The Midsummer Rose

Twenty

I sat down beside him on the bed, but at a distance. I still wasn’t wholly convinced that I could trust him. He was a dark, swarthy creature of about my own age, but there was a shifty look in his eyes that somehow called his probity into question. It was an expression I had seen in the past in the eyes of George, Duke of Clarence, another dissatisfied younger brother.

‘Very well,’ I said. ‘Tell me what you can.’

Before replying, however, he got up and walked over to the open section of wall, which, with an effort, he pushed shut. Catching sight of my face, he laughed.

‘You’re quite safe. It can be opened from this side, too.’ He resumed his seat on the bed, slewing a little to his right, so that we were almost face to face. ‘It’s a marvellous piece of machinery, don’t you agree? The Jews are a very clever people. Which is why we are so afraid of them, I suppose. Now, before I tell you anything, you tell me how you will get me across the Narrow Sea to France. I need to be gone as soon as possible. Tomorrow. Tonight if it can be arranged.’

‘What will you say to Mistress Alefounder?’ I enquired.

He shrugged. ‘Nothing, unless it’s necessary. She won’t come again until the morning. She’s already brought me my evening meal.’ He grimaced, intimating that he had not enjoyed it. ‘Since yesterday and her brother’s death, she has had much to occupy her mind, as you might expect. So, Roger — am I right? Is that your name? — what makes you think you can find me a ship’s captain willing to carry me to France, when Robin Avenel and his sister have so far been unsuccessful?’

‘There’s an Irish slave trader with whom I’ve had some dealings in the past. At present, his ship is moored along the Bristol Backs. He’s an honest rogue who knew of Eamonn Malahide, but had nothing but contempt for his double-dealing. He’ll take you, I feel certain, provided you can pay him what he asks.’

‘Ah!’ The duke gave me a quizzical glance. ‘Money! I’d forgotten about money. I’m afraid I don’t have any. Do you?’

Typical! These noblemen are all the same. They never pay for anything if they can help it; they’re too busy leeching off everyone else.

‘No, I don’t,’ I answered shortly. ‘Not that sort of money, at any rate. I’m a pedlar. Don’t you have any rings or a jewelled collar or something of that sort that I could offer Briant?’

Albany sighed and shook his head. ‘Not here. I left Scotland in such a hurry, I had to leave most of my belongings behind. I did have one ring, my signet ring, but I lost it — the Virgin only knows where.’

I caught my breath. ‘A heavily chased gold band and a roundel engraved with two letter As, is that the one?’

He stared at me, nodding. ‘Two As and the Lion of Scotland.’ He shook my wrist. ‘What do you know about it? Do you know where it is?’

‘I found it lodged in the mattress of the bed at Rownham Passage when I went back there to have a look around. I think you must have slept in that bed and got your hand caught between the ticking and the feathers. The ring worked loose.’

The Scotsman clapped his hands. ‘Of course! Why didn’t I think of that? Mistress Alefounder was right on yet another count. You are a nosy fellow, Roger! God bless you for it.’ A sudden thought struck him. ‘You still have it?’ he demanded anxiously. It was my turn to nod. ‘Then we can offer it to this Irishman of yours. Tell him that when I get safely to France and my good cousin, King Louis, grants me a pension, I’ll buy it back from him at three times its price. He’ll be well recompensed for all his trouble.’

It might work. I reckoned the signet ring was of sufficient weight and value to satisfy Briant. And he was shrewd enough to see that it could have an importance in Albany’s eyes beyond its simple monetary worth.

‘Very well,’ I conceded. ‘But I’ll have to go home and fetch it.’

‘And take it to this Irishman now, this evening, without delay. If he agrees to the transaction, I’ll be aboard his ship tonight. I can return to Ireland with him, if necessary, and wait there until he’s able to carry me to France.’

