Rhiannon (10 page)

Rhiannon stumbled but kept up her run, gaping now at Maddy.

“Before you say anything, hear more about it!” Maddy rushed on, puffing. She spotted Rhia's lost slipper hanging on a nettle bush, swooped out an arm to retrieve it, and tossed it across to Rhia. “All the young squires will be there! Frederique said to bring the most comely girl I know for Leonard. And of all, you're the very
most
comely, Rhiannon!”

But Rhia was not that easily duped. The others had surely said a firm no to this misthought idea!

“I canna meet you, Maddy,” she called back, stopping to gather her wits whilst she pulled her slipper back on. “I must go down the trail with Mam and Granna to Roodmas on Beltane Eve. I've promised them.” A tight excuse, and religious to boot.

But she could not look at Maddy as she said it, for 'twas a bald lie—the baldest. They three women held their own services upon Clodaghcombe Bluff, along with whatever invalids were able to attend. Vicar Pecksley sent up an acolyte with the sacraments for Roodmas, just as he did monthly for their regular worship.

“Only the old spend Beltane Eve at Roodmas, Rhia,” Maddy teased. She shook her yellow curls back from her face. “The young spend the night a-running the woods and jumping the field fires and flowering up the Maypole for the morrow! Your mother let you come down with us last year to the bonfire on the green, remember? So I'm sure she'll let you come as well this year. When we're bent and prune-faced, there'll be time enough to go to Roodmas and repent our youthful follies!”

She laughed aloud at that picture, and Rhia couldn't help but join her. But Mam had only reluctantly let her come down to the Beltane festivities last year, yielding to longstanding custom that allowed all who'd reached the age of thirteen to attend. And spending last Beltane with other girls laughing around a bonfire was different completely from this party Maddy had in mind. Mam would
never
consider it, not if she knew.

“Wait!” Maddy then exclaimed, clapping her hands. “What an idea I've just had! Since you say your mother and grandmother will be gone to Roodmas, our party will come up through the woods and we'll have our fun atop the bluff whilst they're gone! Roodmas goes on for ages and ages—time enough for a fine frolic. And your chapel is perfect, so dark and private, with the benefit of a ceiling for keeping out the drafts. Wythicopse is romantic for sure, but it lacks a cover excepting the trees and so can get quite dampish if the dew comes thick. Oh, friend, what a fine plan!”

Rhia could find no scrap of anything to say, so preposterous was this notion. Maddy'd been up to the blufftop only once, when they'd both been very young girls, nine or ten. When Rhia'd shown her the ancient hermit's stone chapel, Maddy had swirled in the gloom, dancing with the sunbeams that lit the ancient stones of the floor.

Mam had been scandalized when she passed the window and saw that dire misuse of such a holy place. So just
think
what she'd do if she could so much as
hear
Maddy speak of using the chapel for a “fine frolic” on the bawdy festival night of Beltane Eve!

“It's settled then, Rhia!” Maddy pronounced, taking Rhia's silence for the answer she desired, as such a headstrong girl is wont to do. “Whichever way it goes, the chapel or the ring, will be just dandy with me, now
you're
coming. Your dark good looks will make a moon to Leonard's sun! Oh, Rhia, I'm so relieved, as I couldn't have found the nerve to go all by myself! And I cried at the thought of Frederique with those scheming girls from Francia! Not that he'd be tempted by their wiles, as he loves only me.”

Rhiannon could only feel agog at how Maddy had cornered her like Lucy would corner a helpless mouse. She could not think of a single way out of Maddy's clutches. Beltane Eve was yet some days away, and in that time she might somehow think of an excuse Maddy could not reject. For now, though, it seemed she was trapped.

At the wall of the manor house courtyard they slowed to a walk and parted ways, as Maddy needed to lay the kitchen fire and get to her other appointed midafternoon chores. Rhiannon watched till her friend had reached the wide gate, then she raised an arm in farewell as Maddy saluted her likewise.

And in that moment, right before Rhia turned back around to rejoin the crowd in the green, she glimpsed a small thing she'd remember large on a day to come.

