The Three Kings of Cologne

Four

The Gaunts’ Hospital, as I have already explained in one of my earlier chronicles, stands close by Saint Augustine’s Abbey, in the lee of the steeply rising ground to the north of the city. (A series of heart-stopping hills leads eventually to the plateau above the great gorge — whose bed is that of the River Avon — and the manor of Clifton.) The hospital was founded in the thirteenth century by Maurice and Henry de Gaunt, and further endowed by their nephew, Robert de Gourney. Its function is to nurse the sick, feed the poor and educate children, and is large enough to accommodate twenty to thirty inmates. Run by a master and three chaplains, all belonging to the order of the Bons-Hommes, it comprises the church of Saint Mark, surrounded by hall, kitchen, buttery, dormitories, outbuildings, a pigeon loft and an orchard that, to the east, abuts the land of the Carmelite Friars (whose huge cistern has supplied Bristol with water for several centuries, piped as it is across the Frome Bridge to the conduit by Saint John-on-the-Arch).

From Steep Street, I approached the hospital along Frog Lane. The apple trees, already in bud, and soon to be a sea of foaming blossom, raised their tossing heads above the grey stone wall, their branches whispering to the tune of a gentle breeze blowing up from the river.

The porter made no demur when I expressed a wish to speak to Jonathan Linkinhorne, and conducted me to the main hall, where most of the elderly residents were to be found at that time of day. A fire, far too hot for me, burned on the hearth and spread its warmth around the stone benches that lined the other three walls. There were also stools and trestle tables scattered about to provide more comfortable seating and arm support for the frail and very old. The man pointed out to me as Master Linkinhorne was sitting at a trestle as close to the fire as he could get, his chin propped in his cupped hands, staring sightlessly at a half-full beaker of ale in front of him.

Before I could approach my quarry, however, I was intercepted by two old acquaintances, Miles Huckbody and Henry Dando. Like all old people herded together with no one but their own generation for company they were desperate for news of the wider world and the stimulation of younger minds.

‘What you doing here, Roger?’ Miles asked, his long, wrinkled face alight with curiosity beneath the white hair. He slipped one bony hand into the crook of my elbow and stroked the sleeve of my jerkin with the other. ‘You remember Henry, here,’ he went on, when his friend’s attempts to attract my attention became too importunate to ignore.

‘Master Dando,’ I said, smiling into the faded, rheumy blue eyes and wishing their owner at the devil.

Miles Huckbody let out a squawk of protest. ‘You’ve no cause to go a-“master”-ing him, Chapman. Henry ain’t of any importance.’

‘I’m just naturally polite,’ I said; a claim that provoked another cackle of derision from my companion.

‘Who you come to see?’ Miles demanded. ‘Is it one of us?’ He stared up at me hopefully.

‘I’m afraid not,’ I apologized. ‘I want to speak to Master Linkinhorne.’ And I nodded towards the silent figure, hunched over his drink.

‘Oh, ’im!’ Henry Dando sniffed. ‘You won’t get a lot of joy outta him. Miserable old sod, ’e is. Don’t talk to anyone much.’

This was bad news. But then I asked myself what would Jonathan Linkinhorne — provided he was anything like his cousin, Sister Walburga — have in common with Miles Huckbody and Henry Dando, with their constant stream of old men’s chatter? Besides which, at present, he must be suffering from a deep sense of shock, and possibly self-reproach, to think that his daughter had been dead, brutally murdered, for all these years when he had thought her alive somewhere, well and happy.

‘You’re here about that body they dug up in the nuns’ graveyard, ain’t you?’ Miles poked me sharply in the ribs. ‘Jonathan’s daughter, weren’t it? That Sergeant Manifold was here yesterday and spoke to him in private. Old Linkinhorne, he didn’t tell us nothing. But gossip soon leaks out in a place like this. Bound to.’

‘You can’t keep nothing secret in here,’ Henry Dando confirmed, trying to look regretful and failing miserably.

I guessed that such a morsel of news had generated enough excitement to keep the Gaunts’ inhabitants in a ferment for months to come.

There was no point in denying my mission. ‘You’re right. I do want to speak to Master Linkinhorne about his daughter,’ I agreed, disengaging my arm from Miles’s clawlike grip. ‘But alone,’ I added firmly. ‘I’ll wish you both good-day. It’s been a pleasure seeing you again.’ (As I’ve remarked before, we all have to tell untruths from time to time.)

