The Vanishing Witch (9 page)

‘Master Robert, how wonderful! I didn’t expect to see you this night.’

Mistress Catlin stood framed in the archway on the opposite side of the
chamber. Robert’s heart gave a little jolt as it always did when he heard the welcome in her tone. She was dressed in a green gown, which hugged her small breasts and slender waist. Over it she wore a sleeveless russet surcoat. A necklace of silver set with large, dark-green bloodstones encircled her neck and her hair was caught up in a silver fret.

Robert had seen her in daylight and he knew
that she was neither young nor stunningly beautiful, although there was not a single thread of grey in that dark hair. Most men would have described her as handsome, with her fine high cheekbones. In truth, though, her upper lip was too thin, her eyes too pale, and a spider’s web of lines was starting to creep round her mouth and lids. But just then, seen in the soft yellow lamplight, she looked
twenty years younger, and when she smiled Robert neither saw her imperfections nor cared about them.

But he had barely a chance to return the smile, before a girl uncoiled herself from a low stool near the fire and rushed eagerly towards him.

‘You’ve come to see us again!’ Catlin’s daughter curtsied, her narrow back held perfectly straight as she bent the knee. ‘Will you take some supper, Master
Robert?’ she said gravely, as if she were already the mistress of the house, but the hand she extended towards a half-eaten dish of mortrews on the table was still that of a child.

Robert and Catlin exchanged amused glances at the child’s attempt to imitate her elders.

‘Thank you, but no, Leonia, my dear, I’ve already dined,’ Robert said, indulging her with a formal bow. ‘But please eat. I would
not keep you from your meal.’

Look at the mother, they say, to see what the daughter will become, but you may equally look at the daughter to see what the mother has lost. Leonia was an enchanting girl, balanced on the cusp between child and woman. Her hair hung loose in a luxuriant tangle of soft black curls, but it was her huge eyes that never failed to captivate, tawny-brown, with curious
gold flecks, fringed by long dark lashes. She glowed with the radiance of promise that makes even jaded old men believe that, however ill the world, there must be some good in it to have cradled such innocence.

Leonia glanced towards Diot’s ample backside as the old woman disappeared out of the door to the kitchen, then lowered her voice, grinning mischievously, to say, ‘It’s just as well you’re
not hungry, Master Robert. There are so many breadcrumbs in that mortrews, you can’t even taste the meat.’

‘Leonia!’ her mother said sharply. ‘You shouldn’t exaggerate. Upstairs with you. It’s time you were asleep.’

Unlike most girls of her age. Leonia didn’t sulk or pout, but made another graceful little curtsy, then bade them a cheerful goodnight.

As soon as she had left the chamber, Robert
turned to Catlin, feeling even guiltier than before. ‘My dear, I can’t bear to think of you or that sweet child going hungry . . .’

Catlin laughed. ‘Diot is far thriftier than she needs to be. She was once a cook in a busy pilgrims’ inn, before the work got too much for her. It’s her habit to stretch meat with cheaper ingredients. The innkeeper insisted on it and I cannot seem to break her of
it. But we manage very well and, with the excellent investments you have made for me, I have no anxiety about our future.’

Robert felt the sour liquid from his stomach rise into his throat and swallowed hard.

‘It is about one of those investments that I have come to speak to you. I’m afraid I have grave news.’

He sensed, rather than saw, Catlin sit down, for he couldn’t bring himself to look
at her, and see the trust and respect die in her eyes to be replaced with – anger? He feared she would despise him and he couldn’t bear that. He cleared his throat and addressed himself to the flames in the hearth. ‘I’ve received grave news,’ he repeated, needing to recite the words exactly as he had rehearsed in his head. ‘
St Jude
, the ship that was carrying the cargoes for the Lincoln merchants,
has been seized by French pirates.’

There was a gasp from Catlin, but Robert rushed on, anxious to deliver every scrap of painful news, like a surgeon trying to amputate a limb as quickly as possible to spare the patient prolonged agony. ‘We’ve sent word to the King to demand that the pirates be hunted down, but they usually run for shelter into the French ports. Unless the King’s ships were
able to catch
St Jude
in the open sea there is no chance they would have been able to retake her. I fear her cargo had already been landed and dispersed long before word reached us.

