The Christmas Wassail

NINE

My knock was answered almost immediately.

‘Oh, it’s you,’ my former mother-in-law grunted, and with this unenthusiastic greeting turned back into the cottage. She added over her shoulder, ‘Come in then and close the door. You’re letting in all the cold air.’

I did as she bade me. ‘You don’t sound very pleased to see me. Are you expecting someone?’

‘I thought it might be Bess or Maria with some news.’ She picked up a sharp knife from the table and went on with her task of splitting the skins of a dozen or so apples which she was preparing for the evening’s wassailing. ‘I’m taking these round to the baker’s in High Street in a moment or two and he’ll bake them in his oven for me. You can’t get a really good baked apple over an open fire. What does Adela do with hers?’

‘I don’t know,’ I admitted. ‘I’ve never thought about it.’ She snorted and muttered something under her breath about ‘men never do’. ‘Margaret,’ I went on, ignoring the provocation, ‘can you remember the name of the man you told me came courting Dame Drusilla a few years back?’

Her head jerked up at that and she paused in her work to look hard at me. After a long moment’s consideration, she slowly shook her head. ‘No, I can’t. I don’t think I ever heard it. Why? Is it important?’

‘I don’t rightly know. It might be,’ I said cautiously.

‘To do with Alderman Trefusis’s murder and now with Sir George’s disappearance?’

‘Perhaps.’

She handed me her knife and indicated the remaining fruit. ‘Finish slitting these apple skins for me.’ She twitched her cloak from its peg. ‘I’ll be back in a few minutes.’

‘Where are you going?’

‘To fetch Bess and Maria, if I can find them.’ The door banged to behind her and the latch clicked into place of its own accord.

Margaret was as good as her word and, before I had time to add the last apple to the basket waiting to be taken to the baker’s, the latch clicked again as she and her two friends entered the cottage.

‘What’s this all about?’ Goody Watkins asked peevishly, while Bess Simnel’s beady eyes darted around the room in search of sustenance. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve interrupted my after-dinner nap to talk to him.’ She gave a scornful jerk of her head in my direction. ‘He doesn’t know any more’n we do. Less, I expect.’

‘Got ’nything to eat, Margaret?’ Bess whined. Her small, bird-like frame seemed to need constant nourishment.

Impatiently, Margaret handed her a stale oatcake, left over from her breakfast, then turned to address Maria. ‘Roger wants some information,’ she said, ‘and I can’t give it to him. He says it could be important. I thought one or the other of you might know.’

At these words, both women came to attention, quivering like a couple of dogs scenting a bone. The challenge was a clarion call to arms. Their very honour was at stake.

‘What information?’ Maria and Bess demanded in chorus. (At least, it would have been in chorus if the latter’s mouth had been empty. As it was, she made a kind of champing, gurgling noise, but its meaning was obvious.)

I repeated my previous request to Margaret. ‘Did either of you ever know the name of the young man who wanted to marry Drusilla Marvell three years ago?’

‘Not so young a man as all that,’ Goody Watkins retorted. ‘He were about your age as I recall.’

‘’S’right,’ Bess Simnel agreed. She ran her tongue around her almost toothless gums, trying to find the last remnants of oatcake. ‘That were stale, Margaret,’ she accused her hostess before bending her mind to the problem in hand. A look of deep disappointment contracted her little features. ‘I can’t say for sure I ever heard it, did you, Maria?’

But Goody Watkins wasn’t going to admit defeat so easily. She chewed her lips, paced up and down and breathed heavily through inflated nostrils.

Finally, in desperation — not having wished to give them a lead of any kind — I said, ‘Could it have been Dee? Or could it have started with Dee?’

At these words, Bess Simnel choked over a crumb she had just discovered lurking behind one of the few ancient teeth remaining in her mouth. But as soon as it had been dislodged by a good back thumping from both her friends, she gave a hoarse, triumphant cry.

‘Deakin! That were his name! Miles Deakin! Fancy me rememberin’ that, and at my age, too!’

It was plainly a victory she would not let the others forget, and their sour expressions told me that they knew it. I was hard put to not to burst out laughing.

‘You’re a wonder, Bess,’ I said, leaning over and kissing one withered cheek. She gave a little scream and skip of pleasure.

‘Behave yourself!’ Maria Watkins admonished her.

