The Prodigal Son

Eight

Morning brought another beautiful day and a feeling that the night’s events had been merely the stuff of dreams, part of the ridiculous muddle that had haunted my sleep. But as I lay on my back looking up at the bed-canopy, which, together with the curtains, I now saw depicted the story of Diana and Actaeon, the reality of what had happened began to dawn. I had indeed seen someone staring up at this window, and, later, someone had tried to get into this room. Yet the episode had had its humorous side, and I couldn’t avoid a snort of laughter as I pictured three grown men, as naked as the day they were born, struggling to get out of the door all at once, jostling and pushing like overgrown schoolboys. And before that again, the image of myself sent sprawling by the sheer accident of Humphrey Attleborough falling out of bed just at that particular moment contained all the elements of a May Day farce. I let out another snort, while at the same time cursing the ill luck that had prevented us from collaring the would-be intruder.

‘What’s making you so merry?’ enquired Anthony Bellknapp, raising himself on one elbow and smiling down at me.

I jumped. I hadn’t realized that he was awake. I explained and his smile broadened into a grin.

‘All the same,’ I went on, growing serious, ‘you should heed what Steward Applegarth told you. Be careful. Either that, or … or …’

‘Or moderate my behaviour,’ he finished for me as I faltered to a stop, suddenly conscious of my position as a guest under his roof.

‘Well … yes.’

He laughed. ‘We’ll see. And now I must get up or my mother will have usurped my position at the breakfast table and my prerogative of speeding our overnight visitors on their way. The brothers at least will have enough gossip to take back to Glastonbury to keep the entire abbey agog for a month.’ He yelled, ‘Humphrey!’ and threw a pillow at his still snoring henchman. ‘Clothes, razor, man! Quickly!’

While the servant, half asleep, pulled on shirt and hose, and went off to the kitchen to fetch hot water and soap, I took the opportunity to ask my host if I might stay a few more days until my ankle had completely mended.

‘Stay as long as you like,’ was the careless answer. ‘You have my permission and that’s all that need concern you. I shall give instructions that you are to be treated like any other guest. You can continue to share my bed at night. In fact, I think I shall feel safer if you do.’ He eyed me shrewdly. ‘I have a suspicion that you’re not here just because you’ve hurt yourself; that you’ve some purpose in mind. No, no! Don’t bother denying it. I’m not accusing you of anything. You don’t worry me. I’ve told you. You can remain at Croxcombe as long as you wish.’ As Humphrey reappeared, weighed down by a pail of steaming water, he repeated with even greater emphasis, ‘I’m the master here now.’

It was several hours later, when the departing travellers had been sped on their various ways, when not only breakfast, but dinner also had been eaten, and after the chaplain had led us in morning prayers and the household officers had been summoned to Anthony’s presence to receive their instructions for the day, that Rose Micheldever sought me out to remind me about our visit to Wells. Not that I needed any reminding, my one reservation again being that I might not be able to walk the three miles there and back without proving a drag on my companion.

‘That’s all right,’ Rose said, smiling. ‘Dame Audrea keeps two donkeys for jogging about the countryside, and she’s said that I may borrow them. She sometimes does so when I go into Wells. Your dog can run alongside.’

‘Does she or your husband know that I’m going with you?’

Rose was evasive. ‘They know somebody’s going with me, naturally. It wouldn’t do for me to ride about on my own.’ Her underlip protruded defiantly. ‘Edward thinks it’s one of the grooms,’ she admitted. ‘I expect the mistress thinks the same.’

I hesitated, but only briefly. I had no desire to cause trouble either for myself or Rose. On the other hand, I urgently wished to meet her brother and she seemed to have no qualms about the consequences of her invitation. So I went.

As readers of these chronicles already know, beasts of burden and I do not get on well together, but a donkey was a great deal easier to manage than a horse, although its plodding gait meant a slower journey and therefore protracted discomfort. By the time we reached Wells, I was thankful to dismount and stretch my aching legs.

