The Tintern Treasure

THREE

We set out betimes the following morning — after a breakfast of oatmeal and warm ale provided by our hostess and watched in glum silence by our reluctant host — to retrace our path to Gloucester. We had not gone more than a mile or two, however, before we encountered a sour-faced cottager, driving his pig ahead of him.

He said something to us in Welsh.

Oliver and I both mimed our inability to understand him, whereupon he dropped into English with the ease that many borderers have. Most of them, of necessity, speak both languages. ‘I asked where you’re bound for. Gloucester, is it?’

I nodded and he came to a halt, letting his pig wander off to rootle among the wayside bushes, their leaves still dripping from the previous night’s storm. ‘You won’t make it then,’ he announced lugubriously. ‘There’s a great tree uprooted not three or four furlongs up the track from here. It’ll take a day or so before it’s moved, I reckon. I was hoping to get my pig to Gloucester market and sell him. I need to buy provisions before the winter sets in. Just my luck! Now I’ve to leg it to Marstow to get help.’ He glanced upwards, regarding the lowering sky, the full-bellied clouds pregnant with rain. ‘If you’ve any sense, you’ll turn around and head for Monmouth. Get under shelter before the next storm comes. Try again for Gloucester in a day or so. Maybe me and a few other boyos will have got the path cleared by then.’

‘What about the sidetracks?’ I asked, loath to abandon our journey and start in the opposite direction. The further south we went, the wider became the Severn and the more difficult its crossing.

‘The sidetracks!’ The man was scathing. ‘They’re nothing but quagmires after all this rain. A lot of hamlets and settlements must be entirely cut off. I’ve been a countryman all my life and I tell you I’ve never experienced weather as bad as this. Rivers and streams are bursting their banks. It’s like the Great Flood. If we’d any sense, we’d all be building arks.’ With which, he hooked his pig out of the bushes with his long, curved stick and, cursing to himself, went on his way.

Oliver Tockney and I stood looking at one another.

‘What do you reckon, then?’ he said. ‘Do we take yon fellow’s advice?’

‘It seems we don’t have much choice,’ I answered reluctantly. Heavy raindrops suddenly splattered the earth around our feet, sending up little fountains of mud. ‘It seems as if it’s starting up again.’

The Yorkshireman nodded and turned about. ‘We’d better go back to the cottage and get directions and let the goodwife know about the tree.’ He gave a sudden shout of laughter. ‘The goodman will probably die of an apoplexy on seeing us again, just as he’s heaving a sigh of relief at having rid himself of us.’ We trudged in silence for a while, then Oliver asked curiously, ‘Who was this woman in Gloucester you were asking about? A friend of yours?’

‘A woman I knew for a short period once. A woman I’d almost forgotten — certainly never expected to hear from again — but who suddenly resurfaced in my life earlier this year to make trouble for me.’

I sensed my companion’s hesitation, but his curiosity got the better of his manners and the unwritten rule of the road that you don’t enquire too closely into other travellers’ affairs. ‘What sort of trouble?’

‘She claimed I was the father of her child.’ The unspoken question fairly shouted at me. ‘No, I was not,’ I snapped. ‘What’s more, at the time the child must have been conceived I was out of the country. First Scotland and then Paris.’

Fortunately for my patience and good manners, and for the sake of peace between us, this last piece of information drove all other questions from Oliver’s mind. ‘You’ve been to Paris?’ he breathed. ‘Paris? What’s it like? Is it true that even the children speak French over there?’

‘Perfectly true.’

Oliver furrowed his brow, and not just because a squall of wind and rain had buffeted him.

‘But how do they communicate with God and the saints, then? Everyone knows that God and the heavenly host all speak English.’

It took us all day and well into the evening to cover the four miles to Monmouth. The goodwife’s instructions how to get there had been lucid and concise when we reappeared at her door, and I think even she had been relieved that we hadn’t been seeking further shelter. She had thanked us for the information concerning the tree blocking the northern track and been moved to provide us with slices of bread and cheese to sustain us during the hours ahead.

‘Not too many dwellings hereabouts to beg food from,’ she had said.

