The Burgundian’s Tale

Thirteen

I sat there for perhaps another minute, enjoying the peace and tranquillity of the ale room in the early-morning sunshine – a peace shared by only one other customer – before suddenly leaping to my feet and rushing after the Duchess’s groom. Of course, he had vanished, and I had no means of knowing which of the many routes to Baynard’s Castle he had taken. I decided that I should therefore have to contain my soul in patience until the next time I saw him to ask what he had meant by ‘like mother, like son’. As far as I knew – which, admittedly, was not as yet very much – no one had spoken the slightest ill of Veronica Quantrell. I went back into the inn and asked Reynold Makepeace for the man’s name.

But the innkeeper didn’t know and wasn’t sure whom I meant and in any case had to go and oversee what was happening in the kitchens, having recently engaged a new cook whose methods and temperament were giving him some cause for concern. I reassured him that the inn’s victuals were as good as ever, and begged him not to bother his head about it. Relieved, Reynold bustled away just as Bertram arrived, eager to know why I had been summoned to Westminster the previous evening. I had not, after all, managed to avoid him.

‘Master Plummer says you can have me for two more days,’ he announced, when I had finished a brief account of my meeting with the Duke of Albany, ‘and then I must return to my normal duties. It would be nice,’ he added wistfully, ‘to be able to say that I’d helped to find the murderer. Do you think that might happen?’

I sighed deeply. ‘Everyone, including you, is expecting me to perform miracles,’ I reproached him.

But Bertram’s attention had been distracted by the smell of bacon collops, and he was wrinkling his nose indignantly. ‘It’s Friday,’ he said, pointing an accusing finger. ‘All I had for breakfast was a dried herring.’

‘Master Makepeace isn’t as particular as he should be about Fridays,’ I replied smugly. ‘At least, not this early in the day. They were very good, too. The bacon collops, I mean. If you don’t believe me, ask one of Duchess Margaret’s grooms, who’s lodging here. I don’t suppose you’ve come across him by any chance?’

But it was too much to hope that, out of all the Duchess’s vast Burgundian retinue, Bertram would have made the acquaintance of one particular groom, and, alas, my expectations were not disappointed. He shook his head and continued to moan about dried herrings and the Spartan regimen of Baynard’s Castle until, in self-defence, I asked Reynold, on his next appearance, to bring the lad a plate of bacon and oatcakes. And while, sunny temper restored, Bertram munched his way through this welcome repast, I recounted all that had happened the previous night. The only thing I failed to mention was my suspicion – or, rather, my belief – that Martin Threadgold had been murdered.

Lacking this knowledge, Bertram’s interest in the death of one whom he considered to be every bit as old as Methuselah – anyone over the age of twenty, including myself, being, to my companion, in his dotage – was transitory. He seemed to think it perfectly natural that Martin should have died in his sleep and did not even suggest the possibility of murder. All his attention was centred on the second attack on my person by William Morgan.

‘You’re certain it was him?’ Bertram asked excitedly, actually forgetting to eat for at least twenty seconds and stabbing the air with his knife.

‘Yes, I’m certain.’ I pushed the hand holding the offending weapon aside and adjured him to take care what he was about. ‘And I’m even more certain now that he was my assailant on the first occasion. But this time I have his cloak to prove it.’

‘Are we going to arrest him?’ Bertram demanded eagerly.

I shook my head. ‘Not yet.’

‘Why not?’ My assistant was plainly disappointed. ‘Why else would William Morgan try to kill you if he isn’t the murderer?’

‘But why would he have wanted to get rid of Fulk Quantrell? Ask yourself that. Fulk was no threat to him. William didn’t stand to lose anything by Judith St Clair’s new will. Furthermore, he hasn’t attempted to kill me on either occasion; and surely he would have tried harder to dispose of me if that had been his object. Both attacks have been nothing more than warnings to me to leave well alone – to cease my enquiries into Fulk Quantrell’s death.’

‘Yet if you’re right, and your enquiries pose no threat to William, what’s the point of giving you a beating?’ Bertram finished the last of the bacon and oatcakes and proceeded to drink what was left of my ale. Letting rip with a loud belch, he stretched his arms above his head until the bones cracked. By now the ale room was filling up, and several breakfasters glanced round to discover the source of the noise.

