The Weaver's inheritance

Chapter One

The letter, brief and obviously written with all the difficulties experienced by a person unused to wielding a pen, reached the home of my mother-in-law, Margaret Walker, just prior to the Christmas season of that year of Our Lord, 1476.

For once in my life, I had been looking forward to the cosiness of a winter spent mainly within four walls. I would contribute towards the household expenses by hawking my wares around the outlying villages and hamlets of Bristol, but intended to venture no further afield than a half-day’s journey, thus ensuring my return home before curfew and the closing of the city gates. I had also promised myself that those long, dark evenings, when doors and shutters were closed early against the inclement weather and we huddled together around the fire, would be spent getting to know my motherless daughter better.

Elizabeth had celebrated her second birthday in November, and was now a busy, prattling little girl — although it needed Margaret to interpret most of her utterances for me — toddling about the cottage, her hands constantly outstretched and ready to meddle in everything that did not concern her. Her grandmother’s spinning wheel held a particular fascination for Bess, as did the cooking crane over the fire, with the big iron pot suspended from its hook. Indeed, the only items in which my daughter evinced no interest were her toys; two wooden dolls named Rosemary and Fleur, a brightly painted wooden spinning top, and an equally garishly coloured wooden ball. These lay neglected and gathering dust in the chest alongside the bed which she shared with my mother-in-law.

Those of you who have read my previous chronicles, will know that Elizabeth’s impending arrival was the reason why I had married her mother, Margaret Walker’s daughter, Lillis. Our wedded life had been of short duration, Lillis dying in childbirth eight months later; and I had never been able to forgive myself for the overwhelming relief which I had felt at this tragic event. Guilt, as well as the heady sense of freedom which life on the open road engendered, had kept me almost continuously on the move these past two years, abandoning my child to the care of her grandmother.

Watching Elizabeth, that cold, grey December morning, as she sat amongst the rushes on the floor, carefully examining one of her feet, my chief consolation was that she in no way resembled Lillis, or my self-blame would have been compounded by ever-present reminders of my dead wife. But there was nothing small and birdlike about my daughter; she had none of the black-haired, brown-eyed, sallow-skinned colouring which characterized Margaret Walker, and which had betrayed so clearly Lillis’s Welsh and Cornish origins. No, my daughter was mine through and through; fair-haired, fair-skinned, blue-eyed and already big for her age, showing every promise of being as tall and well-built as I was myself in those days.

‘Yes, she’s yours all right,’ my mother-in-law remarked, coming in through the street door and slamming it shut behind her. She set down the raw wool she was carrying; wool which she would shortly begin to comb and spin, making the most of the remaining hours of winter daylight which filtered through the oiled-parchment panes of the cottage’s only window. ‘There’s no mistaking her for anyone else’s child.’

‘You made me jump,’ I accused her, smiling. ‘I didn’t expect you back so soon.’ I nodded towards her overflowing basket. ‘Work seems to be plentiful.’

She removed her cloak and pattens before seating herself at her wheel.

‘And likely to get busier now that young Master Burnett’s joined his business with that of his father-in-law, Alderman Weaver. Old Burnett must be turning in his grave. Only three months dead, and already his son is making changes he would never have countenanced if he had lived to be a hundred!’

‘Why do you think William’s done it?’ I asked idly, drawing Elizabeth on to my lap and trying to persuade her to put on her stocking and shoe. The bare foot was like a small lump of ice.

Margaret, busily removing burrs and other foreign matter from some of the wool, shrugged.

‘His wife is Alderman Weaver’s sole heir. Since her brother Clement’s death, the old man has neither chick nor child else, other than Alison, to leave his fortune to. So perhaps it makes sense to combine the Burnett and Weaver looms; the spinning and dying, the fulling and weaving and the tenting. After all, Redcliffe’s been fairly divided between the two families for years now. And without Alderman Burnett’s steadying influence to guide him, maybe young William feels the need of an older and wiser head in charge.’

I snorted with laughter. ‘That I can well believe.’

