The Lammas Feast

Eighteen

That night, Adela and I comforted one another. I was grateful for her generosity, because I knew in my heart of hearts that she had not fully recovered from Adam’s birth. But when I would have said something, she hushed me, kissing me into silence and holding me so tightly that I guessed she was still shaken by the events of the morning and the realization that I could, even as we made love, have been in prison, facing a charge of murder. A charge, moreover, that, but for Philip Lamprey, might have been difficult to disprove.

For once, Adam slept the night through, a circumstance so unusual that both Adela and I became restless. I woke at least four times, twice to use the chamber pot, and on each occasion was conscious that Adela was either awake or tossing from side to side in her sleep. Towards morning, I found myself fully conscious, sitting up in bed and muttering, ‘Fougères is in Brittany.’

‘What? What’s that, sweetheart?’ Adela asked sleepily. ‘What are you saying?’

‘Nothing.’ I snuggled down beside her again. ‘Nothing of consequence.’

Faintly, in the distance, I could hear a cock crowing and, not long after, the rumble of the day’s first load — of meat? vegetables? ironmongery? — being driven towards the Frome Gate. The fifth day of Saint James’s Fair was also getting under way. From the open ground around the priory came echoes of shouts mingled with laughter and the inevitable arguments that punctuated most such gatherings. Soon it would be time to get up — there were slight stirrings and rustlings from Adam’s cradle — but I might be able to snatch a few extra moments of slumber.

They refused to come, however, as my tired brain puzzled over the odd thought that had roused me. Why was I so sure that Fougères was in Brittany? Because Philip Lamprey had told me so, of course, and although there were many subjects on which I would never trust his judgement, his knowledge of the hows and particularly the wheres of the late wars was greater than most men’s. But why had it come as a revelation to me that Fougères was in Brittany? Again the answer came pat. Because I had previously believed it to be in Normandy.

My thoughts went back to my conversation with John Overbecks in the Green Lattis on the Tuesday morning of the preceding week. We had been talking about the loss of our French possessions overseas, with particular reference to the Conqueror’s duchy. My ignorance of geography being what it was, I had lumped together all the places he had mentioned and imagined that most of them were in Normandy.

But what did it matter that Fougères was in Brittany? Why had my unconscious mind considered the fact of sufficient importance to force me wide awake? There was no reason that I could fathom except that Brittany had run like a thread throughout all the terrible events of the past ten days, from the first moment, when I had seen the stranger step ashore from the Breton ship. Spying, subversion, Jasper Fairbrother’s unlikely involvement as a Tudor agent, Timothy Plummer, counter-spies sent down from London — why did I feel that all these strands in this tale of four murders were irrelevant? That they were like so many false trails strewn across my path to divert me from the truth?

Something moved in the darkest recesses of my mind. Something, some knowledge, buried deep, but slowly rising to the surface, was bringing revelation in its wake. I had only to lie still, to hold on, to wait patiently and all would be revealed. .

The stirrings and whimperings in the cradle were getting louder. I struggled in vain to ignore them, to will Adam back to sleep. But it was useless, as I had known it would be. A pair of crumpled fists appeared above the sides of his crib, accompanied by an almighty roar that declared it to be my son’s breakfast time, and woe betide anybody who came between him and his food. Adela, still half blind with sleep, was already climbing out of bed, staggering across the room to pick up our vociferous offspring and pacify him before we and our neighbours were rendered permanently hard of hearing.

Hercules, too, was suddenly up and about, landing, as usual, with a thump on my chest and starting to lick my face. Fending him off and cursing silently, I lay back against the pillows, trying desperately to recapture that moment when I had felt so close to a solution. But it had vanished like the wraith it was, and I was left frustrated and bad-tempered, yet more determined than ever to discover the truth and bring the culprit, or culprits, for these murders to justice.

Adela and I were halfway through breakfast, when a knock at the door was followed almost immediately by the appearance of Richard Manifold.

Adela frowned her disapproval and muttered something under her breath about encroaching ways. (Or not under her breath, but just loud enough for our visitor to get the gist of her words.) The sergeant flushed painfully and murmured his apologies. I very nearly felt sorry for him: it was obvious to me, at least, that he had come to make his peace, particularly with Adela, whose good opinion he valued rather more highly than mine. He also, as I have said before, valued a friendly hearth and a comforting meal at the end of a day’s work, when the hard drinking and forced conviviality of the city taverns began to pall. And with the added knowledge that our circumstances this coming autumn and winter were likely to provide him with an even more comfortable billet than heretofore, he was anxious to make friends with us again.