I said, ‘I can only think that he’s trying to protect somebody else, but I don’t know who. When I do, I might be one step nearer to finding Fulk’s murderer.’

‘But you are going to confront him with the evidence?’

For answer, I bent down and pulled a rolled bundle from beneath my stool. It was the first time I had really examined the cloak since folding it up the previous night, and I was faintly surprised to note that, far from being made of that rough woollen cloth we used to call brocella, as I had supposed it would be, it was camlet, a much more expensive material of mixed camel-hair and wool.

‘A decent cloak, that,’ Bertram remarked, fingering it approvingly. ‘So where are we going now? Mistress St Clair’s?’

‘All in good time. But first, on our way, we’ll call at the Church of St-Dunstan-in-the-West. I think it might prove worthwhile to have a word with the priest there regarding Fulk’s visit on the night that he was killed.’

Bertram was inclined to cavil at this, wanting action, but he knew better by now than to obstruct me: a tacit acceptance that I usually had good reasons for what I did. I just wished that I had the same confidence in myself as he did. I still felt as though I were groping my way in the dark.

The morning, unlike yesterday, was beautiful, a cornucopia of sunshine and shade spilling its coloured profusion over the busy streets. The sky stretched richly blue above the jagged rooftops, with here and there a moth-wing cloud, pale and translucent in the soft spring air. It was the sort of day that made me glad to be alive, and I experienced that same chilling spurt of anger that I had felt so many times before at the act of murder. To kill, to deprive another human being of life, was the most dastardly of crimes.

Bertram and I passed through the Lud Gate, pushing our way against the general tide of people coming into the city from the fields around Paddington, where the purity of the rills and streams that watered the meadows produced lush harvests of lettuces, peas and beans, water parsnips and early strawberries. The beggars and lepers, already at their stations outside the gate, rattled their tins with a ferocity it was difficult to disregard (although many hardened their hearts and managed it), and both my companion and I dropped a groat into the cup of the legless old man who propelled himself around at amazing speed on his little wheeled trolley.

We crossed the Fleet River, where small boats and barges floated like swans drowsing on the sparkling water in the early-morning warmth. Corn marigolds starred the banks with gold, and little clumps of scarlet pimpernel gleamed like blood among the grasses. All was bustle as maids appeared outdoors with their brooms to brush the doorsteps, raising clouds of choking dust over the muddy cobbles.

The Church of St-Dunstan-in-the-West was on the corner of Faitour Lane, tucked into that little dog-leg where Fleet Street starts to give way to the Strand. Dunstan has always been one of my favourite saints, being Somerset born and bred like myself, and having been Abbot of Glastonbury for many years before finally being raised to the see of Canterbury. A bit of a curmudgeon, judging by all I had ever read and heard tell of him; a man who had never hesitated to give the Saxon kings and thanes the rough edge of his tongue whenever he felt they deserved it; a man who had helped make Wessex the chief kingdom of the Saxon heptarchy and who had crowned Edgar the Peaceable first king of all England at Bath.

By sheer coincidence, the nineteenth of May was his feast day, and when Bertram and I entered the church, preparations were already under way for his patronal mass. A couple of stalwart youths were lifting down his statue from above the altar ready to be borne in procession around the church. Three women were seated on the dusty floor, busy making garlands of flowers and greenery, while the priest himself, a little man whose lack of inches told against him whenever he tried to assert his authority, was here, there and everywhere at once.

I caught his arm as he tried to push past me on his way to remonstrate with a pair of giggling altar boys.

‘A word with you, Father, if you please.’

He stared up at me in indignation, as much, I think, at my height as at my presumption in accosting him. ‘Who are you? Can’t you see I’m busy?’

Once again, I found it convenient to indicate Bertram’s livery. ‘We’re here on the Duke of Gloucester’s business.’

This flurried him a little. ‘The D-Duke of Gloucester?’ he stammered, eyeing me uneasily.

I smiled to put him at his ease. ‘Don’t worry, Father, you’ve not incurred His Grace’s displeasure. Could we talk somewhere? It won’t take long.’

