Witness of Bones Read online

  Brewster stood his ground. “It wasn’t mine.”

  “But how can you be so sure?”

  “The pen is fenced, as you can plainly see, Constable.” “The pen is fenced now,” Matthew said. “But I see that you have made fresh repairs. See, where the paling is new.”

  “I swear it was no creature of mine,” Brewster said more vehemently. “And he who says otherwise is a liar. I will call him so to his very face.”

  Matthew took a deep breath and looked up at the sky. It was gray, but a few birds flew aloft. Brewster had been right about the weather. It was not a fine day and yet too fine for rancor over an undisciplined animal. With a man like Brewster, conflict was difficult to avoid. The issue was a sensitive one. The boar was obviously dearer to Brewster than was his wife and with such intimacy Matthew was loath to meddle, despite his lawful authority to do so. He imagined the farmer laying hands on him in anger. If it came to that it would be an uneven match. Brewster was much taller than Matthew and muscled where Matthew was soft. Matthew might have called out the watch, brought a half dozen men to support his cause, but that would only have made confrontation more certain.

  “Well,” Matthew said slowly. “In a way I’m sorry to hear you say what you do.”

  “How’s that, Constable?”

  “It puts my labors to naught.”

  Brewster’s hard face showed no sign of regret. “Your coming all this way from town, you mean?”

  “No, the agreement I had with John Terrill.”

  There was another pause during which Brewster glanced down at the animal again. He looked up and said: “You made an agreement? Regarding my boar—I mean the boar in question.”

  Matthew nodded.

  “And what would that agreement have been? I ask, you understand, only out of curiosity as to how matters such as these might be settled—”

  “Amicably?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why, I told him that if you—or whoever owned the beast—would see fit to pay for the reburial—”

  “Of John Terrill’s grandfather?”

  “The same.”

  “Then—?”

  “And promise to keep his boar penned that he would cause no complaint, press no suit. It’s a fair compromise, if you ask me, considering the offense to the man’s dignity and the fact that the offender has more than once been at mischief in the town and caused other damage there. I suppose otherwise Terrill will sue—and he will surely prevail, so grievous a complaint he has, and win more than the cost of the reburial.”

  Brewster considered this, stroking his beard. Above, more birds had gathered; Brewster looked up at them for a moment, then back at Matthew.

  “How much would it cost to rebury the old man?”

  “Oh, a shilling or two. The sexton works for next to nothing.”

  Brewster looked prepared to haggle; then sighed heavily. It was a sigh of resignation. Matthew knew he had won.

  “You have Terrill’s word he won’t sue?” Brewster repeated.

  “By a dozen oaths, each more binding than the one before.”

  “Oaths are cheap,” growled Brewster. “A man may buy them by the dozen.”

  “Terrill’s as straight as a stick. His word’s his bond.”

  “I cannot deny that,” Brewster said.

  “Well, then?”

  “In such a case, it might be easier for me to help Terrill to the sum required. Out of friendship rather than constraint, you understand.”

  “I understand perfectly,” Matthew said, suppressing a grin.

  “Not that I’m admitting it was my beast who rooted graves, Constable. But to be at peace with my neighbors and stand free of the law.”

  “A wise decision, Giles,” Matthew said.

  Matthew waited in the yard while Brewster went into the farmhouse to fetch the money, the boar at his heels until he came to the door and Brewster’s sharp command that he stay brought the animal to a halt. Matthew was breathing easier now, grateful that he could enjoy the day without worrying that his constableship might lead to a cracked skull. He was a short, plump man of about forty, dark and plain faced and with a mild disposition that seemed, at times, ill suited to his office. Yet he had demonstrated more than once in his tenure a compensating intelligence, and his resolute honesty and dogged pursuit of truth were proverbial in the town.

  Brewster returned in no time and handed Matthew three shillings. Matthew said that the sum would suffice and that he would see it got to Terrill.

  “Will you eat with us, Constable?” asked Brewster, as stony faced as ever.

