Wheel of Fate

TWO

I picked up Elizabeth — no mean feat for she took after me in both colouring and physique and was nothing like her dark, delicate, small-boned mother — and stepped into the cottage.

‘Where’s Adela?’ I demanded, wasting no time on pleasantries.

But it was a question not destined to be answered immediately. For a start, Hercules’s thirst would no longer be denied and he began barking on a high, shrill, begging note, pawing the ground and refusing to let up until his need was attended to. He had been very patient, but enough was enough.

‘He’s thirsty,’ I said in reply to Margaret Walker’s impatient glance, and Elizabeth, her sobs turning to giggles, wriggled to the ground, found an old bowl of her grandmother’s and filled it from the water barrel. Hercules fell on it, slopping water in all directions and noisily drinking his fill.

‘Where’s-?’ I began again, but was not allowed to finish.

‘It’s gone ten o’clock. It’s dinner time,’ Margaret announced, moving towards the fire over which hung an iron pot full of what smelled like rabbit stew. ‘Bess, my sweetheart, put out the spoons and bowls. I daresay your father will be eating with us. I’ve never known him when he isn’t hungry.’ She added with some asperity, ‘As for you, Roger, just make yourself useful and move that basket of wool out of the way and pull the table clear of the wall.’

‘Where. .?’ I tried for the third time, keeping a grip on my temper.

But Margaret had turned her back and was busily stirring the stew, and I knew her sufficiently well to realize that repeated questioning would only lead to further delay. She would answer me in her own good time and not before, so I turned my attention to moving the basket of unbleached wool that stood beside her spinning wheel and shifting the table so that it could accommodate three instead of two. Elizabeth, meanwhile, was running between it and the cupboard with bowls and knives and spoons, touching me every so often to reassure herself that I really had returned and stooping occasionally to pat Hercules on the head. (He, of course, having slaked his thirst, had smelled the stew and was busy ingratiating himself with the cook by rubbing himself against Margaret’s legs.) Finally, I drew up two stools to the table, fetched Margaret’s low-backed sewing chair from its corner and sat down to wait, containing my impatience as best I could.

Margaret brought the pot to the table and began ladling out the hot, delicious-smelling broth. I realized suddenly how hungry I was, tore a crust from the loaf and fell to with a will. My daughter filled another bowl for Hercules and for a moment or two there was no sound but the chomping of our jaws.

‘You’ve heard the news, I suppose?’ Margaret asked eventually, and I nodded, my mouth too full to speak. ‘Well,’ she continued, ‘I daresay we shall survive and things will settle down just so long as the queen’s family don’t make too much trouble. But His Grace of Gloucester will no doubt keep them in check.’

‘He’ll have to be quick, then,’ I mumbled, trying to clear my mouth. ‘He’s up north, in Yorkshire, and according to the Town Crier, the Woodvilles are already making their move. But for God’s sake, Mother — ’ she still liked me to call her that even though Lillis had been dead for more than eight years — ‘enough of that. Where are Adela and the boys? And why have they gone?’

Margaret laid down her spoon. ‘As to where they are,’ she said, ‘they’re in London, with the Godsloves. I’ve had one letter from Adela since they left, brought to me by Jack Nym, to say that they arrived quite safely — Jack took them in his cart, along with one of his loads — and that they were made very welcome.’

‘London?’ So my neighbour had been right. ‘And who in the name of Jesus are the Godsloves? I’ve never heard of them.’

Margaret answered placidly, ‘They’re relatives of mine and Adela’s on my father’s side. Adela, if you recollect, was a Woodward before she married Owen Juett. She used to visit the Godsloves as a child, before they moved to London. I visited them, myself, although not frequently. They lived near Keynsham Abbey, a whole great tribe of them. It would seem — surprisingly, I must admit — that Adela has kept up a correspondence with them over the years, first while she was married to Owen and also after she married you. Not a very regular correspondence, I imagine, or you would have known about it.’

‘Did you know? And why wouldn’t she mention the letters to me?’

‘I suppose because she didn’t think you would be interested. There’s no reason why you should be. She wasn’t very interested in the family, herself. She did give me news of them from time to time, but it was dull stuff. When you haven’t seen people for years and years, you’ve nothing in common with them, and more often than not you’re reduced to talking about the weather.’

‘Then why did she go on writing to them?’ I demanded, upset to discover that my wife, who, I believed, had no secrets from me — I had secrets from her, of course, but that was different — had been writing to people I had never heard of. ‘And why did she never show me the letters?’

