16 - The Three Kings of Cologne (23 page)

‘I wouldn’t have you think me ungrateful for all your pains,’ he said, pressing it into my reluctant hand and dismissing my stuttered thanks with a wave of his own. ‘Go to Bath and when you return, come to see me again.’

I returned home to find Margaret Walker installed in the kitchen on one of her all too frequent visits. But what could I say? She kept Adela company during my absences.

‘You’re off again then, I hear,’ was her first remark as I entered, knocking my head, as I often did, on the bunches of dried herbs and vegetables hanging from the ceiling. A few scraps of onion skin floated, like autumn leaves, to the floor.

‘Off again,’ shouted Adam from the shelter of his mother’s lap. ‘Always off again!’

My wife told him to be quiet but was unable to prevent the trembling of her upper lip, and burst into peals of laughter when I grinned. My former mother-in-law got up, adjusting her cap and reaching down her cloak from a peg on the wall. She delivered a short but pithy homily to us both on the correct way to bring up children and was about to take herself off when I stopped her.

‘Is Jack Nym back from Stowe yet, do you know?’

‘I haven’t seen him. Why do you ask?’

‘He might just have managed to recollect something that he was trying to remember for me, that’s all.’

She was intrigued, but when I refused to part with any further information, took herself home to Redcliffe in a huff.

‘You shouldn’t upset her,’ my wife reproached me, but smiled nevertheless. ‘I really don’t know how I’d do without her when you’re away.’ She grew serious. ‘Margaret says someone told her that you were seen coming out of Saint Giles earlier this morning. It’s not like you, Roger, to be so diligent in your devotions. Was there a special reason?’

Oh, wonderful! Thank you very much, God! There would just happen to be someone who knew someone who was a friend of Margaret Walker loitering near Saint Giles as I was leaving. Mind you, there was no reason why a man shouldn’t feel the urge to go to church now and then without being suspected of ulterior motives. But I could see at once that Adela was suspicious.

‘I went to confession,’ I answered lightly. ‘What’s for dinner?’

‘Oyster stew,’ was the terse response. ‘It’s Friday.’ A pause, and then, ‘Was there anything in particular you needed to confess?’

Now was the moment to make a clean breast of things; to clear my conscience once and for all; to grovel abjectly and be forgiven. But somehow or another I failed to grasp the opportunity: the hour did not seem propitious.

‘It’s just that I haven’t been for some while and I thought it time. That’s all.’ But I found it impossible to meet her eyes, and as we sat down to table – Elizabeth and Nicholas having been summoned from whatever game they were playing in their upstairs fastness – Adela’s air of suspicion was palpable. I carefully assumed a mask of innocence, realizing as I did so that deception becomes easier the more it’s practised. I began talking about my next day’s journey to Bath.

The hours until supper were occupied as I had foreseen. I patched my boots (one of the soles had worn right through), paid several visits to the well to fill our water barrel and used Adam’s little push-cart to get wood from the city stockpile near the bottom of Steep Street. On the last occasion, I walked up to see how the work was progressing on the clearing of the graveyard and discovered that it was now at least three quarters free of large stones and tangled briars. Neither Hob Jarrett nor the man called Colin were in evidence, only the tall fellow, leaning on his spade and regarding the site with a lugubrious air.

‘Hob not here?’ I called.

‘Bad back,’ was the terse reply.

I grunted and turned away, not even bothering to enquire after Colin. Had I done so, no doubt I should have received the same answer.

I devoted myself to Adela for the remainder of the day, but not too obviously or her already simmering suspicion would have boiled over. As it was, I insinuated myself further into her good graces by suggesting that I wait until Monday before setting out for Bath as I would probably only reach as far as Keynsham by the end of the following day and would not wish to travel on the Sabbath. So we had three nights together instead of one, and although the Church forbade love-making within a certain period either side of going to Mass, I managed to persuade her, although much against the workings of her conscience, that what the eye couldn’t see, the heart couldn’t grieve over. Consequently, when I said my goodbyes on Monday, after breakfast, there was a spring in my step and a sparkle in my eye that hadn’t been there for some time, and the name of Juliette Gerrish had (almost) been erased from my memory.

