The Three Kings of Cologne

Fourteen

I left by the Redcliffe Gate and took the opportunity to call on Jack Nym as I was passing. His evil-smelling little dwelling was in Saint Thomas’s Lane, close to the church, stinking, as it always did, of burned food, mouse droppings, unemptied chamber pots and stale, unwashed clothes. His slatternly wife was standing in the doorway, watching with dull eyes while Jack loaded his cart with bales of cloth from Master Adelard’s weaving sheds.

‘You’re up and away early, friend Roger,’ he grunted, stooping to heave another roll of some dark green stuff from the cobbles, where its edge was beginning to muddy on account of the shower of rain that had fallen overnight, mixing with the dust and grime of the road.

‘I’m off to Bath,’ I said, nodding briefly in Mistress Nym’s direction, receiving nothing but a blank stare in return. No doubt she would recollect who I was in her own good time. ‘There’s no chance, I suppose, that you might be going that way?’

Jack shook his head. ‘I’m off up to Tewkesbury. Pity, but there it is. I could have done with some company again. Not got the dog with you today?’

‘Just my satchel and my cudgel, as you see. I thought the poor fellow needed a rest.’ I patted the horse’s nose as he stood patiently between the shafts. ‘What I want to know, Jack, is if you’ve had any further ideas about who it might have been with Isabella Linkinhorne that day you saw her in the porch of All Saints’.’

Jack heaved the last bolt of cloth on to the cart and rubbed his nose.

‘To be truthful,’ he admitted, ‘I haven’t given it another thought. I’d forget about it, Roger. After twenty years, I don’t suppose I’m likely to remember now.’

‘You said-’

‘I know what I said. But I were half asleep at the time. Must’ve been dreaming.’

‘Nonsense! You were wide awake. Well, awake enough.’

‘Look, it ain’t come back to me. All right? What I’ve said all along was c’rrect. I didn’t see the man she was with. Just leave it, eh? It’s too long ago. Raking over cold ashes never does no one any good.’ He climbed on the cart and took the reins, blowing a perfunctory kiss to his wife from what seemed a safe distance. I didn’t blame him. My guess was that Goody Nym smelled as bad as her house.

I watched Jack drive off in the direction of Bristol Bridge and the Frome Gate before pursuing my own course to the Redcliffe Gate where I was caught up in the flow of incoming early morning traffic as animals, cartloads of vegetables, sea coal, butter and milk churns flooded into the city at the start of yet another week, the drivers, without exception, swearing at the tolls they had to pay and holding up the outgoers like myself until we were all cursing one another roundly. Eventually, however, I was through the gate and heading eastwards, towards Keynsham.

The April morning was hazy, giving the promise of warmth later in the day. Distant hills floated like clouds against a pale blue sky and daisies (the day’s eyes) were already opening to the sun. Other travellers gave me a ‘Good day!’ or a ‘God be with you!’ as they passed, but although I answered cheerily my mind was elsewhere, partly on the difficulties that lay in store for me once I reached my destination, but also on Jack Nym.

Looking back on our conversation, it struck me more forcibly with every step I took that Jack had been evasive. At the time, it had seemed no more than the natural irritation of a man interrupted in his work and no doubt suffering pangs of indigestion after one of Mistress Nym’s breakfasts. But a period of quiet reflection brought the growing conviction that he had thought about the matter and had come to some sort of conclusion about the face he had seen in the crowd; the face that had jolted that memory of twenty years ago. But if that were so, why then was Jack so reluctant to reveal the name of the person to whom the face belonged? It could be, of course, that he had simply decided he had made a mistake; that this person could have had nothing to do with Isabella Linkinhorne and it had been merely a coincidence that he had begun to think about her shortly after noticing him. On the other hand, it might be that he had reason to fear this man — yet who that could be and why, I had no idea. Jack, independent and responsible to no one as his master, was unafraid of anyone as far as I was aware. Although I supposed there were secrets in everyone’s life.

These unsatisfactory musings lasted some miles and it was past ten o’clock and dinnertime when I passed the manor house at Keynsham and knocked on a cottage door to ask for sustenance.

‘I can pay,’ I said hastily, chinking the coins in my purse.

The goodwife, who looked as if she had been about to direct me to the abbey and the charity of its kitchens, suddenly beamed and invited me inside. In no time, she had produced bread, broth and small beer and was pressing me to a second helping of each. As her portions were generous, I declined, but asked her if she had any knowledge of Bath and its inhabitants.

