The Midsummer Rose

Ten

We made our peace, after a fashion.

I grovelled. Adela admitted that she had not been as affectionate as she might have been of late. In short, we both blamed ourselves rather than each other.

Supper was in preparation. Adam, seated in a corner, was unusually quiet as he investigated his bare feet with studied concentration. Elizabeth and Nicholas were upstairs re-enacting the Battle of Hastings, if the shouting and stampeding feet were anything to judge by.

‘So what did Mistress Hollyns want?’ Adela asked, dropping chopped vegetables into a pot of boiling water. But when I told her of Mistress Alefounder’s invitation, she turned to look at me, genuinely worried. ‘You won’t go, of course,’ she said.

‘Why ever not?’

‘Because it’s obviously a trap of some sort.’ She came across and put her hands on my shoulders, giving them a little shake. ‘For heaven’s sake, Roger, the woman has tried to kill you once already.’

‘She isn’t going to murder me in her brother’s house!’ I protested. ‘Especially when she must realize that I would have told you where I’m going.’

‘She could have you waylaid somewhere. Bell Lane, perhaps? The houses there are closer together than most.’

‘In that case, I’ll go by Corn Street. There’s always plenty of activity there of an evening on account of the Green Lattis.’ I put my arms around her, half expecting a rebuff. But none came, although she made no move to respond. ‘I have to find out what she wants, sweetheart. You must see that.’

Adela sighed. She would not attempt to dissuade me further. That was not her way of doing things. She was far too shrewd for that.

Supper was a quiet meal, the two older children having exhausted themselves with playing. Adam, tied into his little chair, was niggly but not obstreperous, as he so often was. And Adela and I were both preoccupied with our own concerns. The memory of Rowena Hollyns, and of my arms about her, still lay between us.

We discussed the coming festivities of the next two days, and my wife reminded me that we had to be up before dawn the following morning, Midsummer Eve, in order to gather the necessary herbs with which to ward off midnight’s evil spirits. I groaned inwardly, as I frequently did, at the practice of these ancient customs, whose origins were lost in the misty past of our Saxon and Celtic forebears. But I acquiesced meekly, knowing how much their observance meant to Adela.

It was well past five o’clock before I made my way to Broad Street and knocked on the door of Robin Avenel’s house. While I stood waiting, I reflected it would once have been Marjorie Dyer, then Dame Pernelle, Rob Short or Ned Stoner who answered my summons, or perhaps even Alison Weaver herself. But Marjorie and Alison were both dead, Rob and Ned had found new masters and Dame Pernelle had gone to live with her sister, Alice, in London. This evening the door was opened by a young maid who was a stranger to me.

‘I wish to see Mistress Alefounder,’ I said politely. ‘She’s expecting me. I’m Roger Chapman.’

The girl eyed me up and down, rather suspiciously I thought. Then she sniffed and held the door wide.

‘You’d better come in,’ she conceded reluctantly.

I reflected that I must be losing my touch; my irresistible boyish charm had failed to work its magic.

I was left to kick my heels in the hall while the girl went in search of Mistress Alefounder. I looked about me. How familiar it all was; the windows, giving on to Broad Street, shuttered below but the top halves fitted with rare and expensive glass panes; the doorposts and the ends of the roof beams carved in the likenesses of birds and flowers and picked out in red and gold; and the beautifully carved staircase spiralling upwards to the floor above. The two armchairs, which had stood on either side of the fireplace, had given way to a single, elaborately decorated, high-backed settle, while rushes and dried flowers had been discarded as floor covering in favour of crimson and blue woven rugs.

‘Oh! It’s you!’ exclaimed a voice. ‘What are you doing here?’

I spun round to confront Marianne Avenel. She was dressed for going out, with a light cloak clasped around her shoulders over a dress of emerald-green sarcenet and a jewelled belt that served to emphasize her slender waist and hips. Her winged headdress and veil were also made of silk, and I noticed for the first time that her eyebrows had been modishly plucked. Unlike her husband, however, she was sensible enough to avoid the extremes of fashion and had refused to shave her forehead or to ruin her complexion with applications of white lead.

‘I’m waiting for Mistress Alefounder,’ I said. ‘She’s asked to see me. Mistress Hollyns brought the message this afternoon.’

Marianne looked puzzled and would plainly have liked to question me further, except that she was in a hurry to be gone. She hesitated for a second or two, then wished me a hasty, if somewhat unwilling, farewell and vanished through the door.

She was not a moment too soon. As it closed, Robin Avenel descended the stairs, shouting, ‘Marianne!’ He pulled up short at the sight of me.

