Witness of Bones Read online

  Nowhere did she see Matthew. Her apprehension grew. Something had happened. Something more than Christopher Poole’s resurrection. Finally she managed to catch the attention of a ruddy-faced woman with a small child in her arms; the woman struggled to stay upright, guarding the child with her fat arms.

  Joan asked her what the uproar was.

  “Have you not heard?” asked the woman, wide eyed. “Of the bloody murder?”

  Joan replied she had heard of the miracle but of no murders.

  “It was the parson!” exclaimed the woman as her child squirmed and drooled in her arms. “He who was rector of the church. A goodly person not taken in by Papist trickery and for his pains murdered in cold blood.”

  “Murdered by whom?” Joan asked.

  “They say by a man from the country who gained entrance to the church by claiming he was come to London at the parson’s behest, but his whole purpose was to slit the godly man’s throat and then lop off his head.”

  “Did they say what this countryman’s name was?”

  “Oh, I heard nothing about that,” said the woman. “And what difference does it make, since he no doubt used a false one? For my money, he’s a Papist spy and now the neighborhood is up in arms against the Papists amongst us for the parson’s murder. Many thanks to God that the miscreant was taken and so must face the judgment of the law and torture to make him tell who his confederates are.”

  A shove from behind moved Joan involuntarily away from the woman before she could learn more. She continued to move toward the church porch hoping against hope that the countryman the woman referred to was not Matthew. Yet how could he have become involved in a murder? Graham had invited them to London, had he not? The scope of Matthew’s intent was no more than to look around the church and churchyard. He had been gone from her side for only a few hours. But now it seemed this same cleric was dead—by a murderer’s hand. Someone from the country. Someone who had declared himself summoned by the victim?

  Then Joan noticed that one of the gentlemen she had seen before on the porch was now standing next to the wall only a few yards from her. Hoping to get a truer account from this person, Joan set forth, elbowing her way, coming at last to him and asking him what went on to cause so great a stir?

  The young cleric, who seemed strongly excited by the commotion around him, gave her a look to suggest that only a child or simpleton could ask such a question. “Why, it was I who found Master Graham’s body. Alan Hopwood. It was I who fetched the officers to arrest the murderer.”

  “What was the man’s name?”

  “Stephen Graham, rector of the church here.”

  “No, I mean he accused of the murder.”

  Hopwood looked at her curiously, tipping his pale face to the side as though to see her best he must see her at an angle. “Why should that interest you? Did you know him?”

  “Perhaps,” she said. “Oh, do tell me his name.”

  “Marry, it was Stock . . . Matthew Stock.”

  “But that’s impossible!” she said.

  “Far from impossible,” Hopwood said. He screwed up his eyes to give her a harder look than before. “Stock told me his name, although I have no doubt it is as false a name as the man himself.”

  Joan replied angrily. “Matthew Stock is my husband, sir, and he came to the church today on Sir Robert Cecil’s business. He is no murderer. Why if he is not the honestest man in Christendom then I do not know him from Adam and I have been his wife for twenty years.”

  “You are his wife!”

  “I am indeed.”

  Joan no sooner reaffirmed her relationship but Hopwood grabbed her by the arm and began to steer her toward the church, bellowing as he did that the officers should come for he had encountered Stock’s accomplice.

  Realizing what was happening, Joan struggled to free herself, while there was such a hubbub around her that no one seemed to notice the significance of Hopwood’s alarm, nor was it clear that had they noticed they would have done more than gawk at him and his female prisoner.

  Joan had been dragged nearly to the church porch when a tall man ahead of them suddenly turned and, colliding with Hopwood, caused him to lose his purchase on Joan’s arm and allow her to escape.

  She pushed through the throng, not looking behind her and imagining in the din of voices that she could still hear Hopwood proclaiming against her. Fleeing the way she had come because she could not determine how to do otherwise, she in time left the rancorous mob behind her and decided to return to the Blue Boar. At least there were people there who knew her and might give her some idea of where her husband had been taken. The next step was to alert Cecil of Matthew’s misfortune. In her mind Joan knew that Cecil would put everything right, but in her heart she felt a profound unease. Her glimmering had proven itself to be prophetic. Accused herself, Joan now felt like a hare trapped in a thicket, with howling dogs on all sides.

