YOU PROMISED,” SAID MAGGOT. “YOU GAVE US YOUR word.”
“And you broke yours,” I said.
“We did all we could, sir,” Thomas protested.
“More than,” sniffed Maggot.
“More than, yes. Your mother, she said she couldn’t no more. Drizzling and sobbing the whole time.”
“Did you tell her how much I wanted to meet her?” I demanded.
Maggot gizzened, and put her face in mine. “And we gave you her ring and all,” she said. “Didn’s we, sir?”
“You only helped me when there was something in it for you,” I said. “My own mother! And you wouldn’t tell me anything.”
“That’s not true, is it, Maggot? We was helping you.”
“What? By threatening me—me and Lord Stephen—that you’d tell Sir William?”
“Yes, well, it’s we what did the hard work, isn’t it?”
“The going between,” said Maggot. She wiped her dripping nose on the back of her hand.
“Doing you favors,” grumbled Thomas.
Maggot put her face in mine again so I couldn’t even see her straight. “Hard work!” she repeated.
“Digging!” I said loudly.
I didn’t mean to, but that’s what I said.
Maggot took a step back, and avoided my eye; Thomas peered at me sideways.
“You murdered Emrys,” I said.
“We never,” Thomas said.
“You buried him, then.”
Thomas clucked and shook his head.
“Sir William murdered him in the cellar…,” I said.
“Who told you that?” snapped Thomas.
“The thick walls did,” I said. “No one upstairs would have heard anything.”
“You can’t prove that,” said Thomas.
“And I know where you buried him,” I said in a steady voice.
Thomas gave a sudden jerk.
“Near that shelter. On the edge of the wood.”
“No!” shrieked Maggot. “Only because…”
Thomas rounded on Maggot, snarling.
“I know enough to have you both hanged.”
Actually, I knew far less than I was pretending. But it worked. Thomas and Maggot had proved their own guilt.
“How could you?” I asked them. “Emrys was crippled by a wild boar, wasn’t he? He couldn’t even fight back.”
“We don’t know nothing about that,” Thomas muttered.
“I’ll give you a choice,” I said. “Find Emrys’s bones before I do. Bring them to me. He must be buried in sacred ground. Either that, or I’ll accuse you both in court.”