Curious Case of a Horseless Headman

He pours the water from the jug into the earthenware basin and rinses his face, before drying by gentle patting with the soft linen towels left upon the counter. Fourpence a night for three men and four horses is steep, even for a well appointed roadside inn, but this was better furnished and certainly quieter than any inn he had used before. This was more a home and was welcoming. He had considered offering her but thruppence per diem but had thought better of it as soon as he was invited by the lady across the threshold.

A soft knock on the door, brings forth a firm command to enter from the Judge, and Handley bears his two small bags from the coach. He nods his thanks and sends the servant away to his supper before it gets cold, with his usual growl, certain that Handley smiles as he turns away and departs. The Judge has noted this before but rarely draws attention to it in private company. He considers Handley, and Nathaniel Jones for that matter, good loyal servants, on the road with him for fifteen and six years respectively, from his small home West Country manor, both following on from their retired fathers and forefathers, for as long as anyone in the village remembers. Ferdinado can unpack his own bags tonight.

He sits on the wooden bed for a moment. It is solid, with the minimum of creaking, the mattress firm, suiting his personal preference. The linen smells clean, the chamber's air hinting of lavender and beeswax, pleasantly reminding him of his precious bees again, drawing forth another smile, two in one evening he reflects with surprise. He descends to the parlour by the way he had come up, finding himself in the best humour he has been in for some time.

The woman smiles warmly as he re-enters the parlour. Ferdinando notes that her dark hair frames a face somewhat pleasing to the eye. He is unsure of her age but, having admitted to a son of one and twenty, is likely in her late thirties or early forties. In the flickering firelight, he wonders, she has only mentioned her son, is she a widow, or is her husband tied up upon the autumn harvest? Why indeed was her son chosen as Headman, supposedly a shepherd too poor to even afford a horse, yet his mother lives in this comfortable cottage? The table in the corner near the window is laid for one person, with a knife and spoon of silver, though probably of silver plate, a hunk of near-white bread on an imported blue China plate and a single glass goblet next to a pewter jug. More evidence of a family of some substance, at least in the recent past. A pewter spoon would have been his preference, but he could carefully sip from thin silver plate.

She speaks as she dishes up his supper in another china dish, warmed so she holds it with a kitchen towel. "Please sit yourself down, Lord Briant. I am afraid we do not keep wine or spirits within, the duty too high for my purse, nor do we keep beer in the house. I have no-one here to run to the inn, but the water is quite wholesome, cool and fresh drawn from our stone-lined well."

"The water'll do fine, Ma'am, but tell me, have you already eaten this eve? Will you not join me in your supper?"

"I was awaiting your return before dining but I can just as well eat in the scullery, my Lord, I am sure as a paying guest, you will not wish to dine with a servant, especially one charging you by the night for the privilege."

"Payment or otherwise, this is no roadside inn. I'm a guest in your private house, Ma'am, and I'd loath banishing you to any less comfortable part of your abode for any ill perception of inequality you may hold on my part. After a day on the road and in miserable judgement upon the evil of my fellow man, I would welcome pleasant cheery company of an innocent and respectable landlady."

"In that case, I will lay another place and join you." As an afterthought, she adds, "If we are going to be informal company, as host and guest, rather than address me as 'Madam', my Lord, I would rather you call me Thomasina, at least while you are staying here in private company."

"Then ... Thomasina, while in your home, you may please address me as Ferdinando, I've answered to more than enough 'My Lords' for one day!"

She laughs, a soft, feminine laugh, that encourages his mouth to turn up at the corners and lighten his own usually austere countenance.

Another pleasant surprise for the usually grim judge who never married and had rarely sort relief to his natural frustrations in recent years.

"That's better, Ferdinando, you look far more relaxed without your wig, stiff collar and registering a gentle smile upon your face."

She busies herself in her arrangements, pulling open a drawer in a sideboard and opening another cupboard mounted upon a wall, until she has furnished her eating place in mirror to his own table setting. He notes her movements are swift and graceful, yet unhurried, while an almost secret smile plays upon her lips as if aware of his admiring her every move.

