Face Down under the Wych Elm (10 page)

Susanna felt her eyes widen at this absurd claim but she did not interrupt.

"The first time we knew of it was when my husband went to put on his shoe of a morning and found a creature much like a toad lying inside it. He touched it with his foot and he was forthwith taken with a lameness whereof he could not be healed."

"The familiar was a toad?"

"A familiar can take what shape it will. Another time it was a cat. It sat on Lucy Milborne's lap and she told it to kill three of our hogs, which it did, and she rewarded it as I have told you."

"But your husband's death, madam, how can that—"

"She had a falling out with Clement and willed her familiar to kill him. A few days later, he fell into a dead sleep from which he never woke."

Tears came into the widow's eyes. Preposterous as this story was, she seemed to believe it. “And then Lucy Milborne rewarded the foul creature,” Mildred added on a heart-wrenching sob. “Rewarded it as I have told you, with her own blood. There can be no possible doubt about it, Lady Appleton. That woman is a witch."

Jennet believed witches had supernatural powers, accepted that a person could be both bewitched and unwitched. But Mildred Edgecumbe's account of her husband's death bore more than a passing resemblance to the charges made the previous year against a Chelmsford woman named Elizabeth Francis. Indeed, everything Mistress Milborne and Mistress Crane had been accused of echoed the story told in the pamphlet Jennet had bought from a passing chapman.

"Your husband was not bewitched, Mistress Edgecumbe,” Lady Appleton said. “Poisoned, mayhap, but not bewitched."

Taken aback, Mildred Edgecumbe sputtered heated words. “What effrontery! How dare you contradict me?"

Her servants stopped to stare, although they were quick to resume their work when their mistress rounded on them with a quelling glare. Jennet slipped into a better spot from which to listen. When Mistress Edgecumbe turned back to Lady Appleton, Jennet had a clear view of a face suffused with annoyance.

"Listen to me,” Lady Appleton begged. “You do much wrong an innocent woman if you persist in your claims."

A calculating expression replaced the look of irritation in Mistress Edgecumbe's cold gray eyes. “Poison, you say? What poison? And if you are correct in your assumption, what is to say it was not Lucy Milborne who poisoned Clement?"

"Tell me first about the period just before your husband died,” Lady Appleton countered. “Did he have difficulty speaking? Complain of numbness in his limbs?"

"He was found in the barn, already unconscious and unmoving."

Lady Appleton looked past the widow, raised her voice, and addressed the servants. “Did no one see him before he fell into the dead sleep?"

Jennet had no doubt most of the women had overheard every word their betters had exchanged.

"Edmund the stableboy did,” one laundress volunteered, braving Mistress Edgecumbe's wrath. “Told us he was all wild-eyed and raving. Made him afeared."

"This Edmund—where is he? I would speak with him at once."

"Lady Appleton,” Mistress Edgecumbe interrupted, “I find your demands and your behavior offensive."

"I find murder offensive, Mistress Edgecumbe. As your husband lay unconscious, could you hear his heart beating as if it would burst out of his chest? Was his skin hot and dry to the touch? And ruddy?"

Although she gave no verbal answer, Mildred Edgecumbe's eyes betrayed her. Lady Appleton's words had hit their mark, Jennet thought. Clement Edgecumbe had exhibited at least one of those symptoms.

"Think about what I have said,” Lady Appleton urged. “It will be too late to change your mind once the women now in Maidstone gaol have been executed."

"If you do not leave of your own volition, Lady Appleton, I will order my menservants to force you to go."

Jennet feared her mistress might persist, if only to see if the stableboy might be among the henchmen Mistress Edgecumbe summoned to evict her. But after a moment, Lady Appleton accepted temporary defeat, bade the other woman a polite farewell, and began to retrace her steps though the kitchen yard.

Caught off guard by the abrupt retreat, Jennet was some distance behind her mistress. As she left her place of concealment and followed, she saw two laundresses lift a steaming cauldron from the flames. At the very moment Lady Appleton passed the bucking tub, they began to pour.

Boiling water sloshed hard against the wooden interior of the heavy tub. An instant later, the stand beneath it collapsed. Before Jennet's horrified gaze, the contents, a dangerous mixture of lye and scalding water, spewed forth—straight toward Lady Appleton.