He took a hasty glance around him, trying, I could tell, to think up a way of refusing my request. Had I cited anyone but the King’s brother, and had I not been accompanied by someone in the Gloucester livery, he would undoubtedly have sent me about my business. As it was, he complied, albeit with a very bad grace.

‘Follow me,’ he said.

He led us both outside, after ostentatiously issuing half a dozen orders to his acolytes (just to prove, I imagine, that he was not only in charge, but also a very important and busy man), and round the corner to a modest, two-storey house in the lee of the Chancellor’s Lane side of the church.

‘Well?’ he demanded impatiently, having unlocked the street door and ushered us inside. ‘What does the Duke of Gloucester want with me?’

There was nowhere to sit down in the stuffy parlour except for one stool stowed beneath a rickety table; and as the priest showed no inclination to draw this out, we all stood, half blinded by the motes and specks of dust that danced in the powerful beam of sunlight shining through the unshuttered window. A pewter plate and cup, the former displaying a few crumbs of bread, the latter some dregs of stale ale, bore testimony to our reluctant host’s frugal breakfast.

I explained the nature of my enquiry and asked about Fulk’s visit to St Dunstan’s on the night that he had been killed; and I had the satisfaction of seeing the priest grow more mellow towards me. He was not, as he had feared, being called upon to account for any misdeed or misconduct, but rather to assist royalty in their quest for a murderer.

‘The young man who was killed,’ I finished, ‘came here on the night of his death, May Day …’

‘To celebrate the Feast of Saint Sigismund of Burgundy.’ The priest nodded. ‘Yes, I recollect his visit well. Mind you, I don’t say I should have done, otherwise. Saint Sigismund is not, as a general rule, much remembered in this country. A violent man who had his own son strangled. He repented of it afterwards, of course – they always do when it’s too late – and founded the Monastery of St Maurice at Agaunum, where, if memory serves me aright, the praises of God were sung day and night.’ The priest added grudgingly, ‘He was very good to the poor. But in spite of that, I’ve never thought Sigismund a suitable candidate for sainthood.’ His face brightened a little. ‘He got his comeuppance in the end, you know. He was defeated in battle by the three sons of Clovis and executed at Orleans. His body was thrown down a well.’

‘Thank you, Father,’ I said gravely, and frowned at Bertram, who had begun to fidget. ‘It’s always good to know these things. But about the young man who came here that night–’

‘Yes, yes, I’m coming to that. He was an admirer of Saint Sigismund and wanted me to offer up special prayers for the repose of the saint’s soul on his festival day.’

‘And did you?’

‘Naturally. I’m a priest.’

I didn’t ask if money had changed hands. It undoubtedly had, but there was no point in antagonizing my informant.

‘What was your impression of the young man?’ I asked. ‘I mean, was he drunk? Frightened? Nervous?’ I moved an inch or two around the table in an effort to avoid the sunbeam.

The priest pursed his mouth and contemplated the smoke-blackened ceiling. ‘Now, it’s odd that you should ask me that, because I did think him jumpy. A couple of times, he glanced over his shoulder as though to reassure himself that he hadn’t been followed. But when I thought about it later, I decided I might have imagined his nervousness.’

‘You know that he was the young man found dead in Fleet Sreet the following day?’

‘Of course I know! The body was carried into the church while we awaited the arrival of the Sheriff’s men. The back of his head may have been caved in, but his face was untouched.’ The priest frowned and went on, ‘I’ve wondered since if he might have come that evening to pray for Saint Sigismund’s protection.’

‘From whom? You didn’t see anyone? No one came into the church while he was there?’

The priest thought long and hard for a moment, then shook his head.

‘The church was empty that evening apart from you and Fulk Quantrell?’ I pressed him.

‘Was that his name? I don’t believe I ever knew it. No, the church wasn’t completely empty. A man had come in some half-hour beforehand and remained on his knees quietly praying throughout all the time this … this Fulk? – is that what you called him? – all the time this Fulk and I were talking.’

Bertram and I looked at one another.

‘Did this man show any interest in Master Quantrell?’ I asked eagerly.

‘None whatsoever, nor the young man in him. In fact, now I come to consider the matter carefully, Master Quantrell, as you call him, might not even have noticed the stranger, who was kneeling in the shadow of the confessional, deeply absorbed in his own prayers.’

