The Brothers of Glastonbury

Chapter Sixteen

I knew what I should do. I should slip quietly off the bed and stand behind the door, ready to pounce on the intruder. But I was still in a semi-trance-like state and my limbs refused to obey me. Moreover I felt no apprehension, no sense of danger, only an urgent desire to sleep until cock crow and maybe even longer. I was bone-weary, as though my vision had sapped all my strength.

In these circumstances, perhaps it was just as well that my nocturnal visitor was only Cicely.

But as the slim figure in the long linen shift closed the door softly behind her I was jolted into wakefulness, both mind and body suddenly alert and wary. I sat up abruptly, swinging my legs off the bed and planting my feet firmly on the floor. History was repeating itself. In just such a surreptitious manner Lillis had crept into my bed in the middle of the night, which was how I had become a reluctant husband (and so I might still have been had she not died in childbirth). When I married for a second time I was determined that it should be my own choice and not because, yet again, my hand had been forced.

‘What are you doing here?’ I hissed at her. ‘Go back to your room at once!’

Cicely ignored this and perched beside me on the edge of the bed. ‘I’ve told you before,’ she said, ‘but I don’t mind telling you again: I wasn’t in love with Peter.’

I noticed that on this occasion she had used the past tense, seeming to have no doubt now that her cousin was dead.

‘And I’ve told you before,’ I retorted, ‘that you’re not in love with me either, any more than I am with you. And for both our sakes, keep your voice down! Do you want to be discovered by your aunt?’

‘Yes,’ she answered brazenly, snuggling into my side. ‘Then she’d make you marry me.’

I wriggled several feet nearer the head of the bed. ‘If you were my wife I’d beat you every day!’

She moved up close to me again. ‘No you wouldn’t. You’re not that kind of man.’

‘Yes I am!’

‘No you’re not!’

The argument was becoming childish, and I sprang to my feet, almost knocking her sideways.

‘Cicely!’ I exclaimed in a desperate whisper. ‘I don’t want to marry you, and that’s the truth!’

To my horror, instead of spitting fury at me she began to cry, tears welling up and trickling silently down her cheeks. My first instinct was to turn tail and run, but, with a sigh, I resumed my seat and put one arm around her.

‘Don’t you even like me a little bit?’ she asked pathetically, resting her head on my shoulder.

‘Of course I do,’ I said. ‘I like you very much.’

‘But not enough to marry me?’

I stroked her hair. ‘My dear, you’re not the girl for me, nor am I the man for you. You’re better born than I am, for a start. What do you think your father and aunt would say if you announced that you were to wed a Chapman?’

‘But you’re not an ordinary Chapman,’ she insisted. ‘The Duke of Gloucester would find you a place in his household if you asked him. You said he would.’ She raised swimming violet eyes. ‘Was that a lie?’

‘No. It was the truth. But I don’t want that sort of life. I hate being confined between four walls. I want to be my own master. And even if you could cozen your father into letting you marry a pedlar, you wouldn’t be happy. I’d be off at the very first hint of fine weather, leaving you behind at home. My wife won’t have to care about that. I know it’s selfish, but I’m not going to change, not while I have my health and strength. Also, I have a little girl. Would you be willing to bring up another woman’s child?’

There was a protracted silence while she reviewed the picture I had painted. I could feel the warmth of her body, the swell of her young breasts beneath the thin linen shift, and I was sorely tempted to take her at her word and leave the future to look after itself. But common sense prevailed, for which I thank God every night on my knees, for we should have been an ill-assorted couple. And in order to be worthy of her, I should, in the end, have been coerced into respectability and servitude. Cicely, like Lillis, was not a woman who would have been content to be on her own for long.

After a while she sniffed loudly and lifted her head, wiping her nose with her fingers.

‘Perhaps you’re right,’ she conceded to my great relief, adding tartly, ‘I daresay I’ll meet a man one day who I really want to marry.’

I smiled to myself. She had recovered her spirit and her tears had ceased.

‘I’m sure you will,’ I told her. ‘But you’ll need one who can put up with that cursed sharp tongue of yours.’

She laughed tremulously and wiped her nose again, this time in the sheet. Then she sobered, biting her lip.

‘I’m talking as though Peter’s dead,’ she said. Once more the violet eyes lifted to mine. ‘Do you think he is?’

I nodded. ‘I think it likely. But until we find him we can’t be sure.’

Cicely squared her shoulders. ‘Even if he isn’t, I shan’t wed him now. I don’t think Father would make me if he knew I had truly set my heart against the marriage. At least you’ve done that for me. You’ve made me see what it is I want — or rather don’t want! Aunt Joan will be upset, but I can’t help that.’

