The Three Kings of Cologne

Six

It was not until I reached the top of the path that I realized my original question had remained unanswered. The hermit had failed to tell me where I might find Emilia Virgoe. This, however, proved to be no problem as the first person I encountered, a smiling countrywoman in a brown homespun gown and a snowy-white hood and apron, immediately directed me to the nurse’s cottage.

This stood a little apart from the village, set back from the track known generally as Stonelea; a track that led eastwards and downwards to Bristol in the vicinity of Steep Street. Somewhere near the beginning of the descent the road divided, the left-hand fork being the approach to the village of Westbury which, in all probability, I would be taking later. But not before I had had a word with Mistress Virgoe.

Judging by the height of the sun, the morning was by now well advanced, and I was afraid she might be out and about, gathering wood for her fire or looking for mushrooms that had sprung up in the fields overnight after the previous day’s wet weather. But I need not have worried: Emilia Virgoe was at home, clearing away the remnants of her seemingly frugal dinner. There was no smell of cooking, no pot over the fire and only a crust of bread and a rind of cheese on the plate remaining on the table.

She was a small woman, neat, compact, with a pair of intelligent brown eyes in a wrinkled, weathered face, a short, straight nose and thin lips that curled upwards at the corners as though their owner was ready at any moment to break into a smile. Jonathan Linkinhorne had told me that she was well over sixty, and there was nothing to contradict this statement in the badly gnarled hands that were clasped composedly in front of her once she had opened the cottage door to my knock. But in spite of the wrinkles and knotted joints there was an indefinable air of youthfulness about her that I have noticed in some old people. Spry is the word that I think best described her.

‘Yes?’ she queried. ‘And what do you want, young man?’

I explained as clearly and succinctly as I could, but I need not have feared for her powers of understanding. She listened quietly, her head cocked slightly to one side, and at no time did she ask me to repeat myself. When I had finished, she invited me to enter, holding the door wide and stooping to pat Hercules’s head. He licked her hand and at once made himself at home, stretching out in front of the fire on its central hearth and promptly settling down to sleep.

‘He likes you,’ I grinned. ‘He doesn’t take to everybody.’

Her lips twitched. ‘And I don’t take to every dog I meet. But he’s a nice little fellow. I knew it the second I set eyes on him.’ She saw me looking at the bread and cheese and quietly removed the plate to a broad shelf near the water barrel, then told me to sit down on one of the two stools drawn up to the table. She took the other, facing me, and asked with the same composure she had shown throughout, ‘Now, what is it you want from me? You say you’ve spoken to Master Linkinhorne, so what more can I tell you?’

I countered with a question of my own.

‘Were you shocked to hear the recent news of the discovery of Isabella’s body?’ A sudden thought struck me. ‘You have heard, I assume?’ I did a quick calculation in my head. ‘Now I come to think of it, it’s only four days since she was found.’

The brown eyes lit with amusement.

‘My dear — Roger, did you say your name is?’ I nodded. ‘My dear Roger,’ she went on, ‘how long do you think it needs for such tidings to reach as far as Clifton? We are not living on the moon. The news was all over the manor by Friday morning, and as Sister Walburga had by then identified the remains as those of Isabella, I was naturally one of the very first to be informed.’

‘So … were you shocked?’

Emilia Virgoe hesitated before saying primly, ‘Of course.’

I regarded her severely. ‘Shocked, yes. Naturally. But surprised?’

There was a longer pause, and I sensed my hostess’s sudden discomfort.

‘What do you want me to say?’ she asked at last.

‘The truth would be helpful.’ Then, feeling that this was a little blunt, if not downright rude, I added meekly, ‘Please.’

She gave me a swift smile that puckered the corners of her eyes, but faded to leave her looking sad and somewhat apprehensive.

‘No,’ she admitted at last. ‘Not surprised.’

I leaned my elbows on the table. ‘Mistress Virgoe, did you suspect that Isabella could have been the victim of foul play at the time of her disappearance?’

She delayed her answer by getting up and taking two beakers and an earthenware jar from a wall cupboard and bringing them back to the table. When she unstoppered the jar, the pungent scent of elderflower wine teased my nostrils and I knew that unless I managed to restrain my natural appetite, I should be in trouble. There are fewer drinks more potent, at least in my experience, than elderflower wine brewed by enthusiastic old ladies. The dames themselves usually regard it as harmless, even after it has been stored and allowed to ferment throughout the winter; just a refreshing draft to revive you, they say. Never believe them! It can lay you out flat, to be followed by a splitting headache.

