16 - The Three Kings of Cologne (21 page)

‘And you say,’ Lady Claypole remarked, picking delicately at a curd flan, which was short on cheese, butter and saffron to my way of thinking, ‘that Mayor Foster, when he has built his almshouses, intends also to build a chapel dedicated to the Three Kings of Cologne. Surely that will prove to be most unpopular with the good citizens of Bristol? Does he not know that Cologne is part of the Hanseatic League? Does he not appreciate that the Rhinelanders are poaching much of England’s trade? You see that I am not entirely unaware of what is happening in the world outside these walls.’

‘You are very well informed, my lady,’ I flattered her. ‘But Mayor Foster is a great admirer of the Rhinelanders, although not, I hasten to add, of the League itself. He knows perfectly well the damage that is being done, particularly to Bristol’s fish trade with Iceland. But I think he is a man who will not let prejudice cloud his judgement. He wishes, in his own fashion, to pay a small tribute to what he considers to be one of the finest buildings in Europe: Cologne Cathedral.’

My hostess snorted and speared another piece of curd flan on the tip of her knife, inspecting it from all angles until she finally put it in her mouth.

‘I doubt very much if your fellow townsmen will see it in that light. The people of Bristol are noted for their parsimony.’

I smiled. ‘Indeed they are. I am not myself one of them, coming as I do from the town of Wells, at the foot of the Mendips, but my wife was born in the city and knows how to hoard the pennies.’

But speaking of Adela, I was once again overcome with shame and panic. (Well, not shame perhaps, that was the trouble, but certainly panic.) I had little doubt that she would be able to prise my guilty secret from me if I lowered my guard for a single instant. And if I managed not to lower my guard, she would sense the tension and grow suspicious that something was wrong. I was caught in the jaws of a trap.

I became aware that my companion was offering me more tart, which I declined, claiming a full belly. But the truth was that the food at Hambrook Manor was of the same quality as the rest of the place. The pork which had comprised the first course had been swamped in a green sauce –
sauce vert
, as my former mother-in-law liked to call it when she was trying to put on airs. But green sauce, as I knew very well, made as it was from mint, parsley and other strong-tasting herbs steeped in peppered vinegar, was mainly used to disguise meat or fish that was not quite fresh, and in some cases downright stinking. And the dried pea puree that had accompanied the pork had also been of a very poor quality. It struck me forcibly before the end of the meal that financially matters at Hambrook were worse than I had at first thought them.

After supper, the table was cleared and I was invited to play at three men’s morris with my lady until bedtime, but I could see by the way she was yawning that she was accustomed to early hours.

As the board was placed in front of us by the page boy who had answered the door to me on my arrival, Lady Claypole asked, ’Am I to understand that, in view of what I have told you, you have eliminated Master Moresby from the people you suspect of this poor girl’s murder?’

‘I think so,’ I said.

And indeed I was almost certain that I could acquit the goldsmith of being Isabella’s murderer. He seemed not to have spoken to her on the day she was killed. He had been here with the Claypoles from early morning, when he had arrived from Gloucester, until it was almost dusk, when he had ridden out in the forlorn hope that she still might be on her way to keep their assignation.

‘You
think
so?’ My hostess caught me up short.

‘Very well,’ I smiled. ‘I exonerate him.’

I thought she suppressed a sigh of relief. ‘He isn’t married?’ was her next question.

I reassured her on that point, and saw a faint, predatory gleam in the short-sighted eyes. I wondered how soon after my departure my lady would suddenly find it imperative to pay a visit to Gloucester.

She yawned again, more pointedly than before and missed an obvious move with her counters that might have prolonged the game. So I, too, gave a good imitation of a man who could barely remain awake and waited for her suggestion that we should retire and seek our rest. This was not long in coming, but she insisted that we first take some wine.

‘It will help us sleep,’ she said, ringing a small handbell that stood on the parlour table.

Now, I don’t know if it was the speed with which this was brought by the Steward, as if he had been waiting for the summons, or the fact that it was this worthy himself who brought it, and not the page, or the fact that this whole burst of hospitality seemed out of keeping with the generally straitened circumstances of the manor, but my sense of unease increased. I took a sip or two from the glass Lady Claypole handed me, then managed to pour the remainder back into the ewer while my companion’s attention was momentarily elsewhere. I then wished her a deliberately slurred goodnight and took myself off to the chamber that had been allotted to me.