‘I’m glad to have been of some assistance,’ I answered gravely, pressing her hand. ‘Now, it really is time you returned to your room.’

‘Oh, no!’ she said, sitting bolt upright. ‘I’ll not be fobbed off again. I want you to tell me everything you know.’ She saw denial written in my face. ‘If you don’t,’ she continued softly, ‘I’ll scream so loudly that I shall wake the entire household. Then you’ll have no choice but to marry me.’

‘You’re a scheming, unprincipled hussy!’ I exclaimed bitterly, and she grinned.

‘I know. Most women are. It’s the only way we can survive.’ She folded her hands in her lap. ‘I’m waiting.’

I realized that the strange lethargy which had possessed me had now passed. I was still tired, but it was a natural weariness, engendered by the fatigues of a long, hard day. And even that was beginning to vanish as I decided I had no option but to take Cicely into my confidence.

* * *

Her eyes were as round as saucers, her voice hushed in wonder. ‘The Holy Grail,’ she whispered. ‘But … but I didn’t think it really existed.’

‘I’m not sure I do even now,’ I admitted, ‘but that isn’t the point. The point is that I feel almost certain your cousin thought he might be on its trail.’

‘Why?’

‘Because he told Maud Jarrold that the parchment was “valuable beyond price”. Also, the Grail was reputedly brought to Britain by Joseph of Arimathea and then, if we believe the stories of King Arthur, lost. The Knights of the Round Table spent a lot of time searching for it.’

‘What about this oss … ossie … oh, whatever it was — containing the bones of Saint Patrick?’

‘I don’t think such a notion would have crossed Peter’s mind for an instant. Brother Librarian has a bee buzzing around in his head on the subject of Patrick. He believes he died in Somerset and was buried in or near Glastonbury. It probably reflects an idea of Abbot Selwood’s. Abbots get these odd notions. Glastonbury spent years arguing with Canterbury that it had the bones of its former abbot Saint Dunstan, while Canterbury just as vigorously denied that the Archbishop’s remains had ever been removed from the cathedral precincts.’ I added cynically, ‘It’s all to do with prestige, pilgrims and money.’

I saw the blank look on my companion’s face and returned to the subject in hand. ‘No, I’m positive that only one relic would have occurred to Peter as being of importance to the Church here in the year 500 AD. And that’s the Grail.’

‘Why?’ she asked again with the persistence of an obstinate child.

‘Because among his folios and quartos and octavos are books by Geoffrey of Monmouth and William of Malmesbury. Peter read a lot. He knew about the Grail. And it was what first occurred to me: that here, in this ancient parchment — ’ I drew it out from under my pillow where I had placed it for safekeeping — ‘is the true story of how it was originally lost.’

Cicely’s mouth was set in a mulish line. ‘I can’t believe it,’ she said.

Of course she couldn’t. She was a woman, and women deal in practicalities. They have to; who else do we men look to for succour and assistance when things go wrong? It’s only my sex who are free to pursue impossible dreams, form secret societies, read and write books. Women are too busy mending, cooking and sweeping. And there are always the children.

‘I’m not asking you to believe it,’ I sighed. ‘As I told you, what’s important is what your cousin believed.’

She furrowed her brow. ‘You think then that he was looking for the Grail when he disappeared?’ I inclined my head and the frown deepened. ‘But what about Mark? You haven’t mentioned him. He’s vanished too, but he didn’t know what the parchment contained. No one had translated it for him, unless he also went to see this Blethyn Goode.’

‘I feel sure he didn’t. Blethyn would have told me. Besides, Mark wouldn’t have visited him without being directed there by Father Elwyn.’

‘Perhaps he was.’

‘No. I only went to the Tor because of information I had gleaned from Brother Hilarion. The path is far too tortuous for Mark to have followed in the few hours between his discovery of this parchment and his going to Beckery. And nobody seems to have seen him after that. His disappearance puts me in an even greater quandary than his brother’s. Where did he go, and why, after leaving the island?’

‘You don’t think Father Boniface was lying, and he did know what the parchment said?’

‘Again, no. If he had done he would have told Peter, who would then have had no cause to visit either Father Elwyn or Blethyn Goode. And it would mean that he not only has a knowledge of the ancient Ogham alphabet, but also of the old Welsh tongue. And I think that unlikely, don’t you?’

Cicely shrugged despondently. ‘In that case, I don’t understand it. Nothing makes sense. Peter wasn’t dabbling in the Black Arts, so why should he have been snatched the way he was? Abel Fairchild said he vanished into thin air. What could cause that except the hand of the Devil?’

