The Lammas Feast

Six

The two men finished their drink and stood up. I hastily lowered my gaze, and, a second or so later, they passed by my table and went out, without even noticing me. How could I have forgotten them? How could they have slipped my mind so completely? Above all, why wasn’t Richard Manifold considering them as suspects for Jasper’s murder? The sooner I saw Richard, and not only confirmed my own suspicions concerning the stranger, but also jogged his memory about the two bravos, the better.

I hurriedly swallowed the rest of my ale, at the same time remembering uneasily how cautious the sergeant had been on the subject of these two men; how vigorously he had protested their innocence. What did he know about them that he was concealing from me? Nothing, of course, in his role of sheriff’s officer, that he did not have a perfect right to hide. All the same. .

Someone sat down heavily on the stool next to mine, and a hand fell on my shoulder, making it impossible for me to rise.

‘Roger,’ said John Overbecks, ‘I’m glad to have fallen in with you. I wanted to assure you that Jane meant no harm when she took Adam for a ride in his cart this morning. She came home in tears, afraid she had angered you. She said you looked cross. I had no idea she had gone out on her own. She must have escaped while I was with you and Sergeant Manifold. I know she appears a little odd, and, at times, acts even more oddly, but, as I’ve told you before, there’s not an ounce of malice in her nature.’

By this time, my feelings of guilt were threatening to overwhelm me. My face had grown so flushed that I was conscious of beads of sweat trickling down my nose. I gibbered something incomprehensible, but the baker only smiled.

‘No need to apologize,’ he told me. ‘I understand. Now, don’t run away. Stay and have another drink with me. I’m parched after a trudge up to the nunnery.’ And he called to the pot boy for two more stoups of ale.

Much as I wanted to go and find Richard Manifold, I had no wish to affront John Overbecks by an over-hasty departure, so I allowed my beaker to be refilled.

‘You’ve been up to see the Magdalen nuns?’ I queried, unable, on the spur of the moment, to think of anything else to say.

He nodded. ‘One of my hucksters was taken ill this morning, and the bread was urgently required. I didn’t think it fair to ask any of the other women to make the climb up to Saint Michael’s Hill in this heat, so I went myself.’ He took a deep draught of ale and smacked his lips. ‘That’s better. No, that was a lesson I learned when I was soldiering abroad. Never ask subordinates to do anything you’re not prepared to do yourself.’

‘That was a bad time in France,’ I suggested.

‘A vicious time, with ill feeling on both sides. Our glory days were long over. I was twenty when I left England in ’48, and I arrived on the other side of the Channel just as we surrendered Le Mans. A few years earlier, the French had retaken most of Gascony, and we were rapidly losing control of Normandy as well. Within three years, Bordeaux and Bayonne had also been lost, and of all our French possessions, only Calais remained to us. The most disgusting atrocities were perpetrated by both armies. No quarter was expected, none was given. The year following the loss of Le Mans, we sacked Fougères.’ He shuddered. ‘The sights I saw turned my stomach, I can tell you. I even thought of deserting.’

He paused and compressed his lips tightly, as though he found the subject too painful to say anything further. The thought flickered faintly, somewhere on the edges of my mind, that perhaps he had deserted, but it sputtered and died almost immediately. John Overbecks, who did not expect others to undertake anything he was not prepared to do himself, was not the sort of man to fail in his duty.

Almost as though he had read my thoughts, he smiled. ‘It’s all right, you’re not talking to one of those cowards who ran away and left his comrades in the lurch.’ He drained his beaker and called for another. ‘By Our Lady, that walk made me dry! I only hope that Ethelreda’s recovered enough for the climb tomorrow. I don’t think I can tackle it again. But at least I was able to have a word with my sister-in-law.’

‘Of course,’ I said. ‘I’d forgotten for the moment that she’s now one of the nuns. Adela and I will probably see her tomorrow evening, at Vespers. Mistress Ford has invited us to be her guests. It’s the Feast of Saint Mary Magdalen,’ I added by way of explanation.

‘So Marion — Sister Jerome, rather — mentioned. But she didn’t suggest that Jane and I go. I suppose because she knows how easily bored and restless her sister becomes when she has to stand still for any length of time.’ He downed the contents of his second beaker in almost one gulp and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. ‘Well, I must be off. I’ve left Jane too long already. Burl Hodge’s wife is keeping her company, but she doesn’t like it if I’m absent for more than an hour or so.’

