Mary was seated in her kitchen-hut at the back of John’s house, thinking what she might take up to him tomorrow for his dinner. When she had visited him earlier, she demanded to be allowed to feed him, as well as the supply from the Bush.
‘I am your cook, Sir Coroner!’ she claimed, using the title she employed when she was annoyed or sarcastic. ‘You house me and pay for the food we eat, so I am going to feed you.’ Her mild impertinence was a cover for her deep concern for him, as well as for her own future if he ended up swinging at the end of a rope. She sat fondling the old hound’s ears and trying to decide between another meat pie, which was easier to eat at the back of a church, or a grilled fowl in a basket.
As she sat in the fading evening light, she gradually became aware of a moaning sound nearby. Brutus pricked up his ears and padded out of the shed, his head cocked on one side as he listened.
‘What is it, lad?’ she asked him, as he stared at the high wooden fence that separated their yard from the one next door. The dog gave a deep woof and went to the bottom of the fence and scratched at the rough boards. Mary put her eye to one of the narrow cracks but could see nothing in the poor light. Then the sound came again, a gasping croak, followed by more soft moaning.
Unable to see over the fence, the cook-maid turned and ran up the wooden steps that led to the solar, the room that projected high up from the back of the house. Halfway up, she peered over into the next-door yard and saw someone lying on the ground, moving feebly. Mary shouted down, but there was no response. As she hurried back down the steps, Lucille emerged from her cubicle underneath, disturbed by the footsteps and the shouting.
‘What’s happening, Mary?’ she said fearfully, her nervous nature already stretched to its limit by all the recent troubles. The two women were not good friends, as Mary knew she had often carried tales to Matilda, but the present upheaval in the household had submerged their differences.
‘It looks as if Mistress Cecilia has been taken ill. I hope by every saint in the calendar that it’s not the plague!’
The dark-haired cook jogged around the side passage to the vestibule and went out into Martin’s Lane, Lucille following timidly in her wake. Mention of the plague had abruptly dampened her willingness to help, but she felt obliged to see what was happening.
Mary ran to the front door of the doctor’s house and saw that it was wide open. At the threshold, she called out, as a servant had no right to barge in to someone else’s dwelling, but there was no response. With Lucille close behind, she stepped straight into the darkened hall, as there was no vestibule as in the de Wolfe house.
The door to the yard was at the back of the large chamber, and a faint rectangle of light showed that it, too, was open. Mary made towards it but was pulled up by a piercing shriek from the French woman behind her, who had veered off slightly to her left and tripped over the legs of a body on the floor.
Their eyes now better used to the gloom, Mary saw that Cecilia’s young maid was crumpled on the rushes. When she knelt near her, she was relieved to hear her still breathing, though in a jerky, snoring fashion. She smelled blood and, feeling with her hands in the girl’s fair hair, found a sticky patch, already swelling under her fingers.
Lucille was blubbering with fright, but Mary was made of much sterner stuff. She rose to her feet and shook the maid by her thin shoulders.
‘Stop that stupid noise, girl!’ she commanded. ‘Now run over to Andrew in the stables and tell him that someone has been attacked and to raise the hue and cry. Hurry, damn you!’
She pushed Lucille towards the door and bent over the maid again. There was nothing she could do for her in the dark and moving her might cause more damage. The unexpected finding had momentarily driven from her mind the fact that there was someone else moaning outside. She sped to the back door and went out into the yard, where there was still some twilight.
‘God preserve us from more bodies!’ she muttered as she saw yet another figure lying on the cold earth, between the privy and the well. ‘At least this one is still moving.’
Once more, she dropped to her knees. This time alongside Cecilia, for it was the mistress of the house who was sprawled face down on the dirt, making harsh, guttural noises, alternating with pitiful moans. Mary tried to lift her up but only managed to roll her on to her back, where her croaking breaths became more laboured. Squatting on the ground, Mary hoisted her shoulders up and cradled her on her lap, feeling powerless to do any more for the ailing woman.
‘At least it’s not the damned plague,’ she murmured distractedly. ‘But is someone trying to assassinate all the women in Martin’s Lane?’
Thankfully, there was the noise of boots in the hall and Andrew, the red-headed farrier from across the lane, appeared with one of his stable boys.
‘I’ve sent for help. The constables and some neighbours will soon be here!’ he announced tersely. His groom held a lantern, a pair of candles behind a window of thin horn, which was enough to dimly illuminate the scene. By its flickering light they could see that Cecilia’s face was congested and puffy, with a speckle of blood spots in the whites of her eyes. Mary pulled away her cover-chief to release a cascade of black hair and, in case it was impeding her breathing, loosened the silken gorget which ran from ear to ear under her chin.
‘Look at her neck!’ exclaimed the farrier. ‘Covered in bruises, poor lady!’
Mary recalled that it was the second time in a few days that she had seen marks like this, then her mind soared! Surely two such stranglings, not fifty paces apart, must have been made by the same attacker? And that could not be John de Wolfe, as he was incarcerated in St Mary’s Chapel!
Her elation was promptly interrupted by Cecilia, who grasped the arm that was supporting her and began croaking unintelligibly.
‘You are safe now, mistress,’ soothed Mary. ‘Help is coming soon, then we will get you to bed.’ She almost added that they would also send for a physician, until she realised that the only doctor this side of Bristol was the woman’s own husband.
In spite of Mary’s reassurance, the injured woman persisted in trying to speak. Putting her ear closer and telling Cecilia to whisper instead of trying to croak, she managed after several attempts to make out a few words.
‘Clement … my husband … tried to kill me … just as he killed poor Matilda!’
John de Wolfe was sitting on his ledge in the garrison chapel, thinking rather selfishly that they were late with his supper tonight, as his stomach was rumbling. For the moment he was dwelling more on his hunger than on his serious predicament.
It was now virtually dark and he had lit one of his thin rushlights from the single candle that burned on the altar, sticking the grease-soaked reed between two cracks in the masonry.
Suddenly, he heard running feet echoing in the gatehouse archway and some indistinct shouting. Before he could get to the porch, the bulky figure of Brother Rufus burst in, shouting for him.
‘John! Gwyn has just come up from town, seeking the sheriff. He told me to tell you that your next-door neighbour has been attacked!’
‘What! Clement the physician?’
‘No, it’s his wife! Their maid is injured as well.’
‘Did Gwyn say who did it? What the hell’s going on?’ demanded de Wolfe.
The chaplain shook his head, dimly seen in the gloom. ‘I don’t know, your man didn’t stop. He was heading for the keep to get Henry de Furnellis.’
‘Henry’s not there. He told me he was going back to his house,’ exclaimed John, agitated that something important was going on and he was not a part of it. He fumed for a moment, then pushed past Rufus to get to the door.
‘I’m going out and to hell with the consequences!’ he snarled. ‘I must know what’s happening out there.’