The Lammas Feast

Seven

While I was finishing my breakfast — bread and ale, boiled oatmeal and herring — I said to Adela, ‘I’ll return the scarf to Mistress Overbecks myself, after I’ve restocked my pack.’

‘I shan’t have time to wash it,’ she demurred, but without exhibiting much enthusiasm for the job.

‘She can do it herself, if she wants to. The chances are that she’ll throw it away and John will buy her another one.’

‘Oh, come!’ Adela objected, laughing. ‘Master Overbecks may be warm in the pocket, but he’s not a spendthrift.’ She swallowed a mouthful of oatmeal. ‘Roger, you don’t seriously suppose that Jane Overbecks had anything to do with Jasper’s murder, do you? That blood could have come from a cut finger. It might be animal’s blood from when she was preparing meat.’

‘If she prepares meat, that is. I’d wager that her husband does most of the cooking. He’s bound to be better at it than she is. He looked after himself for long enough, all the years he was a bachelor.’ I finished my fish and took a last swig of ale. ‘But no, on reflection, sweetheart, I think you’re right. I’m just clutching at straws in order to prove Richard wrong about the Breton. It isn’t that I can’t imagine Jane Overbecks killing anyone, but not like that; not with a neat, quick knife thrust up between the ribs to the heart. No, if Jane took a knife to someone, the attack would be frenzied, not one wound, but dozens. The room would have been like the Worship Street Shambles. Besides, if Jasper had found out something about her past life, before she and her sister came to Bristol, and was blackmailing her, John would have been bound to know about it.’

Adela nodded in agreement. ‘Jane has no money of her own. Jasper wouldn’t have bothered with her: he would have gone straight to Master Overbecks with his knowledge.’

There was a speculative pause while we looked at one another across the width of the table. For once, the children were quiet. Adam had been fed, while Nicholas and Elizabeth were busy downing the first meal of the day to keep up their strength, and were temporarily deaf to the conversation of their elders.

‘You don’t think. .?’ Adela began, then stopped, uncomfortable with what she had been about to suggest.

‘It’s possible, I suppose,’ I answered slowly. ‘But John seemed genuinely shocked by the sight of Jasper’s body.’

Adela put her spoon down with a clatter.

‘What are we thinking of?’ she demanded disgustedly. ‘A simple bloodstain on a scarf, and we’re both letting our imaginations gallop away with us without rhyme or reason. We ought to be thoroughly ashamed of ourselves! It’s all your fault, Roger! You started me thinking like this. You don’t have a single shred of evidence to connect either of the Overbecks to the murder, now do you? The Breton’s our man, as Richard says. Let the officers of the law deal with it, and mind your own business for once.’

‘Very well! But I still don’t think the Breton’s guilty,’ I added defiantly.

Adela then made the mistake of throwing a piece of leftover bread at me. Nicholas and Elizabeth, enchanted by this new game, joined in with enthusiasm, gathering up all the dried crusts and pelting me as hard as they were able. Adela, feeling responsible, was unable to call them to order, and could only watch, her face a picture of comical dismay. I suffered the stinging barrage for a while, then let out a roar of protest that there was no mistaking. The bombardment ceased abruptly as I stood up, brushing the crumbs from my clothes and hair.

‘Do I get no respect as head of this household?’ I grinned.

When they saw that I was not seriously annoyed, the children would have begun again — why do children never know when enough is enough? — but Adela told them sternly to go outside and play. Then she rose from her seat and came to put her arms about my neck, kissing me fondly. I held her tightly, letting her know that I was counting the days until we could make love again.

She laughed and gently tweaked my nose.

‘Patience!’ she scolded, adding, ‘Don’t forget! Margaret will be coming to dinner.’

I groaned, but promised Adela that I would try to be back by ten o’clock to lend her my support. Then I shouldered my almost empty pack, put Jane Overbeck’s scarf in my pouch and went on my way.