He rose to his feet, but I gripped his wrist, detaining him.

‘Master Overbecks, do you intend letting Jasper’s old living quarters above the bakery?’

He looked down at me, pursing his lips. ‘I haven’t really had time to think about it, lad. It’s all been such a shock. The murder, I mean. I can guess what’s in your mind, though.’ He grimaced sympathetically. ‘But to be honest with you, I think I want to be rid of the entire building. I’ve enough to do with my present business, without taking on another. One of my fellow bakers might like to buy it from me. Or it would make a fine town dwelling if the shop and bakehouse were used as living space, as well.’ He sighed and shook his head. ‘It would be more than you could afford, Roger, I’m afraid.’

Sadly, I agreed. Even with my two gold pieces added to every spare penny I had earned so far this summer, it would be beyond my pocket. But just the thought of such a house made me sick with longing; two rooms downstairs and four up would be paradise. But a moment’s reflection sufficed to remind me that a lowly chapman, such as myself, would incur resentment living in such surroundings. I echoed the baker’s sigh.

‘Just a midsummer’s dream,’ I said, and released his arm.

John Overbecks patted my shoulder and took his leave. I stayed where I was for a few moments longer, then bade the landlord good day and went in search of Richard Manifold.

I found him in the Councillors’ Meeting Hall, next to the Tolzey, where the sheriff, as well as the mayor, city bailiffs and councillors, had rooms; rooms, I noted sourly, that were spacious and well appointed. (Those in authority always make themselves comfortable.)

Richard was in one of the ante-rooms, waiting, I presumed, to make a report, either to the sheriff himself, or to one of his deputies. I sat down on the bench beside him and was greeted with a surly frown.

‘What do you want?’

This was not the welcome I had hoped for, but I ignored the frosty atmosphere and smiled benignly. I put my first question: ‘Was the stranger who had called on Jasper Fairbrother an agent of Henry Tudor?’

He jumped. ‘Who told you that?’ he barked.

‘No one. I put two and two together and thought I’d made four. But I suppose,’ I added, pretending to doubt my own ability, ‘I might have made five instead.’

Richard lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘No. There’s nothing wrong with your addition, unfortunately. I have reason to believe that the man’s a Lancastrian spy. But don’t go blabbing it all over the place, mind! I know that big mouth of yours!’

I felt this was most unjust and said so. ‘Have you caught him yet?’ I added nastily. ‘You said you were sending a posse in pursuit.’

‘And so I did, an hour or more ago. Twenty men from around the town, with Jack Gload and Pete Littleman in charge.’ I snorted. He ignored it. ‘But this fellow had at least four hours start of them, if he left the city at dawn, as soon as the gates were open.’

‘But he’s on foot. They’re mounted,’ I objected. After a moment, I asked, ‘In which direction are they searching?’

He laughed shortly.

‘Well, of course, our man could be anywhere. But as you claimed to have seen him on Saint Michael’s Hill yesterday evening, I instructed Pete and Jack to try that road first. That doesn’t mean to say,’ he added, ‘that our fugitive hasn’t gone in some entirely different direction.’

That might be the case if he returned to Bristol after I saw him. But I don’t believe he did. Richard, my guess is that he’s a great deal more than a mere few hours ahead of your posse. I think he’s been travelling all night.’

The sergeant’s frown became a scowl. ‘You don’t believe the Breton killed Jasper Fairbrother, then?’

‘I’m not convinced. Moreover, I don’t think you are, either. You just want an excuse to lay him by the heels. And a charge of murder is as good as — in fact, better than — any other.’

‘You’re wrong. I believe he is the man we’re after. These agents are ruthless. They dare not risk betrayal. If Jasper was threatening to make trouble of some kind-’

I interrupted, trying desperately hard to suppress the note of triumph in my voice. ‘He wasn’t. Our stranger was attempting to blackmail him. Ask Walter Godsmark.’

Richard turned on me savagely. ‘You’ve been talking to Walter Godsmark?’

‘Why not? There’s no law against it that I know of. What’s more, I persuaded him to remember some conversation he’d overheard between Jasper and his guest. The Breton was, it seems, trying to force Jasper to give him money. “For the cause”, according to Walter. Jasper was reluctant to oblige. Said he was being “bled dry”, again according to Walter. There was further wrangling, after which the two men apparently went upstairs and out of earshot. But it was the stranger who was threatening Jasper, not the other way around.’

