Janna Mysteries 1 & 2 Bindup (16 page)

‘I’ll ask Mistress Cecily.’ Knowing Cecily’s secret, Janna felt sure the tiring woman would have watched Eadgyth carefully on her arrival at the manor for signs of betrayal. If Fulk had said or done anything untoward, Cecily would surely have noticed.

She tapped a foot, impatient for action.

‘My lord Robert asked you to leave. You are not welcome here.’ Aldith hesitated. ‘Go back to your cottage, Janna. I can talk to the tiring women and report their words to you, if you would like me to do so.’

Was Aldith just being kind, or was her true purpose to get Janna out of the manor and out of her way? Janna had no way of knowing. She felt ashamed of her suspicions, but she knew anyway that this was a task that she alone must fulfil, for only she knew the right questions to ask, and only she had the courage to ask them.

‘It’s true my lord Robert told me to go,’ she admitted, ‘but Dame Alice’s nephew has asked me to wait here. As I can’t serve two masters, I would rather serve myself. In truth, I can’t rest until I know who was responsible for my mother’s death. I want justice, Mistress Aldith. So I thank you for your offer, but it would be unfair to involve you in this business, especially if Fulk succeeds in turning all the household against me.’

The midwife nodded, seeming relieved to be rid of the responsibility. Nevertheless, she sounded a note of warning. ‘I understand you’re looking for someone to blame, but you must tread carefully, Janna! Fulk is an important man in Wiltune. Many hold him in high regard. If you accuse him of poisoning your mother, do you really think anyone will take your word against his?’

‘They must, if I have proof.’ In spite of her brave words, Janna acknowledged the dangerous path she had chosen. Yet she knew also that she could not give up her search for the truth.

J
ANNA AND ALDITH
sat on in silence, each busy with her own thoughts. Janna’s eyes began to droop with tiredness, until the sound of a door opening jerked her back to the peril she was facing. To her relief, there was no sign of the lord of the manor. Cecily had emerged. She was on her own, and her steps checked when she saw them waiting. For a moment Janna thought she might retreat, but she set off once more, hurrying on down the hall towards the door.

Janna jumped to her feet. Now was her best chance to prove Fulk’s guilt, if only the tiring woman had seen what must have happened and was brave enough to bear witness against him.

‘Mistress Cecily, please wait! May I ask you something?’

Cecily’s steps slowed to a stop. Reluctantly, she turned.

‘The priest told me that the doctor ordered a hot posset to be made up for Dame Alice and that my mother tasted it.’ Janna rushed into speech as soon as she had Cecily’s attention.

Cecily nodded slowly. ‘’Tis true. Master Fulk brought the posset to Dame Alice’s bedchamber.’

‘Did he say what was in it?’

‘Nettles and mint among other things. It wasn’t the first time he’d ordered it for Dame Alice. He boasted that it was a marvellous tonic, and that it would restore my lady to health far quicker than any mixtures your mother might give her.’

With difficulty, Janna bit back a sharp retort. ‘So my mother wasn’t with Dame Alice when the apothecary brought in the posset?’ She had to get all the facts, even if they didn’t take her in the direction she’d planned.

‘No, but she came in only a few moments later. She demanded to know what was in the mixture, but Master Fulk wouldn’t tell her. So your mother seized the cup and tasted its contents. We were all greatly scandalised, for she never asked Dame Alice’s permission to do so.’

Brushing aside Cecily’s regard for etiquette, Janna asked, ‘Did Dame Alice also taste the posset?’

‘No. She said it was too hot to drink, and set it aside to cool.’

Janna felt a surge of excitement. Keeping her voice calm with difficulty, she asked the most important question. ‘Cecily, did Master Fulk add anything to the posset after my mother entered the room?’

‘No, I don’t think so.’ She screwed up her delicate features in concentration. ‘No, I’m sure not.’

Janna tried to hide her disappointment. ‘Did he perhaps ask my mother to try the posset?’

‘No, indeed. In fact, he tried to prevent her from taking up the cup. The posset was for Dame Alice to drink, not your mother!’

Janna and Aldith exchanged glances. Aldith shook her head in warning, but Janna could not give up now. ‘Did my mother say anything about the posset, about its taste perhaps?’ There was an edge of desperation in her question.

Unexpectedly, Cecily grinned. ‘She was extremely rude about it. She took a few sips and then poured the rest of it out of the window. When Master Fulk complained, she told him she’d brought a far better tonic for Dame Alice, and while rose petals, nettles, mint and honey might make a sweet concoction, to her certain knowledge they had never cured anything more serious than a mild stomach ache!’

Rose petals, nettles, mint and honey. Janna closed her eyes, acknowledging that it could not be the posset that had killed her mother. Eadgyth would certainly have warned Dame Alice that it contained monkshood if she’d detected its presence. She should have thought of that before.

