Face Down under the Wych Elm (3 page)

"Given that choice, I will delight in Jennet's presence.” With a rueful chuckle, he leaned forward to drop a light kiss on Susanna's smiling lips. Bad enough, he thought, that he was obliged to put up with his mother's presence at Whitethorn Manor.

"That woman will be the ruin of him,” Winifred Baldwin muttered as she searched her son's belongings.

Nick was there again. At Leigh Abbey. With her.

Winifred made a harrumphing sound as she finished pawing through the contents of a sea chest. Still grumbling, she let the lid slam closed on Nick's clothing and surveyed his chamber for potential hiding places. She knew what she sought, even though she was uncertain what precise form it might take. The Appleton woman had put a spell on Nick. Nothing else could explain his slavish devotion to her, his defiance of his own mother's advice. If there was a love charm hidden in the house, like the one Winifred herself had used to entrap Nick's father almost forty years earlier, she intended to find it.

As in all the rooms at Whitethorn Manor, carpet from Antwerp instead of rushes covered the floor of Nick's bedchamber. He'd acquired some peculiar habits during his sojourn in Persia. Here the rug was green, an oblong four ells long and two ells broad. Most extravagant. What was wrong with rushes, she'd like to know? Or good woven mats of English manufacture?

Winifred stared at the heavy fabric. Was there a hiding place in the floor beneath? If so, it must wait for discovery. Her back ached from her earlier efforts. At present, lifting such a heavy object without assistance was beyond her powers.

Turning her attention to the bed, she recalled that Nick had imported six feather ticks from Brussels the previous year. One lay here, atop his thick, wool-stuffed mattress. Had he given another to her? No doubt he had, along with a sampling of the delicacies made by Antwerp's most skilled confectioners. Winifred had seen a copy of the letter ordering those, but nary a sign of the treats themselves. Her mouth watered as she imagined the delightful tastes—green ginger, white sugar candy, and assorted comfits. Her favorite sweets were almonds dipped in honey.

Winifred turned expert hands to an examination of the layers of fabric covering Nick's bed. He'd hidden nothing under the tapestry coverlet or the down-filled pillows. Her search beneath the blanket of white Spanish felt yielded only a quilt, a second blanket of fustian, and a pair of sheets.

Exasperated, she turned next to the corner of the room hidden by a screen painted in bright colors. Once behind it, she could not hear the sound of soft footfalls on the stairs. She had no inkling that Nick had come into the bedchamber, or stood watching her increasingly frantic search, until he spoke.

"Looking for something, Mother?"

Caught in an undignified crouch beside the close stool, Winifred took a moment to regain her composure before she straightened and turned to face her son. She produced the stub of a candle from her apron pocket, pretending she'd just dropped it. “The wicks needed trimming."

"In the daytime?"

"Harrumph! The light is fading as we speak. ‘Twill be dark soon."

"Mother, this has to stop.” He caught her arm to help her to her feet and kept hold of her, his grip gentle but unyielding, when she would have barged past him out of the room.

"I have no notion what you mean."

"You understand me very well."

"By St. Frideswide's girdle, I do not understand you at all!"

She, who had spent decades in London trying to ignore her own country origins, could not comprehend Nick's desire to rusticate in this backwater. She could not put all the blame on Lady Appleton, either, no matter how much she wished to do so. Nick had purchased Whitethorn Manor before he'd ever met the woman.

Nick released her, removed his stylish feathered bonnet, and raked agitated fingers though a shock of dark brown hair. There were a few strands of white in it, Winifred noticed, though he was scarce five and thirty. In that, he reminded her of Bevis.

Every hair on her late husband's head had changed color by the time he passed his fortieth birthday. Otherwise, though, Nick took after the men on her side of the family—stocky, but not fat, with broad shoulders. No one would ever call him handsome, but he was not ill-favored, either, and he did have an immense fortune with which to attract a wife.

"Perhaps you should consider returning to London,” he suggested.

Winifred would have liked nothing better, but she could scarce admit to that to Nick. He needed her here to look out for him. “I am content to remain at Whitethorn Manor. Indeed, there are several matters here which require my personal supervision.” She hoped he would not ask her to be more specific.

