The Tintern Treasure

EIGHT

‘Murdered?’ I repeated stupidly.

‘Murdered,’ Richard Manifold confirmed, while Jack Gload and Peter Littleman nodded lugubriously.

‘When?’

Richard fingered his chin. ‘Let me see. The day before yesterday, was it?’ He turned to his henchmen but, as usual, the pair just looked blank. Mind you, that was their normal expression, so I don’t really know how he told if they were agreeing with him or not. But he seemed satisfied. ‘Yes, the day before yesterday. That would have been Saturday, and he arrived in the city on Friday. Several people noted his arrival, which they might not otherwise have done if he hadn’t wanted directions to Master Foliot’s shop in St Mary le Port Street. Or else to Lawyer Heathersett’s, although he wasn’t sure of his address.’

‘Did he get to see either of them?’ I interrupted.

Richard Manifold shrugged. ‘You’ll have to ask them. Certainly Goldsmith Foliot identified the body, but then it seems he’d met the pedlar before.’

‘How. . How was Oliver killed?’ My tongue stumbled over the words as my ears still refused to believe what they were hearing.

‘Strangled from behind with a piece of knotted rope.’ Richard blew his nose in his fingers and wiped them delicately on his sleeve. ‘Favourite trick of thieves and pickpockets.’

‘The motive was robbery?’

‘Of course it was robbery,’ Richard said impatiently. ‘His pack was missing, and Master Foliot understood the Yorkshireman meant to fill it up at Gloucester.’

‘Yes, he did.’ My mind was still whirling. ‘Where are you keeping the body?’

My companion looked bewildered. ‘Keeping the body?’ Pete and Jack gave another snigger. ‘We’re not keeping it anywhere. It was tipped into a pauper’s grave on Saturday afternoon. And it would have gone to the common pit if Master Foliot hadn’t offered to pay the fee for a pauper’s funeral.’

‘You mean,’ I demanded hotly, ‘that there was no inquest?’

‘Inquest?’ Richard Manifold was scathing. ‘Why would the city be put to such a cost when the cause of death was obvious? And what’s more, he was a stranger.’

‘Stranger,’ echoed Jack Gload, in much the same way as five-year-old Adam echoed me. His crony nodded solemnly in agreement.

‘How do you know he was robbed?’ My brain continued to dispute the inevitable.

Richard Manifold sighed. ‘Because,’ he enunciated slowly and carefully like someone speaking to a backward child, ‘as I’ve told you once already, his pack was missing and has never been found, and because strangulation with a knotted rope is, again as we have already established, a favourite method of killing by Bristol’s criminal population. Wake up, Roger! Any more stupid questions?’

This last remark provoked a full-scale explosion of mirth from his loyal followers and attracted the attention of fellow drinkers, who looked around to find out what they were missing.

‘All right! All right!’ I said hurriedly, ordering a beaker of ale from the potboy who had finally arrived, hot, flustered and overworked, to know my wishes. ‘Whereabouts was the body found?’

I could see that Richard Manifold was dying to tell me to mind my own business, but he was supping with Adela and me that afternoon and was afraid to jeopardize his invitation.

‘In one of those alleyways between St Peter’s Church and the Mint,’ was the reluctant answer. He went on quickly, ‘Now, mark my words well, Roger! Just because you knew this fellow and were friendly with him — although not friendly enough, apparently, to accompany him all the way to Bristol — I forbid you to start poking your nose in, snooping about and asking questions. This is a straightforward case of a man, a stranger, being set upon by robbers, probably putting up a fight and consequently being murdered for his pains. A circumstance which, unfortunately, is all too common in this city. Is that clearly understood?’

‘Understood,’ I muttered, taking my brimming beaker of ale from the potboy and swallowing an almighty gulp.

Richard Manifold regarded me suspiciously for a long moment, but then, obviously deciding there was no more to be said, finished his own drink, jerked his head at his two subordinates and quit the Green Lattis without looking back.

