The Prodigal Son

One

I first saw the strange young man whilst sipping a beaker of my favourite ale (the cheapest), sitting in a corner of the Green Lattis. Mind you, there was nothing unusual about seeing a stranger in Bristol at the beginning of August: it was the time of Saint James’s fair.

The priory had originally been granted a nine-day charter for this annual event, but over the years its time had gradually lengthened, first to a fortnight, then to three weeks until, in this year of Our Lord, 1480, it seemed to the inhabitants’ blunted senses to have been prolonged indefinitely. Although it was held outside the city walls, drunken brawls and dusk-to-dawn revelry meant sleepless nights for those of us who dwelt within earshot of the priory; and the house in Small Street, where I lived with my wife and three children, reverberated constantly to the shouts and cries of the hundreds of traders who converged on Bristol from all over the kingdom. It was the boast of the prior that Saint James’s fair had become one of the most popular in the land.

By day, the city, and particularly Bristol’s many alehouses and taverns, echoed with the strange and — to our west country ears — uncouth accents of certain parts of England that were as foreign to us as those of France or Brittany or the Low Countries. In fact, we had greater difficulty understanding our fellow countrymen from the unknown north and the borders of Scotland than we did the sailors from across the Narrow Sea, who disembarked from the ships that tied up daily along the Bristol backs and wharves.

So, as I said, seeing a stranger that sunny August morning in the Green Lattis was no more surprising than observing an ant on an anthill, and I probably wouldn’t have spared him a second glance, had I not been seized by the sudden conviction that I recognized him. Well, perhaps not that, but his face was somehow familiar to me. I had either met him before somewhere, or he reminded me of someone I knew or had once known. Not that his looks were in any way remarkable. It was a small face under a thatch of dark hair, with a pair of equally dark, very bright blue eyes set a little too far apart, a sharp, inquisitive nose and a wide, thin mouth that seemed to be constantly on the verge of smiling. He was not old; certainly younger than myself, and I therefore judged him to be in his early twenties. (At this time, I was approaching my twenty-eighth birthday.) There was something of the Celt in his appearance. A Welshman, I thought, until he spoke. Then I could hear the soft, lilting cadences of southern Ireland.

After that, I lost interest. The only Irishmen with whom I was acquainted wouldn’t show themselves openly in a respectable inn like the Lattis, but be tucked away in Marsh Street — Little Ireland as it was known — carrying on their nefarious and totally illegal trade of slaving. (Officially, selling your unwanted relatives into captivity in Ireland had been unknown in Bristol for several centuries. Unofficially, it lined a lot of people’s pockets, including those of the great and the good. Especially those of the great and the good.) Needless to say, and as all readers of my previous chronicles will know without being told, my past and infrequent dealings with these gentlemen had been purely in the line of duty, whilst pursuing one of my investigations.

At present, after a short but successful visit to London in the late spring to solve a murder for my friend and patron, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, I had reverted to my proper trade of chapman, much to the relief of Adela, my longsuffering wife. With three voracious mouths besides our own to feed, and a dog who considered it beneath his dignity to provide himself with sustenance from amongst the vermin infesting the city streets, a steady supply of money was essential. High summer, of course, was the time to be striding along the open roads, free of family responsibilities; to be walking narrow, crooked paths or wide rutted highways; to be spending moon-washed nights sleeping in little, sweet-smelling copses, shaggy with leaves. Instead, my attempts at sleep were being rendered hideous by heat, noise and, as often as not, the nocturnal tantrums of my two-year-old son, Adam. But after being absent earlier in the year, I felt in duty bound to ply my trade nearer to home, in the villages and hamlets around the city.

Today, however, I had been restocking my depleted pack from the local market and from the ships at anchor along the banks of the rivers Frome and Avon. I had returned home for my dinner at ten o’clock, but been driven out again, not so much by Adela — who was always willing to allow me a short rest after meals — but by the antics of Nicholas and Elizabeth, my five-year-old stepson and my first-marriage daughter. Closer than two peas in a pod, and with the same predilection for rowdy games, they had, today, been running up and downstairs screaming and shouting at the tops of their voices. (And if you are wondering how a poor chapman came to be living in a two-storeyed house in Small Street, I refer you again to my previous works.)

I was feeling so fraught on leaving the house that a draught of ale in a quiet corner of the Green Lattis had become not merely desirable, but essential if I were to do any work for the remainder of the day. And it was while I was downing the contents of my second beaker that I spotted the stranger.