She was right. Nor did we meet many people as foolish as ourselves, out of doors in such terrible weather. We passed a woodcutter once, going in the opposite direction, but he merely grunted in response to our greeting, too wet and sorry for himself to linger. A young girl carrying a basket of eggs, her skirts bunched up around her knees, scurried down a stony path leading heaven alone knew where. There was no house in sight that we could see. A discalced friar, not even allowing himself the permitted luxury of sandals, joined us for half a mile or so, his bare feet swollen and blue with cold. But he discoursed cheerfully enough of this and that, speculating with Oliver and myself on whether or not we believed the rumours that placed Buckingham at the head of a Welsh uprising to be true. Or whether, indeed, there was an uprising at all.

‘For I’ve seen nobody but you two gentlemen on the roads all day. Hardly surprising in this sort of weather.’

He didn’t mention the other rumour concerning the death of the young princes in the Tower, so I assumed they hadn’t yet come his way. And before I could ask him, he left us with a blessing and a hastily sketched sign of the cross as he disappeared abruptly into the woods which stretched, gloomy and dark, on either side of the track. After that, we trudged doggedly along, all our energies concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other and avoiding the worst of the puddles. Sometimes there was no help for it but to wade straight through the larger ones which stretched the width of the path, from one tangle of bushes and undergrowth to the other.

We ate our bread and cheese beneath the shelter of a tree, our silent thanks going out to the cottager’s wife who had so thoughtfully provided it. By mid-afternoon — or what we judged to be mid-afternoon — a thin sun emerged from between the clouds, striking down between the tree trunks in patterns of fretted gold. But there was no warmth in it. A wind had sprung up, whispering among the black and silver shadows of the leaves and making us shiver under our rain-soaked cloaks.

The sound of hoof-beats made us draw into the side of the track, and only just in time as a horse and rider went past us at a decent pace and with little regard for our safety. To be fair, the rider was so hunched up against the elements, I doubt if he was even aware of us.

I stared after his receding back.

‘I feel certain that that was Lawyer Heathersett,’ I said at last.

‘Did you see his face?’ Oliver asked.

‘No.’

‘Then how do you know?’ My companion was sceptical.

‘There was just something about his appearance.’

A snort was my only answer and I decided to say no more. Nevertheless, I was quite sure in my own mind that it had been Geoffrey Heathersett who passed us, and I was therefore not in the least astonished, two hours later, as Oliver and I entered an inn close to Monmouth’s St Mary’s Church, that the first person I clapped eyes on was the lawyer.

He was seated at a table near the door, deep in conversation with two other men who I also recognized. They, too, were Bristol citizens, the slightly younger one being Gilbert Foliot, a man of about forty, fair-haired and blue-eyed in a typically English fashion, a wealthy goldsmith with a shop in St Mary le Port Street and an expensive new house close to St Peter’s Church. He had been a widower for the past eight years and was the father of an only child, a daughter, whose name I seemed to remember was Ursula. (Although how I knew that, I wasn’t quite sure.)

The second man, Henry Callowhill, was a wine importer with at least three ships plying between Bristol and Bordeaux and southern Spain. Not quite as wealthy perhaps as Gilbert Foliot, but certainly rich enough to be venerated in a city that regarded the making and accumulation of money as one of, if not the most, desirable goals in life. He was a large, jolly man who might well have run to fat in old age had it not been for his height of almost six feet. He was married and had named his three ships after his three children, Martin, Edmund and Matilda.

‘You were right, Roger,’ Oliver Tockney breathed in my ear. ‘I owe you an apology.’

At that moment, the landlord came bustling towards us, none too pleased to have his inn invaded by a couple of pedlars, their homespun cloaks dripping water all over his nicely sanded floor. (Gentlemen, of course, were different. They were allowed to drip anywhere they chose.)

‘We’re full,’ he said before either of us could speak, ‘and very busy. You two will have to look for some other kitchen to sleep in. There’s an ale-house in the street next to this.’

‘We can pay,’ Oliver snapped and produced a handful of coins from his pouch, rattling them under the innkeeper’s nose.

The man hesitated, then, glancing over his shoulder at the trio seated behind him, shook his head.

‘This is a hostelry for gentlemen,’ he hissed. ‘You can see that for yourselves.’

‘It’s for anyone who can pay,’ Oliver answered aggressively. ‘You wouldn’t get away with this sort of attitude where I come from. One man’s as good as another up north.’

I doubted that and so, by the look on the landlord’s face, did he. But before he had time to argue the point, there was a scraping of stool legs and Gilbert Foliot was advancing on us, one hand extended in greeting.