‘Dear life, no,’ was the amazed reply. ‘It’s all of seven miles from here. I did go to Bristol once, when I were a girl, for the Saint James’s fair. Great big place. Took my breath away, it did.’

I thanked her, paid what she asked for the victuals and set out again in the hope that I might, with a little expedition, accomplish my journey in one day instead of two. I had covered the five or so miles to Keynsham in better time than I had expected, having set out at the crack of dawn. I was used to peddling my wares as I went and journeys generally took me much longer, so I had miscalculated the length of time necessary to reach Bath. I suddenly realized that there was indeed a possibility of getting there before the gates were closed against me at dusk if I continued at the same brisk pace.

But what exactly was I going to do when I got to the city? How was I going to set about looking for a man of whom I knew nothing — not his name, nor his occupation, nor his initials? I didn’t even know that he still lived there, nor if Jane Purefoy’s information were correct. In the end, I decided that there was nothing for it but to complete my journey, find a comfortable alehouse or inn somewhere and then wait to see what happened.

‘If Your hand is in this, God,’ I said, addressing the sky, having first made certain that there was no one in the immediate vicinity to hear me, ‘You’ll need to give me a bit of help. I don’t think I’m capable of doing this on my own.’

There was no reply. As I have said more than once before, there never was.

I decided to follow the course of the River Avon as it meandered on its way between the thickly wooded hills that rose on either side of it. Local lore said that the valley floor had once been dotted with Roman villas as the population of the settlement at Aquae Sulis had spread beyond the city boundaries. But any trace of these opulent homes had long gone, erased for ever by the tramp of Saxon hordes as they claimed these western lands for their own and drove the Celtic tribes, abandoned by their Roman protectors, ever further west into the fastnesses of Wales.

With the sun now almost directly overhead, the day was fulfilling its early promise of warmth and my brisk pace was starting to flag. Once or twice, I was forced to sit down in order to rest my aching legs and to scoop handfuls of water from the river to quench my thirst. By following the river bank I had left the main track to Bristol and consequently found myself alone in the landscape except for a lone figure on the far horizon behind me, plodding along at a steady rate, but too far away to catch up with me. It did cross my mind that I might wait, for my own company was, for once, beginning to pall, but I was a long way ahead and if I was to stand any chance at all of reaching Bath before dusk, I had to press on.

But even my stamina eventually gave out. Twelve, maybe thirteen, miles in a single day proved too much for the fittest body without the rest and ease normally provided by cottage and farm or manor house kitchens and their attendant offers of refreshment. My third stop along the river bank resulted in my falling sound asleep in the lee of some rising ground and not waking up again for several hours.

I knew I must have slept for a long time because the sun, which had been just past its zenith when I closed my eyes, was now sinking slowly westwards, its rays beginning to strike the distant treetops, tipping them with gold. I woke with a start and a snort and a feeling of chill in my bones that set me shivering. The heat of midday had evaporated leaving a freshness in the air to remind me that April could be a treacherous month, pretending to be summer one hour, but then reverting to a cold and bitter spring the next.

‘You been asleep a fair long time, Chapman,’ remarked a voice close to my left ear. ‘I thought you was never goin’ to wake up.’

I jumped, my heart pounding, and slewed round, at the same time reaching for my cudgel which lay on the ground beside me. A most unwelcome sight met my eyes.

‘Jack Gload?’ I must have looked as incredulous as I sounded. ‘What in heaven’s name are you doing here?’

Richard Manifold’s henchman did his best to appear offended, but only succeeded in looking vacant, as usual.

‘Why shouldn’t I be here? I’ve got as much right as a pedlar to walk anywhere I choose.’

‘I never reckoned you or Pete — ’ Peter Littleman was his fellow lawman and best friend — ‘cared for the countryside.’

He considered this with a slight frown creasing his brow, not quite sure of my meaning.

‘Goin’ t’ see my daughter,’ he announced after a momentary silence. ‘She lives in Bath.’

I made no effort to conceal my surprise.

‘I didn’t know you had a daughter, Jack. I didn’t even know you were married.’

‘I ain’t. Not any more. Not for a long time, come to that. My goody died when Cecily were born. She’s married now — Cecily, I mean — to a baker. He has a stall not far from the North Gate. Don’ know why she couldn’t have married a decent Bristol man,’ he grumbled. ‘Plenty of ’em. ’Stead, she has to go off to Bath to live. No thought for me, left all on me ownsome. But that’s children for you, as you’ll find out afore you’re much older, I daresay.’