At my invitation, he joined us at table and I poured him a cup of ale from the jug, ignoring my wife’s reproachful look.

‘Roger,’ he said awkwardly, ‘I trust there’s no hard feelings for what happened yesterday. I had no choice but to arrest you, once John Overbecks had revealed the contents of Mistress Ford’s new will, and once those contents had been verified by Attorney Hulin. Fortunately,’ he added even more stiffly, ‘you were able to exonerate yourself.’

I could guess, by the semi-official manner in which he spoke, that he felt acutely ill-at-ease. Adela’s unforgiving silence offered him no relief, and I realized with some amusement that I was the one who would have to ease his embarrassment.

I clapped him on the shoulder. ‘You could have done nothing else,’ I agreed, and smiled gently at Adela to deflect her indignation. ‘Besides,’ I added with a touch of irony, ‘I knew there could have been no personal animosity in your actions. You’re too good a sheriff’s officer to let feelings of your own cloud your professional judgement.’

He slipped me a resentful glance, then grinned reluctantly, raising an imaginary sword in the manner of a fencer acknowledging a hit. He knew when he was beaten and held out his hand.

‘Friends?’

‘Friends,’ I agreed, each of us conveniently ignoring the fact that friendship was something we had never felt for one another.

He accepted a second cup of ale and said, ‘I’ve come to pick your brains.’ He grimaced. ‘As you can imagine, the murder yesterday of Mistress Ford has brought demands for an immediate solution from my lord sheriff, the mayor and every city elder of note. Never mind that, up until now, urgency has not been a feature of this string of deaths. Jasper Fairbrother? Too many suspects, and anyway, who cares that Bristol has been rid of a notorious troublemaker? The stranger? A suspected Tudor spy, and, in a city almost unanimous in its support for the House of York, again who cares? Walter Godsmark? One less bully for the populace to worry about, and, in any case, an undoubted accident. But Cicely Ford, not merely respected, but almost universally beloved, well, that’s a different story. Our only suspect is in the clear’ — another sidelong glance, accompanied by the glimmer of a smile — ‘which leaves me with a head as empty as Adela’s pitcher is likely to be if we go on drinking at our present rate.’

‘And you want to know if I have any ideas on the subject?’

He nodded and refused my offer of a third cup of ale.

‘It occurred to me that you might have some thoughts on the subject. You’ve always been a nosy beggar, and you’ve earned a reputation for being able to solve these sorts of problems.’

Adela, who had so far said nothing, got abruptly to her feet and began to clear the dishes from the table.

‘Perhaps you’d care to continue this discussion elsewhere,’ she suggested coldly. ‘I have work to do, and then I must go to market. I shall need some money, Roger.’

I gave her a hug and a kiss. ‘Sweetheart, I know you think I ought to be working, but four deaths in ten days requires some consideration. If they’re connected, as I’m more than inclined to believe they are, our murderer is getting much too confident. And who knows who may be next if he, or she, considers them a threat?’

‘Oh. . Very well. Just keep out of my way, that’s all,’ she answered grudgingly.

I guessed that her unwillingness to let me go with Richard Manifold had less to do with lack of money — she knew that I had done good business at Saint James’s Fair — than with a reluctance to allow her former admirer to benefit in any degree from my thoughts and ideas. The sergeant obviously still had an uphill task to reinstate himself in my wife’s good graces.

But the truth was that I, too, needed someone with whom I could exchange opinions; someone who would test my theories (not that I had many) with counter-arguments; someone who secretly thought me a conceited idiot, but who would listen to me in case I produced a golden nugget of wisdom amongst the dross.

It was Richard’s suggestion that we go to the Full Moon, close by Saint James’s Priory, rather than to the Green Lattis, where we were more likely to encounter friends who would wish to join us for a drink.

Early as it was, the tables at the Full Moon were already crowded with rowdies from the fairground, and I spotted the familiar figure of Philip Lamprey, making the most of his marital freedom before returning to London and Jeanne. I managed to avoid his eye and manipulated my companion on to a bench in a dark corner of the ale room, where I was able to draw back into the shadows. Neither the sergeant nor I was anxious to cloud our intellect with yet more drink, so we were happy to sit unobserved, while an uncooperative pot boy continued to pick his nose and scratch his crotch undisturbed.