He smiles to himself, knowing any man who still has warm blood coursing through his veins would watch, but that is mostly all he ever does, is watch. A stern and ugly Judge, redfaced with a beak nose that could cut glass, one so high appointed in the Kingdom, with the power of life and death over every subject of England bar the King himself, was never a man with whom any woman could share a life with or even bear to be left with alone by choice. Even when his body was young, his face was never considered handsome. Even on cloudy days, the accumulation of whatever constituent of sunlight he was allergic to, ruined his skin, from slight redness all the way through to painful sores.

Usually, only the women of the night, none too fussy of appearances other than the swift flash of a silver shilling exchanged in grateful bargain, would give him a second glance.

This woman is more than she seems, he thinks, the way she speaks, despite her slight and charming local accent, the furnishings and accoutrements of this small but well-built residence, evidence she was no ordinary village cottager.

She sets down his steaming bowl first, then returns to the fireplace to partially fill hers with a much smaller portion of mutton stew, before sitting opposite him. She picks up her silver plated spoon and dips it into the hot liquid, lifting, ready to blow across it.

"Do you not say grace?" he enquires, raising one eyebrow.

"Nay, we do not in this house, my Lord, but I would not gainsay you your prayers, and will stay my spoon until you are content with a delivery of your devotions."

He sniffs, "If I prayed in thanks for all the guidance or comfort I crave, I fear I would never eat at all!"

"Then eat ..." she pauses to smile once more, "... pray ... before your meal cools and congeals."

"So, are you a Puritan, Thomasina? This house seems ... inappropriate to a state of imposed austerity."

"No, Ferdinando, I believe in ... God, for want of a better word, but the conflicting rituals of different organised religions leave me untouched. What of you?"

"I too, to be as frank in respect of worship as you, have little faith in religious practice. If God hears the prayers of those I sit in judgement upon, then He is ever silent in response."

"Perhaps," she smiles, "he regards your rulings to be their particular Judgement Day?"

"Aye, he may well," he chuckles, "but I have no evidence of that."

"And evidence for you, my dear Judge, is paramount, I imagine. Please eat, before it cools and you lose the benefit of raising your temperature to fend off the cold of night."

"I will, this smells wonderful. May I ask what is therein?"

"Mutton, of course, home reared by my son Ben, on the hills behind this house. We had a bounty of lambs for market this mild spring, having invested in a new ram, so we can afford to keep a few beasts back and take an old ewe for the pot now and then."

"For an old ewe, it doesn't appear tough."

"No, she was not that old, but was covered by the ram last season without result. She is fresh slain, providing far more meat than for our humble needs, my son and I, so I sold three-fourths to the butcher in the village, the rest hangs in the back kitchen larder, which stays cool even in the hottest summer. I mostly used the sweetbreads and heart in this stew, along with turnips, mint, peas and beans, with the liquor from a roast leg of pork left surplus from the Sunday before last. The pork was cooked with rosemary, so there will also be a hint of that pungent herb within the juices."

"A far better fare than any inn I have visited in many a year." The Judge smiles warmly, meaning it, thinking she only mentioned 'my son and I', means perhaps she is widowed?

Eventually he pushes away his empty plate. "That was the best stew I can remember eating, thank you."

"I thank you, Sir ... Ferdinando. ... You mentioned you were certain of the innocence of my son earlier. So, will you be going to the lock-up in Swainley upon the morrow, to release him from his unjust incarceration?"

"I will, be assured of his speedy release, immediately after I have interviewed Sir Valentine Albury."

Why he did not tell her that her son was already released by him and recovering from his savage privations in the Lamb Inn at Swainley? He cannot explain his reticence, but the same girl or young woman's voice speaking in his head is advising him to hold his counsel for the moment.

Chapter 3. THE MANOR

In the misty morning, after a hearty breakfast, the Judge is driven back to Albury Hall. In the hazy daylight, he can see this building was once an old Abbey, which has a stone bell tower, part of an old chapel which has been incorporated into the Tudor mansion.

This time the front door is opened to him almost immediately. The sour-faced housekeeper, Mary Durnley, reluctantly lets the bewigged and black gowned Lord Chief Investigating Justice into the vestibule, the walls of which are lined with stuffed heads of bear, boar and impressively antlered deer. She introduces herself to Ferdinando, and starts to apologise but her words are strangled in her throat as Ferdinando waves them aside with a loud snort. Soon the house is in uproar as servants decant from their morning chores to attend to the early visitors.

