The Burgundian’s Tale

Three

In the event, I paid the visit alone, leaving young Master Serifaber to kick his heels in the ale room of the Voyager until my return.

Upon reflection, I had decided that it might be as well not to advertise – at least, not immediately – the Duke of Gloucester’s interest in this affair, which my companion’s blue and murrey livery, together with the badge of the White Boar, most certainly would do.

‘Just to begin with, I’ll spy out the lie of the land on my own,’ I told him.

‘I’ve been instructed to help you,’ Bertram complained fretfully. ‘After all, I’m supposed to be the spy.’

‘You’re a novice at this game, my lad,’ I retorted, ‘and don’t you forget it. You’re here to do my bidding. And if I have any nonsense, you’ll find yourself back at Baynard’s Castle quicker than you can blink. I don’t think Master Plummer would be very pleased about that, do you?’

He grumbled mutinously under his breath, but was forced to cave in.

I patted his shoulder. ‘I can’t conceal Duke Richard’s involvement for long,’ I consoled him. ‘Then you shall live in my pocket.’

He grinned at that and took himself off to sample Reynold Makepeace’s best ale with the money I had given him as a bribe for his good behaviour. I crossed the road and turned into Needlers Lane. A quick enquiry of a passer-by elicited the fact that Broderer’s workshop was on the right-hand side, at the far end, where the street we were in joined Soper Lane.

It wasn’t difficult to find. Not only was it the largest workshop in the vicinity, but it had an imposing sign above the door, bearing the somewhat faded, but still readable legend ‘EDMUND BRODERER’ in red paint. I hitched up my pack and went inside.

I knew nothing about embroidery, but I didn’t need to in order to understand that this was a thriving business. A first, cursory glance suggested that there were at least ten or twelve people in the room, and all hard at work. Along one of the walls, great panels of silken mesh were stretched on wooden frames. Two men in white linen aprons were busily plying their needles in and out of the net in a kind of cross stitch, which gradually formed patterns of birds and beasts and flowers. Occasionally, one or the other of them would refer to a coloured pattern, drawn on a piece of parchment and nailed to the upright between the frames. But for the most part, they seemed to need no guidance, knowing instinctively what to do next.

Three women were working at a horizontal frame just in front of me, laying strands of gold and blue thread across a piece of crimson silk, then stitching the strands in place to form a solid block of colour. (This process I eventually learned is known as ‘couching’. There’s also another process called ‘undercouching’, but we won’t go into that.) Two young women were being instructed by a grey-haired matron in the art of appliqué work; while yet another, middle-aged woman was sewing tiny prismatic glass beads into the centre of embroidered velvet medallions which, in their turn, were being stitched to the sleeves of a dark-green silk dalmatic. And at a long trestle to my left, a bevy of much younger girls were busy embroidering the smaller items such as purses, orphreys, belts and ribbons. A veritable hive of industry.

As I stood staring about me, a second door at the other end of the workshop opened and a man entered carrying a small metal box, iron-bound and double-locked. This, I guessed, most likely contained pearls and other precious gems which, as I could see from several of the richer garments hanging up around the room, were used for decoration. The man put the strong-box down on the end of the trestle, said something to one of the girls, looked up and saw me.

He frowned. ‘Who are you?’

I could see by his expression that he wasn’t really annoyed, but his voice had a harsh timbre to it that made him sound as though he might be, and was probably good for discipline. He could have been any age from the late twenties to mid-thirties, and was indeed, as I discovered subsequently, not long past his thirtieth birthday. He was of middling height, the top of his head reaching just above my chin, sturdily built, but with surprisingly delicate, long-fingered hands – a great asset, I imagined, in his chosen calling. Apart from a slightly bulbous nose, his features were unremarkable: blue-grey eyes and hair of that indeterminate fairish brown so prevalent among my fellow countrymen.

Before I could reply to his query, he had noticed my pack. ‘A chapman, eh?’ he went on. ‘Looking for offcuts to fill your satchel, I daresay. You won’t find many here. The owner likes the last scrap of material, be it silk, velvet or linen, and the last inch of thread to be accounted for.’

I didn’t want to start by lying and playing the innocent, so I resisted the temptation to ask if the owner were Edmund Broderer and merely said, ‘It’s not your business, then.’ I didn’t even make it sound like a question, but the man naturally took it as one.

