The Tintern Treasure

NINETEEN

I spent the rest of the morning until the dinner hour going around the house, satisfying myself that nothing had been taken that Adela and the children had failed to remember was there. This was not as difficult a task as it sounds for, whatever other people imagined, we were not rich and our possessions were few. The rest of the world might think me an agent of King Richard and assume I was paid accordingly, but most of the missions I had undertaken on his behalf had happened either by accident or out of a sense of loyalty to a man I greatly admired. That I had received very little payment was entirely my own fault because I preferred to keep my independence and be beholden to no man. It was all the more ironic, therefore, that people now assumed I was the very thing I had striven so hard to avoid.

Nothing, however, appeared to be missing. This did not surprise me. It merely confirmed my belief that the intruder — or intruders — had not been intent on general robbery but were searching for something in particular — the Tintern treasure. Whoever was behind these break-ins — and everything, to my mind, pointed to Sir Lionel Despenser and Gilbert Foliot — was growing desperate. The trouble was, of course, that like myself they had no proof that the treasure even existed. We might all be chasing our tails.

I had no doubt that the knight, with the assistance of his friend the goldsmith, had reached the same conclusion as I had done: that there was a strong possibility that Edward II, during his flight into Wales, had left something of value in the care of the then abbot of Tintern, hoping to return later to retrieve it. Unfortunately, there was no proof so far that this had actually happened. Nor was there any real proof that Sir Lionel Despenser and Master Foliot had transferred their loyalty to Henry Tudor and were working on his behalf.

My thoughts were interrupted at this point by the sound of Elizabeth shouting at the top of her voice and Adam yelling in return. My temper being at that moment not of the best, I descended wrathfully from what was now the former’s little attic room under the eaves, where I had been completing my inspection of the house, to the chamber next door to mine and Adela’s which was shared by the two boys.

‘Be quiet, both of you!’ I commanded. ‘What is this all about?’

‘He keeps stealing my things,’ Elizabeth said, pointing an accusing finger at her brother.

Adam, red-faced and mutinous, had his hands behind his back. His expression left no possible doubt as to his guilt.

‘He keeps going into my room,’ my daughter complained angrily, ‘and poking about. He helps himself to my toys and private treasures.’

‘Adam,’ I said sternly, ‘whatever you are hiding behind your back, return it to your sister immediately! If you do not, you will get a whipping.’

I saw him weighing up the chances of my carrying out this threat, so I took a menacing step in his direction.

‘I mean it, Adam.’ And, somewhat to my own surprise, I found that I did.

My son obviously reached the same conclusion because, after a brief moment of continued defiance, he sullenly held out to his sister a small leather bag closed by a drawstring of faded and rather ragged blue silk. Elizabeth snatched it and flounced out of the room just as Adela called us downstairs to dinner.

The meal being over, I announced my intention of visiting Henry Callowhill. I felt it was high time I shared my deductions and theories with the wine merchant as someone who had been involved in this affair from the beginning, and also as someone who, I felt, was not quite so sympathetic to Gilbert Foliot as he at first appeared. I recalled the goldsmith once treating his friend in a somewhat high-handed manner which I thought had been resented.

‘Well, don’t be too long,’ my wife instructed me as she cleared the dirty spoons and dishes from the table. ‘I want to visit Margaret and Bess must come with me. She is her grandchild, after all, the only true one Margaret has. And if I take Bess, Nicholas is bound to want to come as well, so I need you to keep an eye on Adam and Luke.’

‘Why do you have to see Margaret?’ I demanded peevishly, not relishing these sorts of domestic ties and beginning already, even after so short a time at home, to feel leg-shackled.

‘Because she’s my cousin and I’m fond of her, and because we parted from her this morning on bad terms. I don’t like that. She can be irritating and annoying, I know, but she’s been good to us and I couldn’t do without her help when you’re away. And I shall need that help even more now that there’s another child to look after.’

I grumbled and argued — in my role as head of the household I could hardly do less — but in the end I gave in.

‘Oh, very well,’ I agreed. ‘I’ll be as quick as I can. But,’ I warned her, ‘that may not be as quick as you would like.’

Adela gave me a look: the sort of look wives give their husbands when they know these gentlemen are being deliberately awkward.