Margaret sighed. ‘I’ve told you why. They were dull, uninteresting and you didn’t know the people concerned. I daresay if you’d ever been present when she received a letter, she would have told you who it was from. But you are so often away from home that I suppose, by chance, that never happened. As to why she’s kept in touch with them, I can only guess that she feels lonely. I’m her sole kinswoman apart from the Godsloves, and I know Owen Juett had no family. He was the only child of only children. Adela, I suspect, is a woman who likes to belong. Anyway,’ she added, a steely note creeping into her voice, ‘the Godsloves have proved their worth. They have obviously taken her in and provided her with a home while she decides what to do.’

‘Do about what?’ I demanded aggressively. At last we were getting to the crux of the matter. ‘Why does Adela need a home apart from the one she shares with me? Why has she gone?’

Margaret’s lips set in a thin, straight line. ‘Does the name Juliette Gerrish mean anything to you?’

My stomach gave a nasty lurch. ‘J-Juliette Gerrish?’ I repeated, and even to my own ears my voice came out far too high-pitched and loud.

My companion nodded. ‘Yes, I can tell that it does.’

‘I–I’ve met her,’ I conceded, ‘in the course of my investigation into the death of Isabella Linkinhorne for Alderman Foster. Why? What has she to do with the matter?’

‘She came here some weeks back, not long after you’d gone on your travels again, looking for you. She had a child with her. She said it was yours.’

‘She told me she couldn’t have children,’ I gasped, then could have bitten out my tongue.

‘So!’ Margaret uttered sourly. ‘There was something between you. I told Adela that she was probably lying, but this Mistress Gerrish obviously knew enough about you to convince your wife.’

I was aghast. ‘It was only once,’ I pleaded frantically. ‘And besides-’

‘Besides what?’ was the uncompromising reply.

‘Besides,’ I repeated, my mind racing frantically. Then I remembered something my neighbour had said about a woman carrying a baby. ‘How old was this child?’ I asked.

Margaret Walker shrugged. ‘According to Adela four months or thereabouts.’

I gasped again, but this time with relief. ‘Then it can’t possibly be mine,’ I said. ‘It’s two years ago that I was in Gloucester and made that bitch’s acquaintance.’

I had always, until now, thought of Mistress Gerrish with a certain nostalgic affection, but no longer. She had to know — no one better — that it wasn’t my baby, so what had been her purpose in coming to Bristol to find me? The answer could only be a desire to create mischief. Or, alternatively — and this explanation was a little more flattering to my ego — she had suddenly found herself, against all belief and expectation, the mother of a child and had decided that, of all her male acquaintance, I was the man she would most like to be its father. If that were so, perhaps I should feel proud that I had made such an impression on her during our brief night’s pleasure, but the emotion uppermost in my breast was anger.

After a moment or two, however, my anger veered in another direction. ‘What in God’s name was Adela thinking of,’ I burst out, ‘to give credence to that harpy’s tale? To believe it enough to take my sons and run away without even waiting to hear my side of the story?’ I jumped up from my stool and began pacing furiously around the floor. ‘And she knew. .’ I turned on Margaret, pausing only to thump the table so that the bowls and spoons rattled and jumped. ‘She knew that all last year I was in the company of my lord of Albany and Duke Richard, in Scotland!’

‘All the year?’ Margaret queried, regarding me straitly. ‘You took a mighty long time coming home from Scotland, my lad. The Scottish war was over by the end of August — at least, that was my information — and we didn’t see hide nor hair of you until nearly Christmas. For all Adela knew, you might have visited Gloucester on your way back and spent the autumn with Mistress Gerrish.’

I stopped my pacing and stared at her, appalled.

‘Adela couldn’t have thought that, surely?’

‘Why not?’ Margaret looked down her nose. ‘On your own admission, two years ago you did have a liaison with this woman.’

‘It wasn’t a liaison,’ I shouted. ‘One night, that was all! And it was a mistake.’

‘Men always say that when they’re found out,’ Margaret sneered, then looked quickly at Elizabeth, who was regarding us both with a round-eyed interest tinged with uneasiness as she tried to follow a conversation that was, for the present, beyond her understanding. ‘Well, that’s as maybe,’ she went on, ‘but it might help matters if you could tell Adela where you were during autumn of last year.’

‘I told you both where I was. Making my way home from Scotland. Once the army had been officially disbanded, it was every man for himself. And my usefulness had finished once Albany had been left behind at his brother’s court. Scotland, I might remind you, Mother, is a very long way away.’

