Caught Red-Handed Page 14

  She flailed at him. "Not you! Don't you dare touch me," she snarled. This time she found her footing as she sought to rise. Staggering and stumbling, she started toward the back wall.

  Aldo glanced at Faucon, then trailed the woman, making no attempt to stop her. Faucon followed.

  "Get away from Dickie," Juliana shouted at the men standing between her and her son.

  Instead, they joined their arms and made themselves into a wall, Watt at the center. "Juliana, you know we cannot," he said to her, his tone not unkind.

  With a piercing cry, she threw herself at the man. "Take that sack off him!" she wailed, shoving against his chest.

  "Sweetling, you shouldn't be here. Go home to your girls," Heyward told her from where he stood next to Watt.

  The grieving woman launched herself at the oldster. He cried out as she hit him and fell into Tom. Bertie grabbed for Juliana. She ducked and thrust into the opening where Heyward had stood. Tom and the oldster again locked their arms, trapping her between them. She strained steadily forward. Just as she wrapped her fingers around the corner of the sacking on Dickie's head, Aldo caught her at the waist and pulled her back from her son.

  Crying out, she writhed and kicked. Her neighbors all danced out of harm's way. Aldo lifted her then grunted as her heel caught him in the thigh. Faucon shifted closer, ready to catch her should she win free. Just then she fixed her hands on Aldo's restraining arm and folded at the waist.

  "Watch yourself!" he warned the reeve.

  Too late. She sank her teeth into Aldo's arm. Yelping, the smith's hold on her loosened and she slid free.

  The instant her feet touched the tile she was moving. Aldo reached for her at the same instant as Faucon. They stumbled into each other. Juliana ducked under their arms and raced for the door, howling as if in agony.

  "I've got her!" Faucon shouted to the others as he chased after her.

  At the church door, his fingers brushed her arm. With an ear-piercing shriek, she plunged out into the dark and leapt off the porch. Arm yet outstretched, Faucon followed, only to slide as he hit the grassy turf.

  "Juliana, stop!" he called after her, using her given name when he had no right, hoping to startle her.

  By the time they reached the far end of the churchyard, he was again within reach. She exploded through the opening then threw the gate back at him. It bounced off, but the damage was done. Scrambling to regain his stride, he watched helplessly as Juliana, a pale blur in the dark in front of him, gained yards in the track.

  She flew past her mother's home only to stop stock still. Her form melded with another patch of darkness, then she screamed in terror. The thought of a walking, murdering corpse drove Faucon to greater speed.

  Etta of Mancetter threw open her door. "Juliana! Where are you?" she shouted in panic, hurrying into the track.

  "Sir Faucon?" Alf called at the same time, then huffed as Juliana gave another wordless shriek.

  "Hold her, Alf," Faucon commanded, giving thanks to all that was holy.

  Cottage doors along the track flew open. Firelight spilled from some, including the one across the pathway from Etta's home. Framed in that light were Tibby and Bett.

  Etta started up the track toward the sound of her daughter's voice. "Who's there?! Juliana! Where are you?!" she begged, her voice trembling with fear.

  "Mama, they put a sack over his head to make him look like Raymond," Juliana keened.

  Panting, Faucon trotted along the track toward Alf. As he passed the old woman, he said, "Your daughter runs mad with grief. I'll take her home."

  "Nay, bring her to me!" Etta called after him.

  Much as Aldo had done, Alf held Juliana in front of him, but he'd managed to fold her arms behind her back. She now sagged against his hold, her head bowed. Although her shoulders shook as if she sobbed, she made no sound. Then her knees buckled. Alf let her sink to kneeling in the roadway. She hung as a child's poppet from his hold.

  "I've got the saddlebags, sir," Alf said quietly.

  "Then I'll take her," Faucon replied and gathered the woman into his arms.

  Rather than fight, Juliana sagged into his embrace. Her breathing was quick and shallow. It seemed she'd once again catapulted into that strange sleep of hers. He looked up the track at Waddard's home, yet thinking to bear her back to her family. But, unlike their neighbors, the potter's cottage was dark and still, its door closed. It was Jilly's hesitance over her mother's odd sleep that had him turning in the track toward Etta.