‘You, also, Roger,’ Margaret told me sharply. ‘Why did you want to know?’

‘About the young man’s name?’ I laid a heavy emphasis on the word ‘young’. ‘Because the last thing Alderman Trefusis said before he died was the word Dee. No one I’ve spoken to seems to know of anyone in the city called that. And then it occurred to me that it might just have been the beginning of a name.’

‘So why did you think of old Drusilla’s beau?’ This was Margaret, hot on the trail of what could prove to be a truly fresh piece of gossip.

I hesitated. The information I had culled that afternoon should first have gone to Richard Manifold or Sergeant Merryweather, but I was grateful to the three women for their help, so I told them of my visit to Dame Drusilla and of the man she had seen staring up at her brother’s house. I also explained how my suspicions had been aroused by the dame’s reaction to my mention of the name of Dee.

I finished by asking, ‘You don’t happen to know where this man, Miles Deakin, hailed from, I suppose?’

‘He weren’t from the city,’ Maria Watkins said positively.

‘Maybe he was from Clifton,’ Margaret suggested. ‘That’s how he knew about Drusilla and her money.’

‘Not necessarily,’ I said. ‘If he was staying with kinfolk in the town — an aunt, uncle, grandparents — they could as easily have given him the information. Did Alderman Trefusis have any connection to this story? Might this Deakin have had a grudge against him for any reason?’

‘I think Trefusis were always a friend of Sir George,’ Maria said at last, and the other two nodded.

‘Soldiers together they were, in the French wars,’ was Bess’s contribution. ‘Leastways, so I’ve allus been told. P’raps he were the one who let Sir George know what was going on. Sir George lived up in his big house in Clifton in them days.’

‘That’s likely enough,’ Margaret agreed. ‘That would give the young man a grudge against him.’

‘And you never heard a word as to where Miles Deakin came from?’

Margaret shook her head regretfully. ‘No, never. Not so much as a whisper. What about you, Bess? Maria?’

But neither woman could throw any further light on the subject. All three looked a little shame-faced at this important gap in their knowledge and were inclined to excuse the lapse as if, somehow, they had failed me. Soon, however, they were anxious to be gone, eager to spread their newly acquired information amongst friends and acquaintances. Long before nightfall there would hardly be a soul anywhere in Redcliffe who had not heard of the stranger in a bird mask who had been seen staring up at Sir George’s house the afternoon before he disappeared.

I arrived home to find Richard Manifold seated in our kitchen, but no sign of Adela; an absence soon explained by a message left with the sergeant that she had taken her apples to be baked at Master Cleghorn’s bakery in St Leonard’s Lane.

‘Any news of Sir George?’ I asked, sinking down on to the second stool and pouring myself a beaker of ale. Overhead, I could hear the three older children playing.

Richard gave me a curious glance. ‘Weren’t you present when I made my announcement at the High Cross half an hour ago?’

I shook my head. ‘As you can see, I’ve only just got back.’

‘Where have you been? Didn’t you get my message that I was calling off the search until tomorrow? Jack Gload and Pete Littleman thought they’d spoken to most folk. And everyone was asked to pass the message on to those who might not have heard. I requested people to assemble at the cross so that I could give them instructions for Tuesday.’ There was a short pause while he eyed me speculatively. He was naturally suspicious of me. ‘Where did you look? I don’t recollect having seen you.’

He was at his most irritatingly self-important. His manner was that of a pedagogue questioning an errant pupil and I was disinclined to say anything of my discovery. I had no proof that this Miles Deakin was in any way involved in the crime. Instead, I mentioned my visit to Margaret Walker and her friends.

He snorted. ‘Why, in heaven’s name? Those three old biddies won’t know anything. All they’ll give you is tittle-tattle and gossip.’

‘They have some very interesting information sometimes,’ I answered defensively. ‘Bess Simnel in particular has an excellent memory for her age.’ I must remember to warn Margaret and her friends to say nothing to anyone in authority of what I had told them. Not that they would be listened to if they did.

Richard made a dismissive noise but calmed down a little, although he still had a heightened colour. I realized that his anger was really about the fact that I had been ferreting out information on my own and not accompanying the rest of the search party as directed.

‘I must go and report to the sheriff on our lack of progress,’ he said with a sigh, hauling himself to his feet like a man wearied to the bone. I felt momentarily sorry for him. His Christmas was turning into a nightmare.

