Authors: April Taylor
Gwenette’s ears, more alert than his, caught the rustle of approaching skirts. She seized his arm, pulling him back into the dark shelter of the chapel. When audible footsteps stopped by the door, she lifted a hanging and draped it over them. Luke heard two distinct sets of feet: the first a light indeterminate tread made by one used to moving silently from place to place, the other heavier and more deliberate. He would wager that Light Foot was smaller than his companion, or mayhap Light Foot was female.
Disgust filled his head. Were he and Gwenette about to be unwilling witnesses to a sordid tryst? And if so, why did the perpetrators have to choose the chapel of all places? Gwenette’s warning hand on his arm prevented him from obeying his first impulse to leap out, confront the lovers and tell them to find a place more fitting for their squalid behavior. It was a few moments before he realized what Gwenette must have known instantly. There was the sound of rustling clothes, yes and footsteps, but none of the giggling and other sounds that would have assaulted their ears had this been a clandestine meeting of man and maid.
Luke, certain that discovery was imminent, tensed as the intruders came closer. But whoever stood on the other side of the hanging had not noticed the bulge in the darkness of the corner.
“Report.” A light voice, male, unremarkable. Sounding almost bored.
“She is torn. Confused. Frightened.”
The second voice was deeper, but Luke had to strain to hear the words. He closed his eyes, the better to concentrate.
“Then you must try harder. You know the price of failure.”
The second voice adopted a pleading tone.
“It is not that simple. You must give me more time.”
“Ah,” the light voice had taken on an edge of amused malice. “Time. The plea of bunglers throughout the ages. There is no more time. Do as you have been instructed.”
Luke heard the second man begin a protest, cut off by an oath from the first.
“You may go, but I shall be watching you. Now remove yourself from my sight.”
Luke waited until all sounds of movement had ceased. He eased his head out from the safety of the hanging. The chapel was empty. Gwenette seized his arm.
“Did you hear what they said? What were they talking about?”
Luke rubbed his bearded chin.
“I have no idea, but I am sure of one thing, Gwenette. It is nothing good.”
Chapter Six
By unspoken agreement, they separated at the chapel door. Luke stood in the shadows watching Gwenette flit around the corner on her way to Queen Anne’s rooms. As soon as she vanished from view, he swung round and stole into the park, returning to his house via the Outer Green gate. His nose lifted in alarm the second he entered the shop. Joss bristled and growled.
“Who has been here?”
“I do not know, master.”
Rob’s face was pale, eyes clouded, and his hand plucked his hair into disorder. Luke checked his initial reaction to shake the boy, instead pushing him down onto the settle and examining each part of the shop.
“Been cleaning out the gallipots, lad?” he asked in a gentle voice.
“Aye, she was just standing there when I turned round. I never heard her come in.”
Luke poured a jack of small beer and pushed it into Rob’s hand.
“Drink this, gather your wits and tell me all. Start with who ‘she’ is and go on from there.”
“I do not know who she is, Master, simply that she was here.”
“What did she want?”
A frown creased the boy’s face. He seemed to talk almost to himself.
“It was as if she spoke to me without speaking. She said she had been a friend of the dead girl. I’ll warrant she had not eaten for days, poor maid.”
“A servant of the Queen, then?” Luke watched Rob, frowning at the boy’s unusual languor of speech.
“So young, so lost,” Rob continued. “Great golden eyes pleading for help. I failed her.” He lifted a troubled face to Luke. “I asked her who sent her and she said she could not remember, but my questions frightened her.”
“Did she tell you her name?”
“I must find out where she is and go to her aid.” Rob put the leather tankard on the counter and jumped to his feet. Luke put out a hand to stop him, but Rob pushed against it and the resultant struggle shocked both of them into immobility. They stared at each other, panting.
“What’s wrong with you, boy?”
“I...I cannot say. I just know I must be where she is.”
“Sit down.” Luke felt more than alarmed by Rob’s frantic insistence. The odor he had discerned when he returned to the shop had nearly dissipated. Was Rob’s strange behavior related to it? Testing his theory, Luke shut the shop door and looked at Joss, who seated herself in front of it. Slipping behind the counter, Luke grasped a jar of golden powder. He trusted Joss to hinder any effort on Rob’s part to escape.
“May I go now?” The boy’s voice was tight with anger.
“Rob, do you trust me?”
“Of course, Master.” Grudging tone, but truth nonetheless.
“Then waiting a few more moments cannot harm, can it?”
Luke shook the powder into a mortar and added a few more ingredients, mixing them until a pungent smell flooded the shop.
“Just come over here, lad and tell me if you think this smells wholesome.”
“Very well, Master, but then I must go.”
Rob bent down to sniff the contents. At once his eyes grew heavy, his shoulders sagged and Luke caught him in time to lower him back onto the settle.
