“Frenchies,” Harry shook his head and wished he had not.
One of the stable boys said, “Them heathen foreigners wot don’t talk no proper language was here, for I heard them. Gabbling away, they was, though t’weren’t nothing no decent Christian soul could understand.” The boy pushed forwards into the spreading circle of light. “I reckon they couldn’t understand nor each to the other, they just pretends since they don’t know no English, only jibber jabber. Only one proper word they shouted and more than once too, being murder, like a threat and a promise. Murder! Murder! Right nasty.”
“What else did you hear?” Nicholas demanded of the boy.
“Gabble an’ bumps,” said the stable boy. “I were up in the straw and thought it better to stay there.”
The tavern had closed its doors for the night, but above it Nicholas had rented a bedchamber, and they sat there while awaiting the local doctor, the stable boy having been sent running to bring him from the village. Harry lay nursing his head where a pear shaped swelling protruded from the straggles of hair. He still found it hard to focus. “They was searching me for summint,” he insisted, “since me shirt’s all rucked where them sticky French fingers has been.” Rob sat beside him, cross legged on the sagging mattress. David watched from the window seat and Nicholas sat talking to Jerrid at the other end of the bed.
Nicholas said, “So we’re content to guess they were after the letter we took from Urswick? But is that the most likely answer?”
“Perhaps.” Jerrid leaned back against the bedpost. “What else would they search Harry for?”
“Simple thieving? Looking for a purse?”
“But they made no attempt to take his boots or his knife.”
“And then killed the boy, because?”
“Not to carry tales nor say what he’s seen,” said Rob from his brother’s side.
“Seen what? How could the child recognise a pair of French cut throats he could never have seen before?”
“And why slaughter the most insignificant of all? What reason to knife a snivelling brat with his elbows out of his shirt sleeves?”
“Urswick’s no fool,” Nicholas said softly. “He got away when I thought him taken – but he made no attempt to get back the letter he’d carried – and abandoned it without care. Not as a coward, since he’s clearly otherwise. He clearly saw no benefit in risking his life to retake it.” He paused, looking to his uncle. “Yet someone else has – and even killed for it. I’m not sure what to think.”
“There was no sign the boy had been searched,” Jerrid decided. “His clothes were neither hitched up nor pulled aside. Harry – yes. Wolt – no. But someone knifed him anyway.”
“Then this was all to do with Dorset’s escape, my lord?” David asked, frowning.
“For what reason? Dorset has not yet even arrived in the country and in fact we know him still held by force in France.”
“Them Frenchies just like killing us decent God fearing folk,” nodded Rob. “They don’t need no special reason.”
“After Wolt is buried tomorrow morning,” Nicholas said, standing quickly as the candle guttered, spat and sank into liquid wax, “we’ll move west along the coast. The first time Dorset planned an escape through Flanders. Now he aims for Brittany. So if he comes at all, which I doubt, it will be nearer to Weymouth where he makes land. But we need to use our wits, my friends, not just our legs. There’s something happening here that makes no sense to me, but I intend finding out before heading back to London.”
Jerrid frowned at Harry’s spread legs. “So we’re doomed to damp mattresses for at least another week.”
Nicholas nodded. “While I dream of knives in the dark, and the awful weight of guilt.”
Many miles distant, his wife was riding, well wrapped, hooded, and head down, the damp country lanes leading away from the city. Beside her rode her exhausted younger sister, and further behind trailed their maid Petronella. Ahead Sysabel rode beside her own maid Hilda, and leading some way ahead rode a slump backed and solitary man, silent beneath the moon. It was a little ahead of him that their single outrider rode, a younger man who had, as soon as he heard the plan from Bill, insisted on accompanying them. Sysabel looked behind and waved one neat little gloved hand. Emeline waved back. Avice yawned. The night was not cold but tiredness brings shivers and a sharp little breeze blew through the treetops. Old Bill had led them quickly away from the grand houses of the Strand, cutting up beside the Fleet and its narrow sludge, avoiding the bent tiled gables of the gaol and its stench of depression and hopeless anger, aiming for the open fields beyond St. John’s and the orchards of Piccadilly.
“It’s so annoying to have to ride north,” said Avice, “when we all want to go south. But I suppose that’s the disadvantage of leaving at night. London’s gates are all locked against us.”
“We could hardly leave in the morning,” said Emeline. “I can just see mother’s face – and the earl’s scowl – as we all trot out and say goodbye because we’re off for an adventure to catch murderers. And anyway, it was all your idea in the first place.”
“I like adventures. But I’m so horribly tired.”
Emeline smiled. “I’m tired too but I’m going to save my husband’s life.”
“And that silly Sissy thinks she’s off to save her brother.” Avice sniggered. “It should be quite a battle.”
“Sissy secretly thinks Nicholas is the murderer. She says he and Jerrid are two feathers off the same wing.”
“A raven’s wing? Scavengers and squabblers.”
Emma clutched tighter to the reins. Her horse slowed. She allowed the space between herself and Sysabel to lengthen. Then she looked at Avice and whispered, “Martha was telling me about abortions, though I can’t guess how she knows. I mean – well – Martha! She’s so calm and kind and sensible.”
“Martha always knows everything.”
“And she’s capable of everything. I mean, she’s strong and clever and she’d so anything if she thought it was right.”
Avice was puzzled. “What do you mean?” and edged her horse a little closer.
“She knew about Sissy already because Hilda told her. Now there’s a silly goose who needs watching. If she was my maid, I’d be furious.”
“Was Martha angry at Peter – doing things to Sissy when he was supposed to be marrying you?” Stirrup to stirrup, Avice whispered to her sister’s ear. “I never liked Peter even when you were silly about him. Now I know how right I was.”
“You only disliked him because I told you he was wonderful. If I’d told you he was a pig, you’d have stuck up for him. Just as you did with Nicholas at first.”
“Oh, pooh,” sniffed Avice. “I just have better taste than you.”
“Like Edmund Harris.”
“You know,” said Avice, “he’s not so bad really. Maman says he’s being very polite and she’s disappointed because she wanted him to be the murderer.”
“Maman says she’s given up on him being the culprit. And you’ll think I’m quite mad,” Emeline whispered, “but I was wondering about Martha.” Avice stared open mouthed, and Emeline hurried on. “Well, she said how the sin was all Peter’s – not Sissy’s at all. And if she knew about Papa.”
Avice sniggered. “Martha’s much too nice to kill people. And Peter died almost a year ago. Martha didn’t know anything about what he’d done back then.”
Emeline shrugged. “But he was courting me and she never approved – and told me to be careful when I said how romantic he was.”
“I think,” Avice decided, “she has secrets. She was probably young and beautiful once and had a romantic love affair and nearly had a baby and learned never to trust men.”