‘I’m not sure.’ It was my turn to frown. ‘A night or two ago we were all talking in the kitchen — you, your aunt, Lydia, me, Rob and John. I think it was after you and I had returned from seeing Father Boniface. Later, during the night, I woke up with the conviction that I had said something of importance during that conversation, but I had no idea what it was. I still haven’t. Can you recollect anything which struck you as significant?’

But she could remember nothing, and I suspected that for her, as for me, the days since our arrival in Glastonbury were beginning to run together in one continuous blur, aggravated by the fact that all our talks had a sameness about them, a single topic inevitably dominating our thoughts and utterances. How could I possibly expect her to recall something which I was unable to pinpoint myself?

‘It doesn’t matter,’ I lied. ‘It will come back to me.’

Cicely was suddenly yawning and her eyes looked heavy with sleep. She was young and healthy, and neither blighted love nor the strange disappearance of her two cousins could keep her awake for long. I smiled and gave her shoulders another squeeze. ‘Go to bed. We’ll talk again in the morning. Perhaps by that time inspiration will have struck.’

I had anticipated an argument, but to my surprise she slid obediently to her feet and began to move towards the door. Halfway there, however, she stopped and turned.

‘Just one kiss, Roger,’ she pleaded, ‘and after that, I promise to be good.’

I stood up and gently took her face between my hands. ‘Just one then,’ I agreed, and pressed my lips full on her soft, warm mouth.

I had been half afraid that it was a trick, but she only pouted.

‘That’s not much of a kiss,’ she protested, adding in her usual outrageous fashion, ‘I’m sure even Rob Undershaft or John Longbones could do better than that. I must ask them.’

I unlatched the bedchamber door and propelled her through it. ‘What you could do with, my girl,’ I whispered in my best elder brother tones, ‘is some discipline. It will be a very good thing if you are returned to the care of your father and Duchess Isabel for a little while longer.’

She made a face at me, then crossed the narrow landing to her own room, closing the door softly behind her. I heaved a heartfelt sigh of relief and went back to bed, pausing long enough to undress before clambering between the sheets. And this time, I really did sleep until cock crow.

* * *

I awoke not at all refreshed and with a headache nagging at the back of my eyes. For a moment I was unsure of my surroundings, then memory flooded back. I got up and opened the shutters, expecting to see brilliant sunshine, but the sky was overcast. Clouds had gathered during the night. The eastern horizon, above the Tor and a town just stirring into life, showed a long, ominous streak of crimson, heralding the arrival of unsettled weather. ‘Red sky at night, shepherd’s delight; red in the morning, shepherd’s warning,’ went the old rhyme, and was, in my experience, usually proved to be right. The storm of yesterday had not been a single summer downpour but the harbinger of more to come. Autumn and winter were indeed on their way, and I longed more than ever to solve this mystery and go home.

I descended the stairs, let myself out of the front door and went round to the pump at the side of the house. Here I stripped and began to wash, shielded from the gaze of people already passing up and down the High Street by the wall of Dorabella’s empty stable. The air struck chill and I finished my ablutions as quickly as possible, the contrast reminding me sharply of that morning three days earlier when Mark Gildersleeve and I had bathed here together. That, in its turn, jogged my memory regarding the events of the preceding night, when, leaning from the bedchamber window, I had thought I saw someone moving in the shadows. I recalled how Mark had forbidden me to accompany him when he went to investigate, and also how, the next morning, he had scuffed over the ground in order to erase what he declared to be nothing more than his own footprints. He had explained that he wanted to save the women any anxiety which such marks might have aroused, had they got up and gone to the pump before him. At the time I had considered it a sufficiently unconvincing explanation to be, as is so often the case, true, and in consequence had relegated the incident to the back of my mind.

Now, however, I wondered about it. All at once I felt that I had been reprehensibly foolish in not pursuing the matter. I should have ignored my host’s instructions and crept down after him. Had I done so, should I have discovered him talking to someone? And if so, to whom, and what about?

It could, of course, have been a friend, wanting to know why Mark had not been seen of late at one of his usual haunts in the town, one of the brothels which, as I recalled from my novice days — although not, I hasten to add, from any first-hand knowledge — were grouped about Cock Lane …

I stood staring before me, lost in thought. Then, having scoured my teeth with my willow bark, I went back through this inconvenient house and crossed the garden to the kitchen, where the tireless Lydia was already boiling water for my daily shave.