‘What are you doing here?’ he demanded, echoing his wife.

I was growing tired of this.

‘Why don’t you ask your sister?’ I snapped. ‘She’s the one who sent for me.’

‘Oh.’ He seemed as nonplussed as his wife had been, but a great deal more worried by the information. ‘Why?’ he asked.

‘I have no idea.’

We stared at one another, me in my dirty working hose and jerkin, he a particoloured vision in orange and white. It made my eyes hurt just to look at him.

‘Oh,’ he said again, then enquired, ‘You haven’t seen Mistress Avenel by any chance?’

‘She’s just gone out. Didn’t she tell you?’

‘No,’ he answered with a scowl that boded no good for the absent Marianne.

‘Gone to visit a friend,’ I suggested.

I could guess which one. And by the look on his face, so could he. But then Master Robin proved me wrong by exclaiming angrily, ‘It’s that Jenny Hodge! I’ve told Marianne, I won’t have her associating with the low-born wife of a tenter. I warned Burl Hodge about it, too. Told him to put a stop to it, but all I got was a mouthful of abuse. Said his wife was quite good enough to be the friend of a brewer’s daughter and the daughter-in-law of a sudsman. He called my father a sudsman!’ Robin strode towards the door. ‘I shall go and see Hodge at once to know why he hasn’t obeyed my instructions.’ Then he paused, remembering that I was there to visit his sister. He turned, anxiety once again creasing his face. But he was saved the trouble of interrogating me further.

‘Ah! Master Chapman!’

A voice sounded behind me, and Elizabeth Alefounder emerged from the kitchen quarters, as cool and unruffled as ever.

‘What do you want with the pedlar?’ her brother demanded before she could speak again.

She gave Robin an icy stare. ‘That is between him and me. Come into the parlour, chapman. We can be private there.’

She was evidently fully at home in her brother’s house and had no compunction in acting as though she were its mistress. I could see by Robin’s expression that he resented this attitude, but also that he was afraid of her — or afraid of what she had dragged him into. His voice rose squeakily when he addressed her.

‘I’m entitled to know what’s going on in my own home. I won’t be ignored. If it’s about-’

‘Be quiet, you fool!’ Elizabeth Alefounder spoke quietly, but her tone would have chilled Lucifer in his inferno. ‘Leave this to me. You’d better go and look for that wife of yours. The saints alone know what she’s up to.’

But her brother was not to be fobbed off so easily. His overstretched nerves suddenly broke and he screamed, ‘This is all your fault, do you hear me?’ And he threw himself at her, violently pummelling her shoulder.

I was so astonished by such infantile behaviour in a grown man that it was a second or two before I moved to go to her assistance. But Elizabeth Alefounder had no need of help from me. She reacted so rapidly that I could not really see how she managed it, but the next moment, Robin’s right arm was twisted up behind his back and he was whimpering in pain. She was a very formidable woman. But then, I already knew that.

Mistress Alefounder released her brother and he fell to the floor, sobbing wildly. She gave him an enigmatic glance that I found hard to define; a considering look, as though she were coming to some sort of a decision about him. I found it quite unnerving.

She turned to me. ‘This way, Master Chapman, if you please.’ And she led me into the parlour.

Here again, the furnishings had changed since the last time I had stood in this room, but it was still the same stuffy and airless little chamber that I remembered, especially in summer. I could feel the perspiration starting to course down my back.

My companion indicated a joint stool with a carved, acanthus-leaf edging, so I folded up my tall frame and sat down, feeling awkward. She herself took the armchair opposite. She was now higher than I was, putting me at a disadvantage, which, of course, was what she had intended. I stared at her defiantly, waiting for her to begin.

This, to my surprise, she was finding difficult to do.

‘You’re … You’re not a rich man, Master Chapman. Or so I believe,’ she managed at last.

‘No,’ I answered coldly, ‘but I’m a live one. No thanks to you and Mistress Hollyns.’

She looked startled at first, presumably by my plain speaking, but then smiled with relief that I had brought the subject into the open. She lifted a green satin purse that I had noticed earlier, dangling from her girdle, and shook it. It chinked richly, and when the drawstring was released, a stream of gold coins cascaded into the palm of her hand.

‘This is all yours,’ she said, ‘if, from now on, you can remember nothing of what happened at Rownham Passage.’

I regarded her thoughtfully. She had no idea that I had already been warned against remembering anything further. She only knew that my initial accusations had not been taken seriously and, accordingly, felt safe.

