The Three Kings of Cologne

Ten

I, too, sat up in bed with a furious jerk that disturbed the bedclothes.

‘What do you mean?’ I demanded, incensed. ‘First, you tell me you never saw the man’s face. Then you say you’ve seen him lately, but you can’t remember who he is! You might as well be speaking Portuguese for all the sense you’re making.’

Hercules, recognizing that I was angry, but not with him, quietly farted in support and thumped his tail. Jack and I, as one man, covered our noses.

‘Hell’s teeth!’ Jack exclaimed. ‘What’s ’e been eating?’

‘Never mind that,’ I retorted. ‘Just explain what it is you’re trying to say.’

Although my eyes had by now grown accustomed to the darkness of the shuttered room, my companion’s face was still more or less invisible, but he sounded unhappy.

‘I wish I could explain …’

‘Try!’ I commanded. ‘Because you won’t get to sleep until you do.’

Jack called me by a name I prefer not to repeat before stigmatizing me as a tyrant. But finally, after much head scratching, he did his best to make things plain.

‘S’far as I know, I didn’t see the man with Issybelly what’s-’er-name in All Saints’ porch that day. His face were in shadow. I saw ’is hands, mind. They were all over ’er. But the point is, I must’ve seen something, ’cause on Wednesday, walkin’ across the bridge, going home to Redcliffe, minding me own business and thinking about nothin’ in particler except what my good woman had managed to burn for dinner — ’ Jack’s wife was a notoriously bad cook — ‘I suddenly found meself thinking ’bout Issybelly, jus’ like she was there beside me.’

‘We had been talking about her the day before,’ I reminded him.

‘Everyone’s been talkin’ about ’er for best part of a fortnight,’ Jack pointed out, ‘ever since they discovered ’er body at the beginning o’ the month, but I ain’t felt like that afore.’

‘Like what, exactly?’

‘I told you! Don’ you listen? Like she was there, with me. Or like I was back in the porch of All Saints’ with ’er, all those years agone. So, bein’ an intelligent sort o’ fellow, I ask meself why’m I feelin’ this way.’

‘And what answer did your mighty intellect come up with?’ I asked spitefully, but sarcasm was always wasted on Jack.

‘I decided summat must’ve jogged me memory, recent-like. But then I recollected seein’ a face sometime earlier in the morning, and yet not seein’ it. If you know what I mean.’

‘A familiar face?’

My bedfellow considered this while Hercules scratched for fleas, a few of which, no doubt annoyed at being disturbed, hopped into the bed in search of fresh company. Clad only in our shirts, Jack and I had also been scratching ever since we lay down.

‘Must’ve been,’ Jack said at last, in answer to my question. ‘I’d’ve taken notice of a stranger, wouldn’t I?’

Probably. Bristolians were used to foreign sailors in their midst and tolerated them as a necessary evil. But landlubbers were a different matter, and unknowns were immediately remarked upon and treated with suspicion until they had either established their credentials or were vouched for by an inhabitant. Mind you, most cities I had ever visited were the same, a wariness of outsiders being always prevalent.

‘All right. So this wasn’t a stranger you saw,’ I agreed, endeavouring to make sense of what Jack was trying to tell me. ‘It was someone you recognized, but without actually registering who it was you were looking at. Well, I suppose that has happened to all of us at one time or another. We catch a glimpse of someone so familiar that we don’t really see him. Probably most of the people you met on your way home to dinner were like that, unless you stopped and spoke to them. So what makes you think that one of those faces prompted your memories of Isabella Linkinhorne?’

Jack was tired and growing weary of the conversation. He lay down again, sticking his elbow so firmly into the dog’s ribs that Hercules gave an angry snarl and took himself off to sleep at the bottom of the bed, curling up by my feet.

‘I dunno,’ he grunted sleepily. ‘It jus’ felt like summat I’d seen made me think of her that day in the porch of All Saints’ Church.’

‘And you thought that, after all, maybe you had caught sight of the man she was with, and had just seen him again. Is that what you mean?’

But a loud snore was my only answer.

With the coming of morning, my companion was even less inclined to discuss the matter further. He was by now thoroughly bored with the subject and obviously regretted having mentioned it in the first place. He was anxious to be off to deliver his cartload of soap and to set out for Stowe as soon as possible.

‘Then promise me this, Jack,’ I said, as we swallowed a breakfast of bacon collops and oatcakes and emptied tankards of small beer, ‘that if you ever remember whose face it was you saw — this face that prompted all these memories of Isabella — you’ll let me know.’