‘No.’ His tone was curt. ‘I’m Lionel Broderer, as anyone around here will tell you. My cousin-by-marriage is the owner. The business was left to her by her husband.’

‘That would be the man whose name is over the door of the workshop?’

‘That’s right. He died twelve years ago this summer and I’ve run the place for Judith ever since.’ He stopped and the frown reappeared. ‘Not that it’s your affair. But you’re welcome to take a look around. If you see anything that might do for your pack, point it out and I’ll say whether or not it’s for sale. If it is, we’ll fix a price.’

‘Fallen on hard times, has she, this cousin of yours?’ I enquired, as he led me towards the trestle where the smaller items were being worked.

Lionel Broderer made a noise which could have been interpreted as a snort, but which he turned into a cough.

‘Not at all,’ he answered. ‘Just careful.’

‘Wealthy, then,’ I suggested.

This time he made no attempt to hide his exasperation, but whether with me or with Judith St Clair, I wasn’t certain. But it got me a reply.

‘She’s married twice since my cousin died. Although, as far as I know, neither husband had, or has, much money.’

I paused to watch one of the girls do what, in the trade, is known as ‘pricking and pouncing’, (again, a term I got to know later). She laid a long, thin strip of parchment, on which was drawn a pattern of oak leaves and acorns, along the length of a silken girdle. Then, with her needle, she pricked the outline of the pattern on to the silk.

I looked up to see the dawning of suspicion in Lionel Broderer’s eyes.

‘Who are you?’ he asked for a second time. ‘You’re not from these parts.’

‘Somerset born and bred,’ I declared proudly. ‘Wells is my home town, but nowadays I live in Bristol.’

‘Married?’

‘A wife and three children.’

The embroiderer nodded. ‘Yes. You look leg-shackled.’ (I wished people would stop saying that!) ‘Now me – I’ve had the wit to remain single.’ But his tone held that hint of wistfulness I’ve often noticed in the unmarried when they boast of their untrammelled state. ‘Anyway,’ he continued more briskly, ‘you still haven’t replied to my question.’

‘I’ve told you who I am,’ I parried. ‘A chapman up from Somerset, peddling my wares around your glorious city. You can take a look in my pack if that will help to convince you.’

‘Oh, I’m not doubting your word. I just don’t think you’re telling me all the truth.’ He was quick on the uptake, this one, and a lot sharper than he looked.

‘Why would you think I’m hiding something?’

‘Because of the murder of my cousin’s nephew?’

He didn’t bother to lower his voice and I was aware of tension throughout the workshop. Nobody stopped working, but there was a deafening silence as though everyone had suddenly sprouted ten-foot-high ears.

Lionel Broderer went on, ‘You don’t look at all surprised by this information, Master Chapman, so can I assume that you knew it already?’

I stalled for time. ‘Why should I be surprised? People get murdered every day, especially in large towns and cities.’

‘So they do,’ he agreed affably. ‘But they don’t all have royal connections.’

I raised my eyebrows with what I hoped was an incredulous smile, but he wasn’t fooled for a minute.

‘My cousin’s nephew came here from Burgundy and was a great favourite of the Dowager Duchess – a lady due within London’s walls by this time tomorrow afternoon on a visit to her brother, King Edward. But I hardly think I’m telling you anything that you didn’t know before.’

‘A country pedlar? What should I know?’ I was still hedging.

Lionel Broderer sighed wearily. Then he produced a small key from his pouch, unlocked the metal box, dipped in his hand and let a shower of needle-thin gold discs cascade through his fingers. I recognized those discs. Each was pierced with a tiny hole near the rim, and they were used for sewing on clothes so that the garments shimmered as their wearers moved. Two years earlier I had seen ones just like them being made.

Something of my thoughts must have shown in my face because the embroiderer laughed and nodded. ‘That’s right! I bought these only yesterday from Miles Babcary’s shop in West Cheap. He naturally asked me about the murder, having an interest in it beyond the ordinary … Do I need to go on?’ I didn’t answer, so he continued with growing impatience, ‘Miles Babcary’s late wife was a cousin of Jane Shore, the King’s favourite mistress. Therefore, when Miles’s daughter was accused of murdering her husband, it could have proved embarrassing for everyone concerned. But the mystery was eventually resolved by a West Country pedlar working for His Grace, the Duke of Gloucester … You acknowledge the similarities, chapman? More than a coincidence that you’ve turned up here this afternoon, wouldn’t you say?’

