The Deadliest Sin (32 page)

Within a few moments, Flytte strode away, and Tanner flung some words after him. They might have been ‘Fraud yourself!’ but I couldn’t say for certain. Then out of the woods
came Reeve, the physician’s companion. He rarely walked beside Thomas Flytte or even close to him, but was usually trailing at a distance, like a dog following his master while being
distracted by other, more interesting concerns. Reeve’s presence made you feel uneasy but it also cast a shadow of doubt over the physician. You asked yourself what he was doing with a man
like that for a servant.

As he passed Hugh Tanner, Reeve gave him a glance, which the pedlar was unable to return. Fortunately, a couple of market-day visitors appeared and Hugh gladly unpacked his scrip and spread out
the bits of rag and bone that even he scarcely pretended were the property of the saints. Meanwhile, Agnes and I slunk off from our trysting-place behind the wash-house without being observed and
went our separate ways, arranging to meet later. We couldn’t afford to be seen together in the village.

What was the reason the two of us couldn’t be seen together? Surely, you must have guessed it by now, ladies and gentlemen – such a quick-thinking gathering of guests and pilgrims as
this is? As you know, Agnes was from the Rath family, the oldest of several children. And I . . . I was one of the Carters, the eldest son of Alice and a stepson to William. He was my
mother’s second husband. I cannot remember my own father, though I do know that he was called Todd. It was from Todd that my mother had gained the farm, which she was allowed to keep as a
tenant because she worked hard and, better still, she was able to make others work harder. Then she married William Carter, when I was small. From the time I can remember anything at all, it was
William who was telling me to sop up the last spot of grease from the soup bowl or sending me out at night in the rain to ensure the barn doors were properly fastened. By the time I found out that
my mother’s husband wasn’t my father, I’d learned to think of him – and fear him – as a father. So that’s how he remained to me.

Well, if my father had caught me in company with Agnes, he’d have beaten me within an inch of my life. And Agnes, too, would have suffered at the hands of her parents. The hatred and
suspicion between the heads of these two families extended to every person in them, or was supposed to. I had an example of that a few moments after I parted from Agnes. I glimpsed my mother,
Alice, talking with Alfred Rath on Church Lane. It seemed as though they were having an argument for her face was growing red as it did when she was angry and she was gesturing with her hands.
Alfred was raising his own hands in an appeasing way but it made no difference and she turned on her heel and came striding towards me. I looked round for a way of escape and saw my father William
coming in the opposite direction. Luckily, I was by the lich-gate to the churchyard and so I slipped through there and crouched behind the churchyard wall. Neither my mother nor my father was aware
of my presence.

‘What were you doing with that man?’ I heard him say. His voice had gone very quiet, in a way I’d learned to fear.

‘The insolence of that Rath,’ my mother said. She didn’t sound daunted but indignant. ‘He says I need to attend to our boundaries. He says the hedges are overgrown and
the fences broken. He is demanding I go and inspect them with him this very afternoon.’

‘You’ll not go, of course.’

‘What do you take me for?’ said my mother.

My father grunted in reply, and I thought that he didn’t like being reminded of the fact that it was my mother who had taken over the farm from her first husband, and the related fact that
people usually went to her first with any complaint or request. Probably my father thought he ought to be the one dealing with any question about the boundaries. Except, of course, Alfred Rath
wouldn’t have approached him any more than William Carter would have approached Alfred Rath.

My mother’s words soon passed out of my mind when I thought of my next secret meeting with Agnes Rath. But fear of the consequences didn’t put us off. There’s a Latin saying
for that, too, and I don’t need anyone to provide it for me, thank you.
Amor vincit omnia
. Love conquers all. That was our happy state, Agnes and I. And you should have seen Agnes as
she was then! Lithe as willow, with hair that tumbled down like a shower of gold when it was loosened.