He grunted and I had to be content with that. But we parted on the best of terms and with expressions of mutual goodwill, he going off to the stables to collect his horse and to the barn to retrieve his merchandise, while I went in search of the landlord to enquire if he knew of any goldsmiths in the city.

‘Goldsmiths, is it?’ that worthy echoed, grinning. ‘Thinking of buying something for the goodwife at home, are you?’ He enjoyed the joke, shaking with silent laughter. ‘Well, I daresay you’ll find a trinket or two in Goldsmiths’ Row, lad.’

I thanked him in as dignified a way as I could manage, ignoring his unseemly mirth, and set off, following his directions. Hercules trotted behind me, the belt buckled around his neck thwarting him in his attempts to fight every stray cur who crossed his path and to chase each new and enticing smell that tickled his nose.

‘We haven’t the time,’ I told him severely.

Goldsmiths’ Row, however, turned out to be a disappointment. There was no master in any of the workshops who was anywhere close to the correct age for ‘Melchior’, who must now, I reckoned, be around forty. Most of them were elderly, grey-haired, wrinkled men, all, with one exception, nearing sixty by my calculations. Nor did they own to any sons of the right age, but, like the good people of Westbury before them, grew steadily more suspicious of my intentions. And indeed who was to say they were wrong to be on their guard? A shabby stranger with a scruffy dog, I could hardly have inspired any confidence in workshops where I was surrounded by gems and precious metal. Nor did any one of the greybeards own to having any knowledge of Isabella.

The one exception was a Master Cock-up-spotty who had, as far as I could gather, inherited a thriving business from his recently dead father and was now hell-bent on exploiting his new-found importance by making the lives of his apprentices and workmen as miserable as possible, giving and countermanding orders in quick succession in a way that demonstrated all too clearly his ignorance of a business which must have been a part of his existence from childhood. His dress proclaimed the man, reminding me of a young popinjay I had known in Bristol who had come to an unfortunate end. Parti-coloured hose and tunic, long pikes to his shoes and a codpiece decorated with silver tassels. A self-satisfied youth of perhaps some twenty summers, he listened to my enquiry with a condescension that made me grind my teeth and long to hit him on his superior nose. And I noticed that his workmen — one hammering away to turn a thin sheet of the precious metal into gold leaf, another engraving a piece of amber — looked as if they would be pleased to see me try. A third, lovingly polishing a silver chalice with a rabbit’s foot, grimaced at me behind his master’s back.

When I had asked my question, Master Cock-up-spotty shook his head dismissively.

‘There are no other goldsmiths that I know of in Gloucester except my neighbours here in the Row.’

‘Do your workmen know of any?’

I could see that I was beginning to irritate, as well as worry him, but he cast a quick look at the bench behind him, raising his thin eyebrows as he did so. The men immediately stopped what they were doing and concentrated on the problem as though their lives depended on an answer. They knew that would annoy him.

‘All right! Get on with your work!’ he shouted when it became obvious that no reply was forthcoming. He turned back to me. ‘I’m sorry, my good fellow, but nobody here can help you.’

At this point, the elderly man who had been attending to the furnace dropped his bellows and came forward, wiping his sooty hands down the front of his leather apron.

‘’Scuse me, Master, but there were Goldsmith Moresby. He had the workshop right at the end of the Row until ten years or so ago when he got sick and gave up the business. Master Flint, who lived next door, bought it from him, knocked down the inner walls and made the one big workshop. I don’t suppose you’d remember. You weren’t much more’n a boy at the time. But I recollect old master — yer father — and the others getting very disgruntled about it.’

‘So I should think!’ boomed Master Cock-up-spotty. ‘Flint’s always been a conniving old so-and-so, stealing a march on his neighbours. I wonder my father and the others …’

‘What happened to Goldsmith Moresby?’ I hurriedly asked the bellows man. ‘Do you know?’

He nodded. ‘Went to live with his niece, over by the abbey. She looks after him now.’

‘And how old would Goldsmith Moresby be?’

My informant pondered the question, ignoring his master’s growing impatience, manifested by a tapping foot and a face like a thundercloud.

‘Well,’ he said at last, ‘older’n you, but younger’n I. He were young when ’e started out. His father died, like the Master’s here, when he weren’t so very advanced in years, and he were quick to learn.’ I thought I heard a faint note of accusation, or maybe contempt, in his tone as he cast a fleeting glance at his own unsatisfactory employer.

‘Would you reckon him to be forty now? Or a little older?’ I queried.

The bellows man bit a grimy fingernail before replying.