But not safe enough, apparently. After more than two weeks of mulling things over, Elizabeth Alefounder had decided to offer me a bribe.

I watched her jingling the gold pieces in her hand, but said nothing. My silence annoyed her.

‘Well?’

‘The price of treason?’ I asked.

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she answered sharply. ‘What you witnessed …’ I raised my eyebrows mockingly and she continued. ‘Oh, all right, then! What you accidentally became embroiled in, when I mistook you for someone else, was nothing more than a private, family feud …’ Her voice tailed away as she confronted my stare of naked disbelief.

I clicked my tongue. ‘I expected better of you than this, Mistress Alefounder. Are you unaware that your brother has been watched by the city’s law officers ever since last summer, when a man suspected of being a Tudor spy was seen leaving this house? Fortunately for Master Avenel, the man was murdered before anything definite could be proved against him.’

She returned me look for look. I had to hand it to her. She was not a woman to lose her nerve.

‘No, I was not aware,’ she replied coolly. But there was a glint in her eye that suggested her brother would be hearing more from her on this subject.

‘So, I repeat, is this the price of treason?’

‘Surely that depends on your definition of treason?’

She was right, of course, up to a point. To an ardent follower of the House of Lancaster, supporters of the House of York were the traitors. But, like many others of my persuasion, I happened to believe that the sons of York were the rightful occupants of the English throne, being descended from King Richard II’s legitimate heir, who had been illegally set aside by the usurper, Henry Bolingbroke, when he seized the crown as King Henry IV. But even had I been less assured in my convictions, there would still have been an insurmountable obstacle.

‘Henry Tudor!’ I mocked. ‘How can anyone support Henry Tudor? A scion of the bastard line of John of Gaunt! A whey-faced nonentity, who, by all accounts, jumps at his own shadow! Sickly, too, I understand. What sort of loyalty can he inspire compared with King Edward?’

‘The golden boy?’ she sneered. ‘Although not so golden these days, according to what I hear. Running to seed. Too much food, too much wine, too many women. But in any case,’ she added, almost as an afterthought, ‘there are other contenders for the English throne.’

I was instantly alert, especially as her expression told me she was afraid she had said too much. But if there was someone else, it would surely explain Timothy Plummer’s presence in the city and his interest in what was going on.

But I pretended to be sceptical. ‘Other contenders? What other contenders? The Lancastrians had to scrape the bottom of the barrel to come up with Henry Tudor.’

Elizabeth Alefounder flushed with anger and I stood up abruptly. The flush receded and she gave a forced smile, indicating with a slight wave of her hand that I should resume my seat. When I refused to do so, she dropped the coins, one by one, chink by chink, back into the green satin bag.

‘You don’t accept my offer, then?’

‘Did you expect me to?’

She made a little moue of impatience. ‘I didn’t think you a man of many convictions. Certainly not political ones.’

‘You should have enquired more thoroughly, Mistress. Almost anyone in Bristol, including your brother, could tell you that I have worked on several occasions for His Grace, the Duke of Gloucester; that I regard myself as his man.’

‘But you’re still poor,’ she mocked. ‘Oh, I know you have a house in Small Street, but that, as I understand it, has nothing to do with Crookback Dick.’

That was the first time I ever heard him called that; a description so widely and commonly used today that it has become almost a part of his name. I was astounded. It was as scurrilous as it was untrue. He had no deformity that I had ever noticed. There might have been a slight thickening of the right shoulder muscles and sinews, as there so often is with many fighting men, but that was all.

‘My poverty,’ I answered furiously, ‘is no one’s fault but my own. I have never wished to be obliged to anyone, not even to Prince Richard, who has all my loyalty. All my loyalty,’ I stressed through clenched teeth. ‘I have always refused his frequent offers of reward. I am my own man. But make no mistake about it. He is as generous with his purse as he is great in spirit. Which is more than can be said for the skinflint you and your brother serve!’

Her eyes narrowed to the merest slits, but she answered me levelly enough. She had her emotions well under control by now.

‘I don’t remember admitting that I and my brother serve anyone. And if you think back over our conversation, I’m sure you’ll have to agree. I told you that your unfortunate embroilment in my affairs came about because of a family feud. It had nothing to do with Henry Tudor.’

‘True. But you may also recollect what I told you about your brother having been under suspicion since last summer. Sergeant Manifold might take my word in preference to yours.’

‘That idiot!’ I only wished Richard could have heard her uncompromising opinion of him. She once more jingled the bag of coins. ‘Are you sure you won’t accept my offer? A small recompense for the … er … the discomfort you had to endure.’