Jennet's scream gave Susanna warning. She leapt aside, avoiding the worst of the danger, but she fell in her frantic effort to get out of the way. She landed on her knees with enough force to elicit a cry. Then that pain was forgotten as her right hand, flung out as she attempted to break her fall, was engulfed by a burning flood. She jerked it back, but it was too late. The damage had been done.

Better one hand than her entire body, she told herself, staring at the rapidly reddening skin. As her mind struggled to cope with the shock of being scalded, she could almost hear her grandmother's voice, telling her she'd regret it one day if she did not behave like a gentlewoman. True gentlewomen always wore gloves. And hats. If the day had not been so warm, or if they'd ridden to Edgecumbe Manor, Susanna would have been wearing gloves. They'd have protected her from the worst of the damage.

"Madam?"

Jennet's anxious voice brought Susanna back to the present. The back of her hand felt as if it were on fire.

"Let me see your injury, madam. Are you burnt elsewhere? One side of your skirt is soaked."

So it was, but the only hurt Susanna felt in her legs came from bruised knees. With Jennet's help, she stumbled to her feet.

Mildred Edgecumbe was all contrition now, trying to hustle Susanna into the house and fussing about what to put on the burn. “You shall have a kirtle from mine own wardrobe to replace your drenched clothing,” she declared.

"That is the least of my concerns,” Susanna told her. “Jennet, find a house leek. The juice will soothe mine hand.” She was unwilling to trust Mildred's remedies but did accept a medicinal cup of aqua vitae.

Following treatment, Susanna's skin felt less painful and upon inspection she saw that the damage was not as bad as she'd first feared. No blisters were forming.

She would have been in far worse condition, she realized, had Jennet not warned her in time. Boiling water or lye alone could do considerable harm, especially the latter, in particular if it had gotten into her eyes. Together they might have caused permanent damage. And if the heavy bucking tub had struck her ... ?

Susanna made her excuses as soon as she felt steady enough to walk back to Mill Hall. She declined the offer of dry clothing. Neither Mildred Edgecumbe's garments nor her daughter's would have fit her.

Damascin had not reappeared, but Susanna felt no inclination to stay longer in the hope of questioning her. Not with Mildred hovering like a mother hen over her chick. Assuring the woman that she bore her no ill-will on account of the accident, insisting her injury was nothing to be concerned about, she made her escape.

Jennet hurried after her. “How bad is your injury? Are you certain you can walk so far?"

"I do not walk on my hands."

"Was it an accident?” Jennet asked.

Susanna narrowed her eyes, slanting a look in Jennet's direction as they entered the forest. “Did you see anything to indicate otherwise?"

"'Twas ... convenient,” Jennet pointed out. “You asked questions. Raised doubts."

"All is not as it seems at Edgecumbe Manor but I do not think my questions could have been enough to provoke someone to attempt murder."

"If they poisoned Master Edgecumbe—"

"How could anyone arrange for a bucking tub to collapse? I suppose that either Mistress Edgecumbe or her daughter might have given orders to stage such a mishap, but it seems an uncertain method."

"Unless their real goal was to do you in by poison when they treated your burns."

"God's teeth, Jennet! You try my patience."

Jennet looked startled, as well she should be, for on the rare occasion when Susanna was driven to profanity, her usual curse was a mild “Bodykins!” Worse, “God's teeth!” had been one of Robert Appleton's favorite oaths.

"My injury makes my temper short,” Susanna apologized. “And I am more annoyed with myself than with you. I, too, let my imagination run wild. I should have remained long enough to speak with Damascin. And with that stableboy, Edmund. I should have used this hand as an excuse.” Clearly, the pain had addled her wits.

"Go back tomorrow, madam, if you must. For now, you need to rest and recover."

"At least my accident gives us an excuse to stay at Mill Hall for a second night, time enough to think of a good reason to return to Edgecumbe Manor on the morrow.” She increased her pace, anxious to get back to Lucy's cottage.

Chediok Norden was nowhere in sight when Susanna and Jennet reached the wych elm. Susanna wanted to speak to him again, too, but for the moment was glad both clearing and cottage were deserted.

"There is a salve in the stillroom that will soothe my hand,” she told Jennet. “A treatment for burns that I noticed when we were there earlier."

