The Tintern Treasure

SIXTEEN

Why did I feel so sure of that? At no time had I seen his features clearly enough to warrant such certainty. But there was something about his stance, the way he held himself, the arrogant set of his head on the broad shoulders, that left me in no doubt. I was also convinced that he was not Walter Gurney. His presence dominated the little room and he looked about him with a confidence that no servant, whatever his status, could command. He was a man used to consorting on equal terms with the very highest company. If he had indeed been Gilbert Foliot’s recent guest, I could understand the effort made to impress him; the silver, the glass, the leaping fire, the best armchair. The boots, too, which he almost snatched from the cobbler’s grasp, were fashioned from the very best Cordoban leather.

‘You’re a damn careless fellow, mislaying them like that,’ he said, and I noticed that his English was slightly accented, not so much in the manner of a foreigner speaking a strange tongue, but more after the fashion of a native who had spent many years abroad. Brittany, perhaps? With Henry Tudor?

‘I’m sorry, I’m sure, sir,’ the cobbler apologized. ‘I dunno ’ow they got in ’ere from the workshop. I ’ope it ain’t delayed Your Honour’s journey too much.’

The man vouchsafed no reply to this observation, merely repeating over his shoulder, ‘You’re a damn careless fellow. I don’t know why Sir Lionel puts up with you.’ The next moment he was gone, the curtain between the inner room and the shop rattling noisily on its rings.

‘The impudence of it!’ my hostess exclaimed wrathfully. ‘What did he mean by that? I think I’ll go after him and give him a piece of my mind.’

‘Now, now my girl,’ her husband said, laying a hand on her arm. ‘Not so hasty. The gen’leman’s got right on ’is side. I shouldn’t’ve forgotten ’is boots. Nor Sir Lionel’s red Moroccan slippers neither. I don’ know what’s got into me this morning. I’ll ’ave t’ go to the manor with them this afternoon.’

Mistress Shoesmith was not to be pacified. ‘That ugly brute,’ she declared hotly, ‘could’ve taken Sir Lionel’s slippers with him and saved you a journey. He must be staying at the manor. ’E wouldn’t be likely t’ be staying anywhere else.’

‘Now ’old yer ’orses, dearie. ’Old yer ’orses! First, it’s my fault entirely fer bein’ so bloody forgetful. Must be gettin’ old or something. Second, the gen’leman ain’t goin’ back t’ the manor. ’E ’ad ’is ’orse waitin’ fer ’im outside and ’e’s off down Cornwall way. Won’t be comin’ back. Leastways, so ’e says. And there ain’t no reason not t’ believe ’im. So I’ll just ’ave t’ trudge to the manor again. Serve me right an’ all. Maybe I won’t be so careless in the future.’ He turned towards me. ‘Now tell me again oo this is. Didn’t catch it proper the first time.’

So the introductions and explanations were gone through for a second time and Jacob Shoesmith welcomed me as warmly as his wife, generously bidding me to consider their home as mine for as long as was necessary.

‘And now, my dear,’ his wife exhorted me, ‘if you want t’ do some selling, you’d best get out right away. Fer it’s Sunday tomorrow and I heard you make arrangements with Joseph Sibley to go on to Glastonbury with him on Monday. Besides, it gets dark early these days. You’ll be back fer supper, o’ course.’

I took the hint and shouldered my pack somewhat reluctantly, the goodwife’s rabbit stew lying heavily on my stomach. But it also gave me the opportunity I had been looking for.

‘Let me take Sir Lionel’s slippers to the manor for you, Master Shoesmith,’ I offered, holding out my hand for them. ‘It will save you another journey.’

There was the inevitable argument of course, husband and wife both protesting that I didn’t need to go beyond the village, and certainly not as far as the manor, while I insisted that it made no difference to me whatsoever. In the end, of course, I won. I made certain of that. I had been wondering how I could get inside the manor again if I was refused entry on the grounds of peddling my goods, and this gave me the perfect opportunity.

So, with the slippers wrapped in a piece of old sacking and tucked safely under my arm, my pack on my back and my cudgel in my hand I set out, promising to return in due course for supper.

To my great relief, the gatekeeper on this occasion was a stranger to me, for my fear had been that the man called Fulk, or the other servant, Robin, would have denied me access, a fear fully justified when I encountered the former as I crossed the courtyard.

‘What in the Devil’s name are you doing here?’ he growled, planting himself directly in my path and showing an ugly, unwelcoming face.