‘Will you be wassailing tonight?’ I asked, following him out to the street door and for once not having to make a pretence of being civil.

He grunted something about chance being a fine thing and went off up Small Street at a rapid pace, meeting Adela coming in the opposite direction. He stopped to speak to her, and I could tell by the way his head kept turning in my direction that he was unburdening himself of his woes.

‘What have you been doing to upset Richard now?’ she demanded with a sigh as I held the door wide for her to enter. She had a basket on one arm covered with a white cloth and I could smell the fragrant scent of baked apples. With her opposite hand she pulled the little cart on wheels that I had made for Adam and in it Luke sat bolt upright, smiling at everyone. She added, ‘We’d better have supper early. As soon as it’s really dark, the wassailing will begin.’

By mid-evening I, like most men and quite a few women, was reeling drunk. ‘Lamb’s wool’ is a potent brew and I had had more than my fair share.

We had visited friends and neighbours in the vicinity and further afield, while our own little house had been crammed to capacity by those same friends and neighbours returning our calls. Most people I recognized, but there were quite a few I didn’t, animal and bird masks being worn by many, especially the young. And, as I have already said, by mid-evening I was in no state to recognize anybody, being fit only for my bed. Not that I sought it, of course. I remember standing on someone’s table, along with a few other choice souls, singing at the top of my voice. (Regrettably, I can’t sing because I have no ear for music, and produce the most distressing sounds.) I remember, too, having a fight with Burl Hodge — what about neither of us had the slightest recollection next day — staggering around in the street and eventually falling into the central drain. Even that, and the fact that Burl got bitten on the leg by a rat, didn’t sober us. Our enmity forgotten, we just lay there, on our backs, staring up at the starry night sky and laughing inanely like a couple of fools. Finally, members of the Watch, condemned to seeing everyone but themselves get roaring drunk, came and rounded us up, sending us all back to our respective homes to sleep off the results of the wassail and wake to splitting headaches in the morning.

Be sure that Nemesis had her revenge. Retribution was sharp and painful. I do not remember ever having been so ill either before or since.

‘I must have been poisoned,’ I moaned to Adela halfway through the following morning when, sitting up in bed, white, shaken and very weak, I was myself again and the ghastly consequences of the previous night seemed to be over.

‘Nonsense!’ she retorted. She was at her most unsympathetic, but I have discovered from long experience that wives usually are where strong drink is involved. ‘How could you possibly have been poisoned?’

‘Easily,’ I snapped, ‘if someone’s ale had turned sour. Kept in a dirty barrel for too long. I tell you, Adela, I’ve been sick in the past, and I’ve had some splitting heads, but never anything like I’ve experienced tonight. Fortunately, I’ve always been able to rid myself very quickly of anything bad. My mother maintained that I had one of the most sensitive bellies she’d ever known. I must have eaten or drunk something that was rotten last night.’

‘I’m all right,’ was the acid rejoinder, ‘and I ate and drank everything that you did.’

‘You couldn’t have done,’ I said positively.

I didn’t blame her for this lack of sympathy. As is a woman’s lot, she had borne the brunt of the clearing up, the emptying of slop buckets, the mopping up of the bedchamber floor, the extra washing and drying of sheets — and this in December — that such upsets entail. Moreover, I had no means of proving my theory, only a knowledge of my own body and, consequently, a growing conviction that this was no ordinary aftermath of drunkenness.

My suggestion of ale which had turned sour was, on the face of it, the most sensible one, but as I lay in bed, listening to the morning household sounds going on below me, the gnawing suspicion that someone might deliberately have tried to kill me gradually tightened its grip. It could so easily have happened. Something dropped in a beaker of ‘lamb’s wool’ which had then been handed specifically to me and the thing was done. There had been such a crowd of people not only in our own, but in every house and cottage we had visited that it would be impossible to guess where or when or by whom such an act was committed.

But who would want me dead? Whose toes was I treading on that he or she might feel it imperative to remove me? Was someone growing afraid that I was getting too close to the truth concerning Alderman Trefusis’s murder? If the killer were indeed this Miles Deakin, he could still be in the city in disguise, using another name, waiting to wreak his vengeance on Sir George. Maybe he had already taken his revenge: the knight was certainly missing and no one seemed able to find him. It was a time of year when nobody questioned the wearing of masks; when people ate too much and drank too much, so that sickness and even sudden death were rarely queried.

