11 - The Lammas Feast (14 page)

‘Damn you!’ I roared. ‘Go away!’ He poked the branch with his nose, indicating that I should throw it a second time. I tried reasoning with him. ‘Look,’ I said, ‘if my children clap eyes on you, there will be no parting with you. Be sensible. You don’t want an already overcrowded home with a poor man who can’t feed you properly and a baby who’ll keep you awake at nights, now do you?’ He wagged his tail even more furiously and started barking again. With a sigh, I decided to ignore him, and continued on my way.

As I reached the top of Saint Michael’s Hill, I could hear the bell ringing for Vespers. I quickened my step, but even so, by the time I reached the nunnery, the peals had stopped and the door to the Magdalen nuns’ chapel was shut. The sisters and their guests were already inside.

I paused in the lee of Saint Michael’s Church, on the opposite side of the road, to get my breath and compose myself for the service. I also eased the pack from my back and held it by its shoulder straps, ready to be left in the chapel porch. As I did so, a man passed me, travelling downhill at a steady pace, and, with a jolt of recognition, I realized that it was the stranger. Somewhere up on the heights, I had taken a shorter route and managed to get in front of him.

I was about to give a shout, when, suddenly, two other men appeared ahead of him. They had emerged from an alley that ran at right angles to the main path, between the south side of the church and a cluster of cottages just below it. These men I also recognized: they were the bravos with whom I had had the altercation on Monday, and whom I had later seen skulking in Saint Mary le Port Street. They were the men Richard Manifold had refused to consider as potential murderers, but whose present intentions were clearly malevolent.

Before I could raise my voice in warning, they had jumped on the stranger and wrestled him to the ground. One gave him a vicious kick in the ribs as he lay there, while the other knelt on his chest, half throttling him. I dropped my pack where I stood, took a firmer grip on the stout stick I used both for walking and protection, and launched myself at the unsavoury pair with a blood-curdling yell.

It had the effect of momentarily distracting them, which, together with the element of surprise, gave me a brief advantage. I swung my stick and hit the bigger man on the side of the head, making him stagger. I then rammed the free end of the cudgel into the chest of the man kneeling on the ground, sending him sprawling backwards, cracking his head on a loose stone as he did so. I dropped to one knee beside the stranger and tried to rouse him, but he had been knocked unconscious by a blow to the jaw, and was also bleeding from a nasty-looking contusion on his forehead. In that first minute, his attackers had managed to inflict a great deal of damage.

Presuming that they were common footpads, I expected them to make off once they had recovered sufficiently from the injuries I had dealt them. Instead, with a roar to equal my own, they both came back at me, fists flailing, and in one man’s hand I could see the glint of a knife blade. I realized that they had no intention of abandoning their prey and that, with two of them to tackle, I could be in serious trouble.

My one advantage was my stick and, by swinging it in a sweeping arc from side to side, I could hold them at a distance. But my back was exposed, and out of the corner of one eye, I could see that the man with the knife was dodging out of range, ready to move in behind me. I took a few tentative backward steps towards the hedge that surrounded Saint Michael’s churchyard, but common sense told me I should never reach it in time, and that even if I did, it was neither rigid nor solid enough to support my weight.

I lunged suddenly, caught the man in front of me such a vicious swipe across his upper right arm that it was rendered temporarily useless, and swung round to confront my second assailant. At the same moment, a small brown dog streaked out of the shadows, sprang at the man, buried its teeth in his wrist and hung on in spite of every effort by his victim to shake him loose. The knife fell to the ground.

‘Hold on, Hercules,’ I encouraged him. He gave an answering, enthusiastic growl.

The first man was coming for me again, prepared to batter me with his sound left arm until the right recovered. But cottage doors were now opening, and cautious heads peered out to discover what was going on. At the same moment, the congregations of both Saint Michael’s Church and the Magdalen Nunnery emerged, indignant at having their worship disturbed. Emboldened, the cottagers, too, began to gather round. The two bravos decided it was time to leave. With a last desperate effort, the second man prised his wrist free of the little dog’s teeth, then he and his companion took to their heels, careering down the hill as fast as they could go, my valiant canine friend still yapping at their heels.

‘
R
oger!’ It was Adela’s voice and I jumped guiltily. She sounded resigned. ‘I might have known you’d be mixed up in this brawl somewhere.’

