The Burgundian’s Tale

Six

I lay where I had fallen for perhaps a minute. I had been winded and needed to recover my breath.

Except for a sore cheek, where I had scraped my face along the ground, and some scratches to my hands, I wasn’t really hurt. But my pride was deeply wounded. My head had been so full of my meeting with the Duke and Dowager Duchess that I had grown careless, ignoring my own first rule of survival: always be on your guard – which isn’t to say that I had never been ambushed before, but, generally speaking, on those occasions I had been unlucky. Tonight, however, I hadn’t even considered the possibility that I could be in danger or that I might have been followed from Baynard’s Castle. Yet I should have done. Somewhere in London lurked the murderer of Fulk Quantrell, and I was doing my best to uncover his – or her – identity.

As I heaved myself into a sitting position and probed cautiously for any bodily damage that might so far have escaped my notice, I went briefly through the people who knew of my presence and, above all, my purpose in the capital. I could forget all members of the royal family along with Timothy Plummer, Reynold Makepeace and Bertram Serifaber. That left Lionel Broderer and his mother, Judith St Clair’s housekeeper and Judith St Clair herself, who had been told of my visit by the Dowager Duchess. So, possibly, Godfrey St Clair was also aware of my existence.

But the voice that had hissed its warning in my ear had been male and Welsh. Not that the last fact meant very much. The lilting cadences of my near neighbours across the Bristol Channel are some of the easiest to fake, and I hadn’t been in any condition to listen to it carefully …

‘Master Chapman! Are you all right? Mother and I saw what happened. I tried to intercept the man who attacked you, but he was running too fast, and he had his hood pulled right over his head, hiding his face.’

It was Lionel Broderer, kneeling beside me in the dust. His face was nothing but a blur as the moon disappeared behind a cloud, but I recognized the voice with its harsh timbre, and his compact figure. ‘Here! Let me help you to your feet.’

I should have been grateful for his assistance, but I was feeling too much of a fool to appreciate his sympathy. I shook off his supporting hand.

‘I’m well enough,’ I answered brusquely. ‘A bruise or two. Nothing more.’

He proceeded to make matters worse. ‘You shouldn’t be walking abroad in the streets at night without a cudgel.’

I restrained the impulse to shout at him, but it was an effort. ‘I was summoned by His Grace of Gloucester to Baynard’s Castle and I felt a cudgel would have been out of place. In any case, I doubt if it would have helped me much. I was surprised.’

He nodded understandingly. I could cheerfully have hit him. ‘Yes. Mother and I had just returned from West Cheap, where members of the Mercers’ Guild were doing a re-enactment of the Lady Margaret’s marriage to Charles of Burgundy, twelve years ago at Damme. We came back down Soper Lane, and just as we rounded the corner, we saw you jumped on by this man who came out of St Benet Sherehog’s porch.’

‘How did you know it was me?’

Lionel chuckled. ‘How many other men of your height and girth are there in this part of London?’

By this time Mistress Broderer had joined us. ‘Is he all right, Lal?’ she enquired.

‘A trifle winded, that’s all,’ I snapped. ‘Nothing so wrong with me that I can’t answer for myself.’

I was immediately ashamed that I had allowed my bad temper to get the better of me, but while Lionel looked affronted, his mother merely laughed.

‘Feeling sore, are you? In more ways than one? Well, I suppose that’s only to be expected.’ Her sympathy was tinged with a mockery that she couldn’t quite conceal. ‘Come back to the house with us and have some wine.’

I thanked her, but refused. ‘I’m so near the Voyager now that I’ll go on. I need my bed.’ And I thanked both of them again, over-profusely, to compensate for my previous rudeness.

But my refusal was not entirely due either to tiredness or to embarrassment at what had happened. I suddenly found myself wondering if Lionel Broderer could have been my assailant. He had been close at hand.

I was still considering the idea while I stripped and rolled between the blankets, nestling into Reynold Makepeace’s goose-feather mattress. (I had gone straight to my chamber, avoiding the ale room, where a crowd of indefatigable merrymakers continued to drink the Dowager Duchess of Burgundy’s health.) I tried to recall the voice which had whispered in my ear and to match it with Lionel’s, but the difference seemed too great for probability. And yet … And yet I couldn’t have sworn that they weren’t one and the same. Welsh tones are usually soft and soothing. This voice had been neither of those things, just low and sibilant.