‘We’ll introduce you,’ Miles offered.

‘He knows us, you see,’ Henry added.

‘I’ll introduce myself,’ I said in a tone of voice that left them in no doubt that I was refusing their very kind offices.

They sheered off, muttering together in offended whispers. I took no notice, seating myself at the opposite side of the trestle to Jonathan Linkinhorne and folding my arms in front of me. He glanced up briefly, registered the fact that my face was unfamiliar and looked down again at his beaker, but without making any serious attempt to finish his ale.

‘Master Linkinhorne,’ I said.

He raised his head once more, this time frowning. ‘Do I know you?’

In his youth, he must have been a heavy-jowled man, but the flesh now hung slackly around the jawline, running into his neck and making him appear almost chinless. Like Henry Dando, indeed like a lot of blue-eyed people, the colour of the irises had faded with age, but in his case they were also milky, hinting at incipient blindness. He had pushed back his hood to reveal a bald head, with a few wisps and tufts of white hair growing low down around the ears. I suspected that he had once been an imposing, powerfully built man who found the indignities of ageing more trying than most. When he spoke, his voice rasped with resentment.

I had a sudden vision of him in his middle years; a man used to being in command, used to being obeyed by everyone with whom he came into contact, lording it over wife and servants, confident in all his dealings with the world around him. Then, suddenly, he had found himself confronting a will-o’-the-wisp of a girl, lovely to look at, physically fragile, but with a will of iron, a determination to dominate matched only by his own. He, who all his adult life had known nothing but subservience, would have been confused, bedazzled by this glorious, unpredictable creature he had fathered and blinded by his love …

Jonathan Linkinhorne repeated impatiently, giving equal emphasis to every word, ‘Do I know you?’

I pulled my wandering thoughts together and plunged into my explanation.

When I had finished, there was a lengthy and unnerving silence while my companion drummed with his fingers on the tabletop, a sign of agitation that was in no way reflected on his face, which remained an expressionless mask. At least, so I thought until I was shocked to see tears gathering in the corners of his eyes, then trickling unchecked down his lined and weathered cheeks.

The silence continued to stretch while I gave us both time to recover our composure. I disliked intruding into anyone’s private grief, and silently deplored John Foster’s desire to uncover the truth of past events. The past was dead: let it lie.

This uncharacteristic state of mind did not last long, however, and I was immediately all ears when Master Linkinhorne suddenly roused himself, blinking rapidly like a man coming out of darkness into light — or like a man reaching a decision after a long period of uncertainty.

‘It’s extremely kind of our new Mayor to interest himself in my affairs,’ he said grudgingly, ‘but I doubt if he — or, rather, you, as his instrument — will be able to find out much after all this time. The year that Isabella disappeared was the year in which King Edward won the battle of Mortimer’s Cross and seized the crown from King Henry … It seems like another life.’

And so it did. My lord of Gloucester and I had both been eight years old — nine at the beginning of that October — and Edward of York, now growing ill and bloated from an excess of food, wine and women, had been regarded as the handsomest man in the whole of Europe; over six feet tall and as dazzling as the sun. His badge, the Sun in Splendour, had then reflected his glory: nowadays it was nothing but an empty mockery of what he had once been.

I said gently, ‘The discovery of your daughter’s body must have been a terrible shock for you, Master Linkinhorne. But surely you must have some desire to know what happened to her? Who murdered her?’ He made no response. I hesitated, then went on, ‘Did … forgive me, but did neither you nor your wife ever consider the possibility that some harm might have befallen Isabella?’

He was silent for a moment or two longer, then slowly shook his head.

‘I daresay you think we should have done,’ he said at last, ‘but I’m ashamed to say that it never so much as crossed our minds.’

‘Can you …? Do you know why not?’

Again there was a protracted pause as though he were struggling to come to terms with something that was almost too painful to contemplate.

‘Isabella,’ he murmured at length, ‘was always threatening to run away from home.’ He drew a long, ragged breath. ‘My wife, Master Chapman, was over forty when our daughter was born. I was five years older. We had given up all hope of having a child, so Isabella was … was like a miracle sent by God. And we knew that we should have no more children. Foolishly, we indulged her every whim, both when she was a little girl and as she grew older. Everything she wanted, she had.’