It was many years since I had been in the city itself, and I had forgotten how awe-inspiringly the cathedral’s domineering presence diminished the buildings round about. Wells was, as it had always been — and for all I know, always will be — first and foremost the great Church of Saint Andrew. Everything else huddled in its shadow and paled into insignificance. The conduit still brought water into the marketplace from the wells, bubbling up from beneath the earth, that gave the city its name and where, as a young boy, I had gathered with my friends to play fivestones and catch-as-catch-can or to sail stick and leaf ‘boats’ in the water. The usual clutch of beggars had congregated beneath the porch, where they had taken shelter ever since it was completed earlier in the century, under the auspices of Bishop Beckington. That indefatigable builder had also overseen the row of houses and shops adjacent to the porch, one of which displayed an open counter on which reposed a butcher’s block, knife and saw, with joints of meat swinging on metal hooks beneath an awning. Two men, in bloodstained leather aprons, were attending to a regular supply of customers, the sure sign of a prosperous community.

The elder of the pair glanced in our direction with a delighted smile as Rose, without waiting for my assistance, slid from the back of her donkey with a cry of ‘Father!’

I have frequently noticed throughout my life that butchers are big, jolly men (well, I suppose you need a sense of humour if you’re cutting animals into collops all day long), and Master Bignell was no exception. He had a round, red face with twinkling blue eyes, a mouth that curled upwards at the corners in a perpetual smile, and even his nose seemed to be nothing more than a circular dab in the middle of his other features. I could recognize a certain likeness between father and daughter, and suspected that, later in life, when her present prettiness had faded, Rose would probably grow plump and matronly with only an echo of her former good looks.

The second man, whom I assumed — rightly, as it turned out — to be Ronan Bignell, the person I had come to see, was taller and somewhat leaner than either his father or sister, but with the same friendly, happy disposition; a fact that made him an obvious favourite among the women, and went some way to explaining the popularity of this particular butcher’s stall. He greeted Rose affectionately, leaning across to plant a smacking kiss on her cheek, while his sire, abandoning a customer in the middle of serving her, came out from behind the counter to wrap his daughter in an all-embracing hug.

‘You’re looking well, my girl.’ He patted her belly. ‘Not increasing yet?’ But when she shook her head, he seemed less disappointed than resigned. ‘Well, well! These things won’t be hurried. Where’s Edward? Not with you? And who’s this?’

He eyed me with a certain amount of suspicion, and I guessed that he was under no illusion as to his daughter’s predilection for men. She had made a good marriage both for herself and her family, and Butcher Bignell wanted nothing to spoil it.

Fortunately, at that precise moment, both men’s attention was claimed by Hercules’s investigation of one of the carcasses hanging up behind the counter; and by the time I had thwarted the dog’s ambition to consume a whole pig for his dinner, smacked him, scolded him — much to his outraged fury — and tucked him safely under one arm, Rose had her answer ready.

‘This is Master Chapman, Father. He’s a guest of our new master, Anthony Bellknapp.’

If she had expected to create a sensation, she was not disappointed. The news of Anthony’s return had not previously reached the city, and the reaction of everyone within earshot was most gratifying. The elder Bignell staggered back a pace or two and supported himself against the counter, the younger’s mouth fell open in amazement, the woman he had been in the process of serving screamed and dropped a basket containing half a dozen eggs, which shattered all over the cobbles, several other customers flatly refused to believe what they were hearing, while yet another went haring off around the marketplace, determined to be first with these wholly unexpected and unlooked-for tidings. Before she knew what was happening, Rose found herself at the centre of an eager and excited crowd clamouring for details; so, still clutching a highly indignant Hercules, I eased my way free of the ever-increasing throng — which I could see already included a number of beggars and pickpockets, intent on seizing this golden opportunity to relieve respectable citizens of their pouches and purses — and edged around to where Ronan Bignell was standing behind the counter. I touched him on the shoulder.

I had great difficulty in prising his attention away from his sister even after he became aware of my presence, but finally he demanded irritably, ‘What?’

‘I’d like to speak to you,’ I said apologetically, and was bracing myself for the furious refusal I could see hovering on the tip of his tongue, when he suddenly realized who I was.

‘You’re the man who came with Rose. You must be staying at Croxcombe Manor.’ He took hold of my arm and shook it excitedly. Hercules growled but was ignored. ‘You must know all about it.’

It was no use pretending not to know what ‘it’ referred to, so I admitted reluctantly, ‘I — er — yes. I suppose I know something.’

Seeing me as a source of private information which could lead to his being wiser than his neighbours, Ronan Bignell, keeping his grip on my free arm, propelled me out from behind the counter and away from the crowd in the direction of the cathedral. It was not until we were within sight of the Bishop’s palace, surrounded by its moat, that he paused and turned to face me. For a moment, I thought he might recognize me from childhood days, then realized that he was too young. I reckoned he couldn’t be much more than twenty or twenty-one, which left a gap of seven or eight years between us. He wouldn’t remember Roger Stonecarver, although there had to be others in Wells who could.

