From the Charred Remains (25 page)

A potter’s cart rumbled by them, the pots clanking in every direction, making a considerable din. Miss Water did not seem to notice, fully gone in her reminiscing. “Darius was so handsome, so kind, simply different from other men I’d known. The poems he would recite to me, from Rumi and others, spoke so eloquently of grace and beauty. Our English poets, save the good bard of Stratford, never could compare.” She smiled distantly, longing in her voice. “Every day, when we met, I’d show him the passages I was having trouble with. After he’d helped me, he’d have me close my eyes. Then, he would slip something wonderful into my hands—nuts perhaps, sometimes a piece of fruit, but most often flowers, clipped from the Shah’s gardens. And he’d write me the most delightful letters—” her voice trailed away.

“What did you know of Tahmin?” Lucy asked. “Did he ever come to your meetings?”

“Tahmin nearly always accompanied Darius. Yet he always stayed a respectful distance away. We did not speak to one another directly, other than pleasantries.” Her face had turned rueful. “I wish I had gotten to know him better. He seemed a strong kindly sort. There were a few occasions when Darius couldn’t meet me, and Tahmin would bring me the note. That’s how I knew about the rook, you see.”

“What did you know of Darius’s family?” Lucy asked. “Didn’t you ever ask him about them?”

Miss Water looked embarrassed. “He never wanted to talk much about himself. He always wanted to know more about me. My childhood, my life in England, that sort of thing.” She paused. “I suppose I’d never had anyone take that kind of interest in me before.” She fell silent, her eyes blinking away tears.

Lucy nodded. That made sense. Seeing Miss Water’s distress, she decided not to press the woman any further. Within a few moments, the women came to The Sparrow, a rambling structure that would never have withstood the Fire, should the winds have shifted. A single bony mare was tied at the hitching post out front, and the whole inn had a bit of a forlorn air. The two women stared at it for a while.

“You think the son of the Earl has been living here?” Miss Water whispered. “Why ever for?” Her shocked expression once again betrayed her gentle upbringing. It was scandalous—unnatural even—for an Earl’s son to be housing himself deliberately in such a hovel.

“I don’t know, but I aim to find out,” Lucy said, eyeing one of the malt barrels in front of the inn. No doubt the innkeeper was waiting for a new shipment of grain from which to make beer. Crossing her fingers that the lid of the empty barrel was not rotted through, she scrambled easily on top.

“What are you doing?” Miss Water asked.

“Just wait and see. I’m going to bring him to us.” She began her customary call. “Love potions! True warnings! Monstrous doings! Get your penny press here!”

Moments later, a few servants and men began to trickle out of the inn, plying Lucy with coins. In an aside to Miss Water she whispered, “I would guess booksellers don’t make it down here so much.”

As she sold the pamphlets and broadsides, Lucy looked at each customer carefully, noting in particular their manner of dress, their stature, and especially their skin and hands. None seemed quite right. Most seemed to be hale and hearty servants used to hard work, or local townsmen, not sickly, recently poisoned nobles. Miss Water stood a few steps away, watching Lucy. She still wore the same puzzled look, but Lucy didn’t have time to explain.

Instead, Lucy peered into her bag. What penny pieces did she have left?
A Watchmaker Loses Time?
Robert Hubert’s confession and his hanging. Lucy hated to call that one. She hopped down to fill her tin cup with water from the trough.

“Maybe he’s not here?” Miss Water murmured.

Lucy didn’t answer, having spied a man drying his hands on a towel as he stepped out of the inn. “Are you the innkeeper, sir?” she asked him.

The man gave her a tired smile. “Yes. Name’s McDaniels. I’m not going to run you off, lass, but none of your trade inside.”

“No sir. How about a pennypiece for free? I didn’t mean to take all your customers.”

“This lot?” McDaniels waved his hand toward his customers. “They’ll all be back in, soon enough.”

“Do you think I did get all your customers?” Lucy smiled, adding a wheedling tone. “My master will be none too happy if he sees I didn’t finish my pack.”

McDaniels picked out two of the pennypieces. “I’ll take two. To make up for any business lost.” Seeing her face, he added kindly, “Nah, there’s one gentry sort who’s been living up in the rooms.” His voice took on a bit of disgust. “Has us send up food every day. You won’t get that one, lass. Mind you run off soon.”