I repeated the words over to myself: ‘Mind your own business, chapman, if you know what’s good for you. This is just the first warning. So go back to Bristol, there’s a good boy!’ Boy. Boyo. A Welsh term of address as I well knew from hearing it so often along the Bristol Backs.

I could feel sleep beginning to engulf me, and decided that the problem would have to wait until the morning. I groped for the reassuring feel of my knife beneath my pillow and felt for my cudgel, which I had placed alongside me on the bed. Only then did I close my eyes and allow my mind to drift.

After nine years I had at last trained myself to sleep through the night and not wake in the small hours for the service of matins and lauds, as I had had to do when a novice at Glastonbury. (It had been a habit greatly deplored by Adela.) And that particular night, worn out by the previous day’s events, I had slept even more soundly than usual – with the result that, when I eventually awoke, the sun was filtering through the shutters and people were clattering busily about the inn. For my part, I was feeling fighting fit again.

I was just wondering if I could escape from the Voyager before young Bertram came to find me, when he bounced into the ale room where I was eating my breakfast.

‘There you are!’ he exclaimed unnecessarily, before ordering a mazer of small beer.

‘Not wanted by the Duke or Master Plummer today?’ I asked hopefully.

He shook his head. ‘I’m entirely at your disposal.’ That’s what I’d been afraid of. ‘However, tomorrow I might be needed for other duties. If so, you’ll have to manage without me.’

‘Heaven forfend!’ I exclaimed, but the sarcasm was lost on my companion. I swallowed the rest of my oatcake and honey.

While Bertram finished his beer, I debated whether or not to tell him of last night’s incident. I didn’t want to. It would admit my fallibility and make me seem a bit of a fool. In the end, I decided it would be unfair not to warn him to be on his guard, and to carry a knife or a cudgel at all times.

But the story seemed to excite rather than frighten him, nor did it move him to laughter at my expense.

‘I wish I’d been there,’ he said eagerly. ‘I could probably have caught up with whoever it was. My legs are younger than yours.’

‘Whoever it was wouldn’t have risked attacking me if there’d been two of us,’ I pointed out snappishly. ‘And I’m not yet in my dotage. I’ll thank you to remember that.’

He grinned and was about to make a further rejoinder when I rose from the table and said it was time we were going. The ale room was filling up with my fellow guests, all looking for their breakfasts, and I was in no mood for idle conversation. I wanted to get this case over and done with so that I could be on my way back to Bristol. (Incidentally, I had no intention of riding or of being escorted home. Someone in Duke Richard’s household could arrange for the horse to be returned to the Bell Lane livery stables. I urgently needed the freedom and solitude.)

‘Where are we going?’ Bertram asked as we left the Voyager.

‘Where do you think? To visit Judith and Godfrey St Clair, of course. They are, after all, at the centre of this mystery. Then, if we’re lucky, perhaps we can question their next-door neighbours, the Jolliffes, as well. And if we’re very lucky, we might get a word with their other neighbour, Martin Threadgold, Mistress St Clair’s former brother-in-law.’

The fitful May day had lost its early sunshine and turned cold and wet. As we crossed the River Fleet, a sudden squall of rain whipped spray from the water, and the houses on either side of the thoroughfare were shrouded in mist. This would undoubtedly clear as the day progressed, but for the moment, it made everything appear grey and insubstantial.

Secure in the knowledge that my arrival must be at least half-expected, I knocked boldly on the street door of Judith St Clair’s house in the Strand and waited confidently to have my summons answered. I wasn’t disappointed, and within a very few minutes the door was opened by the housekeeper, Paulina Graygoss.

She eyed me with a certain hostility. ‘The mistress said as how you’d likely be paying us a visit,’ she remarked acidly. ‘But we weren’t expecting you this early in the morning.’ She jerked her head. ‘Still, I suppose you’d better come in now you’re here; but you’ll have to wait. The master and mistress are still at breakfast.’

