Kate Sedley - The Wicked Winter

I paused outside the first, hand raised to knock, listening intently, but all was as quiet as the grave. My heart beat faster, anticipating another tragedy, yet another death. Then someone coughed and I heard the faintest sound of movement, breathed freely again and tapped with my knuckles on the wood.

The rustling noises ceased abruptly and there was silence.

Then a woman's voice called, 'Come in.'

I opened the door and stood respectfully on the threshold.

Mistress Lynom looked astonished at the sight of me.

'Chapman? What are you doing here? What do you want?' There was an edge to her tone which suggested fear as well as annoyance.

'I've come to beg a moment of your time, Mistress Lynom. It won't take long, I promise, but there is a question to which you might know the answer.' I made no attempt to advance any further.

She took a step backwards, her eyes still wary. I guessed that despite the accusation I had overheard her make, she was not absolutely convinced of her lover's guilt in the matter of Lady Cederwell's death, nor did she believe that death to be either accident or suicide. I also concluded that if she were not a clever dissembler, she was innocent of contriving the murder herself, for she seemed ready to be suspicious of almost anyone on the manor.

'What question?' she asked, and flung out a hand. 'No! Remain where you are.'

'I had no intention of entering without your permission,' I answered placidly. 'But you have no reason to fear me, I do assure you. Lady Cederwell was dead by the time Brother Simeon and I reached here on Tuesday. We found her body together.'

Mistress Lynom drew in a deep breath and then released it on a long, drawn-out sigh.

'So you did. I recollect now.' She shivered. 'Very well! You may come in, but you are to leave the door ajar.' She still did not trust me completely.

I did as I was bidden. The room within was almost as bleak as the women's dormitory, but some attempt had been made to render it more habitable. The bed was covered by a rubbed and faded red velvet coverlet which matched the equally worn bed curtains, and another piece of the same material was thrown across the clothes chest, draping it to the floor. An ornately carved armchair, adorned with a pair of embroidered cushions, offered what little extra comfort there was apart from a tapestry, depicting the story of Tobias and the Angel, which hung against one wall. I wondered what Ursula Lynom thought of her accommodation, and whether or not she shared her lover's niggardly approach to the luxuries of life. Moreover, what would the redoubtable Dame Judith make of it all if she were forced to live at Cederwell with her daughter-in-law?

'Well?' inquired Mistress Lynom. 'What is it that you wish to ask me?'

I hesitated, knowing that she would find my question odd, then plunged.

'Who are your nearest neighbours to Lynom Hall?' She blinked once or twice, as though she had not properly understood me, then shook her head as if to clear it.

'Who are my nearest neighbours?'

I nodded. 'It may sound strange, but I should be grateful for an answer without being forced to give my reasons.' She continued to stare at me for several seconds before sitting down in the armchair, her lips thinning to a narrow line. She was no fool, and was immediately able to add two and two and reach the correct conclusion.

'What do you know?' she demanded bluntly. 'Or what do you think you know?'

We eyed one another cautiously while the silence stretched between us. At last, however, I decided to be as frank with her as I could.

'Whatever my suspicions, they have absolutely nothing to do with Sir Hugh. You have my word on that.' I did not pause to consider if the word of a common pedlar had any meaning for her or no.

She returned my gaze steadily. Then, obviously coming to a decision, she determined to be equally plain with me.

'My groom, Hamon, whom I dispatched after Sir Hugh with the buttons I bought from your pack, saw him bending over Jeanette's body outside the tower.'

'And rode back as fast as he could to Lynom Hall to tell you what he had seen. But that was very little. So why, with respect, did you reach the conclusion that Sir Hugh had probably murdered his wife?'

She got up and began to walk up and down the tiny room.

In her relief at finally being able to talk openly to someone, she forgot to whom she was speaking.

'It was only that very morning, at Lynom, that we had discussed the hopelessness of our situation.' She grimaced wryly. 'Neither of us is young, and growing older with every day that passes, whereas Jeanette — Lady Cederwell — is — ' she caught her breath for a moment ' — or rather was, only twenty-one. We could see no solution to our problem, and Hugh in particular was growing desperate.' The knotted fist of her right hand drove deeply into the palm of her left as she turned with a swirl of her gown and began pacing in the opposite direction. 'To add to his woes, he knew from her own lips that she had sent for this Brother Simeon in order to make allegations not only against Hugh, but also against other members of his household. For his own sake, he did not really care. He has a broad back and is perfectly capable of facing up to some strange friar's hectoring and reproaches. But…' She broke off abruptly, on the brink, I fancied, of recollecting my lowly status.

'You refer to Maurice Cederwell and Fulk Disney,' I said swiftly. 'To the love that exists between them.'

Mistress Lynom's eyes widened. 'You waste no time, Chapman,' she accused me angrily, 'in ferreting out other people's secrets.'

I shrugged. 'There's precious little secrecy about it, Mistress. Even an innocent like Audrey Lambspringe knows what they are to one another.' I smiled at her look of horror.

'It's impossible to keep such a thing private in an enclosed community such as this one. Servants will always gossip.'

'And not only servants,' she retorted sharply, thinking, I had no doubt, of Dame Judith. 'So,' she went on after a moment, 'I have no need to explain to you Sir Hugh's concern on behalf of his son. This friar's reputation had preceded him. His mission, it seems, is to punish immorality wherever and whenever he finds it.'

'So I believe.'

'Very well! You can understand, therefore, why, although I was loath to believe it, my interpretation of what Hamon had seen was that Sir Hugh, in a fit of frustrated rage, had thrown Jeanette down from the tower.' She took another brief turn about the room. 'I waited all day in increasing anxiety for him to send me news of the "accident", as he would obviously pretend her death to be, but nothing happened. At last, in spite of the darkness and the snow, I set forward for Cederwell with Hamon and Jasper in attendance. The rest you know for yourself, how I nearly gave everything away.' She sat down again, her fingers drumming restlessly on the arms of the chair.

Now came the hardest part of my inquisition, as I had to feign ignorance of what had passed between her and Sir Hugh.

'And what was Sir Hugh's explanation of his omission in sending to you with the news?'

Mistress Lynom's bosom swelled indignantly and her jaw hardened.

'As you must recall, he pretended to know nothing of Jeanette's death until informed of it by you and the friar. When he realised that I knew the truth, he had the gall to plead that he was protecting me! Me! He accused me of sending my groom to kill Jeanette, and even made up a story that in her dying moments, she had whispered Hamon's name.'

Her initial anger, which by now had lost its spark, was suddenly rekindled and she was on her feet once more, kicking the heavy chair aside with a vigorous movement of one foot.

A strong woman in every sense, Ursula Lynom. She would rule Sir Hugh and his household with a rod of iron, but it was very possible that they might all be grateful for it. It would bring back some semblance of order and calm into their disrupted lives.