I could tell he was used to issuing commands that he expected to be obeyed instantly. But there again, that’s royalty for you. Never a thought for what might be inconvenient — or dangerous or even difficult, come to that — for other people. My young lord entertained not the slightest doubt but that I would do as he bade me, in spite of the fact that he had twice tried to kill me. I guessed I was meant to be grateful that he hadn’t quite succeeded.

When I didn’t move from the bed, he gave me an imperious look.

‘We had a bargain,’ I reminded him. ‘I’ll fulfil my part of it when you’ve fulfilled yours.’

He glowered. ‘But if I do, how can I be sure you’ll do as you’ve promised?’

‘Because you have my word.’

He snorted with laughter at that. ‘The word of a pedlar! What guarantee is that?’

I rounded on him. ‘It’s as good as the word of a fugitive prince who can’t even keep friends with his own brother.’ I sprang to my feet. ‘But if you don’t agree, I’m off!’

He held out a placatory hand. ‘No, no! Don’t be so touchy! I’m sorry. Forgive me. That was unpardonably rude. Sit down again, please, and I’ll tell you what I know about Master Avenel’s murder. But, remember, I did warn you that it isn’t much.’ He patted the bed beside him.

I feigned reluctance, but eventually allowed myself to be persuaded. In any case, I had suddenly realized that I didn’t know how to open the secret door from inside the chamber.

‘So? What can you tell me?’ I asked.

He nodded towards the wall where I knew the door to be, although nothing was visible, not even the faintest hairline crack. Albany was right. Its original designer had been an engineer of genius.

‘There’s a small peephole over there, to the left. Not much good for seeing anything — it isn’t really big enough and it’s too dark on the other side — but at least you can occasionally hear things through it. Noises drift in from time to time. People come down here to store unwanted furniture, or they use it as a trysting place. Once, I came out too soon to stretch my legs and you were there, rummaging around.’

‘Yesterday morning,’ I said. ‘You were dressed as a woman. I saw you, but when I couldn’t find any trace of you, I decided you were a figment of my imagination.’

He looked slightly bemused. ‘Was that only yesterday? Time plays strange tricks on a man with no one but himself for company … Yes, yes, I remember now. I thought I’d risk going out for a while, so I put on my woman’s garb. But your presence thwarted my plans. Another time, you saw me in the street and shouted to me. You thought I was Mistress Alefounder’s maid. But I ran down here and hid myself.’ He chuckled to himself before proceeding. ‘So! To Master Avenel’s murder. It must have been … Let me see …’

‘The night before last,’ I prompted. ‘Midsummer Eve.’

He nodded. ‘The lady I was just speaking of, the lovely Rowena — ’ he smiled lasciviously — ‘had brought me my supper. Now there’s a woman ripe for the plucking, but unfortunately, something of a prude.’ He rubbed one cheek reminiscently, and I guessed Rowena had rejected his amorous advances in no uncertain fashion. After another pause he went on, ‘Well, some while after I’d finished my supper — just how long, I’ve no idea — I heard the sound of men’s voices, raised in anger, come floating through the wall. One, I immediately recognized as Robin Avenel’s, but the other I didn’t know. And yet it sounded vaguely familiar, as if I’d heard it a couple of times before. I put my ear to the hole, but I was unable to hear exactly what was being said. There was a lot of shouting and also a noise like scuffling, which suggested to me that the two men were having a fight, a suspicion that was borne out by the fact that the voices got even louder and angrier until, suddenly, they ceased. Then there was silence.’

‘And?’ I was growing impatient.

He chewed his nails for a moment before continuing. I noticed that they were bitten down to the quick.

‘Well, after waiting for what seemed like an age, I opened the secret door — with the greatest caution, I might say — and almost at once saw Robin Avenel lying in the middle of the cellar floor. I knew it was him even though his face was turned away from me, but I fetched a lighted candle just to make sure. He was dead. He’d been stabbed through the heart.’

‘What did you do?’