“I will,” she promised, watching McDaniels return to his tavern. A number of the revelers returned too, now armed with merriments and small pleasures to share from the ballads and broadsides.

“So, there is someone still in there,” Lucy mused. Holding up her left hand to hide what she was doing from everyone but Miss Water, Lucy pointed with her right finger at a room on the second floor of the inn. A curtain had been drawn back, and the sash lifted, and the faintest outline of a figure could be seen just inside the window. The front-facing room on the second floor was usually an inn’s “best” room, typically held for whatever swell the innskeeper could reel in. “Maybe he hasn’t heard a story that captures his fancy.”

“What do you mean?”

“Hear ye! Hear ye!” Lucy cried, winking at Miss Water. “True news from Carlisle! A most terrible story of a young maid, who after dallying with the master’s son, did steal several precious items from the household! Upon being caught and dismissed for theft, hear how this young woman took a deadly vengeance upon her master’s household!”

Through the side of her mouth, she said to Miss Water, “Is he still there? Did he come down?”

Miss Water made a questioning gesture with her hands. Lucy decided to embellish her tale. Still in her loud singsong voice, she called, “Hear how the young woman sought to bring revenge on the family who threw her out!” With a quick wink at Miss Water, she went on. “She did steal arsenic, intended for her lady’s fine complexion. But rather than adding beauty to her fair mistress, she sought to kill the whole family! Yes indeed! By adding a large dose of arsenic to their Tuesday soup!”

As Miss Water nodded her head vigorously in encouragement, Lucy went on with the tale, adding dramatic flourishes as she went. “The nobleman’s son, having bestirred himself to drink more bowls than the others, took gravely ill. Only the intervention of a most gifted apothecary, with an antidote administered right quick, saved the poor man from a most outrageous death!”

Lucy looked expectantly toward the inn’s door, hearing a clamor from within.

“Where in heaven’s name did you hear this dashed story?!” A well-dressed young man raced out of The Sparrow’s medieval threshold. “Shut your confounded mouth!”

Despite his thick brogue, which made him sound like he had said “shu’ yer confoinded muth,” Lucy got his intention clearly enough.

The man brandished a handful of King Charles II’s newly minted silver crowns. “I’ll buy the lot.”

“Good story, isn’t it, sir?” Lucy asked, trying not to look impressed by the man’s obvious wealth. She made a great show of looking in her satchel instead. “Alas, I’ve none more of that piece to sell. Perhaps I could interest you in this piece about Robert Hubert, Destroyer of London?”

The man stood there, confused. “I don’t want that dashed story. I want the other one. The one you just told it! How did you hear it?”

Lucy was at a loss for words, but unexpectedly, the noblewoman surprised her. “Pray tell,” Miss Water asked the man prettily, “why is this story, that this lass tells, so interesting to you? Such occurrences happen everywhere—the revenge of a maid dismissed for theft? A young maid who dallies with the master’s son?”

Glancing at Miss Water, the man seemed to note her fine dress, for he tipped his hat before slumping against the wall. “You’re quite right, of course. I don’t know what got into me. Good miss, forgive my brash words.”

Seeing that he was about to head back into the inn, Lucy added, “Carlisle, London, all much of the same, don’t you think?”

The man turned back around. “Carlisle? You did say Carlisle! I thought I heard you!”

“Yes, my master has received several accounts from there in recent months. A man poisoned by his servant. A parish priest murdered in his own church. Terrible news, indeed.”

The man’s already sickly pallor seemed to become even more gray. “A priest murdered, you say?” He gulped. “Do you know his name?”

“Yes, it’s right here.” Lucy produced the pamphlets she’d gotten back from Duncan. Thinking of Master Aubrey, reluctantly, she added, “Three pence, sir.”

The man, who she was quite sure now was Lord Cumberland’s son, read through the True Account. “Oh, this is terrible. The poor man.”

“Was he your parish priest?” Lucy asked, watching him closely.

“Mine? No. I—er—” He stopped.

Lucy took a deep breath, “Master Clifford. Sir. Did he marry you to the woman in this tale?”

“How did you know my name?” asked Francis Clifford, his identity now confirmed. He began to back away, retreating toward the inn. “How do you know about that? What do you want?”

“We just wanted to talk to you—” Lucy began.

“Did my father send you?” he interrupted. “I’ve told him I’m not going back! I can’t live there again!”

