16 - The Three Kings of Cologne (14 page)

I descended them with even greater care than I had taken going up – Hercules, of course, demonstrated his superior fleetness of foot by leaping the last four treads in a single bound – but having reached the bottom in safety I decided to take a final look around. I have no idea what prompted me to make this decision; perhaps because I felt a little ashamed of the sense of unease that was gripping me. But for whatever reason, I inspected again all the rooms on the lower floor, this time going into each of them in turn.

It was actually Hercules, with his quivering nose and inquisitive eye, who came across the chest, alerting me to its existence by his excited barking. Made of solid iron and banded with copper, it was half-hidden behind a clump of purple loosestrife, not yet in flower, but whose erect stems and hairy leaves had already reached almost their full three feet in height as they pushed their way in profusion through the broken flagstones. And it was the fact that the surrounding flagstones were so fragmented, and that the chest itself lay on its side, that suggested to me the thing had fallen from the chamber above, crashing through the burning floorboards as the fire had taken hold.

Hushing Hercules and kneeling down beside it, I inspected the chest, with its patches of flaking rust, and saw that the lock had burst asunder, confirming my theory that it had indeed fallen from the chamber above. I tried to open it, but it seemed to have rusted fast shut, and all that my attempts got me were raw and blackened fingers. The dog did his best to help, but only succeeded in getting in the way, incurring my wrath. Finally, I did what I should have done in the first place: I fetched my cudgel, which, on entering, I had propped against the outside wall of the house, and gave the lid several hearty blows with its lead-weighted end. Hercules thought this great sport and began barking like a fiend. Between us, we must have made enough noise to have awakened the countryside for some miles around, and to this day I cannot understand why nobody came to see what was going on. But no one did, and eventually the lid of the coffer buckled sufficiently for me to be able to force it open.

I don’t really know what I had expected to find, but two undershifts, a pair of brown leather shoes and a gown of moth-eaten purple wool, embellished with fur around the neck, were a terrible disappointment. Further investigation revealed other female garments, and I came to the inevitable conclusion that the chest had been the property of either Isabella or Amorette Linkinhorne, locked up after either the one had disappeared or the other been found drowned, and probably never opened again.

I stood up slowly, brushing my knees and noticing that there were green stains, both on my jerkin and my hose. Adela would not be pleased. Hercules, as though he understood and sympathized, licked my hand and tentatively wagged his tail. He was looking none too dapper himself (well, he never does, but even less so than usual), his rough coat dirty and the fur seemingly standing on end.

I sighed.

‘You’re right,’ I told him. ‘We’re a scruffy pair and we shall no doubt be in serious trouble when we get home.’ He licked my hand again. ‘I know. Come on, lad, we’d better get on to the village and see if we can find Jack Nym.’

There was no sign of our quarry, but my enquiries elicited the fact that he had already delivered his consignment of soap and sea coal at the manor house and had left.

‘Not these many minutes since,’ the housekeeper informed me. ‘A little bit earlier and you’d have caught him.’

It served me right, I thought, for wasting my time investigating old ruins instead of keeping to the job in hand. I could at least have begged a ride home for Hercules and myself in Jack’s cart, for after the long and arduous climb up from the city we were both flagging somewhat, and the freedom of the open road began to appear a trifle overrated. However, it’s no good being a chapman and balking at a little additional exercise, so I took a resolute grasp on my cudgel and, encouraging Hercules in his pursuit of rabbits, set off back the way we had come.

It was a little way past the great tump that I saw a cart that I knew to be Jack’s pulled into the side of the track, and the man himself emerging from a clump of nearby bushes, adjusting his codpiece as he came. This unwonted coyness was explained by the presence of two young and decidedly pretty girls in the vicinity playing a decorous game of handball, watched with an indulgent eye by their nurse.

Jack saw me almost as soon as I saw him.

‘Roger! What you doing up here, lad?’ Then, lowering his voice, he added confidentially, ‘Call o’ nature.’

I grinned. ‘So I’d surmised. And the reason I’m here is because I’ve come looking for you. Your goody said you were delivering soap and sea coal to the manor, so I came to find you.’

He sent me a shrewd, sly grin. ‘You mean you wanted to get away for a while on your own.’ He waved aside my half-hearted protest. ‘D’you think I don’t know all the tricks and excuses? Anyway, why d’you want to see me? What’s so urgent that it couldn’t have waited until I got home, eh? Tell me that.’

