The Lammas Feast

Twenty

There was menace in his tone, but my head was spinning too fast to be aware of it. My legs trembled with the effort of keeping myself upright against the wall and my very senses were beginning to swim. And all I could think of were John Overbecks’s own words as he had surveyed Jasper’s body that Tuesday morning. ‘Whoever did that, did a quick, clean and efficient job. Beautiful. Just the way we used to dispose of sentries and lookouts in France.’ How he must have laughed up his sleeve as he’d practically handed us the truth on a plate, except that Richard Manifold and I were too obtuse to see it.

‘You’d better sit down,’ the same voice said now, and the baker indicated a stool beneath one of the workbenches.

I dragged it out and carefully lowered myself on to it, waiting for the nausea and dizziness to subside. I silently cursed my folly in leaving my bed before I was fit enough to do so. But after a while, the room stopped moving and I began to feel better.

‘Your sister-in-law killed your son,’ I said. ‘She smothered him with his pillow.’

The baker inclined his head. ‘A necessity brought about, of course, by your interference. Had you let those two King’s men finish what they’d begun, no doubt Marion would have been spared the trouble.’

I stared at him stupidly. ‘This is your son we’re talking about. Your own flesh and blood.’

John Overbecks shrugged. ‘He was a stranger. I hadn’t seen him since he was a child.’ I drew a deep breath and he laughed. ‘You think I’m a monster. Perhaps I am, but compared with Jane, he meant less than nothing to me.’

‘What was your original plan?’ I asked, moved by a curiosity I found it difficult to curb. ‘Before the King’s officers and I took a hand in the game?’

‘I intended to wait for him to contact me on his return to the city, then despatch him as I’d done Jasper. If his body was ever found, in the Frome or elsewhere, I reckoned no one would bother to ask any questions. My son was a Tudor spy, God rot him. Those in authority would be glad to be rid of him. My only worry was that he might be caught before I could ensure that he never troubled me and mine again.’ The baker folded his arms across his chest and regarded me malevolently. ‘But then you poked your nose in, Chapman. Matters might have proved extremely awkward except that Mistress Ford offered to take my son into her cottage to nurse him. Marion saw her chance and insisted on helping. One of the potions she’d fetched from the nunnery was heavily laced with poppy juice. It kept Jean — my son — unconscious until she could seize her chance.’

I wiped a hand across my forehead. It came away soaking wet.

‘When did she kill him? Jack Gload and Peter Littleman swore that one or the other of them had been by the bedside all night.’

John Overbecks laughed, genuinely amused.

‘You don’t trust everything those two thickheaded nitwits tell you, do you? When Marion returned from the nunnery after Prime, Cicely Ford was asleep in the chair and both the sheriff’s men had disappeared outside to relieve themselves. She slipped the pillow from beneath Jean’s head, held it over his face until she could no longer detect any sign of life and managed to replace it before either Jack Gload or his companion reappeared. Later on, of course, neither man was prepared to risk his livelihood by admitting that they had both been absent together.’

I wondered if either of those two incompetent rogues had suspected Sister Jerome’s complicity in the crime. Probably not; a nun’s habit is a wonderful cloak for evil.

I suddenly straightened up on my stool. ‘So why,’ I spat at John Overbecks, ‘did Cicely Ford have to die? According to you, she saw and heard nothing of your son’s murder.’

For the first time, the baker flinched and lost some of his composure.

‘That. . That was the worst decision Marion and I had to make. It was one we both deeply regretted. But there again,’ he added viciously, ‘it was your fault.’ I gasped, but he ignored it. ‘She woke up just as Jack Gload came in and resumed his seat at the foot of the bed. She might have seen or heard something that could incriminate Marion — and you kept encouraging her to try to remember. She was your friend. She was often in your company. She was with you when Marion and I saw you on Saint Michael’s Hill that evening. .’

I interrupted violently, ‘The last evening of her life! The evening you visited your sister-in-law because, so you claimed, your wife had disappeared and you didn’t know where she’d gone. But that wasn’t the truth, was it?’ Enlightenment was crashing over me in waves. ‘Jane always lets you know where she’s going, according to Jenny Hodge. I’d met Mistress Ford on her way home from Back Street, where she’d been to see Master Hulin. She told me she’d met you going into the lawyer’s chambers as she came out. And that was when our garrulous and indiscreet lawman confided in an old friend the news he was bursting to tell to all the world. Cicely Ford had made a new will, leaving the old Herepath house to a common pedlar. And what vistas of imagined impropriety that bequest must have opened up!’

