The Saint John's Fern (10 page)

‘You fool!’ she whispered. ‘Whatever are you doing here? Get back and hide before anyone wakes up and sees you. Wait! I’m coming down.’

There was a low chuckle of amusement from below before the cloaked figure turned and did as he was bidden. Presently, there came the faint sound of the bedchamber door next to mine being opened, and the creak of a floorboard on the landing. I remained where I was, not knowing what to do. My impulse was to go after Katherine Glover, but if I finished closing my shutters or let them swing free, the movement would be noticed and the nocturnal visitor frightened into immediate flight. Furthermore, he and the girl would know that I had seen and heard them; and if the man was, as I suspected, Beric Gifford, I wondered how safe my life would be in the future. Someone who had already done one violent murder was unlikely to balk at committing a second.

In the end, I decided I had no choice but to stay perfectly still and simply be an observer of what happened. Nor did I have long to wait. Within minutes, Katherine’s slender form, a cloak thrown over her night-shift, was running across the short stretch of ground between the inn and the trees. The man, who, meantime, had vanished, stepped once more into view, catching her in a smothering embrace. She responded by throwing her arms around his neck and covering his face with passionate kisses, before they both withdrew into the shelter of the copse.

Now was my chance to finish the job in hand and rouse the household. The thought had barely crossed my mind, however, when the man once again emerged from the trees, but this time on horseback, evidently persuaded that he was taking too great a risk by remaining longer. Katherine also reappeared, stretching up to embrace him as he bent towards her from the saddle. Another laugh reached my ears as the youth laid his whip across the big black horse’s flank, then galloped off along the east-bound track, glancing round only once to wave and blow a kiss before being swallowed up by the darkness. The girl, gathering her skirt into one hand, ran swiftly back to the inn and passed from my sight.

At last I was able to finish closing the shutters before sitting down on the edge of my bed, my ears alert for the tell-tale sounds of her return. I heard again the creak of the landing floorboard and the gentle shutting of her door, but after that, all was silent. I found that I was trembling, but whether from fear or excitement, I was not quite certain.
I had seen Beric Gifford:
that was the thought uppermost in my mind. He had not gone to France or Brittany; neither had he taken refuge in some remote part of the country. He was still here, close to home, meeting with his betrothed and no doubt laughing up his sleeve at all attempts to find him.

I shivered as I recalled the way in which he had vanished into the trees without my noticing. Had my attention wandered for those few precious, vital seconds? Or had I become blinded by my racing thoughts, as happens when a person stares at something, but sees nothing? Or was he truly able to make himself invisible? Had Saint John’s fern really bestowed that supernatural power upon him?

I sighed wearily. It seemed to me that I was almost back where I had started. But not quite. I knew now that Beric was somewhere in the vicinity and there for the taking, if only I could discover his hiding place. I returned to bed, settling down once more in the musty darkness, the wool of the blanket again irritating my chin. For a long while, I lay awake, the events of the past hour going round and round in my head; and when I did, finally, fall asleep, my dreams were haunted by hobgoblins and evil sprites, who chased me through never-ending woodland, jumping out from behind shrubs and thickets, or grinning down at me, disembodied faces, from between the leafless branches of the trees.

*   *   *

The sun was climbing in the sky when I eventually awoke the following morning. The latch of my bedchamber shutters had once again sprung open, and a soft golden glow was suffusing the oiled parchment of the windowpanes. From below, both in and out of doors, I could hear the sound of voices, Theresa Glover’s louder than the rest; and from the subdued chorus of male tones, I gathered that the inn was open for trade and already doing business.

I fell out of bed and dressed as quickly as I could, descending to the kitchen, unwashed and unshaven.

‘I’m afraid I’ve overslept,’ I said to my hostess by way of apology.

She was busy preparing breakfast for a party of travellers just arrived by ferry, and only paused to direct me to the pump in the yard before bustling away to the taproom with laden dishes. ‘There’s a pan of hot water on the fire,’ she called over her shoulder as an afterthought, ‘if you want to scrape off your beard.’

While I made myself presentable, I wondered how I was going to face Katherine Glover without some chance word or expression of mine giving her a hint that I had been a witness to her meeting with Beric Gifford. But as I passed the stables, I noticed that the stall nearest the inn was empty. The palfrey had gone, and so, presumably, had its mistress.