‘That is where I am bound now,’ Cecily said. ‘Fulk has ordered me to fetch another posset from the cook, although methinks it may do more to relieve ma dame’s stomach than her low spirits if what your mother said was true.’ She shook her head. ‘My poor lady,’ she said softly. ‘She is in such distress, I think she would do better to drink the wine that has come from Normandy. At least that would dull her senses; it could even bring her the comfort of sleep.’

Janna remembered how the lady had sent the goblet tumbling to the floor. ‘Does Dame Alice not drink wine?’

‘She does, but she says this latest shipment is tainted. I think she does exaggerate, for the wine tastes very fine to me.’

‘I have only ever tasted dandelion and nettle wine,’ Janna confessed. A picture came into her mind of Robert and his household sitting down to dine, and the array of fine food and fine wines they would consume. The hollow in her stomach reminded her how little she herself had eaten recently, and how poor and basic were the meals she shared with her mother. With difficulty she brought her mind back to the questions she still wanted to ask. Cecily might have demolished the case against Fulk, but there was a lot more that she could tell.

‘I must go,’ Cecily said quickly. ‘Dame Alice is waiting for her posset.’

‘I’ll come with you.’ Janna fell into step beside her before she could refuse. In silence, they descended the stairs leading to the grounds of the manor. ‘Can you tell me what else passed between my mother and Master Fulk after she poured the posset away. Did she by any chance taste any other of his concoctions?’ she asked, once they were outside.

‘No, she did not. She told him to leave the bedchamber. He would not go and began a loud argument, but Dame Alice insisted that he leave them all in peace. Of course, he returned as soon as he heard your mother was taken ill, but …’

‘Did he offer her any physic then?’ It was possible her mother had taken ill, and then Fulk had seen to it that she never recovered, Janna thought. Her hopes were dashed as Cecily again shook her head.

Not Fulk, then. It seemed he must be in the clear after all. Disappointed, she cast her mind about for others who might have wished her mother harm. She remembered then her conversation with the priest. He’d dismissed her suspicions of Fulk, but how clear was his own conscience? The priest had told her he’d been in the bedchamber and had witnessed the scene between her mother and Fulk. If the priest had fallen for the merchant’s patter in the marketplace, he too would have access to a phial of oil and could have used it to poison the posset. It would explain his anger and dismay when he heard her accuse Fulk of the very same crime! She turned to Cecily. ‘What about the priest?’ she asked. ‘Did he touch the posset at any time?’

‘No.’

‘Or offer my mother anything to eat or drink?’

‘No.’ Cecily gave a sudden giggle. ‘He kept as far away from your mother as possible. I think he was frightened of her. She had an answer for everything he said. She always managed to silence him.’

Janna felt a sharp pang of remembrance. ‘An ignorant bigot,’ Eadgyth had called the priest, after their hasty exit from his church. ‘Because he hates women, he would have us believe that Christ did too.’ Eadgyth would have enjoyed giving him a taste of her sharp tongue. Could she have angered him enough to kill her?

Even if she had, it seemed he did not have the opportunity to put wishes into action. Not the priest then, and not Fulk. That meant Janna would have to consider more carefully the time leading up to her mother’s arrival at the manor house. In this, Cecily held the key.

She put out a hand to detain the tiring lady, and drew her into the shade of a barn. ‘My mother had a visitor in the morning before she died,’ she said carefully. Cecily said nothing, but Janna noticed her hands clench and unclench at her side. ‘The visit was a great secret.’ Janna continued. ‘I knew it must be someone very special for I was not allowed to stay and help my mother.’

Cecily’s face had paled. She was biting her lips, but still she said nothing. Janna waited a few moments, then said patiently, ‘You were gone from the manor when you were supposed to be resting. You were gone at the time my mother expected her visitor.’ Cecily averted her face and did not answer. Janna sighed. ‘It was you, wasn’t it?’ she said, going on before Cecily had a chance to deny it: ‘I know, from the herbs I was sent to gather, that you were with child and that you came to my mother for help.’

Cecily jerked upright. Her face was anguished as she gasped, ‘You must not tell anyone of this. It’s too dangerous.’

‘Why? Why is it dangerous?’

‘Because … because I am unwed, and in Dame Alice’s employ. If she knew, she would send me away. I have nowhere else to go.’

Janna wondered who the father was, that he could leave a young girl to face her disgrace alone. Some lowly servant or farmhand, perhaps, who would not dare brave the wrath of the lord of the manor? She had a sudden vision of Hugh supporting Cecily at Eadgyth’s graveside. How solicitous he had been over her health; how protective were his arms about her waist as he helped her mount and led her away. Hugh might care about Cecily, but he would not want his aunt to know that he’d got her tiring woman into trouble. Janna felt suddenly faint but, with an effort, brought her reeling senses under control.