We sat down beside the moat while Hercules went off about his own business — I wasn’t worried: he would always return at my whistle — and I submitted to Ronan’s eager questioning. I had made up my mind during our short walk to be perfectly honest with him, so as soon as he fell silent, I told him the truth; my history, or such of it as was relevant, who and what I really was, how and for what reason I came to be at Croxcombe just at the time of Anthony Bellknapp’s return, the meeting with my previously unknown half-brother and his imprisonment on Dame Audrea’s charge that he was the missing murderer, John Jericho and, finally, my mission to clear his name. As a bonus, I also told him the little I knew of Anthony’s history, although I omitted the events of the previous night.

Ronan Bignell listened, fascinated, but when I’d finished, he asked, ‘Why, though, do you want to talk to me?’

I explained what Rose had told me and he groaned.

‘Women!’ he exclaimed bitterly. ‘You can’t trust ’em, not even your own sister.’ He shrugged resignedly. ‘But to do her justice, she’s never breathed a word to my father, and I don’t suppose she ever would. It’s true, a couple of my friends and I have always been fond of a bit of poaching. We just like the excitement, and the Croxcombe woods are full of rabbits and hares. Doesn’t do any harm to anyone that I can see. We’ve been doing it for years, ever since we were lads. I let Rob and Dick take whatever we snare. Their parents aren’t such law-abiding citizens as mine.’

‘And can you remember what you saw the night of Jenny Applegarth’s murder?’ I prompted him.

He puckered his lips thoughtfully. ‘Clearly. What happened after stamped it on my memory for ever. When we heard of the robbery, that poor Jenny Applegarth had been murdered and that the page was missing, along with a fair amount of the family’s valuables, well of course I remembered what I’d seen the night before.’

‘And that was?’

Ronan Bignell shifted uncomfortably. ‘Look, this is a secret,’ he said. ‘Neither Rob nor Dick nor I have ever told anyone. Well, I told Rose, which I can see now was a mistake, because I ought to have known that sooner or later she’d be bound to tell someone. Mind you, I suppose I can’t complain. She has managed to keep silent for six years — as far as I know, that is,’ he added with a sudden spurt of anxiety.

‘Surely if she had confided in anyone else,’ I soothed him, curbing my impatience, ‘someone or other would have said something to you by now. Six years ago, Mistress Micheldever was a child, and children, although they have long memories, are interested more in their own affairs. And in fact, she told me very little, merely that you thought you’d seen both John Jericho and another man abroad in the woods on the night of the murder.’

‘And how did I come to see them?’ he asked, answering his own question. ‘Because I was poaching. She told you that.’

‘Master Bignell,’ I said patiently (or as patiently as I could), ‘I don’t care about your poaching. It’s nothing to me and I certainly have no intention of disclosing the fact to anyone. I’ve been frank with you about what has brought me to Croxcombe, and I should be very grateful for equal frankness on your part.’

He was still reluctant. ‘I don’t see how it will prove that this man — this half-brother of yours — isn’t John Jericho. In fact, I can’t see it will be of any value to you at all, can you?’

I clenched my fists to stop myself from striking him and answered as reasonably as I could, ‘Maybe not. But I have no idea what might prove to be of value and what might not just at this moment, so I should appreciate an account of what you and your two friends saw on the night of the murder.’

He fought against telling me for another few seconds, then suddenly gave in.

‘I don’t know what hour of the night it was. Time didn’t worry me in those days. I’d discovered a way of getting in and out of my parents’ house without them being any the wiser. Sometimes, when it was summer, as it was then, I didn’t get home till dawn. But thinking back, it could have been around midnight. We’d had time enough to snare a couple of good fat rabbits and were on the trail of another, if I remember rightly, somewhere around Hangman’s Oak. Do you know the Croxcombe woods, Master Chapman?’ I shook my head and he went on, ‘There’s a sort of clearing there, where the trees thin out towards the edge of the woodland. A young fellow was staggering about, moaning and clutching his head, and then he was sick. One of us, I forget which, said, “He’s drunk,” and then Dick said, “It’s Dame Bellknapp’s page, that one with the funny name.” And I said, “John Jericho.” And the other two agreed.’

‘Did you go to his assistance?’ I asked, and was answered with an incredulous snort.