At his invitation, I climbed on to the cart’s box seat, beside him, while Hercules leaped thankfully into the back and settled down. The two girls and their attendant waved happily to us before continuing with their game, and as we trundled downhill, I informed Jack of my need to get to Gloucester and my hope that he might be going in that direction some time soon.

‘Or Bath,’ I added. ‘That would be just as helpful.’

‘Well, make up your mind,’ he grunted. ‘Gloucester and Bath, they ain’t exactly close together. Opposite directions altogether, if it comes to that.’

‘Of course they are!’ I responded irritably. ‘I’m not a fool, Jack! It just so happens I need to visit both places. It’s to do with this business I’m engaged in for Mayor Foster.’

Jack nodded. ‘Now, I’ve been hearing something about that.’ Well, naturally he had. He lived in Redcliffe, not far from my former mother-in-law, and his wife was certainly on speaking terms with Bess Simnel and Maria Watkins. ‘It’s about this body they’ve dug up at the top of Steep Street. It’s that Issybelly what’s-’er-name, ain’t it? His Worship the Mayor wants you to find out who done it. Who killed ’er. Before ’e builds ’is almshouses up there. But why? That’s what I don’ understand.’

‘He also intends erecting a chapel for the inhabitants of the almshouses,’ I explained. ‘So Master Foster understandably wishes the ground to be re-consecrated before he builds anything to the glory of God. A sacred building must stand upon holy ground.’

Jack sniffed. ‘And ’ow will it help, knowing who killed her and sending the poor sod to the gallows after all these years?’

‘Justice will have been done.’

I was half-inclined to agree with my companion. Twenty years is a long time. People change. The guilty man was probably married. He might have a loving family, be a pillar of his community, looked up to, revered. Could any good be served by destroying the life of such a person? I had to remind myself sharply that this was murder we were talking about; the destruction of a fellow human being; the most heinous of all sins.

It was getting on towards late afternoon. The light was beginning to drain from the day and the sky on the horizon was a whitish opalescent glow. Silken shadows inched across the grass and a sharp, salty tang freshened the air, as though to remind us that we had not yet done with winter.

‘I don’ know about justice,’ Jack retorted. ‘P’raps she were askin’ for it.’

‘Who?’ I had momentarily lost the thread of our conversation.

‘’Er! That Issybelly what’s-’er-name. Can’t remember it. Never could. But I remembers ’er all right. A bold piece with a roving eye. The sort who played fast and loose with a man’s affections.’

‘You remember her?’

‘That’s what I said. Why shouldn’t I? I weren’t much more’n a lad at the time, ’tis true, but old enough. She and I were much of an age, I guess. I was a bit the younger in years maybe, but in all other ways, she could o’ been my grandmother. There weren’t no trick known to womankind she didn’t employ, not from the time she were old enough to understand that men and women was different from one another.’

‘When and where did you meet her?’

‘I didn’t meet her, exactly, but I saw her often enough when ’er father and mother brought her to market from Clifton. She were a pretty little thing, even when she were young, and she grew into a beauty. But with a temper and a will of iron. If she’d been mine, I’d’ve whipped some respect and obedience into ’er, but as far as I can remember, neither parent lifted a finger against ’er.’

‘No,’ I agreed. ‘At least that’s the story everybody tells.’

‘Probably true, then. Mostly, folks’ memories don’t agree on nothing.’

‘There’s a rumour,’ I said, ‘that Isabella had an admirer in Bristol. Do you know anything about that?’

Jack shrugged and narrowly avoided another cart, loaded with turnips, making its way up the track from the city.

‘Never saw ’er with anyone particular that I can recall. She turned heads, mind, wherever she went. Strange,’ he mused, pulling on the reins to slow his horse for a sudden steep descent, ‘I’d forgotten all about ’er. It was like she’d never been. But now people are talking about ’er again, I can picture ’er as plain as though I’d just seen ’er yesterday.’ He drew his breath in sharply. ‘And now I comes to think on it … Get out the way, you blithering fools!’ he shouted furiously at a band of travelling musicians, who were progressing jauntily along the middle of the track, playing their latest catchy little tune.

Without even faltering, and without any break in the melody, the five of them formed a single file, but as the cart passed, the man playing the nakers paused long enough to bite his thumb at us in a highly offensive manner.