I laughed. ‘I’ve never heard attempted murder called “discomfort” before. And tell Master Avenel that the next time he tries to break into my house, he won’t find it so easy. I’ve had bolts fitted to the top and bottom of the street door.’ Elizabeth Alefounder’s startled face told me that the incident of the break-in was something she had not known about. ‘He left one of his shoes behind,’ I added. ‘He was in a hurry to be gone once his presence had been discovered. He really should get better-fitting footwear if he’s to make a habit of sneaking into other people’s houses uninvited.’

‘This is calumny,’ she answered coldly, but I could see a nerve twitching at the corner of her mouth. She was not as calm as she pretended to be. I smiled at her and her eyes met mine, dark with dislike.

‘I make a bad enemy,’ she warned me.

‘But, in this case,’ I pointed out, ‘it would be unwise to do anything about it. I told my story and wasn’t believed. That should suffice you. But if something were to happen to me, the Sheriff and his officers might begin to take my accusations seriously. Moreover, I have a witness who saw what really happened.’

‘Who?’ The word rapped out like a hailstone hitting tiles.

I laughed. ‘You don’t honestly expect me to tell you that, now do you?’

‘You’re lying,’ she replied, but without conviction.

‘Maybe. Maybe not.’ Suddenly I was tired of this cat-and-mouse game, of saying things and not saying them, of fencing around one another but landing only glancing blows. ‘Look, Mistress! I’m prepared to forget everything that took place at Rownham Passage if you’re willing to leave me and mine alone. So, what do you say? Do you agree?’

She gave no hint of the relief she must have been feeling, but she was suspicious.

‘Why would you be prepared to do that?’

‘Because I’m sick of people thinking me a fool or a liar.’

She thought this over. ‘Very well.’ She half proffered the purse again. ‘You’re certain …?’

‘I’m certain, Mistress,’ I told her harshly. ‘I’ll wish you good evening.’

I found my own way out. Robin Avenel was still lurking in the hall and I nodded to him as I strode past.

Although I knew Adela would be worried about my safety, I did not go straight home, but treated myself to a beaker of ale at the Green Lattis, where I found a secluded corner and sat, going over my meeting with Elizabeth Alefounder in my mind. Her unguarded remark that there were other contenders for the English throne had made a deeper impression on me than anything else she had said. Something was afoot; something that had brought Timothy Plummer hotfoot from London to Bristol.

But why Bristol? There were many other ports far better situated for any matters concerning the Tudor court — if one could dignify it by that name — in Brittany. Bristol looked towards Ireland, and much of its commerce, good or bad, was then, as now and as it forever had been, with the inhabitants of that island. But Ireland had always been a hotbed of intrigue, of seething unrest and a desire to put a spoke in England’s wheel whenever and wherever possible. Furthermore, Eamonn Malahide had been Irish.

Someone sat down on the stool beside mine. He looked dreadful and smelled worse. I choked into my ale.

‘You shouldn’t take on these undercover duties, Master Plummer,’ I advised. ‘It’s over and above the call of duty. Go back to serving Duke Richard. He’s not a man for disguises and skulking around back alleys. He accords his servants dignity and comfort.’

‘You recognized me.’ Timothy was disappointed.

‘I’m afraid so. But then, I know you so well.’

‘Then if you know me well, you also know that I mean what I say,’ he rasped. ‘You’ve been to visit Mistress Alefounder. I thought I told you to keep your long nose out of this business.’

‘I couldn’t help it,’ I protested. ‘She sent for me.’

‘What did she want?’

‘To offer me a bribe.’ Briefly, I gave him details of my conversation with Elizabeth Alefounder, including her unguarded remarks on the subject of Henry Tudor and his not being the only contender for the English crown. ‘What’s going on, Timothy?’

‘Nothing you need worry about,’ he answered shortly.

‘Oh, I know that,’ I agreed humbly. ‘Not while you’re in charge of things, at any rate.’

He eyed me severely, uncertain if I were joking or not. He decided I probably was and rose with as much dignity as his smelly rags permitted.

‘I’m telling you for the last time, keep your long nose out this, Roger!’

He disappeared as abruptly as he had appeared, melting into the crowd in the Green Lattis taproom. This was now filling up fast with people getting into the holiday spirit as they looked forward to the next few days of midsummer jollification. I remembered that I had to be up before dawn the following morning, and set out on my belated way home.

As I approached Saint Giles’s Church, I noticed a woman entering by the Bell Lane door. I was unable to see her face because of an all-concealing hood. But then the skirt of her cloak was blown aside by the breeze, revealing a blue brocade gown.