‘What could I do in my position but wait for Mistress Alefounder to come looking for her brother? Normally, she wouldn’t have visited me again until early the following morning, when she brought me my breakfast, but I guessed that when Master Avenel failed to return home that night, she would grow anxious and begin to look for him immediately. Which, of course, she eventually did. I don’t know what hour it was when her search finally brought her down here, but it was very late. At first, Elizabeth accused me of murdering Master Avenel — me! — and was ready to tear my eyes out. Not, it transpired, because she thought I’d killed her brother, but because I’d jeopardized my chances of remaining hidden and, in due course, of being spirited away to Brittany. By the time I’d managed to convince her of my innocence, the night was even further advanced. It must be nearly midnight, she told me. And the following morning, of course, Robin’s disappearance would become public knowledge. She would have to inform the Sheriff, who would organize an official investigation. Sooner or later, Master Avenel’s body would be found, and the last thing she wanted was for the Sheriff’s men to come nosing about down here.’

Albany stopped to draw breath. ‘Let me guess,’ I interrupted him. ‘You and Mistress Alefounder carried Robin up into the street and left his body in Jewry Lane, where it was found by the Watch patrol, just after midnight.’

The duke shrugged. ‘What else could we do? I’m ignorant of the other details. But, wait a moment!’ He clapped a hand to his forehead in the manner of one who had just recollected something vital. ‘I forgot to tell you that while I was waiting for Mistress Alefounder to arrive, I naturally shut myself in here, out of sight. But, suddenly, I heard a woman’s scream. Naturally, I thought it was Elizabeth, but when no one came to the peephole to speak to me, I grew suspicious and stayed where I was. Which was just as well, as it turned out, because Mistress Alefounder later assured me that, whoever it might have been, it wasn’t her.’

‘And was she worried about this stranger who had accidentally stumbled across her brother’s body?’

Albany frowned.

‘Now you mention it,’ he said slowly, ‘no, she wasn’t. It didn’t strike me at the time, there was too much else to think about … How very odd.’

‘Maybe not,’ I said. ‘Perhaps she knew, or guessed, who it was. How soon after you found Master Avenel’s body did you hear this scream?’

His frown deepened. ‘Not very long.’ He pondered the matter for a moment or so, then glanced sharply in my direction. ‘I can see by your face that that is the answer you wanted. That it means something to you. Am I right?’

‘Maybe,’ I agreed, as pieces of the puzzle began falling into place, and I realized what it was that had been troubling me ever since this morning and my visit to Saint Giles’s. ‘You say the murder took place sometime during the evening, after you’d eaten your supper?’

The duke pursed his lips. ‘Two, maybe three hours afterwards, as far as I was able to judge. Maybe longer. I tell you, time is not itself down here. Now, are you satisfied? Has what I’ve told you helped in any way to disprove the charge of Robin Avenel’s murder that has been laid against your friend?’ I nodded and he again clapped his hands, like a child who had been given a sweetmeat. ‘Then en avant, mon brave! There is nothing more to wait for. Fetch my ring from wherever you have hidden it and take it to this Irish slave master of yours.’ He clicked his tongue mockingly. ‘For a respectable man, Roger, my friend, you know some very strange people.’

‘Isn’t that the pot calling the skillet black?’ I retorted, sliding off the bed. I indicated the apparently solid wall. ‘You’d better let me out. But before I go, I’d be interested to know what it is you’ve done to be branded a traitor by your brother.’

His face lost its recent good humour and assumed a sullen expression. I thought he wasn’t going to answer me. But then, suddenly, he began to laugh, displaying an upper row of surprisingly healthy teeth, with a single blackened one to spoil their general appearance.

‘My younger brother, Mar, and I were urging James to resume hostilities against England; to break the peace and start raiding across the border once again. He refused, so we began to plot with some of the other lords to bring about his downfall. Unfortunately, one of the bastards betrayed us to the King. The rest you know. Mar is dead, and I have been forced to fly for my life.’