I
left by the Redcliffe Gate and took the opportunity to call on Jack Nym as I was passing. His evil-smelling little dwelling was in Saint Thomas’s Lane, close to the church, stinking, as it always did, of burned food, mouse droppings, unemptied chamber pots and stale, unwashed clothes. His slatternly wife was standing in the doorway, watching with dull eyes while Jack loaded his cart with bales of cloth from Master Adelard’s weaving sheds.

‘You’re up and away early, friend Roger,’ he grunted, stooping to heave another roll of some dark green stuff from the cobbles, where its edge was beginning to muddy on account of the shower of rain that had fallen overnight, mixing with the dust and grime of the road.

‘I’m off to Bath,’ I said, nodding briefly in Mistress Nym’s direction, receiving nothing but a blank stare in return. No doubt she would recollect who I was in her own good time. ‘There’s no chance, I suppose, that you might be going that way?’

Jack shook his head. ‘I’m off up to Tewkesbury. Pity, but there it is. I could have done with some company again. Not got the dog with you today?’

‘Just my satchel and my cudgel, as you see. I thought the poor fellow needed a rest.’ I patted the horse’s nose as he stood patiently between the shafts. ‘What I want to know, Jack, is if you’ve had any further ideas about who it might have been with Isabella Linkinhorne that day you saw her in the porch of All Saints’.’

Jack heaved the last bolt of cloth on to the cart and rubbed his nose.

‘To be truthful,’ he admitted, ‘I haven’t given it another thought. I’d forget about it, Roger. After twenty years, I don’t suppose I’m likely to remember now.’

‘You said—’

‘I know what I said. But I were half asleep at the time. Must’ve been dreaming.’

‘Nonsense! You were wide awake. Well, awake enough.’

‘Look, it ain’t come back to me. All right? What I’ve said all along was c’rrect. I didn’t see the man she was with. Just leave it, eh? It’s too long ago. Raking over cold ashes never does no one any good.’ He climbed on the cart and took the reins, blowing a perfunctory kiss to his wife from what seemed a safe distance. I didn’t blame him. My guess was that Goody Nym smelled as bad as her house.

I watched Jack drive off in the direction of Bristol Bridge and the Frome Gate before pursuing my own course to the Redcliffe Gate where I was caught up in the flow of incoming early morning traffic as animals, cartloads of vegetables, sea coal, butter and milk churns flooded into the city at the start of yet another week, the drivers, without exception, swearing at the tolls they had to pay and holding up the outgoers like myself until we were all cursing one another roundly. Eventually, however, I was through the gate and heading eastwards, towards Keynsham.

The April morning was hazy, giving the promise of warmth later in the day. Distant hills floated like clouds against a pale blue sky and daisies (the day’s eyes) were already opening to the sun. Other travellers gave me a ‘Good day!’ or a ‘God be with you!’ as they passed, but although I answered cheerily my mind was elsewhere, partly on the difficulties that lay in store for me once I reached my destination, but also on Jack Nym.

Looking back on our conversation, it struck me more forcibly with every step I took that Jack had been evasive. At the time, it had seemed no more than the natural irritation of a man interrupted in his work and no doubt suffering pangs of indigestion after one of Mistress Nym’s breakfasts. But a period of quiet reflection brought the growing conviction that he had thought about the matter and had come to some sort of conclusion about the face he had seen in the crowd; the face that had jolted that memory of twenty years ago. But if that were so, why then was Jack so reluctant to reveal the name of the person to whom the face belonged? It could be, of course, that he had simply decided he had made a mistake; that this person could have had nothing to do with Isabella Linkinhorne and it had been merely a coincidence that he had begun to think about her shortly after noticing him. On the other hand, it might be that he had reason to fear this man – yet who that could be and why, I had no idea. Jack, independent and responsible to no one as his master, was unafraid of anyone as far as I was aware. Although I supposed there were secrets in everyone’s life.

These unsatisfactory musings lasted some miles and it was past ten o’clock and dinnertime when I passed the manor house at Keynsham and knocked on a cottage door to ask for sustenance.

‘I can pay,’ I said hastily, chinking the coins in my purse.