You may think I have been talking about my father and mother without the reverence that is their due, calling one a gossip or snob, and the other a miser and so on. Perhaps I have spoken of them
without due respect. But they are long dead and I can see them clearly now. They had faults, yes, and which of us does not have faults, God have mercy on us? But they had virtues too. I thought my
father was an honourable man, who was prepared to be humiliated in the alehouse rather than be considered a thief. Thank God, he was not aware of the presence of his son that day when he was forced
to hold up the little length of rope. We could not have looked each other in the eye afterwards if he’d known I was there. And though my mother may have been a snob it meant that she wanted
to see her sons rise in the world, and because she had a churchman as an . . . uncle . . . she made sure I gained a little more learning than I might have been entitled to as a tenant
farmer’s son. My mother’s uncle sometimes gave me lessons himself. I even picked up a few Latin sayings from him.

Agnes and I had appointed to meet towards the end of that same spring day, the day of the market. We had a regular place. It was on the boundary of the land that my father held against her
father’s. Because of all the trouble between the two families, the hedges that marked the boundary were left straggling and unkempt, as if to discourage trespassers, and it was these same
hedges that must have been the reason for Alfred Rath’s complaint to my mother.

In a remote spot, almost out of sight of any dwelling, there was a stile. This too was overgrown and broken down. Because there was no coming and going between the two families, no one had
bothered to maintain or repair the stile. Agnes and I often met there, and one or the other would clamber over to the opposite side so we might spend time together. In the past there had been a
path running on both sides of the stile and linking the two properties, but because of the coldness between Carters and Raths, there was no occasion for it to be used. Except by us.

It was early evening, with the wind shaking the blossom in the trees and the sun sending out his long beams from the west. A heavy downpour of rain that afternoon made everything smell damp and
fresh. As I was on my way to the meeting-place, I thought I glimpsed Mistress Travis, the cunning-woman, on another path that bordered our land. She was running and her wild hair was streaming out
behind her. It was strange to see her away from the Great Wood and the rain-sodden hut. But I thought no more of her and instead of Agnes Rath. As I approached the boundary, I could see my friend
approaching from the other side through the gaps in the hedge. Between us was the stile. It wasn’t until I drew much closer that I noticed something draped over the dilapidated steps of the
stile. I took them for discarded clothes but, nearer too, I saw that underneath the garments was a figure. At first, I thought he was asleep, then I thought differently. I shouted to Agnes to stay
back but she was already as close as me.

If we had any sense we’d have turned tail and left it to someone else to make the discovery. But curiosity nudged us forward. Besides, I felt that this overgrown gap in the hedge belonged
to us, and I was almost angry that another person should have been using it. Even if that person was dead. He was draped over the stile as he’d been if struck down in the act of crossing,
with his legs on Agnes’s side and his top half dangling down on mine. His head was obscured. I crept closer still and got down on my hands and knees in the damp grass and peered up and
sideways at the countenance of the dead man. I already suspected that it was Thomas Flytte the physician but I had to make sure.

The side of his face that was visible to me was swollen and mottled with purple like the colour of the threadbare surcoat he used to wear. There appeared to be a cord buried deep in the flesh of
his neck. His eyes were bulging and sightless. It was obvious that he had not died a natural death. It was only later that I had time to experience any sorrow. This was the man who’d spoken
kindly to me – and told me I might become a tavern-keeper! Here was the physician who had plucked Agnes from the jaws of death! But at that moment all I felt was a tightness round my own
neck. When I heard someone speaking from the other side of the hedge, I sprang up and almost ran away. I thought of Reeve, Flytte’s companion, and half expected him to come slithering out
from under the hedge. But the speaker was Agnes. I couldn’t see her. Not clearly, just an outline. She was more composed than me. When she spoke again there was scarcely a tremor in her
voice.

‘Who is it, Laurence? It is not my father, is it?’

I suppose she thought this because the dead man had obviously been coming from the direction of her family’s land and house.

‘Not, it is the physician, Thomas Flytte.’

‘What are we going to do?’

‘We should raise a hue and cry.’

‘Yes.’

Even then, some instinct kept us from moving, though every moment we delayed in raising the hue and cry meant that the murderer of Thomas Flytte could be making his escape from the district.