Theresa Glover confirmed this to be so when I re-entered the kitchen and enquired after her niece.

‘Oh, Kate’s well on her way home by now. She got up early, afraid that Mistress Gifford may have been worried about her when she didn’t return to Valletort Manor last night. Sit down, chapman, and have some porridge.’ She eyed me shrewdly as she ladled the gruel from the iron pot hanging over the fire into a bowl. ‘You don’t look very refreshed to me. Didn’t you sleep well?’

I had been considering whether or not to say anything to either of the Glovers about what I had seen, but had decided against it. Even if they believed me – which was highly improbable, regarding Katherine, as they did, as the fountain of all truth – they were members of the girl’s family, and would be loath to accuse her of harbouring and succouring a wanted criminal. They were more likely to brand me a liar, and to tell lies themselves if necessary in order to prove me wrong. So I merely made some lame excuse for my tiredness and tucked into the bowl of porridge with apparent zest, although it was in fact neither very hot nor had much flavour.

Once I had eaten, I paid my shot, fetched my belongings from my room and said farewell.

‘Which road are you planning to take?’ Maurice Glover enquired suspiciously.

‘Oh, I go as the fancy pleases me,’ I answered cheerily. ‘Maybe I’ll go as far as Brixton and then turn inland, to Totnes.’

He seemed satisfied with this and went back indoors, calling to his wife that they needed to broach a new cask of ale. Meantime, I set out along the eastward path, but only to double back on my tracks once I was out of sight of the inn, approaching the stand of trees from the opposite side. I knew I was being stupid, yet I had to convince myself that the events I had witnessed early that morning had not been a dream. But it required only a moment or two to find the hoof- and shoe-marks of the horse and his rider imprinted in the rain-softened earth, and I upbraided myself for being a self-doubting fool. Then I picked up my pack and stepped out again along the path that leads eventually to the little town of Modbury.

After quarter of an hour’s steady walking, however, fresh doubt’s began to creep into my mind. How could I be so sure that Katherine Glover’s nocturnal visitor had indeed been Beric Gifford? On the face of it, and in view of all the facts, it seemed the natural assumption to make. But supposing that, since Beric’s disappearance, she had taken another lover and was frightened that word of her defection might reach Beric wherever he was hiding. Would there not then be a need for the kind of secrecy I had witnessed last night?

But I dismissed the idea almost as soon as it entered my head. Katherine was still living at Valletort Manor with Berenice Gifford, and it was extremely unlikely that she would be able to conduct a second romance without her mistress becoming aware of the fact. Nor was it plausible to suppose that the youth I had seen would be a party to such a clandestine affair. I remembered the careless laughter and the easy way he sat astride the big, black horse. This young man, whatever else he was, was afraid of very little.

His mount, too, was another reason why I had to believe that he was indeed Beric Gifford. What was it Joanna and John Cobbold had said the evening before last, at supper? ‘Beric Gifford rode up on that big black horse of his.’ ‘A huge, showy, very spirited animal. Master Capstick told me once that his great-nephew was the only person who could manage the brute.’ Well, the horse had certainly been big and black, although there had been no way to tell if it were spirited; but everything added up to make my doubts look as ridiculous as they really were. Nevertheless, I still had every intention of calling at the villages of Brixton and Yealmpton in order to discover, if I could, the two people who had seen Beric on the day of the murder, and find out what they had to say.

*   *   *

I reached Brixton around eleven o’clock in the morning, and my stomach was already protesting at the passing of the dinner hour without any sustenance. It was true that I had breakfasted late, but Mistress Glover had offered me no more than the bowl of gruel, being busy with her other guests and anxious, I suspected, to be rid of me.

I should have stopped at Plymstock, but I was eager to reach my destination and so, for once, ignored one of my most basic needs, the constant plying of my great frame with food. I would eat, I decided, when I got to Brixton; but Brixton was, disappointingly, little more than a huddle of cottages grouped around the church. At least, I thought, I should have no trouble in locating the goodwife who, according to Joanna Cobbold, had seen Beric Gifford pass by on his way to Plymouth, but I was wrong. Going from door to door, plying my trade as an excuse to set foot inside each dwelling – with the added bonus of making a little money as well – I could find no woman who admitted to seeing Beric on the day of the murder. Everyone knew about the killing and was more than willing to talk about it; and everybody had a theory as to what had become of Beric since. But no goodwife claimed, ‘I saw him by the church.’

