HAUNT OF MURDER, A by P. C. Doherty Read Free Book Online Page A

filled with tears. ‘Promised we’d become handfast, he did. On Midsummer Day, yes, that’s it, we were drinking midsummer ales. He spurned me, laughed with the other men. I fled the fair and went down to Blackwater. All I remember is jumping, the water filling my mouth and nose. Even as it did, I didn’t want to die. Yet they took my corpse, drove a stake through my heart and buried me here at the crossroads.’
    ‘Why don’t you move?’ Beatrice asked kindly. ‘Come.’ She held out her hand.
    Etheldreda turned away. ‘I cannot,’ she answered wearily. ‘I will not. If I stay here they might come back. If I wait long enough, Simon the reeve will walk this way. I will speak to him about his unkindly words.’
    Beatrice shook her head. ‘But that is all gone.’
    Etheldreda looked away, staring into the darkness without speaking.
    Beatrice walked on. She reached the village church of St Dunstan’s and paused outside the lych gate, gazing across the cemetery. She had played here as a child. Now it was full of forms and shapes. Piteous cries rang out like those of wild geese in autumn. Beatrice hurried on, fearful of being caught by the likes of Etheldreda.
    She reached the high street, pleased to be in familiar surroundings. There was Thurston the weaver’s house, Walter the brewer’s and the Pot of Thyme, an alehouse of ill repute despite its name. Its shutters were thrown open, lights, song and chatter broke the darkness. Beatrice paused. She was unsure if she was seeing things as they were or other visions of the night. The door opened and Goodman Winthrop lurched out, swaying on his feet, one arm round a tavern wench, the other pushing down her dirty, low-cut bodice, fondling her breasts
as he tried to kiss her. The wench shrieked with laughter and led him on. Goodman Winthrop’s belly was full of ale. If it hadn’t been for his companion, he would have fallen flat on his face. Beatrice watched them go up the street. The man was a fool. He was a tax collector yet he’d come unguarded into the village to sup among his enemies. Did he think that on May Day memories faded? Alarmed, Beatrice followed the swaying couple. Now and again they’d stop so Goodman Winthrop could steady himself.
    ‘Be careful, sir!’ Beatrice called.
    The darkness around Goodman Winthrop was deeper than the night. She ran up behind him. Goodman was whispering obscenities into the wench’s ear, trying to persuade her to return with him to the castle. She was acting the reluctant maid. Beatrice felt both sad and responsible. Goodman Winthrop should have been invited to their feast. After all, he was a guest at Ravenscroft. He must have witnessed their celebrations as well as those in the town and become morose, letting wine and ill judgement get the better of his wit. They stopped beneath an apothecary’s sign.
    ‘Come back with me,’ Winthrop slurred.
    The young woman giggled.
    ‘I have silver there,’ the tax collector rasped. ‘Silver that will delight your heart if you lift your petticoats.’
    The young woman led him on. Beatrice followed, now seriously alarmed, her own troubles forgotten. They came to the mouth of an alleyway. The wench freed herself and stood back. Goodman turned, arms outstretched.
    ‘Come here!’ He swayed on his feet. ‘Come to Goodman!’
    The two men who stepped out of the mouth of the alleyway were masked and cowled but the long blades they carried winked in the night. Beatrice screamed but it made no difference. Goodman’s assailants were upon him. He fell to his knees, a knife in his back, blood spurting out of his mouth. He was seized by his scrawny hair and his exposed throat slit from ear to ear. He collapsed on the muddy cobbles, coughing and
spluttering on the blood pouring from his mouth. The wench and the two assassins fled into the blackness of the alleyway.
    Beatrice crouched beside the corpse and stared in astonishment. Goodman was dead, his cadaver had stopped twitching. He lay,