I sat on, staring into what remained of my ale and feeling, without being able to pinpoint exactly why, uneasy. But this was swamped by my distress as I pictured Oliver’s wife and family looking for his return up there in distant Yorkshire, waiting week after week, month after month until, finally, when a year and more had passed, reaching the sad conclusion that he was never coming home again, wondering what had happened to him and if his absence were voluntary or not. And, to my annoyance, I also felt guilt, as if I had been responsible for him and somehow let him down. That was nonsense, of course. He was a grown man and in charge of his own destiny. Moreover, it had been his decision to strike as far south as Bristol and, furthermore, he could have waited for me in Gloucester if he hadn’t been so impatient to get on. Of course, if I were being truthful, I had done nothing to discourage his independence: I was heartily sick of his company by that time, and he of mine. All the same, a nagging voice whispered at the back of my mind that I should have done more to protect him. I had been on familiar territory, and had we stayed together, no doubt he would have lodged with us at journey’s end. Adela would have made up a bed for him somewhere and he would therefore not have been out alone at night.

I finished my ale and got to my feet, giving only a cursory nod in the direction of several friends and acquaintances who were trying to attract my attention. Outside, it was cold and damp as the pale November sun struggled in vain to impart a little warmth. I made my way down High Street before turning left into the gloom of St Mary le Port Street where the houses’ overhanging upper storeys made winter of even the warmest summer’s day.

Walking from the High Street, Master Foliot’s shop was situated on my right, halfway between St Mary le Port Church and St Peter’s Church, the latter being flanked on the farther side by the goldsmith’s splendid new house which was the envy of all his friends. That he sold quality wares was obvious by the goods displayed on the counter inside, and by the fact that he had no less than four apprentices, the two younger keeping the furnace stoked, working the bellows and sweeping up the shavings and bits of gold from the floor. The elder lads, one of them probably nearing the completion of his time, learned their craft under Master Foliot’s expert tutelage and, from what I could see, would no doubt set up in competition with him some time in the future.

As I entered, the goldsmith glanced up from examining the setting for a ring which one of his pupils had just finished making. He wore a look of expectancy, hoping for a sale, and his face fell a little as he saw who it was. But then he recovered himself and advanced smiling, one hand extended. ‘Ah! Master Chapman! You’ve returned at last. I suppose — ’ he hesitated briefly before resuming with a suitably altered countenance — ‘you’ve heard about your poor friend, Tockney?’ I nodded mutely, temporarily bereft of words. Master Foliot went on, ‘A terrible thing to have happened! And to the stranger within our gates! A second death coming so soon after that of poor Peter Noakes. . Well, it has shaken me, I confess.’

I cleared my throat. ‘You. . You don’t think by any chance that the two deaths were connected, do you?’

The goldsmith stared at me in much the same way as Richard Manifold had done, as though there was something amiss with my powers of reasoning. ‘Connected?’ he repeated, puzzled.

‘Yes.’

He frowned. ‘But. . Good God, man! Why should there be? No, no! Whoever told you of the pedlar’s death couldn’t have explained it to you properly. The fellow was set on by robbers, his goods stolen and he himself strangled. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a hundred times, the Watch should be more vigilant. There should be more torches left burning in the streets at night and a second patrol is needed. .’

I interrupted him with an assurance that the details of Oliver Tockney’s death had indeed been made plain to me. It was just that. . But, I didn’t bother to explain just what it was that had prompted my question because, to tell the truth, I wasn’t sure myself. Instead, I went on, ‘Did Oliver come to see you when he reached Bristol?’

‘Friday last, yes! I gathered that I was his first port of call.’ The goldsmith looked a little shamefaced. ‘I think it was merely a friendly visit, a renewal of our former acquaintance. Nothing more than that. But I’m afraid I was rather short with him. There were two customers in the shop at the time, and I was in the middle of a very lucrative transaction with one of them. A fair sum of money was involved.’

I could picture the scene. In the presence of a rich client whom Master Foliot wished to impress, he had no desire to be hailed as the companion of a shabby pedlar who spoke in a strange dialect. So Oliver Tockney had been given short shrift and had probably walked off in a huff to look for, and secure, lodgings for the night.

‘Was this late in the day?’ I asked.

If Gilbert Foliot felt any resentment at this continued questioning by one inferior to him in station, he didn’t show it. ‘It was getting dark,’ he agreed. ‘But then, it gets dark early this time of year. Oh yes, I recollect now. Both the bells of St Peter’s and of St Mary le Port were ringing for Vespers.’

‘And you didn’t see Oliver again?’

‘No. That is not until the next day, Saturday, when Sergeant Manifold asked me to identify a body which had been found not far from here, in Pit Hay Lane. You must know it. It’s between St Peter’s and the Mint, close to the castle.’