"Well, then,” Nick said, looking thoughtful, “I will entrust the place to your keeping."

Too late, Winifred saw the trap. “Where will you be?"

"Maidstone. I plan to leave tomorrow and will remain there until after the summer Assizes."

"Business?"

He nodded. “A civil suit."

That sounded harmless enough, but Winifred was suspicious by nature. Her son was keeping something from her.

She would not rest until she discovered what it was.

Friday, June 27, 1567

Constance Crane tried in vain to blot out the insistent voice and ignore the damning questions it asked. This was not the first interrogation she had endured during the five weeks of her imprisonment.

"What person can unwitch what another doth bewitch?"

The answer was ��a witch,” but if she gave it, she would lay herself open to other questions, probing questions designed to trap her into saying more than she meant. She would be asked if the innocent herbal remedies her cousin concocted in her stillroom were charms for unwitching. Agree and they would say Lucy was a witch. Deny the charge and they would not believe her.

Constance's surroundings provided little to distract her. The room was empty save for the table behind which her inquisitors sat, forcing her to stand before them. The bare walls were broken by one small window. She knew it overlooked the marketplace, but she was not close enough to see out. Instead, she could stare only as far as the flies buzzing in the opening.

The small chamber smelled of frankincense, burned to counteract foul smells. Unable to wash for many days, her hem stained from the filth of her dank and noisome cell, Constance dared not imagine how rank an odor must emanate from her person. She could no longer smell herself but it was humiliating to think that others did. She had always prided herself on cleanliness, using her own preparation of orange-flower water as a scent.

"What person can unwitch what another doth bewitch?"

The coldness of Doctor Cole's voice sent a shiver through Constance's thin frame. She knew who and what he was. The guards who brought food to prisoners in Maidstone's gaol had been more than willing to provide details.

The Reverend Thomas Cole was now archdeacon of Essex but years ago, when King Edward reigned, he'd been master of Maidstone's school. Later, during Queen Mary's restoration of the Church of Rome, he'd been obliged to go into exile, living first in Frankfort, then in Geneva. He'd returned to England when Queen Elizabeth took the throne and last year had played a prominent role in the trial of several witches from Chelmsford.

He believed in the effectiveness of both bewitching and unwitching.

So did most people, including Constance, although she was not so sure as Cole was that every cunning woman skilled with herbs was also a witch. The only thing of which she was certain was that she could not answer his question without creating more difficulties for herself.

"What person can unwitch what another doth bewitch?” he asked again.

Constance had lost track of how often she'd heard that particular demand for information, and she could no longer remember how many times she had been interrogated since her arrest. In the guise of a search for the truth, she had been subjected to endless badgering and bullying. A justice of the peace had questioned her the first time. Then she'd been turned over to the tender mercies of the clergy.

"Do you dispute the power of witchcraft?” Cole's companion, Adrian Ridley, spoke for the first time.

Unable to discern either sympathy or compassion in Ridley's cold green eyes, Constance could only assume he believed the lies, accepted that she was capable of causing another's death. His indifference to her plight was hurtful. In the months before her arrest, she had begun to think of him as a friend, but it was clear he did not intend to lift a finger to help her fight the false charges laid against her. Neither, it seemed, would anyone else. She and Lucy appeared to have been abandoned by everyone. No family member, no friend, not even a former foe, had come forward to offer help.

As she had from the start of the questioning, Constance held herself very still, watching and waiting. She had learned to be self-effacing and patient during the many long years she had served as a waiting gentlewoman to the marchioness of Northampton. She had also gained an understanding of the way words could be used as a trap. Since she could rely on naught but her own wits to save her, she had no intention of being tricked into condemning herself.

"The scriptures say one must not suffer a witch to live,” Cole stated.

Constance managed not to shudder and made no reply but this time she felt the chill of fear clear to the bone. To dispute the power of witchcraft was to repudiate scriptural teaching on the matter. Doing so could lead to being charged with heresy, and while those convicted of witchcraft in England were sentenced to be hanged, those found guilty of heresy might be burnt.

