A tic appeared in one side of Grizelda’s face, the side where she had the scar.
‘Go on,’ she ordered.
‘You hated your cousin,’ I said. ‘Perhaps not without good reason. She and Sir Jasper treated you from the beginning like a servant. You were their kinswoman, of their blood, but in their eyes, your poverty outweighed any such consideration. Your pride, however, would not let you complain. You could not admit your grievances to the outside world, so you pretended that all was well, that Rosamund and you were as close as sisters. Even when she deliberately pushed you out of a tree and your face was scarred for life, you told everyone it was an accident and that you fell. Am I not right?’ Grizelda reached for a stool and sat down before replying.
‘Maybe. Maybe not. Go on, tell me more. Tell me about my part in the children’s murder.’
I took a deep breath. ‘Eudo Colet is a weak man, easily influenced for good or ill by minds stronger than his own. It was his misfortune that fate cast him in the path of a woman with a bent for evil, and whose resentment of her cousin and her cousin’s children had turned, over the years, first to dislike and then to loathing. You. For I would be prepared to wager that Andrew and Mary Skelton, like most children, were influenced by their mother and aped her treatment of you. Moreover, they were children who had learned early to dissemble their true nature in front of adults, and who were not the saintly little beings – two little holy innocents as Mistress Cozin once described them to me – that older people thought them.’
Grizelda curled her lip and suddenly spat among the rushes. But, ‘Go on,’ she said once more.
I did so.
‘To repeat myself, you fell passionately in love with Eudo Colet, but although he returned your affection, he would not jeopardize his marriage by abandoning Rosamund. Not, I think, that you really desired him to do so, for you wanted your cousin’s wealth as well as her husband, and in order for that to happen, Eudo must inherit after her death. No doubt your fertile imagination was already busy with plans of murder, when fate stepped in and relieved you of the necessity. Rosamund died giving birth to Eudo Colet’s child. Now all both of you had to do was wait until a respectable time had elapsed. But then you, or perhaps he, realized that you could be even richer if her children were to die. By the terms of Sir Henry Skelton’s will, which you knew well, Eudo, as Rosamund’s next of kin, would also inherit the money left to them by their father. Plainly they had to be disposed of but in such circumstances that neither you nor he would be implicated. A difficult task, considering that Eudo was the one person who benefited by their deaths.’
Grizelda smiled a slow, secret smile. ‘So?’ she persisted, after a moment.
‘So, you – and I have little doubt from which of you two the idea originally came – suddenly saw how his strange, fairground talent could be put to good use. You formed a plan – a plan which most likely owed its conception to the sudden presence of outlaws in the district. But first, during the two months following Rosamund’s death, you carefully fostered the idea of two people growing daily more at odds with one another. For the benefit of Agatha Tenter and Bridget Praule, you quarrelled unceasingly over the children and the running of the household. The pair of you had never admitted to the liking you felt for one another, a precaution necessary, doubtless, for you to keep your place in your cousin’s house, and which now stood you in excellent stead.’
‘You seem to know everything, chapman,’ Grizelda remarked with composure. ‘But I interrupt. Pray continue.’
‘The morning of the murders, you went to church. Shortly before he knew you due to return, Eudo picked a violent quarrel with Andrew and Mary, a quarrel which was still in progress as you crossed the threshold. As arranged, you rushed upstairs, leaving Agatha and Bridget cowering down below. The shouting persisted, but now it was between you and Master Colet. Bridget recalls that you called him a wicked, hard-hearted man to bedevil two innocent children so. He replied that you were a harpy who should be tied to a ducking-stool. So it proceeded.’ I caught and held her eyes, refusing to let her glance escape mine. ‘And it was during that time, that noisy quarrel, that you murdered those two children. I believe that you strangled them. You dared not risk blood, so no knife could be used. To suffocate them might take too long and be unsuccessful. But a ligature or hands around the neck of unsuspecting persons could not fail, particularly if those persons were smaller and more fragile than their attacker. The bodies were loaded into your travelling box, leaving little room for anything else. After that, you ordered Bridget to summon Jack Carter. You were leaving, you said, going home to your holding above Bow Creek.’
‘And how did I dispose of the bodies?’ Grizelda wanted to know.
‘You’re a very strong woman. At some time during the following weeks, you carried the bodies, by stages and probably at night, down through the woods and some miles along the river bank, where you left them to be discovered by a passing stranger or a woodsman. But first, you mutilated them in order to conceal the marks of strangulation. You were, however, seen at some time or another by a man who had a grudge against you, a man who had been dispossessed of the roof over his head by your sudden return to your cottage. It was when Innes Woodsman called you an evil woman that you began to see him as a possible danger. Once again, you used the depredations of the outlaws, and the fact that they had robbed your own holding, as a cover for your murderous intent. You let Innes Woodsman use your cottage, telling him that you were sleeping with your friends in the village. You probably left him some of your potent ale, knowing that he would drink himself into a stupor. And while he slept, you set fire to the cottage with him inside it.’
I waited for an expression of guilt or a denial, but Grizelda merely shrugged. ‘I’m still listening,’ was all she said.
‘Very well, but my tale is almost at an end. I’ve digressed. I’ll return to the morning of the murder. When you had departed with Jack Carter and your box – your heavy box containing the children’s bodies – Eudo had to play his part. He had to go downstairs and break his fast, while all the while pretending that Mary and her brother were alive and well upstairs. Bridget Praule made no mention of hearing them during the meal, but when Master Colet went to fetch his cloak and hat, he was once more able to mimic Andrew’s voice and carry on a “conversation” with him. He banged and rattled the bedchamber door to make it appear that his stepson was still in a temper. And, as I have said before, when he returned downstairs, Eudo Colet once again exercised his peculiar gift to persuade his listeners that Mary spoke to him. He then departed for Thomas Cozin’s house, instructing the servants to let the children be, saying that they might be in a better mood by the time he came home again. And when he did so, he sent Bridget to look for them. But of course, they were nowhere to be found.’
Silence descended on the kitchen. The fire was extinguished. The stench of burned meat hung bitter on the air.