I knew it, and I also knew the origin of the name because Adela had once, and rather surprisingly, informed me of it. It came from two Norman French words, puits meaning well and haie meaning hedge. And the well with the hedge around it was still there, used every day by many people in the vicinity and by many of the pilgrims who came to St Peter’s to worship at the shrine of St Mary Bellhouse.

‘Why did the sergeant ask you to identify the body? Was he aware of your previous connection with Oliver?’

A shade of annoyance crossed the goldsmith’s face and I wondered if I had strained his patience too far. But although he compressed his lips for a second or two, he answered pleasantly enough, ‘I believe Lawyer Heathersett, who Sergeant Manifold had reason to visit a day or so earlier, had mentioned something of our adventures to him.’ (Of course, the three men must have arrived back in Bristol almost a week earlier. The atrocious weather had eased, the rebels had dispersed and the horse ferry across the Severn was most probably again in use. I daresay there had been no need for them to ride north to Gloucester, after all.) ‘So when the presence of a strange pedlar in the town was reported to him, Richard Manifold put two and two together and made four. And when the poor man’s body was discovered on Saturday morning, not so very far from here, he did the same again and came straight to me. A very intelligent fellow, Manifold.’

I could have argued with that, but it was neither the time nor place. Besides, honesty compelled me to admit that I was biased against the man. Instead, I changed the subject. ‘How did Master Roper take the news of his nephew’s death?’ I asked.

‘As one would have expected,’ was the tart rejoinder, and I could tell that the goldsmith’s goodwill was at last running out. One of the senior apprentices had been standing patiently by for some little while, waiting to attract his attention. It was high time that I took my leave. I had only been tolerated this long because Gilbert Foliot was possessed of this mistaken belief that I was somehow hand in glove with the king.

‘I hope Mistress Ursula is well,’ I said, turning towards the door.

‘As well as can be expected.’ Another curt response. Then he relented, adding, ‘She’s taken the news of young Noakes’s death badly, I’m sorry to say.’ A snort of derision. ‘Far worse than the lad’s uncle.’

‘Who’s this you’re talking of? Your daughter?’ demanded a deep voice as the door behind me opened, admitting a tall, well set-up man with very blue eyes and a shock of thick, wavy brown hair beneath an emerald-green velvet hat. I recognized him as Gilbert Foliot’s friend, Sir Lionel Despenser and, as luck would have it, the very man I wanted to see.

‘Who else?’ the goldsmith shrugged.

‘Well, you know I’ve offered to take her off your hands at any time,’ the knight said, smiling. ‘As her father, she’d have to obey you. And — ’ he gave a falsely modest smile — ‘although I say it myself, I’m quite a catch. You’d be surprised — or then again perhaps you wouldn’t — at the caps that have been set at me.’

The goldsmith laughed. ‘I’ll say this for you, Lal, you never try to hide your light under a bushel. . One day, maybe, we’ll arrange it. But not just at this present. So what brings you in from Keynsham?’

‘Originally, to find out how you got on during your journey into Wales. But as I had some business with Henry Callowhill first — a couple of butts of malmsey he’s been keeping for me — you may assume I know all there is to know about it already. What a gossip the fellow is! All the same, I thought I’d like to hear your version of events.’ Sir Lionel, suddenly becoming aware of my presence, gave an irritated frown and raised his strongly-marked eyebrows as much as to say, ‘Who is this fellow?’

Gilbert Foliot looked a little surprised himself to find me still present, but made the necessary introduction. ‘This is Master Chapman. Roger Chapman. I feel certain you must be acquainted with the name.’

Was there a note of caution in his voice, or had I imagined it?

‘Oh, that man.’ The knight laughed.

I bowed subserviently. ‘Sir Lionel.’

‘I needn’t detain you further, Roger,’ the goldsmith said pointedly, turning at long last to his patiently waiting apprentice.

‘No,’ I agreed, but made no move to leave, instead continuing to look at Sir Lionel.

‘I was wondering, sir, if I might ask you a favour.’

‘Me?’ He stared down his patrician nose. ‘And what would that be?’

‘I believe you have a groom in your employ. A Gloucester man, Walter Gurney.’

‘My head groom. Yes. What of it?’

Gilbert Foliot, ignoring the poor apprentice yet again, was staring at me as though I’d taken leave of my senses.

‘I’d like your permission, Sir Lionel, to walk out to Keynsham some day soon and have a word with him.’

‘In God’s name, why? What’s the man to you? What do you know of him?’

‘I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to say. It’s a private matter, sir.’