Margaret raised her eyebrows and chewed thoughtfully on a piece of meat which she had just prised loose from one of her teeth. ‘Of course, if you won’t say where you were. . Adela and I did wonder where you got those smart new clothes that you brought back with you. Not off any market stall, that’s plain. Good material, and a hat with a jewelled pin.’

‘The “jewels” are glass,’ I protested, but she ignored me.

‘So when this Mistress Gerrish turned up, neither she nor the child exactly dressed in rags, Adela did wonder. .’ Margaret broke off, shrugging.

‘If she gave them to me?’ I demanded, horrified.

‘Why not? Women have been known to reward their lo-’ She again glanced towards my daughter. ‘Men who please them,’ she finished lamely.

‘Dear, sweet virgin!’ I exclaimed, flopping down on my stool and burying my face in my hands. ‘A nice little tale you’ve concocted between the pair of you! I swear I’ve been nowhere near Gloucester for the past two years, nor so much as set eyes on Juliette Gerrish. If you must know, and I don’t suppose it will matter if I tell you now, I was in France on a mission for Duke Richard. But mind you, Margaret,’ I continued, lowering my hands and looking directly at her, ‘I don’t want that information passed on to Maria Watkins or Bess Simnel or any other of your little band of gossips.’ Margaret started to protest, but I cut her short. ‘And don’t think I’m going to tell you what that mission was about, because I’m not. I’ve only told you as much as I have so that you can see I was out of harm’s way.’

Out of harm’s way! The words mocked me even as I uttered them. I might be able to prove my innocence as far as Mistress Gerrish was concerned, but what about Eloise Grey? I shuddered inwardly. Was she, too, going to turn up on my doorstep some time in the future, threatening me with my past misdemeanours?

My erstwhile mother-in-law heaved a sigh of relief.

‘Well, it’s no good telling me all this,’ she said briskly, rising from her chair and beginning to clear the table. ‘Not that I’m not relieved to hear it, but Adela’s the one you want to tell. And if I were you,’ she added, much to my surprise, ‘just tell her what she needs to know and no more. You met Mistress Gerrish two years back while enquiring into the disappearance of Isabella Linkinhorne and that’s all. The woman plainly has a vicious streak in her, trying to break up your marriage and saddle you with a baby that isn’t yours, but she hasn’t been back since Adela sent her away with a flea in her ear. Oh yes! She didn’t for one moment let the woman know she believed a single word of her story, and I think that at the time she probably didn’t. It was only afterwards, brooding on things, lonely and unhappy, that she began to think the tale might have some substance to it. In the end, she convinced herself of its truth and felt she must go away. I did try to persuade her to wait until you returned and hear what you had to say, but by that time there was no reasoning with her. She got Jack Nym to take her and the boys to London when he took up a load of withy slats and baskets, and went to the Godsloves while she thought things out. That was about three weeks ago, at the end of March. So!’ She addressed me, arms akimbo. ‘What do you intend doing about it?’

I accepted Margaret’s account of events at their face value, but it did cross my mind to wonder how hard she had tried to dissuade Adela from leaving. She was fond of me, but had never quite trusted me. She could never bring herself to believe that it was Lillis who had seduced me and not the other way around.

‘Do?’ I said in answer to her question. ‘I’m going to London, of course, to persuade her to come home. And I’ll take your advice,’ I added, ‘about not telling everything. I’ll go right away and speak to Jack. With luck, he might be carting another consignment of goods that way fairly soon. If not, I’ll start walking and hope to come across other carters who’ll give me a ride.’

‘You’re not going away again, Father?’ Elizabeth clutched at my sleeve with an imploring hand.

I stooped and kissed her. ‘Don’t worry, sweetheart. I’m taking you with me. And Hercules.’

‘You’ll not be dragging that child all the way to London!’ Margaret protested. ‘That dog can go with you and welcome, but not a child of her tender years.’

My daughter bounced off her stool and flung her arms around my neck. ‘Oh yes! Oh please do take me, Father! I’ve never seen London, and it isn’t fair that the boys should see it and me not. I don’t mind walking if we have to, and I shall have Hercules.’

Hearing his name, the sagacious hound, stretched out beside the fire, gave a perfunctory thump of his tail, but was too replete with rabbit stew to do more.

‘I’m taking Elizabeth,’ I stated firmly and received another hug for my pains.