‘Of course we didn’t. We weren’t supposed to be there. Naturally, we didn’t know anything about the murder then, or we might’ve tried to apprehend him.’

‘What did you think?’ I enquired curiously. ‘I don’t suppose you see many people reeling around the woods drunk, at midnight.’

‘I daresay you’re right, but I don’t imagine that occurred to us at the time.’ He laughed. ‘All we thought about was not being discovered ourselves. The three of us just sloped off by another path as quietly as we could.’

‘You’re sure the page was drunk? He couldn’t have been ill or — or wounded?’

Ronan Bignell shrugged, trailing his fingers in the water of the moat. ‘We did talk it over next day, of course, when the news of the murder came out, and we decided that perhaps he might not have been drunk after all, just horrified and sickened by what he’d done. We even discussed whether or not we ought to tell anyone what we’d witnessed, but, quite honestly, what would have been the point? John Jericho had killed Jenny Applegarth and run away. Everyone knew that, and all we’d seen was him escaping. We didn’t know where he’d gone, so we couldn’t put the sheriff’s men on his track. We’d just have landed ourselves in trouble if we’d owned up to being in the woods after curfew.’

The argument was reasonable enough. John Jericho would have been well on his way by the time news of his crime reached Wells. The three lads had had nothing to gain, but everything to lose by being honest.

I stared thoughtfully at the walls of the Bishop’s palace, shimmering in the heat of the August morning. Echoes of the town from beyond Bishop Beckington’s arch were borne on a gentle breeze. I glanced up at the side of the cathedral where the painted statues of the saints glowed jewel-bright in their niches.

‘When you saw the page,’ I asked suddenly, ‘did he have anything with him?’

‘Anything with him?’ My companion was puzzled.

‘Yes. The murder, as I understand it, was incidental to the robbery. He’d made off with a considerable amount of plate as well as jewels. Therefore he must have been carrying his spoils in something. Did you see a sack or a knotted cloth lying anywhere around?’

Ronan Bignell began to laugh. ‘Do you know, in all these years that’s never occurred to me? It’s never even crossed my mind. Nor Rob’s, nor Dick’s that I know of. No, we didn’t see any sack, but unfortunately I don’t think that tells you anything except that it was darkish in the woods, in spite of it being a moonlit night, and that we were in a panic. We were only concerned that the page didn’t see us and report us to Dame Audrea. What I’m saying is that there might have been a sack, but if there was, we simply didn’t notice it.’

I could see that further questioning on that score was useless. Even if I persuaded him to introduce me to his two friends, Rob and Dick, I doubted they could tell me more. And if they did, it made no odds. There had never been any dispute about the identity of the murderer.

‘Rose hinted that you also saw someone else in the woods that night,’ I suggested hopefully.

‘No, that was the next night. We saw one of the charcoal burners, but as they tend their fires day and night, there was nothing unusual in that. Except, that is, that this one wasn’t tending his fire, but standing and surveying the ground around Hangman’s Oak as though he were looking for something.’

‘Hangman’s Oak? That was where you saw the page.’

‘But this was a day later and the page had long since disappeared, so there’s nothing in that to get excited over.’

‘Doesn’t it strike you as a coincidence?’

Ronan shook his head. ‘No. Why should it?’

There was no really satisfactory answer that I could give him. Nothing logical; it just seemed to me to be of some significance.

‘Did you recognize the man?’

‘Oh yes! It was that rogue Hamo Gough. We didn’t worry too much about him. He’s not above doing a bit of poaching himself.’

‘You say he was surveying the ground-’

‘He seemed to be. I couldn’t say for certain.’

‘All right. But was that all?’

‘What else would he be doing?’

‘He wasn’t perhaps … by any chance … digging?’

‘No. Why in heaven’s name would he have been doing that?’

I shook my head. ‘Just a foolish thought. Forget it.’

Ronan stroked his chin, regarding me thoughtfully. ‘It’s odd, though, that you should ask me that question. It’s brought back something that until this minute I’d completely forgotten. A few days afterwards, I was taking meat from our stall to the manor house kitchen and had taken a short cut through Croxcombe woods when I met Hamo Gough not far from his cottage. And now I come to think about it, he was carrying a spade over one shoulder. It obviously didn’t strike me as odd at the time, or it would have stuck in my memory. He can be a surly bastard when he chooses, and my recollection is that he didn’t even return my greeting. Then again, he does sometimes go digging for truffles.’