As I closed the door behind me and made for the tinderbox and candle on top of the chest, I heard a slight noise from the direction of the bed. The hairs rose on my scalp and I groped for my cudgel which, thank God, was still where I had left it, leaning against the wall, just inside the door.

‘Who’s there?’ I hissed, trying to sound menacing and praying that my voice didn’t quaver.

A short, snuffling bark answered me, and the next moment something cold and wet was thrust against my hand.

Hercules!

I picked him up and hugged him, almost squeezing the breath out of the poor animal, I was so pleased to see him.

‘How did you find your way here?’ I demanded. ‘You’re supposed to be spending the night in the kitchen.’

But however he had made his escape and discovered my whereabouts, I had no doubt that he had done so because he, too, was unhappy and ill at ease. He also had his doubts about this place and had come to tell me so.

‘You’re right, my lad,’ I said. ‘I think I’d prefer to sleep under a hedgerow than spend the night in this place. And it seems you feel the same.’

He whimpered and licked my face. I set him down on the bed while I lit the candle and started to pack my satchel. Not that there was much to pack; only the shirt I had discarded after washing, my willow bark and the sharp, narrow-bladed knife I used for shaving. Then I inched open the door of the bedchamber and glanced up and down the corridor. It appeared deserted.

‘Right,’ I whispered. ‘I know a way out of here without disturbing the rest of the household, so let’s go.’

There was a sudden low rumbling sound and the floorboards began to shake. Then came a grinding noise as of slightly rusty cogs engaging and disengaging. Wheels began to whir somewhere, but whether above my head or beneath my feet I couldn’t be certain. Then, as a terrified Hercules sprang clear of the bed, it began to tilt until the base was almost vertical, revealing a gaping black pit underneath. A terrible stench arose as the bedclothes and mattress disappeared into its depths, and I realized that, most probably, had I drunk that wine as I had been intended to do, I should have been too befuddled to know what was happening to me. I should have been smothered in the darkness below. Even as I watched, with yet more grinding and whirring, the bed righted itself.

I had heard of these contraptions for the unwary traveller to be murdered and robbed, but never thought to see one. The originals, I had been told, came from somewhere far away in eastern Europe, on the borders of Muscovy, but craftsmen in France, England and Spain had soon learned to copy them, and it was known that in some of the wilder parts of the country certain inns possessed these beds. So seriously was this menace taken that owners suffered the full rigours of the law, being pressed to death between two great stones.

But to find such a machine in a respectable country manor was beyond belief. I had no doubt that the motive in my case was robbery. I had guessed that Lady Claypole had fallen upon hard times, and I had no doubt let my tongue run away with me as usual when speaking of Mayor Foster’s generosity. One thing was certain, however: I had no intention of remaining in this house a moment longer than I had to. I grabbed Hercules, my satchel and my cudgel, and was out of the room, along the corridor, down the stairs and through the door at the bottom faster than I had ever moved before in my life.

S
omeone was ahead of us, on the path that led to the outer palisade and gate, barring our passage. I gripped my cudgel and prepared to do battle, but Hercules was ahead of me. He launched himself forward, barking like all the fiends of hell, seized the man’s right arm between his jaws and hung on for dear life, swinging several feet above the ground. He had performed this trick on at least two previous occasions when he and I had been in a tight situation, and it never failed to work. The person attacked tried vainly to shake him loose, but without avail. Hercules had jaws of iron.

As I closed with the man myself, I recognized the shadowy features of the herdsman. He looked just as ugly a customer in the dark as he did in daylight, and I had no compunction in hitting him a hefty thwack about his ears with the weighted end of my cudgel. He fell like a stone. Having, very briefly, assured myself that he wasn’t dead and would probably suffer no more than a nasty buzzing in the head all day tomorrow, I ran for the gate, Hercules racing along beside me, his tail erect with all the pride of a dog who had done his duty. Which, of course, he had, and there would be no living with him for the next few days.