There were a lot of people in the Lattis that morning, and this stranger seemed intent on speaking to as many of them as possible, wandering from bench to bench and obviously asking some question; a question to which he was getting no satisfactory answer, judging by the number of shaking heads, pursed lips and expressions of regret on people’s faces. It was as he approached my corner that I heard the Irish lilt in his voice, yet at the same time, oddly, I thought I also recognized an underlying west country burr. This, together with the growing conviction that I had met him somewhere before, a long time ago, made me follow his progress around the taproom with the greatest interest.

As though suddenly conscious of my eyes boring into his back, he swung abruptly in my direction and returned my stare with an intensity I found unnerving. Hurriedly, I looked away, swallowing the rest of my ale and, at the same time, fumbling with the pack at my feet, preparatory to leaving. My dog, Hercules, a small mongrel with big ideas, whom Adela had insisted I bring with me, sat up and barked.

‘He’s a nice little dog,’ the stranger remarked, sitting down on the bench beside me, where there just happened to be an empty space.

‘He thinks so.’

The Irishman laughed, showing a mouthful of extremely good teeth. Then he hesitated, as though uncertain how to continue, a reticence I hadn’t noticed in his dealings with the other customers.

‘You’re making some enquiries,’ I prompted. ‘At least, that’s my impression.’

The young man nodded. ‘That’s right. My brother — my younger brother — joined the crew of Master Jay’s carvel when it anchored in Waterford harbour about three weeks ago. I was hoping to glean some news of its return, or at least to hear that it had been sighted somewhere by one of the ships putting in to port today. But it seems there’s been no word. You wouldn’t happen to know anything, I suppose?’

‘No, I’m afraid not.’ My companion looked crestfallen and I tried to cheer him. ‘Three weeks isn’t so long, is it? Not when you’re searching for something no one is sure really exists.’

It was in fact nearly four weeks since most of Bristol had turned out to give a rousing send-off to one of their own, John Jay, together with his master mariner, the Welshman, Thomas Lloyd, and their crew on a voyage of discovery to find the Isle of Brazil, which, in those days, everyone believed lay somewhere off the west coast of Ireland. Mind you, as far as I could gather, most of the stories concerning the existence of this island were hearsay; and as a mere landlubber, I considered it foolhardy in the extreme to go sailing off into the blue without knowing exactly what it was I was looking for. But what did I know? I wasn’t even a Bristolian, as I was constantly being reminded. I wasn’t born with the tang of the sea (or the rivers Frome and Avon — something altogether different, I can tell you) in my nostrils. I came from inland Wells, at the foot of the Mendips.

‘I suppose not,’ the stranger conceded. ‘It was foolish of me to expect any news just yet. But my mother’s worried. Colin’s her baby. He’s only just twenty. She didn’t want him to join the ship in the first place. Did everything she could to dissuade him. But he was always mad for adventure, even as a tiny boy. I’m his elder by three years, but he was always the one who got me into trouble when we were young, not, as you might expect, the other way around.’

‘Did your father have nothing to say in the matter?’

My companion shook his head. ‘Matthew O’Neill is our stepfather. He’ll offer advice, but he won’t interfere in our lives. He says that’s up to our mother.’

‘You’re not an Irishman by birth, then,’ I hazarded. It was a guess, but that faint, underlying west country intonation and the increasing certainty that he and I had met before, made it a possibility.

He smiled. ‘No. My name’s John Wedmore, and that’s where I was born, like my — my father, Ralph, before me.’ He gave me a quick, sideways glance, as though afraid I might have noticed that slight hesitation, but I played the innocent and smiled blandly. ‘I grew up on my grandparents’ sheep farm. But I’m boring you.’

‘Not at all,’ I protested politely, far more interested than I was prepared to let on. ‘Your own father died?’ I made it a question.

‘Ten years ago this month. I was thirteen, Colin nearly eleven. The following year, my mother met and married Matthew O’Neill while he was on pilgrimage to Glastonbury, and we went to live with him in Ireland. He’s a farmer, like my mother’s first husband, except he doesn’t raise sheep. Cattle, horses, pigs … Southern Ireland’s pasture is as rich as that of Somerset and Devon. Richer, probably.’ He spoke with simple pride, a man happy in his adopted land.