The goodwife, who looked as if she had been about to direct me to the abbey and the charity of its kitchens, suddenly beamed and invited me inside. In no time, she had produced bread, broth and small beer and was pressing me to a second helping of each. As her portions were generous, I declined, but asked her if she had any knowledge of Bath and its inhabitants.

‘Dear life, no,’ was the amazed reply. ‘It’s all of seven miles from here. I did go to Bristol once, when I were a girl, for the Saint James’s fair. Great big place. Took my breath away, it did.’

I thanked her, paid what she asked for the victuals and set out again in the hope that I might, with a little expedition, accomplish my journey in one day instead of two. I had covered the five or so miles to Keynsham in better time than I had expected, having set out at the crack of dawn. I was used to peddling my wares as I went and journeys generally took me much longer, so I had miscalculated the length of time necessary to reach Bath. I suddenly realized that there was indeed a possibility of getting there before the gates were closed against me at dusk if I continued at the same brisk pace.

But what exactly was I going to do when I got to the city? How was I going to set about looking for a man of whom I knew nothing – not his name, nor his occupation, nor his initials? I didn’t even know that he still lived there, nor if Jane Purefoy’s information were correct. In the end, I decided that there was nothing for it but to complete my journey, find a comfortable alehouse or inn somewhere and then wait to see what happened.

‘If Your hand is in this, God,’ I said, addressing the sky, having first made certain that there was no one in the immediate vicinity to hear me, ‘You’ll need to give me a bit of help. I don’t think I’m capable of doing this on my own.’

There was no reply. As I have said more than once before, there never was.

I decided to follow the course of the River Avon as it meandered on its way between the thickly wooded hills that rose on either side of it. Local lore said that the valley floor had once been dotted with Roman villas as the population of the settlement at Aquae Sulis had spread beyond the city boundaries. But any trace of these opulent homes had long gone, erased for ever by the tramp of Saxon hordes as they claimed these western lands for their own and drove the Celtic tribes, abandoned by their Roman protectors, ever further west into the fastnesses of Wales.

With the sun now almost directly overhead, the day was fulfilling its early promise of warmth and my brisk pace was starting to flag. Once or twice, I was forced to sit down in order to rest my aching legs and to scoop handfuls of water from the river to quench my thirst. By following the river bank I had left the main track to Bristol and consequently found myself alone in the landscape except for a lone figure on the far horizon behind me, plodding along at a steady rate, but too far away to catch up with me. It did cross my mind that I might wait, for my own company was, for once, beginning to pall, but I was a long way ahead and if I was to stand any chance at all of reaching Bath before dusk, I had to press on.

But even my stamina eventually gave out. Twelve, maybe thirteen, miles in a single day proved too much for the fittest body without the rest and ease normally provided by cottage and farm or manor house kitchens and their attendant offers of refreshment. My third stop along the river bank resulted in my falling sound asleep in the lee of some rising ground and not waking up again for several hours.

I knew I must have slept for a long time because the sun, which had been just past its zenith when I closed my eyes, was now sinking slowly westwards, its rays beginning to strike the distant treetops, tipping them with gold. I woke with a start and a snort and a feeling of chill in my bones that set me shivering. The heat of midday had evaporated leaving a freshness in the air to remind me that April could be a treacherous month, pretending to be summer one hour, but then reverting to a cold and bitter spring the next.

‘You been asleep a fair long time, Chapman,’ remarked a voice close to my left ear. ‘I thought you was never goin’ to wake up.’

I jumped, my heart pounding, and slewed round, at the same time reaching for my cudgel which lay on the ground beside me. A most unwelcome sight met my eyes.

‘Jack Gload?’ I must have looked as incredulous as I sounded. ‘What in heaven’s name are you doing here?’

Richard Manifold’s henchman did his best to appear offended, but only succeeded in looking vacant, as usual.

‘Why shouldn’t I be here? I’ve got as much right as a pedlar to walk anywhere I choose.’

‘I never reckoned you or Pete –’ Peter Littleman was his fellow lawman and best friend – ‘cared for the countryside.’

He considered this with a slight frown creasing his brow, not quite sure of my meaning.

‘Goin’ t’ see my daughter,’ he announced after a momentary silence. ‘She lives in Bath.’