The Brothers of Glastonbury

Chapter Eight

‘We should have guessed that Mark would have ridden, not walked, to Beckery,’ I said.

Cicely, Dame Joan and I were seated at the kitchen table, together with the two apprentices, while Lydia scuttled around behind us, ladling a savoury-smelling stew on to our plates. As well as the rich scent of the meat, with its juices and gravy, the whiff of rosemary and garlic and sweet wild thyme teased my nostrils and made my mouth water. A basket of hot oatcakes graced the centre of the board alongside a jug of ale, filled to the brim and running over. In spite of the heat, my walk had made me ravenous, and it was all I could do to wait for my hostess to say a benediction over the food before falling to. Cicely, although hot and tired, had clearly also developed an appetite, and it was not until we had blunted the edge of our hunger that Mark’s continued absence was discussed.

‘I don’t see why he couldn’t have walked to Beckery,’ Dame Joan complained. ‘Dorabella has been ridden hard these past few days and could do with a rest. It’s only a mile and wouldn’t have taken him much more than half an hour on foot.’

‘And another half-hour back again,’ I pointed out, adding with a certain amount of feeling, ‘An hour too much, perhaps, in this broiling sun.’ I spooned stew into my mouth and went on thickly, ‘But maybe he meant to ride on somewhere else when he had concluded his business with Father Boniface.’ I swallowed and turned to Rob Undershaft. ‘Did Master Gildersleeve give any hint to you, or John Longbones here, concerning his intentions?’

Both apprentices shook their heads vigorously, continuing to wolf down their belated supper. At last John, the first one of them to clear his plate, said, ‘Master told us he was going to Beckery, that was all. Told us the priest there was in need of a sheet of vellum, which he’d promised to let him have today.’

Rob nodded in confirmation.

‘An untruth,’ I declared flatly. ‘Father Boniface was neither expecting, nor in need of, a sheet of vellum.’

Dame Joan cut in. ‘But why should Mark lie? Tell me again, if you please, exactly what passed between you and the good Father.’

So, with more hindrance than help from Cicely, I repeated my conversation with the priest as accurately as I could, but left my hostess almost as bewildered as before.

‘Peter said no word to me of any gift received from the Father.’ She considered this for a moment, then continued fair-mindedly, ‘Although I have to admit that he did not often show me his books or parchments, for what would have been the use, knowing I cannot read? No, I suppose there was no reason why he should have mentioned this particular paper to me, if it had no pictures. For it’s the pictures I like to look at. I can understand those.’

‘There were no pictures in this manuscript,’ I assured her gently. ‘Nor, apparently, any words that were recognizable as such, if the priest is to be believed.’ And I repeated Father Boniface’s description of the strange arrangement of lines.

With a furtive gesture, so that the apprentices should not notice, Dame Joan made the sign to ward off evil before addressing me again.

‘And you think Mark must have come across this paper sometime today?’

I nodded and she turned a scared face towards me. ‘Do you think these strange symbols have anything to do with Peter’s disappearance? And have they now worked their evil spell on Mark?’

I noticed that she had started to tremble, and took the liberty of reaching out a hand and squeezing one of hers. But what comfort could I offer when I was not sure myself of the answer?

‘Dame Joan,’ I urged, ‘we don’t yet know that anything has happened to your younger son. The fact that he rode to Beckery instead of walking hints that he intended to travel further afield if he got no satisfactory answer from the priest. We cannot know where, or for what purpose, but there is every likelihood that he will return home before dark.’

She smiled tremulously. ‘Yes. Yes, of course.’ Her look became less strained and anxious. ‘But did you learn nothing from Abel Fairchild or the Pennards that could explain what might have happened to Peter?’

‘Nothing more than what you have already told me. I’m sorry.’

‘And Abel remains constant in his story that Peter vanished within moments?’ Once again I nodded. ‘But are you satisfied that there was no other means of concealment anywhere at hand?’

‘Apart from the hut? No, I’m afraid not, and Master Gildersleeve was not inside it. Abel had wit enough, seemingly, to look behind the door, but there was no one there. The interior of the hut is small, with nothing but a pile of sacking in one corner. There is nowhere else anyone could hide in such a short time.’

‘So what is to be done now?’ my hostess demanded tearfully. ‘Tongues are already wagging, and will do so in earnest if Peter’s fate is not discovered soon. And if it should prove that Mark, too, has vanished…’ She did not finish, but let the conclusion go as something too awful to contemplate.

Even Cicely seemed struck by the seriousness of the situation. She rose from her place and went to comfort her aunt, kneeling beside the older woman’s chair, putting her arms around her and kissing the suddenly careworn cheek. Then she raised her head and glared fiercely at me.

