“It was the ones we scared off.” George kept pacing while he spoke, his arms still swinging. “They came back. They did this.”
“Aye, as you say.” Bluster laid a hand on George’s arm, stopping the swinging. “Not your fault if it was, lad.”
George stopped pacing; stopped all movement and stared at the little man. His anger was plain, and he looked more than ready to contradict Bluster. The Reeve held his place, keeping his eyes and George’s locked together until George’s expression softened. “Aye,” said George at last. “I suppose not.”
They were in my house,
Thomas thought, staring through his tears at the back of the wagon, and the small man’s corpse that lay in it.
The ones who did this were in my house.
“I’ll want to talk to you three,” said Bluster, pulling him away from his thoughts. “As soon as we get the body back into town. We need to talk about Timothy, then I need to send a messenger to the sheriff in Lakewood.”
I can tell Bluster,
Thomas thought.
I can tell him everything and let him go to my house and…
And do what?
The men were gone. Thomas remembered the bishop ordering them out of the room. Thomas could see in his mind what would happen. His father would refuse to let Thomas in, or the bishop would deny everything and use the power in his voice to make Bluster believe him. Worse, the bishop would get Bluster to put Thomas in chains where he couldn’t get away, and then…
One hand went to his chest of its own accord, and the dull ache there made Thomas shudder. “Thomas?” said Bluster. Thomas looked up, saw the man staring down at him. There was pity on his face, and worry. “We need to go. Now.”
Thomas nodded. At least Bluster would send word to the sheriff, whose demesne extended fifty miles in all directions from Lakewood. Elmvale itself, if it had not been on the nunnery’s lands, would be part of his domain. With luck, the man might lay his hands on the bishop’s men, at least.
Thomas scrubbed hard at his tears, carefully avoiding his broken nose, then gathered his strength and pushed himself to his feet. It hurt far more than he expected, and he nearly fell over. Eileen stood up at once, letting him lean on her. Thomas tried to bring in a deep breath and found that his nose was bleeding again. He used the edge of his sleeve to staunch it, wincing at the pain.
“Come on, then,” said Bluster, “let’s get this over with.”
Lionel and Liam and two others began pushing and pulling the wagon back towards the town. The Reeve and the nuns fell in behind. Thomas, not having any alternative, followed. He would tell the Reeve as little as possible. Until he had some proof, anything else would make the whole mess worse.
The walk back felt far longer than it possibly could have been. Thomas’s body ached. Pain jolted him with every step. His energy was nearly gone. Thoughts flitted through his head like birds unable to decide whether to settle to earth or to fly to distant lands.
George and Eileen walked on either side of Thomas each holding an arm and helping to keep him upright. Eileen’s face was still streaked with tears which she didn’t bother wiping. George just looked lost. In front of them, the wagon with its still-bleeding cargo moved slowly ahead. Sister Clare and Sister Brigit walked with Bluster beside the wagon, talking in low tones. Every now and then, Bluster would look back at the trio, sweeping his piercing eyes across them before settling on Thomas. He would stare a while, then turn back to the nuns.
“Why does he keep looking back at us?” asked George.
“He’s talking to the Sisters,” said Eileen. “They’re probably telling everything they know about what happened to your face.”
“Aye, well, that’s precious little,” said Thomas.
“He’s going to ask you about it,” said George, “once this business with Timothy is done.”
“Aye.”
“What are you going to tell him?”
Precious little,
thought Thomas. He didn’t answer though, and George let the matter alone.
The procession was spotted as soon as they broke free of the woods, and by the time they had crossed the town common, a half-dozen curious folks were there to meet them and learn what had happened. Liam told them about Timothy and several of them left at once.
“Must they tell everyone?” said Eileen watching a women scurrying away down the street.
“Everyone will find out sooner or later,” said George. “It may as well be sooner.”
“They shouldn’t carry it like gossip,” said Eileen. “It’s not right.”
Bluster led the grim group to the old watchtower where he kept his office, collecting a crowd of the curious in their wake as word spread through the town. By the time they stopped, nearly a quarter of the village had gathered around them, from children too young to understand what was happening to old men and women looking for gossip to share by the fire.