She left us to kick our heels in the main hall of the house while she disappeared through a door to the left of a fine, carved oaken fireplace. I looked around me. Everything – from the glazed windows opening on to the Strand, to the rich tapestries decorating the walls, to the corner cupboard with its sparkling display of silverware (interspersed with the occasional dull gleam of gold), to the Eastern rugs adorning the flagstones – spoke of money and plenty of it. Judith St Clair’s wealth had not been exaggerated.

The housekeeper reappeared and, with a very bad grace, asked us to follow her, plainly disapproving of her mistress’s decision to receive us without first finishing her meal. She led us through several more rooms, all as well furnished as the hall, to a small parlour at the back of the house, overlooking the garden and the river. The full force of a spring storm was suddenly upon us. Rain lashed down outside and candles had been lit, ribbing the room with shadows. The distant cries of boatmen echoed eerily through the horn-paned windows from the Thames.

I immediately recognized the couple seated at the table as the pair I had seen at Westminster the previous day. They were still in mourning, but the finery of the previous occasion had been replaced by more homely attire: a long, loose velvet robe, rubbed thin in patches, for him, and a plain woollen gown and linen hood for her. The man looked thinner than ever, hunched over his plate, his grey hair gilded by the candlelight. He didn’t glance up as Bertram and I entered the room, focusing all his attention on the apple he was dissecting with a pearl-handled knife. Judith St Clair, however, raised her handsome head and gave me an appraising look.

‘You must be this chapman Her Highness was telling me about.’ Her eyes raked me from head to foot in a manner which, in someone else, could have been considered insulting, but which, in her, seemed merely curious. ‘It appears that His Grace of Gloucester sets great store by your ability to solve mysteries. An odd occupation for a pedlar.’

‘A gift from God, madam.’

At my slightly caustic tone, her gaze sharpened and she smiled grimly.

‘Maybe … Well, no one will be happier than myself to see the villain of this particular crime laid by the heels.’ I thought for a moment she was on the verge of tears, but she straightened her back and gestured impatiently, as though ashamed to display any such weakness. ‘So? What do you want from my husband and me?’

‘Just to talk to you both; to ask you about Master Quantrell and to learn anything you can tell me about the night he was murdered. I’d also like to question Mistress Threadgold and your son, sir, if they’ve no objection.’ I turned towards the silent figure at the other end of the table.

Godfrey St Clair did lift his eyes at that and sent me a long, penetrating stare. Then he nodded. ‘Jocelyn has nothing to hide. I don’t see why he should object.’ He had a surprisingly strong, deep voice for someone who appeared so frail.

‘When do you wish to begin this … this interrogation?’ his wife asked with, I thought, a touch of resentment.

But before I could reply, the parlour door opened and a young girl entered the room. I judged her to be some eighteen or nineteen years of age, pretty in a plumpish way with large brown eyes and a mass of very dark hair which, at present, she wore loose about her shoulders. She had on a gown of soft grey wool with a low-cut neck and turned-back sleeves, both of which revealed her linen undershift.

‘Who’s this?’ she asked of no one in particular, seating herself at the table.

Judith St Clair said, ‘This is the chapman I told you of last night.’ And to me, ‘My stepdaughter, Alcina Threadgold.’

I had already guessed the young woman’s identity, and gave her a polite bow. She returned the compliment by looking me over much as her stepmother had done, but with a greater degree of appreciation. Bertram received the same treatment, which made him blush uncomfortably and shuffle his feet. Alcina threw back her head and laughed.

‘Be quiet!’ Judith ordered. ‘This is a house of mourning. Or had you forgotten?’

‘I’m less likely to forget than any of you,’ Alcina retorted. ‘Fulk and I were betrothed to be married.’

‘And that’s a lie,’ said a fourth voice.

A young man, a few years older than Alcina and not that much younger than myself, had joined the others at the breakfast table. This, surely, must be Jocelyn St Clair, although any likeness to his father was not marked. He had the same hawkish nose, it was true, but his eyes were blue rather than Godfrey’s indeterminate grey, and his hair, worn fashionably cut and curled about his ears, was a lighter brown than I imagined the older man’s had been in his youth.

Alcina was on her feet. ‘What do you mean, a lie?’ she demanded furiously. ‘Fulk and I were going to be married. It was common knowledge!’