‘I can explain,’ I said, but postponed the explanation until later. I turned instead to her companions and addressed the Mother Superior. ‘Mother, this man is badly injured and needs attention.’

‘Is he breathing?’ asked the thin, brown-eyed sister standing next to her, and whom I recognized as Marion Baldock. She peered closely at the still figure on the ground. ‘Who is it? Do you know?’

Cicely Ford had already guessed. ‘Is it the man you’ve been looking for, Roger? The Breton?’ I nodded. ‘Were the men who attacked him footpads?’

I nodded again, and there was the usual muttering amongst the, by now, quite considerable crowd gathered at the scene concerning the general lack of safety on the roads and how the government really ought to do something about it. I turned once more to the Mother Superior and spoke with some urgency.

‘We must get this man under shelter and attend to his wounds. Can we carry him into the nunnery?’

‘Take him to my cottage,’ Cicely Ford said decisively. ‘
I
can nurse him. The sisters have enough to do, and the nunnery is small. He can have my bed and I’ll sleep on the floor.’

I protested at this unnecessary act of sacrifice. So did Marion Baldock, but she was the only one of the nuns to do so. The others, including the Mother Superior, seemed relieved at the suggestion. A man in their cramped quarters was not something that they relished. Consequently, the priest from Saint Michael’s and I carried the stranger, as gently as we could, to Cicely Ford’s cottage and laid him on her bed. The rest of the nuns and Adela crowded in after us to see if there was anything they could do, but Cicely had already filled a bowl with water and was competently bathing the injured man’s head. The people outside began to disperse, and the congregation of Saint Michael’s returned to their interrupted service.

‘I’ll go for a physician,’ I offered. ‘There’s one in Bell Lane. If he’s at home, I’ll send him straight up here. For my own part, I must seek out Richard Manifold.’

‘Yes, do that, if you please, Roger.’ Cicely covered her patient with a rough woollen blanket. ‘But perhaps you’d help me pull off his boots before you go.’ She then persuaded the nuns, the lay sisters and their guests to go back to the chapel and continue with Vespers, which, with only a token show of resistance, they were more than willing to do. In seconds, the cottage had cleared. Only Adela and Marion Baldock lingered.

‘I’ll go with
you,
Roger,’ Adela said, and I knew from her tone of voice that it was pointless arguing with her. She was determined to find out what had happened and how I had come to be involved.

Marion Baldock was equally adamant. ‘You’ll need help,’ she said, touching Cicely on the shoulder. ‘In my past life, I’ve had experience of nursing wounded men. I’ll get Mother Superior’s permission to remain here tonight.’

I could see that Cicely was none too pleased by this high-handed interference, but the elder Baldock sister was a forceful woman, not one to be easily dissuaded from anything she had set her mind to.

‘I’ll be off,’ I murmured and ushered Adela out of the cottage.

I retrieved my stick and pack from where I had dropped them on the opposite side of the road, and, with my free arm about Adela’s waist, started downhill towards the Frome Gate. As we walked, I gave my wife a brief outline of the afternoon’s events.

‘So now you see why I must make contact with Richard,’ I concluded. ‘If our friend really is a spy for Henry Tudor––’

‘Which has not yet been conclusively proved,’ Adela cut in.

‘True,’ I agreed. ‘But that’s why Richard must question him as soon as he recovers consciousness. And if it is the case, the sheriff must be informed about possible sedition amongst the dean and canons of Westbury College.’

But I had no need to seek out Richard Manifold. With Jack Gload and Peter Littleman in tow, he was emerging from the archway of the Frome Gate as we approached it, and was obviously in a blazing temper.

‘You!’ he shouted as soon as he saw me. ‘You! Roger Chapman!’ He stumped towards me, shaking his fist, something I found fascinating, as I had never actually seen anyone do such a thing before. ‘What do you mean by beating up two of the King’s men and interfering with them in the course of their duty?’

‘K–King’s men?’ I stuttered. ‘Do–do you seriously mean to tell me that that pair of roughnecks are
King’s men
?’