"Who was he, this Peter Marsh that died of witchcraft?” The sharpness of the queary betrayed Cole's irritation over her failure to answer previous questions.

Again Constance maintained a stubborn silence. If she made any answer, she would be agreeing that Marsh had been bewitched to death. They would then accuse her of bewitching him and of failing to get another witch to unwitch him. If she denied these charges, they would insist he had been bewitched and charge her with failing to unwitch him after some other witch had cast a spell on him.

Ridley spoke in a soft voice, answering for her. “Marsh was clerk to Hugo Garrard before I entered his service as chaplain and took over both clerking and secretarial duties."

"What was he to her?” Cole demanded.

"They were ... friends."

"Friends? Or lovers?"

Anger at last spurred Constance into speech. “We were never lovers."

"He desired you.” Ridley's green eyes shot sparks. “Did he force himself upon you, mistress? Did you revenge yourself upon him for ill-using you?"

"Peter Marsh never gave me cause to want him dead."

They did not listen. They had already decided she had bewitched a man to death. They merely wanted her to confess.

Constance glared at Ridley, hating herself for having once found him attractive. The plain black gown of a clergyman did not hide the fact that he was a well-formed man with chiseled features and thick, ebony-hued hair. When they'd first met, Constance had thought him charming, but he exuded no charm whatsoever when he resumed his questioning.

"You and Mistress Milborne were seen kneeling in a garden. How many times have you lain flat or knelt in that place?” Other clergymen had already tried to get her to admit to this. Constance did not answer Ridley, either.

Exhaustion, she thought, had weakened her resolve. She had been foolish to let him lure her into saying as much as she had.

She longed to lie flat right here on the stone-flagged floor. She could not remember the last time she'd slept well. Rest did not come easy when one shared accommodations with rats and other vermin.

"In the yard or house, kneeling, standing, or lying flat, did you ever speak these words: ‘Christ, my Christ, if thou be a Savior, come down and avenge me of mine enemies, or else thou shalt not be a Savior.’”

The prayer was that of a committed apostate. It implied that if Christ did not help the supplicant, she would turn instead to the devil. Constance wanted to deny she'd ever uttered such heretical sentiments but it seemed wisest to maintain her silence. She stiffened her spine and said nothing.

"Will you confess you killed a lamb by witchery?” Cole posed this question.

Constance was unable to stifle a sigh. Had she known the trouble one lamb could cause, she'd have minded her own business. “I have explained the matter of the lamb,” she said in a weary voice.

For just a moment she thought she saw a flicker of pity in Ridley's eyes, but it vanished as quickly as it had come.

"Explain again,” Cole ordered.

Since she could see no way they could use the incident against her, Constance complied. “In the spring, I came upon one of my neighbors feeding a lamb with milk and white bread. I remarked that this was wasteful, since it took bread and milk from the mouths of children."

"But the lamb died."

"Aye, it did. Most like from surfeit of milk and bread."

"Do you say this was God's will?"

Pressing her hands to her temples, Constance tried to think. Was this another trick? If she agreed the lamb's death was God's will, would they accuse her of praying to God to kill it?

"The lamb died because it was passing weak when it was born. Not even good bread and milk could save it."

Cole turned to Adrian Ridley. “The lamb's sickness and death and the death of Peter Marsh were caused by the devil operating through this witch."

Constance felt the color drain from her face. A wave of dizziness hit her at the same time, making her sway. What was the use? They would twist whatever she said and misinterpret what she did not to suit themselves. That there was a simple reason for the lamb's death meant nothing because there was no rational explanation for what had happened to Peter Marsh. One day he had been fit as a prize bull. The next he had been dead.

Three blue-eyed, small-boned sprites sat on cushions in a circle on the floor of Lady Appleton's study. They followed the same routine every day, joining one dark-haired, dark-eyed imp as playmates and companions after they broke their fast. At lessons, which began at midmorning, Lady Appleton strove to treat them with equal fairness, but Rosamond, her late husband's bastard, held a special place in her heart, in spite of the circumstances of her birth.