  Stearforth had been observing the events at St. Crispin’s from the upstairs window of a tavern across the street from the church for several hours when as luck would have it he spotted Stock’s wife conversing with Hopwood. The spectacle had given him satisfaction enough, for although he had not conceived of so excellent a device he had been the executor of it and he could not believe how smoothly everything had gone. For once, Stearforth’s timing had been perfect. Well, it had been Motherwell’s timing but perfect all the same. Stearforth regretted less now that he had had to pay the sexton double what he had originally offered. But to see Stock’s wife sucked in, seized by Hopwood and very nearly taken into custody as her husband had been earlier—yes, that was gratifying indeed.

  Of course Hopwood had bungled the arrest; the woman had escaped. But the important thing was that she had now been seen by Hopwood and apparently perceived to be as guilty as her husband.

  The sudden appearance of some friends drew Stearforth from these reflections. Would he not come to have a drink or two with them for fellowship’s sake? Yes, he would drink but he would buy, rather, for he was celebrating. He was not willing to tell them what and, because they knew Stearforth’s humor was to affect a mysterious air, they accepted his offer without further question and the three of them went downstairs and drank for another hour.

  After dark, the crowd outside the church began to disperse and Stearforth made his way directly to his employer’s house. This time there was no waiting. He had no sooner identified himself at the door but he was shown immediately to the great man’s study.

  “It’s done, even as you ordered, sir.”

  His employer was in his nightgown and slippers, heavy faced and immobile. He seemed to be a part of the chair he sat in.

  “Sit down, Humphrey. Tell me all the particulars.”

  Stearforth told everything he had witnessed and what surmised, glad that things had worked out so satisfactorily that the truth required no varnish.

  “Stock has been arrested then for the murder?”

  “He has, Your Grace, and been taken to the Marshalsea.”

  “Oh, very good.”

  “Hopwood was a more than adequate witness. Finding Stock’s knife, he concluded that Stock was the murderer. And Stock evidently admitted the weapon was his. Of course, when he began to tell a wild story about how Graham came to Chelmsford—”

  “You have done well, Humphrey. What of the wife?” “She came to the church. Undoubtedly looking for her husband and fell into Hopwood’s clutches. Then she escaped.”

  For the first time the great man’s face darkened with disapproval. Stearforth said, “She’ll give us no trouble, sir. 1 am sure of it. After all, what can she do, her husband taken, herself suspected as an accomplice and sought for, and without friends in the City? If she’s no ninny, she’ll hie back to Chelmsford and set up shop as a widow, claim she knew nothing of her husband’s affairs.”

  Stearforth laughed, but his employer’s face remained serious. “You underestimate the little woman, Humphrey. Believe me, she’s a peculiar housewife. Of su
btle mind and iron will. Beware the fox that’s taken in the trap. It has naught to lose and will bite off its leg if need be to escape.”

  “What shall be done with her then, sir?”

  “It would be good if she would return to Chelmsford,” said the employer, “but she will not.”

  “Shall she suffer the same fate as Graham?”

  “No, Humphrey. Let us consider, rather, how we can get her out of London, far away, so that her leaving will seem to be an escape and further support the charge against her husband. Indeed, we may be able to use her absence as an advantage in dealing with Stock, assuming that he will have to be dealt with.”

  “Do you have further instructions for me?”

  “Yes, Humphrey. Find Mistress Stock and watch her carefully. I don’t want her to fall into the hands of the authorities where she can attest to her husband’s story. Let me know what she does and when she does it. As for Stock, I have taken pains that he shall not lack for company in prison. My plan moves ahead with dispatch. These successes show that God is with us, dear Humphrey. And blessed be he for it.”