I thought that if I’d been Cecily Gload I too would have seized the chance to escape and put twelve miles between myself and Jack. If she was a person of any spirit, the idea of spending the rest of her life with her father must have been daunting in the extreme.

Jack went on, ‘I been following you, but you was too far ahead for me to catch up. Good job you fell asleep when you did, and for as long as you did. I’d never have been able to overtake you otherwise.’

I wished I could share his enthusiasm and began to cast about in my mind for ways to shake him off. His next words sent my heart plummeting. ‘We can go the rest of the journey together.’

‘We won’t make it into the city tonight,’ I said. ‘It will be sunset soon and the gates will be closed. I’d guess we have another two or more hours’ walking.’

‘More like three,’ he answered cheerfully. ‘But the North Gate — where my daughter lives, like I told you — has a little gate for people on foot alongside it. That door’s not always locked for a few hours after sundown. Lots of folk use it for getting in and out o’ the city after dark. Or if ’tis locked by any chance, there’s one or two places where the walls are broken down and ain’t been mended for a while. There are gaps in the stonework easy to get through, same as at home.’

Probably the same as every other city in the land, I reflected. Unlike our less fortunate neighbours across the Channel, long centuries free from the threat of invasion had made city authorities everywhere more than a little slack when it came to keeping up their towns’ defences. It seemed a waste of good money that could profitably be spent on other things (preferably the Mayor and Council).

‘I don’t fancy walking in the dark unless it’s necessary,’ I cavilled. ‘There’s sure to be somewhere — a barn or cottage or even a dry ditch beneath a hedge — where I can lie up for the night.’

‘Never thought of you as a coward, Chapman,’ Jack Gload scoffed. ‘Big fellow like you ain’t afraid o’ the dark, are you?’

‘Not at all,’ I retorted, nettled, then heaved a quiet sigh as I accepted that there was no way to shake off my unwanted companion without sacrificing my reputation. I made one last throw of the dice. ‘But perhaps your daughter and her husband won’t want a stranger, as well as yourself, cluttering up their house.’

The lawman guffawed. ‘They won’t care. They got four children, two cats and a dog, so they’m pretty crowded already. Two more — even two more as big as us — ain’t goin’ to make no difference. There’s plenty o’ room in the bakehouse and it’s warm by the ovens.’

My heart sank at the prospect before me, but I could see no way of refusing Jack’s invitation, only stipulating that if either his daughter or son-in-law made the slightest demur about housing me, I was to be allowed to depart in search of other lodgings without any rub thrown in my way by him. Reluctantly he agreed, and it crossed my mind to wonder why Jack Gload of all people was suddenly so anxious for my company. We had never been friends and, at times, had been positive enemies. And I must surely have offended him on many occasions by my lack of respect for both himself and his office. However, he seemed determined at present to stand my friend, and I could only hope that I might find a means of escape before we reached Bath.

But luck was not on my side. After what seemed an interminable walk in the steadily gathering gloom, which deepened into a profound darkness before a half-moon rose to light our pathway, the walls of Bath, twenty feet or so high in places, crumbling in others, rose up before us. We had left the river bank some time earlier and now skirted the walls and the West Gate until we came to the north of the city, where, as my companion had told me, there was a small arched portal set alongside the main gate, the latter by then being locked and barred. And he was correct, too, when he had said that this postern might still be open, although we were not a moment too soon. As we pushed our way through, the night porter was approaching from the opposite direction with his bunch of keys.

He greeted the pair of us with a nod and a grunt and the remark that Jack’s youngest grandchild was giving his lungs an airing.

‘Heard him,’ he said, ‘as I passed the bakehouse not two minutes since. Fact, you could hear ’im right down the bottom of the marketplace.’

‘Ay, he’s a grand little fellow,’ Jack replied proudly.

My heart sank even further, but by the time we had gone a little way down the high street, peace reigned in the two-storey house next to the baker’s shop (now boarded up for the night) and bakehouse with its funnelled chimney.

Mistress Cecily Baker was a surprisingly handsome young woman of perhaps some twenty summers, short and a little on the plump side, but with thickly lashed brown eyes, a sweet, full mouth and a neat, straight nose. I realized at once that she must favour her mother, for she was nothing like Jack. Her husband, Thomas, was as tall as she was short, a thin streak of a man with untidy brown hair, blue eyes and the white, floury complexion of all men of his calling. I soon learned that he spoke seldom but when he did, it was to state his opinions with all the dogmatic forcefulness of the totally uninformed.