I spent a profitable hour or two among the various merchantmen berthed along the banks of the Frome and the Avon (although there was no sign of a particular Breton ship having returned yet). A few of the captains were prepared, for a personal consideration, to part with some of their masters’ goods before they were unloaded on to the quayside. From a Castilian ship, I managed to purchase, at very reasonable prices, two pairs of fine leather gloves, half a dozen beautifully tooled leather tags for belt ends, a silver and coral rosary, some cheaper rings and pendants that looked as though they might be gold so long as they weren’t scrutinized too closely, and a length of black lace that I planned to sell for at least three times the amount I had paid for it. From the Backs, I proceeded across Bristol Bridge — having urgent need to use its public latrine — pottering in and out of the shops where, for half a groat or so less than the price at which I could resell them, I bought pins and bobbins, laces and ribbons, needles, thread and string.

My pack was now about three-quarters full, but I had no intention, just at present, of stocking it any further. With Saint James’s Fair beginning in three days’ time, I should then be offered such a choice of goods as would replenish it four or five times over, as well as enabling me to sell, for vastly inflated sums, some of the superior items I had managed to lay my hands on today.

The morning was now well advanced. It would soon be ten o’clock and dinnertime, so I turned back from the bridge towards High Street and John Overbecks’s shop. The crush of people was already great, and the drains were filling up fast with piles of refuse. Sailors, after weeks of deprivation on board, were getting roaring drunk, rolling along Marsh Street and the Backs, hollering obscene sea shanties at the tops of their voices. The fact that most of the songs were in foreign tongues made not the slightest bit of difference: the gestures that accompanied the words made their meaning perfectly plain to everyone.

‘And what are you grinning at?’ demanded Margaret Walker’s familiar voice in my ear. ‘If you’re going home to dinner, you can give me your arm the rest of the way.’

‘Er, mother-in-law!’ I murmured, trying unsuccessfully to sound as if I were overjoyed to see her. ‘I’m afraid I have to call at Master Overbecks’s bakery to return this.’ I pulled the scarf from my pouch. ‘Jane Overbecks dropped it yesterday, when she called on Adela.’

Margaret snorted and eyed the flimsy article disparagingly.

‘What does the girl want with a piece of nonsense like that? Pure adornment! No substance in it. Can’t keep her warm. I don’t suppose she values it, either. She’s simple, not right in the head, but John dotes on her. Always has done, ever since she and her sister arrived here. Took them in, looked after them as though they were his own. Well, there’s no fool like an old fool, as I’ve grown tried of telling him. Plenty of good Bristol women tossed their caps in John Overbecks’s direction. Any one of them would have made him a decent, respectable wife. But no, he’d have none of them. Then along comes this idiot child and he falls head over heels in love with her.’ Margaret clucked her tongue disapprovingly over the follies and vagaries of men. (She had never had a very high opinion of me. She knew, quite rightly, that Adela was far too good for me.)

We had, by now, reached Master Overbecks’s shop, where the usual crowd of customers had been augmented by those who had previously bought their buns and cakes from Jasper Fairbrother. The roadway was blocked to a depth of several feet and, on the other side of the counter, I could see Dick Hodge sweating profusely as he tried to satisfy all demands as quickly as possible. The goodwives kept up a stream of lewd, but good-natured, banter that made the poor lad hotter than ever, until his round, red face was one perspiring blush.

I called out a word of encouragement to him, then turned into Saint Mary le Port Street and entered the bakery by the side door. Somewhat to my annoyance, I found that Margaret had accompanied me. She obviously had no intention of proceeding to Lewin’s Mead on her own. Cursing silently, I was forced to make the best of the situation, and could only pray that she would curb her tongue, regarding his wife, in the presence of the baker.

John Overbecks was in the bakehouse, loading the hucksters’ baskets with the freshly baked loaves he had recently removed from the oven. Fortunately, he was just dealing with the last of them as we entered. As the women followed one another out through the door, he laid down his pele and turned to us, mopping his brow with the skirt of his linen apron.

‘And what can I do for you good people?’ he asked in a not altogether friendly fashion.

I gave him the scarf. ‘Mistress Overbecks dropped it yesterday when she called. I found it amongst the rubbish outside our door.’ I added casually, ‘There’s some dried blood on it. I hope your wife hasn’t hurt herself?’

The baker gave the stain I had indicated an indifferent glance.