I accepted my beaker but, after a sip or two to show willing, pushed it to one side.

‘You haven’t answered my question,’ I reminded Emilia gently.

‘Which was?’

‘Did you suspect that anything sinister had happened to Isabella when she vanished?’

The nurse took a deep breath. ‘No, not really.’ When I would have spoken again, she held up her hand to stop me. ‘I know! What do I mean by “not really”?’ She drank some wine before continuing. ‘It was nothing but a fleeting suspicion. A faint feeling of unease, if you like, but no more than that.’

‘Did you voice your unease to Master and Mistress Linkinhorne?’

‘Once. But not with any conviction.’

‘They thought it unlikely?’

‘They both dismissed the notion out of hand. Although …’

‘Yes? Although?’

Emilia Virgoe shrugged her thin shoulders. ‘I remember thinking that Mistress Linkinhorne was less sceptical than her husband. But Amorette was always greatly influenced by him, and Jonathan soon persuaded her that the idea was nonsense. She agreed at once. And I didn’t press it. I didn’t truly consider it likely, myself.’

‘Why not?’

Suddenly she was angry.

‘What is this? An inquisition?’

I had the grace to blush. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just that for Mayor Foster’s sake, I’d like to get at the truth. As I explained, he wants to build his chapel, dedicated to the Three Kings of Cologne, alongside his almshouses. But he feels that unless Isabella’s killer can be brought to justice, he can’t ask for the ground to be re-hallowed.’

My companion nodded. ‘I can understand that. I know of Master Foster by reputation. A good man and a devout Christian. Very well! I’ll answer your questions, although if you’ve spoken to Jonathan Linkinhorne, I doubt if there’s much else I can tell you.’

‘You were Isabella’s nurse. Did she never confide in you? These three men she was reported as meeting — did she never tell you their names?’

Emilia Virgoe shook her head. ‘No, for the simple reason that she knew whatever she told me I should feel in duty bound to report to her parents. They were the people who paid my wages and I considered my loyalty was to them. In any case — ’ she took another sip of wine — ‘I was never sufficiently attached to Isabella to stand as her friend. Perhaps that sounds strange to you. I was her nurse from her earliest years, and nurses are generally regarded as the confidantes of their charges, very often taking the place of parents, who have other and more pressing concerns. But Master and Mistress Linkinhorne were doting parents and involved themselves in everything Isabella thought and said and did. I had little to do other than the washing and dressing of her, taking her for walks, singing her to sleep. So, in fairness to myself, I suppose I was never allowed to grow too close to the child.’

‘But after Isabella grew up, after she began to rebel against her parents’ smothering affection, didn’t she turn to you then?’ I urged.

Emilia shook her head. ‘My sympathies were with the mother and father. Isabella sensed that, and although we never discussed the subject, I can see now that she probably resented the fact. With hindsight, I can also see that it was a mistake. If my attitude had been less condemnatory, she might have taken me into her confidence more. You talk of Jonathan and Amorette Linkinhorne’s smothering affection, a phrase I have often heard repeated in the years since Isabella’s disappearance and which, I must admit, I have come to accept might have some justification. But at the time, all I could see was two people who desperately wanted the love of their only child, and who had no reason to be rejected so harshly.’ She smiled faintly. ‘I can tell by your expression that you don’t agree with me.’

I made no reply to that.

‘These three men,’ I said, ‘in whose company Isabella was reported as having been seen, did she never let drop a hint as to their identity?’

‘None. Oh, unlike Master and Mistress Linkinhorne, I never believed her protestations that the stories were all lies, made up by spiteful neighbours. That was ridiculous. There were too many of them. One neighbour might bear her a grudge, but not everybody. Besides, the various descriptions of the three men tallied with one another.’

‘So why do you think Master and Mistress Linkinhorne were so gullible? Why did two intelligent people allow themselves to be deceived?’

The nurse took another long draft from her beaker, while I watched, fascinated. The elderflower wine seemed to have no effect on her whatsoever, while my head was already whirling from the half dozen sips I had ventured to drink.

‘Because they couldn’t bear to think that Isabella was lying to them,’ she replied, replacing her now nearly empty beaker on the table and refilling it. ‘It’s a simple answer, but the truth often is simple, haven’t you found?’