‘Could this man have overheard what you and Fulk were talking about?’

‘I should think it very unlikely. Our voices were low and, as you can see, the confessional is halfway along the nave. We were standing near the altar.’

‘When Master Quantrell left the church, did this stranger follow him out, do you remember?’

The priest frowned, then shook his head. ‘No, but nor do I recall seeing him still … Wait a minute! Something comes back to me! Another member of my flock entered the church to make a confession just as the young man left, and there was no one kneeling near the confessional then. The stranger must have got up and gone before this unfortunate Fulk Quantrell finished his prayers.’

‘And you didn’t think to mention any of this to the Sheriff’s men when they came making their enquiries?’

The priest looked a little sheepish, but retorted sharply, ‘I did not. I believe God will uncover the truth of any crime if He wishes it known without any help from me.’

‘You mean, Father, that you believe in not getting involved in what doesn’t directly concern you. Probably a wise philosophy in the troubled times of these past thirty years.’

He shot me a suspicious look from beneath his tufty eyebrows, but ‘Quite so,’ was his only answer.

The little parlour had grown even stuffier than when we entered it some minutes earlier. The weight of the cloak I was carrying was making my wrist ache and I shifted it to my other arm.

‘We’ll take our leave of you then, and thank you for all your help. His Grace shall hear of it.’

The priest, looking gratified if a little sceptical, nodded towards the cloak. ‘What are you doing with that? It’s Master Threadgold’s.’

I paused abruptly in the act of opening the door. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘I asked what you’re doing with Master Threadgold’s cloak?’

‘Martin Threadgold?’

‘Who else? His brother’s been dead these many years.’

‘You recognize it?’

‘Of course I recognize it. Martin’s been wearing it, summer and winter, these decades past.’ The priest leaned across and fingered the material. ‘Camlet. Extremely hard-wearing.’

‘But not that uncommon. How can you be sure that this is his?’

The priest poked the material with a stubby forefinger. ‘There’s a dark stain here, on the breast, just below the hood, and a rent just below that again. Then you’ll notice that the drawstring at the neck is made of plaited yellow silk. Or it was yellow when the cloak was new, a long time ago.’ He scraped at the cord with a blunt thumbnail, removing a coating of dirt. ‘There you are! Yellow, as I told you. I suppose Martin’s mislaid this somewhere and you’re taking it back to him.’

‘I had no idea it was his.’ I protested. ‘I thought it belonged to quite a different person … Father, has no one told you that Master Threadgold is dead?’

‘Dead? When? How?’

‘Yesterday, during his afternoon sleep.’

‘Dear me! Dear me, no! No one has informed me.’ I couldn’t say that the priest seemed unduly upset by the news. ‘Ah well! It comes to us all in the end. He has a niece, as you may know, but she’s rather young. However, I feel sure Godfrey and Judith St Clair will do all that needs to be done on her behalf. Dead, you say? Well, well! Poor Martin!’ He patted my arm. ‘You’ll find that cloak very useful in the winter, my boy.’ And I realized that, in a change of opinion, he thought I’d been given the garment. Which, in a way, I suppose I had.

I didn’t correct his assumption and thanked him for his time and help.

‘Well, I hope what I’ve told you may prove to be of use. You … You’ll be mentioning me to His Grace of Gloucester, I think you said? Ah, splendid!’ He followed Bertram and me out of the priest house and disappeared once more into the church, still muttering to himself, ‘Martin Threadgold. Dead. Dear me! Dear me!’

Bertram and I stood aside in order to allow a flock of sheep, on their way to market, to pass us by. The shepherd raised his crook in salutation. ‘Thenk ’ee, masters.’

‘Come on!’ my companion urged, tugging at my sleeve. ‘I want to hear what William Morgan has to say when you confront him with the cloak.’

I laid a restraining hand on his arm. ‘No, that’s no good, now, lad. I’ll have to change my plans.’

‘Why?’ Bertram was indignant.

I sighed. ‘Because he’ll simply deny that it’s his cloak. And it isn’t. Which other people will confirm. It did cross my mind earlier to wonder why he was so willing to abandon it. Can’t you see, it’s no longer proof that he was my attacker?’