My hope of being denied their hospitality was doomed to disappointment. Nothing could have exceeded my hostess’s pleasure at seeing me, and as she obviously ruled the roost, her husband extended an equally warm welcome to both his father-in-law and myself. The dog was inclined to take exception to the presence of strangers, but once he had sniffed Hercules’s scent on my clothes, he seemed to accept me as a friend. The cats, of course, ignored us, as cats the world over do, and continued pursuing their quest for mice and rats, pouncing at every rustle in the straw covering the kitchen floor.

The baby, a fat, red-faced infant of, I guessed, about six months, was breathing wheezily in his cradle which had been brought downstairs and placed next to the hearth, and which Cecily was rocking with her foot. Of the other three children there was no sign, although, now and then, a thump from the upper floor and a quickly suppressed shout of laughter indicated that they might be in bed, but were not yet asleep.

Jack Gload introduced me as his friend from Bristol (a description I secretly took great exception to) and as such I was given the best seat in the room — a simple armchair which I suspected really belonged to the master of the house — and offered two helpings of everything when Jack and I eventually sat down to a very belated supper. Thomas then took himself off to the bakehouse to set the dough to rise for the next day’s bread, while his wife ushered her father and myself into a snug back parlour where she joined us after she had cleared away our dirty dishes. Jack was instructed to fetch in the cradle, the children upstairs were shouted at and threatened with dire consequences if they did not immediately go to sleep, and then father and daughter settled down for a cosy gossip to catch up on family news. I naturally could take no part in this and soon found myself nodding off, drifting in and out of a dream in which I found myself standing on the edge of the great gorge in Bristol, overlooking Saint Vincent’s rocks, and arguing with the hermit about something or another. Unfortunately, although I recognized myself as the taller of the two men, I was also detached from him and unable to hear a word of the conversation. I shouted at myself to speak up — and woke with a cry on my lips that made my two companions start.

‘You been dreaming, Chapman, and no mistake,’ Jack Gload said, grinning, while his daughter looked at me reproachfully as the noise had disturbed the baby, who was beginning to grizzle, flailing his little arms which he had tugged free of his blanket. Fortunately some vigorous rocking from his mother soon quietened him again, and I pulled myself up straight on the narrow window seat on which I was sitting, shaking my head to clear it of the cobwebs of sleep.

‘S’pose you wake yourself up by telling us what you’re doing in Bath,’ Jack continued, the grin becoming slightly more malevolent. ‘It’s got something to do with that there old murder, hasn’t it? That body that was turned up in the nuns’ graveyard.’

Dame Cecily immediately clamoured to know what her father meant by this, and to be told the full story, so I was spared the necessity of replying for the moment. Jack at once puffed out his chest and in his capacity as one of (in his opinion) Bristol’s most important law enforcers told what he knew — which, I was relieved to discover, was no more than, if as much as, I knew myself. I should have hated to think that Dick Manifold was as diligent or as clever as Roger Chapman. On the other hand, honesty compelled me to admit that so far I had found out very little.

‘And you, sir,’ my hostess enquired, turning to smile at me. ‘Do you also work with my father and the Sergeant?’

‘No, ’e don’t!’ guffawed Jack. ‘’E’s nothing but a common pedlar!’

Cecily Baker coloured uncomfortably and glanced askance at her parent, obviously distancing herself from his boorish manners.

‘But you do have some interest in the matter, Master Chapman?’ she urged.

So, reluctantly, I divulged my part in the enquiry and, battered into submission by a volley of questions from father and daughter, Mayor Foster’s interest in the affair, plus a little of what I had discovered and the reason for my visit to Bath.

‘Although,’ I finished lamely, uneasily aware that I had perhaps said even more than I had intended to, ‘I expect very little success here. “Caspar” has no name, no face, no identification of any sort. Even the descriptions I have for the remaining two of Isabella Linkinhorne’s swains could apply to hundreds of men. Furthermore, I have no proof that “Caspar” is living or dead, nor whether, if the former, he is still here in Bath.’

I could tell by Jack’s puzzled expression that he was having great trouble following the bit about the Three Kings of Cologne and was unable to understand my reason for giving the three — now two — unknown men these outlandish names.

‘It helps Master Chapman to identify them in his own mind, Father,’ Cecily explained kindly in the same indulgent tone she might have used to one of her children. ‘Don’t tease yourself about it,’ she added, patting his arm. (She had to take after her mother for intelligence, as well as looks. How on earth, I wondered, had Jack Gload managed to attract such a paragon?) My hostess turned back to me. ‘I fear you have very little hope of success, Master Chapman. Indeed, I’d go so far as to say none at all.’