‘We’ve demanded recompense for our losses from King Richard for his ships are supposed to patrol the seas, defending us from such attacks – and, by God’s bones, we pay enough taxes to keep them afloat. And I dare
say the King will in turn demand restitution from the French, though they will naturally deny it was a French vessel. We shall press the matter, but I fear that with these skirmishes against France and Scotland eating through England’s treasury, like a plague of mice, we’ll be lucky if we see a penny. You have my humblest apologies, Mistress Catlin.’

‘I’m so sorry for you, Master Robert. I hope
your losses are not great.’

Robert had anticipated any number of reactions from Catlin – rage, tears, recriminations. Women, in his limited experience, were apt to explode into fury or collapse weeping over something as trifling as a smashed pot. But her tone was calm. He realised that she hadn’t understood the implications. ‘My dear, I’m afraid I haven’t made myself clear. Some of the money
you invested on my advice, which I now bitterly regret, was placed in the cargoes on that ship. It, too, is lost.’

For the first time since he’d started speaking, he glanced at her to see if she had finally understood, expecting to see shock or anger in her face, but he saw only a gentle sorrow.

‘I understand, Master Robert. I won’t pretend that this hasn’t come as a terrible blow. But when
a friend has also suffered a loss, naturally one is more concerned for them than for oneself. Did you lose a great deal?’ she repeated.

‘I can stand to lose the money.’ This wasn’t quite true, and he would never have said as much to Jan. ‘But I am far more grieved that I involved you in this venture. You put your trust in my experience and I’ve betrayed it. The whole of Lincoln will brand me
a swindler. But I swear by all the saints that I am not.’

Catlin rose and gently touched his arm in reassurance, gazing up into his face. ‘The very fact that you, too, had invested money in the ship is proof enough for me that you acted in good faith, believing that you were doing your best for me. I’ve told no one that you invested money for me, nor shall they ever learn it from my lips.’

She turned away, fingering the bloodstone necklace at her throat. ‘We shall just have to find a way to manage.’

He thought he heard her give a little sob and saw those slender shoulders heave as she struggled to regain her composure. He would a thousand times rather she’d shouted and raged at him, as Edith would, if she ever came to learn of his losses, though Robert had no intention of telling
her. But Catlin’s quiet, brave resignation made him feel guiltier than any angry words she could have uttered.

He reached into the leather scrip that hung from his belt. ‘It’s only a little of what you lost . . .’ He held out the purse to her. ‘Take it, Mistress Catlin, for Leonia. I would not have her suffer for my folly.’

But he could tell at once that he’d offended her.

Catlin’s head jerked
up. ‘You owe me nothing and I will not accept money from a man who is neither my father nor my husband.’

‘It’s not from me,’ Robert said hastily, realising at once the insult he’d offered her. ‘From the Merchants’ Guild. They have a fund for widows and orphans.’

‘For the dependants of former guild members,’ Catlin said firmly. ‘My husband was not from Lincoln or a member of your guild.’

But
her outrage melted as swiftly as it had arisen and her mouth curved into a smile. ‘You are an honourable and generous man, Master Robert, and I’m truly grateful that you should care about my daughter, especially when we are no kin to you.’

‘I wish that you were,’ he murmured, unaware that he had uttered the words aloud.

Her smile deepened. ‘I would not take so much as a farthing from you, Robert,
for that would be taking money that belongs to your own dear wife and sons, especially when you yourself have suffered losses. Your advice and protection are gifts beyond price to me and, as a widow and stranger in the city, I’ll be for ever in your debt for your friendship.’

Robert found himself so entranced by the movement of her lips that he was barely listening to her words. She was standing
close now, gazing up at him. He could smell the perfume of rosewater and bergamot in her hair. Before he even knew what he was doing he found himself bending forward and grasping her shoulders. Then he pressed his lips to her soft, warm mouth.

Catlin sprang away from him, alarm flashing in her eyes. ‘No, Master Robert!’

He turned away to hide the flush of embarrassment. He was afraid to look
at her again. But when finally he glanced at her, to his surprise, her expression was one of pleasure.

‘My daughter is a better mistress of the house than I am,’ she said, ‘for I haven’t even offered you any refreshment and on such a cold night too.’