‘You believe these four deaths to be connected,’ Richard began without preamble. ‘May I ask why?’

‘All four victims were linked,’ I answered. ‘Walter Godsmark and the stranger were both linked to Jasper Fairbrother in different ways. And Mistress Ford was linked to the stranger in so far as he was murdered in her cottage after she had taken him in. Moreover, she was killed by the same method as the stranger: she was smothered in her sleep. That, surely, cannot simply be coincidence.’

‘You think her death may have something to do with his?’

‘Yes. Yes, I do. Her cottage has only one room. She was present when he died, but had fallen asleep after a long night during which she and Sister Jerome had nursed him. I think that, unwittingly, she saw something, or heard something, that made the murderer feel threatened.’

‘But you’ve just told me she was asleep,’ Richard objected.

‘But not soundly. I suspect she was in that state of semi-consciousness when reality and dreams merge together as one. Something was worrying her. She told me so. She thought she might have seen something, but couldn’t remember what.’

Richard leaned his elbows on the table and gnawed the thumb knuckle of his left hand.

‘You don’t think it possible,’ he asked, ‘that, at heart, she was a supporter of the Lancastrian cause? That this Tudor agent, whosoever he might have been, was on his way to visit her when he was jumped on by those two idiots employed by your friend, Timothy Plummer?’

I was immediately angry on Cicely’s behalf. ‘The stranger had passed her cottage when he was ambushed,’ I said. ‘I know. I was there, remember! I saw it all.’ But if I were honest, I was unable to recollect whether he had passed the cottage or not. I wasn’t about to admit it, however. There was absolutely no doubt in my mind that Cicely was undeserving of the sergeant’s slur. ‘If you want my opinion — and I presume you do, or we shouldn’t be here — I think this business of the stranger being a Lancastrian spy has nothing at all to do with the murders.’

‘Why not?’

I wished to goodness Richard wouldn’t keep asking why, because I had no real reason for my assumptions. I just had this feeling that these deaths were the results of a simpler, more straightforward motive than treachery to the crown.

‘I can’t really say as yet. It’s just an intuition, but a strong one.’ Richard snorted his derision. ‘All right,’ I snapped, annoyed, ‘let me hear your ideas, if you have any.’

He stopped chewing his thumb knuckle and tried to look like a man who has come to a momentous conclusion.

‘Well, put it this way, Chapman. Thanks to you’ — I thought his tone slightly acerbic — ‘we’ve established that the stranger couldn’t have stabbed Jasper at the time we think the baker was murdered, because his presence is vouched for in Westbury village by various inhabitants. I’ve verified that for myself. So, Jasper was killed by one of his many enemies in the city.’

‘But no one had ever attacked him before,’ I interrupted. ‘Why should it happen that he’s stabbed to death the very same day that he’s visited by the stranger? It seems like too much of a coincidence to me.’

‘But you’re the one who proved the stranger couldn’t have done it!’ Richard exclaimed in exasperation, slapping his hand down hard on the table.

I hushed him urgently as one or two heads turned in our direction. Fortunately, the noise in the ale room had now reached such a pitch that only a few people nearby could overhear us.

‘I’m saying that I think the stranger’s visit was somehow linked to Jasper’s death, not that the stranger killed him,’ I protested.

My companion spat into the rushes, clearing his throat and showing what he thought of this theory at one and the same time.

He continued without further argument on the subject, ‘Walter Godsmark’s death was definitely an accident. He was drunk, he’d crept out of the city after curfew to meet some girl or other’ — I didn’t bother to enlighten him — ‘and for some reason fell into the river. And because he couldn’t swim, he drowned.’

‘And what about the stranger? This man you and everyone else is convinced was a spy. Who murdered him?’

Richard avoided looking at me. ‘He died of the beating he received from the two King’s men, who were, after all, only doing their duty. Another death by misadventure.’

‘The poor man was suffocated!’ It was my voice now that had risen, and Richard who had to hush me. I moderated my tone. ‘You can’t seriously believe what you’re saying, Richard!’