During the past ten minutes or so, her husband had returned from the bakery and joined us in the parlour, settling himself alongside me on the window seat, sitting down with a thump that sent a fine cloud of floury dust up into the air where the motes whirled around in the candlelight like a miniature snowstorm.

‘Shouldn’t be encouraging the League,’ he announced, fastening on to the one point he had really understood. ‘All this talk of Cologne. Trade with the Rhineland should be outlawed. The King and Council should see to it.’

‘Yes, my love,’ his wife agreed pacifically. No doubt her early years with her father had equipped her for dealing with men of limited intellect without losing her temper. ‘But we weren’t really discussing the Hanse towns. Master Chapman here has a problem.’ She smiled faintly. ‘He’s looking for someone he knows nothing about.’

‘Nonsense! He must know something. He wouldn’t be such a fool as to come searching for a man of whom he knows nothing.’

‘Always thought you was an idiot, Chapman,’ Jack remarked conversationally. ‘Now I’m sure of it.’

I ignored this jibe, addressing myself to Dame Cecily.

‘The only course open to me, as far as I can see, is to make enquiries around the town for anyone who knew Isabella Linkinhorne in his youth. As this is likely to take me some days — and even then, I doubt I’ll have much success — is there a clean, but cheap hostelry you can recommend, Mistress? Somewhere where the food’s good and the fleas don’t bite too much.’

She laughed. ‘There are one or two. But you’ll spend tonight with us. We keep a spare mattress for my father in the little room under the eaves. He won’t mind if you share that with him.’

‘Shan’t mind at all,’ Jack agreed. ‘I snore and fart a bit, Chapman, but then I believe you do, too.’ He grinned more malevolently than ever. ‘At least, you do according to Sergeant Manifold.’

His meaning was clear. Dick Manifold had got the information from Adela and shared the information with his two henchmen. I could feel my temper rising and had to clench my hands in my lap to stop myself from hitting Jack.

Dame Cecily, although ignorant of the cause, was immediately conscious of the rising tension between us, and hurriedly turned the conversation by asking her husband, ‘Is the list of deliveries ready for the boy in the morning? Our apprentice,’ she explained for my benefit, ‘lives nearby and goes home to sleep at nights with his widowed mother. But he’s here at daybreak and needs to know which homes to take bread to before Thomas opens the stall. Some people are too old or crippled to come themselves.’

‘Or too lazy,’ her spouse supplemented. ‘Or think they’re too important to make one of a crowd.’ He snorted indignantly, adding a trifle obscurely, ‘Just because his sister married above her station.’

‘Who’s that, then?’ Jack demanded.

The baby woke up and started to cry again. Cecily lifted the child out of the cradle, loosened her gown and put it to her breast. The noises from upstairs had long since died away.

‘Ralph Mynott,’ she said in answer to her father’s question. ‘Lives opposite the monks’ burial ground, over towards the East Gate.’

‘Who’d his sister marry then, that he thinks himself too good to come to the stall?’ Jack persisted.

‘Oh, some baronet or another,’ his son-in-law snorted. ‘No one of any great note. A Sir Peter Somebody-or-other. No one from around here. I fancy they live somewhere northwards of Bristol.’

I had been listening with only half an ear, brooding on what Jack Gload had hinted at a little while before, knowing full well that it had been nothing more than malice on his part, yet feeling a great surge of anger with Adela for discussing me with Richard Manifold and laying me open to his ridicule. But suddenly, all that was temporarily forgotten. It was as though a bright light had penetrated the dim corners of my mind.

‘This Sir Peter,’ I said, a trifle breathlessly. ‘He wouldn’t happen by any chance to be called Claypole, would he? Sir Peter Claypole?’

‘That’s it,’ Thomas Baker confirmed. ‘That’s the name. Although I fancy someone told me that he’d died some time ago.’

‘Ten years,’ I said. ‘And you say this Ralph Mynott is Lady Claypole’s brother?’

The baker nodded, asking austerely, ‘And how do you come to know her ladyship, Chapman?’ as though a pedlar had no right to be on speaking terms with a member of the nobility, however minor.

But I didn’t answer him. I was too busy sending up a silent prayer of thanks to God. He hadn’t, after all, failed me. I had found ‘Caspar’, I was convinced of it.

Everything suddenly began to fall into place.