The fine timbered manor house loomed just the other side of the wide wall, and there in an upstairs window, standing with his arms folded, stood Lord Claredemont himself! He stared grimly down at the part-open flap door of the pavilion, where Vicar Pecksley was allowing one person at a time to enter and lay hands upon the dead man. With one gloved thumb, Lord Claredemont tapped his bottom lip. And then he gave one curt movement of his head, side to side, as though denying something said to him by an unseen speaker in the salon behind him.

Rhia caught herself then and looked away, ashamed for disturbing the lord's privacy. It was just so seldom you actually
saw
him! Of course, he hadn't seen
her,
and would have looked right through the likes of her even if he had.

Still, she felt flustered as she hurried on toward the ale-tasters' booth. Several of Granna's close cronies were in charge there, as only those who were female, of some substantial age, and of unsullied integrity were respected enough for the job of brewing the ale sold to the public. It was tempting to water it for added profit, is why.

As Rhia came up close to the thick oak table where the ale was served, a tiny lady in a gray dress was holding forth against a group of rowdies.

“I'll serve no riffraff, nor those acting brash!” she said curtly, closing one eye and pointing a knife-sharp fingernail toward them. She noticed Rhia waiting for her attention and turned to her, letting the chastened rowdies grow thirstier as she spoke in a different, gentler voice. “Moira's just now taken little Daisy and gone on along into the line for touching the poor dead body, dear. She told me when I saw you to instruct you that you're to do the same.”

Rhiannon smiled her thanks and turned back toward the green to join the ragged line snaking toward the grim pavilion. The crowd had lessened a bit from before, which was good. Yet the proceedings moved slowly, slowly. After a while of standing there and barely moving, she sighed, scanning the line ahead for a sight of Granna and little Daisy. The sun at the midday hour was right hot, and she longed for the drink of cool barley water Granna's crony at the stand would have given her, if she'd only thought to ask.

And, too, where was Jim by now? She'd had no sight of him since returning from her sojourn with Maddy. Keeping track of their four-some was like herding chickens!

Suddenly, a commotion started up ahead and traveled quickly back to where Rhia stood. She perked her ears and leaned sideways, trying to see forward. The line was losing its orderly shape and widening out loose as folks edged up quick into a crowd.

Rhia, stretching on tiptoe, perceived that the vicar and the bailiff had stepped together from the pavilion, but this glimpse was all she had before the crush of shoulders before and behind her closed like a wave.

“What's happened, then?” demanded a burly man, speaking to no one in particular as he shoved roughly past. He hefted his small son to his shoulders. “Has the foul murderer been discovered?”

It was the question propelling everyone closer, as all wanted a sight of whatever had occurred to bring the vicar and bailiff out into the open. But all
Rhia
wanted was to go against the stream and get free! She always felt sick in close quarters, but never had she been entrapped as thoroughly as in this sudden surge of bodies. She worried she'd swoon clean away and be trampled underfoot, so before that could happen she took a good gulp of air, closed tight her eyes, and used her slenderness and flexibility to edge and slide her way along, desperately struggling toward the open air.

Presently, she was spat from the mob like a beached fish—though she found herself not back near the ale-tasters' booth, as she'd wanted to be, but just the opposite, arrived mere paces from the gaudy pavilion! She'd gotten turned completely in her panic! She could actually see the swarming flies that coated the inside of the grim tent's newly thrown opened flap door like some dark, furred lining.

The lord's chief law officer, their bailiff, Guy Dryer, was a broad-faced man, large and quiet. In fact, he spoke so seldom, some in town wondered if he
could
speak. Today, as usual, he showed no emotion, though the morning's ordeal inside that wretched tent had surely taken its toll. His jaws worked as he clamped his teeth tight, and his face was sheened with sweat. His long, lank hair, entangled with flies, clumped along the soggy neck and shoulders of his shirt.

A step ahead of him, as befit the holiness of his office, stood Vicar Pecksley.

Vicar Pecksley always looked a bit unwell to Rhiannon, so gray-faced and waxy-skinned was he, but now he looked more thin-lipped than usual as he took a step forward and held up the crucifix he usually wore atop his vestments.