‘And that’s probably what he was doing,’ I agreed glumly.

There was silence between us for a moment or two while we listened abstractedly to the noises of the marketplace and I wondered idly where Rose had gone. To visit her mother and friends and tell them the great news, no doubt.

Ronan, who seemed to have gone into a reverie of his own, said suddenly, ‘I know what Rose must have been thinking of when she told you I’d seen someone else in the woods that night. The night of the murder, that is. She’s confused it with something Father saw. It was all of six years ago and it’s no wonder if things have got a bit muddled in her mind.’

‘Master Bignell also saw somebody in Croxcombe woods?’

‘Not in the woods, no! I wouldn’t have been there if I’d thought there was the smallest risk of encountering him. It was some time later, two or three days perhaps, and of course we were all still talking about Jenny Applegarth’s murder — well, I suppose it was the main topic of conversation for months — and Father suddenly recalled seeing a man on horseback in the neighbourhood of the house on the night she was killed. He — my father — had ridden over to Shepton to visit a friend and was returning home by the track that runs along the manor’s northern boundary. It was dusk and he couldn’t see the horseman at all clearly. He remembered that Master Bellknapp and Dame Audrea were away, visiting their daughter and her husband at Kewstoke Hall, and that young Simon and most of their household had gone with them. He said he thought of riding after the stranger to warn him that he wouldn’t be able to secure a bed for the night as the master and mistress were both absent, and, indeed, he turned aside from the track with that end in view. But by the time he reached the moat gate, the man and his horse had vanished. So he assumed he had mistaken the man’s intention, rode on home and thought no more of the incident until a day or so after the murder, when he suddenly wondered if what he’d seen might have some significance.’

‘Master Bignell didn’t say anything to the sheriff’s men?’

‘There seemed no point. We all knew who the murderer was and everyone was trying to find him. There were enough posses out to capture ten men — Rob and Dick and I went on two of ’em — but even so, John Jericho outsmarted us all. My own guess is that he lay low by day and travelled by night, but even so, it wouldn’t have been easy for him, not on foot with a sack to carry. But he did it. He fooled everyone and hasn’t been heard of again from that day to this. At least, that is to say, not unless this half-brother of yours turns out to be him. And if Dame Audrea thinks he is, God help him! She’s a woman who knows she’s always right.’

‘I suppose this business of Anthony Bellknapp’s return might distract her,’ I suggested hopefully.

‘Don’t you believe it,’ my companion spluttered. ‘She won’t be easily deflected from anything she undertakes. She’s perfectly capable of carrying on two or three vendettas at once.’

‘You don’t think, in the light of what your father saw that evening, that John Jericho might not have been Jenny Applegarth’s killer? You don’t think this stranger, whoever he was, could have had anything to do with it?’

‘Lord, no!’ Ronan Bignell was scathing. ‘Why else would the page have disappeared? What was he doing in Croxcombe woods when we saw him, if not running away? Why did he pretend to have something wrong with him so as to stay at home, instead of accompanying Dame Audrea to Kewstoke Hall?’

‘But how do you know — how does anyone know — that he was only pretending? Perhaps his illness was genuine.’

‘Well, even if it was, he took advantage of it for his own fell purpose,’ Ronan insisted.

I sighed inwardly. Further argument was fruitless in more ways than one. I wasn’t here to prove John Jericho innocent of the crime of which he stood accused, but to disprove, somehow or another, that he and my half-brother were one and the same person. And Ronan Bignell’s stories, interesting though they were, were of no help on that score whatsoever.

‘So this is where you two are hiding,’ said Rose’s voice, and, turning our heads, we saw her tripping towards us through Bishop Beckington’s archway. ‘Father’s been asking where you’ve got to, Ronan.’ She dimpled at her brother as seductively as she would have smiled at any man. ‘You don’t mind my having told Master Chapman about what you saw all those years ago, do you? I didn’t think it would matter after such a long time.’

‘You mean you couldn’t resist a handsome face,’ her brother retorted, then smiled and pinched her cheek. ‘But if I hear of you confiding in anyone else, there’ll be trouble. And there’ll be trouble, too, with Edward if you don’t watch your step, my girl. And don’t give me that innocent stare. You know quite well what I mean.’

And as if on cue, another voice, swollen by the echoing archway, boomed out, ‘Here you are, Mistress Micheldever. What a dance you’ve led me. Why didn’t you ask me to accompany you to Wells?’

It was Anthony Bellknapp.