I explained my errand, but almost without knowing what I was saying as I stared, fascinated, at his right cheek where four long abrasions were just beginning to show signs of healing. I noticed, too, as I had not done previously, how tall and muscular he was. I remembered the old beggar telling me how poor Oliver Tockney had clawed at his murderer’s face as he was strangled, and also Henry Callowhill’s and Lawyer Heathersett’s description of two big, burly men who, they were convinced, were watching them and their houses. And almost immediately, right on his cue, the other servant, the one called Robin, appeared around a corner of the chapel and strolled across to join his fellow servant.

‘What’s the trouble, Fulk?’

Robin, too, was a heavily built man of an equal height with the other, a fact which made me catch my breath and then glance away quickly, in case I should be accused of staring. Could these be the two men who had committed the robberies, who had killed Oliver Tockney in order to steal and search his pack? If I were right, and I felt almost certain that I was, it meant that their master must have put them up to it.

Before Fulk could reply to Robin’s question, another voice, that of Sir Lionel himself, posed the selfsame query. The man turned and indicated me. The knight’s well-marked eyebrows flew up.

‘Master Chapman, what a surprise! I’m afraid that if you are still hoping to see Walter Gurney, you will be disappointed. He has not returned.’

‘Nor your horse, either, I suppose?’

He looked a little nonplussed for a moment before he recollected.

‘No, nor my horse.’

‘Well, that’s not why I’m here,’ I said. ‘I’ve given up all hope of speaking to Master Gurney. I’ve come to deliver these.’ And I held out the slippers, freed from their sacking wrapping.

He looked startled. ‘What. . I mean why. .?’

I explained as briefly as I could. ‘And Cobbler Shoesmith sends his most abject apologies for his forgetfulness. It seems he also mislaid your friend’s boots, but that mistake has also been rectified.’

‘My friend? Ah, yes! He’s. . He’s left here now.’

‘He has business in Cornwall, I understand.’ I hadn’t seen the stranger ride away, but I drew a bow at a venture. ‘A very fine horse he was riding. Rather like the one you described Walter Gurney as having stolen.’

I saw his eyelids flicker for a second, no doubt silently cursing himself for having described the animal in such detail. He said curtly, ‘Something like,’ and rapidly changed the subject. ‘So you’re here to sell your wares, eh? I fear you won’t find much of a market in Keynsham. A stingy lot, the inhabitants — tight with their money.’ He indicated that I should hand the slippers to Fulk and went on, ‘I see you have your pack with you. Come inside. You may have something my housekeeper is in crying need of.’

‘In that case, I’ll go round to the kitchens.’

‘No, no! Come into the hall and display your goods in comfort. Robin, tell Dame Joliphant I need her and then take those slippers to my bedchamber.’

He nodded dismissal to both men and turned towards the door, but I hung on my heel. The chapel was to our right and the graveyard, behind its white paling, alongside it.

‘This is where your dog — Caesar, did you say he was called? — is buried, I think you told me.’ I pointed to a mound where the grass and tangle of bindweed, with its white, trumpet-like flowers, had not yet taken hold. ‘Is that it?’

Once again, Sir Lionel appeared to be slightly taken aback before making a recovery.

‘Er. . Yes.’

‘A big dog by the size of his grave.’

‘A mastiff,’ he answered shortly. ‘Now, shall we go in?’

Indoors, he led me to the dais at the far end of the hall and bade me set out the contents of my pack on the table. The housekeeper arrived, somewhat flustered by this peremptory summons, and was told to see if there was anything she needed. But I was more interested in the actions of my host who stayed glued to my side, closely scrutinizing every article I produced and laid out for inspection. And, finally, when the pack was emptied and he judged that my attention had been firmly claimed by Dame Joliphant, I saw him, out of the corner of one eye, lift the pack and shake it in order to satisfy himself that nothing remained inside.

Nothing did, and as soon as I had finished supplying the housekeeper’s modest requirements, I found myself being shown the door with a most impolite speed. Whatever Sir Lionel had hoped he might find in my pack, he had been disappointed and now had no further use for my company. Indeed, I had probably become an embarrassment to him with my unfortunate recollections of things he had said to me on the previous occasion; lies which he had concocted on the spur of the moment and by now half-forgotten.

I spent the rest of the short autumnal day hawking my wares around the Keynsham cottages, and little reward I had for my efforts. This, however, was not altogether due to the parsimony of the good folk of the village. To say that my heart was not in my work would be no more than the truth. I felt sure that those goodwives who did inspect my wares found me absent-minded and my conversation less than scintillating. After all, much of the pleasure of inviting a chapman, or indeed any itinerant member of society, into their homes was to hear the latest gossip and news of the outside world, and my vague, terse and occasionally downright impatient answers to their questions must have been a great disincentive to part with their money. But my mind was elsewhere.