‘Ignore it,’ I said to Jack, who showed every sign of wanting to alight and have it out with the man. ‘It’s five against two – well, three if you count Hercules – and just at present I don’t fancy the odds. Besides, brawling on the King’s highway could land us in the bridewell. Go on with what you were saying.’

‘And what was that?’ Jack glanced longingly over his shoulder, still hankering for a fight.

‘I asked you if you’d ever seen Isabella Linkinhorne with a particular man. You said no, but then you seemed to recollect something.’

Jack turned back and settled down, keeping his eyes on the track ahead (for which I was truly thankful). ‘Well, you saying that reminded me all of a sudden about an incident I’d dang near forgotten about. I did see ’er once, kissin’ a fellow. In the porch of All Saints Church, it were. And not just kissin’ neither,’ he added darkly. ‘As I recall, there were a fair bit o’ groping going on.’

‘Did you see the man’s face?’ I asked excitedly, but after a moment’s agonized reflection, Jack reluctantly shook his head.

‘Nah! He were in the shadows. Recognized her, but not him. Pity, but there you are! ’Fraid I can’t help you, Chapman. But as luck would have it, I am going to Stowe the day after tomorrow, so you can travel as far as Gloucester with me.’

T
his gave me a free day.

I rejected out of hand Adela’s suggestion – delivered at breakfast as we all came to terms with another sunrise and the prospect of the morning ahead – that I should revert to my usual calling and try selling a few items in the neighbouring streets.

‘I can’t be about my own business while we’re living on Mayor Foster’s bounty,’ I objected. ‘If it came to his ears, he might feel that I was cheating him. But it makes me all the more determined that in the future I shall remain my own man and take money from no one except what I earn by my efforts as a chapman.’

‘We’re like to remain poor folks then,’ my wife retorted, but cheerfully. Passing behind my stool, she stooped and kissed my cheek. ‘But I prefer it that way. I don’t care to be beholden to people either.’

I ignored this lack of faith in my ability as a chapman and, catching her round the waist, pulled her down to return her kiss with interest.

‘Enough of that,’ she reproved me, but giggled like a young girl all the same. ‘What will you do today, then?’ She added in a very wifely spirit, ‘I hope you’re not planning to remain indoors, getting under my feet. I’ve a lot to do.’

After a moment’s reflection, I decided to visit the Magdalen nunnery again. ‘I’ve a fancy to have another word with Sister Walburga. I suppose I could take Hercules with me.’ I glanced enquiringly around the kitchen. ‘Where is he?’

Adela said crisply, ‘There’s a bitch on heat in Bell Lane,’ and seemed to think it sufficient explanation.

Which, of course, it was. Half the dogs in Bristol would be beating a path to the unfortunate creature’s door. I doubted we should see Hercules, except when he was ravenous, for the next few days.

‘Ah, well,’ I said.

‘You can take Adam with you instead,’ my wife decided, ‘in his little cart. It’ll do him good, and Nick, Bess and I can concentrate on their lessons without any distraction. Neither’s reading and sums are as good as they should be.’

The two elder children grimaced ruefully at one another, while I eyed up my son and he gazed limpidly back with the great liquid brown eyes that were so like his mother’s. He was, as usual at breakfast time, smothered liberally with honey, and even as I watched, he put a small, plump arm protectively around the pot, as if in fear of having it wrested away from him.

‘Mine,’ he announced, clearly and defiantly.

‘I can’t take him to a nunnery,’ I protested, but in vain.

‘Nonsense!’ declared Adela. ‘Nuns love little children. And if they don’t, then they should do. He’ll be as good as gold, won’t you, my lambkin?’

The lambkin dipped his fingers once more into the honey pot, managing to smear some of his plunder into his hair before finally locating his mouth.

‘He’ll have to be cleaned up a bit,’ I demurred.

‘Naturally!’ Adela was indignant. ‘You don’t think I’d let him go out of doors like that, do you?’

So it was that, some appreciable time later, a clean and angelic little lad was put into his box on wheels, leaning against an old cushion that Adela had recently pronounced as too rubbed and faded for the parlour, lord of all he surveyed. (This box on wheels, with a long handle for either pulling or pushing the contraption, had been my own invention when Adam was very small, and had proved so useful that I had recently made a second, bigger one for when we were in a hurry and my son’s erratic peregrinations were apt to prove too much of a delay.)