“Rob Panton, return to me. See the path. Walk towards my voice. You are safe and need fear nothing.”
It took a while before Rob began to stir, like someone reluctant to come out of a beautiful dream. He put his hands over his eyes and groaned, then sprang to unsteady feet.
“Master, I fell asleep. I beg pardon. I was trying to clean behind the gallipots.”
“Did you have any customers, whilst I was away?”
“None, sir, at least, I don’t think so. I’m sure I would have heard someone come in even if I was asleep.” But a puzzled frown creased his face.
Luke sent him into the kitchen to prepare a meal, not because he was hungry, but because he needed time to consider this new tangle without the confused energy Rob was emitting. The question most on Luke’s mind was whether the girl was flesh and blood or a projection. If the latter, he must presume Nimrod was already aware of his activities, an assumption supported by his recent encounter in the palace. He should have questioned Rob more closely before using the purging and misremembrance spells.
Luke could almost hear Elemagus Dufay’s voice berating him for, yet again, acting before he had thought the matter through. That was a fine theory, but there were occasions when the first thought was the only time one had to act, and his instinct when the foreign aroma hit his nostrils had been to protect his kinsman.
What had been the aim of the hex? To get Rob to leave in search of the girl? And what would have happened then? A blow to his head, a watery grave in the Thames and Luke minus his most trusted companion, most likely.
The initial danger had been forestalled, but he must try and work out what Nimrod’s next action might be and counter it. Had the sunderer wanted the girl to bewitch Rob? Or mayhap, and this thought stopped him in his tracks, the girl was indeed flesh and blood and under a coercion spell, in which case, she was at risk as much as Rob.
Why was she sent when Luke was away from home? Simple. Rob would have no defense against a summoning spell and would be easy prey. Nimrod would then have been able to use Rob to trap Luke. Sunderers used and discarded their dupes as it suited them, but they understood the concept of loyalty, seeing it as a weakness in elemancers. Aye, Nimrod would know that Luke would try to rescue Rob should he be taken.
Furthermore, the girl leaving so abruptly before achieving Nimrod’s objective pointed to two facts. First, Nimrod would have known the instant Luke quitted the palace and how long it would take the apothecary to reach home. Secondly and more importantly, his retreat at this first hint of exposure indicated that the sunderer was using a proxy, and one by no means as accomplished as his master. Or
her
master, his brain added, thinking back to Gwenette’s comments. And, it was logical to assume that Nimrod did not want Luke seeing the girl either. Was this attempted abduction because his enemy wanted to know what Luke knew and assumed Rob was privy to his master’s thoughts? His mind returned to his vision. What had the voice said?
We are all powerful.
Do not fight us
.
A knock made Luke leap to his feet. He prepared to wrap an instant protection spell around the house as he edged the door open. The next moment, he had flung it wide, his face wreathed in smiles.
“Bertila. Come. May I get you some refreshment?”
Bertila Quayne seemed equally pleased to see him. She carried a laden basket and deposited it with a sigh of relief on the nearest settle.
“I know my father says I have a light hand with pastry, but these pies and pasties are heavy.”
“Then you must have some wine. Rob, we have a guest.”
“Did Master Panton not tell you I was coming? He spent enough time persuading me to bake pies for you when he visited.”
“Nay, but that makes the surprise all the more pleasant, especially when it involves your baking, Bertila. And no doubt, Rob knows he will enjoy the fruits of your labors, too. You are looking well, my chick.”
Luke relaxed in Bertila’s company as he did in no other woman’s, even Gwenette’s. Both knew that her father still harbored hopes they would wed, but their love was that of siblings, not the sort that was made for marriage, a conclusion Corbin accepted with a good deal of reluctance. It was no less deep for all that.
Rob came through with two goblets, handing one to each of them.
“Come and join us, lad,” Luke said. He turned to Bertila. “So, apart from taking pity on my stomach, what have you been doing?”
He put her through a catechism of how she spent her days, his heart glowing that she had abandoned her old ways of staying indoors since the Elemagus had been able to eradicate her facial scar the previous summer. Now her time seemed full of trips to markets, talking and laughing with the stallholders, as well as helping her father in his apothecary shop. Corbin had persuaded her to greet his customers and, as she watched her father and learned from him, she was developing skills in encouraging shy customers into talking to her and calming those who had a propensity to be demanding and arrogant.
“Father says I am as good as any apprentice,” she said, smiling.
Luke pretended to pout. “Better than me?”
Bertila’s face assumed an unwonted gravity. “Aye, indeed. Father says you were much too impatient and still are.”
Luke opened his mouth to deliver a stinging retort, but noticed that Bertila’s lips twitched, and joined in her laughter.