"We is all spooked, by what's befell the Master, my Lord," says the bowing housekeeper, "before this we was all gay an' free as breeding sand martins."

Ferdinando notes she is a short, stout, blonde-haired young woman, who cannot be older than five and twenty years, far too young a woman to run a country house. Ferdinando idly wonders if she was Sir Valentine's mistress. The knight's father, Lord Albury, is a famous philanderer, a seducer of younger women, as no doubt was the striking, tall, dark-haired woman who helped him from the Privy Council Chamber a couple of days ago. Though the peer was as old as the Judge. Ferdinando, ever vigilant of revealing facial expressions, had noted that, although not conventionally beautiful, that tall woman had attracted admiring attention from King James Stuart, forced by his Ministers to give up his several regular mistresses upon his coronation a couple of years ago and a new-born baby Prince of Wales at home to tire his Queen to the detriment of any royal rutting.

"We have the Master safe in the tower, Sire, it bein' the bes' place where 'ee be locked up safe. I tooks the liberty of sendin' for the Vicar, expectin' your callin' this morrow, tho' not this early in the day. He'll be by directly, no doubt. Come, Sire, this way."

Without prompting, a couple of tired-looking servants outside the locked tower door tell Ferdinando that Sir Valentine was raving all night and had only quietened down his bitter vitriol since dawn. He has them unlock the door and finds Sir Valentine chained to a bed in utter darkness, other than the candle light from the corridor coming through the door. The odour in the room is terrible with sweat, vomit, urine and particularly pungent defacation.

Sir Valentine strains fruitlessly, strapped to his bed, foaming at the mouth and screaming foul obscenities and ungodly oaths. Questioning is futile, the Judge decides, the Lord is clearly insane and even soils himself further, during the unintelligible exchange, before fainting away into restless fevered sleep. The Judge leaves that dark, depressing chamber room and ponders for a moment.

He asks the housekeeper, "Pray, why have you not opened the window shutters to let in the light, and air the fetid stench within?"

The housekeeper prevaricates, "The Vicar 'ee says Demons 'ud come an' spirit 'im away durin' the night."

Ferdinando nods in deference to the Vicar's advice and orders more candles be brought and fetch towels, hot water and soap, as well as a fresh change of apparels for their suffering master. This request sends the housekeeper scurrying for more servants to be removed from other services.

The arrival of candles wakes Sir Valentine, who starts to shout obscenities at the top of his voice once more.

"'Ee were like that all night, sire," offers one of the tired servants, "fair puts the willies right up us it do."

Possessed, insane, rambling, confused, expelling oaths and blasphemies one minute, wheedling for release the next, or even begging to be put out of his misery at the very least when his other entreaties fall fallow. That is Valentine's revolving cycle of pleas and entreaties, but answer questions put by the Judge? No. It is as if the madman hears nothing, his whole consciousness turned in upon himself.

A different voice materialises inside the Judge's head, one he has never before heard. An older, full grown female this time he believes, calm, collected, yet insistent. She says to Ferdinando, "I know you can hear me, just as well as you can hear ... her voice. Make no rash judgement here, we have him in hand. Go back to the Rose Rent Cottage, my Lord, or all mankind will end before its time ... in Judgement Day."

As Ferdinando listens to the quiet voice within him, the madman's eyes clear for just a moment on the words 'Judgement Day', then back to madness he goes.

It is as if Valentine also heard exactly what he had heard, even though Ferdinando was certain the voice was only inside his head. He cannot have heard, but maybe some sanity was returning to the poor man. Where was the voice coming from? Within the possessed man? Was this the voice of Satan himself, that the man's father, Lord Albury, despaired of only the day before yesterday? The two weary servants look terrified being in the same room as the man who had raved safely beyond the locked door all night.

Just then, Mistress Durnley and the Vicar enter the room, followed by female servants carrying bowls, jugs of steaming water, towels and clothes.

The door is locked behind them, with the two male servants, the female servants cowering by the wall, John and Nathaniel, his coachmen, Mistress Durnley and the Vicar inside with him, so Briant has his servant Handley slowly loosen the prisoner's bonds, while the madman lay relaxed, watching wild-eyed as the chains are unlocked.