The crowd went instantly silent at that gesture, meant to remind all present that God Himself was behind this gory business.

“The Lord will not suffer the wicked to triumph, but by their own hands they will indeed be revealed,” the vicar intoned. “The pavilion shall now be opened wide so that all here may confirm what the bailiff and I have just witnessed in private.”

A couple of young boys that crouched near hoping for the chance at just such a job scrambled to roll up the front wall of the pavilion. Some in the crowd groaned and looked away at first sight of the corpse, who lay there bluish and naked on the butcher's table except for a cloth covering his private parts.

The vicar turned and held the crucifix toward the pavilion, commanding in a solemn voice, “Come out that all may see ye, James Gatt, in the name of Our Lord!”

A figure who'd been far in the nether corner of the tent began making his way slowly forward through the deep shadows. Those in the crowd whispered together and strained to see, but the concealed accused was in no hurry to present himself to their scrutiny.

“Have patience and give me amblin' time, friends, now would ye?” the foul murderer finally called out from within the tent. “I come slow, as my hurryin' days was lost with my leg, but on t'other hand, there's no chance a'tall I'll be runnin' for escape.”

Some folks laughed at that, then looked shamed and stifled their laughter quick.

Rhiannon felt turned to stone, and for the second time that strange afternoon, she thought sure she might swoon. Jim! It was their
Jimmy
in there, accused?

She had the small presence of mind to step behind a nearby stout woman, hiding herself, knowing Jim might find it hard to see her gawking so close. How could this be
happening
? Where was
Granna
? She wanted her granna!

Rhia turned to look for her, and her eyes arrested for a moment on the manor house in its walled seclusion. The lord still stood at that upper window, indistinct at this distance but there nonetheless. Surely, surely, he would not suffer this to happen to one of his villiens, especially one so wronged already by rough fate?

Another party was heard from then, a shrill speaker from deep in the mob.

“Well, and couldn't I have easily
predicted
such an end to Jim if he once ventured off Clodaghcombe Bluff down to grand Woethersly? But tell us, Vicar. How d'ye imagine he
did
this murder, all one-legged as he be? Mayhaps he
rolled
clear down to the River Woether, knocked the victim to the ground with his rolling, then held the knife between his teeth for the stabbing, is that what ye suppose?”

The mob shifted with a gasp, searching to see who'd the outrageous nerve to speak so boldly. Many tittered with guilty laughter as well at the scene the speaker had just painted with her storyteller's words, though Rhiannon could only feel despair.

The vicar's face went tight as a skull, as meanwhile folk parted, giving Granna ample pathway to charge forward with Daisy by the hand. Rhia could scarce bear to look as the two of them reached the front and stepped right jauntily into direct confrontation with the bailiff, who himself had stepped in front of Vicar Pecksley.

Granna was dwarfed by the bailiff, her nose direct even with the middle of his shirt.

“That's right, Guy, protect the vicar from those two ruffians!” called some wag in the crowd, to laughter.

Several things happened at once, then, so that Rhia only got them straight in her head later. Almund Clap came shouldering through the mob and took Granna's arm and Daisy's shoulder, easing them sure and quick away. The vicar gave a nod and two of the bailiff's assistants came forward, took Jim by the arms, and pulled him up close to the butcher's table, handling him roughly so that his stick fell to the ground. Jim looked once over his shoulder, and his face seemed white beneath the red of his stubbly beard.

And then, darkness ate at the edges of the bright day, and all sound and movement seemed to Rhia to go magically spinning away into nothingness.

And in that eerily becalmed moment, the bailiff's men took Jim's two hands and extended them forward, onto the stomach of the corpse.

“Witness, good people, what the bailiff and I have observed in private,” Vicar Pecksley intoned. “See how the wounds open their mouths and bleed afresh! Thou Who perceivest hidden things hath made Your truth manifest to us, Your servants. Your name be praised and Your will be done, O Lord, forever and ever, amen.”

Dark blood trailed down the side of the dead man, black against white skin, against white day, against white everything as daylight flared bright before Rhia's eyes, then went out like the flame of a snuffed candle.