Her presence in the hall was explained as soon as I saw that Nathaniel Rawbone was seated in the chair facing his sister’s, on the opposite side of the hearth. He had removed his shoes and hose, and a bowl of water and a bottle of salve lay on a footstool alongside him. Elvina Merryman was evidently in the process of bathing and anointing his badly chilblained feet.
As Ned and I tenderly lowered Tom into Dame Jacquetta’s abandoned armchair, Nathaniel took one look at his younger son and let out a roar.
‘You quarrelsome young idiot! Who have you been laying into this time, eh? Answer me this minute, sir!’
‘Leave him be, Father,’ Ned advised quietly. ‘He’s taken enough punishment these last three days, without you yelling at him. And he wasn’t laying into anybody, as Master Chapman here will confirm. Lambert Miller set about Tom.’
The housekeeper came back with a tray on which reposed three beakers of wine, handing one to each of the Rawbone brothers and one to me. I savoured mine slowly, hoping that no one would realize that it was far too fine a vintage to be wasted on an itinerant pedlar. But they were all too preoccupied to give it a moment’s thought, the women fussing over Tom, and Nathaniel listening with a scowling countenance to Ned’s account of the day’s events as far as he knew them.
While Ned was speaking, the twins entered through the front door, their young faces healthily aglow from the cold and the wind, shedding their good frieze cloaks for their mother to pick up and tidy away, rubbing their hands and shouldering their way to the fire. They would have plunged immediately into an account of their afternoon’s activities, but were hushed by the simple expedient of their grandfather striking them across the buttocks with the stick he kept propped against his chair.
‘Silence!’ he yelled. ‘Your father’s talking!’
Hercules crouched, shivering, between my feet. I wondered if Nathaniel ever spoke in a moderate tone of voice.
While Ned finished his story, I took stock of the eldest and the two youngest members of the Rawbone family. The latter, Jocelyn and Christopher, were pretty much what I imagined fourteen-year-old boys to be all over the world, in any age and time: self-centred, self-absorbed, loutish young puppies, constantly on the lookout – at least, if they followed my example – for the chance to bed a girl. Any girl, anywhere; but not as yet absolutely sure what to do about it if and when the opportunity offered. (But, of course, the girls would know. They always did.) They were big, handsome lads, more like their uncle in appearance and manner than their father. And there seemed to be nothing of the whey-faced Petronelle in either of them until I looked more closely, when I could see that they had her eyes; eyes of a very much paler blue than the intense colour of their grandfather’s.
Nathaniel, himself, in spite of his fifty-nine years, was still of an upright, broad-shouldered physique, as I had noted in church the previous morning. I could see that Eris Lilywhite might well have been attracted to him, quite apart from the lure of his money and the status of being mistress of Dragonswick Farm. She could have found his high-handed, autocratic ways something of a thrill after Tom’s slavering devotion. But what had been Nathaniel’s feelings for Eris? Had he truly been fond of her or had he simply seen her as a way to demonstrate to his family that he was still the master? That he could make them all dance to his piping at any time he chose? More importantly, what had he felt when Eris disappeared?
‘What are you staring at, chapman?’ His voice cut across my wandering thoughts, making me jump.
I realized that Ned had finished speaking and that everyone was looking at me.
‘I-I’m sorry,’ I stammered. ‘I wasn’t meaning to be rude.’
Nathaniel snorted and turned back to Tom, first signalling impatiently to Elvina Merryman that she should continue bathing his feet.
‘You randy young fool!’ he exclaimed bitterly to his younger son. ‘Leave Rosamund Bush alone. You won’t do yourself any good. She’ll string you along for a while, just for the pleasure of knowing she has the upper hand again, and to annoy that great hunk, Lambert Miller. But you won’t win her back. Not now. Not ever. So don’t you think it! Use your common sense, boy!’
I wasn’t so sure that he was right, but felt obliged to hold my tongue. It was none of my affair. Besides, I was too busy wondering how I could have a private word with those two budding young bravos, the Rawbone twins. I suspected that they might have a productive line in indiscreet chatter if only I could get them on their own.
For once, fate played into my hands. Petronelle suggested to her husband that they take Tom, who still looked extremely green about the gills, upstairs to lie down. Ned agreed and she had to push past her sons in order to reach her brother-in-law’s side. The contact obviously reminded her of something she wished to say.
‘You two!’ she ordered; and I could see that for all her timid appearance, there was a virago lurking somewhere underneath, just waiting to be let loose. ‘Out to the saw-pit. We need more logs, and Jack Sawyer sent word by Billy Tyrrell that he and his son wouldn’t be able to get as far as Dragonswick today. So off you go.’
The twins would probably have argued about it if their grandfather had not been present. They each sent him a sidelong glance and grumbled under their breath; but they were palpably in awe of the old man and did not dare risk his displeasure.
‘Let me help,’ I offered, picking up my cloak which I had shed shortly after entering the house. ‘Two to work the saw, one to stack the logs. It will be quicker.’
I saw Ned glance at me suspiciously, as he and his wife hoisted Tom to his feet. But apart from the twins, who greeted my offer with a surly gratitude, no one made any comment. Dame Jacquetta was too concerned with resuming her seat by the fire, while the housekeeper was engrossed in her task of treating Nathaniel’s chilblains. And the elder Rawbone was having too much fun nagging Elvina, and grumbling about her clumsiness, to worry his head over any ulterior motive I might have.
I followed Christopher and Jocelyn across the yard, where the household animals were penned, to the saw-pit on the other side of a wattle fence. Here, a pile of fair-sized branches were stacked, waiting to be sawn into smaller pieces by the local sawyer and added to the dwindling mound of logs ready for use indoors.
We found the family saw, a blade of fearsome proportions, in a lean-to shack that also housed a long- and a short-handled pick, together with other implements. I took off my cloak and volunteered to work in the pit, holding the bottom end of the saw, while Jocelyn bestrode the planks above me, grasping its handle. That left Christopher the task of dragging the branches into position across the saw-pit, removing the cut pieces and shifting the branch forward as required.
As I had anticipated, a little of such backbreaking labour went a long way as far as the twins were concerned. After we had sawn up three branches, they suggested, as one man, that we repair to the kitchen for refreshment.
‘No one’ll be there except Ruth,’ Jocelyn said. ‘And she won’t snitch on us. Mother will think we’re still working out here. Coming, chapman?’
I certainly wasn’t going to argue, and picking up Hercules, who had been patiently watching us from a safe distance, guarding my cloak and cudgel, I followed the twins back the way we had come, through the rear door and into the warmth of the kitchen.
Ruth was busy cutting up winter vegetables – leek and water parsnip and turnip – and throwing them into a pot of boiling water, bubbling over the fire. She took no more notice of us than the twins did of her. I nodded and smiled, but elicited no response.
Christopher disappeared, returning after a few minutes with a leather bottle and three wooden beakers, which he placed on the floor near the hearth. We seated ourselves on the rush-covered flagstones and held our hands to the flames, letting our numbed fingers thaw out before toasting each other on a job well done (as well as we intended to do it, anyhow). Hercules settled down beside me with a satisfied grunt and was soon asleep and snoring.