Still chuckling to himself, Albany crossed to join me by the wall, where I was shown first the tiny peephole and then a stone similar to the one on the other side, bearing the faint indentation of a six-pointed star. The duke pressed it and yet again the same section of wall swung inwards with the familiar slight rumble and hiccough.

‘When you’ve arranged everything,’ he said, ‘come back here. Whisper through the hole and I’ll open the door from this side. I’ll be waiting, ready.’ He laid a hand on my arm. ‘Don’t fail me, Roger. I’m relying on you.’

By curfew, everything was arranged, but I waited until it was properly dark before returning to shepherd Albany through the Bristol streets and handing him over to the tender mercies of Briant of Dungarvon. When, finally, I rolled into bed, I was well nigh exhausted.

I had first been home to collect Albany’s signet ring and fend off Adela’s indignant enquiries as to where I had been and where I was going — it seemed she had decided to speak to me again, but only to point out my shortcomings as a husband. Then I visited Marsh Street, where my reappearance in the Wayfarer’s Return had been greeted with the sort of suspicion that makes a man want to stand with his back to the wall and a long, pointed knife in his hand. By the greatest of good fortune, Briant had not returned to his ship, and although undoubtedly drunk, he was able to hold his whisky well enough to grasp what I was saying. He listened to my story in silence, and although he had some difficulty in understanding the political machinations that formed its background, he was more than willing to assist a fellow Celt in trouble, especially one who might possibly prove an embarrassment to the English crown. His animosity made me wonder yet again what exactly had happened to Padraic Kinsale.

So, having delivered my charge safely into Briant’s hands, and having been assured of Albany’s undying gratitude and patronage should I ever have need of it, I staggered home to a darkened house and a sleeping family, stripped off my clothes and fell into bed beside Adela, expecting the waters of Lethe to close over my head without delay. But sleep proved elusive as the enormity of what I’d done gradually began to sink in.

I had allowed my anger with Timothy Plummer and his political masters to cloud my judgement to such an extent that I had committed what was tantamount to treason. When, earlier that evening, I had left Albany, the man who had urged his brother, the King, to re-invade the northern shires of England, I should have gone, not to Marsh Street and Briant of Dungarvon, but to Timothy Plummer at the Dominican friary. Instead, I had assisted an enemy of my country to escape to France. A great knot of fear started to form in my stoamch.

I tossed and turned, fell into an uneasy doze and dreamed that I was being marched to the gallows by Timothy Plummer, woke with a mouth as dry as tinder and had to creep downstairs to the kitchen to get a cup of water from the barrel. Adela moaned and grumbled in her sleep, but, thankfully, didn’t wake. Finally, as dawn was rimming the bedchamber shutters, I came to the conclusion that regrets were useless. What was done was done, and provided Albany kept his mouth shut, which he had promised me most faithfully he would do, no one need be any the wiser. Elizabeth Alefounder was unlikely to raise the hue and cry, and as for the miscarrying of her plans, I felt not the slightest shred of guilt.

All that remained for me to do now was to concentrate on clearing Burl’s name by pinning Robin Avenel’s murder on the real killer.

It was during breakfast — another silent meal, although I could feel the frostiness in Adela’s manner beginning to thaw — that I suddenly realized it might prove difficult to lay the blame where it truly belonged without revealing what I knew about the moving of Robin Avenel’s body. I cursed silently and sat, my spoon halfway to my mouth, frozen into immobility. The children found this very funny and began to point and laugh. Adela enquired sharply if I were well.

‘Perfectly well, my love, thank you.’ I laid down my spoon and started pulling on my boots. ‘I have to go out.’

‘Then why aren’t you taking your pack?’ my wife demanded as I laced up my jerkin and made hurriedly for the door. ‘And also that dog of yours! Roger!’

But I pretended not to hear her and fled the house, making my way through the already busy streets to Redcliffe and avoiding Broad Street, although glancing along its length as I passed the turning, I thought I saw a flurry of activity outside what had once been Alderman Weaver’s residence.

