Alice wiped her hands on the patched and faded counterpane. Her patient stirred a little, then sank back into a torpor, either real or feigned. Either way, Alice had no inhibitions about discussing his brother and the rest of his family within his hearing.
‘Petronelle’s all right, I suppose,’ she conceded grudgingly after a few moments’ thought. ‘It’s not her fault that she loves a man who doesn’t love her. Nathaniel forced Ned into the marriage because of her dowry. He wanted to marry Maud Haycombe.’
‘Mistress Lilywhite?’
‘That’s right, dear. And I reckon he’d have defied his father, too, if she hadn’t gone and fallen for that Gilbert Lilywhite who’d come here from Gloucester to dig somebody’s well. Of course,’ Alice added hastily, ‘I don’t remember events very clearly. I was only a slip of a thing at the time.’ She saw the blatant disbelief on my face and grimaced. ‘Oh, very well, then! I was twenty and already beginning to practise my trade. I had no choice, dear. My mother turned me out of the house when she married again, and what else was I to do?’ She gave a sudden belly laugh. ‘My stepfather was one of my first customers. Now, what d’you think of that? A joke, eh? I never told her, although it was on the tip of my tongue to do so, often and often.’
Fortunately, the flow of reminiscences was stemmed by Tom Rawbone opening his eyes and asking for water, which Alice fetched for him from a barrel just outside the door. Supporting him in one strong arm, she held the wooden cup to his lips.
‘Do you want to stay here the night?’ she asked him. ‘I’ve got no visitors this evening. Unless, of course, your friend, here …?’ She turned to look up at me.
‘No!’ I declined the offer with more speed than courtesy. ‘It’s … It’s just that I’m married,’ I added in a belated effort to soften my terse refusal.
‘They’re all married,’ she said reproachfully.
‘Happily married,’ I pleaded in extenuation.
Alice sighed. ‘There’s nothing I hate more than a happily married man.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Not your fault, dear, I suppose. Well, there you are then, Tom.’ She smoothed his hair. ‘You can sleep in my bed tonight and I’ll rub your bruises again in the morning.’ She rose from her seat on the side of the bed and moved towards the door. I realized I was being dismissed and once more gathered up my belongings, nudging Hercules, who was snoring beside the corner hearth, with my toe. Furious, he again tried to bite my ankles. I should have to cure him of this painful habit.
Alice followed me outside. ‘You don’t perhaps want some powdered mandrake root?’ she hissed. ‘I always keep a pot for some of my gentlemen who have – well, you know – trouble.’
I laughed. ‘I already have three children.’ I didn’t tell her that Nicholas wasn’t really mine. ‘I’m trying not to have any more. So … no, thank you.’
She shrugged. ‘Suit yourself.’
She was turning to go back into the cottage, when I was struck by a sudden thought.
‘Alice,’ I said, ‘last September, the night of the great storm, the night Eris Lilywhite disappeared, did Tom Rawbone spend the night here?’
She seemed mildly astonished that I should even need to ask the question.
‘Of course! He always comes to me when he’s in trouble. And that night, he was in a terrible state. Not surprising, really, when you think about it, I suppose. He’d thrown over Rosamund Bush because he thought Eris was going to marry him, only to find that she’d got herself betrothed to his father! I told you old man Rawbone was a worse lecher than his sons. An old ram – and that’s being unfair to rams. He should have been castrated years ago. Mind you-’ she giggled – ‘I should have lost a deal of trade if he had been.’
‘He comes here?’
Alice glowered at me. ‘Why do you say it like that? There’s nothing wrong with this place. I offer a necessary service, that’s all.’ Once more her sense of humour conquered her indignation. ‘Mother confessor to the entire male population of the village, that’s me. I bet I know more about the men of Lower Brockhurst than Father Anselm … Are you sure you don’t want to stay, dear? I’m very reasonable.’
I countered her question with one of my own, desperate to give her thoughts another direction.
‘That night, the night we were talking of, what time was it when Tom Rawbone arrived here?’
Alice stared at me with that mixture of suspicion and curiosity that I’ve noticed in a lot of people when I start probing for information.
‘Nosy, aren’t you? And I know what you’re thinking. Would Tom have had time to do away with Eris before he came knocking on my door? Well, unfortunately, the answer’s yes, he would. It must have been after midnight, because my last visitor didn’t leave until late. He – Tom, that is – was soaked to the skin. Said he’d been walking for miles in the rain. Couldn’t remember, he said, where he’d been, only that he’d been trying to overcome his fury, so that he wouldn’t go back to Dragonswick to finish what he’d begun.’
‘He meant, I suppose, his attempt to murder his father and Eris. Did you believe him?’
‘I think so. Mind you, if I’m honest, when I’d heard the whole story I wasn’t so sure.’ Alice wrapped her arms about herself for warmth. ‘Look, I’m freezing, standing here, chatting like this. I’m going in.’ She made one last bid for my custom. ‘You’re positive you don’t want to … to …?’
‘I’m very tired,’ I pleaded. ‘I’ve had a long day.’ Which was true. ‘I’ll call tomorrow to see how Tom is.’
She nodded, accepting defeat, and turned back indoors.
I picked up Hercules, who was giving a good imitation of a dog who could go no further without falling over, and tucked him under my arm. Then, with my almost empty pack and cudgel clutched together in my right hand, I walked back along the village street to the footbridge opposite the church. There were still sounds of merrymaking issuing from the open alehouse door, but the priest’s house was in darkness. Sir Anselm, for want of other occupation, had presumably gone to bed, ready to rise in the small hours to recite Matins and Lauds in the icy and deserted church. Rather him than me. It was the service I had hated and resented most during my years as a novice at Glastonbury Abbey.
I turned into the belt of trees, but before I could set foot on the bridge, an arm was clamped around my throat in a frantic effort to throttle me.
Nine
I dropped everything, including the dog, and raised my hands to claw at the arm encircling my throat. At the same time, I could hear Hercules barking like a fiend and trusted that he was attacking my assailant’s ankles just as, earlier, he had tried to bite mine. I was finding it increasingly difficult to breathe and my senses were beginning to swim. My eyes felt as though they were bulging out of their sockets, which they probably were, and although I kicked backwards with my right foot, I was unable to find a target. Then, just as unconsciousness was looming and the situation growing desperate, I was released with a suddenness that sent me sprawling to the ground.
I lay there, gasping, for a moment, rubbing my throat and waiting for my vision to clear, then heaved myself unsteadily upright and turned to confront my attacker. Backed up against a tree, vainly trying to free his right arm from the vice-like grip of Hercules’s teeth, was Lambert Miller. The dog, suspended several feet above the ground, was hanging on valiantly and refusing to be shaken off. (I had seen him perform this trick once before, the first time he had saved me from violent assault. I thanked God that I had brought him with me.)
‘All right, boy,’ I said, ‘you can let go now.’ I caught his little body round the middle, relieving the strain on his neck and stomach muscles, then helped him to unclamp his jaws. I made much of him before lowering him to the ground.