I knew when I was beaten. As soon as Lionel mentioned the goldsmith, Miles Babcary, I accepted that further prevarication would be useless.

‘All right. I admit it. I am working on behalf of Duke Richard. He feels that his sister will want the killer of your cousin’s nephew found.’

‘And he’s brought you up from Bristol to discover him. Or her.’ The embroiderer locked the box again, returned the key to his pouch and regarded me without rancour or even dismay. ‘Why didn’t you say so from the first? Did you think I wouldn’t want this murderer caught? Until he is, I move, eat and sleep under a cloud of suspicion, along with all the rest of us who had good reason to wish Fulk Quantrell dead and buried.’

‘That’s honest.’

‘Why shouldn’t I be? I didn’t do it. I need to clear my name. It worried me when the Sheriff’s men made no further enquiries. Now I understand why. His Grace of Gloucester wanted someone he could trust to make them. Someone who would discover the truth.’

‘You flatter me,’ I said, but absently. I was watching him carefully, unable to decide if Lionel Broderer were an innocent or an exceedingly disingenuous man.

He shook his head. ‘Not if all Miles Babcary told me is true.’ He glanced about him, suddenly seeming aware of all his interested listeners. ‘We can’t talk here,’ he protested. ‘I live nearby, just opposite the workshop, with my mother. But she’s out at present. It’s only a step if you’d care to accompany me.’

I experienced a pang of conscience when I thought of Bertram, patiently awaiting me in the ale room of the Voyager, but came to the conclusion that it would do him no harm to learn his place. And he had, in some respect, been foisted on me.

The house Lionel Broderer shared with his widowed mother was a neat two-storeyed dwelling, between a draper’s on one side and an ironmonger’s on the other. What had once been a ground-floor shop had now been converted to an entrance hall and a kitchen. This allowed more room on the upper floor for a reasonably spacious parlour and two bedchambers, while a small yard at the back contained a lean-to privy and a flower border or two, surprisingly well maintained. A plot of earth planted with a wide variety of herbs suggested that Dame Broderer was fond of cooking, a fact to which the well-nourished body of her son could testify. Everywhere and everything indoors was swept and dusted, indicative of a tidy nature. Lionel might not be married, but in one respect he had no need to be; and as for the other, I had already, in a few hours, seen more whores touting for business on the streets of London than I saw in a week at home.

‘All that a bachelor could desire,’ I said, taking a proffered seat in the parlour after I had proudly been shown the rest of the house and garden. I reflected that my host had some womanish traits, probably the result of being the pampered only child of a doting mother. Or was that simply a blind, masking a more violent and passionate nature?

I refused his offer of wine. Some of the church bells were already beginning to toll for vespers, and there would be nothing much else to do after curfew except sample Reynold Makepeace’s ale. I might as well keep a clear head while I could.

‘What do you want to know?’ Lionel Broderer asked, settling himself in the parlour’s second armchair, opposite mine. (Good furniture, I noted admiringly, comparing it with my own somewhat ramshackle possessions. Whatever faults Judith St Clair might have, she had not stinted on her foreman’s wages.)

I recited as briefly as I could what I had learned from Timothy Plummer: the circumstances that had shaped the present household in the Strand, and also those which had brought Fulk Quantrell from Burgundy some months ahead of his royal mistress. ‘I was told that Mistress St Clair grew very fond of him.’

Lionel’s mouth had thinned to an almost invisible line. His face was bleak. ‘I’ve never seen anyone become so completely enslaved in so short a time. Oh, he was a handsome devil, all right. And it wasn’t just Judith who was a victim of his charm. All the women seemed to go down before him like ninepins. Alcina – that’s Alcina Threadgold, Judith’s stepdaughter from her second marriage – was as good as betrothed to Brandon Jolliffe, but once she’d clapped eyes on Fulk, poor old Brandon thought himself lucky if she so much as gave him the time of day.’ Lionel spoke with a bitterness that made me eye him suspiciously. Did he harbour secret feelings for Alcina?