  "Up here," Juliana's mother commanded Faucon as she retreated to the doorway of her home.

  With Alf following, Faucon carried Juliana up out of the track. The old woman stepped aside as they reached her door, allowing them to enter ahead of her. Faucon moved a few steps into what he expected would be the usual living space given to these sorts of homes. Instead, he found himself in a dark narrow space with walls close by on all sides. Without a flicker of light to show him where he should go, he stayed where he stood. Alf shuffled to an abrupt stop behind him.

  Outside the house Etta shouted, "Oh, close your doors and leave us alone. Especially you, Bett." Her call was followed by the sound of distant slams. Then, stepping inside, Juliana's mother closed her door, plunging the narrow space into total darkness.

  Her footsteps scuffed. The bar thudded into its brackets. Faucon looked behind him and saw nothing but the blank darkness of Alf's night-cloaked form.

  "Why have you stopped?" the old woman asked from the door, her voice heavy with tears.

  "You'll have to show me the way," Faucon replied.

  "Then move aside so I can pass."

  Both Faucon and Alf turned sideways. As his back met the wall behind him, Faucon felt the outline of a shutter rather than a flat surface. Etta slid past them and disappeared around a corner. When Faucon followed, trusting she knew where she was going, he found the big room he'd expected to see from the doorway.

  Although cloaked in heavy shadows, he made out a table at the right wall, while the left wall was cluttered with various shapes that could only be the barrels and bags containing Etta's stored foodstuffs. At the far end of the room he saw something solid and rectangular, no doubt a bed.

  Ahead of him, Etta stopped. Faint tendrils of warm air reached out to him from the center of the room, suggesting the usual placement of the hearth. Baked clay clattered as the old woman removed the covrefeu from the embers it had shielded. Their red glow was light enough to show Faucon that her hearth was raised to about knee height.

  Leaning down, the old woman blew on the hot coals. Tiny flames awoke, revealing the smooth coat of plaster that covered the pedestal. Again, Etta blew on the ashes. This time he saw the open framework surrounding the hearthstone itself. There was an iron grate set across it at just the right height for simmering.

  The old woman tossed a handful of something onto the coals. With a whoosh and a crackle, the flames doubled in size and number. Brilliant sparks scattered upward, borne aloft on writhing wisps of smoke reaching for the hole in the ceiling. As they flew, they made their way between her rafters, casting their brilliant, brief light on the smoked meats, long braids of onions and garlic, and great bunches of dried herbs that hung there.

  As the fire strengthened, Faucon looked at the woman in his arms. Juliana yet hung limp in his embrace, her head turned a little toward his chest. Her eyes were closed and she made no sound. When he didn't hear her breathe, he jostled her a little. Although her eyelids never moved, her chest lifted ever so slightly and she freed the whisper of a sigh. He shook his head. Indeed, she once again slept like the dead.

  "Goodwife, where shall I put your daughter?" Faucon asked.

  That brought the old woman up from the hearth and the task of awakening her fire. Faucon recognized Juliana's narrow face in Etta's but there was a softness to the old woman's features that her daughter lacked. Faucon wondered if this was a result of age or because Etta had lived a sweeter life than that of her child.

  Moistur
e glistened on the old woman's wrinkled cheeks. Using the back of her hands, Etta scrubbed away her grief, replacing tears with dark smears. Her loosened hair shifted around her as she moved. The newborn light found a few remaining glints of gold in her white tresses. So too, did it outline her form through her short, thin garment.

  Alf walked past Faucon to the hearth and set down the leather saddlebags he carried. "If you'd like, goodwife, I'll feed your fire for you while you fetch a gown," he said in what was both an offer and a warning.

  Etta gasped. Whirling, she hurried toward the far end of the room. "Sir, come this way. You can put my daughter in my bed. It's there against the wall. If you don't mind, would you remove her shoes?" She now sounded as worn and heartbroken as Waddard.

  While Etta took her gown from a peg in her wall, Faucon went to the old woman's bed. Such as it was. Etta had left her blanket tossed to one side when she'd run to her door. The mattress beneath it was nothing but a well-worn sack, no doubt stuffed with hay, atop a wooden frame about as high as his knees.