‘If-if W-Walter wasn’t just making this up in order to g-get rid of you and your infernal poking and p-prying!’ Richard, his face like thunder, could barely stammer out the words, he was so angry. He gripped my wrist with such ferocity, I thought he would crush the bone. ‘I’ve told you, keep out of this, Roger! If I discover you’ve interfered again, I shall lodge a formal complaint against you. I’ll have you locked up, if necessary. Is that understood?’

I ignored the question and posed another of my own.

‘What about those two oafs I drew to your attention yesterday? I’ve just seen them drinking in the Green Lattis. Why aren’t they suspected of the murder? Has it occurred to you that it might have been Jasper’s house they were watching, and not John Overbecks’s? The two shops are almost opposite one another.’

‘By God’s blood!’ Richard’s hold on my wrist tightened still further. ‘Those two men had nothing to do with Jasper’s death! I’m warning you, Chapman! Keep your nose out of my enquiry or I’ll see you clapped in gaol!’

He was furious that I had obtained information from Walter Godsmark that he should have found out for himself. I could appreciate his chagrin and bore him no ill will. I would have felt the same in his shoes.

I freed my arm from his clasp just as a rheumy-eyed clerk came to summon him into the next-door chamber.

‘Adela and I will expect you at four o’clock then, for supper,’ I said magnanimously, and, hoisting my pack on to my back, left him still seething with wrath.

He did not come. I was not surprised, and neither was Adela, who seemed more relieved than otherwise when I had regaled her with the events of my day. I was in her good books again, having had a successful afternoon, selling nearly everything that was in my pack. Tomorrow, I should have to set about restocking it.

I did not mention the fact that I had followed the steep and stony track up Saint Michael’s Hill, beyond the gallows and the windmill, to the steadily rising countryside that led to Durdham Down. There was a scattering of farms and larger dwellings on these slopes, where money was more plentiful than in the town, and where a travelling pedlar was always welcome. Refreshment, too, was plentiful, and on a sweltering day like today that was a serious consideration. A greater one, however, was the chance to make a few discreet enquiries — such as, had a stranger, a foreigner, passed that way within the last twenty-four hours? Had anyone called, begging a night’s lodging in some kitchen corner, where he could shelter and be warm?

But although there had, inevitably, been travellers seeking sanctuary at several of the houses, not one of the descriptions I was offered tallied with that of the Breton. I had eventually been forced to abandon the chase and return home with sore feet, an aching back, but a considerably heavier purse and lighter pack than when I set out.

Supper was a somewhat fraught affair. Adam was exercising his lungs, red in the face with indignation that his needs were not being attended to immediately. Elizabeth and Nicholas were squabbling about nothing in particular, worn out by the relentless heat. Adela looked tired and answered in a desultory fashion, with none of her usual vivacity, while I was distracted by my thoughts concerning the possible identity of Jasper’s murderer. Towards the end of the meal, the conversation flagged and died. Even the two elder children got tired of quarrelling, leaving Adam a clear field. His wails of outrage became more marked, piercing cries that threatened to split his listeners’ skulls in two. Finally, Adela, having finished eating with stoic determination, undid her bodice, picked him up and put him to her breast. Silence descended. I had never realized before quite how blissful it could be.

But not for long. Before my ears had accustomed themselves to the sudden hush, Elizabeth climbed on to my lap, while Nicholas began smoothing my cheek.

‘Can we have a dog?’ they chorused.

‘No,’ Adela and I said flatly and in unison.

Elizabeth at once burst into tears. Nicholas bounced off in a huff, returning to his stool and drumming his heels loudly against its legs. Adela and I exchanged tired glances, each waiting for the other to take control of the situation. But we were both too hot and weary. Instead, reading each other’s minds, as husbands and wives are apt to do, we picked up our own stools, Adela still with Adam cradled in one arm, and went to sit outside the cottage door, which we closed firmly behind us. Elizabeth and Nicholas, thankfully, made no move to follow. The sounds of kicking and crying diminished.

After a few moments, ‘You’re feeling trapped,’ my wife accused me. Well, it sounded like an accusation.

I denied it, of course, but she knew better.