It was my turn to nod, while moving my beaker out of range of the jar, as Emilia tried to replenish its contents.

‘What can you tell me about the day Isabella disappeared?’

‘Now there, I’m afraid, you’re unlucky,’ she said regretfully. ‘I was away visiting my sister in Bristol. Marian had been taken ill some days before — indeed, she died a fortnight later — and Master Linkinhorne had given me leave to visit her and to stay as long as I was needed. He and Mistress Linkinhorne only kept me on out of the goodness of their hearts. Isabella had far outgrown the necessity for a nurse. Dear heaven! She was twenty and past marriageable age, but averse to all suggestions by her parents that she should look about her for a suitable husband and settle down. I remember her saying once, “What do I want with a husband? Just another man who’d try to cage me!” So, by the time I returned home, Isabella had been missing for over six weeks.’

‘What were you told?’

Again, Emilia Virgoe gave that slight shrug of her shoulders.

‘Master Linkinhorne said that Isabella had run away. That she had been seen on the day she vanished with a man near Westbury village; that she had obviously eloped with him and that no doubt they would hear from her in due course when she needed their assistance. I asked what they had done to try to trace her, and I have to confess that it struck me as very little. But I could tell how bitter they were and how angry. I did suggest, as I told you, that some harm might have come to the girl, but the idea was dismissed, and indeed, knowing her reputation, I did not believe in it myself.’

I frowned. ‘She seems to have been remarkably successful in keeping the identities of three men a secret from almost everyone. Most young women like to boast of their conquests.’

‘Isabella was not like most girls. She was extremely secretive. One might say excessively so. I suppose I could agree with you that her parents had made her like that.’

‘Did you ever have the impression that she was afraid of them? Of her father, anyway?’

Emilia Virgoe laughed. ‘Never!’ She was emphatic. ‘Where the love and the need to be loved is all on one side and not on the other, it is the person without affection, or even the desire for it, who holds the whip-hand. Surely you can see that. I have always believed that love can inflict more damage than hatred ever can.’

I shifted uncomfortably. ‘You’re a cynical woman, Mistress.’

‘A philosophy too close to your own, perhaps?’ When I didn’t answer, she smiled wisely and nodded towards my beaker. ‘You haven’t finished your wine.’

I gave her a shamefaced grin. ‘To tell the truth, it’s too strong for me.’ I pushed my stool back from the table. ‘Well, thank you for your time. I won’t disturb you any further.’

She looked apologetic. ‘I’m afraid I haven’t been of much use to you, young man, in your quest for the truth. It’s obvious, of course, that one of those three men — the one she was seen with that day — murdered Isabella. But until you can discover who they were, I don’t give much for your chances of ever finding the poor girl’s killer. And after twenty years …’ Emilia broke off, shrugging.

‘I have been told that one of them was a goldsmith and gave her the jewellery she was still wearing when her body was uncovered.’

The nurse raised her eyebrows.

‘Then you have already found out more than I know,’ she acknowledged, not, I thought, altogether pleased.

I called to Hercules, who opened one bleary eye a slit before closing it again. While I was busy rousing him and fastening the leather belt around his neck, Emilia Virgoe seemed to be lost in thoughts of her own. As I straightened up, she said, ‘What you were saying, about girls liking to boast of their conquests, has made me remember Isabella’s maid, Jane … Jane …’ She wrinkled her nose in an effort of memory. ‘Jane Honeychurch! That was it! An ugly, mousy little thing about Isabella’s own age. Very quiet. Frightened of her own shadow. I don’t know where she came from. Bristol, I think. Yes … Master Linkinhorne brought her home with him about a year before Isabella disappeared, and I believe I’m right in saying that it was after one of his trips to the city. What happened to her in later years, I really don’t know. In fact, I’d completely forgotten her until this minute. But I suppose it’s possible that Isabella could have confided in her. Mistress and maid, what could be more natural?’

I nodded. ‘Highly probable! Indeed, almost certain, I should say. And you have no idea at all where this young woman might be now?’

Emilia shook her head. ‘But there’s one thing I can tell you. Jane Honeychurch won’t be a young woman any more. If she’s still alive, she’ll be forty or a little over. The same age that Isabella would have been had she lived. Indeed, the age I have always assumed she was until a day or so ago.’