Except her freedom, I thought. Except her freedom! I could see that Sister Walburga had been in the right of it when she’d said that an old couple’s overwhelming love had stifled an eager, high-spirited girl. And when that girl had become a woman, she had rebelled.

Almost as an echo to my thoughts, Jonathan Linkinhorne went on, ‘Suddenly Amorette, my wife, and I didn’t know her any more. Looking back, of course I can see that even when she was small, riding her pony, Isabella would try her best to get clear of anyone who was accompanying her; my wife, myself or her nurse. And as soon as she had mastered the grey mare we bought her for her fifteenth birthday, there was no holding her back. Each day she was out riding, in all weathers, galloping across the downs in every direction. There was no longer anyone who could keep up with her. She grew defiant, wilful … You think we should have beaten her, no doubt. Locked her in her chamber. People told me to my face that I was too weak with her. That if she had been their daughter …’ He shrugged. ‘Oh, you can guess the sort of thing.’

I could, only too well. I had a daughter of my own and could foresee myself receiving just the same sort of advice when that strong-minded damsel reached maturity.

‘But,’ I prompted, when my companion threatened to lapse into silence once again, ‘Isabella always did come home? She never did run away?’

‘No,’ he agreed sadly. ‘She never did run away. I know that now.’ He made a sudden, visible effort and roused himself from his reverie. ‘Of course I do. But twenty years ago, my wife and I believed differently. We believed that Isabella had finally carried out her threat and run away with one of her suitors.’

A log fell with a crash on to the hearth behind me, sending up a comet’s tail of sparks. One of the old men at the next table hurried forward importantly, seized the tongs and put the crumbling log back on the fire, glancing around as he did so for applause. When none was forthcoming, he huffed his way back to his seat, offended. I felt sorry for him.

‘You say suitors in the plural,’ I said, turning back to face Jonathan Linkinhorne. ‘There was more than one?’

‘So we were told.’

‘Did you never see them?’

His jowl quivered defiantly. ‘No. Isabella always denied their existence when we questioned her concerning them.’

‘In that case, how can you be sure these men ever really existed?’

He gave a faint, fleeting smile and confirmed what Sister Walburga had already told me.

‘Neighbours, well-wishers, friends. People who knew people, who knew people, who knew people … Someone’s mother-in-law’s aunt had seen Isabella riding with a male companion near Westbury village, or on the Gloucester road, or as far away as the track that runs south to Bath. There were also reports of her visiting Bristol on her own, stabling the mare at the Full Moon, near Saint James’s Priory. Sometimes, of course, she accompanied her mother and me to the city, when we went to visit the market or for another reason. And I recall there were several occasions when we lost her. She always turned up again, later, but would never say exactly where she’d been in the meantime.’

‘Is there any chance she could have gone to visit your cousin at the Magdalen nunnery?’

Jonathan Linkinhorne shook his head glumly.

‘Jeanette — Sister Walburga that is — didn’t enter the nunnery as a postulant until just a few weeks before Isabella vanished.’

I thought over what he had told me for a moment or two while he once more lapsed into silence. Then I asked, ‘Why are you so certain that, in all these sightings of your daughter in the company of a man, it was not the same man every time? Why are you so sure that there were three?’

With a visible effort, Jonathan Linkinhorne dragged his eyes back to my face.

‘The descriptions didn’t tally,’ he said, at last raising his beaker and taking a few sips of ale. He licked his lips and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. ‘One account was of a tall, fair man, very handsome. Another described a stocky, sandy-headed fellow, while a third fitted neither of those descriptions.’

‘What was that?’

‘Oh, brown-haired, blue-eyed, nothing remarkable or noteworthy. A man like a hundred others. Although …’ My companion broke off, pressing a hand to his forehead, peering back into the dim recesses of the past and trying to conjure up a memory. ‘Someone said — I think it was of him, and yet I wouldn’t be sure — that he was a jolly fellow, always laughing. Or was that one of the others?’

I struggled against a growing sense of disbelief.

‘But you and your wife never saw any of these men? You never thought to follow your daughter when she went out riding? You mentioned a nurse. Could she not have ridden with Isabella?’