‘Lyddie,’ I said, taking my razor out of my pouch and laying it on the table, ‘the night you were ill, the night you went out to the privy and met Mark returning from one of his excursions…’

She poured hot water into a wooden bowl. ‘What about it?’ she asked without looking up.

‘You told me — at least I think you told me — that when you first saw Mark he was locking the stable.’

She nodded, pushing the bowl towards me. ‘That’s right. Why?’

‘You’re sure of that?’

‘Yes. Does it matter?’

‘I don’t know. I think it might. Rob and John said that Mark visited the local whore-houses, so that must be what he told them — they wouldn’t make it up.’

‘No, I suppose not.’

‘So why would Mark need Dorabella to go only as far as Cock Lane? A man on horseback attracts more attention than one on foot.’

She sat down on the stool opposite mine and propped her elbows on the table. ‘That’s true,’ she admitted. ‘I hadn’t really thought about it. And practically everybody in the town knows Dorabella. Tying her up outside one of those places would have told everyone who saw her that he was inside.’

‘Him … or his brother.’

Lydia shook her head decisively. ‘No. No one would have thought of Master Peter. He was a pious gentleman. Mark was always the more unruly of the two, especially when they were younger. According to Dame Joan he was jealous of his brother because he said his parents favoured Peter over himself. And the Mistress also says that after the Master died and left the business and his second-best bed to Peter, Mark grew even more disgruntled. He didn’t show it, I must admit, but she’s his mother and she should know.’

Carefully I began to remove the fine, blond fuzz of hair from my chin and upper lip. ‘All the same,’ I grunted, ‘I find it difficult to believe that even Mark cares so little for his reputation as a respected burgess of this town that he is foolhardy enough to ride Dorabella, and so advertize his presence in the local brothels, when it would make more sense for him to walk.’

‘It does seem strange now you mention it.’ Lydia screwed up her nose in puzzlement. ‘Why are you asking all these questions?’

I dipped my razor in the water again and began scraping the other side of my face. ‘I was just wondering…’

‘What?’

‘Oh, nothing. It may not be important.’

Unlike Cicely, Lydia never demanded to be admitted to confidences which might be none of her concern. She kept secrets herself and accepted others’ right to do so. Now, she simply got up and began to attend to the breakfast.

This proved to be a meal of long pauses and few words. The two apprentices were content to eat their food in silence, while Cicely, after one swift glance at me from beneath lowered lashes, addressed herself solely to Dame Joan and Lydia. The older woman, however, was preoccupied with her forthcoming visit to the scrivener, and judging by the soundless opening and closing of her lips, was busy composing her letter to her brother. She roused herself eventually to instruct Rob and John to be off about the business of discovering a carter bound for London, and to inform her the moment that they found one.

No one inquired as to my intended movements until, just as Lydia was in the process of clearing the table, Gilbert Honeyman arrived from his hostelry further down the street. His genial presence was like a breath of fresh air in a musty room and cheered us all considerably. He refused all offers of food and drink, having breakfasted, he said, extremely well off soused herring, broiled venison and medallions of mutton. This being far superior fare to the bacon collops and oat cakes served up by Lydia, I felt very envious of him and immediately my stomach began rumbling with dissatisfaction.

Dame Joan acquainted the Bee Master with her intention of sending for her brother, a plan at once applauded by him as the wisest action she could take, praise which brought the faintest flush of colour to her drawn cheeks. She asked Master Honeyman to go with her to the scrivener’s, but was denied his company by Cicely’s belligerent claim that she was the most proper person to help compose a missive to William Armstrong.

‘He’s my father, after all. I know better than Master Honeyman what you should write to him.’

Dame Joan sighed, recognizing that Cicely was in one of her intractable moods and, if not allowed her own way, would be quite capable of making trouble. She was obviously too tired and too depressed to argue, and therefore apologized to Gilbert with a half-smile and a vague flutter of her hands. Master Honeyman acknowledged her dilemma with an understanding nod, directing a disapproving glance at Cicely’s departing back, then seized my elbow and piloted me into the garden, leaving Lydia to collect and wash the dirty dishes.

‘If that girl were mine,’ he began menacingly, ‘I’d…’ But then he laughed and shook his head. ‘Who am I to talk? I can’t even manage my own Rowena. Now!’ He squeezed my arm. ‘What have you been up to since I saw you yesterday?’

I regarded him thoughtfully for a moment before asking, ‘I wonder if you’d care to accompany me instead of Dame Joan?’

‘I might,’ he answered cautiously. ‘Where are you going?’

I grinned. ‘I’m paying a visit to all the whore-houses in the town. So what do you say? Will you come with me?’