‘He had no intention of marrying you,’ Jocelyn threw back at her, equally furious. ‘Lionel Broderer told me so. He told me all about that scene in the workshop the evening Fulk died. And Mistress Broderer confirmed it.’

‘Liars, both of them!’ Alcina was near to tears.

‘No! There were other people present who’ll confirm it. Stop deluding yourself, Cina! Face up to the facts! There are some who really love you.’ Jocelyn hesitated, then finished lamely, ‘Brandon Jolliffe, for one. And … And Lionel wouldn’t say no if you looked in his direction.’

‘That will do, both of you.’ Judith rose from her place, magisterial in her anger. ‘There are strangers in our midst and I will not tolerate this kind of behaviour in their presence. If you have differences, settle them in private.’ She turned to me. ‘Master Chapman, let us get this over and done with. If you’ll follow me, we’ll go to the winter parlour, which is always empty at this time of year. Although, goodness knows why. Today is more like winter than spring. Thank the saints the Duchess had a fine day yesterday.’ She glanced at Bertram. ‘Is he coming, too?’

Bertram drew himself up to his full height, such as it was. ‘I am the representative of my master, the Duke of Gloucester,’ he announced importantly. ‘I am here to assist Master Chapman with his enquiries.’

I am a tolerant man as a rule, as all who know me will testify (well, most of them, anyway), but I was beginning to harbour unkind thoughts about young Master Serifaber. Visions of racks and thumbscrews and vats of boiling oil hovered tantalizingly at the back of my mind.

‘Come with me, then.’ Judith swept past us, out of the door, and we, perforce, had to follow.

We were led up a flight of stairs, along a narrow corridor, up another, shorter staircase and into a room not more than about seven feet square, again facing south on to the Thames to catch whatever there was of the westering afternoon sun. This morning, however, it was cold and dismal and no welcoming fire burned on the hearth.

‘Wait,’ Judith St Clair ordered peremptorily. ‘I’ll send for candles.’

She disappeared. I ignored Bertram and took stock of the room.

There were no expensive rugs as in the hall, but, like the parlour below, the floor was covered with fresh rushes mixed with scented herbs and dried flowers. (Some underling had been up and hard at work since the crack of dawn.) A broad window seat was strewn with cushions, two carved armchairs were drawn up, one on either side of the empty hearth, a harp and its stool stood in one corner, an oak chest, banded with iron, offered an extra, if uncomfortable, seat, while a couple of joint stools completed the furnishings.

Bertram had his own method of inspection. Not content with letting his eyes do the work, he wandered around the room, touching everything: prodding cushions, running his fingers across the harp strings, kicking up the rushes.

After a while, I could stand it no longer. ‘For goodness’ sake, lad, you’re like a flea on a griddle. Stand still! You’re making me nervous.’

Judith St Clair returned with a servant, a man in his mid-twenties, a surly expression marring features that might, in other circumstances, have been quite pleasant. He was carrying a flint and tinder-box and some candles which he was directed to light and set in holders about the room. Then he was ordered to kindle the pile of sticks and logs on the hearth, a feat he accomplished with a great deal of difficulty, for the room was damp. Finally, when this was done, he stumped off, grumbling under his breath. Judith St Clair heaved a sigh.

‘You must forgive William,’ she said. ‘He’s been in my employ since he was eight years old. His father was servant to my first husband, Edmund Broderer, and he regards himself as privileged. But he’s very loyal.’ She paused, plainly annoyed with herself for explaining and apologizing for something that was none of our business. We were uninvited and of lowly status, even if we did have the backing of a royal duke. She sat down in one of the armchairs. ‘Well, what do you want to know?’ She didn’t ask us to sit.

I wasn’t standing for that (literally). I drew forward one of the joint stools and motioned to Bertram to do the same with the other. Only when he was settled did I lean forward, elbows on knees, and request our reluctant hostess to tell us about her reunion with Fulk Quantrell.

‘What can I say?’ She was angry at what she considered my display of bad manners, but was powerless to dismiss me without indirectly offending the Dowager Duchess, who had given her blessing to our enquiries. ‘He was my nephew, my sister Veronica’s son. Her only child. My only living kinsman. Furthermore, he and his mother had lived with my first husband and myself from the time of his birth until he was six years old, when Veronica decided to go with the Lady Margaret to Burgundy.’