‘Wait, Agnes,’ I said. ‘We cannot report this together. People would ask us what we were doing at this deserted place, and our secret would be out. Go home and say nothing.
I’ll pretend I was out here by myself, wandering about, looking for birds’ eggs. I’ll say I found him, found the physician’s body. I will keep you out of the
story.’

Laurence Carter paused in his present story. He seemed almost overcome by his words, by the memory of the body of Thomas Flytte hanging across the stile. There was a stir
from the far side of the group of pilgrims and a woman spoke up. It was the landlord’s wife. She’d already made clear her feelings about her husband’s storytelling by coughing and
then harrumphing loudly when he was making comments about the long-haired beauty of his youthful love, Agnes.

‘That’s not how I remember it, husband.’

‘No, my dear?’ said the landlord.

‘No. I remember you were too confused by the discovery of the body to think straight or to have any idea what to do. It was I who said that we couldn’t do this together and that
one of us should go and raise the alarm while the other went quietly home.’

‘Well, it may have been so,’ said the landlord.

‘It was so,’ continued the voice from the other side. By now, people were craning round to look at the speaker. ‘And there are one or two other details in your account that
were not altogether as you describe them.’

‘Perhaps you would like to take up the tale then, Agnes. To tell the truth, my throat is getting dry. I’d welcome another voice – and another drink. Come forward, my
dear.’

‘Thank you, my sweet.’

Laurence Carter stood aside while his wife bustled to the front of the group. There was some amusement among the Walsingham pilgrims, as well as surprise, to see that the girl he’d been
referring to all this while – Agnes Rath – had become his wife. And was still his wife. It was as if a character in a story had suddenly come to life. Agnes Carter cut a very different
figure from the lithe young girl with flowing hair, as depicted by her equally young lover. She was a substantial woman well into middle age, who looked as though she’d take no nonsense from
any of her servants or her guests. Her shape was concealed by a gown of dull red, like a dying fire, while her hair was tucked away beneath a wimple.

‘Oh, yes,’ she said, eying the room, ‘you are looking at me and all the while remembering Laurence’s description of me when I was a girl. Well, if I have changed a
little, so has he. Thirty years ago, he was a . . . oh, well, never mind.’

The landlord of the Angel, now sitting in comfort as one of the audience, shrugged ruefully as faces turned towards him. He raised his bowl of wine in ironic salute. Whatever the small
niggles between husband and wife, it was obvious that they understood each other well. Agnes Carter now took up the part of the storyteller.

There’s one thing that Laurence has not told you, which he did not know at the time. But I had it from my mother, Joan Rath. Thomas Flytte the physican was Joan’s
cousin from the village of Woolney, and his companion, Reeve, was actually his son. My mother said this was common knowledge in the family but something never spoken of. If you looked closely you
could see a likeness in their faces, around the eyes. Thomas had fathered the child before he left Woolney as a young man. It may have been his reason for leaving the village in a hurry, to avoid
some forced betrothal. When he came back all those years later, by instinct he went first to the village to find that only his son was left. The child had grown to a man, but he was a shy and
sullen one, who preferred to keep away from company. He was called Reeve because that was the surname of his mother – her father had been reeve of an estate near Woolney. The lad must have
had a given name but, if so, his father never used it and simply referred to him as Reeve, as if to say: you don’t really belong to me but to that other person with a different name.

The father may not have wanted to acknowledge the son, but Reeve wasn’t to be so easily shaken off. He followed Thomas away from his birthplace and came with him to Wenham, where they were
housed by my mother. The villagers assumed he was some sort of servant. Laurence says he trailed after the physician like a dog, and that there was something sinister or dangerous about him. I
didn’t see that. To me, he was a rather pitiful creature. At first, anyway . . .

My mother also had a story about just why Thomas Flytte returned home after all those years of wandering. She believed what he said because she was truly grateful to him on account of his
treatment of her daughter. As I am grateful to him, God rest his soul, for without him, I don’t believe I would be standing here in front of you. My mother and the physician exchanged
confidences. He told his tales of travel and foreign courts. He showed her a brooch of yellow topaz. The image of a falcon was cut into it. He said that this was to attract the favour of kings. It
was his most treasured possession.