I called to Hercules, intending to take him with me, but the fickle animal had suddenly found another object for his devotion. Luke was sitting up in his cradle, where Adela had left it next to the water barrel, gurgling, dribbling and clapping his little hands, while Hercules lay beside him watching his every move with adoring eyes. To my demand for the dog’s company he turned a deaf ear, the merest twitch of his tail acknowledging my presence.

Disgusted and more than a little put out, I left him to it.

The morning was overcast and dank as only a November day can be. A few rays of watery sunlight pierced the clouds and a wind-like thin steel flailed its way down Small Street. I shivered and drew my cloak more closely around me. I had not intended to hurry but the cold drove me on and in no time at all I had reached the wine merchant’s house in Wine Street.

He was not at home.

Mistress Callowhill was all apologies, insisting I come into the parlour for a beaker of mulled ale to ‘keep out the cold of this miserable morning.’

‘Henry will be sorry to have missed you, Master Chapman,’ she fussed, shooing the two younger children — a pretty girl of about nine years old and a boy a little older — out of the room and instructing the elder son, Martin, to pour the ale. ‘He’s gone to the warehouse and might be some time. But if you would care to wait. .’

I shook my head. ‘Thank you, but my business is not that important.’

Once again, I felt uncomfortable, as though I were masquerading under false pretences. There had been a time, not so very far distant, when the wife of one of Bristol’s wealthiest citizens would barely have acknowledged my existence, let alone invited me into her parlour and plied me with refreshment. And she herself seemed to find the situation odd. She was not at ease.

By contrast, young Martin Callowhill was as friendly as ever, chattering away in his casual, friendly fashion and accompanying me to the door when I left.

‘I’m sorry you can’t stay, Master Chapman,’ he said, giving a quaint little bow. ‘I enjoyed the last conversation we had together. About Saxons calling the Normans Orcs and about the Battle for Middle Earth,’ he added when he saw that I was at a loss.

I laughed, remembering. ‘I had a suspicion that Master Callowhill was none too pleased.’

The boy shrugged, somewhat impatiently I thought, then smiled. ‘Oh, Father prides himself on his Norman ancestry. His mother’s family name was de Broke and there was a tradition that they were descended from a bastard son of the Conqueror. I don’t put any store by that sort of nonsense myself, but I fancy Father is a little disappointed that he hasn’t risen any higher in life. He went to London last year and was introduced at court by one of my grandmother’s relatives. The late King Edward made much of him and I think. .’

He broke off suddenly, flushing to the roots of his hair, realizing that he had no business to be talking of his father in such a free and easy way to a comparative stranger. Or, in fact, to anyone.

‘You. . You won’t repeat. .’ he stammered.

‘You may rely entirely on my discretion,’ I assured him.

He smiled gratefully and wished me good-day.

I started the return journey home, considering whether or not I might run the gauntlet of Adela’s displeasure by a quick visit to the Green Lattis for a further beaker of ale. But she was almost certain to hear of it. The women of Bristol had their own ways of being kept informed of what their menfolk got up to, so, in the end, I decided against it; but only, I told myself, because of a sudden decision to call on Geoffrey Heathersett. He had as much interest in the affair as Master Callowhill, and as a lawyer might be able to advise me what to do next.

I walked down Broad Street and turned into Runnymede Court, conscious of various people hailing me or shouting a greeting, but preoccupied with my recent conversation with young Martin. The picture he had presented of his father did not quite tally with the easygoing, rather jolly man I had always assumed Henry Callowhill to be. Perhaps that was why he occasionally seemed to resent Gilbert Foliot’s somewhat patronizing air.

Edwin Pennyfeather received me in the outer room of the lawyer’s chambers with his usual cheerful grin, but pulled down the corners of his mouth when I expressed a wish to see his master.

‘I don’t know how he’ll be willing to spare you the time, Master Chapman. He’s very busy just at present. A new will he has to draw up for Alderman Stoner.’

I was just about to deny, for the second time that morning, that my business was of any importance, when the door to the inner sanctum opened and Lawyer Heathersett appeared, ushering the alderman out. He was none too pleased to see me, but when I begged for five minutes of his time, he grudgingly agreed.

He followed me into the musty-smelling inner chamber, where piles of law books were stacked on shelves and even in piles on the floor, and waved me to a chair in front of a large, ink-stained desk before seating himself behind it.

‘Well, Master Chapman, and what can I do for you?’ he asked impatiently.

So I told him of my trip to Glastonbury, of what I had learned from Brother Hilarion, of my theory concerning Edward II and even touched on my suspicions of both Sir Lionel Despenser and Gilbert Foliot.