‘Ar, I reckon so,’ he finally agreed.

‘You say he lives with his niece. Has he no children of his own?’

‘Not that anyone knows of. Not that he knows of. He never married.’

‘Do you know why not?’

But at this, Master Cock-up-spotty exploded with wrath.

‘How much longer are these questions going on? If it comes to that, how much longer do you intend wasting my workmen’s time? You’re costing me money, whoever you are! What’s this Goldsmith Moresby to you?’

I drew myself up to my full height and flexed my not unimposing chest and shoulder muscles, hoping that this display would be sufficient to counteract the glories of piked shoes, parti-coloured hose and nattily adorned codpiece. It seemed to work. Master Pomposity appeared somewhat deflated.

‘I am making enquiries on behalf of Mayor John Foster of Bristol,’ I announced, and left it at that. I didn’t feel that I owed him an explanation.

Meanwhile, the bellows man answered my question as if there had been no interruption.

‘There were some talk — mainly tattle, as these things generally are — about an unhappy love affair. Some maid as he’d wished to wed who’d none of him come the time of askin’.’

I took a deep breath. ‘What was Goldsmith’s Moresby’s baptismal name? Did you ever hear it?’

It was one of the other men, the polisher with the rabbit’s foot, who answered.

‘It were Robert an’ I remember right.’

Robert Moresby. R.M. It seemed too good to be true — and experience had taught me that it probably was. For a start, there was as yet no proof that this man was the ‘Melchior’ whom I sought. Secondly, even if he were, there was again no proof that R.M. was the murderer. And thirdly … Well, thirdly, a thought that had really only just occurred to me; how did I persuade a man to admit that he was a killer and run his head into a noose? Nevertheless, I could not ignore so promising a lead, for it seemed to me that I could safely wager on Master Robert Moresby, goldsmith, being one of the three men I was seeking.

I obtained the niece’s direction from my friendly bellows man — learned, too, from him that her name was Juliette Gerrish — thanked him profusely and took my leave, Hercules trailing behind me. I had the distinct impression that my informant and his fellow workmen were sorry to see me go: I had not only provided them with a diversion, but had also managed to infuriate their master. He might vent his spleen on them later, but their half-grins and secret side-long glances at one another indicated that they considered his anger worth it.

As I approached the abbey it became obvious that someone of importance — or someone who thought he was important; not necessarily the same thing — was either just arriving or just leaving. The stamp and jingle of moving horses and the sharp, high-pitched clamour of the human voice were everywhere to be heard, bouncing back off the old grey walls and filling the surrounding alleyways with their echoes. Brothers and lay brothers, grooms and pageboys were scuttling across the abbey green like so many worker bees in a hive, so I hurriedly made myself scarce in case the hub of all this activity was someone with whom I had a nodding acquaintance from those days when I had performed some service for the Duke of Gloucester.

I had been directed by the bellows man to a small enclave of houses known as Cloister Yard on the north side of the abbey and, as instructed, knocked on the first door I came to. There was a moment’s pause before it was thrown open and a laughing voice exclaimed, ‘You’re back early! What’s happened? Wasn’t Master Harvey in?’ The words died away as the young woman who had answered my summons gave a little gasp and stood gaping up at me, an expression of ludicrous astonishment on her pretty face. ‘Who … who are you?’

I tugged off my cap and smiled down at her. ‘Mistress Gerrish?’ I enquired.

She was of no great height, at least not by my standard, but she would probably have been regarded as a trifle short in most company. Standing beside me the crown of her uncovered head, with its profusion of copper-red curls, reached only an inch or so below my shoulders. But what she lacked in stature, she made up for in animation. Her large eyes, regarding me with such comical dismay, were the soft velvety brown of pansies, but there was a mischievous sparkle to them that belied their seeming docility and gentleness. At first glance I assumed her to be about eighteen, but a second, closer look informed me that she was not quite as young as I had supposed. In reality she was, I judged, somewhere in her mid-twenties (and she later told me that she had indeed seen twenty-five winters and would be twenty-six in August, on Saint Oswald’s Day).

‘Sweet Virgin!’ she exclaimed now in mock alarm. ‘A veritable giant! And what can I do for you, Goliath? If it’s my uncle you’re wanting, he’s gone to visit a friend outside the city and won’t be back until curfew.’ At this juncture, Hercules made his presence known, sniffing the hem of her skirt, and she at once dropped to her knees, fondling his ears. ‘What a dear little dog!’ Never slow in recognizing a well-wisher, Hercules licked her face.