‘You were expecting his arrival?’

‘Yes, but not until yesterday. I knew that he would accompany the Dowager Duchess on this visit to London. He had written to tell me so at the beginning of December.’

‘But he turned up much earlier?’

‘At the beginning of March. He had come to tell me … tell me …’ Judith’s breath caught momentarily in her throat and she seemed to be in the grip of some powerful emotion. However, she took a deep breath and steadied herself. ‘Fulk had come to tell me that my sister was dead. She had died shortly after Christmas. He had intended coming earlier, he said, but the Duchess had been too upset to spare him immediately. Except for those six years when she lived with me, Veronica had been with my lady ever since she was a child.’

I nodded, choosing my next words carefully. ‘You … You became very fond of your nephew, I’ve been told.’

After a brief hesitation, Judith answered in a restricted voice, ‘Very fond.’

It was my turn to hesitate. ‘Perhaps unwisely fond?’ I ventured at last.

Her chin went up defiantly. ‘Some might think so. In fact,’ she added candidly, ‘nearly everyone thought so, and didn’t refrain from making their opinions public. Roland and Lydia Jolliffe. Martha Broderer and her son, Lionel. My stepson, whom you met downstairs. Even my housekeeper had the gall to give me a piece of her mind.’

‘And you?’ I asked. ‘What did you think of your conduct?’

The rain had ceased, as springtime showers do, as abruptly as it had started. I could hear the birds begin to sing again in the garden. The logs crackled on the hearth, but for a few protracted seconds there were no other sounds in the room. I wondered if I had been too impertinent. Even Bertram had stopped fidgeting on his stool.

Then Judith gave a sudden crack of laughter. ‘If you knew me better, you wouldn’t ask such a question. I never query my own actions. Only weak people do that. It’s the sign of a vacillating mind.’ She drummed her fingers against the arms of her chair. ‘As soon as I saw Fulk again, I recognized him for what he was: the son I never had. Veronica was my twin. We were born within a few minutes of one another. There had always been a very close and very strong bond between us. As girls and as women, it had been an unwritten rule that we helped each other out of trouble. And although I hadn’t seen her for nearly twelve years, that bond had never been broken. When Fulk told me the news of her death, it was like a blow to the heart; yet I wasn’t altogether surprised. I had been feeling low in spirits and extremely melanchoy since Christmas without knowing why. Then, of course, I understood: somehow, the fact of her death had communicated itself to me. The thread of twinship that had joined us all our lives had at last been cut. I was alone.’

‘Except for Fulk.’

She nodded eagerly. ‘Yes, except for my nephew. He was the link that made her death bearable. He looked like her, too. Which meant he also looked like me. And now …’ This time, Judith was unable to recover her poise so easily.

I finished for her. ‘And now Fulk’s dead, as well.’

‘Yes.’ The word was barely audible; a sigh of grief, a breath of air. She raised one hand to her mouth.

‘Then we must find his killer,’ I said gently. ‘Don’t you agree?’

She gave a little snort of laughter. ‘Where will you start? Thanks to my folly – oh yes, I can admit now that it was folly, although I would probably do it all over again – you’re not short of suspects.’

‘That’s true … Mistress St Clair, was it you or was it your nephew who made your intentions in regard to your new will general knowledge?’

‘Those sorts of things can’t be kept secret for long,’ she answered evasively. I opened my mouth to argue the point, but she forestalled me. ‘Very well! If you insist on the truth, I would have preferred that Fulk had kept quiet about it until I had had time to speak to the others most nearly affected. But Fulk was young, excited by his good fortune, anxious to let everyone know how high he stood in my affections. And he felt that he needed to learn about the embroidery business if he was one day to own the workshop. It was only natural that he should call there from time to time in order to see for himself how things were done.’

‘And natural, surely, that your cousin should resent it.’

‘Edmund’s cousin,’ she corrected me, as though anxious to distance herself from this man she had been planning to wrong. ‘He’s not my kinsman. Fulk was.’ She was trying to justify the unjustifiable, as was only natural in someone with a conscience.

The door opened and the manservant, William, returned. ‘You wantin’ any more logs on that fire?’ he asked.

I froze. I knew that voice. I recognized the Welsh accent. It belonged to my assailant of the night before.