I dared not share these thoughts with Adela. On the one hand, they would alarm her and, on the other, in order to quell those alarms, she would do as she always did and accuse me of letting my imagination run away with me. And who was to say that she wasn’t right? I had no shred of proof that my suspicions had foundation. They were entirely without substance and it was only my instinct that warned me to tread carefully in the near future.

Today was the fifth day of Christmas, and from now until the eleventh day — the Eve of Epiphany or the Eve of Twelfth Night, whichever you preferred to call it — the celebrations abated and normal life temporarily resumed. There would be far less feasting and drinking; indeed, none at all for poorer folk like me and my family. I had plenty of time to recover my health and strength. Happily, I have always had great recuperative powers, and even at the advanced age of thirty-one I was still able to shrug off sickness with comparative ease; far more easily than most people.

Adela knew this as well as I did, so she was not surprised when I tottered downstairs just before dinner. ‘It’s only pottage,’ she said. ‘Do you feel you can eat it?’

‘I can try,’ I answered with forced cheerfulness. ‘Is there any news of Sir George? Has he been found yet?’

‘Not when I last saw Richard. He called about an hour ago to find out where you were and if you were going to join the search again today. I explained that you were at present laid low, but that, knowing you, you would most likely have recovered sufficiently to join him later.’

The older children arrived and took their places around the table looking rather subdued. They had been kept awake part of the night by the sound of my sufferings and were duly impressed by my capacity for regurgitation.

I wasn’t too certain about the pottage; it had a distinctly day-before-yesterday’s appearance. However, I manfully swallowed a mouthful and then gave a very loud belch. Luke, tied to Adam’s baby chair and being spoonfed by Adela, immediately imitated the noise. His foster brothers and sister were enchanted.

‘Do it again, Father,’ pleaded Elizabeth, clapping her hands.

‘Certainly not!’ I exclaimed indignantly. But then another involuntary gust of wind escaped me.

Luke beamed all over his sweet little face and once more repeated the sound. The other three were ecstatic.

‘How do you do it, Father?’ Adam wanted to know, plainly with a view to practising the art himself.

I frowned at him. ‘I don’t do it on purpose,’ I said. ‘It’s just wind escaping from my belly.’

My son nodded sagely. ‘You were ill in the night. I heard you. P’raps it was because of what that bird man put in your beaker.’

Adela, bending over to wipe Luke’s mouth, suddenly jerked upright, while I stared at Adam like someone in a trance.

‘What … What bird man?’ I asked as soon as I could command my voice. I waited while my son emptied his mouth of an over-large spoonful of pottage, then demanded again, ‘What bird man?’

‘The one who was here last night,’ he said. ‘Put something in your ale. I saw him.’

I leant across the table and grasped his wrist to prevent him filling his mouth again. ‘You mean here, in this house? A man wearing a bird mask?’

‘Yes.’

‘What sort of bird mask? What sort of a beak did it have?’

‘Big one. Like this.’ With his free hand, Adam drew a great curve in the air over his own little nose. ‘You’re hurting my arm,’ he added reproachfully.

I released him, recalling as I did so Dame Drusilla’s words. ‘A bird mask with a great beak.’

Adela was regarding me, eyes wide with fear. ‘Roger, do you really think that someone …?’ She couldn’t bring herself to say more.

‘It’s possible,’ I said grimly. I turned back to my son. ‘Adam,’ I asked sternly, ‘are you sure about this? Are you certain that the man in the bird mask put something in my ale?’

‘Yes, I’m certain.’ Adam stared at me with all the injured air of one whose word is being doubted.

‘Here? In this kitchen?’

‘I told you! There were some beakers on the table full of that frothy stuff you were all drinking. I saw the bird man drop something in one of them and then give it to you.’

‘And I drank what was in it?’

He shook his head. ‘I don’t know. It was getting awful noisy by then and people were acting very silly. I got under the table with Hercules. But I ’spect you did. You were drinking ever such a lot and acting sillier than anybody else.’

I had the grace to blush at this damning indictment and avoided Adela’s look of accusation. Instead, I asked, ‘Did you see what it was the bird man dropped in the beaker?’