I had met William Burnett to speak to only once, five years ago, when, fresh from my release as a novice at Glastonbury Abbey, I had taken joyously to the road in my new calling as a chapman — or pedlar, to use the commoner word — and discovered for the first time my ability to solve those mysteries and puzzles which, with God’s help, had already brought several villains to justice. William had been a fop then, interested in little beyond his appearance, and still was. I had thought him empty-headed and vain, a rich man’s son unchecked and overindulged, and wondered what a spirited girl like Alison Weaver could see in him; for, even though it was doubtless a match arranged by their fathers, I recalled that she had looked at her betrothed with admiration. Women were, and are, and always will be, an enigma to me.

During the intervening five years, I had, on rare occasions, noted Master Burnett walking in procession to the nearby Temple Church, where members of the Weaver’s Guild maintained the Chapel of Saint Katharine, ensuring that candles were always kept burning before the altar of their patron saint. Those brief glimpses had convinced me that he had not changed, so overdressed and self-satisfied did he seem.

Alderman Alfred Weaver’s appearance, on the other hand, had suffered considerable alteration. When I first had dealings with him, he had been a florid, thickset man with the glow of health about him, but the loss of his only son and heir had taken its toll. Even two years ago, when we had again had some contact, he had begun to lose weight, and the hair covering his bald pate had been thinner and sparser than before. But my most recent sighting of him, leaving his house in Broad Street three days earlier, had shocked me beyond measure. His flesh hung loosely on his bones, a fact which could not be disguised even by the heavy, old-fashioned garments which he always wore. His jowl sagged, his cheekbones were jutting almost through the skin, and his eyes, as he looked at me across the street, were dull and lifeless, holding no spark of recognition. He had been accompanied by Mistress Burnett, and it struck me for the first time that there was a stronger resemblance between father and daughter than I had previously imagined …

A loud knock on the cottage door disturbed my reverie. Putting Elizabeth aside, I scrambled to my feet, my mother-in-law being busy with her combing. The man who stood outside was known to me, although we had never spoken, as one of Alderman Weaver’s carters; he was called Jack Nym. I stared at him in surprise, wondering what he could want, and he grinned back good-naturedly, showing a mouthful of blackened and broken teeth.

‘I’ve a letter here for Mistress Walker,’ he said, ‘and a message to go with it. Can I come in?’

Margaret put down her work and rose, picking bits of wool from her skirt as she did so.

‘A letter for me?’ she enquired. I held the door wide to allow our guest across the threshold. ‘I know no one up in the Wolds.’

‘I haven’t been up in the Wolds this trip,’ Jack Nym answered, adding impressively, ‘I’ve been Hereford way.’

My mother-in-law, whose knowledge of everything to do with the weaving and woollen trade was as great as that of anyone I knew, raised her eyebrows.

‘My, my! March wool, eh? That’s going to set Alderman Weaver and Master Burnett back a pretty penny.’ She added for my benefit, ‘March wool is superior even to Cotswold wool, which gives you some idea of its price.’

‘Fourteen marks the sack,’ Jack Nym put in with quiet satisfaction. ‘But seemingly it’s to be used for a special order.’ He held out his hand. ‘Here’s your letter, Mistress.’

Reminded of the reason for his visit, Margaret took it. ‘Who can it be from?’ she wondered.

‘The name’s Adela Juett,’ Jack answered promptly. ‘Claims to be a distant cousin of yours.’

My mother-in-law gave a little screech of excitement. ‘Adela! Adela Woodward that was! Dear heaven! Many’s the time I’ve looked after her when she was young. She used to play with Lillis as a child, but I haven’t heard from her in ages. She married a man from up country that she met one time at Saint James’s Whitsuntide fair, and went away to live. That must be all of seven years or more ago. How does she go on?’

Jack Nym nodded towards the still-unopened letter. ‘Widowed last year and left with a little lad, now two years old, to rear. That’s how I came to meet her. I had to stay overnight in Hereford and, in order to earn a crust for her and the boy, she serves at table in the inn where, as chance would have it, I chose to lodge. We got talking. She recognized my accent and told me that she, too, came from Bristol. She mentioned a kinswoman of hers, a Margaret Woodward who had married an Adam Walker a twelvemonth after she was born. When she found I knew you, she asked after Lillis, so of course I had to tell her the sad news.’ Jack Nym’s eyes flickered towards me for an instant before being hastily lowered. ‘Anyway, Mistress Juett asked me to tell you that she wants to come home, and she wondered, if she were to make the journey, could you possibly take her and young Nicholas under your roof for a while, just until she gets settled in. I have to go that way again in two or three months’ time. I could give her your answer then, and maybe bring her back with me if you’re agreeable.’

