Iris Collier - Day of Wrath

It made sense, but even so, Nicholas had to fight down the now familiar twinge of jealousy. Had she got an ulterior motive in using Benedict?

She seemed to sense his hesitation. ‘Don’t worry about Benedict. He’s a dear and a very talented musician; and his vocation to the monastic life is genuine. Probably one day he’ll end up as abbot of a great monastery. But now he’s free to come and go as he pleases. People are used to seeing him about and won’t ask any questions.’

‘I’m sure you know best. Yes, let’s use him. You’re a wonderful ally, Jane. I think the Sheriff could do with someone like you on his staff. Shall I suggest it when I next see him?’

‘I’d do anything for you, Nicholas, but just steer me clear of Sheriff Landstock.’

She jumped up on Melissa and rode off. Nicholas took Harry round to the stables.

‘Give him a good rub down,’ he said to the stable boy. ‘I’ll be needing him soon.’

‘You’re not leaving us again, my Lord?’

‘Just a short trip to Portsmouth.’

He went into the house. Geoffrey took his cloak. Suddenly tiredness hit him like a hammer. He tried to pull off his boots but had no strength. Geoffrey knelt down and began to ease them off.

‘You look all in, my Lord.’

‘I’m just a bit weary. Nothing that a short nap won’t put right. I think I’ll get my head down for a few minutes. Incidentally, don’t worry about the catering arrangements for the King’s visit. The Prior’s got it all under control.’

‘Thank God for that. Will he let us use the guest house?’

‘No problem. Says he can sleep a hundred people. Now let me get to my bed. Don’t let me oversleep, though. I’ve got to see the Earl of Southampton before today’s over.’

He went up to his bedroom and collapsed on his bed. In seconds he was asleep. After one hour, Geoffrey Lowe went to wake him up, but took one look at Nicholas’s recumbent body and went away. Nicholas slept on for eleven more hours.

Agnes woke up in the early hours of Saturday morning. This was unusual. She always went to bed shortly after the sun went down and woke up when the first finger of daylight appeared. She lay there trying to accustom herself to the strange feeling of darkness pressing down all around her. The wind, she noted, had got up and one of the branches of the old lilac tree was tapping lightly on her bedroom window. She snuggled down under her warm coverlet and tried to go back to sleep.

Agnes enjoyed a comfortable life-style. Her bed was a solid four-poster with thick curtains which she could draw in the winter to keep out the draughts. Her windows were filled in with glass and she could open them in the summer to let in the sweet night air. Her bed linen was of good quality and smelt of lavender, and there were woollen rugs on the floor. All these things were the result of quarterly payments of money from an unknown donor presented to her by an attorney who came out from Marchester. They always drank a herbal infusion together and ate sweet cakes, and he asked her if there was anything she needed. She always said she had everything she wanted, so he nodded and went away, leaving a bag of money on the table. He never told her where the money came from and she assumed it was from someone who cared about her but who had never acknowledged her. Sometimes she wished she knew more about the mystery surrounding her birth, but obviously she would never find out now. When other people talked about their relatives she used to feel left out, but now she was glad she had no elderly parents to look after or aunts and uncles to visit. She felt as if she was floating in her own comfortable space where she could get on with the job of studying the properties of plants and healing people.

The tapping of the branch was preventing her returning to sleep so she got up, wrapped a shawl round her shoulders and went over to the window. She drew back the curtains. The weather had certainly changed. Dark clouds now scudded across the face of the waning moon and a summer storm was building up. Good, she thought. Her garden needed rain and the water butts would fill up nicely.

She went back to bed and drifted back into sleep. When she woke up the night had gone and the pale light of a troubled dawn illuminated the furniture in her bedroom. Unaccustomed to a disturbed night’s sleep, she felt uneasy. Something was wrong. Something was missing. She splashed some water on her face from the bowl on the washstand, put up her hair under a neat white cap, and pulled on her dress. As she slipped her feet into her shoes, she realised what was missing. Ambrose hadn’t come in. Usually he was inside the house well before the dawn. He always lapped up the plateful of milk she left out for him before padding up the stairs and jumping up on to her bed. There he’d curl up and sleep soundly until she stirred. Then, purring loudly, he’d come to her for his early morning welcome.

She went downstairs and saw he hadn’t drank his milk. She wasn’t particularly worried. He was a good hunting cat and maybe his hunting activities had taken him further afield than usual. At any moment, she thought, he’d come jumping in through the little window she always left open for him in all weathers.

She put some kindling wood on the fire and blew on the smouldering log until it burst into flames. Then she heated some milk and poured it over some stale bread, adding honey. She sat down to eat it, but her appetite had gone. Was she sickening for something? In that case she would have to make herself a lemon balm infusion, which she knew had a calming effect on the body. The Prior had sent her down a bush which he’d brought back from France the previous year and she loved the delicious delicate flavour of its leaves. She pulled the shawl round her shoulders and went out into the garden to pick some sprigs.

Outside the wind was creating havoc in the flowerbeds and it caught hold of one end of her shawl and whipped it off. She ran down the path to retrieve it; and then she saw Ambrose. He was dangling from a length of rope tied to a branch of the rowan by the gate. With a cry of despair she ran to him. The rope was tied tightly round his neck and he hung stretched out like a rabbit caught in a snare. His eyes were staring wildly and his mouth was drawn back in a grimace of pain, revealing his sharp pointed teeth. Nailed to his soft, velvety underbelly was a piece of wood with letters scrawled on it. HANG THE CAT. HANG THE WITCH.

She tried to untie the knot round his neck but it was too tight. In a panic she ran back to the house and picked up a knife. With this, she cut him down. Then she sat down under the tree, cradling Ambrose in her arms like a child. For eight years he’d been her devoted companion. They had shared everything together. No human being had ever got as close to her as Ambrose had.

With tears streaming down her face, she got up and carried him into the house. She eased off the rope round his neck, flung the piece of wood with its evil message on the floor, and laid him out on the table on a clean cloth. Then she closed his staring eyes, pulled his mouth shut and stroked his beautiful velvety coat.

‘Ambrose,’ she whispered, ‘my darling Ambrose. Who did this to you?’

Gradually time passed, the rain began to fall, gently at first, then with greater intensity. She wept for her cat, until she could weep no more. Slowly her grief gave way to anger. She didn’t care what people thought about her. Let them call her a witch if they wanted to. They were all ignorant peasants, anyway. But why should anyone want to hurt a beautiful and harmless cat?

* * *

An hour later, Jane knocked at the door and found Agnes still stroking her dead cat. She gave a horrified cry and rushed over to her friend.