‘Ah!’ I exclaimed, disconcerted. ‘If your uncle is Master Robert Moresby, then yes, I was hoping to talk to him. You say he won’t be returning until curfew? Perhaps, in that case, I’d better wait until tomorrow.’

‘Do you live in Gloucester, Master Goliath?’ she asked. Her eyes twinkled wickedly. ‘I’m sure you don’t or I should have noticed you, and so would every other girl in the city.’

‘I live in Bristol,’ I answered, and was about to add, ‘with my wife and children,’ but for some reason forbore to do so.

‘And you’ve come all this way to speak to Uncle Robert?’ Her eyes widened. ‘It must be very important. What’s it about?’

I was taken aback by this direct question. I could hardly say, ‘I want to know if he murdered a young woman twenty years ago.’ So, instead, I mumbled awkwardly, ‘It … it’s … a … a personal matter. I … I’m sorry.’

‘There’s no need to be,’ she replied cheerfully. ‘I shouldn’t have asked. I’ve no doubt Uncle has his secrets, like everybody else. And whatever they are, they’re not my business. But don’t run away.’ She held the door open invitingly. ‘It will be dinnertime soon. Come inside and share mine. It’s all right,’ she added with that swift, winning smile of hers. ‘You won’t regret it. I’m accounted a very good cook. Indeed, I doubt if Uncle Robert would have stayed with me if I hadn’t been. He’s fond of his belly.’

I regarded her severely. ‘Do you often do this with strangers? Invite them indoors when you’re on your own and unprotected? How do you know I’m not a robber or a murderer or a … a …?’

‘Or that you’ll rape me?’ She finished my query for me. ‘I hope I can read men’s faces better than you give me credit for doing. I’m no green girl, you know, whatever you might think. Now, I can offer you pigeon pie, a slice of venison, apple and cinnamon coffins and some fine Rhenish wine from my uncle’s cellar to wash it down with. And don’t tell me that doesn’t tempt you because I’d wager you’d be lying. A man of your size needs to be a good trencherman.’

She had taken my measure and nodded with satisfaction as I stepped past her into the house. I heard her shut the door behind me.

She was a kind woman with an especial fondness for animals, serving Hercules first with a bowl of clean water and a plateful of broken meats. He made short work of this and was ready to be a nuisance by the time my hostess and I sat down to table. But I knew him of old and had already asked Mistress Gerrish’s permission to shut him in the kitchen.

It was a pleasant two-storied house with, on the ground floor, dining parlour, buttery and kitchen, all opening off a stone-flagged passageway. There were two more doors which were closed, but obviously gave access to other rooms, making it a dwelling of commodious size and a fitting place of retirement for a successful goldsmith. Then I remembered that Master Moresby had gone to live with his niece, not the contrary.

Over our meal I probed, as delicately as I could, the household circumstances.

‘I’m a widow,’ Juliette Gerrish told me frankly. ‘When he died five years ago, my husband left me wealthy and childless. But not lonely. My uncle had moved in with us four years before that, when he became ill and had no one to care for him.’

‘You must have been married young,’ I observed. ‘Very young.’

She nodded. ‘I was barely fifteen, but no younger than many girls. Mind you, I don’t advocate it. After my miscarriage, I was never able to conceive again.’ Her foot found mine under the table, whether accidentally or not I wasn’t sure at the time. ‘But,’ she added cryptically, ‘such barrenness has its advantages.’

I ignored this, although, deep in my mind, a warning bell rang, but not loudly enough it seemed.

‘You’ve had visitors in Gloucester today,’ I remarked thickly, through a mouthful of excellent pigeon pie. ‘Abbey Green is humming with activity.’

My hostess smiled and helped me to a large and succulent slice of venison, at the same time adding another helping of pie to my laden trencher.

‘The Duke of Gloucester’s men as I understand it, raising men and money for the coming war with Scotland.’ I raised my eyebrows in query and she went on, ‘Oh yes! Hadn’t you heard? It seems King James has broken the truce yet again. He and his army are over the border and harrying the northern shires. Prince Richard is going north this summer, as soon as the weather is warmer, at the head of an English force.’

‘King Edward doesn’t go himself?’

Juliette Gerrish frowned. ‘Rumour has it that he’s too sick to undertake the task and relies entirely on his brother. But there!’ She shrugged. ‘How much you can rely on gossip is always a vexed question. All the same, I wonder you haven’t heard of this in a place as big as Bristol.’