My mother-in-law handed me the letter. ‘You read it, Roger. You know I’ve no book learning to speak of.’

The handwriting was almost illegible, and the message would have made very little sense without the carter’s explanation. And when I had deciphered it, it added nothing to what we had already been told. Margaret thanked Jack Nym profusely for his time and trouble on her cousin’s behalf, and insisted that he accept part of a newly baked batch of oatcakes to take home to his wife.

‘Well, don’t forget to tell me if you want this cousin of yours fetched from Hereford when next I’m up that way,’ the grateful carter said as he departed, carefully depositing the oatcakes, wrapped in a clean cloth, on the floor of his now empty wagon.

Margaret thanked him a second time, closed the door and returned to her combing, a thoughtful expression on her face. I rescued Elizabeth, who was trying to scale the mound of logs piled up in one corner of the room, and sat down once more by the fire, ignoring her wails of protest.

‘Will you have your cousin here?’ I asked at last, when the silence became oppressive. ‘There isn’t much room.’

‘Enough,’ my mother-in-law replied serenely. ‘Adela and I can share the top half of the bed and the children can sleep at the foot. You’ll have your mattress, as you always do, in this part of the room, with the curtain drawn between us. It will answer for a month or two, at least, and it will be a treat for Bess to have another child to play with, especially one so close to her in age.’ She began winding some of the combed wool around her spindle, a reminiscent smile hovering at the corners of her mouth. ‘Adela is the daughter of one of my father’s cousins. A very pretty girl, if I remember rightly, who grew into an even prettier woman. There were plenty of young men hereabouts who would have been happy to marry her if she would only have had them.’

Margaret spoke so nonchalantly that the hairs started to rise on the nape of my neck, like those of an animal scenting danger. I knew my mother-in-law’s desire for me to marry again, recollected her attempts at matchmaking during the past year or two, and decided there and then that long before Jack Nym set out again for Hereford, I would be off on my travels.

It wasn’t that I didn’t want to take another wife, but I wished it to be in my own time and of my own choosing. Besides, although my mother-in-law did not know it, I already had a lady in my eye. She was a certain Rowena Honeyman who lived with her aunt in the town of Frome, and whom I had met during the past summer in circumstances which I was not, as yet, prepared to divulge to Margaret, who was bound to disapprove of them. In any case, I had no idea what Rowena’s feelings were towards me, and until I did, silence was golden. Our acquaintance had been brief and difficult, confined to a few days in early September, and we had not seen each other since. But I thought of her often.

I realized that Margaret was speaking, and was forced to beg her pardon.

‘I’m sorry, Mother, my mind was elsewhere. What were you saying?’

She gave me a sidelong glance and cleared her throat, starting to spin.

‘I said I thought it was a long time for poor Adela to have to wait for Jack Nym. Two or three months he reckoned, before he gets sent that way again.’ Margaret was suddenly very intent on her work, avoiding my eyes. ‘I thought that perhaps if you went to fetch her as soon as the Christmas season is over, she and her little boy could be settled in here well before the end of January.’

There was a protracted silence, while Elizabeth escaped my slackened grasp and crawled away, unchecked, to pursue her investigation of the logs.

At last I answered coldly, ‘You have begged me, after what happened last year, never to go more than a mile or so beyond the city gates in wintertime. But now you’re asking me to travel to Hereford. And what about your cousin and her son? Do you think it will be better for them to walk so many weary miles in the coldest part of the year, rather than ride the whole way with Jack Nym in the spring?’

There was another silence while I waited with interest to discover how my mother-in-law would deal with this eminently reasonable argument. I knew exactly what was in her mind; that this Adela Juett and I would be forced into each other’s company for ten or twelve days, in circumstances that could not help but forge some sort of bond between us. I watched, in grim amusement, the various expressions which flitted across her face as she struggled to find an answer, and smiled at her obvious vexation as she came reluctantly to the conclusion that there was none. But Margaret Walker was not a woman to be worsted when she had set her heart on something. She stopped spinning, raised her head, chin jutting belligerently, and looked across at me.

