The Lammas Feast

Four

I didn’t have long to wait; only until the next morning.

It had been a disturbed night. Adam had wakened in the small hours, demanding to be fed in his inimitable, ear-splitting fashion. His cries had roused Elizabeth and Nicholas, who immediately wanted the chamber pot. As Adela was busy with our son, it fell to my lot to heave myself out of the cosy trough I had made in the goose-feather mattress I shared with her, in order to attend to their needs. After that, it had been a continuous trickle of requests and complaints — drinks of water, they were too hot, too cold, a dog was barking, an owl was hooting — until I roared at them in exasperation, thereby waking Adam once more and incurring the fury of Adela, who had just dropped off to sleep.

By the time I had made my peace with her, the early summer dawn was rimming the shutters, and when I eventually fell into an uneasy doze, it was only to dream that I was vainly trying to warn John Overbecks of danger, but could find no way into the bakery. Every door was bolted, every window barred, and although I tried shouting, my voice was unable to make itself heard. Finally, I started to hammer on the bakery door, the blows sounding loud in the silence. Then someone began shaking me by the arm. .

‘Wake up, Roger!’ Adela was saying. ‘Wake up! Someone’s knocking.’

She was standing over me, her gown half-on, half-off, her dark hair still loose about her shoulders, her voice slurred with the dregs of sleep. The children, too, were beginning to stir, already mumbling the fresh demands of another day. I scrambled up from the mattress, searching for something to cover my nakedness before answering the imperious summons. Adela threw me my cloak, which hung on a nail by the window.

‘Wrap it well round you,’ she hissed. ‘Unless I’m much mistaken, that’s Mistress Coxley’s voice, and a glimpse of your manliness might prove too much for her.’

Mistress Coxley was an elderly neighbour who lived with her equally elderly husband a few doors distant. I drew my cloak about me with a flourish and sent my wife a resentful look that only made her laugh.

When, at last, I opened the door, I realized with a shock that the morning was well advanced. The sun was already mounting the sky, and the traffic in and out of the Frome Gate had swollen from a steady trickle to a flood. Adela and I had overslept, and it was well on the way to the ten-o’clock dinner hour: breakfast would have to be done without if we were to catch up on our day.

Mistress Coxley gave a little shriek of surprise at seeing me and not Adela, and also at seeing me so unconventionally attired. Remembering my wife’s admonition, I held the cloak tightly together and gave the old lady my best, and what I thought was my most beguiling, smile.

‘Mistress Coxley! What can we do for you? I’m afraid we’ve woken rather late this morning, as you can see. A disturbed night with the children.’

I could tell that my irresistible charm was making no impression on her. Her faded blue eyes remained round and startled. Her lined face, as grey and dusty as the hair that straggled from beneath her linen cap, retained its expression of shock.

Fortunately, at that moment, Adela joined me, still braiding her thick, dark hair into the single plait that would be coiled up beneath her snow-white coif, but otherwise looking spick and span as became a wife and mother who ran a respectable household — in spite of the disreputable layabout who answered the door wearing only a little more than a good-natured expression.

‘Mistress Coxley, what is it?’ she asked in the quiet, reassuring tones that made people turn to her in times of trouble. ‘My dear soul, you’re trembling. What’s happened? Come in and sit down for a moment.’

‘No, no! I won’t stop. I must get home to Wilfred and tell him the news, if he hasn’t heard it already. I’d have gone straight there, but I know Master Chapman has an interest in such matters. It’s just been a terrible shock, that’s all. The baker’s been murdered.’

‘What?’ I cried, stepping forward in such a hurry that, if Adela had not had the foresight to move in front of me, Mistress Coxley might have had an even nastier shock than the one she had sustained already. ‘Master Overbecks? When? Why? How did it happen?’

‘No, no! Not Master Overbecks! Did I say Master Overbecks?’ The old lady was peevish, incensed by my lack of understanding. ‘I’d be a deal more upset than this if it had been John Overbecks who was dead. No! I’m talking about that rogue, Jasper Fairbrother. And if I weren’t a Christian, I’d say good riddance to bad rubbish. But as I am, I’ll say it’s no more than he deserved.’ On which pious note, she folded her bloodless lips together over her blackened teeth and nodded vigorously.