‘Is that what it is? Blood? Oh, yes, I remember now. I cut one of my fingers the other day, and Jane wiped it with the end of her scarf.’ He chuckled, suddenly better tempered. ‘I told her she shouldn’t have bothered. I could have used the blood as colouring for the loaf I was baking, instead of distilled rose petals. It would probably have made for a richer dye.’ He chuckled again. ‘No, no, Mistress Walker! Don’t look like that! I’m only joking!’

‘So I trust,’ Margaret replied austerely. She glanced behind her as the door leading to the living quarters above the shop opened. Jane Overbecks descended the last few treads of the just visible staircase and came in.

As she had done two days earlier, she appeared ready to flee at the sight of visitors, and this time there was no Adam to deflect her from her purpose. Her husband, however, moved to intercept her, putting his arm around her and clipping her tightly against his side, so that she should not escape.

‘Master Chapman’s come to return your scarf, my love. You dropped it yesterday, outside his house.’

She made no answer, simply taking the flimsy article without looking at it and twisting it round and round one hand. But neither did she look at us. Instead, she hung her head and stared at her bare feet. She was dressed much as she had been on Monday, except that she had found her missing ear hoop and, in spite of the summer heat, had added a woollen shawl to her attire; in order, I guessed, to hide the still unmended sleeve of her bodice.

‘Thank Master Chapman,’ John Overbecks prompted her gently, but she refused to speak.

‘We’ll go,’ I said, steering Margaret firmly towards the street door.

But before we could leave, Jane gave a great shudder that seemed to rack her frail body from top to toe, flung the scarf from her and rushed ahead of us, through the house door and up the stairs, almost knocking Margaret over in her hurry to be gone.

Her husband apologized profusely. ‘She didn’t sleep well last night,’ he excused her. ‘It makes her uncertain and unreliable during the day. Now, Chapman, you mustn’t go without some pastries for yourself and the children. I know what a sweet tooth you all have.’

He picked out two sticky raisin buns and a large honey cake which Margaret was able to accommodate in her basket, alongside her night shift, prayer missal and the other necessaries she had brought for a night to be spent in our company.

‘I reckon Master Overbecks is relieved to see the back of us,’ Margaret remarked, as we turned once again into High Street and began walking in the direction of the High Cross. ‘He may be madly in love with that child, but her antics are bound to embarrass him.’

I gave Margaret my arm as we battled our way through the gossiping crowds gathered at the crossroads, where more Bristol reputations were made and destroyed than in any other part of the city.

As we started down Broad Street, I said, ‘Master Overbecks puts Jane’s odd behaviour down to something that happened in her childhood. He suspects she may have been raped.’

There was a moment’s silence before Margaret answered, ‘She was. Both sisters were. I’m surprised that John Overbecks doesn’t know it for certain.’ She shrugged her thin shoulders. ‘I suppose Marion, for reasons of her own, has never told him the full story.’

‘You mean she’s told you?’ I was so astonished that I stood stock still and was only brought to my senses by various people treading on my heels, bumping into me and cursing me for impeding their progress.

Margaret nodded and we started walking again. There was no time now to get the whole story from her, as we were nearly at Saint John’s Arch and the Frome Bridge beyond. But I was determined to do so when we had finished our dinner; when she was mellowed and in a good mood; when the children had been sent outside to play.

Replete with two bowlfuls of rabbit stew, freed at last from the incessant attentions of Nicholas and her granddaughter, Adam soothed and sucking at Adela’s breast as though he had never known what it was to have a square meal before, Margaret sat back in our one (very rickety) armchair, belched loudly and patted her stomach.

‘That was good,’ she approved. ‘But then, the Woodward women have always known how to feed their men.’

‘And the men are properly grateful for it,’ I cut in, before any further family reminiscences could thwart my purpose. ‘Mother-in-law, tell us both about the Baldock sisters. And why you think Marion chose to confide in you and not in John Overbecks.’

Margaret stroked her chin. ‘In answer to your last question, how should I know? Perhaps, because of my own tragic history, she thought that I would be sympathetic to the misfortunes of others. Or perhaps, that particular morning, she was lonely and unhappy and wanted to share her experience with another woman. It wasn’t long after she and Jane had arrived in Bristol. I was alone, I remember. Lillis must have gone out somewhere. Marion was employed as a huckster in those days by John Overbecks, who had taken her and her sister to live with him. I always thought, you know, that maybe Marion would marry John. She’d have made him an excellent wife. But, alas, it wasn’t to be. Instead, he fell for the younger, useless one.’