John Overbecks curled his lip. ‘Not to me, Chapman. You may look like a lad about town, but the sad truth is you’re under the thumb of that wife of yours. You’re slowly being turned into a henpecked husband and father. But you’re a handsome lad, and I reckon Mistress Ford had a soft spot for you. When I heard Master Hulin’s news, I realized at once that if Marion and I were to dispose of her — and there was no doubt that she did pose something of a threat to us — here was a golden opportunity for the blame to be pinned on you. Neither of us could have foreseen that you would have so impregnable an alibi.’

I said nothing, steadying myself with both hands pressed down flat on top of the stool. I was shaking with fury, but, at that moment, I was too weak to do what I wanted to do — get my hands around John Overbecks’s fat neck and press his windpipe until all the life was choked out of him. Pictures chased one another through my head: Cicely resting at our cottage while this inhuman wretch pursued his evil plans, hurrying up to the Magdalen Nunnery to give his co-conspirator the glad tidings that their innocent victim could safely be murdered that night, a murder for which another innocent victim could be blamed. I recollected their startled faces when Cicely and I came up with them outside the nunnery. And I recalled my parting encouragement to Cicely to try to recall what she could about the morning of the stranger’s death. Perhaps if I hadn’t done so. . But no! It was stupid to blame myself. The murderous pair’s plan had already been laid and was about to be hatched.

Marion had smothered Cicely Ford in her sleep, just as she had killed Jean Overbecks, and more easily because she could pick and choose her time, in no danger from interruption. Later, she had ‘found’ the body, informed Richard Manifold of her discovery and invented the story of a man, who looked just like me, having been seen by her on Saint Michael’s Hill in the early hours of the morning. She had then advised Richard to speak to her brother-in-law regarding my involvement in Cicely Ford’s affairs — and everything was in train for my arrest.

Yet again, I thanked God fervently for Philip Lamprey and his propensity for drink and insulting behaviour. .

John Overbecks’s voice roused me from my reverie. ‘You’ve worked it all out, I see.’

‘Not quite,’ I answered. ‘Walter Godsmark. Did you murder him, or am I doing you an injustice?’

The baker smiled. ‘Oh, never let it be said that you do me an injustice, Chapman. Of course I murdered him. Well, I helped him into the Frome, and who knew better than I that he couldn’t swim? I was the fool who’d saved him from a watery grave in the Avon.’

‘He was blackmailing you?’

‘He tried to. The cream of the jest is that he wasn’t even sure what he was blackmailing me about. But, unhappily for him, Walter wasn’t quite as gormless as he looked. He’d managed to put two and two together and work out that Jasper had been threatening me with something. Walter had been sent by Jasper to ask me to visit him on the Monday evening, and the following morning Jasper was dead, with a knife in his back. So I was probably the murderer. Walter cornered me in the Green Lattis and told me what he thought he knew. I arranged to meet him that night, outside the city walls, down by the castle weir. The trusting idiot was expecting a bag of gold, the first of many if he’d had his way, but instead. .’ The baker spread his hands and grinned. ‘I shall never forget the expression of total surprise on his silly face as I pushed him into the river, nor the way he called to me to help him out.’ The grin became a full-throated chuckle as my companion gloated over the remembered scene.

‘The property you rented to Master Fairbrother,’ I said. ‘When you offered it to me, was that to get me in your power?’

The baker smiled again, a smile I was coming to detest.

‘A dramatic turn of phrase! But, yes. I was afraid, rightly so as it turned out, that you might begin to take too great an interest in the crime. Your reputation was all against you being able to leave well alone. Having you and your family as my tenants would have given me a hold over you. The threat of being thrown out, penniless, on the street would, I reckoned, curb your zeal to expose me if you did happen to discover my involvement in Jasper’s death. But that wretched wife of yours persuaded you against the scheme. I told you, Chapman,’ he jeered, ‘you’re under that woman’s thumb.’

He had been wary and tense ever since my appearance in the bakery, but now, for a brief second, he had dropped his guard.