Somewhat to my surprise, he didn’t fire up in defence of his friends, but gnawed on the end of a quill pen to the detriment of his remaining front teeth, several of which looked rotten enough to snap under such treatment. Finally, when I had finished, he demanded, ‘Have you proof of any of this?’

‘No,’ I admitted. ‘Not what you could call proof. But I have this very strong hunch. .’

The lawyer snorted. ‘Hunches are of no use in a court of law.’

‘I know that,’ I retorted irritably. ‘But what would you advise me to do?’

‘Nothing. There’s not a thing you can do.’ He nibbled even harder on the end of his pen. ‘All the same, what you’ve told me doesn’t surprise me. I’ve suspected for quite some time now that Gilbert has Lancastrian sympathies. As long as the late king was alive, they lay dormant. Edward was too popular with all kinds and conditions of men for there to be much opposition to his rule. Indeed, many people, wherever their loyalties secretly lay, were prepared not merely to tolerate him, but actively supported him. The Bishop of Ely is a case in point. But all that changed with Edward’s death. When Gloucester took the throne. .’ He broke off, shrugging his narrow shoulders.

‘Old loyalties reawakened?’ I suggested.

He nodded and leant forward across the desk, peering at me with his short-sighted, protuberant eyes.

‘Quite so. But they’ll be careful until they see which way the wind’s blowing. Until they see if King Richard remains as popular as he seems to be at present. These rumours we’ve been hearing about the two princes. .’ He smiled cynically. ‘Well, my advice to anyone would be to forget those. They’re probably untrue anyway. But southerners don’t like Richard. He’s a stranger to them. And he’s known to be priggish. Strait-laced. A good husband, father, friend, but intolerant of debauchery in any shape or form. That won’t appeal to a lot of people.’

‘So what are you advising me to do?’ I asked.

‘I’m not advising you to do anything,’ he snapped. ‘I thought I’d made that clear.’ Frowningly, he reconsidered this statement. ‘All right! I’m advising you not to pursue this matter until you have positive evidence that Gilbert and that friend of his, Sir Lionel Despenser, are planning to aid Henry Tudor. And it seems to me that you won’t have that unless this Tintern treasure, as you call it — if, that is, it exists at all except in your imagination — turns up. Let sleeping dogs lie. Just accept that these break-ins, the murder of that pedlar who was with us in Wales, young Noakes’s death are simply what they seem to be — street robbers going about their business, a chance killing for gain, a youth accidentally drowned in a river.’

He was right, of course. Everything that had happened had a reasonable explanation. Even the attack on me in Keynsham had been explained away by Joseph Sibley. I could suspect what I liked about the goldsmith and Lionel Despenser, but unless I could force them to show their hand, it was all speculation.

‘Thank you for your time, Master Heathersett,’ I said and got to my feet. ‘I appreciate your advice.’

He nodded. ‘I’m sure,’ he added slyly, ‘that your royal master will understand your predicament.’

There it was again, that presumption that I was working for the king! In a way I supposed I was. But not on his orders nor in his pay. I was about to protest my innocence yet again when the lawyer interrupted me.

‘Gilbert Foliot isn’t the only man you need to look at in this town,’ he said dryly.

I turned back, raising questioning eyebrows, but he waved his pen at me. ‘I’m saying no more. Now, if you’ll please go, I have work to do. Edwin will show you out.’

I hesitated, but he drew some documents towards him, bending his head over them until his nose almost touched the parchment. I should get no more out of him, so I left.

Young Master Pennyfeather, who must have had his ear to the door, was waiting to bid me a deferential ‘good morning’.

Adela was watching impatiently for my return.

‘You said you’d be as quick as you could,’ she reproached me. ‘Did you see Master Callowhill?’

‘No, he was out, so I went to visit Lawyer Heathersett instead.’ I judged it best to be frank.

‘Oh, well! In that case your journey wasn’t entirely wasted,’ my wife commented dryly. She went on, ‘I’ve decided to take Luke with me,’ and indicated the box on wheels that I had made five years previously for Adam. ‘Margaret must get used to the idea that we’re fostering him, so the more she sees of him the better. But that, unfortunately, means that Hercules insists on coming, too.’ The treacherous animal, his leading rope around his neck, was already positioned alongside the box, gazing adoringly at the baby who was waving his little fists at him and gurgling something that Adela assured me was the word ‘dog‘. (How women know these things is beyond me.) ‘So you just have Adam to look after,’ she concluded somewhat bitterly.