"You would trust a witch's recipe?"

"Sooner than Mildred Edgecumbe's. And this salve is one with which I am familiar.” The ingredients had been listed on a neatly printed label: plantain and daisy leaves, the green bark of elders, and green germanders. Lucy had no doubt stamped them all together with oil and strained the result through linen cloth to make a soothing ointment.

Susanna located the ceramic pot and applied a liberal coat of Lucy's balm to her injured flesh. She slipped the little container into the pocket hidden in a placket in her kirtle for future treatments, although she had medicines of her own making in the capcase she carried whenever she traveled. Among them were her daily tonic, ginger for seasickness, lettuce cakes to treat insomnia, the expressed juice of adder's tongue leaves for sore eyes, and an all-purpose salve that served for sores and abrasions as well as burns—a mixture of comfrey, St. John's wort, calendula, plantain, and oil of lavender. It did not do to leave home unprepared.

"Madam, you need rest,” Jennet protested when Susanna entered the cottage instead of setting out at once for Mill Hall.

"I need your help here first, Jennet. I believe the fireplace in Lucy's bedchamber contains a secret compartment. With your two good hands and my one, we must search for it."

Diverted by the promise of a treasure hunt, Jennet ceased her objections. They soon found what they were looking for—a leather bag hidden inside a deep, square hole behind a loose stone at eye level. Jennet fumbled with the drawstring that held it closed, then dropped the contents into Susanna's uninjured hand.

"What is it? Jewelry?"

Susanna studied the object and wondered why she should be surprised. “It is a rosary."

"Lucy Milborne is a secret Papist?"

"More than that. There could be other reasons to have a rosary of this distinctive type but the simplest seems most likely. At some time before King Henry dissolved the monasteries, Lucy Milborne was a nun."

Money was a useful thing. The day after Susanna left for Mill Hall, Nick Baldwin had in his hands a copy of “An Act against Conjurations, Enchantments, and Witchcrafts.” That afternoon, he closed himself into the parlor of his house in Maidstone and studied the text of the statute as carefully as a schoolboy preparing a Latin recitation.

What he read disturbed him.

It was not that he disagreed with the biblical strictures insisting that a witch should be killed. He was as religious as the next man and knew there were no fewer than three instances, in Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy, that insisted upon this punishment. But this law, which had gone into effect on the first of June four years earlier, did not simply address the crime of bewitching a man to death. It included as witchcraft a broad range of practices, some of which did not seem to Nick to be either criminal or heretical.

In addition, after his conversation with Adrian Ridley, Nick had realized that many of those who took it upon themselves to pursue witches in England had been infected by the same mania that drove witch hunters in southern Europe. Men like the Reverend Thomas Cole would not be satisfied with finding one or two unfortunate women and hanging them. They expected to discover large numbers of evildoers and prosecute them all.

That they would find them, one way or another, troubled Nick. After three tankards of beer, Ridley had regaled the patrons of The Ship with the tale of how forty witches had been rounded up and burnt all together at Toulouse.

Everything he heard and read increased Nick's fears for Susanna. If she continued to interest herself in Constance Crane, and he knew her too well to think she could be persuaded to desist, she could make herself a target for the witch hunters. On her return to Maidstone, with or without an alternative explanation for Peter Marsh's sudden death, she would doubtless argue for Constance's release, thus bringing herself to the attention of Cole and his ilk. If these men learned that her particular area of expertise was poisonous herbs, they would assume the worst.

Nick now knew better than to hope Susanna's status as a gentlewoman would provide any protection. According to Ridley, even noblewomen could be executed for witchcraft.

Kneading both fists into his burning eyes, Nick tried to think. Somehow, he must protect her. Was there a spell against suspicion? He supposed not, else most of those accused of crimes, the guilty as well as the innocent, would have made use of it.

With a sigh, he concluded that the starting place must be a thorough familiarity with the law. As he read through the statute yet again, he took notes.

The charges used to arrest Mistress Crane and Mistress Milborne were clear enough. They had “used and practiced witchcrafts, enchantments, charms, and sorceries to the destruction of the persons and goods of their neighbors and other subjects of this realm, and for other lewd intents and purposes contrary to the laws of Almighty God, to the peril of their own souls and to the great infamy and disquietness of this realm."