‘You’re certain it was him, though?’ I nodded, and Bertram chewed his bottom lip sulkily, a disappointed man. ‘What now, then?’ he asked.

I hitched the cloak higher up my arm, took a firm grip on my cudgel and said, ‘I must speak to Mistress Pettigrew.’

It was still early enough for there to be no obvious signs of life in any of the three houses at the Fleet Street end of the Strand, but I felt sure that the servants must be up and about. All the windows of Martin Threadgold’s dwelling were decently closed and shuttered, as became a house of mourning, but so far no wreath of yew had been nailed to the door to indicate that an unburied body lay within.

I knocked as loudly as I dared two or three times, and was just praying that Mistress Pettigrew was not afflicted with deafness when the door opened a crack and the housekeeper’s tremulous voice enquired, ‘Who’s there?’

‘It’s Roger Chapman,’ I said. ‘I must speak to you, mistress. May I come in?’

She inched the door open another fraction and peered out anxiously.

‘My master’s dead. But you know that. You were here yesterday with Master and Mistress St Clair. I can’t let you in.’

‘You must. I tell you I have to talk to you.’ As a precaution against her closing the door, I put my foot between it and the jamb and held out the cloak with the stain and the tear uppermost. ‘Do you recognize this? Does it – did it – belong to your master?’

I heard her give a little gasp and she put a hand through the crack as though she would snatch the garment from me.

‘I’ve been searching for that,’ she said. ‘Where did you find it?’

I took a hurried step backwards before she could grab it. ‘Admit me and Master Serifaber, and I’ll tell you.’

There was a lapse of several seconds before the door creaked protestingly on its hinges as it opened a little wider. Bertram and I squeezed through the gap.

In spite of the warmth of the morning, the house felt icily cold as if, indeed, the Angel of Death had enfolded it in his wings. I was startled; I was not generally given to such flights of fancy, and I gave myself a mental shake. I was growing morbid with my advancing years, and that would never do.

Once again, Mistress Pettigrew made as though to snatch the cloak from me, but I prevented her. ‘Where did you find it?’ she whispered.

‘More to the point,’ I retorted, ‘where did you last see it?’

She shivered. ‘The master took it upstairs with him, yesterday, to put across his knees while he slept. But when I found him, it wasn’t there. I didn’t think about it at the time, I was too upset; but later, last night, I got to wondering where it had gone.’

‘Something else that had vanished, like the flask and the beaker,’ I suggested.

The housekeeper still evinced no overt interest in the two latter items, but I saw her eyes flicker. She repeated her question about the cloak. ‘Where did you find it?’

‘I can’t tell you that just at the moment.’ I clasped one of her small, cold hands in mine and said earnestly, ‘It’s very important that you say nothing to anyone else about this at present. Can you keep a secret?’

She stared up at me, her rheumy eyes suddenly wide with suspicion. ‘Does the master’s death have anything to do with the murder of that nephew of Mistress St Clair?’

‘Why do you ask me that?’

‘Because …’ She hesitated, considering her words, then added in a rush, ‘Because I wondered if the master’s death was natural. There was something about his face, some discolouration, that didn’t seem normal to me.’

‘You mean, you think Master Threadgold was murdered, like Fulk Quantrell?’ Bertram demanded, nudging me excitedly in the ribs.

‘I … I don’t know.’ The housekeeper looked frightened, fearful that she was letting her tongue run away with her. ‘It’s just that … well, there was something else that occurred to me … during the night.’

‘What was that?’ I asked gently. She was plainly wishing she hadn’t spoken, but, unlike me, felt impelled to voice her suspicions.

‘Go on,’ I urged. ‘You can rely on Master Serifaber’s and my discretion.’ I looked sternly at Bertram as I spoke, and after a moment he gave a reluctant nod.

Mistress Pettigrew bit on her thumbnail with small, pointed teeth, rather like a rat’s, but after a while she forced herself to continue.

‘When I brought Mistress Alcina the beaker for the wine, she asked me if I’d like to have a cup before she took it upstairs to her uncle. She said the flask was overfull.’

‘And did you?’ I prompted.

She nodded. ‘I thought … I thought it tasted a little odd. And then, very soon afterwards, I fell asleep. And I seem to have slept extremely soundly for quite a long time.’