The truth was that, until recently, I had known very little of family life. When Lillis had died giving birth to our daughter, Margaret Walker had taken charge. While I selfishly escaped to the pleasure of the open road — a pleasure to me, at any rate — my mother-in-law had reared the child single-handed. Marriage to Adela had changed all that. Not immediately, it was true, but with Adam’s arrival, and with Nicholas and Elizabeth growing up, I finally knew myself to be a family man with a family man’s responsibilities. I knew at last what it was to be subjected daily to the never-ending demands of small children and their ruthless insistence on getting their own way. I knew what it was to be kept awake at night by a baby demanding to be fed; what it was, never to be able to make love to my wife discreetly and in comfort, without the fear of a small, inquisitive figure suddenly rearing up on the neighbouring mattress asking the dreaded question, ‘What are you doing?’ In addition, I knew that I could no longer abandon my family, seize my pack and cudgel and be off about my own business for weeks at a time on the slightest pretext, as I used to do. The knowledge that Adela would raise not a single murmur of protest, however much her heart might misgive her at the prospect of being left alone with the three children, was an even greater deterrent. I loved her, deeply, passionately, and she deserved better from me than that. So, for the first time in eight years since renouncing the monastic life at Glastonbury, I was feeling like a prisoner caged in a narrow cell and with no imminent prospect of release.

On a sudden impulse, I told Adela about my conversation with John Overbecks in the Green Lattis (or Abyngdon’s or the New Inn, whichever she wanted to call it). But I still didn’t tell her about the two gold pieces concealed under the floor. (They made no difference to our ability to buy the baker’s shop as a dwelling for ourselves and our growing family, so there seemed no point in mentioning them. Their existence insured us against any unexpected disaster, but Adela, sensible and level-headed as she was, possibly wouldn’t see it that way. There was so much we still needed.)

For a moment, she was inclined to add her lamentations to mine, but not for long.

‘God gives each of us the life we have to lead,’ she remarked practically, ‘and He expects us to make the best of it. So it’s not only useless, but wrong, to repine over what we can’t, and don’t, have. God will provide.’

I wished that I had her deep and abiding faith instead of the feeling that the Almighty frequently forgot my very existence unless I gave Him a nudge. Furthermore, I was sure that His ideas about what was necessary to see me through this vale of tears differed considerably from my own. Sometimes it seemed that God and I had always been at loggerheads, but that wasn’t something I could confide even to Adela. She knew, and accepted, that my beliefs were occasionally unorthodox, but it would not only have shocked but also frightened her to realize quite how heretical they really were.

I leaned across and kissed her cheek. ‘You’re quite right,’ I said. ‘And if that young greedy-guts has finished sucking, let me take him, while you have a rest.’

She passed Adam to me and settled him in my arms, half afraid that, being a man, I wouldn’t know how to hold him, then sat back on her stool and smiled at both of us.

‘Are you going to heed Richard’s warning and keep your nose out of this murder?’

‘Do you want me to?’

‘I’d prefer you to. I don’t want you going to prison. On the other hand, if it would keep you from being bored and unhappy. .’

‘I’m never bored and unhappy with you, you should know that.’

She gave one of those rich, throaty chuckles that I had always found so attractive and that, even now, after more than a year of marriage, gave me a deep frisson of pleasure.

‘Weren’t you ever taught that it’s wrong to tell lies?’ she teased. ‘All right! I accept that you’re not unhappy. At least, I hope you’re not. But never bored? Oh, Roger!’

I grinned shamefacedly. There was, however, no chance to continue the discussion as Elizabeth and Nicholas, recovered from their sulks, sallied forth to join us, all ready to return to the fray. A dog they must, and would, have. Singly and together, they pointed out that an animal would be less costly, less messy and far less noisy than a baby brother. Why couldn’t we ask Mistress Overbecks, who, incomprehensibly, seemed to prefer Adam, if she would accept him in exchange for her little black and white mongrel? Adela and I, half-amused, half-angry, drove them indoors again to an early bed.

The night was less disturbed than I had expected. The two older children, worn out by their tantrums, slept until first light, and then seemed content to talk quietly together, lying side by side on their mattress, until such time as Adela and I roused ourselves. Adam had wanted feeding only once, my wife informed me, adding acidly that he had no doubt been woken by my snoring. This immediately marked me down as the one who had enjoyed an untroubled sleep and who should therefore be able to perform my morning chores with a good grace and a merry quip. In that respect, I’m afraid I was a disappointment. I gave Adela a quick peck on the cheek, grazing her with my unshaven chin, and went to fetch water from the conduit by Saint John’s Arch, muttering and grumbling under my breath as usual.