‘I want my cousin and her son here, under my roof, as soon as possible. I should have thought, after all I’ve done for you, that it would be a small repayment for you to oblige me in this.’

I returned her stare, as nonplussed as she had been a moment or two earlier. I was caught, and I could tell by her triumphant smile that she knew it. She had never before reminded me of all that I owed her, looking after Elizabeth for the past two years while I went my carefree, irresponsible way. She wasn’t going to pretend that what she was asking me to do had any rhyme or reason to it, except of course to herself. She was simply calling upon me to pay my account. Not to do so would be worse than churlish.

‘Well?’ she demanded, raising her eyebrows.

I glared back at her, but then my anger evaporated. I had no real objection to being on the road, for I was already growing restless, and I reflected that there was no way in which she could make me fall in love, or even contract a marriage of convenience with her cousin. She had no idea that I was already armoured against such a possibility, bewitched by a pair of periwinkle-blue eyes and hair the colour of ripe corn. And who was to say that Adela Juett would wish to have me for a husband even if I were to offer for her?

‘If that’s what you want, Mother,’ I answered pleasantly, ‘of course I’ll oblige you.’ I saw her expression sharpen from triumph to suspicion. ‘I’ll set out as soon as Christmas is over.’

* * *

The mystery in which I was to become embroiled during the next few months, unlike some of my previous adventures, had no connection with the greater happenings unfolding in the country at large; but I was to become a spectator of these events simply because I chanced to be in certain places at particular times. The first occasion was at Tewkesbury sometime around the middle of January, 1477.

I had set out from Bristol as soon as Christmas was done, arriving in Hereford just over a week later and making my way to the inn where Adela Juett lived and worked. Once my mission was explained, she seemed perfectly willing to accompany me, shrugging off the hardships which a walk of so many miles would entail, especially with a young child to fend for.

‘We can take it in turns to carry him,’ she said. ‘I’m strong and used to his weight. Don’t think that I shall expect you to be the only packhorse. And no doubt we shall be offered a ride by any carters we happen to meet on the road.’

She was as good as her word, shouldering the burden of young Nicholas as often as I would allow, and coming close to losing her temper on several occasions when I refused to let her take him from me. Whenever we heard the rumble of a cart in the distance, she would urge me into the middle of the track where we could clearly be seen by the driver; and Hereford had hardly been left behind before we were perched somewhat uncomfortably on top of a wagonload of turnips, the first of many similar journeys. The boy’s presence also ensured us shelter at any cottage along our route where there was no nearby inn or ale-house to offer accommodation, and some of the goodwives were reluctant to accept recompense for their trouble.

Nicholas Juett was a sweet, sunny-natured child with an endearing smile and the huge, velvety-brown eyes of his mother. He also had Adela’s dark wavy hair and soft red lips, which made him the immediate target of almost every female who encountered him; but he suffered the shower of kisses rained upon him with a commendable lack of grievance. In this he again resembled Adela, for she spoke little and never complained; and on an afternoon of lowering skies and gathering cloud, when a light flurry of snow had already presaged the threat of colder weather, we had been on foot for several long and wearisome miles, but still she remained resolutely cheerful.

It was getting dark as we approached Tewkesbury. For the past half-hour, I had been aware of more traffic on the road than might normally have been expected at that season of the year, both coming from and going towards the town. There were a surprising number of men-at-arms, and amongst the badges which had caught my eye were the Black Bull of Clarence, the White Boar and Red Bull of my lord of Gloucester, the Gold Lion of the King’s brother-in-law, the Duke of Suffolk, and the White Rose and Sun in Splendour of King Edward himself. Something was afoot in Tewkesbury and curiosity drove me forward, quickening my step in spite of the weight of young Nicholas Juett, who lay sound asleep in my arms.

‘Make for the nearest inn,’ I advised my companion. ‘We’re all tired and need rest.’

It had been my original intention to seek shelter in one of the guest-halls of the Abbey, but the town was so crowded that I doubted if the monks would be able to accommodate us. But neither could the first two hostelries at which we applied. I was beginning to feel worried when a hand clapped me on the shoulder.

‘Well, fancy seeing you here, Chapman,’ said Timothy Plummer.