Finally, at the last cottage I visited, where the woman of the household was no more forthcoming in this respect than all the rest, I said, ‘I was told that there was a witness, here in Brixton. Someone who saw Master Gifford pass by on May Day morning.’

‘A stranger, then,’ her husband hazarded, ‘for to my knowledge, none of our neighbours has claimed such a thing.’ And he glanced at his wife with raised eyebrows.

‘I’ve heard nothing, either,’ she agreed in answer to his unspoken question. ‘When was it, do you know? About what time of day?’

‘It was very early,’ I replied. ‘Beric Gifford was reportedly riding in a westerly direction, so he must have been on his way
to
Bilbury Street. Would there have been a stranger hereabouts at such an hour who might have seen him?’

The goodman stroked his beard. ‘There’d be drovers and suchlike, taking their animals to market.’

‘Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear,’ I said. ‘The person who saw Beric was, according to my information, a woman. But whether old or young, I wasn’t told.’

The goodwife rubbed her nose. ‘A woman! Ah! That’s different. In that case, I can probably hazard a guess as to her name.’ She turned triumphantly to her husband. ‘Gueda Beeman.’

He nodded. ‘Ay. You’re right. That’ll be who it was, not a doubt of it.’

‘Who’s Gueda Beeman?’ I asked a trifle impatiently, when they showed no sign of offering further information, but sat smiling at one another, satisfied that they had solved the riddle I had set them.

‘Eh?’ They both looked at me, blinking in surprise. They had momentarily forgotten my presence.

‘Oh, Gueda Beeman,’ the goodwife continued. ‘Of course, you wouldn’t know. Some people call her a wise woman, some say she’s a witch. But she’s never done any harm to anyone that
I
know of.’

‘Nor anyone else,’ put in her husband.

‘That’s as maybe. There was a woman once, Kitley way, who reckoned as how Gueda’d put a curse on her. Mind you, she could never prove it, and live and let live’s what I say, as do most of the folks around here.’

‘And you think it might have been this Gueda Beeman who saw Beric Gifford on May Day morning?’ I was growing even more impatient.

‘Most likely,’ the goodwife replied, once more nodding her head. ‘She lives in an old, broken-down cottage, over to Wollaton, and walks into Brixton most mornings, early, to see what she can forage. She knocks on doors, and people’ll give her a bit of stale bread or a few vegetables that are in season, or a cup of milk or an egg. It sees her through the day. Otherwise, she lives on roots and berries and anything else she can grub for in the woods.’

‘A strange name, Gueda,’ I remarked.

‘It’s Saxon,’ the goodman told me. ‘There are descendants of the Saxons everywhere in these parts. Modbury, as they call it nowadays, was once the moot burgh; the meeting place of the district. Before
they
came.’ And he gave a vague jerk of his head. ‘The Valletorts and the Champernownes, with their fancy foreign names.’

I nodded understandingly. I had come across this phenomenon several times before during my travels, happening upon little enclaves where the traditions and memories of our Saxon forebears continued to be cherished, and where they were talked of as though they had only ceased yesterday, instead of four hundred years ago.

I asked, ‘Can you point me along the path to Wollaton? I’d like to speak to this Gueda, if she’ll let me.’

‘Why?’ the man demanded abruptly. ‘What’s your interest?’

‘Now, Wilfred!’ his wife admonished him. ‘That’s none of our business. If the chapman wants to consult with the wise woman, that’s for him to decide. Come outside, lad, and I’ll show you the way. It’s a bit northwards from here, but not that far, and won’t take you any time at all with those long legs. You’ll find her cottage easily enough.’

‘He might not,’ the man Wilfred objected, knitting his brow. ‘I’d better go with him, just to make certain.’

‘I shall be quite all right,’ I assured him hurriedly. I laughed. ‘I’m used to finding my way about on my own.’