Hercules jogged my right knee with his cold, wet nose, leaving a dirty damp patch on my breeches and reminding me that we had been stationary long enough. Outside, the sun was shining and it was time to be on our way again. But I was reluctant to leave. Two things intrigued me. First, why had this stranger, this John Wedmore, thought it worthwhile to give me his life’s history? With no one else in the Lattis had he exchanged more than a few words. He had asked his question, received an answer and moved on, ignoring any attempt to detain him in idle chatter. But with me, he had sat himself down and plunged into conversation. All right, I know I’m nosy. Enough people have told me so for me to accept that it must be true (even if I prefer to call it being interested in my fellow men. And women, of course. That goes without saying).

Second, I had noted — without, however, showing any sign of doing so — his curious reference to ‘my mother’s first husband’. An odd way, to say the least, of referring to his father.

Hercules gave me another prod, then tried to scramble into my lap, thus ensuring that he could no longer be ignored. If I wasn’t careful, he would perform his favourite trick and cock his leg against one of mine; and I had no desire to stink of dog pee for the rest of the day. I rose and offered the stranger my hand.

‘I must go,’ I said, adding truthfully, ‘I’ve enjoyed our talk. I hope you soon get news of your brother.’

He clasped my hand, holding it for perhaps a little too long, and I had the distinct impression that he was on the verge of telling me something important. But if he had been, he suddenly changed his mind.

‘Of the ship and all its crew,’ he amended, adding with a slight smile, ‘You’re not from Bristol, are you? At a guess, I’d say you were born in or around Wells.’ My surprise must have been obvious and he laughed. ‘Not all west country people speak alike, whatever foreigners might think. My mother comes from there, and I recognize the accent. Her name before her marriage was Ann Acton. Perhaps you might have heard of her? Or of the family?’

Regretfully, I shook my head. Cudgel my brains as I might, I could recall no one of the name of Acton.

‘No, I’m sorry.’

He grimaced wryly. ‘There’s no need to be. I doubt that there’s anyone of the name left nowadays. To be honest, Mother never talks of her family, and I’ve never met a single member of it … You’d better go. That hound of yours is giving you the evil eye. I don’t think his intentions towards you are honourable.’

I grinned. ‘You’re right. He has a very obnoxious habit when annoyed.’ I held out my hand for the second time. ‘I’ll wish you good-day, then, Master Wedmore.’

If I didn’t exactly forget the stranger, there was enough going on during the next few days for me to push him to the back of my mind.

I was at last managing to get more sleep at nights as Saint James’s fair drew to a close; but by day, all roads leading from the city were choked with the carts and pack horses of the departing merchants and stallholders. I pleaded the impossibility of selling anything in the countryside at present given such competition; for none of the travellers was averse to making detours into the villages and communities they passed, in order to make a little extra money. (Although, heaven knew, they must have made sufficient money to tide themselves and their families through the harshest of winters and the bleakest of springs in the greatest comfort imaginable, in spite of the depredations of cut-purses and pickpockets, who must also now be looking forward to a life of unparalleled luxury.)

Adela, however, woman-like, refused to accept this eminently sound piece of reasoning and accused me, point-blank, of laziness. Me! A hard-working husband and father ever striving to do his best for his nearest and dearest. I was hurt, and said so. She told me not to be such a hypocrite; and what started as a half-friendly spat might easily have turned into a full-scale domestic war had Adam not chosen that particular moment to tumble downstairs. He wasn’t really hurt, but throughout his life, Adam has always been able to turn a very small molehill into a very large mountain by making the greatest possible noise about everything. And this occasion was no exception. His shrieks, cries and groans brought everyone, including Hercules, to his assistance, and it was some time before he could be mollified. And of course it was just my luck that he was still sobbing pathetically on Adela’s lap when Margaret Walker, my quondam mother-in-law and Adela’s cousin, decided to pay us a visit from her home in Redcliffe.

‘That child is allowed too much freedom,’ she opined, at the same time eyeing up and down a rather bedraggled Nicholas and Elizabeth. ‘They all are, if you want my opinion. Those two look as if they’ve been playing on the Avon mud-banks.’

They probably had, but both Adela and I denied the accusation hotly, once more close and united in defence of our offspring. I even went so far as to pat Adam’s curly head, and was promptly thumped for my pains by the ungrateful little sweetheart.

Margaret turned on me. ‘Why aren’t you working on such a fine day?’

I repeated my excuses, which were dismissed with even more scorn than that shown by my wife, but Adela was always loyal — one of her many virtues — and would allow no one to criticize me except herself.