I hurried across Bristol Bridge, dodging acquaintances and friends who wanted to stop and talk, and hiding under a shop’s awning until Jack Hodge had passed. He looked ill and drawn, and I guessed he was on his way to visit Burl in the bridewell.

I went straight to Margaret Walker’s cottage and knocked on the door.

‘Where does Luke Prettywood live?’ I asked when she answered my peremptory summons. Her two friends, Bess Simnel and Maria Watkins, peered over her shoulders. They were evidently paying her a morning visit.

‘And God be with you, too, Roger,’ she snapped, affronted by my lack of greeting.

She would doubtless have treated me to a lecture on manners had I not protested that I was on an urgent mission to prove Burl Hodge’s innocence.

Her eyes brightened. ‘You know who really killed Master Avenel?’

I nodded. ‘I believe so. But proving it might be another matter.’

Margaret’s lips set in a determined line, as did those of Goody Simnel and Goody Watkins. ‘Not if I can help it.’ She glanced at me suspiciously. ‘But why do you want to know where Luke Prettywood lives? What’s he got to do with it? You know very well he can’t be guilty. He’d assaulted Jack Gload and been taken into custody by the time the body was discovered.’

‘Just tell me where he lives,’ I pleaded. ‘I know it’s somewhere in Redcliffe, but not which street.’

Her sharp-featured face was suffused with doubt, but eventually she directed me to a cottage near the rope walk, where the former brewer’s assistant lived with his parents.

‘And don’t go upsetting Goody Prettywood,’ Maria Watkins admonished me. ‘She’s a friend of mine.’

I reflected grimly that in a close-knit community like Redcliffe, everyone was a friend of everyone else. That was the trouble with murder; it harmed more lives than just those of the killer and his victim.

As I approached the Prettywoods’ cottage, I could see the ropemakers in their stout leather aprons and caps, two at either end of the walk, their roughened, red hands twisting and re-twisting the lengths of hemp into the thick ropes necessary for binding bales of goods, before they were hoisted aboard ship for despatching overseas.

The summer heat showed no sign of abating, and the cottage’s single window was wide open to the air. As I passed, I could see Luke sitting at a table in the despondent manner of someone who no longer has employment to go to, playing idly at fivestones, one hand pitted against the other. He seemed to be alone, so, without knocking, I lifted the latch and went inside.

He glanced up as I entered, but the dead-eyed look with which he greeted me altered when he saw who it was, to be replaced by a wariness and a tensing of his body that told me he was suddenly afraid.

‘What do you want, chapman?’ he demanded, his voice cracking.

I said quietly, ‘I’ve come to tell you that I know it was you who murdered Robin Avenel.’

His hands closed tightly over the fivestones. I could see sweat glisten suddenly across his forehead. But he had recovered his composure sufficiently to try a little bluster.

‘That’s ridiculous and you know it.’ He managed a convincing laugh. ‘I’d been arrested by the time the Watch found the body. And before Edgar Capgrave closed the Frome Gate and went home.’

I walked over to the table, pulled another stool from underneath it, and sat down.

‘But Robin Avenel wasn’t murdered in Jewry Lane, was he? He was killed downstairs, in the furthest one of the old synagogue cellars. I showed you the bloodstain, and you tried to convince me that it was two hundred years old, remember?’ It was my turn to laugh.

‘So? I was teasing you. There’s nothing in that to make me a murderer.’

‘You and Marianne Avenel are lovers. You admitted it to me yourself. You meet secretly in Saint Giles’s crypt, and I’ve seen the pair of you down there with my own two eyes. It’s the sort of secret that everyone knows about, or at least suspects — except, of course, the poor, cuckolded husband.’

Luke reddened, but jutted his chin defiantly. ‘All right. I was a fool to confide in you, of all people, I can see that now. But it doesn’t mean I killed Master Avenel.’