Immediately Valentine is free of his bonds, he eludes Handley's clutches and tries to open a shutter to leap out the tower window, surely to his death. Mistress Durnley, the vicar and Ferdinando's strong coachmen restrain him until he is stripped of his clothes, washed, dressed and locked up in chains once more.

While the madman is restrained, Briant thinks he finds more words forming in his head again, the same older woman's calm voice, though a little deeper, darker, 'Leave us be, my Lord, we have this situation in hand now. Allow him to remain secure and alive and he will harm no one; set him free, be it physically or mortally, and all mankind is surely done for!" It was not the voice of a madman, but of a woman, insistent and warning, yet full of reasoned, gentle, kindly persuasion.

In his long life, Briant has seen madness before. Madness that causes man to do frightening things, much worst things than try to commit suicide. But this communication inside his head was beyond his experiences, except once, and that once only, and a long, long time ago, as long back as his memory goes. He was unaccustomed to such, but now two distinct voices on three separate occasions in two days, less time even, within the passage of twelve hours, according to his modern watch. What was happening to him?

Back at the white cottage, apparently named "Rose Rent Cottage", although there is no signage to that effect, the evening meal consists of a wonderful beef and mushroom pie, followed with more exchanges with the charming hostess, Thomasina.

"This pie is spectacular, Ma'am," he sighs, after his first couple of mouthfuls, "Sorry, Thomasina, I was forgetting we were to be informal when alone in your house."

"I am no 'Ma'am', anyway, Ferdinando," she smiles, "for I must confess, though I am a mother of a son who makes me proud daily, I have never married."

"And why not?"

"The available young men in the village and surrounding hamlets, eligible to be called to courtship, were ... discouraged with promises of violence from courting me."

"Ah." Ferdinando had met lonely women before, brought before his court, accused of witchcraft. Often they had been shunned by men early in their life, or encumbered by a base-born child being just one of many reasons why some local small-minded societies maintained outcasts within their midst. Then, because they were easy to isolate and take the blame of all the ills that befall the village, they would be summarily accused of witchcraft. If all Thomasina's family lived in the village, knowing no one outside the village, where she could claim sanctuary, she might have had no choice but to live there in perpetual social solitude.

They fall silent, eating their meal, until the Judge wipes his plate clean with his last nubbin of home-baked bread, then pushes his plate away and settles back in the chair. His relaxed smile paying due testimony to his satisfactory enjoyment of Thomasina's polished culinary skills.

"I have another pie, if you hunger for yet more sustenance," she smiles at his silent compliment, "the apples have been fine this year and the pie fortified with blackberries, dried fruits and a little grated spiced pork from Sunday's roast."

"Temptation is ever man's failing, Thomasina, if you had a husband he would be as big as this cottage!"

"I have no need of a husband," she says, rising and collecting the two emptied plates, "I am quite comfortable here."

"You have always lived here alone other than your son?"

"Aye. You might as well know the story, you will hear it gossiped soon enough from other lips, Mary Durnley certainly, ere long."

"Ah the housekeeper. Any relation of Izote Durnley?"

"You know of Izote? Aye, she's Mary's younger half-sister," she affirms, "They are my cousins. I am kin to half the village, while Ben is kin to slightly more. We are a small village with few immigrants to refresh the aborigines. My great grandfather was tenant of the largest dairy farm in the village, with the right to graze on the 2000 acres of common land, thus freeing up his tenanted land to grow hay and turnips for winter feed and arable crops. Through marriage, Ben's great grandfather became Lord of this manor, had prospered and bought this 28 acres freehold farm, adjacent to the common. This land had no house on it at the time, but was free of all ties to the Manor, so it could be endowed to anyone. My grandfather left the land to my father, who only had a single daughter, me, survive their infancy. He began to build this fine farmhouse when I was 16, where he hoped I would live and raise a family. With no son to inherit the Manor, nor a legitimate grandson, the freehold farm was all he could dispose of. He willed the land to any future son I had. The Lordship of the Manor and the farms attached had to be passed to a legitimate male heir and so it went to the descendant of distant cousins, the Alburys."