‘Why have you come, cousin?’ she asked quietly.

Margaret bridled with indignation at the suggestion that her visit might have any other motive than to see her granddaughter, Elizabeth, and how we all went on. But she obviously had various titbits of news she was anxious to impart, amongst others that there was growing anxiety and unease in the city concerning the disappearance of John Jay’s ship somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean.

‘There’s been no positive sighting of it for some time now. And to make matters worse, Maria Watkins informs me that John Jay has died during this past week.’

‘John Jay?’ I queried, bemused. ‘How can anyone know that if he’s at sea?’

Margaret sighed, as one dealing with an ignoramus.

‘Not that John Jay. His half-brother. The one who married the Botoner girl. They’re both sons of John Jay the elder.’ I frowned. It seemed to me that the Jay family had singularly little imagination when it came to naming children. Margaret went on, ‘I suppose your ignorance is forgivable. You weren’t born in the city, after all.’

But mention of the missing carvel had recalled the stranger to mind and set me off on my own train of thought, so that I missed the beginning of her second item of news.

‘… insists he’s called John Wedmore and comes from Ireland. It leaves poor Dick Manifold in a dilemma, not knowing who to believe.’

‘John Wedmore?’ I interrupted, startled by what seemed like thought reading on Margaret’s part. ‘What’s happened to him?’

Adam had stopped crying and was falling asleep in Adela’s arms, snuffling and dribbling in a most unattractive manner. The other two had grown bored with adult conversation and vanished about their own secret business.

‘What … Who are we talking about, Mother-in-law?’ She still liked me to call her that from time to time, even though it was getting on for six years since Lillis, my first wife and her daughter, had died giving birth to Elizabeth.

On this occasion, however, it failed to propitiate her or to improve her temper.

‘If you’d pay more attention to what I’m saying, instead of going off into some reverie of your own, you would know that I’m speaking of a young Irishman called John Wedmore — at least, he claims his name is John Wedmore, and he certainly sounds Irish — who’s apparently here to make enquiries about his brother, who joined the crew of Jay’s carvel in Waterford.’

‘Yes. I met him in the Green Lattis a few days ago. He was asking everyone in the alehouse about the ship then. So, what has he to do with Sergeant Manifold? Has he been arrested? It’s not a crime, is it, to ask after a missing vessel?’

Margaret turned triumphantly to my wife. ‘There you are! I said he was in a dream world of his own. I wonder sometimes how you put up with him.’

‘Oh, he has his good points.’ Adela gave me a slow, intimate smile that brought me out in goose bumps. Unfortunately, Margaret saw it too.

‘That’ll do,’ she said sharply. ‘Keep that sort of thing for where it belongs.’ She slewed round on her stool to face me more directly. ‘Yesterday, a woman arrived at the fair …’

‘But everyone’s packing up and going home now,’ I objected crassly.

‘There are still plenty of traders who haven’t left yet,’ Margaret snapped. ‘Don’t interrupt. Her name’s Audrea Bellknapp and she’s lady of some manor or another, near Wells. It appears she suddenly decided to restock her supply of woollen cloth for the winter, and swears by that stuff they weave up north … Though why good Bristol red cloth isn’t good enough for her is beyond my comprehension.’

I didn’t reply. I was too busy marvelling, as I always do, at my former mother-in-law’s knowledge of anything and everything that goes on in this city almost before it happens. Nothing is ever kept secret for long from Margaret and her two cronies, Maria Watkins and Bess Simnel. The good God alone knows how they obtain their information in so short a time (and I doubt if even He really understands it). Furthermore, they’re very rarely wrong about anything, and I’d believe their version of events rather than anyone else’s.

‘Go on,’ I urged.

Seeing that she had at last captured my undivided attention, Margaret mellowed slightly and became more confidential, leaning forward on her stool and tapping my knee in a significant manner.

‘Well, while she was haggling over some rolls of cloth with one of the stallholders from Yorkshire, together with her steward and her receiver …’

‘Her what?’

‘Just what I said when Bess Simnel told me, but Bess has a third cousin who was once a tiring woman to a lady of means. In rich houses, it seems the officer who looks after the control of expenditure is called the receiver.’ An odd title, I reflected, for someone regulating the household finances. One could only trust it wasn’t prophetic. Margaret continued, ‘Where was I? Oh, yes! This Dame Bellknapp was just about to strike a bargain with this fellow from up north, when she suddenly cries out, “Stop that man! That’s John Jericho!”’