‘It gives you a very strong motive.’

He shrugged and began tossing the stones again, his confidence returning. ‘I’ve told you, I was in custody when the murder took place.’

I let that go for the minute and regarded him straitly.

‘I did wonder,’ I said, ‘why you became involved in an apprentices’ riot. You’re no longer one of them. You don’t share their grievances. And why pick on Jack Gload, a Sheriff’s man? What stupidity! Unless, that is, you were anxious to be arrested.’

‘Why would I want that?’ he sneered.

‘Because you’d killed a man, a man you were cuckolding, as quite a lot of people knew. You were sharp enough to realize that if you drew attention to yourself in some other way — in a big enough way — no one would then think to connect you with Robin Avenel’s murder. You couldn’t have known, of course, that his body would later be moved, making this deception of yours unnecessary.’

He looked up sharply at that, about to ask a question, but thought better of it. He was a clever lad. He knew better than to admit curiosity.

‘Go on,’ he said. ‘This is quite amusing. My mother won’t be back for a while — she’s gone to the market — and my father’s working in the rope walk. You may have seen him as you passed. Tell me some more of this fairy tale of yours. It helps to pass the morning.’

‘Very well.’ I rested my elbows on the table and stared hard at him. He dropped the fivestones and stared back. ‘Here is what I think happened. You arranged to meet Mistress Avenel in your usual trysting place in Saint Giles’s crypt during the Midsummer Eve’s celebration. Everyone would be occupied; eating, drinking, playing games. It’s easy to get lost in a crowd. No one knows for certain where anyone else is. A simple excuse by Marianne that she wanted to use the privy and she could leave the trestle where she was sitting with her husband and Mistress Alefounder. I doubt if they even noticed her absence. They both had a lot on their minds.

‘You and she had arranged the meeting that same morning, during the herb-gathering in Redcliffe fields. I saw the pair of you, heads together, near Saint Mary’s Church. But things went wrong, didn’t they? In your eagerness, you arrived early: Marianne wasn’t there. Then you thought you heard her approaching. Only it wasn’t her, was it? It was Robin Avenel! You jumped to the conclusion that he must know all about you and Marianne, especially when he drew his knife and started shouting. He went for you, and in the ensuing struggle, you killed him, probably accidentally. Then you ran. The more you thought about it, the more you saw that you could be the chief suspect. People knew where you and Mistress Avenel met. Later, Marianne caught up with you. She’d found her husband’s body by that time and guessed what must have happened. What were you going to do? She must have been frantic. But when the apprentices’ riot broke out, you suddenly saw your chance to divert suspicion away from yourself.’

I paused, reflecting that, of course, I hadn’t been quite frank with him. Robin Avenel hadn’t gone down to Saint Giles’s crypt because he knew of Luke’s tryst with Marianne. He had gone down there to speak to Albany — maybe to inform him that he had failed yet again to arrange a sea passage for him to Brittany. But when he saw Luke, his first thought must have been that, somehow or another, his treason and the secret hiding place had both been discovered. He wouldn’t have stopped to reason things out or to reckon up the likelihood of such a discovery. He simply lost his nerve, drew his dagger and attacked Luke with the intention of killing him before he could reveal what he knew.

My companion still made no comment, but I could see his left cheek had developed a twitch. His hands were clenched.

‘And I’ll tell you why I’m sure of your guilt,’ I went on, continuing to hold his eyes with mine; a rabbit staring into the eyes of a stoat. ‘When I told you yesterday morning, in the Green Lattis, of my belief that Robin Avenel had been murdered in Saint Giles’s Church, I made no mention of the crypt, or where I’d seen the bloodstain on the floor. Yet when you insisted on my showing it to you, you didn’t hesitate, but took a candle and descended at once into the old synagogue cellars, going straight to the very spot.’ I reached across the table suddenly and gripped his wrists with my hands. ‘Now, how do explain that, if you didn’t kill him?’