‘What was her story?’ I urged, impatient with this digression.

Margaret fell silent, drumming her fingers on the table-top. After a moment or two, she said, ‘I’ve never told anyone else what Marion divulged to me that morning. Not even when people have been discussing the Baldock girls. Not even when I’ve heard Goody Watkins and her cronies making the wildest guesses as to what might or might not have happened to make them flee their home. Nor have I confirmed their gossip, either, when they’ve come pretty close to guessing the truth. So, why should I tell you now?’

I glanced questioningly at Adela, but she merely hunched her shoulders very slightly, so as not to disturb Adam, who, sensing an interruption to his food supply, sucked even harder.

It had never been any use trying to pull the wool over Margaret’s eyes about anything, so I decided to make a clean breast of the matter. She heard me out in silence, then laughed shortly.

‘He doesn’t change, does he?’ she demanded of Adela.

‘No, thank God. He wouldn’t be Roger if he did,’ my wife replied loyally, and I mouthed her a silent kiss.

‘Oh well, I suppose not.’ Margaret conceded grudgingly, ‘His nosiness certainly did me a good turn, as I daresay it’s done for plenty of others.’

She leaned back again in her chair and gave another belch. I envied her; that was usually my prerogative. Today, however, crouched almost double on a stool, I was feeling all the discomfort of pent-up wind.

‘Go on, mother-in-law,’ I encouraged her.

She pursed her lips. ‘There isn’t much to tell. The story’s not an uncommon one, I should imagine, in such an isolated community as Marion and her sister came from. The two girls were orphaned not long after Jane’s tenth birthday. Marion was twenty by that time and old enough to look after the younger girl without help. But there was pressure on her from the village elders to get married. Begetting children, and as many as possible, was the duty of all the women: it was the only way of ensuring the community’s survival. The man picked out for her was the chief elder’s son, a young man she loathed for his callous, drunken ways. And with good reason, as it transpired.

‘When she refused to have him, he called at the sisters’ cottage one night, after dark, forced his way in with a couple of tipsy friends, and while he and one of the other men took it in turns to have their way with Marion, the third set on Jane. When her own ordeal was over, and Marion realized what had happened to her little sister, she lost her reason. Went temporarily insane, is what she said. She killed Jane’s attacker. She claims she can’t remember doing it, but as soon as she came to her senses and saw what she’d done, she simply grabbed Jane’s hand and they ran. Just as they were, in the clothes they stood up in. Fortunately, the other two men, the chief elder’s son and his friend, were still too drunk to stop them. After that, the girls just kept on running, travelling by night, hiding by day, stealing or begging food when and wherever they could, until Marion reckoned they were far enough from the village to start asking carriers for rides in their carts. Eventually, they reached Bristol, and the rest of the story you both know.’

Adela put Adam across one shoulder and patted his back. He burped loudly and milkily, before his face crumpled in woe. Warned by me, my wife hurriedly put him to the other breast.

‘I don’t understand,’ she said, when Adam was comfortably settled once more. ‘Why didn’t the villagers send someone to the nearest town to report the murder and raise a posse to go after the girls? I mean, in the vengeful state of mind they must have been in, it would have seemed the obvious thing to do.’

I shook my head. ‘These very isolated communities are a law unto themselves,’ I explained. ‘They make their own rules and carry out their own punishments. They have as little to do as possible with the outside world, and the outside world has as little as possible to do with them.’ I had had some experience of these sort of people, both in the forests around Gloucester and among the self-governing fishing villages of Devon. ‘My guess would be that they sent their own people after Marion Baldock, but she was too quick and too clever for them. They never traced her this far, and have long since decided to let the matter rest. After five years, they are hardly likely to be still looking for her. . Mother-in-law, you didn’t say how Marion killed this man who raped her sister. Did she tell you?’

‘Ye-es.’ There was a pause long enough for me to begin to suspect what was coming. After all, Marion could hardly have strangled a fully grown man, with two others in the room to help him. Margaret continued reluctantly, ‘She stabbed him. Through the heart. With a meat knife.’