  Settling Juliana onto the mattress, he pulled off the woman's shoes, then settled the blanket over her. This time she didn't even sigh. When he turned, Etta stood between him and the hearth. She now wore a dark green gown. Her fingers flew as she plaited her hair. Her gaze was on her daughter.

  "She sleeps like the dead," Faucon told her.

  "She does that from time to time, ever since—" Juliana's mother paused, then frowned in confusion. "But I don't understand. You and she came from the church. Waddard told me he was going to take her home."

  "So he intended," Faucon replied. "But Waddard found her sleeping in much the same way as she does now, so deeply that your granddaughter couldn't awaken her. Because of that, he decided it would be best to leave her near Dickie until she awakened naturally and prepared herself to leave her son."

  Etta's fingers stilled in their task. Her eyes narrowed. Her jaw tightened. "That coward," Waddard's mother-by-marriage breathed harshly. "Never once has he behaved toward her the way a husband ought."

  Then she caught her breath, as if realizing she'd spilled a private thought. "Forgive my careless tongue, sir," she apologized. "I'm not myself today. Nor have I any right to complain. Whatever his faults, my son-by-marriage is a good man. He loves my daughter and my grandchildren. He's even provided me with my own home," she said, tying off her plait. She sounded more bitter about than grateful for Waddard's generosity.

  Faucon smiled, seeking to put her at ease. "Such is family, always the good to balance the bad, eh?"

  Rather than smile in return, her eyes filled. As her grief again overflowed, she bowed her head to hide her tears, then turned to walk back to her table. Faucon followed.

  Alf yet stood at the hearth. When he caught his employer's gaze, he gave a jerk of his head toward the table as he touched his belly. His brows rose in question. They were coming to know each other very well. Faucon nodded.

  "Goodwife," Alf said, "by chance would you have any bread and meat that Sir Faucon could buy for our supper?"

  Standing at her table, her head yet bowed, Etta again scrubbed her pain from her cheeks. Then, sucking in a shaken breath, her shoulders squared as she pulled together the broken bits of herself.

  She looked at her countryman. "I beg your pardon, goodman. What sort of hostess am I, especially after the boon you just did my daughter? Of course I'll find you and your knight something to eat."

  "Are you certain? Perhaps we should leave you to your rest," Faucon demurred, giving the response required by the rules of courtesy, when leaving wasn't at all what he wanted to do.

  Etta shook her head at that. "It's not that late. And now that I've reawakened my fire, it will burn for a time. To tell the truth, sir, I doubt I'll get so much as a wink of sleep tonight," she continued, her voice quavering in grief. "This, when I well know I'll need my wits about me to watch the little ones on the morrow."

  Reaching down, she pulled out one end of a bench that was tucked under the table. "Sit, sir," she invited Faucon. "I'll not only find you something to fill your belly, but you'll stay here to eat it. And I'll not take so much as a groat from you for it. But I fear that today was such a day that I've nothing hot to offer you," she told them. "Will you have yesterday's bread toasted with lard, and a cup of fresh ale?"

  It was a truly generous offer, for hog fat was a precious substance. "That sounds like a feast to me, goodwife," Faucon replied, sending Etta another reassuring smile. This time, she managed a weak twist of her lips in return.

  As she turned to the wall behind the table, where shelves and pegs held her kitchenware, Faucon arranged the bench so Alf could join him at the table. Etta returned with her knife, half a round loaf of bread, and a clay jar covered with a cloth. But when she lifted the knife to slice the bread, it quivered in her hand the same way her mouth trembled. The set of her shoulders said that she again struggled to control her grief.

  "Larded bread toasted over the fire was my mother's favorite," Alf told the old woman, returning to his feet. "I learned young how to make it, and never once disappointed her when I did. I'd be happy to make it for us. Shall I cut you a slice as well?"

  With a nod, she offered Alf the knife. "There's a skewer at the hearth I use for toasting," she told him, her voice muted.

  "My mother used a skewer as well," Alf replied, as if startled to discover this wasn't an uncommon practice.

  As Alf sliced the bread, Etta returned to the wall and found two wooden cups. These she carried to the corner of the room opposite her bed. Turning on the bench, Faucon watched as she filled the cups from a large jug.