I heaved myself off the stool and threw myself at him with all my strength, aiming to bring him down before he divined my intention. But I had reckoned without my weakness and his agility, both of body and of mind. Within seconds, he was behind me, his left arm clamped across my throat, jerking my head back against his shoulder with a wrench that made me gag. His right hand held a wicked-looking knife; a knife I hadn’t even noticed, but which must have been lying on the trestle behind him; a knife, presumably, with which he had been trimming his pastry sculptures to make sure that there were no rough edges; a knife whose point now pricked my throat.

‘Adela knows I’m here,’ I croaked. ‘She. . knows I suspect you. She’s gone to. . fetch Sergeant Manifold. You won’t get away with this. . murder.’

His left arm tightened until I could no longer breathe. ‘A good try, Chapman. But I don’t believe you, I’m afraid.’

‘A mistake, Master Overbecks,’ said a voice that, until then, I had never thought I should be pleased to hear. Richard Manifold clapped a hand on the baker’s shoulder. I may have said some harsh things about my wife’s former suitor in my time, but at that moment I could willingly have kissed his large and probably dirty feet.

Neither of us had heard the bakery door open, but now, behind Richard, as well as Jack Gload and Peter Littleman, I could also see an extremely frightened Adela.

John Overbecks released me and, shoving me unceremoniously to one side, aimed a blow with the knife at Richard’s heart. Richard side-stepped and nearly fell, saving himself from this indignity by putting out a hand towards the trestle table. He grasped the top of a pastry castle, which not unnaturally crumbled under his weight, and he collapsed backwards into the Garden of Eden. John Overbecks let out a howl of rage and despair, the master craftsman for a moment gaining ascendancy over the cornered criminal, as he saw his creations dissolve into a cloud of pastry flakes. As he made an abortive dive to save Saint George and the dragon, Jack Gload and Peter Littleman, galvanized at last into action, pinioned him on either side. The baker struggled, but was no match for their solid strength.

Richard Manifold brushed his clothes free of as many of the clinging crumbs as he was able, and faced his prisoner with what authority he could muster.

‘John Overbecks, I am arresting you on suspicion of the murder of Dame Cicely Ford and the attempted murder of Roger Chapman — an attack witnessed by myself and my two officers, Jack Gload and Pete-’

He broke off, and we all followed the direction of his horrified gaze.

Jane Overbecks stood framed in the doorway, her eyes shining like stars and clutching a baby to her breast.

Adela screamed.

It was Adam.

‘Look, John!’ Jane held out our son towards her husband. ‘I went to Mistress Walker’s. She wasn’t there, but the children were. The two older ones said I could have the baby to keep. They’ve given him to me. They said they didn’t want him. Isn’t that wonderful? Now I have a baby of my very own.’

Jack Gload and Peter Littleman must have slackened their grip, their concentration weakened by the unexpected turn of events. As a consequence, before any of us realized what was happening, John Overbecks had wrenched himself free of them and was standing behind his wife, his steadying hands on her shoulders.

‘It’s a miracle, sweetheart,’ he said, and his eyes mocked us. ‘Now, Jane my love, do exactly as I tell you or else the baby will be taken away from you by one of these wicked people here. Do you understand?’ She nodded, clutching Adam so tightly that he began to grizzle bad-temperedly. John Overbecks continued, ‘Move back very slowly, step by step, to the door. No, don’t turn round. I’ll guide you. No one will stop us, not if they’ve any sense.’

He raised his right hand slightly and it was then that I realized he had not been disarmed. When Jack Gload and Peter Littleman had pinioned him, they had, in their usual slack fashion, allowed him to retain his hold on the knife. Guiding Jane with his left hand, John Overbecks lowered the knife point with his right to within an inch of the baby’s head.

‘For God’s sake, somebody do something,’ begged Adela, her voice cracked with terror.

The baker laughed. ‘The minute anyone tries to do anything, Mistress Chapman, the blade of this knife slices into your little son’s head. I’ve been a father, you see, as your husband will tell you, and I know all about that soft spot in young babies’ skulls.’

I thought Adela was going to faint, but I should have known she was made of sterner stuff. All the same, I could see her shaking from where I stood.

Richard Manifold cleared his throat and tried what bluster could do.

‘Let the child and your wife go, Overbecks. It’s no good. You can’t esape the law for ever. You’re gallows meat.’

I could have told him that threats were useless. This was a desperate felon who couldn’t see beyond the next few minutes of his forfeited life. For John Overbecks any chance, however slim, was worth the taking. By now, he and Jane were close to the open door, their awkward, backward-shuffling gait and the proximity of their feet almost causing them to trip up once or twice. But on each occasion, they were saved by John Overbecks’s steadiness and unwavering sense of purpose.