Margaret looked as though she would protest again, then hesitated, thinking things over, before nodding briskly.

‘You may be right,’ she conceded. ‘Nicholas will be delighted to see her.’ She did not add that the doubtless ecstatic reunion of stepbrother and — sister would be bound to disarm Adela and perhaps smooth my path to a reconciliation, but I guessed it was what she was thinking. I was thinking it myself.

‘I’ll pay Jack Nym a visit straight away,’ I said. ‘If I can find him.’

My luck was in. Jack was outside his cottage, loading his cart with bales of Bristol red cloth, a speciality of the city and sold all over the country. Without even bothering to greet him, I asked where this lot was going.

‘London,’ was the blessed answer, and I had to restrain myself from seizing his dirty face between my hands and kissing him. He tilted his head to look up at me. ‘Why? You wanting a ride to London, then, Roger?’ He gave a knowing chuckle. ‘I took your wife and sons up there a few weeks back. You been a bad lad? I did hear a rumour. A woman, is it?’ He regarded me enviously.

‘It’s all a mistake,’ I said. ‘A misunderstanding.’

He grinned disbelievingly. ‘It wouldn’t be a mistake if I got the chance, I can tell you. All right! All right! I’ll take your word for it. So you’re going after her, eh? Well, I don’t know as I blame you. A handsome piece, that lady of yours. If it were my Goody, now, it’d be a different matter. Anyway, I’m off first light tomorrow morning. Be round here promptly at daybreak. I received an urgent message by old Hugo Doyle, who got back from London yesterday afternoon, that the mayor and aldermen want this stuff as soon as possible for the new king’s coronation. Word is, apparently, that the queen — Queen Dowager I suppose I should call her now — and her family have fixed the date for May Day.’

‘They can’t do that!’ I exclaimed, horrified. ‘I doubt the Duke of Gloucester will even have reached the capital by then.’

‘Why? Where is he?’

‘Hundreds of miles away, in Yorkshire.’

Jack grimaced. ‘Shit! So he couldn’t have been there when the old king died.’ He eyed me suspiciously. ‘How do you know all this?’ When I had explained, he grimaced again. ‘Reckon there’s going to be trouble, Roger?’

I shrugged. ‘Could be! But how would I know?’

But I did know. Well, I knew something, that was my problem. I knew why Duke Richard had sent me to Paris in the autumn of the previous year, so, unlike most people, I also knew some of the thoughts that must be going through his mind at the present moment. Naturally, I didn’t mention this to Jack, but I told him what else I had learned from the town crier.

He was as uneasy at the news as I had been.

‘The Woodvilles are taking the crown treasure from the Tower? Can they do that?’

‘I don’t rightly know who could stop them,’ I answered. ‘If the young king can be conveyed from Ludlow to London before the Duke of Gloucester has a chance to get there, he’ll endorse anything his mother and Woodville uncles tell him to.’

Jack chewed a grimy thumbnail. ‘Didn’t the late king name Gloucester as protector?’

I shook my head. ‘I don’t know. No one’s said anything about that. But once the new king’s been crowned and anointed, he won’t need a protector. He can rule in his own right.’

‘You mean the bloody Woodvilles can!’

‘Unfortunately, yes.’

‘Bugger!’

‘I agree, but there’s nothing the likes of us can do about it.’ I clapped him on the shoulder. ‘I’ll see you in the morning then, at sun-up. Oh, I nearly forgot. I’m bringing my daughter and Hercules with me.’

Jack turned a dismayed face towards me. ‘I don’t mind Elizabeth. She’s a good enough little soul, but I’m danged if I’ll have that wretched dog of yours fouling my cart. He’s a menace, he is.’

‘I’ll pay you extra,’ I offered.

‘How much extra?’ he asked warily.

I named a generous price. Jack thought it over and finally, if reluctantly, agreed. ‘But I’m holding you responsible for that hell-hound,’ he snapped.

‘He’ll be as good as gold,’ I assured him with what I trusted was a confident smile.

Jack snorted and turned back to his task. ‘I’ll keep you to that. And don’t forget. I’m leaving first light. If you’re not here, I shan’t wait.’

‘We’ll be here,’ I said.

During the short journey back to Margaret’s cottage, I was accosted by at least three people, including Burl Hodge — who had been none too friendly these past four or so years, ever since Cicely Ford had left me her house — all of whom appeared to be labouring under the impression that I knew more about events at court than I was prepared to say. They all seemed offended by what they regarded as my secrecy and looked sceptical when I said they knew quite as much as I did.