The gate, as I had expected, was locked and there seemed to be nothing for it but to climb the palisade. I didn’t much care for the look of those nasty, pointed palings and realized that I could do serious damage to an essential part of my anatomy if I wasn’t extremely careful. Suddenly, however, I came to my senses, of which panic had temporarily bereft me, rummaged in my satchel for my shaving knife – a long thin blade, keenly honed – and proceeded to pick the gate lock with the greatest of ease. This was a skill I had been taught in my youth, while a novice at Glastonbury Abbey, by a fellow postulant, and one that had stood me in good stead on more than one occasion in the past. The gate creaked open, Hercules bounded ahead of me and I followed without any further delay.

We put as much distance between ourselves and Hambrook Manor as was possible in the darkness, and spent the rest of the night in a sheltered ditch which had retained a fair amount of last year’s dead leaves. These kept us warm and, to some extent, dry; but while Hercules snuffled and snored, none the worse for his adventure, I found it almost impossible to sleep for any length of time. I kept waking with a start, then spent the next half hour or so wondering what I ought to do. This pattern repeated itself throughout the night, but when dawn rimmed the distant hills, I still had not made up my mind.

I knew that as a good citizen I should report Lady Claypole’s possession of the tilting bed, but at the same time I knew very well that I should not be believed. Put the word of a low-born pedlar against that of a gentlewoman – and a defenceless widow with a title, to boot – and there was no doubt whose word would be accepted and who excoriated as a liar. I supposed I might go to Mayor Foster, but I had a feeling that he, too, would not wish to know. He was a busy man, both privately and publicly at present, and would hesitate to interfere, however obliquely, in the affairs of a lady of quality. Besides which, I had no idea how these beds worked, where or how the mechanism was hidden, whether or not it could successfully be concealed from prying eyes. And in this particular case, Lady Claypole’s outraged protestations of innocence would most likely be sufficient to reassure any official sent to investigate my claim. So, after much heart-searching, I decided to let the matter go.

I salved my conscience with the conviction that the rustiness of the clanking and whirring sounds I had heard indicated that the bed was rarely used for any purpose other than sleeping – and perhaps not often for that. I doubted if Hambrook Manor had many visitors, and the important ones would certainly be missed, and enquiries made, if they were to disappear. As for itinerant beggars and pedlars like myself, in general they would not be worth the robbing – as I wouldn’t have been if I had just kept my mouth shut about John Foster paying me for my services and probably giving an exaggerated impression of how much money I carried in my scrip. I had never, in the past, thought of myself as a braggart, but this wasn’t the first time I had landed myself in trouble because I was too free with my tongue. I made a solemn vow to be more modest in the future.

‘Your master’s a coward,’ I told Hercules when he finally emerged from his leafy covering, shook himself and looked around to see what there was to eat.

And I was going to be an even bigger coward when we finally reached home and I had to look Adela in the eye. It was just as well then, I decided, as the dog and I strode out, keeping an eye open for a cottage where we could beg some breakfast, that I should have to set off again almost immediately for Bath to look for ‘Caspar’, the second of Isabella’s three swains. And he would not be so easy to locate. This time, I had no occupation by which to recognize my ‘king’, and I had already identified the R.M. whose initials Isabella had carved into the tree. It would be a game of blindman’s bluff, stumbling around in the dark.

We arrived in Small Street before dusk and for once I was greeted with rapture by all my family. Well, rapture may be an overstatement, but Adela threw her arms about my neck and kissed me soundly, Adam embraced my knees (nearly bringing me down, but his intentions were good) while even Nicholas and Elizabeth forgot to ransack my person for whatever goodies I had brought them before standing on tiptoe to give me a hug. My burden of guilt increased.

‘Sit down,’ my wife urged me, pulling forward a stool and placing it by the kitchen table. ‘We’ve had our supper, but it was only lentil stew and there’s plenty left.’ She ladled spoonfuls of the savoury-smelling broth into a bowl as she spoke. ‘And then, when you’ve finished, you can tell me what happened. Oh, Roger, I am glad to see you again. It feels as if you’ve been absent for a month instead of a week.’