The two men glanced at one another. I felt that they were both disturbed by the request, but I could see no reason for their unease. Then I thought that Gilbert Foliot gave a very slight nod, although I couldn’t be sure.

‘Well, if you must, you must,’ the knight finally conceded. I thanked him and was turning once again to go, when he asked casually, ‘And when will that be?’

‘Not for a day or two. I only reached home this morning. Thursday or Friday perhaps, with your agreement.’

‘Of course! Of course!’ Sir Lionel waved a dismissive hand. ‘I’ll see that Walter is apprised of your visit and is ready to receive you.’

‘Thank you,’ I said and bowed low to each man in turn before stepping out once more into the shadows of St Mary le Port Street.

Outside, I leaned against the nearest wall for a moment or two while a horse and cart rumbled past, its driver loudly cursing the narrowness of the road and giving it as his considered opinion that someone would get stuck there one of these fine days. I think he was fishing for a little sympathy, but I failed him. I was busy with reflections of my own.

I wondered if Walter Gurney had confided in his new master the reason for his flight from Gloucestershire and if that explained Sir Lionel’s obvious reluctance to allow me access to his groom. I didn’t know that I blamed him if that were the case. (Maybe Walter had never intended to marry Jane Spicer, with or without Juliette’s child.) And yet I couldn’t help feeling that there had been something more; some undercurrent of suspicion that had communicated itself to, and been understood by, Gilbert Foliot. But what the goldsmith’s interest in Walter Gurney could be, I was unable to fathom. His knowledge of the man would be solely what his friend had told him, and somehow I couldn’t see the knight concerning himself with his servants’ problems. In the end, I gave it up, decided I had been imagining things and walked on in the direction of St Peter’s Church and the castle.

There was the usual bustle around the church porch as a steady stream of locals and pilgrims went in and out. The shrine of Our Lady of the Bellhouse, known generally as St Mary Bellhouse and situated next to the belfry tower, was the chief jewel in St Peter’s crown. A church already rich in history when the body of King Edmund, murdered in the King’s Wood, rested there while on its journey to Glastonbury for burial, it had inevitably been rebuilt by the Normans, but its Saxon foundations remained.

I went inside to offer up a prayer and pay my respects.

In a setting glowing with colourful wall paintings and tapestries, the shrine nevertheless managed to hold all eyes. The statue of the Virgin Herself, the deep azure blue of her robes glittering with precious and semi-precious gems, the golden canopy over her head, the scented candles on either side, the wealth of offerings, both large and small, laid at her feet, made everything else pale into insignificance. The shrine’s fame was widespread, drawing pilgrims from all over the west and from even further afield. Its maintenance was in the hands of the Fraternity of St Mary Bellhouse, a band of local men dedicated to its upkeep and of whom, I guessed, Gilbert Foliot was probably one. He was a man of substance, an important citizen who would naturally be associated with such a project. Moreover, his house was right next door to the church.

As I came out again into the pale November sunshine, I accidentally brushed shoulders with a young woman just entering. I would have recognized her immediately as Ursula Foliot even had my attention not been caught by her red and swollen eyes and her general air of tragedy. This was so pronounced, her mourning so ostentatious, that I was induced to hope that matters had not gone very deep with her; that it was more show than suffering. I waited for her to emerge once more, enjoying as always the traffic of a busy street, then put myself in her way, possessing myself of one of her hands and bowing obsequiously.

‘Mistress Foliot, would you be kind enough to vouchsafe me a word? My name is Roger Chapman’ — I was growing used by now to not having to explain who I was — ‘and, as your father may have told you, I was at Tintern Abbey when Master Noakes’s body was discovered.’

‘Yes.’ She hesitated before continuing in a low, dramatic voice, ‘Whatever it is you want to know, I can’t speak to you now. I’m too upset.’ She pulled forward the black veil wound around her head so that it partially obscured her face. ‘Peter,’ she continued in trembling accents, ‘was the Abelard to my Eloise. We were going to be married, you know, in defiance of everyone. His uncle! My father! Peter had vowed it. I had vowed it. The only thing that was stopping us,’ she added in a much more prosaic, whining tone, ‘was money. Neither Master Roper — who, I might tell you, is a skinflint of no mean order — nor Father, who isn’t any better, would take us seriously and kept us both on the most meagre of allowances.’

I clucked sympathetically and she glanced around her, suddenly changing her mind and longing only to unburden herself of her sense of ill-usage.