‘Jasper Fairbrother?’ I exclaimed, now thoroughly confused. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Of course I’m sure! Dang it! D’you think my wits have gone wool-gathering, young man?’ She appealed to Adela. ‘Does he think I’m senile that I can’t tell Jasper Fairbrother from John Overbecks? Besides, I was there, just passing by, when that Walter Godsmark came rushing out of the shop, screaming that his master had been murdered. Stabbed to death, he said, with one of his own knives.’

I was just about to repeat Adela’s invitation to her to come into the cottage, when I recollected that I was in no fit sartorial state to question a sensitive old lady at close quarters. In any case, she was anxious to get home to her husband, and then to spread the news further among the rest of her neighbours and cronies.

We withdrew indoors and I began pulling on my clothes, while Adela set some water to heat so that I could shave. I was all for rushing out as I was, my beard being so fair that my morning stubble was barely noticeable — or so I argued. But Adela would have none of it and stood over me while I plied my razor and rubbed my teeth with willow bark, then saw me dressed in a clean shirt, straightened my tunic and patted my cheek approvingly, exactly as she would later do for Nicholas.

The whole town was abuzz with news of the murder. The gatekeeper on the Frome Gate was deep in goggle-eyed conversation with a drover, whose sheep were all over the place, blocking the archway and access to the Frome Bridge beyond. Cursing, I fought my way through the errant flock, receiving a scant nod of recognition from the gatekeeper. He did, however, call after me, ‘Roger! Have you heard the news?’ But I was halfway across the bridge by that time. I proceeded under Saint John’s Arch and up Broad Street. There were knots of people everywhere, outside front doors, on corners, standing in the middle of the road and hampering the street cleaners, who were trying to shovel yesterday’s decaying rubbish into carts, before driving it to the wharves to be loaded on to barges and eventually dumped in the rivers Frome and Avon. Any lingering doubts I might have harboured that Goody Coxley could have been mistaken in the identity of the victim were dispelled by the almost holiday atmosphere that pervaded the streets and by the barely suppressed smiles on people’s faces. Jasper Fairbrother had made himself so hated by the vast majority of his fellow citizens that no one mourned him, not even, I suspected, Walter Godsmark, who, although badly shaken by his discovery of the body earlier that morning, was indifferent to the actual manner of his late master’s death.

Richard Manifold, Peter Littleman and Jack Gload were already on the scene by the time I arrived, and were none too pleased to see me.

‘There’s nothing for you to do here, Roger,’ the first-named said forcefully as soon as he spotted me among the crowd gathered around Jasper’s shop doorway. ‘It’s a straightforward stabbing by someone or other. The only problem’s going to lie in finding anyone who didn’t loathe Master Fairbrother enough to want to kill him. Practically the entire town could be under suspicion.’

At these words, people began muttering and edging away. Within moments, I was the only onlooker left anywhere near the bakery, and I grinned appreciatively at the sergeant.

‘Very neat, Richard,’ I said. ‘Very neat indeed. So, what exactly has happened? By the way,’ I added, lying through my teeth, ‘Adela hopes you’ll take supper with us again this evening.’

I saw him pause and weigh up the situation. On one hand, the last thing he wanted was me hanging about, poking my long nose into his enquiry. On the other, in spite of the good face he put upon his lack of wife and family, I guessed that he was lonely, and that any invitation to exchange his solitude for company — particularly company as congenial to him as Adela’s — was always welcome. He hesitated — but not for long.

‘Oh, step inside,’ he conceded irritably. ‘I know I shan’t get rid of you otherwise.’ He turned to his two henchmen. ‘Take young Godsmark along to the Council Hall. I’ll come and take his deposition as soon as I’ve finished here.’ He added, on an admonitory note, ‘And don’t either of you two dolts start questioning him before I come. Is that understood?’

Peter Littleman and Jack Gload nodded without resentment. They were both too simple to be offended. But they were good strong-arm men, and intimidated even the burly Walter Godsmark. He went with them without a protest.

‘Where’s the body?’ I asked, and was told to follow Richard Manifold upstairs to the living quarters above the shop.