Jonathan Linkinhorne grew testy, snapping at me, suddenly impatient.

‘You can’t have been listening, Master Chapman. I told you, my wife was over forty when our child was born. I was forty-five. So by the time we are now talking about, Amorette and I were both over sixty. Indeed, my wife had celebrated her sixtieth birthday shortly before Isabella disappeared. And Emilia — Emilia Virgoe, Isabella’s nurse — as well as being in her forties, was no horsewoman. There was no possible way that either one of us could have kept up with my daughter when she was on horseback.’ He was beginning to sweat and jerked his stool away from the fire’s heat before continuing. ‘You must understand that Isabella had an instinctive bond with horses from the moment she first clapped eyes on one. She was a superb horsewoman. There was no possible way anyone could have kept up with her, followed her, if she didn’t wish it.’

I, too, was starting to sweat, the heat on my back making me feel slightly sick and light-headed. I got up and walked round the table to sit beside my reluctant host. My mouth was parched, and I looked longingly at Jonathan Linkinhorne’s still quarter-full beaker of ale. He pushed it towards me.

‘Take it,’ he muttered. ‘Small beer’s all you get here and I can’t bear the stuff. Wine’s the only fit drink for a civilized human being.’

‘If you can afford it,’ I retorted, swallowing the remains of the ale in a couple of gulps.

‘Oh, I could always afford it,’ he declared, suddenly boastful. ‘The holding I worked for Lord Cobham was a flourishing one. Four or five hands I had under me at one time, and two girls to do the milking and feed the hens and work in the house. I provided near enough the whole manor with vegetables, and sufficient over to sell in Bristol market at least once, sometimes twice a week.’

He was silent again, staring into space. Then, after a while, he buried his face in his hands.

‘Master Linkinhorne?’ I murmured, gently squeezing his shoulder, aware, as he apparently was not, that his conduct was beginning to attract attention. Nudges, winks and nods were being exchanged among the other old people nearby, who, although probably at least partially deaf, had nevertheless been taking a close interest in our conversation. My brief acquaintance with my companion had convinced me that he would hate to make himself conspicuous in any way, or be the subject of whispered speculation among his fellow inmates, all of whom, I felt sure, he deeply despised. He was that most pitiable of creatures; a man with more than his fair share of pride, fallen on hard times. I lowered my mouth to within an inch of his ear. ‘Master Linkinhorne, people are looking.’

He raised his head, sat up straight and gazed belligerently around him. There was an uneasy shuffling of feet, an awkward avoidance of glances before the others turned back to what they had previously been doing; playing board games, reading or simply chatting and bickering amongst themselves.

Jonathan Linkinhorne shrugged off my hand and reached for his beaker, forgetting that he had allowed me to empty it. When he did remember, he slammed it back on the table in disgust.

‘Let me fetch you some more,’ I offered guiltily, half-rising from my seat.

He shook his head.

‘You don’t understand, Master Chapman,’ he said fiercely. ‘When you live on charity, you don’t ask for more.’

‘I’m sure that if I explain …’

‘No!’

I sank back on to my stool. ‘Very well.’

‘In any case, I hate the stuff.’

‘So you said. But if you’re thirsty-’

‘For God’s sake, fellow, do as you’re told.’

Yes, I thought to myself, this is more like the man you once were before disaster and indignity blighted your life. I waited a few seconds to let reality sink in again, then asked neutrally (although I already knew part of the answer), ‘What happened after Isabella disappeared? Did you and your wife continue as you had before?’

Jonathan gave a snort of mirthless laughter.

‘Use your imagination, man! If, that is, you have any! How could we? Our one and only chick had gone. Flown the coop. Everything we had done and thought and said for twenty years had been for Isabella. Now there was no one. Nothing! Of course, for a while, for weeks, months, we half-expected that she would return, bringing her husband — that is, whichever of the three men she had finally chosen — with her. But when a year had passed and we had heard nothing from her, we began to suspect that she was never coming home.’

‘But surely,’ I persisted, ‘in the early days, you must have made some push to find her? You must have made enquiries?’