  Six

  When Joan had returned to the Blue Boar she started to tell her story of Matthew’s arrest and its complicated cause to the innkeeper, a genial, receptive man she counted as a friend, but he supposed it was all a jest, knowing Matthew to be a solid citizen, not likely to find himself on that side of the law. So what was to be done at such an hour, but go to her chamber and worry and pray and later when she fell from sheer exhaustion into a restless sleep to dream dreams of glowering judges, grim prisons, and hideous torturers all gathering around her innocent husband?

  Before daylight, Joan woke, dressed, and taking from the kitchen below only a cup of milk as breakfast, she was in the street and on her way before even the carters stirred. She knew it was futile to inquire at the prisons. She did not know to which Matthew had been taken. Besides, she knew her very inquiry would expose her to arrest, now that Alan Hop-wood had undoubtedly alerted the authorities to the fact that the murderer had a wife who was, by God’s blessed son, as resolute a Papist conspirator as her spouse.

  Joan’s hope, therefore, was Cecil. Cecil, who would tell her in which foul hole Matthew lay. Cecil, who would use his considerable powers to secure Matthew’s release.

  Her immediate object, then, was to find this savior, although she well knew this might prove no easy task. Always in motion, he might be esconced at the royal court at Westminister with its labyrinthine passages, or hawking, his only sport, at his magnificent country home, Theobalds. Or he might be a guest of some lord or lady in the country. And yet if Graham’s words had been true—that the queen was near death—wouldn’t her principal secretary at least be in London, or near at hand? And where else but enjoying the delights of a house not more than six months done and the plaster hardly dry?

  This elegant domicile—Cecil House—was located on Ivy Lane, a little street running down from the Strand to the broad river. An imposing structure of brick and timber, it had a noble front and back parts extending to the Thames. Joan knew that a direct approach to the gate would invite rebuff at such an hour. Her better opportunity was to somehow make her way around to the back where contact with some early-rising servant might help her to the information she sought.

  A wall of smooth stones ran the length of Cecil’s property, but she knew from earlier experience where there was a postern door by which servants and tradesmen came and went. She made her way to this and entered into the sloping garden at the rear of the house where she could see dim lights and hear voices. None of the servants Joan knew but she trusted that she could find someone who would tell her where the master of the house could be found, if not for goodness sake, then tempted by some gratuity from her purse. As the wife of a prosperous clothier, Joan dressed well and she knew that she would at least not be put off as an improvident supplicant in the eyes of servants no doubt wary of those who crawled over the back wall rather than coming in the front door.

  She waited some time in an arbor before she saw a lantern being borne her way. As the light grew larger, she saw that its bearer was one of the manservants of the house by the livery he wore; she would have preferred to have encountered one of the scullions or lesser cooks or a more companionable female to query.

  He was small and narrow shouldered, short of manhood but somewhat beyond the little boy, and he whistled as he approached, for fear of the lingering dark or perhaps only to amuse himself. He stopped suddenly at Joan’s voice and seemed afraid.

  “You there, boy. Do you belong to the house?”

  But of course he did; he answered her sharply, almost defensively. He held the lantern he bore higher, to bring her into the circle of light. He asked who she was and what she did in his master’s garden. There was a tremor in his voice. His face was white and smooth.

  “I have a message for Sir Robert.”

  “Master Staunton receives my lord’s messages.”

  “I know. But I must speak to Sir Robert directly. It’s urgent, boy. Sir Robert will not be displeased to know you have helped me to him.”

  The youth, whom Joan could now see could not have been past twelve or thirteen and had the smooth look of a household servant, continued to regard Joan suspiciously. “How did you get into my lord’s garden?”

  “Through the gate yonder.”

  “You shouldn’t be here.”

  “Well,” Joan said impatiently, handing the boy tuppence. “Necessity brought me to it. I swear my mission is a matter of life and death. One of Sir Robert’s friends is in great danger. If you take me to him there’s more in my purse for you. Not to mention what thanks your master is likely to give.”

  The boy took the coin. “Sir Robert isn’t here.”