‘All right! If you want to be like that, Roger!’ Burl grunted, and stomped off more out of charity with me than ever.

‘Why does everyone think I’m in Duke Richard’s confidence?’ I demanded angrily as I closed the cottage door behind me with a bang.

‘Well, aren’t you?’ Margaret countered. ‘Twice in the last two years you’ve been hauled off up to London at his behest, once by no less a royal personage than the Earl of Lincoln. And that spy of his, that Timothy Plummer, or whatever his name is, is for ever lurking around in corners. And on top of it all, you were missing from May until nearly Christmastide this past year. How did it happen that you, a common pedlar, became so friendly with a duke, and the king’s brother to boot? That’s what I’d like to know.’

‘There’s no secret about it,’ I answered, sitting down on one of the stools and taking Elizabeth on to my lap. ‘Twelve years ago, on my first visit to London, and not long after I’d left Glastonbury, it just so happened that while I was trying to trace Alderman Weaver’s son, I accidentally stumbled across the hiding-place where the Duke of Clarence had concealed his sister-in-law in order to prevent his brother, Gloucester, from marrying her. Duke Richard was very grateful, as you might imagine, and has made a friend of me ever since. Well, “friend” might be overstating the matter, but he’s always trusted me and has-’

‘Used you to do his dirty work,’ Margaret interrupted, setting her spinning wheel in motion.

I was about to protest at the phrase ‘dirty work’, but my daughter, who had been trying to make herself heard ever since my return, clamped a small, none too clean hand across my mouth and asked, ‘When are we going to London, Father?’

‘We start first thing tomorrow morning, at sun-up,’ I said, removing her hand. ‘Carter Nym has to take a load of red cloth urgently to the mayor and corporation, ready for making up into new robes for the young king’s coronation. So he’s agreed we can ride along with him.’

‘At a price, I’ll be bound,’ Margaret commented drily, but her voice was partially lost in Elizabeth’s shouts of joy.

‘And Hercules?’ she demanded.

‘And Hercules, on condition we keep him strictly under control. Jack’s none too keen on dogs.’

‘And who can blame him?’ Margaret muttered. She added, ‘You’d better check that the child has everything here she needs for the journey. Her things are in that box under the bed.’

I shook my head. ‘No need to check. All the clothes chests at home were empty, bar mine, and my stuff I’ve brought with me.’ I nodded towards the canvas sack which I had dropped in a corner, alongside my cudgel. ‘I’ll put Bess’s in with mine, later on. As for tonight, Hercules and I can sleep on that pile of brushwood over there and be quite comfortable.’

‘I daresay,’ Margaret snorted. ‘If you don’t mind, I don’t, though it’s probably full of fleas. That dog of yours can add a few more.’

Hercules grunted and snuffled, a stupid grin on his face as he pursued his canine dreams. They were obviously happy ones.

Elizabeth slipped off my lap and went to play with her doll, a one-armed wonder who rejoiced in the name of Christabelle, happy in the knowledge that within a week or perhaps less, she and Nicholas would be reunited. I could only hope that her confidence wasn’t misplaced, and that Adela would not refuse to see me once I had arrived in London. I was relying on the children’s delight at being together again to soften her heart long enough at least for me to explain matters, and to reassure her that I had been nowhere near Gloucester in the past twelve months. I could only trust that she would believe me. It’s an unnerving fact, as I’ve noticed on more than one occasion, how the truth can so often sound like lies.

I got up and helped myself, unbidden, to another beaker of Margaret’s excellent home-brewed ale, before returning to my stool, which I drew nearer to the fire, for the April day had turned chilly, and settling myself as comfortably as I could.

‘So,’ I said, ‘tell me about these Godsloves to whom Adela’s gone. You say they’re a branch of your father’s family, though I’ve never heard you or Adela mention them before. And yet, I do have a very, very faint recollection that Lillis might once have said their name, but in connection with what, I’ve no idea. In any case, even if she did, I took no notice.’

‘That wasn’t unusual,’ Margaret cut in waspishly. ‘You weren’t married long enough for the poor girl to make you mind her.’

I could see that, if I wasn’t careful, we were going to embark on profitless recriminations about my marriage to her daughter, and I resolutely ignored the lead she had given me, steering the conversation back to the subject under discussion. Well, the subject I wanted to discuss.

‘Tell me about the Godsloves,’ I said again. ‘I can’t go to London knowing nothing about them. For a start, whereabouts do they live?’