle of darker plaster there. He frowned at it, wondering, and Sir Christopher, who was animated by company and wishful to be a good host, noticed the doctor’s stare.
“That’s where my lady keeps the strongbox,” he explained. “Newly bricked in, and mars the Hall, but I’ve ordered a Flemish tapestry to cover it. Should arrive any day, but ye know how slow deliveries are from London.”
“I don’t want it covered,” said Emma, “I told ye, Kit, I like to keep an eye on it.”
“But my dear,” her husband expostulated, “ye said ’twould be a safe place for Charles’s inheritance. ’Twould take hours to chip through it again, no thief’d try. Tis a fine device—but Hall’d look better wi’ a hanging there.”
Emma glanced at Tom, then at Julian. She turned to her husband. “As ye like,” she said, and reached for another hazelnut.
The supper continued, the fare provided was poor. Christopher apologized for it, and Julian, baffled and uneasy, could find no reason for the formless suspicions he had arrived with. The sack came and Julian allowed the sweet heady liquor to warm his stomach. They were invited to spend the night, and Tom, who was naturally convivial and had begun to think he had made too much ado in running to Lord Montagu and then Lord Cobham, turned back to his natural hearty self.
He was delighted when his brother-in-law said, “Ye know—that long-faced youth I hired at Wrotham can play the fiddle, it seems. Shall we have a round, something merry?”
“Why not,” said Emma, “though too merry’d not be seemly, would it—wi’ our poor brother a-laying i’ the chapel. Struck down so sudden i’ the very flower o’ his manhood—’twas like a fit took him. Are the Marsdons given to fits, dear?” she asked Tom.
“Not as I know of.” Tom looked worried, and turned to Julian. “Does it run in families, Doctor?”
“Seldom,” answered Julian slowly. “Seizures may be caused by any disorder of the humors, or even a malign conjunction of the stars—if Saturn be trine to Mars . . .” He stopped. At that moment, while he was groping for a rational explanation of Stephen’s death, inclined to agree with Tom that imagination and apprehension had bred a great deal of unnecessary worry, he felt a clap of certainty. There was death in the hall, murder had been done, and that woman sitting there so complacent, so persuasive, was deluding them all.
“We’ll sing the old riddle song,” said Emma, spitting out a piece of shell. “We all know that, an’ I’m fond o’ it. Get your fiddle,” she said to the serving man. When he returned she led the singing in a hoarse grating voice. “I gave my love a cherry wi’out a stone, I gave my love a chicken wi’out a bone . . .”
Julian did not sing. He felt the weight of tragedy enshrouding him like a sodden cloak, and also felt the futility of trying to understand it. Whatever had happened could never be undone, nor might ever be known. The woman sang her silly riddle song, slyly, while her hands twitched, the jewels glimmered in her rings. She was evil, and would go unpunished. The Devil usually triumphed, much as true Christians tried to persuade themselves that he didn’t. Julian’s gaze passed again to the dark rectangle of plaster on the wall. From it emanated a blackness much darker than the patch of bricks and mortar, though even as he looked, the center of the blackness glowed with a soft yellow light. In the midst appeared Nanak’s face. The ugly froglike face of the man he had met in the flesh so many years ago in Padua. Julian saw the calm heavy-lidded eyes, the saffron-colored eyeballs. There was both compassion and rebuke in the man’s gaze.
Lascia!
Julian said to it, in his head. Leave me alone! I’m tired of this coil—tired of frittering, tired of trouble. What would you have me do?
The hallucination vanished. ’Tis the poppy juice and sack, and the days of riding. These people here are nothing to me. I’m cold. And, indeed, he began to shiver with an ague. It was the damp, he thought, the chilly damp and agues of this miserable country.
Emma and the two men finished the riddle song, then Tom burst out irrepressibly, “But I know a better riddle song—we needn’t be too glum—this ’un makes Nan laugh.” He began to bellow in a jovial baritone:
What is a friar wi’ a bald head? A staff to heat a cuckold dead?
What is a gun that shoots point blank, and hits between a maiden’s flank?