‘We’re nearly there, sweetheart,’ he said after a fleeting glance over his shoulder. ‘When we get outside, take my hand and run like the wind. But whatever you do, don’t drop the child.’

Jane shook her head. It was obvious she was puzzled by what was happening, but she trusted her husband completely. He had warned her that one of us might try to take Adam away from her, and that was enough to make us all her enemies.

Jack Gload was standing by the table nearest the ovens, and I saw his hand inch its way, very cautiously, towards the pele that lay on top of it. Its flat, oar-shaped end would make an admirable weapon, but even if he reached it without the baker noticing, he was too far away for it to be of any use. .

Out of the corner of one eye, I caught a sudden movement in the open doorway. The sound of a shrill, indignant yapping assailed our ears as Jane Overbecks’s little black and white dog hurtled in, in search of his mistress. He had no doubt been on a private foraging expedition of his own, but had now returned home to be petted and adored and assured he had been missed. Instead, the person who should have been giving him her undivided attention, was lavishing it, instead, on one of those pink and squalling human puppies that he so despised and detested.

To add insult to injury, John Overbecks kicked out at him, yelling at him to get out of the way. The dog didn’t hesitate, but sank his teeth into the well-muscled calf of the offending leg and held on. The baker let out a yell that was an immediate challenge to Adam, who began to scream at the top of his powerful lungs. Jack Gload seized the pele, stepped forward and swung it in a vicious arc, catching John Overbecks across the side of his head. Adela saw her opportunity and wrestled our furious son from Jane Overbecks’s grasp. Richard Manifold was roaring instructions to Peter Littleman, who, in his turn, was shouting at all and sundry, simply carried away by the excitement of the moment. I was trying to assist Adela and getting under everybody’s feet.

Jane Overbecks gave vent to an unearthly wail and fled through the open door, where she pushed aside a white-faced, frantic Margaret Walker, who had just arrived with Elizabeth and Nicholas in pursuit of the baby brother they had given away.

In short, everything descended into chaos and confusion, but with the happy conclusion that we had Adam back safely, while John Overbecks lay prostrate on the bakery floor, Jack Gload and Peter Littleman sitting triumphantly on top of him.

I was then the one who disgraced myself by fainting.

John Overbecks had been dragged off to the Bridewell, and I was home and propped up against the pillows in my own bed.

Margaret, who had accompanied us back to Lewin’s Mead, was sitting at the table drinking a restorative cup of Adela’s fermented blackberry cordial (a deceptively potent brew that could lift the top off your skull if you drank more than half a mazer); Adam was asleep, having been fed and his ruffled dignity soothed; Hercules was sulking in a corner because he was being ignored; and two very chastened children were standing by the mattress, looking down at me, waiting to hear their fate.

‘I ought to whip the pair of you,’ I said sternly. ‘You know, don’t you, that what you did was very wrong?’

‘But it was you who said why didn’t Master Overbecks give Mistress Overbecks a child!’ Nicholas protested sulkily. ‘So we thought we’d give her Adam. He makes too much noise.’

‘And he smells,’ Elizabeth added fastidiously, wrinkling her pert little nose.’

‘I only left them for. . coupla minutes,’ Margaret excused herself, the blackberry cordial already beginning to have an effect on her speech. ‘Had to. . go and draw water from the well. Must’ve been longer than I thought.’

‘No one’s blaming you, mother-in-law,’ I reassured her, although I suspected she had met a neighbour and stayed gossiping. But if you’re poor and can’t afford servants, there’s no way you can keep your eye on children, even the smallest, all the time. ‘It’s these two who are to blame.’

‘But you said-’ Nicholas was beginning again.

‘Stop saying that!’ I roared at him, then looked despairingly at Adela as he burst into tears.

‘You’re right. They both need a good whipping,’ she murmured uncertainly.

But whereas most parents wouldn’t have hesitated to take the birch to both of them, beating them until they couldn’t sit down for a week, neither Adela nor I could bring ourselves to do it. I said, as I always did, ‘I’ll leave your punishment to your mother.’ And Adela said, as she always did, ‘Your father will deal with you.’