‘Now, remember,’ Adela instructed me, as she straightened the pack on my back and kissed my cheek, ‘you’re to be home in good time for supper, so that I can bed the children down before we leave for Vespers at the nunnery. Are you listening, Roger? I don’t want to disgrace Mistress Ford by being the only two guests who are late.’

‘I promise,’ I said, returning her kiss with interest. I reached the safety of the cottage door before adding, ‘But if I should be delayed, go on without me.’ I nipped into the street and shut the door quickly, just as something thudded against the wood. I opened the door again, just a crack, and called, ‘If I’m very late, I’ll go straight to Saint Michael’s Hill without coming home first.’ Adela’s other shoe landed close by. I beat a strategic retreat.

I had not mentioned the fact, but it was my intention to see Cicely Ford long before the hour of Vespers. In fact, I was on my way to visit her at that moment. The fairground booths and stalls were now going up fast and furiously all around Saint James’s Priory, and I had to pick my way through piles of newly sawn timber and bags of carpenters’ tools, while their owners cursed me for a big-footed lout or a clumsy oaf, and their wives, even louder and shriller, berated me for my carelessness as I stepped on their cooking pots and upset their food.

As I climbed over the stile into Prior’s Lane and turned towards Saint Michael’s Hill, past the wall of the Franciscan Friary, I met a weary and dispirited posse, led by Jack Gload and Peter Littleman, returning home after more than twenty-four hours on the road. They had, no doubt, spent an uncomfortable night in some barn or even in the open fields.

‘You didn’t find the Breton, then?’ I called good-naturedly as they rode past me, displaying a concerned citizen’s interest in such matters.

Jack Gload snarled something unrepeatable, while Peter Littleman removed one foot from its stirrup and kicked out with his heavy boot. He missed me by inches. Suppressing a grin, I continued my climb, past Saint Michael’s Church and the boundary stone to the gibbet and Cicely Ford’s cottage, opposite.

I had more than half expected her to be out; to be spending this special day at the nunnery in prayer and meditation between services. But she answered my knock, looking, I thought, even more sad and weary than when I had seen her the day before last.

‘Roger!’ she exclaimed, the blue eyes lighting with pleasure in her tired face. ‘Oh! You’ve not come to tell me that you and Adela can’t come to Vespers tonight, have you? Is one of the children ill?’

‘No, no!’ I disclaimed hurriedly. ‘I just wanted to talk to you. It’s to do with Jasper Fairbrother’s murder. You’ve heard about it?’

‘Of course. John Overbecks was at the nunnery yesterday morning, delivering bread. One of the hucksters was ill, it seems.’ She shivered and glanced over my shoulder to the corpse still creaking in its chains. Her eyes filled with unshed tears. ‘Why do such evil things happen? But why do you want to talk to me? How can I help you? I know nothing about the murder.’

‘Were you at the nunnery the evening before last?’ I asked. ‘The evening when Jasper was killed?’

Cicely frowned. ‘Yes. I was there from the beginning of Vespers until the end of Compline.’

‘What time was Compline?’ As the last service of the day, it is always later in summer than in winter.

‘About nine o’clock. The sisters go to bed immediately afterwards.’

‘And all the sisters were present?’

‘Of course. And don’t ask me if I’m sure, Roger. There are so few of them that the absence of just one would be impossible to miss.’

I asked, all the same. ‘Sister Jerome was there? All the time?’

Cicely looked as angry as it was ever possible for her to do. ‘I’ve just told you. I’m not a liar. What is this about, Roger? What does it have to do with Master Fairbrother’s murder?’

‘Nothing,’ I sighed. Which was, unfortunately, the truth. By the time Compline ended, even if Marion Baldock had been able to quit the nunnery on some pretext or another, it would have been too late. The curfew bell would have been rung and the city gates shut against her.

Cicely laid a hand on my arm. ‘You look tired and hot,’ she said. ‘Come in and let me give you a drink.’

I accepted gratefully. It was cool and dark inside the cottage after the heat and glare outside. Its one room was as spartan as her old home had been luxurious. I wondered how she survived in such surroundings, she who had been so cosseted, so gently reared, so spoiled and adored.

She brought me a cold, pale drink, smelling of elderflowers. As she handed me the cup, our hands touched. The next moment, my free arm was around her waist. I bent my head and kissed her.