I looked at my son who was regarding me with wide-eyed innocence, a sure sign that he was plotting mischief.

‘He’ll be more than enough,’ I protested feelingly and accompanied my wife and family to the street door, waving them off as they made their way up Small Street. By the time I had returned indoors, Adam had disappeared. Whatever he was up to it was something quiet, so, thankfully, I let him get on with it, substituted my boots for a pair of shoes and went into the parlour for an hour or more of peace and quiet. I intended to think things through and marshal my thoughts into some sort of order, but within minutes of sitting down in my armchair — comfortably adorned with two of Adela’s hand-embroidered cushions — I was sound asleep.

I don’t know how long I’d slept — probably no more than ten minutes or so, when I was roused by knocking on the street door. Cursing, I forced myself to my feet and went to answer it. To my surprise, Henry Callowhill was standing outside, in company with Gilbert Foliot.

‘Master Chapman!’ he exclaimed, extending his hand. ‘I met your wife by the High Cross and she told me that you are wishful of speaking to me, that you had in fact called at my house a little earlier, so I thought I might as well come to visit you and find out what it is that you want. And as I had just fallen in with Master Foliot here, he’s done me the favour of accompanying me.’

I swore inwardly. As what I wanted to say to Henry Callowhill concerned my suspicions of the goldsmith, I was in something of a quandary. Wondering desperately what explanation I could offer, I invited them both inside — I could do no less — and ushered them into the parlour. I felt unjustly irritated with my wife for having interfered in my affairs. The fact that she had obviously thought she was being helpful in no way assuaged my annoyance.

I saw both men glance curiously around the parlour, but whether they were thinking it poor and ill-furnished compared with their own, or whether they were considering it as too well appointed for a mere pedlar, I was unable to decide. If the latter, then it would merely confirm their belief that I was in the pay of the king. But as to how I came by the house itself, they must know the circumstances. Everyone in Bristol knew them.

I begged the two men to sit down, waving them to the armchairs, one on either side of the hearth, and offered them refreshment.

‘I don’t keep wine,’ I said, refusing to make it sound like an apology, but then ruining the effect by assuring them that Adela’s home-brewed pear and apple cider was, if not nectar of the gods, not far short of it.

‘By all means let’s try it,’ Gilbert Foliot said. ‘I’m sure, Master Chapman, it’s every bit as good as you say.’

I detected a patronizing note, but ignored it and went off to the kitchen to find clean beakers and broach an unopened keg. When I returned to the parlour, I found Adam there. He must have wandered downstairs and entered, unaware that I was entertaining visitors.

‘Your younger son, Master Chapman?’ the wine merchant queried and I nodded, deciding it was high time I accepted Nicholas as also my own. Henry Callowhill smiled. ‘A smart little fellow. Now, Roger, what is it you wish to speak to me about?’

The awkward moment had arrived. Whilst in the kitchen, I had been cudgelling my brains to think of a subject of sufficient moment to warrant my having sought him out. But my mind was still a blank. I handed each man his beaker of cider and desperately sought some distraction.

And, miraculously, found it.

In one of Adam’s hands he was clutching the worn leather bag with the drawstring of faded and ragged blue silk that belonged to Elizabeth. Sternly, I held out my hand.

‘Give that to me, Adam! You know very well it’s not yours. You’ve been in your sister’s chamber again, stealing her things. I told you earlier this morning that you are not to do it. This time it means a whipping.’ He looked defiant. ‘What’s in the bag, anyway, that it holds such fascination for you?’

For a long moment I thought he was going to refuse and make me look a fool in front of our visitors. I could see him turning it over in his mind, whether or not it was worth a beating just for the sheer pleasure of defying me, or whether it was more dignified to capitulate gracefully. Thankfully, he decided on the latter course.

In answer to my question, he said, ‘Buttons.’

‘Buttons?’

‘Yes.’

‘What buttons?’

He looked faintly surprised. ‘The ones Bess took, o’ course.’

‘Took?’

My son heaved a sigh, plainly exasperated by my lack of intelligence.

‘When you forgot,’ he explained laboriously, ‘to bring us home any presents, you said we could take anything we liked from your pack. I took my knife. Forget what Nich’las took. Bess took the buttons.’