‘They’re not roughnecks!’ Richard was incensed. ‘They’re two of the King’s bodyguard, the very best, who’ve come from London to assist us to lay this Breton spy by the heels. And they damn well nearly had him!’ The sergeant’s voice rose almost to a scream. ‘He’d be under lock and key by now, if you hadn’t poked your nose into what doesn’t concern you, yet again!’

I thought he was going to have an apoplexy. His face was suffused with blood and his fists were clenching and unclenching at his sides as though he didn’t know how to keep his hands off me. Without being aware of it, he was hopping up and down like a demented flea. I could barely stop myself from bursting out laughing, and I heard Adela give a suppressed kind of snort.

‘I–I’m sorry,’ I quavered uncertainly. ‘But you should have told me who these men were from the very beginning, when I first brought them to your notice. You had your chance, Richard. You shouldn’t have been so secretive. Are – um – are they badly hurt?’

‘Badly enough.’ He calmed down a little. ‘To make matters worse, some wretched stray cur took a nasty bite out of one of their legs.’

Hercules! It was too much, the final straw! I doubled up with laughter. Adela regarded me with consternation, while Richard Manifold looked as if he might explode at any minute. Then, fortunately, he too began to see the funny side of things. Who doesn’t like to see a couple of arrogant bastards brought low? He made a choking noise and coughed violently before asking in a more reasonable tone of voice, ‘Do you know what’s happened to the Breton? Where he is now?’

I told him the tale. ‘But he was still unconscious when I left him, and showed no sign of a swift recovery. Your King’s men were a bit too thorough.’

Richard cursed them, angry and indignant.

‘Fools! Why did they have to be so rough? They could have jumped him without inflicting so much damage. They were two to one, after all.’

I refrained from repeating that, King’s men though they might be, the two bravos were a couple of loutish oafs, and instead volunteered the information that I was on my way to the physician in Bell Lane. ‘If he’s there, I’ll send him up to Mistress Ford’s cottage. Where are our heroes now?’

‘Castle garrison’s barracks. Outer ward. One of the medical orderlies is attending to their hurts. I’ll be off to Saint Michael’s Hill, then. If the spy can be shifted, we’ll bring him down to the Bridewell. If not, he’ll have to remain where he is until he’s better.’

The sergeant and his men were about to move off, when I gripped Richard’s arm. ‘Incidentally,’ I said, ‘I have witnesses to prove that he’s not Jasper’s murderer. He was at Westbury College when Fairbrother was killed. I’ll tell you all about it later.’

Richard didn’t seem too put out by my news. Indeed, his good humour was in a fair way to being restored.

‘The College, eh? That’s interesting. Very interesting. When this little bird has finished singing, we’ll have a list of all the Lancastrian sympathizers in the district.’ He grinned, showing a broken front tooth. ‘That should make our trio from London happy.’ He saw my look of puzzlement and added, ‘There’s a third King’s man arrived hotfoot from the capital this morning. Senior to that pair of bunglers we’ve got already. None too pleased at the hash they’ve made of things, either. But he’ll be delighted to know that the spy is now in custody.’ It was plain that Richard was going to take the credit for everything, but I didn’t begrudge him that. ‘By the way,’ he threw over his shoulder as, finally, he and his lieutenants began to move away in the direction of Lewin’s Mead, ‘this fellow says he knows you. Name of Timothy Plummer.’

Luckily, the physician was at home, although loath to quit the city so close to curfew. After much grumbling, however, he agreed to visit the wounded man, on condition that any expenses he incurred by having to find a night’s lodgings outside the walls were met by someone other than himself. I told him to present his bill to the sheriff, which seemed to satisfy him.

I should have liked to go to the castle there and then in order to renew my acquaintance with Timothy Plummer and find out why he now appeared to be in the King’s service and not in that of the Duke of Gloucester. But Adela and I could not afford to be trapped inside the town by the curfew bell, leaving Adam unfed and Margaret to cope on her own with all three children, so I reluctantly postponed my visit until the following day. We retraced our steps to the Frome Bridge and had crossed to the gatehouse, when a small brown mongrel, who had been skulking beneath the arch, erupted from its shadow, barking joyously and nipping at my and Adela’s ankles.

‘God’s toenails! Hercules!’ I exclaimed, not knowing whether to laugh or be sorry.

I stooped and scooped him into my arms, where he proceeded to lick my face all over, whimpering with happiness.