‘I understand. Forgive me for distressing you, mistress, but I need to ask you more questions about my mother. You see, I had thought she must have taken some poison at the manor house to cause her death, but I see now that I was mistaken. I believe my mother must have taken some food or drink, imbibed some poison somehow, even before she came to the manor house.’ Janna watched Cecily carefully, curious to observe her reaction.

The tiring woman was still pale with the shock of having her secret uncovered. Was she also fearful that Janna might discover an even more dreadful secret: that she herself had made sure of the
wortwyf’s
silence? Janna liked Cecily, and felt deeply sorry for her, but she knew she couldn’t allow her sympathy to blind her to the fact that Cecily had lied once and might well do so again.

‘You were with my mother on the morning of her death,’ she said carefully. ‘Did you see her eat or drink anything while you were at the cottage?’

‘No.’ Cecily thought for a moment. ‘No,’ she said again.

‘You didn’t take anything to her?’

Cecily bridled. ‘Of course I did! I gave her a gift in return for her labour and skill.’

Janna nodded. That was only to be expected. ‘But you didn’t share any food or drink with her?’

‘No. I took only the potion your mother made for me.’ Cecily shuddered, and tears came into her eyes as she relived what had happened. ‘I thought I was like to die. I had such cramps. I was in such pain. I was also in great distress of mind. Your mother was very kind to me. She warned me how it would be, and bade me rest in the cottage so that she could take care of me until the worst of it had passed. But I was in haste to be gone, lest my absence be noted and remarked upon, and so I didn’t tarry long.’

‘Did my mother go back to the manor with you? Were you with her when she met Mistress Aldith?’

‘No!’ Cecily shook her head. ‘I went on my own. I’d told everyone I was ill and needed to rest, and I crept in hoping my absence hadn’t been noticed.’ A watery smile gleamed momentarily. ‘It seems I was not careful enough, however.’

‘So they know you were absent, but no-one from the manor knows where you really were or the purpose of your absence?’

‘No.’ Cecily seized hold of Janna’s hand. ‘You must not speak of this to anyone, anyone at all,’ she begged. ‘Should Dame Alice come to hear of it, I would lose my position here along with my livelihood. Promise me you will keep silent, even if your mother could not.’

‘My mother kept her promise to you,’ Janna said at once. ‘It was only after my lord Hugh spoke of your absence from the manor, and I saw how ill you looked, and how you tried to care for my mother when she lay dying, that I thought her visitor might have been you. Even so, I was not sure. You could have denied it. I might even have believed you.’

Cecily tipped her head on one side, assessing Janna with a thoughtful stare. ‘I think you see and know a lot more than any of us realise,’ she observed. ‘You certainly ask enough questions!’

Janna smiled, taking Cecily’s words as a compliment. Yet it was no time for smiling, she realised. Cecily had utterly demolished her carefully constructed case against Fulk and against the priest, and was well on the way to clearing her own name. She might have to start her investigation all over again. ‘Can you tell me anything, anything at all, about your visit to my mother that might have led to her death?’ she asked.

Tears came into Cecily’s eyes once more. ‘For certes your mother was in good health and good spirits when I left her. She was going to make up a new elixir for the baby, and she told me she’d see how I fared when she got back to the manor house.’ She began to weep, knuckling her fists into her eyes like a small child as she tried to conceal her distress. ‘It was such a long walk back to the manor, I truly thought I was the one who was going to die.’

Janna put her hand on Cecily’s arm to steady her. ‘I am sorry you had to bear that alone. It must have been hard for you.’ She was touched by Cecily’s grief, knowing that it reflected an anguish of mind and spirit even more than the memory of her physical discomfort. She had seen the effect of her mother’s potion on other young women who had come to her in secrecy. It could be no easy thing to cross the Church’s teaching and take the life of a child. Janna felt great sympathy for this lonely young woman. ‘You have my silence, I give you my word on it,’ she promised.

Cecily carefully wiped away her tears, gave a mournful sniff, and walked off in the direction of the kitchen. Janna watched her go. All her instincts told her that she could trust Cecily, yet the tiring woman had given her no proof that she was innocent, nor could she. She and Eadgyth had been alone in the cottage. Anything might have taken place between them. All Janna knew for certain was that her mother did not die by her own hand.

The manor seemed hushed and still, drowsy in the mid-afternoon sun. It was past dinner-time and Janna’s stomach growled with hunger. She debated going home, back to the cottage, for her questions were all done. Her spirits drooped at the thought. She could not give up, not yet.

Surely the answers must lie here, at the manor house, where her mother had spent her last hours. If only she knew who to speak to, and where to look! While she pondered her next move, Janna walked to the well. She could slake her thirst, if not her hunger.

The cool water refreshed her. She sat down on a bench beside the well, and closed her eyes, the better to focus on the events surrounding her mother’s death. Lifting her face to the sun, she felt its warmth enter her body, giving new life and hope to her exhausted spirit.