I was trying to come to terms first and foremost with the idea that Walter Gurney was the occupant of that new grave in Sir Lionel’s chapel graveyard. It was obvious that the story of the dog had been a lie told me at the time in order to put me off the scent in case I noticed the freshly turned earth and grew suspicious. (In the event, the untruth had proved unnecessary and had only served to arouse my suspicions at a later date. The knight must again be rueing his too-ready tongue.) But that begged the question as to why he had thought I might suspect him of doing away with his groom.

I recollected his sceptical expression when I had revealed my reason for wishing to speak to Walter. He had plainly not believed me, which could only mean that he thought my business to be of a secret nature. That I was working under instructions from the crown? Yes, probably. If he and Gilbert Foliot were truly hand in glove with one of Henry Tudor’s agents, they would be wary of everyone who had known associations with King Richard. But what information had Walter Gurney possessed that might be of value to me as a spy?

The second thing that exercised my mind was the nagging conviction that Fulk and Robin were the two men responsible not just for Oliver Tockney’s murder, but also for that of the old beggar who lived in Pit Hay Lane and for the break-ins. But in that case, they had to be acting at the instigation of their master and possibly of the goldsmith, too, which, if true, bolstered my belief that the robbers were after only one thing. And that surely had to be whatever it was Peter Noakes had found — or they thought he had found — at Tintern Abbey.

Timothy had told me that Henry Tudor’s coffers were reported as being almost empty, and that money to pay the mercenary troops necessary to help him invade England was his most pressing need. So the obvious conclusion to draw was that the treasure was either cash or something that could be converted into cash. And whatever it was had been left at the abbey a century and more ago by men fleeing from the law; men for whom the monks themselves had felt the utmost revulsion but whom the abbot was willing to assist. Reluctantly, perhaps, and denying them more than two nights’ shelter from their pursuers, but nevertheless afraid to withhold his aid.

But if these surmises were correct, where was the treasure? It was not still in the secret hiding place of the abbot’s old lodgings because I had myself reached in as far as my arm would go, until my nails had scrabbled against cold earth. And yet if, as seemed most likely, Peter Noakes had hidden whatever he had found in the baggage of one or other of the rest of us, then where was it? It had plainly not been in Oliver Tockney’s pack or the search would have ended with his murder. Again, nothing could have been discovered either at the lawyer’s house or in Henry Callowhill’s. The attempted robbery at my house had been thwarted, but I knew only too well that my pack was innocent of anything unusual or valuable; and if the testimony of my own eyes was not enough, then I had just seen Sir Lionel prove it for himself. That left the goldsmith, but I discounted him. I guessed that the attempt to break into the house in St Peter’s Street had been nothing but a blind.

With all this churning around inside my head, it was small wonder that my efforts at selling my goods were met with poor success, and by the time I eventually returned to the cobbler’s shop I was bone-weary and dispirited.

‘Eh, lad, you’ve worn yourself out,’ Mistress Shoesmith upbraided me, pushing me, unresisting, into the room’s one armchair and bustling about to fetch me a beaker of ale and some of her honey cakes, baked, so she assure me, only that afternoon. ‘Now, sit still and Betsy’ll pull off your boots.’

I made a feeble remonstrance, but was too tired to resist and extended my feet to the obliging Betsy without more ado. She glanced up and gave a broad wink which I returned, but half-heartedly. I was glad when the cobbler himself entered the room and supper was served.

‘He’s worn himself out,’ my hostess informed her husband, who grunted.

‘It’s hard work getting money out of them skinflints,’ he grumbled. ‘Don’t I know it?’

‘You can have a rest tomorrow,’ Mistress Shoesmith said. ‘It’s Sunday.’

Fortunately, my hosts were not ones for sitting up late, nor was their conversation of such a nature as to keep them awake much past mid-evening. The cobbler did ask me if I fancied a visit to the local ale-house, but as the pair of us were already yawning our heads off, I declined — greatly, I thought, to his relief. Mistress Shoesmith, having imparted such gossip as there was concerning her visit to her sister, had fallen asleep at the table, her chin propped between her hands. The only one of us who seemed unaffected by the stuffy atmosphere of the little room behind the shop, its shutters closed and barred against the dark November evening outside, was Betsy. She sat on a three-legged stool in one corner, humming softly to herself, her large eyes fixed on each of us in turn, but mainly, I noticed uneasily, turned in my direction. I could only hope that her expectations of me were not too high. I wasn’t sure that I could live up to them.