‘Master Chapman!’ he exclaimed. ‘What are you doing in this part of the world? Or shouldn’t I ask? Is it perhaps’ — he gave an awkward laugh — ‘another secret mission for the duke? I mean,’ he added hurriedly, ‘the king. One tends to forget.’

I was conscious that Oliver Tockney and the innkeeper were regarding me open-mouthed, and it was my turn to be embarrassed.

‘No, no, sir! I’m merely earning my living which, I assure you, is what I do most of the time. Had I known what shocking storms and winds I would encounter, I should never have left Bristol.’

It was plain that the goldsmith didn’t believe me, but he was willing to leave the matter there. Indeed, his discretion was so obvious that it must have raised doubts in everyone’s mind concerning the true reason for my presence.

‘It’s all right, landlord,’ he said. ‘These two gentlemen’ — he choked slightly over the word, but continued gallantly — ‘will eat with us. And I feel sure you can find somewhere for them to sleep tonight.’

The innkeeper muttered something in reply, but he was still too busy goggling at me to argue, and merely ordered the potboy to place two more stools at Master Foliot’s table before hurrying off to the kitchen.

‘Well, Master Chapman,’ the goldsmith resumed when Oliver and I were settled, ‘this meeting is not altogether a surprise. Lawyer Heathersett here told us he’d run into you in Hereford.’

‘Yes.’ I helped Oliver to shed his pack. For all his brave talk earlier, I could see that he was a little overawed at being in the company of men so far above him in the social hierarchy.

Henry Callowhill gave me a hearty slap on the back, causing me to spill some of the ale which the potboy had just placed in front of me.

‘No necessity for you to say anything further,’ he said. ‘No need at all. We quite understand.’

Geoffrey Heathersett made no comment, simply giving me a hard stare and a sour smile, both of which might have meant anything or nothing according to how I liked to interpret them.

I made one last effort to convince the three that they were wrong. ‘Gentlemen, you are labouring under a misapprehension. I was in Hereford on some business for my wife and doing a little trade on my own account. Master Tockney — who comes from Yorkshire, by the way — and I met quite by chance, and we are here because I missed the road to Gloucester and landed us on the Welsh side of the Severn by mistake. We intended to retrace our steps to Gloucester, but when we started out this morning, we were told that the track was impassable because a large tree had been blown down overnight. According to our informant, it will probably be several days before the path is clear again, and the sidetracks are also impassable because of the mud.’

There was a moment’s silence, then Master Callowhill administered a second resounding slap on my shoulder. ‘Quite so! Quite so! We’ll say no more about it, eh?’

I gave up. And in any case, at that moment the food arrived; roast fowl with buttered parsnips and a beef pudding on the side. We all picked up spoons and knives, setting to with a will, and for quite some while there was nothing to be heard but the champing of jaws. Gradually, however, conversation became possible again.

Gilbert Foliot smiled at me across the table. ‘Gossip has it, Master Chapman, that you attended King Richard’s coronation at his personal command.’

There was no point in denying it. My former mother-in-law, Margaret Walker, and her cronies had made sure that all Bristol knew this unimportant fact.

‘In a very, very lowly position, sir, I assure you.’

‘And also the coronation banquet afterwards.’

I squirmed. ‘Again, on the very lowliest benches. If you’ve heard otherwise, it’s a blatant lie.’

The goldsmith laughed. ‘I’ll accept your word for it. I understand it was the best attended coronation for many years. Is that so?’

I grimaced. ‘As to that, I’m in no position to say. I’ve never been to a coronation before. But certainly, no one who is anyone appeared to be missing. Even Henry Tudor’s mother and stepfather were present. Lady Stanley carried Queen Anne’s train, or so I was informed by one who knew.’

‘Is that so?’ my interlocutor questioned smoothly. ‘Well, I suppose there can be very little possibility of her son ever obtaining the crown. She might as well throw in her lot with the Yorkists. Although I must admit I’m surprised. Wasn’t Thomas Stanley implicated in that plot to kill King Richard, back in the summer? The one which ended with Hastings summarily losing his head?’

‘Not summarily,’ I protested indignantly. ‘I know there were malicious rumours that he was beheaded out of hand, but I can assure you they were false. Lord Hastings was not executed until a week later, after due trial and sentence.’

‘You know that for a fact, do you?’ Lawyer Heathersett asked, staring hard at me and raising his brows.