‘John Jericho?’

‘The Irishman! The one calling himself John Wedmore. “He’s a thief and a murderer!” she says. And sends the receiver to make sure the fellow doesn’t get away while the steward goes to find an officer of the law — in this case, as luck would have it, Sergeant Manifold.’

Margaret gave me a sidelong glance, knowing that there was no love lost between the sergeant and myself, Richard Manifold having once had aspirations to Adela’s hand. But on this occasion, I simply commented, ‘So what happened next?’

‘Well, the Irishman denied the accusation, of course. Any man of sense would. But this woman, this Dame Bellknapp, was adamant that some years ago, he had been her page. She claimed that he had robbed her and murdered the wife of her steward, who had disturbed him during the robbery. Indeed, according to Dick Manifold, she called on both her receiver and, in particular, her steward to uphold her accusation. But neither man was prepared to say more than that there was a likeness — a pronounced likeness, the receiver said — to the page, John Jericho.’

‘So what was the outcome?’ asked Adela, shifting Adam’s weight from one arm to the other. He was now sound asleep and making soft plopping noises. His nose was running. His mother wiped it clean on the edge of her apron.

‘I believe the Irishman is at present in custody in the bridewell while those in authority try to sort out the rights and wrongs of the matter.’

‘Typical!’ I ranted bitterly. ‘If some poor sod of a butcher or baker had made an accusation like that, with so little evidence to support it, he’d have been sent on his way with a boot up his arse.’

Margaret’s skinny bosom swelled. ‘There is no need for offensive language, Roger, especially in front of the child.’ The child snorted in his sleep and blew two bubbles down his nostrils. Charming! ‘Nevertheless,’ my former mother-in-law admitted, ‘you’re probably correct. Maria Watkins informs me that this Dame Bellknapp has some sort of kinship with the mayor, and His Worship feels the young man should be held in custody until the matter is satisfactorily cleared up.’

‘And how is that going to happen?’ Adela asked in her quiet way. ‘If it’s just this woman’s word against the Irishman’s, how can anything be proved one way or the other? If her servants don’t back her up …’

‘Oh, they will, given enough time and sufficient inducement,’ I declared viciously. ‘Either this poor wretch will be left to rot in prison, or he’ll find himself dangling from the end of a rope. And all because this Dame Whatever-her-name is, is second cousin four times removed to our mayor.’

‘Calm down, Roger,’ my wife advised me. ‘All this bile will upset your digestion.’ She regarded me anxiously as I began pulling on my boots. ‘Where are you going?’

‘To the bridewell to have a word with Richard Manifold.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ Margaret snapped. ‘This is none of your business.’

Adela added her mite. ‘Margaret’s right, sweetheart. Leave well alone. Don’t get involved with what doesn’t concern you. To please me,’ she added.

I met her large, dark eyes, so full of love and concern, and experienced the same familiar shock at how much I loved her. I always did whenever I paused long enough to give the matter serious thought; which wasn’t as often as it should have been, I have to admit.

‘What’s this Irishman to you, anyway,’ Margaret demanded angrily, ‘that you should go to his assistance?’

‘I told you. I met him in the Green Lattis and had a talk with him. And he’s not Irish by birth. He and his brother are originally from Wedmore, his father’s village. And his mother is from Wells.’

Margaret shot up straight on her stool. ‘Ha!’ she cried.

‘What do you mean, “Ha!”?’

‘You say he’s from around these parts. From Wedmore. Maybe Dame Bellknapp is right about him, after all. Maybe he is this page. And his name is John, as well.’

‘That’s nothing,’ I snapped back. ‘You’d find half a dozen Johns even in a place as small as Wedmore.’

I couldn’t help wondering why I felt so protective of this young man on the strength of a brief conversation which had taken place a few days ago. Perhaps it was because of that sense of having known him at some time in the past.

‘Please, Roger,’ Adela insisted, ‘don’t get involved in this.’

‘You need to be out on the road with your pack,’ Margaret scolded. ‘Your family can’t live on fresh air.’

It was a consideration, certainly, but I knew it wasn’t Adela’s. She was only afraid that I might put myself in danger again.

‘All right,’ I conceded grudgingly. Adela smiled. It was reward enough. ‘As you say, this affair has nothing to do with me.’

I should have known better than to tempt fate in that way. The words were barely out of my mouth when there was a loud, officious knocking on our street door.