  Remembering that Brewster’s wife was a tolerable cook, Matthew accepted the invitation. He had eaten before leaving home, but the walk from town had sapped his strength. He was hungry again. Besides, he was in a better mood now. It had been a good morning’s work he had done, not the trouble he had expected.

  In his shop on High Street—for Matthew was clothier before he was constable and presently was both—he found his assistant Peter Bench cutting a bolt of cloth for John Terrill’s wife. Which gave Matthew the opportunity of assuring that good woman that in the matter of Brewster’s boar justice had been done.

  “Justice indeed,” returned the wife, “when a dead body is regarded so lightly.”

  Yet for her scowling, Matthew noticed she took the shillings.

  Matthew asked Peter where his own wife could be found. Peter pointed the way to the adjoining kitchen. Like most dwellings on High Street, Matthew’s house was shop on the lower floor and living quarters on the upper, a very sensible arrangement to his way of thinking.

  Joan Stock was the same age as her husband. She had a winsome, oval-shaped face, dark eyes and complexion, firm mouth and chin. A woman to be reckoned with, her neighbors said, who generally liked her and often sought her counsel. In the kitchen Matthew found her engaged in conversation with a man in clerical garb who spoke in the clipped speech of a Londoner, not the slower drawl of Essex. The stranger rose from where he was sitting and gave Matthew a polite nod when introduced.

  “Matthew, this is Master Stephen Graham of St. Crispin’s Church, Eastcheap. Master Graham, this is my husband, Matthew Stock.”

  The cleric extended his hand and smiled encouragingly. Matthew asked him if he had come all the way to Chelmsford to buy cloth.

  “More solemn business, I am afraid, Master Stock. It is not your cloth I seek, but your skill.”

  “Master Graham tells a strange story,” Joan said, sitting at the long trencher table which after the open hearth was the most conspicuous feature of the room. “Perhaps, sir,” she continued, addressing Graham, “you could tell my husband your tale from the beginning.”

  Matthew sat down at the table. Graham leaned forward, his heavy brow accentuating his rather intent eyes. “Perhaps you have heard of Christopher Poole?”

  “A Jesuit priest,” Matthew answered. “Taken in London last year and charged with treason.”

  “This is the same,” Graham said. He had seemed somewhat stiff before, but now appeared relaxed and friendly. He smiled often at Joan and as often at Matthew. “He fasted until he died. Refused to eat the jailer’s bread. Desired to be a

  martyr to his faith—and had his wish. But not before receiving a vision as he called it that within twelve months of his burial he would see God in the flesh.”

  “Resurrect?” said Matthew.

  Graham nodded, frowning. “Last week the event occurred.”

  Matthew was astonished; before he could speak, Graham went on. “I should say that the prophesied event was made to appear to have occurred. Someone entered the churchyard, dug up the grave, and made off with the body. By the next day, half of London had heard the rumor that the priest’s prophesy had been fulfilled. The more ignorant sort claimed to have seen him, eating and drinking, walking about the streets, still in his graveclothes, but his complexion as pink as a child’s.”

  “A seeming miracle,” Matthew said.

  “Seeming is the
most proper word for it, Master Stock. But of course the whole incident is a palpable fraud, devised doubtless by Papists wishing to propagate the faith and undermine the kingdom.”

  “You say, Master Graham, that many have taken Poole’s resurrection as gospel truth?” Joan asked.

  “Last Sunday, there was a greater congregation than St. Crispin’s has seen in two hundred years since it was built. And such a show of crossings and prayer beads and other Papist paraphernalia that you would have thought Queen Mary lived again to thrust Papist dogma down our throats.”

  Master Graham spoke with great conviction. He frowned, suggesting that Papistry was the worst thing of all, worse than thieves and robbers and murderers.

  “I think I perceive your dilemma, sir,” Matthew said. “A man of the church can hardly wish for a small congregation, and yet—”

  “Quite so, Master Stock.”