‘Can’t you do something, Roger? According to you, you’re so clever at solving mysteries! Why is it that you can’t solve this one?’

‘I only arrived here yesterday evening!’ I protested warmly. ‘You’re unreasonable, Mistress!’

Dame Joan agreed, at the same time smoothing her niece’s hair, anxious to antagonize no one. ‘Roger has done a great deal already, my love. And he has done it out of the goodness of his heart, for he is under no obligation to assist us.’

Cicely gave her aunt a final hug and returned to her place, grimacing at me across the kitchen table. ‘I know. I’m sorry,’ she said, and blew me a kiss.

Dame Joan gave a strangled cry of protest.

* * *

Later, walking with Cicely in the little garden, the scent of blown roses all about us, thick as incense, I took her to task, reminding her of her betrothal to her elder cousin.

‘It was a marriage arranged by our parents. I’m not in love with Peter,’ she whispered, and I was aware of the gleam of tears in those huge violet eyes upraised to mine.

‘And you’re not in love with me either, my girl,’ I answered briskly, ‘any more than I am with you.’

The tears miraculously vanished. ‘You’re horrid and rude, and I hate you!’ she retorted with venom.

I laughed. ‘So you’ve told me once already this afternoon. Just try to remember how much you dislike me and we shall rub along very well together. Your aunt is in great distress. Her burden should not be increased by anxiety about your conduct.’

The violet eyes gleamed again, but this time with pure temper. ‘I’m going indoors,’ Cicely announced. ‘Don’t dare to follow me!’

‘I am yours to command!’

I thought for a moment that she would strike me yet again, but after half raising her hand, she must have decided that a dignified departure would be more impressive; so, gathering up her skirts, she swung on her heel and disappeared inside the house.

I smiled to myself and sat down on the stone bench that ran along the wall beneath the workroom window. From the kitchen I could hear the clatter of pots and dishes as Lydia went about the evening’s work, assisted by her good-natured mistress, and the low rumble of the apprentices’ voices as they discussed, no doubt, this latest development in their hitherto uneventful lives. Their future prospects must look bleak to them at present, I thought, with first Peter, and now possibly Mark Gildersleeve missing.

The westering sun speared through the branches of both the medlar tree and an apple tree that grew in one corner of the garden. The round, reddening globes of fruit nestled against the velvety darkness of the leaves, and the slender trunk rippled like water under the running light. Birds sang in the branches, for it was still far too early for them to go to roost, and just for a moment I let my body slacken and cleared my mind of thoughts, refusing to contemplate the Gordian knot which I had yet to unravel … and in no time at all I was sound asleep.

I awoke with a start to the sudden conviction that something I had said recently, some remark uttered to Dame Joan during supper, had been of great significance. The feeling was so strong that I desperately tried to recall our conversation word for word, but however often I went over it in my mind I was unable to pinpoint anything which seemed to be of any importance. I was still racking my brain, without success, when Dame Joan herself emerged from the kitchen, Lydia hard on her heels. They crossed to the stone bench and sat down, one on either side of me, each emitting those little grunts and gasps which, I have frequently noticed, women give when their chores are temporarily finished and they can take the weight from their feet.

‘Where’s Cicely?’ her aunt inquired in a tone tinged with alarm. It was plain that she found her niece and prospective daughter-in-law both headstrong and wilful.

‘She’s gone indoors. I think she’s very tired,’ I answered, abandoning for the present all attempts to solve my riddle.

‘She’s a good girl really,’ Dame Joan excused her, ‘but at that age, when she’s longing to spread her wings … Poor child!’ And the older woman heaved a sympathetic sigh.

I thought then, as I think now, that it must be hard for women, going as they do straight from the authority of parents to that of a husband. They know so little freedom in their lives — that freedom which allows a man to take charge of, and order, his own existence.

From the other side of me, the quiet shadow that was Lydia gave a half-suppressed cough and muttered, ‘Mistress…’

‘Ah, yes!’ Dame Joan seemed to recollect herself. ‘Lydia has something to tell you,’ she said.

I turned to the little kitchen-maid who, with her hood awry and a smudge on her nose, was impatiently swinging her legs to and fro, her tiny feet some inches from the ground.

‘What is it you wish to say?’

She giggled self-consciously. ‘It concerns this paper you were talking of at supper. I knew about it already.’

‘You knew about it! But surely … surely Master Peter didn’t mention it to you?’

‘Lord, no!’ Lydia gave another giggle. ‘It was Maud.’

‘Who’s Maud, in the name of heaven?’

‘Maud Jarrold,’ Dame Joan explained. ‘Our other maid, who left us two days ago and went back to her parents’ cottage in Bove Town.’

‘But why would your son confide in her?’ I demanded, puzzled.