It was after my hostess had awakened with a snort from her slumbers that she announced it was time to retire.

‘For there’s no point in us sitting here snoring when we might as well be comfortable in our beds. Betsy, my girl, bustle about and light the candles and lantern while I douse the fire. And then fetch a spare blanket and pillow from the chest in our bedchamber and make yourself a nest in that corner by the hearth. You’ll do very well there for a night or two.’

Once more, I was moved to protest, insisting that I should be the one to sleep downstairs, but I was again overruled, most loudly by Betsy herself. So I allowed myself to be persuaded.

‘She’s a good deal younger than you are,’ the cobbler grunted, while his wife nodded agreement. ‘’Sides, you be a guest.’

The second reason appealed to me far more than the first, and I went to bed somewhat deflated by the thought of my advancing years.

Mistress Shoesmith’s reference to lighting a lantern, which I had found a little strange, was soon explained when I discovered that although the main bedchamber was reached by a narrow flight of stairs from the living room, the second could only be entered from outside the cottage by an equally narrow flight of stone steps. As I mounted cautiously, lantern in hand, a few heavy drops of rain fell on my face and I could hear the moan of a rising wind. We were, I guessed, in for one of those storms that so often herald the coldest part of the year.

To call Betsy’s room a bedchamber was to give it a dignity it in no way deserved. I doubt if it were much more than six-feet wide by perhaps ten-feet long, while the ceiling was so low that I could barely stand upright. It contained nothing except a bed and, beside it, a small chest which held such spare clothing as she possessed and whose lid acted as a table on which reposed a broken comb, a tinderbox and flints and an earthenware jug full of stale water. There was no window and when the door was shut, no light except from the lantern I was carrying. This I placed carefully alongside the jug while I stripped down to my shirt and eased myself between the sheets.

These, though ripped in several places, I discovered, somewhat to my surprise, to be clean and smelling faintly of lavender. They had obviously been newly put on the bed, probably while I was out earlier in the day, and I was touched by such thoughtfulness. I fished around in my pack for my piece of willow bark and cleaned my teeth, at the same time wishing that Mistress Shoesmith had offered me a basin of water in which to wash away the grime of what had been a long day. But my nose had told me that cleanliness was not of great importance to either the cobbler or his wife.

I sat up in bed and regarded the door. In spite of the lack of a window, there was no dearth of air in the room, the door being extremely badly fitting, with at least two inches of space between the bottom of it and the threshold. It did, however, boast a strong iron bolt near the top, and for a moment or two I debated whether or not to use it. But the memory of Betsy’s parting smile as she wished me goodnight made me hesitate. There had been more than a hint of promise in those softly curling lips and although, at the time, I had felt too tired to respond, the fresh air had revived me. There was little chance of her appearing, however, before the Shoesmiths were safely asleep, and as I could still hear them moving about on the other side of the thin wall which separated us, I decided I might as well settle down. I opened the door of the lantern and blew out the candle, then pulled the sheet and the rough woollen blanket up around my ears and closed my eyes.

When I opened them again, how much later I wasn’t sure, I could hear that the storm had well and truly broken. The wind had risen to shrieking pitch, gibbering around the cottage as though it were trying to blow it down, and soughing through the branches of some nearby trees, rattling their near leafless branches. The draught beneath the door was lifting the rushes on the floor with such ferocity that several small pieces were floating about the room, one of which had settled on my upper lip, just below my nose, making me sneeze. It was this that had woken me.

I had just brushed it away and was settling myself to sleep again as best I could, when I heard a noise outside. It was a miracle that I could hear anything above the howling of the wind, and precisely what I heard I could not afterwards determine.

‘Betsy,’ I thought, and marvelled that any girl could be so eager for my company that she was willing to brave the cold, the darkness and the rain to be with me. It was flattering of course, but I wasn’t feeling my best and was doubtful of my power to entertain her. Nevertheless, I could hardly turn her away when she showed herself so keen. Besides, honour was at stake. Here was a chance to prove that my advancing years sat lightly on me; that thirty-one was not the end of existence.

I hauled myself up in bed, at the same time groping for the tinderbox and flint and fumbling to open the lantern door in order to light the candle inside. Then I paused. The bedchamber door was opening on a gust of wind and rain, but with a caution that puzzled me. I would not have expected Betsy to be so tentative. I put down the tinderbox and flint as gently as I could and silently swung my legs to the floor. As I stood upright, the wind wrestled the door from the intruder’s grasp, flinging it back against the wall with a clatter. The next moment, someone launched himself at me with a grunt, knocking me over and forcing me back against the pillow.