‘Who’s Brandon Jolliffe?’ I asked.

‘The son – the only child – of Lydia and Roland Jolliffe. They’re friends of Godfrey St Clair and live in the Strand, next door to him and Judith.’

‘They weren’t happy then with Fulk’s arrival?’

Lionel looked even grimmer. ‘Well, Roland Jolliffe certainly wasn’t. But if you ask me, it wasn’t simply on account of his son being jilted.’ I raised my eyebrows and he went on, ‘I’ve always suspected – although I’ve no proof, you understand – that there was more than common friendship between Fulk and Mistress Jolliffe.’

‘You mean she was his mistress?’

‘I’m not saying that. But I’m very sure she would have been willing enough had he asked her. I’ve seen the way she looked at him when she thought her husband wasn’t watching.’

‘And you think Roland Jolliffe suspected his wife’s feelings for this Fulk Quantrell?’

‘I can’t be certain, but I shouldn’t be at all surprised. He’s not nearly such a blockhead as people take him for. Not nearly so complaisant, either.’

‘A jealous husband then, you reckon?’

Lionel nodded. ‘Roland Jolliffe’s one of those big, quiet men who doesn’t say much about anything. Doesn’t wear his heart on his sleeve, as the old saw goes; but he’s devoted to Lydia. And he’s the sort who’d never blame her if she ever did play him false. In his eyes she’d have been seduced, led astray, by the man.’

I smiled. ‘You seem to know a lot about someone who, according to you, doesn’t say much or show his emotions.’

‘I keep my eyes and ears open,’ Lionel retorted briskly. ‘I know, for instance, that there were quarrels between the two women, Alcina and Lydia Jolliffe.’

‘About Fulk?’

‘That would seem the obvious answer. They were quite friendly before he arrived – well, as friendly as a girl of eighteen and a woman of forty are likely to be. But after a few weeks of his company, whenever they were in a room together it was worse than a couple of cats tied up in a sack.’

‘What about Mistress St Clair? Did she notice nothing of all this?’

Lionel paused to scratch himself in various intimate places. The warmth of the afternoon was making his fleas active. Mine began hopping about in sympathy.

‘Judith was so besotted by her nephew that even if she did notice, she didn’t care. He could do no wrong in her eyes.’

‘And her husband and stepson? What were their feelings, do you know?’

My companion gave a short bark of laughter. ‘They didn’t like it. Of course they didn’t! Especially Jocelyn. When Judith married his father, she more or less adopted him, just as she had Alcina. They were her co-heirs and she treated them as if they were her own. Mind you,’ he added reflectively, ‘Alcina may have had her nose put out of joint. She was sixteen when Judith married Godfrey two years ago, and she’d been the only heir since she was eight. But if she resented Judith’s adoption of Jocelyn, she never showed it. In fact, the pair of them seem to be the greatest of friends – more like brother and sister than many true siblings.’ Lionel pursed his lips. ‘Although I fancy that doesn’t please Godfrey. I feel sure he’d like them to marry, then they and their children would inherit all Judith’s money when she dies. He was always complaining that Alcina is far too good to throw herself away on Brandon Jolliffe.’

‘So Fulk Quantrell proved a stumbling block to his plans, as well?’

Lionel shrugged. ‘Possibly, if I’m right about what he wants. And I think I am. Alcina made no secret of her passion for Fulk.’

There was a moment or two’s silence. Then I asked abruptly, ‘And you? What grudge did you bear him? Surely you expected to inherit something if your father’s cousin should die?’

He reddened and I thought he was going to bluster and make denials. But he seemed to think better of it, and grinned instead. ‘I had Judith’s promise that if she died before me – which, mark you, is by no means certain with only nine years between us – the workshop would be mine. She told me it was the least she could do after I had run it so successfully for her all these years. And I know for a fact she meant what she said. She showed me her will. Her old will, that is.’

‘She made a new one?’

‘Oh, yes! Within a fortnight of Fulk’s arrival. Everything – all her money and the workshop – was to go to him. She said nothing, but he made no seceret of the fact. Why should he? He was cock of the dunghill and he couldn’t stop crowing.’

‘Did Mistress St Clair give any of you any reason for what she’d done? Or didn’t you ask?’