‘I believe what my lord sheriff will find it most convenient to believe,’ he answered shamelessly. ‘The man was an enemy of the state, so no one will care. Right! That’s death number three accounted for. That just leaves Mistress Ford’s murder to solve, and that’s a much more difficult proposition because, apart from you, nobody seems to have had a motive for wishing her dead. And you’ve got this irrefutable alibi, damn you!’ So much for friendship! A good job I hadn’t taken him too seriously. ‘It doesn’t make sense,’ he finished.

‘And won’t do unless you link it to the other three deaths,’ I persisted. ‘It must be seen as the next and, I hope, the last in a sequence. The culprit, or culprits, are growing too bold.’

The Full Moon’s landlord had at last spotted that neither Richard nor I was drinking and, with a cuff around the ear, had pointed his reluctant pot boy in our direction. The lad slouched over to our table and, with a scratch and a sniff, asked nasally, ‘What’s it to be, then, Masters?’

Richard Manifold got to his feet. ‘You’re too late, boy. We’ve waited too long already and we’re in a hurry. Next time I come in here, bestir yourself a bit sooner if you want my custom.’

I followed him out of the door where we encountered yet another group of merrymakers from the fair on their way in. We were jostled and pushed, with the result that we staggered into the street like a couple of drunks, earning ourselves a censorious glance from the Mother Superior of the Magdalen nuns, who, as bad luck would have it, just happened to be passing by on the opposite side of the road.

Richard let rip with a few choice words which it was just as well that the reverend dame couldn’t hear.

‘She’s bound to complain to the sheriff,’ he grumbled. ‘He’s a particular friend of hers, and she’s one of the busiest old bodies in the city.’

‘If his lordship reprimands you, tell him the truth,’ I advised. ‘I’ll always vouch for your sobriety. And my own.’

The sergeant was scornful. ‘That won’t do any good. He won’t believe you. And, anyway, you’re not in his good books at the moment. You’ve deprived him of his chief suspect and a quick solution to Mistress Ford’s murder.’

Suddenly I recalled what John Overbecks had said to me; that Sister Jerome’s description of the man she had seen on the night Cicely was killed tallied with that of either of the two King’s men. As we made our way down the lane and climbed over the stile into the priory grounds, I offered it to Richard as a possible solution.

‘Could one of them have been left behind for some reason?’ I suggested.

Richard shook his head decisively.

‘I saw them and Master Plummer off myself, and Jack Gload rode with them as far as the King’s Wood. His impression was the same as mine. Your friend, the spymaster, was in such a paddy over their stupidity, that he wasn’t in the mood to trust either of them with so much as doing up their own tunic laces. It’s a good theory, but it won’t hold water, I’m afraid.’

I said nothing, but I wasn’t so sure. The King’s Wood lay only a mile or so outside the city; close enough for someone to sneak back if need be. As for Timothy’s anger, it was the nature of his calling to deceive.

Richard and I parted company in Lewin’s Mead, neither of us having gained much from our interchange of ideas except to clarify and harden our own opinions; which, I suppose, is as much as all such discussions generally achieve. Adela was only just setting off for the Tolzey as I entered the cottage, having been delayed by Adam’s being sick all down his clean robe — the natural consequence, in my view, of the disgustingly greedy way in which he had gulped his breakfast milk. I gave him the benefit of my thoughts, at the same time tickling the top of his dark, curly head as he lay in his little cart, sleeping off the result of his debauch. Adela handed me the rope tied around Hercules’s neck.

‘As you’re here now, you can look after the hound. He doesn’t like the market and he gets under people’s feet.’

I groaned, but felt I had no option but to take him with me. He didn’t care for being left alone in the cottage, and I was determined to show myself virtuous, spending the rest of the morning doing some work. In the event, I got carried away with a sense of my own rectitude, and occupied the remainder of the day walking as far as Keynsham and back, doing good business not just amongst the villagers, but also with the people I met on the road. For dinner, Hercules and I shared a pie, bought from an itinerant pieman who joined us for a while, and who was so amused by the dog’s antics chasing rabbits, that he gave us another pie free of charge.

The long walk was what I needed to clear my mind of my grief for Cicely Ford, and to come to terms with the fact that I had always been a little in love with her, ever since our first meeting almost five years ago; knowledge that I had buried deep inside me until last week, when I had kissed her. This love had nothing to do with my love for Adela, which was built on the enduring rocks of mutual trust and affection and intense physical desire. My feelings for Cicely had been more akin to the courtly love that had flourished a century and more ago at the courts first of Aquitaine and then of England, achieving its full flowering in the resurrection of the Arthurian myths under the third Edward. It was an insubstantial love, light as thistledown, but none the less real for all that.