Mention of the innocent child lying asleep above him, fell like a sharp reprimand on Robert, though he knew Catlin hadn’t intended it as such.
He watched her, covertly, as she crossed to the table and poured spiced wine into a beaker. She crouched in front of the hearth. He couldn’t tear his gaze from the round curve of her buttocks as the fabric pulled tight against them. The sudden hiss when she thrust a red-hot poker into the wine made him jerk violently. A cloud of white steam gushed from the beaker. She rose and handed it to him. He
clasped it gratefully.

‘Please be seated, Master Robert, and tell me of your dear wife and sons.’

Her tone suggested that nothing whatever had passed between them, and for a moment he wondered if he had imagined what he’d done. But he knew he had kissed her. He could still feel the tingle of her mouth on his lips.

He felt a surge of overwhelming gratitude to her for her forgiveness – for the
foolish investment and the fumbled kiss. Though it shamed him to admit it, a good measure of his apprehension in facing her had lain in the fear that she would take revenge by letting everyone know that he had been responsible for losing a widow’s money. And it wasn’t merely the damage to his reputation he feared. If Maud heard a whisper of such a rumour she would go straight to Edith, and there
was no news so dark that woman couldn’t paint blacker. He had not a shred of doubt that Catlin would keep her word and no one would be any the wiser.

They sat in the high-backed chairs with the fire blazing between them. Catlin, as always, encouraged him to talk, though even he was not aware of how skilfully she prompted him with questions that allowed him to hold forth at length on his favourite
topics of business, politics, taxes and wool. But, for once, Robert did not look for excuses to prolong the evening. Catlin might pretend there was nothing between them except friendship, but Robert could not. Even when he was talking, he found his thoughts straying back to that fleeting touch of his lips on hers. He knew that if he stayed longer, he might not be able to stop himself repeating
his clumsy advance.

He pushed himself out of the chair. ‘Edith . . . I should return. She frets about me being attacked by footpads after dark.’

He felt no shame at stealing the excuse Beata had offered him the night before. Like most men of wealth, he assumed he owned all that came his way or, at any rate, had the right to take it.

Catlin rose too. ‘Of course you must go home at once. I would
not have another woman distressed. I know only too well the pain . . .’

For a moment her eyes clouded and she stared at the floor. She’d briefly confided to him before how wretchedly her late husband had treated her, flaunting his many whores, mocking her before his friends and taking a malicious delight in her public humiliation. Catlin had said little about her past and Robert had not pressed
for more because it was clear that she would never want others to pity her.

He took a step towards her to comfort her, but she looked up at him, her composure restored, and he knew he would offend her if he tried to touch her again.

‘You must take the greatest of care, Master Robert. These robbers grow bolder and more reckless by the day. They seem to care not one jot for the law. Diot tells
me they even break into houses while the owners are sleeping in their beds. The poor old woman starts up at every noise in the night.’

‘Then I’ll speak at once to the night-watch. See that they patrol this street more regularly.’ He was glad he could do something to make amends. ‘Sheriff Thomas is a good friend of mine, he—’

But Catlin was shaking her head. ‘And give what reason for your interest?
A widow’s reputation, once lost, cannot be restored. I have my daughter’s future marriage to think of. I would not have her disgraced. Besides, you’ve no cause to worry about us.’ She laughed. ‘Anyone who glances through the door can see we have nothing worth stealing.’

But fears, once they have formed, are as hard to banish as ghosts and when Robert walked out into the cold night, he was suddenly
conscious of how empty and dark the narrow street appeared, how flimsy the shutters, how easily they might be forced.

Mistress Catlin did not seem to understand that certain men might find more worth stealing in her house than any jewels, gold or silver. If ever a woman needed his protection it was her. He resolved that in the morning he would buy a dog and have it sent round to her. Little Leonia
would love a pet, he was sure, and at least it would deter anyone from breaking in. Catlin could not refuse to accept it, if it was sent as a gift for her daughter.

He turned on the corner to take one last look at the house, and saw that, where the street had been empty a few moments before, someone was standing now opposite Catlin’s house, silhouetted against the flickering orange flames of
the blazing torch on the wall at the other end of the street. The man’s face was covered with a deep cowl and his tattered robes billowed in the breeze. He turned slowly, as if reluctant to drag his gaze from the thin blade of light that glittered beneath the wooden shutters. He lifted his arm and extended it towards Robert, but the end of the sleeve was empty, as if there was no body beneath the
robe, only a terrible void of blackness. For one horrifying moment, Robert thought that Death itself was beckoning to him.