He led the way through the bakery, with its ovens and trestles, to a narrow passage at the rear, where a flight of creaky stairs was dimly discernible on our right. Once we had mounted these, we found ourselves in a room that plainly combined the functions of kitchen and living-room. An oven was built into one wall, with, below it, a smaller one for burning wood. A pile of logs and sticks stood alongside. There were some shelves, on which stood various pots and pans, plates and beakers, and a small side table on which reposed a chopping block and a variety of knives. There was also a cupboard in which, presumably, food was stored. But my eyes were immediately drawn to the table in the middle of the room. The remains of a meal were scattered in all directions, and lying across it, face down, was the body of Jasper Fairbrother, a black-handled knife sticking out of his back on the left-hand side. The eyes were open and staring, and the hard, mean features still retained a look of surprise, as though Death had caught him unawares.

My companion must have inspected the corpse already, but he went across and ran expert hands over it once again.

‘The body’s still in the grip of rigor mortis,’ he said. ‘In my experience, that lasts the best part of a day. But — ’ he pressed the jaw — ‘the face is beginning to soften very slightly, and, again in my experience, that happens after about twelve hours or so.’

I did my calculations. ‘It’s now nearly dinner time. Almost ten o’clock. Which could mean that Jasper was killed about the same time yesterday evening. Is that what you’re saying?’ He grunted. I went on, ‘After dark, then. Although these midsummer nights are not really dark. It’s sometimes still light enough at that hour to see a cat in shadow. You might be lucky and find a witness who saw the murderer approaching Jasper Fairbrother’s door.’

Richard Manifold snorted. ‘If you believe that, you’ll believe anything. It’s bad enough finding witnesses at the best of times. No one wants to get involved with the law. But for a man like this, who was detested by almost everyone, it will be damn near impossible.’

His tone was bitter. I murmured that, in such a case, the sheriff would surely understand, which produced another snort. I went closer and inspected the body for myself. There was very little blood. The knife had been plunged neatly between the ribs, inward and upward into the heart by someone standing behind and slightly to the left of his victim. Whoever had done the deed had probably not even been stained by a single drop of blood.

I was struck by a sudden thought.

‘Richard!’ I exclaimed excitedly. ‘What about those two men you talked to? Those two ruffians I drew to your attention. Maybe, when I thought they were watching John Overbecks’s bakery, they were really watching Jasper’s across the street!’

His face changed, becoming closed and secretive, as it had done the previous evening.

‘Oh, no! It wasn’t th-them,’ he answered positively. But his tongue tripped over the final word, as though he had been beset by a sudden doubt.

‘How can you be so sure?’ I demanded indignantly. ‘What have you learned about them that you’re not telling me?’

His mouth thinned. ‘Just let the matter drop, Roger,’ he requested tersely. Then, seeing me prepared to argue the point, he added, ‘The sheriff knows all about them, and is of my opinion.’

That silenced me. But there was a mystery here that I intended to sniff out if I could.

He must have recognized the expression of determination on my face. ‘I’ve told you, let it lie,’ he advised sharply. ‘Well, we can’t move the body yet awhile. It’s in too awkward a position to get down those stairs while it’s stiff. Let’s look around. We might find something in one of the other rooms.’

There were three of these; one, next door to the kitchen, contained a bed, an oaken coffer in which Jasper kept his clothes and an unemptied chamber pot, whose unsavoury contents I rather thought I would leave to the law to dispose of. (Neither Jack Gload nor Peter Littleman would turn a hair.) The other two rooms were small, very empty and very dusty. We made no exciting discovery in any one of them.

But four rooms! Four rooms for one man, while Adela, the three children and I were confined to a one-roomed cottage. I must have muttered aloud, because Richard Manifold, who was casting a last look around the kitchen, glanced at me over his shoulder.

‘Jasper rented this shop,’ he volunteered, ‘from John Overbecks the elder, and later, after the old man died, from the younger. Didn’t you know that? Of course, I keep forgetting! You’re not really a Bristol man, are you?’ He spoke with all the infuriating condescension of one born and bred in the place. ‘Old Overbecks was an astute businessman and, at various times, bought up properties all over the town. This is one of them.’

I was intrigued. ‘That explains it, then.’

‘Explains what?’