‘Very well, come to the house now,’ she whispered. ‘Father’s busy in the shop and there are only Mistress Dawes and the servants there at the moment.’

She spoke as one who had little, if no, regard for the lesser orders. She probably, I reflected, looked upon them as so many additions to the furniture.

The goldsmith’s house was a recent addition to St Peter’s Street, being at that time certainly not more than twenty years old. Gilbert Foliot’s acquisition of it when the original owner died ten years before, had been, so my former mother-in-law and her cronies informed me, the talk of Bristol. I had been too much of a newcomer, and too often absent from the city, to have taken notice of the gossip myself, but I could believe it to be true.

It was an imposing edifice, three storeys high and, I was told, with deep cellars that had belonged to a much older Saxon building, once occupying the site. Mistress Ursula led me across a hall with painted beams and carved figureheads at either end, and into which my entire house would possibly have fitted, to a parlour of equally generous proportions. There was little, however, in the way of furniture, and what there was looked most uncomfortable except for a wooden rocking chair laden with cushions. This was set on a raised platform at the far end of the room with a window overlooking a small garden and velvet curtains that pulled across the front of the dais, thus turning it into a cosy retreat, a room within a room.

My hostess offered me neither refreshment nor a seat, merely asking abruptly, once she had closed the door, ‘Well? What did you want to ask me?’

There was nothing for it but to abandon the normal courtesies and be equally abrupt. ‘Do you know what Master Noakes was doing at Tintern Abbey?’

Ursula unwound her veil and dropped it on the floor for someone else to pick up. My sympathy for her bereaved state was fast evaporating. ‘Not exactly.’ I maintained a questioning silence and after a short pause, she went on: ‘Peter said there might something there which would make us rich.’

‘What sort of thing?’

She made an impatient gesture. ‘I don’t know. He wouldn’t tell me. He said it might prove to be a mare’s nest and then I’d be disappointed.’ She snorted disgustedly. ‘He’d have done better to have told me what he knew. At least I could have advised him whether it was a wild goose chase or not.’ Recollecting herself, Ursula gave a tragic moan and momentarily closed her eyes. ‘Poor sweetheart! Peter wasn’t always very practical, I’m afraid.’

‘Did he ever mention how he came by his information?’ I asked eagerly, praying for a miracle.

But none was forthcoming. ‘He wouldn’t say.’

‘Was it from your father, do you think?’

She considered this idea, wrinkling her nose. ‘My father was at Tintern himself, wasn’t he?’ Her tone was thoughtful. ‘A coincidence, do you think?’

I sighed. ‘I have to admit it isn’t likely. We were all taking refuge from the weather and the rebels. On the other hand. .’

‘Yes?’

‘It was at Master Foliot’s suggestion that we took shelter in the abbey.’

‘There you are, then!’ Her face fell. ‘No, that’s no good. Father would never have confided in Peter about anything.’

I made no comment, but glanced covertly at the alcove at the far end of the chamber. If someone were sitting there with the curtain drawn, his presence unsuspected, it would be quite easy for him to overhear any conversation in the main part of the room. Was that what had happened? For there was no getting away from the fact that Gilbert Foliot had been making enquiries of the abbot concerning the secret hiding place at the very moment that Peter Noakes was breaking into it.

Unfortunately, neither was there any doubt that the would-be thief appeared to have found nothing. For if he had, where was it?

And what was it?

‘I haven’t been much help, have I?’ Ursula’s voice recalled me to my surroundings.

She was looking pathetic again, and I saw to my shame that there were genuine tears standing in her eyes. Contrite, I raised her hand briefly to my lips. She seemed shocked, and probably was. Common pedlars didn’t make that sort of gesture.

‘You’ve been very helpful,’ I assured her. ‘I may need to talk to you again. Meantime, mention nothing to Master Foliot about our conversation or my being here.’

‘Of course not. I’m not speaking to him, anyway,’ was the taut reply.

I trembled inwardly. In ten years or so, I could foresee Elizabeth saying the self same words.

‘I must go,’ I said. ‘I only arrived home this morning and so far I’ve devoted very little time to my family.’

‘I expect you’re a lovely father,’ she said yearningly, gazing soulfully into my eyes.

I beat a hasty retreat. All the same, I was shaken and more than a little dashed. When young girls started seeing me, not as a lover, but as a surrogate father, it was high time to be thinking of leading a more settled life.

A most depressing thought!