“For that slight, Madam, you must make recompense.”
“Gladly. How may I help you, Luke?”
“I have a favor to ask. Do you know Goodwife Brook, whose granddaughter was killed in the palace?”
“Aye. I’ve known her all my life.”
“Good. I need to look at the body of the dead girl. Can you ease my path with the old woman? I asked Mistress Paige, but she is sensible of her position relative to the Queen Mother and fears the people will draw the wrong conclusions should she accompany me.”
One of the things that Luke treasured about Bertila was that she never asked unnecessary questions.
“When?” she said.
“Now? I will make sure Gwenette knows you have stepped in to help me.”
Bertila’s face showed her surprise and Luke hastened to assure her of the urgency of his errand.
“Very good,” she replied. “Master Rob, here are the pies I promised. Put them safely away and I will collect my basket when we return. And next time,” she said, cuffing him lightly about the head, “remember to tell Luke I am visiting.”
* * *
Luke’s first impression of Goodwife Brook was that she had lost flesh since Gwenette had brought her to see him. She greeted Bertila politely enough, but in a distant way, almost as if there were a thin sheet of glass between them. Bertila took the poor woman’s hand in both of hers.
“I am desolated by your loss. Edith was a sweet child,” she said.
“Aye, that she was.”
The old woman blocked the doorway, and for a few moments, the atmosphere grew thick and uncomfortable. Luke cast a quick glance at his greyspring. Joss stood, hackles rising, staring intently at Goodwife Brook. He felt Bertila’s eyes looking to him for guidance and his attention sharpened. Now he thought about it, the old woman’s eyes appeared unfocused. Natural grief or something more? He sniffed. Ah, the same odor from the shop. Luke slipped his hand into the bag of stones tucked in his sleeve and pulled out a garnet. Rolling it between his fingers, he waited until Goodwife Brook fixed her gaze upon its shards of light.
“May we enter?”
The old woman seemed to come to with a start, as if she had been asleep.
“Why, Bertila, I almost didn’t recognize you,” she said. “Your face is unmarked.”
“Aye,” Bertila said, putting up her hand to where the disfigurement had for so many years scarred her cheek. “My father found a special physician who diagnosed a deep inner malady and made me well again.”
“And you, Master Apothecary, I remember your kindness when Mistress Paige brought me to your shop. Come in. How can I aid you?”
Bertila put her arm around the beldame.
“Master Ballard would like to see Edith if that is possible.”
“Why?” Goodwife Brook’s expression showed confusion and some hostility.
“I mean no disrespect to your granddaughter, but there are all kinds of stories circulating about how Edith met her death and those that say she took her own life are gathering pace. I believe that, were I to see her body, I can temper the wildness of the gossip with fact and truth.”
She stood, digesting his words in silence.
“Surely it would be better,” Luke continued, “if I could state that Edith was a blameless innocent. Folk trust me and will believe what I say.”
She inclined her head.
“Very well.”
Edith’s pitiful body was on a table in a small outbuilding that Luke supposed had at one time housed a pig. She had been wrapped in a sheet and laid in a narrow coffin. Luke saw at once that the maid’s grandmother had washed her clean of blood, a fact that frustrated him, but in truth, he could have expected nothing else. He would have to hope that the remains could still tell him something. Joss settled at the foot of the table, her head resting on her paws, her eyes never leaving her master.
First Luke checked Edith’s hands. The nails were bitten to the quick and showed signs of manual work, but neither the backs nor palms were marked by any kind of wound. Luke frowned before examining her arms. Here, the evidence of long slashes up both inner wrists was all too evident. Bertila winced and turned Goodwife Brook’s head into her shoulder. Luke glanced at her.
“Aye, there is no doubt she was killed unlawfully, but she did not suffer, I can assure you of that.”
“How can you tell?”
“Had she struggled with her captor, there would be cuts on her hands and fingers, but there are none. She was overcome, doubtless by a blow to her head—look at this bruising here on her brow—and then laid in the tub and the fatal wounds inflicted.” He put his hand on the old woman’s arm. “I know this is no comfort to you, but I can truly tell you that Edith did not suffer in any way. She is with God and his angels now.”
She put her hand over his and looked directly into his eyes, entreaty clear in hers. “Master Ballard, the priest will not bury her because he says she took her own life, but my Edith would not do that. She was as God-fearing a maid as ever lived and would not put such a mortal sin on her soul.”
“I will talk to him, never fear. There is no doubt Edith was murdered and I will prove this to him. She will lie in consecrated ground. Bertila, will you help me to turn her over?”
Luke was unsure what instinct prompted this suggestion, but decided he must follow it up. When the girl’s back was exposed, he was pleased he had. For there, cut deep and clear into the white flesh, was the jagged shape of an eight-legged spider.