‘Why Jasper never tried any of his nasty tricks on John Overbecks. Why he never made any attempt to put a rival — and a successful rival, at that — out of business. I’ve often pondered the reason. It was so out of character for Jasper. Did he resent, do you think, being the tenant of another man?’

Richard Manifold shrugged. ‘Who’s to say what Jasper felt or didn’t feel? I had very little to do with him. He covered his tracks so well, had his bully-boys so much under his thumb, that it was impossible to link him to any of the crimes committed in this city. People were far too frightened of him to complain or point the accusing finger. He got away with murder.’

‘Until he was murdered himself,’ I muttered slowly, surveying the corpse once more. ‘He eventually overreached himself with someone. But he certainly wasn’t expecting the violent reaction he got.’

There was the sudden clatter of feet on the stairs and, a moment later, John Overbecks entered the kitchen. He stopped abruptly at the sight of Jasper’s body lying across the table, and recoiled a little.

‘Dear God in heaven, so it is true!’ He steadied himself with a hand on the door jamb. ‘I’ve only just heard.’ He must have seen our sceptical looks, because he went on, ‘No, truly! Dick Hodge and I have been in the bakery all morning, catching up on a late order for more bread from the priory. They’re expecting an influx of visitors, ready for the start of the fair on Saturday. So Dick and I were up at the crack of dawn and shut ourselves away until the order was completed. After that, there were our own loaves to bake, and it wasn’t until the arrival of the first hucksters that we were told the news. It took me a moment or two to take it in. Then I decided I’d better come straight over.’

‘Why?’ With this second intrusion, Richard was in no mood to be diplomatic.

John Overbecks clucked indignantly. ‘Because it’s my property, of course! If there’s been a fight, I want to know what sort of damage has been done.’ He stared around him and heaved a sigh of relief. ‘Fortunately, none, by the look of it.’ He walked round behind the body and gave it his careful consideration, then nodded approvingly. ‘Whoever did that, did a quick, clean and efficient job. Beautiful. Just the way we used to dispose of sentries and lookouts in France. Creep up behind them and a quick thrust up under the ribs with your dagger into the heart — so!’ He demonstrated. ‘They were in heaven or the other place before they even knew you were there.’

It was obvious that John Overbecks’s response to Jasper Fairbrother’s murder was the same as that of everyone else — indifference, tempered with relief.

‘Well,’ he continued, ‘as there’s no damage done, I’ll be going, Sergeant, and leave you, with Roger’s help, to get on with your investigation.’ He gave me a sly wink, so I knew that he was being deliberately provocative. ‘Have you a suspect in your eye? Rather like looking for a tree in a forest, I should imagine.’ He crossed to the door, where he paused and glanced back. ‘What about that stranger we saw with Master Fairbrother yesterday morning? You know who I mean, Roger. You and Adela were with me. He and Jasper were arguing.’

Richard turned a frowning look in my direction, but I ignored him.

‘He can’t be the murderer, John. Sergeant Manifold and I have worked out that Master Fairbrother probably wasn’t killed until around ten o’clock last night. By that time, our Breton friend had left the city. Cicely Ford and I both saw him much earlier, walking up Saint Michael’s Hill, past the boundary stone and striding out on the road towards the down.’

‘He might have returned to the city,’ the baker argued.

‘I doubt it. He was carrying his pack and cloak.’

John Overbecks shrugged. ‘That’s no proof. He might have intended to leave, but, for some reason or another, changed his mind and came back. How long before curfew was it?’

Reluctantly, I admitted that it had lacked some time to the closing of the city gates.

‘Well, there you are, then.’

Here Richard Manifold broke in angrily. ‘Will one of you tell me who it is you’re talking about? This may be vital evidence, God save the mark!’

‘Roger will tell you. I have to get back to my shop,’ the baker said, and disappeared through the open doorway and down the stairs as fast as his legs would carry him.

I was left to face the irate sergeant, so I told my tale as briefly as I could. Indeed, there wasn’t much to tell, although I did remember to include my third sighting of the stranger in Broad Street during the afternoon.

‘Coming out of Robin Avenel’s house, you say?’ There was an air of suppressed excitement about Richard Manifold’s question that intrigued me. Also, he had started to bite his nails, a sure sign, in him, of perturbation. ‘Well, well! Who’d have guessed it?’

