The clouds parted and the full moon appeared, showing a sea of undulating mud broken by the water-filled holes where the trees had been. Up against my wall there was now a pond thirty feet across, little ripples dancing in the moonlight. I squinted and stared out across the mud.
Then I thought I saw something move slightly. I leaned forward, staring at a dim shape in the mud by the pool. Holding the knife firmly, I began moving carefully towards it. My boots sank deep into the mud, making squelching sucking sounds. The shape did not move again. Had Wrenne collapsed here, the strain too much for him? I reached the figure and bent carefully, ready for a sudden spring. If I had to I would stab him. Then I gritted my teeth as I saw a surface of uneven bark and realized I was staring at a log half-buried in the mud.
He struck from somewhere behind me, his weight sending me tumbling to the ground and making me drop the dagger. I gasped as I hit the mud, the breath knocked from my body. A knee crunched into my back, then I felt Giles lean over to one side to grab the dagger. So he would kill me. I bucked and heaved to throw him off balance, and he toppled sideways. As I hauled myself to my feet I saw his bulky shape rising too, slowly, the knife gleaming in his hand. I could not see the expression on his face because it was black with mud, no more than a dark circle with two glinting eyes.
‘For pity’s sake, Giles,’ I gasped, ‘surrender the papers. We cannot end like this.’
‘We must.’ He stepped forward, his arms held wide, the knife glinting in his right hand. ‘Unless you let me go. Please, Matthew, let me go.’
He thrust at me suddenly. I jumped aside and hit out with my manacled wrist. The iron caught him hard on the side of the head; he gasped and dropped the knife. I must have half stunned him for he reeled away, staggered into the margin of the pool and fell over with a splash. He hauled himself up and sat, a dark shape up to its waist in water. Then the moon vanished, leaving us once more in darkness, and the rain began pelting down again.
I threw myself at him before he had time to rise, gasping at the impact of the cold water. And now it was Giles who struggled and bucked underneath me, and he was starting to weaken, his resistance feeble as I put both hands round his neck and forced his head under the water. I knew only one of us could come out of that cursed swamp alive. I kept his head under, ignoring the horrible gasps and gurglings he made.
Giles’s struggles ceased, he went limp. A ghastly sucking sound came as he breathed water into his lungs, a sound I still hear in dreams; there was a last frantic spasm and then he went limp as a rag doll. But I did not move; I realized I was weeping, warm water mingling with the cold on my cheeks. For minutes more I knelt there holding him fast, sobbing in the darkness as the rain lashed relentlessly down on me.
I do not know how long it was before I got shakily to my feet. I was trembling from head to toe, but I made myself bend down and turn Giles over so he lay face down. Then I put my hands under the water, lifted his sodden robe, and felt through his pockets. I found a purse, and a thick pack of papers wrapped in oilskin. I took them and staggered away, without looking back.
BARAK AND TAMASIN returned an hour later, dripping wet for it was still raining. Tamasin looked upset, as though she had been crying. I was sitting by the fire in the parlour; I had banked it up with logs and sat stirring it with the poker, trembling and sweating for the fever had come on me properly now. They stared at me in horror, covered from head to foot in mud as I was, steam rising from my sodden clothes. They ran over to me.
‘Sir!’ Barak exclaimed. ‘In God’s name, what has happened?’
‘Giles Wrenne is dead,’ I said quietly. ‘We were eating and he seemed to lose his senses, he ran outside calling for his nephew.’ I looked directly into Tamasin’s blue eyes; I had thought this story through carefully and the lie was to protect them as well as me. ‘He ran into the orchard. I followed. I found him in that pool of water, almost a lake it is now. He must have collapsed and drowned.’
Tamasin’s hand flew to her mouth. ‘His mind gone too?’
‘It must have been his illness, affecting his brain. I had to give him bad news this afternoon. His nephew Martin Dakin died two years ago.’
‘The poor old man,’ Tamasin whispered. How full of compassion she had always been, I realized – for Wrenne, for Jennet Marlin, for me under the copper beech in York.
‘Where is he?’ Barak asked.
‘Still out there. He was too heavy to bring back, and I – I think I am unwell.’ I heard my voice break.
‘I’ll go and look,’ Barak told Tamasin. ‘Wait here.’
She knelt by me, put a cool hand to my brow. ‘You are burning up, sir. You must go to bed.’
‘I will now. I am sorry, Tamasin.’
‘What for?’
‘How I have treated you sometimes.’
She smiled weakly. ‘I deserved it by starting with that foolish trick.’
‘Perhaps. I lost a friend tonight,’ I added quietly.
She laid her other hand on mine, my manacled hand. ‘It took us a long time to find Jack’s locksmith. But he will come tomorrow morning with his tools, have you released from that horrible fetter.’
‘Good. Good. Thank you.’
‘Is Mistress Woode asleep?’
‘Ay, Joan slept through it all. There is no need to disturb her.’ I looked at her. ‘You have been crying.’
‘Jack has found my father, sir. He is a professional man, as Jack said. He is a cook in the royal kitchens. A man with a fine opinion of himself, Jack says. He does not want to know me.’ She took a sobbing breath and bit her lip, but held back her tears.
‘I am sorry, Tamasin.’
‘It was a childish fantasy. It is better to know the truth.’
‘Yes.’ I thought of Giles. ‘But lonely.’
We sat in silence a few minutes longer. Then Barak returned, shaking water from his hair. The look he gave me held calculation as well as concern.
‘Can you leave us, Tammy?’ he asked quietly.
She nodded and rose. ‘Goodnight, sir,’ she said quietly, and left the room. I looked at Barak. He drew my dagger from beneath his doublet and laid it on the table.
‘I found this outside, by the pool.’
‘It must have fallen from my belt.’
‘The mud round where he lay was all churned up, as though there had been a struggle.’ He knows, I thought; he has guessed it was no accident.
‘His face was terrible, a wild desperate look on it.’
I was glad I had not seen that. I met Barak’s gaze. ‘We must tell the coroner of his death first thing tomorrow. There will be no doubt of the finding. He drowned.’
Barak looked at me, took a deep breath, and nodded slowly. The matter was closed.
‘Tamasin says you found her father?’
‘Ay. A cook. When I went to see him he railed at me, said he would deny all. He thought Tamasin was after his money.’ He laughed grimly. ‘A fine professional gentleman.’
‘Poor Tamasin.’
‘Ay. But I decided to tell her. Best to know the truth, is it not?’
I glanced at the dagger. ‘Perhaps.’
‘She will get over it. She’s tough. That’s one of the things I admire about her.’
‘Families and claims of rank, by Jesu they cause much trouble, do they not?’ I laughed bitterly, then shivered violently. Barak looked at me.
‘You should come to bed. You look a sight.’
‘All right. Help me up.’
As he stepped towards me I took the poker and stirred the fire, where a last fragment of paper had failed to burn. The flames took them, and the name of Edward Blaybourne disappeared for ever.
Epilogue
I STOOD AT the window of my room in the little inn, watching the sun rise. A hard frost had held the countryside in its grip for a week and as the blood-red orb appeared it turned the landscape first pink then white; the grass and the trees and the roof of the little church opposite all outlined in frost.