‘And of course she — Jane — might have married,’ I added gloomily.

‘There is that,’ my hostess concurred, ‘but I wouldn’t stake my life on it. She was not a prepossessing girl. On the other hand,’ Emilia added with a certain amount of bitterness, ‘good looks aren’t necessarily everything. I’ve known some very odd-featured women who have not only captured husbands, but who have been the object of those husbands’ adoration.’

I guessed from this that Emilia Virgoe had never married. As a young woman she must have been very pretty, but for one reason or another had failed to ensnare a man. It had plainly galled her to see other, far less attractive females experiencing no difficulty in finding mates. Perhaps her attitude to love explained matters.

I thanked her again for her patience and time, adding, ‘You see, you have been of great help to me, after all. If I can only find this Jane Honeychurch, I might discover the names of Isabella’s beaux.’

‘I wouldn’t pin your hopes on it,’ the nurse advised me. ‘Even if you do find the woman, there’s nothing to say that Isabella ever told her anything more than she told anyone else. Where will you go now?’

‘To Westbury village, in case there is anyone still living there who can recall seeing Isabella on the day she disappeared and can add anything to what I already know.’

‘And that is?’

‘That it was a cold, wet and windy March day and both Isabella and her companion had the hoods of their cloaks pulled well forward to conceal their faces.’

The nurse smiled and said, ‘I wish you luck.’ She nobly refrained from repeating a warning about the length of time involved or from adding a rider concerning the general unreliability of people’s memories over a span of twenty days, let alone the same number of years. But she did wonder aloud, as I had wondered to myself, about the advisability of searching out the truth. ‘After so lengthy a period, does it really matter now?’

I spoke sternly, partly to appease my own conscience.

‘Where murder is involved, isn’t it everyone’s duty to bring the murderer to book if he can?’ I asked. ‘The taking of human life is surely the most heinous of all crimes.’

Emilia Virgoe laughed shortly. ‘It depends, doesn’t it, whether you are taking life for your own reasons or for those of your overlord, who commands you to do so on his behalf.’

I decided it was definitely time to go. We were getting into deep water; on the borderline of treason. I thanked my hostess yet again and left.

I had been to Westbury once before and knew it to be little more than a scatter of cottages along the River Trym and grouped around the college, which dominated the area. There had been a monastery there in Saxon times, under the control of the then Bishop of Worcester, who had brought over twelve Benedictine monks from Fleury in France. By the time of the Conquest, however, it had fallen into decay and the monks had long gone, leaving one solitary priest to carry on God’s work. Thirty years later, another Bishop of Worcester, Wulfstan, had restored the building and re-instated the brotherhood, but further on in its history it had become a college, with secular priests who went out among the people, the control of the establishment passing into the hands of a dean and canons instead of an abbot. Its most famous — or infamous — son had been the heretic, John Wycliffe, who had held a prebendary stall there sometime in the preceding century. In recent years the building had been greatly enlarged under the auspices of Bishop Carpenter and due to the patronage of Bristol’s own William Canynges, who, before his death twelve years ago, had become first a canon and then dean of the college.

But my present visit had nothing to do with this august edifice, and instead I went knocking on the doors of cottages, asking if there was anyone who remembered a March morning, twenty years previously, when a girl by the name of Isabella Linkinhorne had been seen with a male companion somewhere in the vicinity of the village.

As was only to be expected, I was treated to blank stares, often accompanied by loud guffaws and suggestions as to what I could do with myself (and my dog), or to downright rudeness and the deepest suspicion as to my motives. I began to realize that leaving my pack at home had perhaps not been such a good idea. As a pedlar, people regarded me either as a welcome visitor or a nuisance, but not as a potential thief, poking my long nose into their homes to spy out the land with a view to robbing them later. Even Hercules failed to win friends, especially after he leaped over a fence to chase an old couple’s geese into the lane through a gate that someone had carelessly left open. Needless to say I was blamed for this catastrophe, although it was none of my doing, someone else having failed to close the gate. But in the event it proved to have a satisfactory ending, for me, at least. The old couple, angry and abusive at first, were won over by my abject apologies and willingness to help capture the errant birds, who were making a determined dash for freedom. By the time the final one was penned inside the fence again, we were all three exhausted, and the dame, taking pity on me, invited me into the cottage for a drink of ale.