“Because someone tried to murder you?” Miss Water asked, with a quick glance at Lucy. “We know you were poisoned.”

“Murder me? Ha!” The Earl’s son scoffed. “I took that dashed poison myself. I should have used a pistol! Done the job properly.” His jaw jerked shut. Clearly, he had said more than he intended.

Lucy could not help but feel a bit shocked. Self-murder! That was a sin indeed, but not one she could contemplate now. How desperate the man must been.

To her surprise, Master Clifford continued. “The maid dismissed from the household was Amelie, a woman whom I once held dear. When my mother first informed me that she had dismissed her for theft, I couldn’t believe it.”

Clifford’s deep melancholy was difficult to witness. The dark rings around his eyes were a testament to the weight of his grief. He hung his head. “Then she sent me a letter, saying that she had never loved me and did not want to see me again.”

“She could write? The note was in her hand?” Lucy asked, surprised. Many servants were not able to easily write letters for themselves.

“How should I know? What difference does it make? Maybe she hired someone to write it. All I know is that she told me she had taken up with someone else. Told me she had”—he drew a ragged breath—“cuckolded me. The depth of her betrayal was immense, I assure you.” Master Clifford slumped down on the barrel that Lucy had abandoned, seeming glad to shed a heavy burden. “I could not live, you see. Even though she had betrayed me. Then I heard that she had died.” His eyes took on a glassy distant look. “So I left. I could not bear to be there.”

Clifford looked upward toward the sky, his eyes for a moment lost and unseeing. “I’ve been here since before the Fire. Watched London burn. I never left. Fate decided that I should live, I guess.” He shrugged. Indeed, the effort he had taken to speak seemed to have expended itself. He barely seemed able to keep himself upright, a portrait of pathos and despair.

Taking advantage of the man’s lowered defenses, Lucy continued. “You were married to her, weren’t you? To Amelie?”

Francis Clifford made a gesture, cutting her off. “You have evidence of this marriage?” he asked, his face reddening in anger.

Lucy gestured to the broadside he had crumpled in his fist. “Is he the priest that married you?” she tried again. “Funny thing about him having been murdered. The parish records were stolen too. As if someone were trying to cover something up.”

Master Clifford blanched. “What you’re suggesting is ludicrous. I had nothing to do with that man’s death!” He turned to go.

“Her father is grieving too, you know,” Lucy said, a bit desperately. “He soon must return to the army.”

Clifford looked weary. “I’ve seen her father around here. He must have figured out where I’ve been living. I think he’s been trying to kill me.” Clifford rubbed his stubbly face. “Although maybe I should have just let him. I don’t know.”

“He’s trying to do right by his daughter’s memory,” Lucy said, trying to be patient. “He wants you to acknowledge his daughter as your wife, because—”

“I wish to hear no more! I know what he thinks! Amelie was pregnant, but she told me herself—later—that the babe was not mine! She mocked me, she did. Now she’s dead! It’s all over, and I’ve no wish to speak of it again!” Before heading back inside The Sparrow, he turned to look at them fiercely. “I don’t know what brought you here, but I suggest you cease trying to dredge my family’s misfortunes. My father does not take well to people who try to cross or blackmail us.”

He stomped back inside The Sparrow, leaving Lucy and Miss Water staring after him.

“So he knew Amelie was with child,” Miss Water said softly. “And he abandoned her, and the baby.”

“If the child was even his,” Lucy sighed. “For all we know, she
had
taken up with someone else.” She tapped her foot impatiently. “Did you see his face when I asked him about whether he had married Amelie? I think they were married, and he was ashamed of the marriage. More so when he thought her to have been a thief. I’m sure that someone broke into those churches and murdered that priest to hide the marriage record.”

Miss Water nodded. “So where does that leave us?” she asked.

“Not one whit further,” Lucy replied. “Not one whit.”

16

The next morning, Lucy woke up bleary-eyed from a fitful night’s sleep. Over and over she had woken up, recalling Master Clifford’s face when he spoke of Amelie, his belief in her betrayal, and his own abandonment of his wife and child. The full truth of the story was still unclear, but poor Amelie’s plight was hard to bear.

When she walked out of her chamber though, her dark mood shifted abruptly when she laid eyes on a small package wrapped in twine, Will sitting by the table proudly waiting. “It’s my birthday!” she said, slapping the side of her head. “However could I have forgotten?” She shook the package expectantly.