  “Where is he, then?”

  “At Richmond Palace. The queen lies abed, sick unto death. All the counselors gather about her.”

  Joan’s heart sank. Invading Cecil’s private garden was one thing; penetrating the environs of the palace at Richmond was another.

  “But I know for a fact he comes to the City,” said the boy.

  Joan gave him another coin, a whole shilling. He looked at it by the light of his lantern and seemed impressed.

  “A company of foreigners are in the City—ambassadors from somewhere—Poland, I think, or Muscovy. It falls to my master to show them the sights this very morning—the Tower and the Bedlamites.”

  “You’re telling the truth, now?

  “As God lives. I heard it from the head groom himself who was to have a brace of Sir Robert’s horses prepared for the nonce.”

  She asked what hour this excursion was to take place, but the boy could not answer. He watched her expectantly. “You’re a good lad,” Joan said. “Sir Robert shall know of your kindness. Trust me that he will not be ungenerous.”

  “Who shall I say inquired of my lord if I am asked of him or another.”

  “Say, Joan Stock of Chelmsford—on her husband, Matthew’s, behalf. The name will not be unfamiliar I warrant you.”

  Matthew might have lain on the straw bed, but it was so busy with vermin that he preferred the stone walls as a bolsterer. Sometime before dawn he had slept and when he awoke it was still dark in his cell and his bones were so wracked from his crouched position that he could hardly stand.

  As he woke he noticed that Middleton, his cellmate, was already up and staring from the little barred window. It took Matthew a moment to remember where he was and as the realization flooded back he felt a grip of fear in his heart that was nearly intolerable. He had been in prison before, in dismal Newgate, on another false charge, but then a lesser one and his great protector Cecil had known of his predicament.

  Matthew’s one consolation was that Joan was free, at least. That was an improvement on his last imprisonment.

  Middleton, seeming aware of being observed, said: “It is dawn. Twice I’ve heard the cock crow, and yet there is no light.”

  The day before, upon Matthew’s
arrival in the cell, Middle-ton had told Matthew of his crime—a savage murder of a shopkeeper and his wife against whom Middleton had had some grievance. Middleton had already been tried and sentenced. For Matthew the chilling part of the story was Middleton’s remorselessness. He seemed content with his fate, as certain and grim as it was, thankful only that in his case justice had been swift. It had been less than a month since the murder. The bodies of his victims were hardly cold in their graves. But although Middleton had spoken defiantly the day before, this morning he seemed more subdued.

  “Do you believe in God?” he asked, turning suddenly toward Matthew as though he had pondered the subject all the night and only now felt moved to utter it.

  “I do.”

  “I shall meet Him presently.”

  Middleton spoke matter-of-factly. As if he spoke of meeting an old acquaintance or new connection in a tavern or some other place of common resort. “I doubt he shall think much of me.”

  “God?” Matthew asked.

  Middleton nodded. He spoke urgently. “I tell you, Stock, if there’s a way to avoid my end, do it. Death comes to us all, but I would fain die in bed as on the gallows and have my taking off a surprise rather than calendared.”

  Matthew had exchanged stories with the condemned man, protesting that he was falsely accused, a victim of a conspiracy, and the servant of a certain great lord who could illuminate all. Middleton had not disputed Matthew’s claim of innocence. Although guilty himself, he did not disallow that a man could be trapped by a clever adversary. Middleton knew of several cases. He would have incriminated the son of the shopkeeper and his wife if he had thought of the devious strategem aforehand. Middleton had laughed about it.

  “If you know anything that can help you, hold it not back,” Middleton said now, more serious, standing with his arms folded and leaning back against the wall. “Don’t let honor shut your mouth. Or promises of confidence. Nothing is worth more than life. Your great someone would not keep silent on your behalf. Don’t be a fool to do so for him if you can save your neck. Say what you must. Lie if you must. Tell them what they want to know and more and be done with them. Sin hangs heavy on the best of men. If God will forgive some sin he will forgive all lies you tell to save your neck.”