‘Jocelyn and I both tackled her and both of us got the same answer. Fulk was her nephew. She’d nursed him as a baby, when he and his mother lived with her and my cousin. His mother was her twin. He was her own flesh and blood. I pointed out that he always had been, but she hadn’t let it worry her for the past twelve years. She said she hadn’t seen him since he was six. Now that she had, her feelings towards him had been reanimated and she realized how much she loved him. The truth is,’ Lionel added viciously, ‘he buttered her up and told her anything she wanted to hear almost from the first day he arrived: how young she was for a woman of thirty-nine – his mother, her twin, hadn’t aged half as well; how often and how fondly his mother and Duchess Margaret had talked about her and wished she were with them in Burgundy; how his mother had spoken of her sister with her dying breath. Oh yes! He quickly realized that Judith would swallow any lie that flattered her and bolstered her ego.’

‘And what were Mistress Alcina’s feelings about her stepmother changing her will?’

‘Oh, she didn’t care. She thought Fulk was going to marry her, you see. She counted on inheriting everything through him.’

I stirred in my chair and sighed. With so many people to suspect of murdering Fulk Quantrell, it was a relief to be able to rule out Alcina Threadgold as well as Judith St Clair.

But I wasn’t going to be let off the hook that easily. A voice spoke scathingly from the parlour doorway. ‘He wasn’t going to marry her! You know very well he wasn’t! You were present when he told her so!’

‘Mother!’ Lionel rose from his seat and hurried across to give his parent a dutiful peck on her cheek.

Dame Broderer, I thought, as I, too, got to my feet, was not at all what I had expected. I had envisaged a much older woman, not the fashionable, well-preserved dame I saw in front of me. She must have been little more than a child when she gave birth to her son.

She seated herself in Lionel’s chair and waved me back to mine.

‘Now,’ she said, eyeing me up and down, ‘who is this? Apart, that is, from being a pedlar and an extremely handsome young man.’ I did my best to look modest. ‘Lal! An explanation, please! You know I don’t like strangers in my house without knowing who they are or what they’re doing here.’

Lionel told her as briefly as he could, helped by the fact that she refrained from interrupting him with pointless questions or exclamations. She simply sat, regarding me steadily with a pair of fine blue eyes, of which her son’s were a pale and smoky copy.

When he had finished, she gave a satisfied nod. ‘Yes, I’ve heard Miles Babcary tell that story about the pedlar as well. So! That was you, was it, Roger Chapman? Then I trust you’ll discover the truth of this sorry affair. It’s high time someone did. There are too many people whispering behind their hands about my boy. Not, of course, that he’s the only one. Brandon Jolliffe and his parents, Godfrey and Jocelyn St Clair – they’re all being pointed at as potential murderers.’

‘But not Mistress Threadgold?’ I queried.

Dame Broderer snorted. ‘She’s escaped the worst of the gossip so far because most people assume she was going to marry Fulk Quantrell. Therefore, in due course, all Judith’s money, not just half, would have come to her through him.’

‘A reasonable assumption,’ I prompted her as she paused.

‘Indeed! If it had been true.’ Dame Broderer turned on her son. ‘Lal, for heaven’s sake pull up a stool and stop looming over me. You’re blocking the daylight.’

Somewhat to my surprise, Lionel made no objection to this reprimand, but did as he was bidden. However, his broad grin indicated an amused tolerance of his mother and her ways rather than intimidation. They understood one another, this pair.

‘Are you saying,’ I asked, ‘that Fulk Quantrell wasn’t going to marry Alcina Threadgold?’

Dame Broderer leaned back in her chair. ‘The evening he was murdered, Fulk came round to the workshop to nose and poke about. He had taken to doing that as though he already owned the place. On this occasion, quite by chance, I was also present, collecting a new girdle that I had had embroidered. He hadn’t been there five minutes when Alcina came in, obviously in a towering rage. She immediately started shouting at him, in front of everyone, that he was a liar and a cheat. She’d given him everything and in return he’d promised her marriage.

‘Well, Fulk let her rant and rave for a moment or two, then he turned on her, even more furious than she was. He yelled that he had never promised to marry her; that he wouldn’t marry her if she were the last woman on earth. And finally he told her that he couldn’t marry her: he was already betrothed to one of Duchess Margaret’s tiring-women, back in Burgundy.’