So it was left to Margaret Walker, once the effects of the blackberry cordial had worn off, to try to instil in them some sense of the enormity of what they had done. Maybe she succeeded or maybe some innate sense of right and wrong prompted them, I don’t know; but certainly they were very subdued for the rest of the day and all the following day, speaking only when spoken to, and then very respectfully, and being helpful around the house. It was only when Saturday, the first of August, dawned, bright and hot, and their eyes began to sparkle in anticipation of the Lammas Day celebrations that I suspected another reason for their good behaviour; fear of being excluded from the Lammas Feast. On the other hand, young as they were, perhaps they knew instinctively that we would never do that. We were too anxious to be a part of it ourselves.

The streets of Bristol were packed to suffocation for the processions of the city’s guildsmen as they walked to their various churches in different quarters of the town. Everyone who could afford them wore his or her Sunday clothes, and even those who could not had managed to pin a flower or a ribbon somewhere about their persons. Carpets and tapestries hung from the windows of the rich, while the poor simply took the opportunity to air their torn and mended sheets. And if they didn’t possess sheets, they simply leaned out themselves, yelling until they were hoarse. But then, everyone was doing that, except for the time they were in church.

Adela, the children and I accompanied Margaret to the weavers’ church of Saint Thomas, in Redcliffe. Then we all joined in the general procession as the guildsmen, the mayor and aldermen proceeded around the city walls for the setting of the Watch. In spite of the midday sun, everybody carried burning torches and cressets, to the imminent danger of all the overhanging houses that hemmed us in. But somehow, fires were kept to a minimum and no one lost his home on this particular occasion — although it has been known to happen.

Dancing and games followed. Enough lamb’s wool — that delicious drink of spiced cider topped with a foaming baked apple — was drunk to ensure that there were sufficient numbers of thick heads and lost maidenhoods by the following morning, and for Lammas Day to have lived up to its reputation as one of the jolliest festivals of the year. Bear baiting, tilting and wrestling bouts had been laid on outside the city walls, where the citizens were joined by the overflow of revellers from the Saint James’s fair. Saint John’s conduit flowed with wine, courtesy of the mayor and corporation. But what everyone was waiting for, of course, was the evening and the Lammas Feast.

Long trestle tables and benches were set up in the streets and each guild offered its own special fare. Whole oxen, sheep and calves were roasted, carved and brought to table by the guildsmen themselves, acting as servers for the day. Syllabubs, sweetmeats and cakes followed, but the centrepiece of every table was — or should have been — the great bread and pastry subtleties that were at the very heart of the feast as thanks to God for a harvest safely brought in.

This year, however, there was a dearth of subtleties. Other bakers had worked throughout the night in an attempt to replace John Overbecks’s wrecked masterpieces, without too much success. But their lack was more than made up for by the superfluity of gossip that had had the city buzzing ever since Thursday. The gaoling of John Overbecks on two charges of murder and the flight of the Baldock sisters — one of them a nun and also indicted of murder — had provided more excitement than Bristolians had experienced since Queen Margaret and her Lancastrian troops had descended on the city seven years before.

‘I presume that Jane must have run straight from the bakery to her sister at the nunnery,’ Margaret said, through a mouthful of roast mutton. ‘Marion wouldn’t have hesitated once she’d been told what had happened.’

‘Will they ever be caught, do you think?’ someone asked, but Margaret shook her head.

‘I doubt it. That pair are used to running before the wind. They’ve evaded their pursuers before. They’ll do it again.’

I wished I didn’t feel so certain that she was right. I wanted the murderer of Cicely Ford brought to justice.

Burl Hodge raised his overflowing cup to me from the opposite side of the table.

‘We’ve you to thank, yet again, Chapman, or so I understand.’ His tone was grudging, as was the little ripple of applause that accompanied his words. But at least there seemed to be less resentment towards me than there had been earlier in the week. I had done something useful for my adopted community, and its members were willing to acknowledge the fact, albeit reluctantly. I could bide my time.

I glanced around, chewing contentedly. Elizabeth sat next to me, then Adela, a sleeping Adam cradled in her left arm, and on her right, Nicholas. My daughter sucked her fingers clean of meat juices before, with a sideways glance at me to make sure that I was watching, leaned over and kissed the top of her half-brother’s little head. Nicholas, not to be outdone, got hold of one of Adam’s feet and kissed his small, pink toes. Margaret looked across the table at me and winked.

So, there we sat, the picture of a happy and contented family. Although, if I were a cynic (which, of course, I’m not) I might have recognized the very faintest trace of a doubt in that last felicitous thought of mine.