‘Of course we did! The day she failed to come back from riding, we sent to Emilia at her cottage and I went myself to my cousin at the nunnery, to discover if either of them had seen Isabella. If, by chance, she was with one of them. The following morning, we took the hands from their work and sent them to scour the countryside in case our daughter had met with an accident. We sent both girls to Clifton village to find out if anyone there had seen her since she rode out the previous morning. Lord Cobham was away from home — he often was — but Amorette and I visited the house and made enquiries of the housekeeper.’

‘Without result? No one had seen Isabella at all the day she vanished?’

‘Oh, people had seen her. There had been several sightings of her in the morning near Westbury village, in the company of a man. But nobody could say which one. At least, there seemed to be disagreement about his identity. It was a wet March day, cold and windy, and with a hint of sleet in the air. It seems that both Isabella and her companion, whoever he was, had the hoods of their cloaks pulled well forward, making it difficult to see their features distinctly.’

‘In that case, how were your informants certain that it was your daughter that they’d seen?’

‘They knew her by her cloak. It was dark blue, lined with scarlet wool.’

‘Ah … And did you find out how late in the day it was when Isabella was last observed?’

Jonathan Linkinhorne shook his head. I could tell by the shuttered expression on his face that suddenly he had had enough. He did not want to think or talk about the subject any more.

‘I’ve told you, Master!’ He slammed his open palm against the tabletop, again attracting the attention of his neighbours, but now past caring. ‘It’s too long ago. I’d like you to go.’

I had often seen this happen with older people: for a while they were bright and energetic, then, without warning, they wilted like flowers in the summer heat, overcome by fatigue. I patted his gnarled and brown-spotted hand.

‘I’m leaving,’ I said. ‘Just one more question. This nurse, this Emilia … Virgoe, did you say?’ He nodded. ‘Is she still alive?’ He nodded again. ‘Do you know where I can find her?’

‘That’s two questions,’ Jonathan reminded me, but answered all the same. ‘She has a cottage on Lord Cobham’s estate. Ask for her in Clifton village. Anyone will tell you where she lives.’ His gaze and voice sharpened, the milky blue eyes focusing on my face, almost as if he were seeing me properly for the first time since my arrival. ‘What do you want with Emilia? She can’t tell you any more than I have done. She’s over sixty now. Old people don’t want to be bothered cudgelling their brains to remember things long gone and best forgotten. It’s upsetting. And the plain truth is, Master Chapman, that Isabella’s been dead to me — and, I suspect, to Emilia — these many years. Finding her body hasn’t made her death any more real, except in the sense that now I know for certain, for a fact, that I’ll never set eyes on her again.’

He was lying. I could tell it by the tremor in his voice, which he strove valiantly to keep steady, and by the rogue tear that had escaped and was running down one cheek. But I could understand his reluctance to dwell, publicly at least, on the gruesome discovery of his daughter’s corpse. He must blame himself, and also feel that others blamed him, for not making more effort to trace her whereabouts twenty years ago. Had he done so, her true fate might have become known, with a far better chance of bringing the murderer to justice.

I rose to take my leave of him, but the sight of Miles Huckbody and Henry Dando loitering near the door made me pause and risk asking yet another question.

‘Master Linkinhorne,’ I ventured, ‘the jewellery your daughter was wearing — the rings, necklace and girdle by which your cousin was able to identify the body as Isabella’s — was it familiar to you?’

He shook his head.

‘No. Sergeant Manifold brought it to show me, but I’d never seen any of it before. Obviously,’ he added bitterly, ‘Jeanette — Sister Walburga — recognized it.’

‘Sister Walburga told me it was given to Isabella by one of her admirers, who was a goldsmith by trade.’

The old man gave vent to a sudden explosion of furious laughter.

‘Then my cousin knows far more than I do. Far more! You’d better go and talk to her again.’

I could see that he was trembling, his left hand jerking uncontrollably against the tabletop. Guilt consumed me. I leaned forward, once more pressing his shoulder.

‘I’ll leave you in peace now, Master Linkinhorne. Thank you for your time and patience.’

He made no reply. I’m not sure that he even heard me. I pushed past Miles Huckbody and Henry Dando without looking at them, resolutely ignoring their whispered questions and muttered indignation when I didn’t answer. Then I was out in the fresh air of the April afternoon, breathing pleasurably and deeply, but possessed by the uneasy reflection that one day I, too, would be old.