‘Anything, mother,’ I gasped, ‘as long as it’s not elderflower wine.’

‘Elderflower wine?’ she screeched. ‘Got enough to do what with looking after the geese, the pig, the donkey and him — ’ she jerked her head towards the old man — ‘without wasting my time making elderflower wine. Sit down, lad, sit down! And make sure that pesky dog don’t get off his leash again.’

I promised humbly to keep the pest under control and ordered Hercules to sit at my feet and keep quiet. To my surprise, he obeyed instantly, which made me suspect that the geese had frightened him a great deal more than he had scared them. The old man turned out to be the dame’s brother, not her husband as I had presumed, and they introduced themselves as Judith and Alfred Humble. An enquiry by the latter as to what I was doing in Westbury and why I was knocking on doors produced the whole story; a tale of murder which not only thrilled them to the marrow of their ancient bones, but also led to Judith Humble banging excitedly on the cottage table with her fist, crying in her piercingly shrill tones, ‘I can remember that girl! Never knew her name, but she was always around here at one time, meeting some man or another. You recollect her, Alfred. You must do! She’d hang around here, talking to you over the fence. You weren’t a bad-looking man in them days, before your hair went white and your teeth fell out.’

‘Ar,’ her brother agreed, when he’d thought the matter over. ‘It were a long time gone, though. Must be. I ain’t had all me teeth for ten year or more. But I do recall her now you bring her to mind. Young, she were. Lovely. Sit on that horse of hers, she would, and chat to me like I were a proper gentleman, not just a cottager. I often wondered what had become of her. Stopped coming all of a sudden like, and I never set eyes on her again. And now you tell me she’s dead. Murdered.’ His faded eyes slowly filled with tears.

His sister sniffed disparagingly. ‘Well, I can’t say I’m that surprised. All those different men she used to meet! I clearly remember thinking to myself, “You’re asking for trouble, my lady! Just begging for it, with your fine clothes and your airs and graces. You’ll come to a bad end, my girl!” And you see, I was right!’

‘When you say “all those different men”,’ I asked, ‘how many exactly were there?’

‘Three,’ was the prompt reply. ‘I remember as though it were yesterday. But she never met them all together, that goes without saying. They each had their appointed days, and I doubt if any one of them knew the other two existed. But she was bound to make a botch of it one day. One day, one of ’em was bound to find out he was being made a fool of, and then, I thought, you’re for it, my young mistress.’

‘Can you recall at all what the three men looked like?’ I leaned forward eagerly on my stool.

Judith Humble frowned. After a minute or two’s deep cogitation, she finally answered, ‘If memory don’t play me false, one — the one I recollect best — was tall and fair and very handsome. Too good for her, although it was obvious she didn’t think so. She thought herself better than him; but then, I could tell, she thought herself better than anybody. Mind you, to be fair, the other two weren’t nothing remarkable. I can’t really remember either of them.’

‘I’ve been informed that one might have had red hair.’

The dame sipped her ale and wiped her mouth on her apron. ‘You could be right, at that,’ she agreed.

‘And Mistress Linkinhorne always met them here? In Westbury?’

‘I can’t say that for certain, but this did seem to be her trysting place. What do you tell me her name was?’

‘Isabella Linkinhorne.’

Judith Humble nodded her head. ‘That explains it, then. For years there was the letters I and L and R and M carved into the trunk of one of the trees hereabouts, enclosed in a heart. Could have shown it to you, but the tree came down in a storm three or four years ago.’

I too drank some of my ale while I pondered on this newly acquired information.

‘So, one of the men had the initials R.M.,’ I mused.

The dame nodded. ‘It would seem so.’

Alfred Humble suddenly spoke up. He had been so quiet for the last few minutes that I had almost forgotten his existence, especially as he had left the table and gone to sit by the fire, lost, I suspected, in memories of a young and beautiful girl who had carelessly made a friend of him; memories half-forgotten, but now recalled to mind.

‘One of them three men she met lived in Bath. She told me so,’ he said.

I turned my head sharply to look at him. ‘Which one? Do you know?’

The old man shrugged. ‘She never said and I didn’t ask. Weren’t my business.’ He added softly, more to himself than to me or his sister, ‘The last time I ever recollect seeing her was on a blustery March morning, when it weren’t fit for a dog to be out. Wrapped up in that blue cloak of hers, she were. She waved at me and smiled.’