No doubt the news had reached some quarters of the city, but my old friend, Timothy Plummer, always maintained that Bristolians were too wrapped up in their own affairs, and in those of their southern Welsh and Irish neighbours, to pay much attention to what was going on in the rest of the country, especially in the north of England and Scotland; two territories that seemed as alien to them as the lands of the Great Cham of Tartary or the realms of Prester John.

‘I’ve been out of the city for a day or two,’ I said by way of extenuation, ‘on my way here.’ I refused a second slice of venison, patting my already bloated belly. ‘I shan’t have room for those apple and cinnamon coffins you promised me.’

These turned out to be as good as the rest of the meal, and the wine was undoubtedly as excellent as Mistress Gerrish claimed, but its savour was lost on me. I had been brought up on ale and small beer, and had no palate for anything better. I didn’t own as much, however, permitting my fine glass goblet to be refilled more than once. A mistake; my head was beginning to spin.

‘Do you have no one to help you in the house?’ I asked. One of her hands lay close to mine on the tabletop. I succumbed to temptation and patted it lightly. It felt soft to the touch, unlike Adela’s work-roughened skin.

‘No, it’s just my uncle and myself. I do all the cooking and the work. I buy a special ointment, made up for me by the local apothecary to keep my skin soft.’ Her hand quivered slightly under mine. She turned her head and regarded me frankly. ‘Are you betrothed Roger?’

‘N-no,’ I stammered. ‘Not betrothed.’ I was beginning to sweat.

Juliette laughed softly. ‘Married, perhaps?’

I hesitated, appalled to find how close I was to lying; how much I wanted to disclaim my family shackles. But I had been brought up to be honest (well, fairly honest; we all lie on occasions). I nodded reluctantly.

But my admission did me no harm. My companion seemed in no hurry to withdraw her hand from under mine, merely remarking sagely, ‘I thought you were.’

I was nettled. Too many people in the past few years had told me that I had the look of a married man. I was now the one who lifted my hand from hers.

‘Why do you say that?’ I demanded.

She gave that soft, sweet laugh that made the hairs rise on the nape of my neck.

‘Don’t be offended,’ she chided gently. ‘It was meant as a compliment. Anyone as handsome as you are is almost certainly bound to be married. Are you faithful to your wife?’

‘Of course.’

She rose from her seat and began to stack the dishes. ‘There’s no of course, Roger. Lust may be one of the seven deadly sins, but it’s a sin practised in the very highest places. The King, I’ve heard, has many mistresses and when he tires of them, he passes them on to his friend, Lord Hastings. Is that true, do you think?’

I knew it was true, but refrained from saying so and turned the conversation into less dangerous byways. The day wore on and my hostess and I, by tacit consent, sat well apart from one another, on opposite sides of the parlour, making general small talk and watching the shadows lengthen. Twice, I took Hercules for a walk around the nearby streets and alleyways and on each occasion considered the advisability of returning to the New Inn and not going back to Cloister Yard. But neither time could I bring myself to be so discourteous to Mistress Gerrish. (Or, at least, that was what I told myself.)

Four o’clock came and with the hour suppertime, a meal every bit as appetizing as dinner had been. Curfew was called, candles were lit and still Robert Moresby had not returned.

‘Uncle must be staying the night with Master Harvey,’ Juliette said at last. ‘But don’t go, Roger. You can have his bedchamber. It’s foolish to pay good money when there’s room to spare here.’ She added with a mischievous twinkle in her beautiful brown eyes, ‘There’s a bolt on the inside of the bedchamber door. You can lock yourself in if you wish.’

I knew very well that I shouldn’t stay, that I should insist on leaving, but somehow or another, I didn’t have the will to do so. I even concurred with her suggestion that a bed of some straw and an old blanket should be made for Hercules in the kitchen. It was, under duress, where he slept at home, and although he gave me a reproachful look and a protesting bark, he nevertheless settled down and let me retire without further ado.

At the top of the stairs, Juliette wished me a prim goodnight before entering her own room and firmly closing the door. I did likewise in Master Moresby’s chamber, but after contemplating the bolt for several seconds, turned away and stripped off my clothes, shaking them thoroughly to get rid of the dust and fleas and dirt they had gathered along the road. A ewer of water and a basin had been placed on the chest alongside the big four-poster bed, with its crimson velvet hangings, together with an ‘all-night’ of bread and cheese and ale. I washed and fell into bed, sleep beginning to claim me almost as soon as I was engulfed by the goose feather mattress.

But not for long. I was drawn back from the borderland of sleep by the sound of the door latch being lifted. A soft voice spoke out of the darkness.

‘Roger?’

I rolled on to my back and stretched out a hand. Juliette slid into the bed beside me.