Magda pushed through them all to reach her husband, who took her hand as soon as he put down his side of the wagon’s tongue. Thomas searched through the crowd for his own family, hoping to see his mother or brother and talk to them. Neither was there.
It doesn’t mean anything,
he thought, trying to force himself to believe it.
Most of the village isn’t here. There’s no reason they should be.
Bluster stepped up onto the tower stairs and called for silence. The crowd muttered a few moments more, then stilled. Bluster outlined the events of the morning and the muttering began again, this time laced with shock and horror rather than curiosity. Bluster raised a hand for silence once more, and this time got it much faster than before.
“The important thing,” said Bluster, “is that we all keep our eyes open for the next while. The men who did this could still be around, and if they are, there could be danger. Now I’ll be needing to talk to anyone who was in the woods last night—”
“That narrows it down,” someone said in the back of the crowd. No one laughed, but many heads nodded.
“—who thinks they heard anything unusual,” Bluster finished, ignoring the interruption. He paused, then added, “And I don’t mean Liam’s grunting, though we could certainly all hear that.”
The chuckle that ran through the crowd sounded more obligatory than amused; an attempt to raise spirits lowered by the sight of the corpse in the wagon. Bluster exhorted them once more to be careful, then waved the crowd away. They broke off in knots, people speaking in low tones as they went. It would be the talk of three counties by the end of the day, Thomas was certain.
“Now,” Bluster said, turning to Thomas and his friends. “Come inside and tell me about these men again.”
***
The inside of the watchtower was dark and cool. Sunlight came in long, thin shafts through long slits in the walls once meant for archers to fire through, though the platforms they would have stood on had long since vanished. Now, there was no structure in the tower save for the stairs that ran in circles all the way up to the roof and the thick beams that reached across the empty air from wall to wall, keeping the tower upright. Dust motes danced in the light as the beams fell across the room to land against walls as grey inside as they had been out. There was a single chair and a table that Bluster used as a desk, and two long benches for furniture. On one section of the wall a half-dozen leg- and arm-chains dangled off iron rings.
Thomas, George, and Eileen were on one of the benches, Magda and Lionel on the other. None of them had moved for the better part of two hours, or spoken save to answer Bluster’s questions. Bluster sat behind his desk, a quill in his hand, scratching notes on the paper in front of him as he led the three friends through their memories of the men who attacked Timothy’s wagon, making each one of them tell their version of the story twice. Bluster peppered them with questions, searching out the smallest details about what had happened.
Thomas said nothing about the bishop, nothing about the men being at his house, nothing about magic. He kept to what he’d remembered of the night the men attacked Timothy, and felt like a coward for doing it.
There’s nothing else I can do,
Thomas told himself.
No one will believe me. Not against the bishop.
“All right,” said Bluster at last, putting down the quill, “I’ll send a messenger to the sheriff over in Lakewood, let him know what’s happened.”
“Do you think you’ll find them?” asked Eileen.
“I don’t know,” Bluster said. “If they stay around here, I’ll find them, but if they’ve left…” He shrugged, then stood up and stretched his back. “Long time to be sitting.” He walked around the desk. “There is one other matter, though,” he said, putting himself directly in front of Thomas. “What happened to you last night?”
Thomas looked at his feet and didn’t say anything. Bluster waited a moment, then continued. “Now, my money would have been on that one—” Bluster pointed at Lionel. Lionel rose to protest but stopped when Bluster said“—but the nuns told me he had nothing to do with it.”
“I didn’t,” said Lionel, sinking back in his seat. Shame crept into his face again. “I wouldn’t.”
Bluster raised his eyebrows at that, but only said, “Do you know who did?”
“I think it’s Thomas’s story to tell,” said Magda.
“True enough,” agreed Bluster, turning back to Thomas. “So what happened?”
Thomas wished desperately for a way to explain it all; a way to tell the story that would sound even remotely plausible. There wasn’t one. In the end, he could only say what he had said to Lionel and Magda. “I had a disagreement with my father.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Thomas could see Bluster pressing his lips together, making them a thin line of white on his face. Thomas waited. At last, Bluster said. “When I talked to your father this morning, he said that when he came home, you two had an argument and then you ran out of the house.”