‘Yes.’

The three older men exchanged significant glances, as much as to say that I had confirmed all they had ever heard about me was true, and I realized that I must have been steadily gaining a reputation for being the Duke of Gloucester’s — now the king’s — man without being aware of it. I opened my mouth to lodge another protest, but Gilbert Foliot suddenly decided that enough was enough, and abruptly changed the subject. ‘How’s your daughter, Henry?’ he asked, looking across the table at the wine merchant. ‘How old is she now?’

‘Nine,’ Master Callowhill answered thickly through a mouthful of beef pudding.

The goldsmith continued, ‘And I believe you also have a daughter about the same age, Master Chapman? I’ve seen her with your wife. A pretty little thing.’

I wasn’t sure that I’d describe Elizabeth as pretty and certainly not little. Her physique was too much like mine. She would be a big woman. But I nodded agreement just the same.

Gilbert Foliot heaved a sentimental sigh. ‘A lovely age, gentlemen, when girls think their fathers are gods.’ I very much doubted this in Elizabeth’s case, but I held my tongue and tried to show a Greek profile to the others. ‘But things change,’ the goldsmith went on sadly. ‘Girls grow up and become openly defiant and sulky when their wills are crossed.’

Geoffrey Heathersett, a childless bachelor, gave a superior smile. ‘Is Ursula still giving you trouble, Gilbert? Still wanting to marry young Peter Noakes?’

There was another sigh. ‘I’m afraid so.’

‘You don’t intend to allow it?’

The younger man snorted. ‘No, I do not. Oh, Anthony Roper is quite a good sort of man and pretty plump in the pocket, I grant you. But that nephew of his is a ne’er-do-well if ever I saw one. And who exactly was his father, can anyone tell me that?’ His friends glumly shook their heads. ‘That sister of Roper’s was always a wild piece. Ran away when she was fifteen, a year younger than Ursula is now, had a child by some fellow who deserted her as soon as he’d made her pregnant, came home destitute to her brother, gave birth and incontinently died. And her son has grown up just as feckless as far as I can see. Shows no interest at all in the rope-making business. Just likes spending his uncle’s money and loafing around the town. And hanging around my daughter. Well, I don’t need to tell you, gentlemen, that’s not the sort of husband I want for my only child.’

We all shook our heads and pursed our lips in solemn agreement. But I couldn’t help reflecting that Master Foliot would have his work cut out keeping that motherless chit in leading reins. I knew by sight the woman he had installed as Ursula’s companion: one Margery Dawes, a younger cousin of Geoffrey Heathersett, a buxom woman with the lawyer’s protuberant blue eyes and a roguish smile entirely her own. According to my former mother-in-law and her best friend, Bess Simnel — and believe me, those two knew everything that went on in Bristol: nothing escaped their eagle gaze — Margery was more inclined to encourage her charge and young Noakes than not, and arranged lovers’ trysts for the pair of them. But of course I said nothing.

At this point another jug of ale and a syllabub of pears arrived at the table to replace the fowl and beef pudding, now shadows of their former selves. We fell to with a will and the conversation flagged again until once more our plates were empty. But even then, the talk was desultory. We were all by now feeling the effects of the second jug of ale and a long, hard day and beginning to think longingly of our beds. Outside, the rain still beat down and the wind had risen, causing the locals to hurry home and leave the five of us in sole command of the ale-room. The landlord, evidently impressed by our apparent friendship with three men of substance, offered Oliver and myself the use of an attic where, he assured us, we should find a comfortable bed provided with clean sheets and good wool blankets. We accepted with alacrity and, having bidden the others goodnight, followed him up three flights of rickety stairs to a room so small and low-pitched that I was unable to stand upright in it. Stripping to our shirts, we fell into bed without more ado, my eyes closing almost as soon as my head touched the pillow.

My companion, however, was not so sleepy, his natural curiosity keeping him awake until he had received some answers to his questions. I could tell by the way he wriggled around in the bed, snorted and started forming sentences which he then abandoned, that he was intent on finding out exactly what sort of a pedlar I was and why my superiors deferred to my opinion. But I was far too weary for such a catechism — although I realized that I should have to take Oliver into my confidence at some time, particularly if he insisted on travelling with me to Bristol — so I pretended to sleep, emitting some really lifelike snores and keeping them going until they became genuine.

I slept dreamlessly and soundly. And the next thing I knew, it was morning.