The mounds of yesterday’s refuse were already being scavenged by the neighbourhood’s dogs, who scattered what they could not eat far and wide across the open ground. As I staggered back to the cottage with our largest pitcher full to overflowing, I noticed with mounting irritation that a piece of cloth had wrapped itself around the toe of one boot and would not be shaken off. When I had emptied the pitcher’s contents into our water barrel, and before I paid a second visit to the conduit, I stooped and removed the offending rubbish.

At first glance it seemed to be nothing more than a long strip of grimy rag, and I was about to throw it away, when a glimmer of gold caught my eye. Closer inspection revealed the rag to be a scarf of fine silk gauze, woven with an intricate pattern of gold and silver thread, not the sort of pretty trifle any of the women living in Lewin’s Meadow would be likely to wear.

Adela, bustling about getting breakfast, requested me, with unnecessary asperity I thought, to finish filling the water barrel before supplies in the conduit ran low. This was apt to happen during the summer months, when the springs on the heights above Bristol — whose streams filled the Carmelite Friars’ great water cistern, from where the water was piped across the Frome Bridge to the conduit — began to dry up.

‘What is that disgusting thing you’re so interested in?’ she demanded irritably.

I held it up. ‘A silk gauze scarf, laced with gold and silver thread. I found it wound around my boot. It must have been dropped by someone. But who, in this neighbourhood, would own such a thing?’

Adela came closer and inspected it.

‘Oh, I know who that belongs to,’ she said. ‘I recognize it. Jane Overbecks was wearing it when she called here yesterday morning. She must have lost it when you chased her away.’

I hotly refuted the accusation. ‘I did not chase her away!’ But I could well believe that the scarf belonged to Mistress Overbecks. It was just such a piece of frippery as an elderly man of fifty or so, with more money than sense, would lavish on an adored young wife.

‘Give it to me,’ Adela said. ‘I’ll wash it and return it to her next time I pass the bakery. Roger, will you hurry up, please! Margaret is coming to dinner and to spend the rest of the day with us. Don’t forget you’ll have to share a mattress with Nicholas tonight. Elizabeth must come in with Margaret and myself.’ I must have looked bewildered, for she added impatiently, ‘You surely haven’t forgotten that we’re guests of Cicely Ford at Vespers this evening! Today is the Feast of Saint Mary Magdalen. Roger! You’re not listening to me. Will you please pay attention.’

She was wrong. I was listening, but with only half an ear. I was staring fixedly at one end of the scarf, where a dry, brownish stain disfigured one corner. I rubbed it tentatively and some tiny, brownish-red flakes crumbled into the palm of my hand. It was dried blood, I was in no doubt about that. But whose? And how did it come to be on Jane Overbecks’s scarf?

‘Roger! The water!’ my wife exclaimed forcefully. She glanced through the open doorway. ‘There are dozens of people streaming through the Frome Gate with jugs and pitchers. I want that water barrel filled before breakfast.’ She did not actually add, ‘Or there won’t be any breakfast,’ but the threat was implicit in her tone of voice.

But once I had filled the barrel, after four or five more trips, I was at liberty to return to my inspection of the scarf. It was definitely blood. I mentioned the fact to Adela.

‘What has that to say to anything?’ she asked, stirring oatmeal into the pot of boiling water over the fire. She paused, wiping the sweat from her forehead. ‘You’re not suggesting it has something to do with Jasper Fairbrother’s murder, surely? Oh really, Roger! Now, that’s what can only be described as clutching at straws. I never heard anything more absurd in my life!’

‘She’s an odd woman,’ I murmured defensively. ‘John Overbecks himself says so.’

Adela snorted. ‘Two questions, then: would she have had the strength to stab Jasper and what would be her motive?’

I had no answer for either query, so I held my peace. I could have said that women, even the frailest of them, can find amazing reserves of strength when they have to. But as to motive, there the water was darker and muddier. No one except Jane and her elder sister knew the real reason for the Baldock sisters’ flight from Exmoor. Had Jasper, who had spent his life prying into people’s secrets so that he could turn the information to his advantage, discovered something that even John Overbecks did not know?