  “But I don’t understand what I can do—”

  “You can come to London. Come to London and discover who stole Poole’s body. Confirm their purpose.” Graham leaned forward intently. His heavy brows hooded his eyes so

  they seemed to have no color. “I trust you will find the culprit was some Papist fanatic, eager to advance his lewd faith and sow seeds of discord in our otherwise happy commonwealth.”

  Matthew exchanged looks with Joan, who had been following Graham’s words with as much interest as Matthew. He could read her mind, couldn’t he? Hadn’t twenty years of marriage made it possible? Another trip to London? When they had only returned at Christmas?

  “I am afraid I cannot at this time,” Matthew said. “My shop, my duties as constable here—and my family. Why, our grandson is a virtual stranger, so rarely are we home.”

  As Joan showed by her expression her agreement with this response, the cleric looked deeply grieved. “Oh, Sir Robert will be most disappointed then.”

  “Sir Robert?” Matthew asked, looking up quickly at the name of the man who had in times past been both Matthew’s good friend and his patron.

  Graham smiled broadly and continued. “It’s part of the story I did not tell you. Christopher Poole was the cousin of Lady Elyot, who is a great friend of Sir Robert’s. It was through her influence that Poole was buried in St. Crispin’s churchyard and the theft of the body has caused suspicion to fall upon her, although she claims to have no Papist sympathies. It’s for this reason that Sir Robert is especially eager to have your assistance. It was he who commended you. He said that if any man in England could ferret out the truth, that man was Matthew Stock of Chelmsford.”

  Graham flashed another ingratiating smile; he had good teeth and seemed aware of it.

  Matthew said, “Would you excuse my wife and me for a moment, sir, while we converse on this matter?”

  “Most certainly,” said Graham.

  Wife followed husband into the passage that separated kitchen from shop.

  “Speak your mind, Joan,” Matthew said.

  “Sir Robert’s commendation is weighty. What do you think, husband?”

  “I have no desire to go to London.”

  “Nor I.”

  “No interest in Papist plots.”

  “Nor I.”

  “We are of one mind then,” he said.

  “And yet Sir Robert’s commendation—”

  “Ought to be considered.”

  “Can we confirm what this parson says?” she asked.

  “He’s a man of God. Do you think he’s lying?” He was astonished that she could suspect such a thing.

  “His godliness rings false,” she said, folding her plump brown arms across her chest in that way she had when she was resolved not to be persuaded to the contrary. “I don’t know why. There’s too much honey on his tongue. You should have heard his flattery before you came in. Full of compliments he was for my kitchen, for this well-worn gown, for my dark eyes. I tell you he smells more of the court than the cloister.”

  “Indeed,” said Matthew, who had found the man’s appearance and conduct unexceptional and did not know how much to credit Joan’s suspicions.

  “Can we confirm his story?”

  “We could send a message to Sir Robert,” Matthew suggested. “But would we have time to send and receive? The case stands at a difficult point. I am fixed upon a dilemma’s horns. If Graham speaks truly, my loyalty to Sir Robert bids me go. If there’s some deceit in the tale, should I not search it out? How can I say nay in either case?”

  “Well, do as you see fit, husband,” Joan said after a short pause. “Let your conscience guide. I’ll be your companion to London as always. Who knows but that the matter will be settled in a few days, the mischief revealed, and Poole’s body where it belongs again.”

  Since they were agreed, then, they returned to the kitchen where they found the rector of St. Crispin’s standing with his face to the window that looked out on High Street. As the Stocks entered he turned slowly and the ingratiating smile

  spread slowly across his face as though he already knew what Matthew’s answer should be.

  “What, to London again? Why it’s not been three months since your last visit.”

  Matthew gave no reasons to his assistant. Nor did Peter, accustomed to the Stocks’ coming and going in service greater than their own business, ask for any. Peter went to make ready Matthew’s gear for the journey.

  “A strange thing has happened,” Joan said as Matthew sat down to supper. Matthew looked up from his plate.

  “What strange thing?”