Lydia was scathing. ‘Master Peter didn’t tell her anything, stupid! She saw it. She wasn’t meant to, and Master Peter was very angry about it.’

‘So how did it happen? How did she come to see it?’

‘Sometimes, at the end of the day, when the shop’s shut, Master Peter will take some of his books and go in there to read and study them…’

‘That’s true enough,’ Dame Joan confirmed from my other side. ‘He says it’s quieter than the solar.’ She grimaced. ‘And I daresay he’s right, for I have to admit I am a bit of a chatterer.’

‘But what about Mark? Doesn’t he go in and out of the shop?’

‘Not once it’s closed for the day. He’s always off to some tavern or ale-house. Mark likes company. He has a lot of friends.’

It crossed my mind that Dame Joan’s life must have been very lonely before Cicely’s arrival, with one son’s nose permanently stuck in a book and the other out drinking as soon as work was finished. I turned back to Lydia. ‘Go on,’ I said.

She wriggled into a more comfortable position on the hard stone.

‘Well, it was one evening some three or four weeks ago — I can’t remember exactly when. It was just beginning to get dark. Maud was coming out of the workroom where she’d been talking to John and Rob.’ Lydia sniggered. ‘She was a bit sweet on Rob Undershaft. She’d never confess it, but she was.’

‘I didn’t know that.’ Dame Joan was intrigued.

‘Oh yes, and-’

‘What happened?’ I interrupted them both ruthlessly.

Lydia collected her rambling thoughts and continued: ‘Well, Maud told me that Master Peter must have heard her come out of the workroom and called to her to fetch him a candle. When she returned he wasn’t there — he’d had to leave the room for a few minutes — so she put the candle on the bench and started looking at the books and papers that were spread out all over it. There was this one sheet of parchment, she said, which was nothing but a lot of lines. Just a lot of little strokes arranged in bunches. That was her word: “bunches”. I mean, Maud can’t read any more than I can, but we know what proper writing looks like.’

‘And then?’ I prompted.

‘Master Peter came back, and when he realized what it was she was looking at he flew into a rage. Maud said she’d never seen him so angry, because normally he’s a polite, mild-tempered man.’ Dame Joan nodded in agreement. ‘But he bundled her out of the shop as fast as she could go, shouting all sorts of silly things at her. She was really frightened.’

‘What sort of silly things was he shouting?’

‘Lord, I don’t know. She may have told me, but I’ve forgotten.’ Lydia screwed up her face in an effort to remember. ‘Something about the paper being very valuable, and it wasn’t to be touched.’

‘Valuable?’

‘I think that’s what Maud said. Anyway, Master Peter was quite himself again the following morning and apologized to her for being so hasty. Pretended he’d been feeling unwell — but Maud didn’t believe him.’

After a short silence while I mulled over this information, I asked, ‘Are you certain you can’t recall anything else Maud might have told you?’

Lydia shook her head, suddenly losing interest in the proceedings. She stretched her arms and gave a cavernous yawn before announcing that she was off to prepare the dough for tomorrow’s bread. She slid wearily off the bench and went into the kitchen.

After a few moments I said, ‘Dame Joan, with your permission I’d like to see this Maud Jarrold for myself. If you’ll tell me where she lives, I’ll go at once. I want to know in more detail what passed between her and your son.’

‘Do you consider it so important? You’ve had a tiring day. Can’t it wait until tomorrow?’

‘I’d rather go this evening. The sooner we know all there is to be known, the better.’

‘Perhaps you’re right. Very well, then. Go as far as the pilgrims’ chapel of Saint James, and beside it you’ll see a lane, running northward. There are half a dozen cottages there which house some of the lay workers of the abbey. John Jarrold’s is the last, the farthest from the road. Maud’s father helps the brothers with the heavier digging and planting in the orchard and the kitchen gardens. He’s a rough-tongued man and won’t take kindly to your wanting to question his daughter. But at this hour of the evening you may be lucky and find him from home. He’ll be in one of the ale-houses.’

I thanked her and rose to my feet.

She smiled up at me, her eyes deeply troubled. ‘Take care, my dear boy,’ she said, and I promised her that I’d try.

I left her sitting on the stone bench, alone with her uneasy reflections.

* * *

There was still a great deal of activity in the lower part of the town, for the fine summer evenings meant that men could work longer, or sit with their womenfolk out of doors gossiping with their neighbours. Children not yet in bed were playing games up and down the street: bowling hoops, trying to kick a blown swine’s bladder between two sticks planted upright in the ground, throwing discarded horseshoes at a given mark, and — the most favoured pastime, as I remembered from my youth — taking sling-shots at birds, or indeed at anything that moved.