It was past suppertime before Hercules and I finally reached home again, with a much depleted pack and pockets weighed down with coins from what we both considered to be a splendid day’s work. After a long drink from his bowl of water, Hercules prostrated himself on his bed, making it plain that it was he who had done the lion’s share of the work and that I had been a mere hanger-on, an estimate of the situation Adela was happy to go along with, feeding him first and making much of him. I endeavoured to enlist Adam’s support, picking him up and snuggling his crumpled little face close to mine. Unfortunately, I needed a shave and he expressed his disapproval of this bristly apparition in his customary fashion — with an earsplitting roar.

‘Now look what you’ve done!’ exclaimed my wife, laughing and seizing our son to soothe him. ‘Sit down and I’ll have supper on the table in just a minute.’ She regarded my boots, which were thick with dust. ‘You must have walked a long way.’

‘Keynsham and back,’ I said virtuously. ‘It was hot, but not as hot as it has been. I think the worst of the heat is over.’

‘But we want it fine for Saturday,’ she protested, returning Adam to his crib. ‘Please God the weather won’t break until after the Lammas Feast. Don’t forget you’re going to fetch the children from Margaret’s on Friday.’

‘I haven’t forgotten.’ My mouth was watering at the sight and smell of the two bowls of mutton stew she had just placed on the table.

Adam had dropped off to sleep again, Hercules was snoring, lost no doubt in dreams of rabbiting and chasing sheep, and I was looking forward to an evening dozing out of doors in the sun and, later, when it grew too dark to do anything else, cuddling up to Adela in bed. .

My plans were rudely shattered by a knock on the door. I opened it to find a small, unknown and unsavoury urchin standing on my doorstep.

‘You Roger Chapman?’ he asked. When I nodded, he continued, ‘Sergeant Manifold wants to see you. Says it’s very urgent.’

‘Where?’ I yelled as he was turning away, apparently satisfied that his mission was accomplished.

‘Oh! Yeah!’ He consulted his memory, screwing up his narrow, weatherbeaten face with the effort. He picked a pustule on his chin. ‘Got it! Saint Nicholas Backs, corner of Ballance Street.’ I gave him a coin from my pouch, which he clenched in a dirt-encrusted fist, adding cockily, ‘My name’s Wilfred. Of Bristol.’ He delivered the title with a regal air.

That made me laugh so much that I let him go without further questioning and went back indoors. I told Adela of Richard’s message, and only then began to find it a little odd and unsatisfactory. The corner of Ballance Street on Saint Nicholas Backs seemed a strange place to ask for a meeting. Nevertheless, I could not afford to ignore the summons. It occurred to me that the Breton ship might have returned to the city on the afternoon tide. If so, it was an event I had been waiting and hoping for myself. The master might be able to enlighten us as to the stranger’s identity.

‘Take care,’ Adela said anxiously, as she handed me my cudgel.

‘There’s nothing to worry about,’ I assured her, returning the kiss she gave me with interest.

But as I passed through the Frome Gate and strode up Broad Street, I knew the stirrings of uneasiness. I should have demanded more details of Master Cock-up-spotty. I looked to see if I could find him, but in vain: he had already vanished into the warren of sordid alleyways which was his natural home. I continued on my way to the bottom of High Street and turned right on to Saint Nicholas Backs. There were still a lot of people about, a ship was unloading at the quayside — although not the one I had hoped to see — and there was a strong smell of fish on the air. I should have felt reassured, but, for some inexplicable reason, my uneasiness increased.

Richard had not yet arrived, but, as a sheriff’s officer, he could easily have been delayed. I stood on the corner of Ballance Street and waited, leaning on my cudgel. Houses crowded me in on either side, with their deeply recessed, dark doorways. I couldn’t move into the middle of the street because of the (at that time of day) overflowing, stinking drain. I was peering out over the Backs, looking for Richard, when some instinct, born of my general nervousness, warned me of danger. I half turned, sensing someone behind me — and so received the blow that was aimed at the crown of my head, and meant to kill me, on the right-hand side of my face.