Thomas remembered the feel of his father’s hand on his collar, shoving him out of the back door and into the dirt. “I didn’t run out. He threw me out.”
“Bishop Malloy was there as well,” Bluster’s tone grew colder with every word. “And he said the same as your father. And that you were in a violent rage and that you threatened them before you left.”
Of course he did,
thought Thomas.
Of course he would make everything my fault.
Bluster’s strong hand came under Thomas’s chin and forced his head up. “Why don’t you tell me what happened last night?” said Bluster. “Begin after the Fire.”
Thomas wanted to pull his head out of Bluster’s hand; to stand up and walk out. Instead, knowing Bluster would stop him if he tried to leave, he met Bluster’s cold stare. “I went to my father’s house after the Fire. I got beat up. My
father threw me out. I walked through the woods to George’s house.”
Bluster tilted Thomas’s chin higher. “And no one saw you.”
“Unless I tripped over someone on the way.”
“And you say you were beaten at your father’s house.”
“Aye.”
“And why wouldn’t your father mention this?”
Because then he’d have to say why,
thought Thomas.
And the bishop won’t allow that.
“The problem, lad, is that all I’ve got is your word for that,” said Bluster, still hanging onto Thomas’s chin. “And I’ve got the word of your father and the bishop saying otherwise. This means that someone is lying. And when someone lies about events on the night a man got murdered, that makes me worried.”
Thomas felt his eyes widen of their own accord; felt a dozen protests rise up at once and get stuck together in his throat. Behind him, Thomas heard Magda’s intake of breath; heard Lionel rise to his feet and felt George and Eileen stiffen on either side of him.
Bluster’s upraised hand stopped any words. “Now I’m not saying you killed the juggler, but I’m thinking you’re knowing more than you say, and I’ll be wanting the truth out of you.” The grip on Thomas’s chin grew tighter, pushing hard at the bruises there. “Who did this, lad?”
The same ones that killed Timothy.
The words wouldn’t pass Thomas’s lips. He had no proof, and the bishop and his father would refute any accusation he made. Instead he said, “It was dark. I couldn’t see.”
The grip tightened further, bringing tears to Thomas’s eyes. “And you’re sure you were beaten before you left your father’s house?”
“Aye.”
“Not after?”
“Aye.”
“You don’t need to hurt the lad,” began Lionel.
Bluster cut him off, his voice rising as he kept the pressure on Thomas’s chin. “The bishop and your father say otherwise, lad. And of the three, you are not the one I’m inclined to believe. So unless you have some way to prove it—”
An image of John Flarety, pushing Madeleine away, blazed up in Thomas’s mind.
“My mother,” said Thomas between gritted teeth. “Ask her.”
Bluster’s head tilted to one side, his eyes narrowing as he considered it. “She was there?”
“Not for all of it,” said Thomas. “But for enough.”
“And she’ll say the same as you?”
More
, thought Thomas,
if my father will let you speak to her.
“Aye. She will.”
Bluster stared at Thomas a while longer, then let go of his chin and stepped back. Thomas’s head fell forward, the relief from the pain making him gasp. “All right. I’ll speak to her.” He stepped away and turned to Magda and Lionel. “You said Thomas is staying with you?”
“Aye,” said Magda, her tone leaving no doubt as to how much she disapproved what she had just witnessed. “Until he can go home.”
“Take him, then,” said Bluster. “He looks to be in need of rest.”
“He is,” agreed Magda, stiffly. “Come on, everyone.”
Eileen and George reached to help Thomas to his feet, but he stood before they could. It hurt, but not as much as it had before. Bluster went to the door and held it open for them all. Thomas let everyone else go first, then stopped in the doorway. “What will happen to Timothy?” he asked Bluster. “To his body, I mean.”
Bluster shrugged. “The nuns will ready him for the grave,” he said. “I’ll send notices out when I send word to the sheriff. If no family comes for him in three days, we’ll bury him.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know,” said Bluster. “The nuns will take care of it, unless you have an idea?”