But when I asked him to speak more plainly, he clammed up and said it was nothing: he had merely been thinking aloud.

‘You’re certain that this man was a Breton?’ he asked, as we descended the stairs together. ‘Is the ship he arrived on still moored in Saint Nicholas Backs?’

‘In answer to your first question, I’m almost certain. As for the ship, I don’t know.’

A little crowd of people had once again gathered outside the bakery, but Richard dispersed them with a few curt words and, using the key he had found hanging on a nail on the kitchen wall, locked the street door behind us.

‘Walk down to Saint Nicholas Backs with me,’ he invited, ‘and see if you can spot this Breton merchantman.’

But it had gone, sailing down the Avon on the morning tide, no doubt, and in its berth was a Portuguese ship, perfuming the air with a cargo of exotic spices.

Richard swore, long and satisfyingly, before turning on me. ‘I wish you’d told me all this yesterday,’ he said savagely.

I assumed a wounded expression. ‘How did I know it was of any importance? In fact, I still don’t know that. The man can’t be the murderer if we’re right about the time of death. .’

‘I’m willing to wager my last groat that he’s the killer,’ Richard interrupted with such ill-founded assurance that it took my breath away. Rendered speechless, all I could muster was a sort of outraged croak, which my companion mistook for encouragement to continue with his crack-brained theory. ‘Overbecks is right! After you and Mistress Ford saw him on Saint Michael’s Hill, the stranger changed his mind and returned to the city before the gates were closed for the night.’

‘Why?’ I managed. ‘For what reason?’

‘Unfinished business with Jasper Fairbrother. John Overbecks said that the two men were arguing. You agreed. Whatever the cause of that disagreement, our Breton friend was dissatisfied with the outcome and returned to settle the matter.’

‘By murdering Jasper?’ Even as I spoke, I recalled how the stranger had faltered at the sight of the hanged man on the gibbet. Had murder and its possible consequences indeed been on his mind?

‘Oh, he may not have intended to kill Jasper,’ Richard conceded. ‘But one thing might have led to another and, eventually, to murder.’ Richard quickened his step. ‘The city must be searched for this man, although I very much doubt that he’ll still be here. He probably left at first light. The surrounding countryside must be scoured, as well. I’ll organize a posse. We’ll catch him, and when we do, you’ll be needed to identify him, Roger, so don’t set off on your travels. That’s an order, mind. And now I must report to the sheriff.’ He moved ahead of me, lengthening his stride, but paused to call over his shoulder, ‘Tell Adela that I shall be delighted to accept her kind invitation to supper tonight.’

He pressed on and disappeared into the Councillors’ Hall, opposite All Saints’ Church.

I was left standing at the top of High Street. After a moment or two lost in thought, I began walking home, confident in Adela’s ability to have my dinner on the table in spite of the late start to her day. Besides, I told myself, she would be agog to hear all my news. But I walked slowly, not just to give her more time, but also to try to clear my mind.

Richard Manifold was neither a stupid nor an impulsive man. He had more than his fair share of intelligence and common sense, loath though I was to admit it. Why, therefore, without proof and on the flimsiest of evidence, had he seized so adamantly on the notion that the Breton was the murderer? The only guess I could hazard was that he knew something about this man that I didn’t, had heard something about him that I hadn’t, and had already been looking for an excuse to raise the hue and cry in order to arrest him. What better or more urgent than a charge of murder?

But why? Well, if the stranger were indeed a Breton, and I felt convinced that he was, could he be in the employ of Brittany’s most notorious exile, troublemaker and thorn in the government’s side, Henry Tudor? Was he one of Henry’s agents, visiting England to contact the earl’s sympathizers? That might explain Richard Manifold’s remark about Robin Avenel, ‘Well, well! Who’d have guessed it?’ The sheriff could well have received a warning from King Edward’s spymaster general that such a man was due to pay a visit to this country, travelling from town to town in order to discover what secret sympathy there was for the Lancastrian cause. Perhaps that was why the man had flinched from the felon’s corpse on Saint Michael’s Hill, because he knew how much more horrifying was the death for traitors and spies.

I was still mulling the matter over when I reached the cottage and went inside, ready for my dinner.