Higher up, however, beyond the turning to Lambcook Street where the climb becomes steeper, there was far less noise. Here, in those days at least, the dwellings were sparser. Not so many people lived in Bove Town, and those who did seemed to be of a less friendly disposition; so I trod more warily, keeping my eyes on the road ahead and offering no greetings. I knew the chapel of Saint James well enough; indeed, most of my recollections of Glastonbury were as fresh in my memory as though it were only five weeks, and not five years, since I had last been there. The chapel stood some furrow’s length below the causeway to Wells, on the left-hand side as one walked eastward, and at right angles to it, as Dame Joan had said, ran a narrow lane.

The six cottages were close together, with a patch of ground at the back of each where a pig or cow could be kept during the day and a few vegetables grown in season. The goodwife who lived in the first cottage was already driving her animal indoors for the night — a little premature, I thought, as it would not be dark for a while yet.

I knocked on the door of the last cottage, where the lane dwindled to a rough and narrow track, and waited in some trepidation for it to be opened. To my relief, my summons was answered by a young girl, while a woman’s voice from within shouted, ‘Who is it, Maud?’

‘I don’t know, Mother. A stranger.’ And Maud Jarrold turned a look of enquiry on me, waiting for an explanation of my presence.

I asked, ‘Can I come in?’

Immediately the goodwife was behind her daughter, barring the entrance with a pair of brawny arms. ‘My man’s from home at present, but he’ll be back very shortly. What is it you want?’

I explained as well as I could, and the woman’s face darkened with suspicion.

‘Maud can’t tell you anything. Her father took her from that house as soon as he learned what had happened to Peter Gildersleeve. There were strange goings-on there. Too many books, for one thing; it isn’t safe for a man to read as many books as he did. And then there was that piece of paper my girl saw which had nothing but lines on it! Witchcraft, that’s what my John says!’ Recollecting herself, the goodwife took a step forward to peer nervously down the lane, afraid that one of her neighbours might have heard her.

I said eagerly, ‘It’s that paper I wish to know about.’ I addressed myself directly to her daughter. ‘Lydia told me what happened — the night that you saw it, spread out on the bench in the shop. What did Peter Gildersleeve say to you when he returned?’

Maud, swelling with self-importance, spoke up before her mother could stop her. ‘He was furiously angry. I’ve never known him behave like that before.’ She went on to repeat more or less what Lydia had said: ‘He’s usually so calm and gentle. He thought I’d touched it, but I hadn’t. I wouldn’t.’ She shivered. ‘Not a thing like that. Black magic, I reckon it was. The work of the Devil.’

‘But what did he say?’ I repeated.

Maud thought for a moment or two, her rather plain features hardening into lines of furrowed concentration. At last she said, ‘I was very frightened, you understand, because he was in such a temper, but I do remember him saying that it was … now, let me see … yes, that if he’d int … interpreted it aright — ’ she stumbled a little over the unfamiliar word — ‘it was “valuable beyond price”. That was it! “Valuable beyond price”.’

‘If he’d interpreted it aright,’ I repeated slowly. ‘Did he say anything else that you can recall?’

‘She’s answering no more of your questions,’ the goodwife told me angrily. ‘What’s more, she’s never going back to work for the Gildersleeves. And you can tell Dame Joan so, if she asks! You’d better be off before my man gets home, or he’ll grind you into mincemeat.’ She paused, taking stock of me. ‘Well,’ she amended honestly, ‘he’d try; my man’s not scared of anyone.’

I decided it was time to be gone. I should get no more out of Maud, and I had no wish to be confronted by her irate father. And I had gleaned something for my trouble.

So I said my farewells and hastened down the lane towards Saint James’s chapel. As I rounded the corner into the main thoroughfare a big, burly man with a belligerent expression on his unattractive face passed me, going in the opposite direction. Impossible, I felt, that he should be anyone but John Jarrold, and I was glad that our paths had crossed so briefly.

The heat of the day was giving way to a soft warmth, which made for pleasant walking. At the side of the track, willow herb and ragwort stood sentinel, rose-purple and dusty gold, their petals beginning to furl against the coming dusk. I thought again of the paper Father Boniface had given to Peter Gildersleeve, and which Peter had told Maud was ‘valuable beyond price if he had interpreted it aright’. What had he discovered about it between receiving it from the priest and the time that he had vanished? And did it really have anything to do with his disappearance?

I passed the turning to Lambcook Street and re-entered the lower part of the town. The children were being rounded up now and shepherded indoors, goodnights were called, gossip was abandoned until tomorrow. I turned into the Gildersleeves’ house and was met by Dame Joan, coming along the passageway from the garden.

I raised my eyebrows in silent enquiry, and she, just as silently, shook her head.

Mark had not yet come home.