Whoever the man was, he had a knife. I saw the flash of the blade as he raised his right hand, while his left forced up my chin as he sought to expose my throat. But my assassin had not counted on my being awake and therefore alert. I imagine the intention had been to kill me quickly while I slept or, had he had the misfortune to rouse me, before I had time to gather my wits. My vigorous resistance took him by surprise. Moreover, the rain had made his hands slippery, and the blade, thrusting downwards, missed the base of my neck and skidded across my right collarbone, leaving a nasty scratch but nothing worse.

I heard him curse. His breath was foul in my face, but no lasting damage had been incurred. With a great heave, I managed to throw him off and wriggle free from beneath his weight. But big man though he was, he was agile and came at me again almost at once, certainly before I had time to find my feet. This time he forced me, half on, half off the bed, back against the wall at its head. His anger at being thwarted was palpable, and I could see the whites of his eyes glinting in the darkness. He was at me again, stabbing wildly now at any part of my body within reach, and I was having to fend him off with every ounce of strength that I could muster. My heart was hammering so hard it was beginning to make me feel sick. Surely I wasn’t meant to die here in this fetid little room! I had been in worse situations than this, I told myself, and survived. I felt the knife nick my left cheek. .

Suddenly I remembered the jug of water on top of the chest. With an enormous effort I pushed my assailant off me just long enough to reach out with my left hand and grab the jug’s handle. Then I poured the contents over him and broke the empty vessel over his head. Temporarily blinded and slightly dazed, he dropped the knife and staggered to his feet, lurching towards the door. In an instant I was after him and had propelled him through the opening. Another shove and he crashed down the short flight of steps, landing with a sickening thud on the rain-sodden ground below. I didn’t wait to see if he were seriously hurt or not, but went back inside the room, closing and bolting the door.

It was a long time before I fell asleep. There were too many questions that needed answering.

I had had a lucky escape. Apart from the scratch on my collarbone, which throbbed a little, there was practically nothing to show for my recent murderous encounter. I was winded, frightened but otherwise unharmed. But who had my attacker been? I thought I knew. He had been either Fulk or Robin, but it had been too dark to be sure, but that it was one or the other of them I would have staked my life on. Which meant, of course, that Sir Lionel Despenser was behind the outrage. He still regarded me as a threat to whatever plot he was mixed up in, and on discovering that I was to spend the night in the village had seized this opportunity to get rid of me. Had he succeeded, I wondered who would have taken the blame for my death. My guess was that Jacob Shoesmith and his wife would have found the finger of suspicion pointing at them.

But how had my assailant known that I was sleeping in the room normally occupied by Betsy? This was something I had not mentioned that afternoon when talking to the knight. The fact that I had left the door unbolted might simply have been fortuitous. On the other hand, it might not. It could be that someone from the manor had paid a visit to the cobbler’s shop that afternoon while I was plying my trade elsewhere in the village, and who knew what Jacob Shoesmith might have let slip? He could well have noticed how the girl had looked at me and guessed her intention. A salacious jest, a nudge, a wink and Fulk — or Robin — would have returned home with the information that the coming night presented an opportunity worth the taking. If it turned out that I had, after all, bolted the door against Betsy’s advances, there was still all day Sunday and the following night to make a second attempt.

I jerked into a sitting position, sweat prickling across my skin and my heart pounding against my ribs. I knew suddenly that I had to get away from Keynsham as soon as I could and not wait for a lift in Joseph Sibley’s cart on Monday morning. Danger threatened me in this isolated village; the same fate as had most probably overtaken Walter Gurney. I slid out of bed, unbolted the door and peered cautiously outside. No black shape still lay at the foot of the steps: whoever had attacked me had gone, nursing his injuries. But I felt certain that, sometime during the next twenty-four hours or so, he would be back. Him or another.

The moon, a pale sickle of apricot, rode high amid the rushing clouds, then vanished, but the rain had stopped. I dressed quickly, wrapped myself in my cloak with the hood pulled well forward over my head, took my pack and cudgel and let myself out into the all-enveloping darkness. What the Shoesmiths would make of my abrupt and ungracious departure I did not give myself time to consider. My instinct for danger warned me to get away while the going was good. Apologies and explanations could wait for some future date, if and when I saw them again. For now, my safety was all that mattered.