  "Goodwife, Heyward mentioned your daughter's troubles with Raymond," he said, thinking to ease his way into the questions he needed to ask.

  Instead, the old woman came upright with a start. She pivoted to look at him. Liquid dribbled down the side of one cup.

  "Troubles?" she snarled. "If by that you mean Raymond took my daughter against her will and put Dickie into her belly, then aye, she had trouble with that spawn of the Devil. He destroyed her life, stealing all the joy from her soul. Then, as if that wasn't enough, he returned in death to again torment her.

  "Why did Raymond choose her?" she asked harshly of no one in particular. "She never favored him. She never once so much as showed her ankles when he was near, not like that lightskirt Bett."

  "Yet, I'm told that your daughter found joy in Dickie despite how he was made," Faucon said gently.

  "A joy she's now lost forever, again because of Raymond," Etta retorted.

  Then she turned her back on him to finish filling her cups. Her shoulders began to shake. "What if Dickie's passing is the death of my sweet girl?" This was a muted cry.

  "Won't love for her little lasses support her in her grief?" Again Faucon spoke as gently as he could.

  "I can only pray it will be so," Etta replied, returning to the table.

  Once she set the cups before Faucon and Alf, she wiped her eyes with her sleeve, then brought the skewer to the table. Alf handed her a thick slice of bread spread with the lard. She began to thread it onto the iron rod, but her hand trembled so badly the bread broke. With a sound that mingled both rage and pain, she sent the skewer and crumbs sliding across the table.

  "Why her? Why my child?" she again demanded.

  As Alf took up the skewer, Faucon offered the woman his cup. Etta stared at it for an instant, then pulled a stool out from beneath the table. Sitting, she wrapped her hands around the small wooden vessel and drew it close to her chest, then stared unblinking at her tabletop.

  "You were listening when I spoke to your neighbors at the church door," Faucon said to her. "You know that it's my duty to discover who murdered Dickie. Do you know anything that can help me do my task?"

  "What help can you possibly need? Raymond killed him and that's a fact," Etta said flatly without raising her head.

  "So I'm told," Faucon agreed. "But there are things I don't understand and as of yet no one has expl
ained them for me. For instance, how did Dickie come to be in the smithy after dark last night?"

  That had her frowning at him. "Raymond had been bewitching my grandson. He must have called Dickie to him so he could kill him."

  "Aye, but surely as one bewitched, Dickie shouldn't have been able to escape his home without awakening his parents. How could they have not heard his steps or their bar being moved so he could open the door?"

  "Who can say how that evil magic works," the old woman replied, looking confused by his question.

  "I'm also told that Bett speaks the truth, that Dickie had made Tibby his. So too, have I learned that the two did their trysting at night. Here again, Dickie fled his home without being discovered. How is that possible?"

  Outrage replaced Etta's confusion. "As if Bett has the right to demand redress from my daughter's family over what her child has done!" she snarled, her blue eyes glinting in the low light. "What did she think would happen when she left Tibby and little Sim alone at night while she went to futter Aldo? That whore."

  Faucon cocked a brow at that. So much for Aldo's secret. Had the reeve really believed he could hide his liaison in a place like this?

  "Aldo would marry Bett in an instant, although only our Lord knows why he wants that bold bitch," the old woman added. "But she prefers not to remarry while still wishing to take her pleasure in Aldo's bed. Hear me! If Tibby is maiden no longer, as Bett claims, then I know it was by her own choice. That girl's a roundheels, just like her mother."

  As Alf took the skewered bread to the fire, Faucon watched Etta sip her ale. When she set the cup back on the table, she sent a sad glance his way. "But that's not what you asked me. Would that I could tell you how that boy managed to slip away unnoticed. I'm certain Juliana couldn't have known he was gone, for had she, she would have moved heaven and earth to stop him. As for Waddard, I'm not sure he would have questioned Dickie even if he'd seen that boy pass him for the door.

  "That man! It's Waddard's fault that Juli's been beside herself these last months. Rather than help her while she sought to save her son from himself and his bad blood— a hopeless task, for sure— Waddard instead prevented anyone from punishing that boy as he deserved. It was Waddard more than Dickie who was nigh on driving Juli into madness."