Vaguely, my memory stirred, then sharpened. Of course! I recollected now. Two weeks ago, on my return from Hereford, I had omitted to bring the children anything. (My mind had been too much occupied with other matters.) Moreover, I had forgotten Elizabeth’s birthday. All three had all been upset and I had lost my temper, storming out of the kitchen and shouting at them to take what they pleased from my pack. Neither Adela nor I had seen what they had chosen, but Nicholas claimed to have taken some tags for his belt, Adam the ivory-handled knife — which he had been brandishing under our noses ever since — and my daughter the buttons. .

But what buttons? The set of carved bone buttons I had bought in Gloucester, of course!

And yet she couldn’t have done! Twice my pack had been emptied, once by myself all over the kitchen floor and the second time by Sir Lionel Despenser when he had invited me in to display my goods to his housekeeper. And on both occasions, if I shut my eyes and concentrated, I could clearly recall seeing the buttons amongst my other wares: six prettily carved buttons threaded together on a length of ribbon. The very set of buttons I had given to the farmer’s wife the preceding Sunday in return for a dish of pig’s trotters stewed in butter, an apple dumpling and a beaker of homemade cider. .

I realized suddenly that this was what all my dreams had been trying to tell me. And Adam’s remarks about belly buttons — they too had been jolts to my memory, but I had been too dull, too stupid, to see their significance.

I held out my hand.

‘Give me that bag at once, Adam,’ I said sternly.

He hesitated, but recognizing the note of authority in my voice, the tone which meant I was deadly serious and not to be trifled with, surrendered his prize. For a moment I stood weighing the bag in my right hand, then, loosening the drawstring, upended its contents into my left.

There was a flash of white light, a rainbow of colour, and I stood staring at what I was holding like a man in a dream.

I heard the sharp intake of breath from both Henry Callowhill and the goldsmith. Then the latter murmured in an awestruck whisper, ‘Dear Mother of God, the Capet diamonds!’

There were eight of them, the largest and most perfect stones I had ever seen, and each one had been set in a cup of gold, exquisitely shaped like flower petals, with a tiny, pierced shaft so that they could sewn on to a garment and used as buttons.

I looked at the goldsmith. ‘What. . What did you say they are?’

He took one from my hand and stood twisting it reverently between his fingers.

‘The Capet diamonds,’ he breathed. ‘They belonged to Philip IV of France.’ He laughed shortly. ‘Probably looted from the Templars. When Isabella Capet married Edward II, the goldsmiths of Paris turned them into buttons which she brought with her to England to adorn her coronation robes. Alas, they suffered the same fate as most of her other jewels. Edward seized them and gave them to his Gascon favourite, Piers Gaveston.

‘After Gaveston was murdered by the barons, the diamonds disappeared. No one knew what had happened to them. Gaveston was related in some degree or other to the great banking family of the Calhaus, and it has been generally assumed that the buttons were deposited with them and never reclaimed.’ Gilbert Foliot paused, turning the gem this way and that, watching the light flash and sparkle before going on, ‘But it would seem that this assumption was wrong. Edward must have taken back the diamonds after all. And when he and Hugh le Despenser fled into Wales, escaping from Mortimer and Isabella’s invading army, he took them with him, leaving them eventually with the abbot of Tintern for safe-keeping and until he should need them. Of course, he never did, and there they remained in the secret hiding place in the abbot’s old lodgings, no one suspecting their existence.’

‘Not,’ I said, ‘until Walter Gurney went to work for Sir Lionel when, in view of their families’ shared history, he told him about the tradition amongst the Gurneys of Edward having tried to bribe his gaolers to let him escape.’

‘How did you know about that?’ the goldsmith asked sharply.

‘I didn’t. It was something I worked out for myself. Sir Lionel told you. You remembered the secret hiding place and began to wonder if it had contained more than the original documents discovered fourteen years ago. Peter Noakes overheard the conversation between you, and. . Well, the rest we know.’ I dropped the buttons back in the bag, taking the final one from Gilbert Foliot’s hand and putting it in with the others. ‘And now,’ I continued, ‘we’d better take these to the Lord High Sheriff without delay. They’re far too precious to remain in my keeping.’

The two men glanced at one another, then Henry Callowhill smiled.

‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘We’ll take the diamonds, Master Chapman. They’ll make a valuable contribution to Henry Tudor’s war chest.’