I was the first of the guests to awaken and made my way downstairs, where one of the servants directed me to a pump in the yard. I removed my shirt under the interested scrutiny of two chambermaids leaning over the balcony rail above me and, working the handle with my right hand, cupped my left to help pour the icy water all over my shivering body, although I might just as well have stood in the middle of the yard and let the sluicing rain do the work for me, for the weather had not improved. Indeed, it seemed to have worsened during the night; even if the wind had dropped a little, the downpour continued.

I was fully dressed by the time that Oliver finally roused himself and managed, temporarily at least, to postpone any explanations he felt were his due by urging him downstairs to breakfast. The meal was once more laid out in the ale-room, and the mouth-watering smell of hot oatcakes and fried bacon collops greeted us as we entered. One of the potboys, obviously bursting with news, started to tell us something, but was thwarted by the arrival of the landlord, closely followed by Master Foliot and his two companions.

The landlord was speaking to them over his shoulder as he deposited a dish of honey and another of dried figs on the table alongside the oatcakes and bacon.

‘There are terrible rumours in the town this morning, sirs. Rivers are bursting their banks, bridges have been swept away during the night, animals are being drowned in the fields where they stand. Some say the Severn itself has flooded. I’m afraid you might find it difficult to continue your journey.’

Lawyer Heathersett chewed his bottom lip. ‘I shall at least have to try,’ he said uncertainly. ‘I have an important case coming up next week at the Bristol Assize.’

‘And I have a consignment of wine due from Spain in three days’ time,’ added Henry Callowhill.

Gilbert Foliot made no comment but he, too, looked dubious, as though there were affairs of the moment calling him home. I wasn’t any too happy myself, wanting to get back to Adela and the children before the weather suddenly became colder and all the rain turned to snow and ice. Nevertheless, it would be more than foolish to set out and find ourselves stranded somewhere without hope of reaching food and shelter.

‘Your Honours are welcome to remain here as long as is necessary,’ the landlord offered hopefully and already, no doubt, feeling the coins from this extra custom jingling in his pocket.

‘We’ll discuss it over breakfast,’ the goldsmith said, moving towards the laden table.

The rest of us nodded agreement and seated ourselves around the board, Henry Callowhill taking charge of the jug of ale and pouring us all generous measures.

We talked over the situation while we ate, but came to no definite conclusion. Geoffrey Heathersett gave it as his opinion that these rumours were often gross exaggerations of the truth and, while the rest of us desperately wanted to agree with him, the question, What if they’re not? was uppermost in everyone’s mind.

We were still debating the subject — no man willing to decide for himself because it was instinctively felt that, in the circumstances, it would be much better to travel as a company rather than individually — when the ale-room door burst open and the landlord reappeared, looking white and shaken.

‘Gentlemen!’ he gasped. ‘Word has just come that the Welsh rebels, under the Duke of Buckingham’s command, are closing in on Monmouth. If the town elders decide to withstand the rebels and close the Monnow Bridge Gate, there might well be a siege of lengthy proportions.’

Henry Callowhill and the lawyer both got hastily to their feet.

‘That decides it, then,’ Geoffrey Heathersett said. ‘I must leave at once and take my chance on the road.’

‘Me, too,’ the wine merchant agreed.

Gilbert Foliot looked up, asking in his calm way, ‘And if the rebels capture you? Do we know how far off they are, landlord?’

‘Report reckons about three miles, sir. They’re seemingly moving at a walking pace because most of ’em aren’t mounted.’

The other two paused in their headlong dash for the door.

‘But I don’t want to be caught up in any siege,’ Henry Callowhill objected. ‘It might go on for months.’

‘True,’ grunted the lawyer. ‘But neither do I want to be captured by Buckingham and his rabble. They might hold us to ransom.’

The goldsmith gave a sarcastic smile and rose to his feet. ‘Highly unlikely, I should think. However, let us err on the safe side. Landlord, how far is it to Tintern Abbey from here, would you reckon?’

The man pursed his lips. ‘About ten miles or so, Your Honour. Maybe a bit more, maybe a bit less.’

‘A day’s walk, a morning’s ride on horseback,’ Gilbert mused. He thought for a moment while we all waited for his decision. At last, he nodded. ‘Then I suggest that’s what we do. We make for Tintern and ask for sanctuary. The rebels won’t dare besiege us there.’