  “My good knife. The one with the carved haft and the initial S engraved thereon. I was using it just this afternoon. I can’t find it now, although I’ve searched the whole kitchen twice over.”

  Matthew resumed eating. “Ask Betty if she has seen it,” he suggested between mouthfuls.

  “She says she has not.”

  “Oh, I think it will turn up. Things lost always do. Let’s not make more mysteries than we already have,” Matthew said in his commonsensical way.

  Three

  Back in London, Humphrey Stearforth felt happier than he had felt in months. Like hungry trout, the clothier and his wife had opened their mouths wide and swallowed the story whole. It all went to show how gullible country folk were. You could tell them any tale and they’d believe it. Any tale at all.

  He stopped at an inn in Milk Street to quench his thirst and toast his own ingenuity, having taken care first to change into his own clothes. That part of the impersonation had not been so agreeable to him, the garb being drab and conferring no credit upon what he considered a well-turned thigh and broad, manly breast. It had given him an uneasy feeling, truth be told, but it was over now. He had imitated Stephen Graham to the last detail and Stearforth’s only regret was that he had lacked an appreciative audience for his performance.

  He spent a good hour in the inn until heady with wine he mounted his horse to go to the house of him whose generosity now paid for Stearforth’s good satin suit and gave promise of advancement according to his deserts.

  The house itself was a goodly one, maintained by the personage in question as a part of his family inheritance. It

  was well furnished with servants, most of whom had now become accustomed to Stearforth’s comings and goings and while unsure of his rank in the hierarchy of their master’s affairs, they were nonetheless confident that he had one and they treated him with a satisfactory deference that Stearforth trusted in the fullness of time would swell to reverence.

  But when he arrived outside the great man’s study, he was vexed to find that he had to wait his turn. Several gentlemen he did not recognize preceded him—each with some compelling suit, Stearforth supposed by their anxious faces. Stearforth nodded to each and sat down on a stool, his report hanging heavy on his mind.

  It was another hour before he was ushered in. Invited to sit, Stearforth poured his story forth to the gentleman before him without waiting for a command to do so.

  “You’re certain then that Stock will come to Lon
don?”

  “He said as much, Your Grace. If he keeps his word, he should be at St. Crispin’s by late today, or by tomorrow at the latest.”

  “Well and good, Stearforth. I presume you accomplished this end by invoking the mighty name of the queen’s little pigmy?”

  Stearforth responded to this diminishing characterization of Robert Cecil with a sneer. “Indeed, Your Grace. At first Stock begged leave to stay at home. He said he had been back in Chelmsford only three months since his last sojourn in the city. He didn’t say what business detained him then.”

  “Nor would he,” said Stearforth’s employer. The large man clothed in a velvet dressing gown with a great jewel upon his finger and lace at his wrists stared thoughtfully at the bookcase beyond him as though he were searching for some title. Stearforth looked on in silence, waiting for his employer’s next question or command. He was full of envy of the man before him. Subtly arrogant, swollen with pride and rich food, soft spoken because those around would take trouble to strain to hear—this was indeed how Stearforth himself aspired to live, what he aspired to be.

  Surrounded by obsequious servants tiptoeing through the

  great house like ghosts, a handsomely furnished study be-seiged by suitors, not common folk but people of name and means, begging favors, offering bribes, extending invitations and proposing alliances. Yes, this was the world of which Humphrey Stearforth was an eager apprentice, and as he regarded the great man before him, his envy surrendered to a deeply felt gratitude. For it was this person who would pull him up from poverty and scorn. It had happened to other men of meaner birth than his own. Service was infinite in its possibilities; one could lick boots—or advise a prince. Even Cecil, arguably the most powerful man in the realm despite his diminutive stature, alluded to himself as Her Majesty’s obedient servant.

  “I thought Cecil’s name would do the trick,” said the employer after a few moments. “Now we are ready for the next step.”

  Stearforth leaned forward expectantly.

  “Go to the church and await the Stocks’ arrival. It is likely they will lie at the Blue Boar, for the Chelmsford merchants are wont to stay there while in London.”