But Adam was unable to tell me any more than he had done already. I had no doubt at all that it was the truth, for why should he lie? Moreover, it bore out my own suspicions. I thought back, desperately trying to summon up the scene after we had returned from calling on friends and neighbours, when we had acted as hosts; when people had crowded into our little house until it seemed to be bursting at the seams. I had definitely been in the kitchen where a good host should be, dispensing hospitality in the shape of food and drink. But by that time, I was more than a little tipsy and, try as I might, I could recall nothing very clearly. I made a great effort to picture a man in a bird mask, but failed dismally. He had, according to Adam, handed me a drink and had probably wished me, ‘Waes Hael!’ Had I said, ‘Drink Hael!’ in return? But I could remember no particular voice, only a cacophony of sounds buzzing in my ears like a swarm of bees.

I had been so lost in thought that I’d failed to realize my family were all waiting for me to speak. I cleared my throat and pushed back my stool. ‘You say they’re still searching for Sir George?’ I asked Adela, and when she nodded, said, ‘I’ll join them.’

‘You’ve hardly touched your pottage,’ my wife pointed out anxiously, and I repressed a shudder.

‘My belly’s still too upset.’ I excused myself.

I was just pulling on my boots, with a little assistance from Bess and Nick, when a knock at the street door heralded the arrival of Richard Manifold. He looked exhausted and Adela fetched him a beaker of ale without waiting to be asked. The two older children vanished upstairs.

‘You still haven’t found him, then,’ I said, not bothering to make it a question.

Richard shook his head before taking a long, steady, grateful draught of ale. ‘No.’

I frowned. ‘You’ve searched the crypt under Saint Giles and what remains of the old synagogue foundations? You know there’s a secret chamber at the far end?’

Our guest sighed wearily. ‘The answer is “yes” to both questions.’

‘And the underground chamber at Saint Mary Bellhouse?’

‘Yes, yes! I tell you, Roger, I don’t think there’s a hiding-place anywhere in this city that hasn’t been searched. Empty houses, occupied houses, outhouses, the stews, the inns, the alleyways. We’ve even armed ourselves and ventured into ‘Little Ireland’. We didn’t get much cooperation there, as I don’t need to tell you, but, in fairness, we weren’t obstructed, either. According to them, of course, they’re all honest trading folk and I don’t doubt some of them are.’ He rubbed his nose and sighed again. ‘This morning we’ve searched Sir George’s own house from cellar to attic and Dame Drusilla’s, next door, as well. The old lady wasn’t best pleased and went so far as to say she hoped her brother had finally got what he deserved and was probably at the bottom of the Frome or the Avon. She really hates him, but I can’t pretend any of the family members are showing much concern. They all give the impression that if he never turns up again, they won’t be shedding any tears.’

‘What about Patience? Lady Marvell?’

Richard shrugged and finished the remainder of his ale. ‘She seems the least concerned of the lot of them.’ He paused, biting a fingernail. ‘In some strange way, she seems almost … What can I say? Triumphant. Yes, that’s the word. Triumphant. Almost as if it was something she had wanted to happen.’ He rose to his feet. ‘I must be off. If we haven’t found Sir George by nightfall, the sheriff has decided to call off the search and assume the knight has either drowned or left the city. As you’ve said yourself, Roger, it isn’t an impossible task nowadays to leave without using the gates with the walls in their present state of disrepair. Will you join the search later or is your belly still giving you trouble?’

I indicated my boots. ‘I was just coming to join you when you knocked. The fresh air will do me good.’

Richard grimaced. ‘Be careful, then. It’s very cold outside.’

Here, Adam, who had not followed his half-brother and — sister upstairs, but remained in the kitchen, a silent listener to his elders’ conversation, broke in to remind me that I had promised to take him to see the mummers again that afternoon. His lower lip was trembling pathetically (a trick he had learned very early in life) and his large brown eyes were full of tears. I could remember no such promise, but to deny him would only provoke the kind of scene I felt unable to cope with at the present time.

I glanced at Richard, who was looking disapproving — he thought me far too lenient a father — and said lamely and untruthfully, ‘I’d forgotten. But I’ll join in the hunt again as soon as the mumming is over.’

He nodded abruptly. ‘Go where you like. Covering ground that has already been covered doesn’t matter. It’s all we can do now.’