[Roger the Chapman 03] - The Hanged Man (14 page)

It was dark inside, there being no windows, only rushlights and tallow candles which could easily be doused in the event of a visit from the sheriff or his sergeants.

A beaten-earth floor was dotted with long wooden tables and benches, and casks of ale, two rows deep, were ranged against one wall. There was a second door opposite the one by which I had entered, opening on to the quayside. A narrow stone staircase led to the upper storey where, presumably, Humility Dyson lived. The landlord himself was a huge man in a leather apron, black-bearded and with arms on which the muscles were knotted like fists. Alderman Weaver had not described him to me, but his air of authority was unmistakable.

As I paused in the doorway, there was a disturbing quiet. Men who, a moment earlier, had been chatting with their fellows, fell silent, and all heads were turned in my direction. There was a definite air of menace in the room.

I stood my ground, however, unable to see much at first in the sudden transition from light to dark, and tightened my grip on my cudgel, ready to lay about me if necessary.

But gradually, as the drinkers took in my size and the way I was dressed, the babel of talk resumed. I was no longer being watched, at least not overtly; but I knew one false move would place me in immediate danger. I waited, therefore, until Humility Dyson approached me.

'And what's your wish, Master?' he grunted. 'Our ale's good, I grant you, but you'd do better supping at some of the other inns in the city.'

I ignored this unfriendly opening and said, 'I was recommended to come here by Alderman Weaver. He thinks you might be able to help me.'

Humility Dyson scratched his beard while looking me up and down. 'Alderman Weaver, is it?' he muttered presently. 'Well, and in what way does he think I can be of assistance?'

'I'm looking for two men, Padraic Kinsale and Briant of Dungarvon.'

The already small eyes seemed to contract with suspicion even as he watched me. 'What's your business'?' he demanded.

'That's between me and them.' I hoped I sounded bolder than I felt. My palms were sweating and my hold on the cudgel was growing slippery.

I had no idea what I should do if he challenged me further, but after another stare he said grudgingly, 'Wait outside and I'll ask if they're willing to speak with you.' My relief at finding the Irishmen present outweighed my uneasiness, and it was with a sense of elation that I stepped again into Marsh Street, letting the thick leather curtain which covered the doorway swing to behind me.

A flock of seagulls swooped down, greedily pecking at the offal in the sewer.

After what seemed only seconds, the landlord pulled back the curtain and jerked his head. 'They'll see you. But watch your step, stranger. If this is a trick, you and whoever you've led here won't live to tell the tale.'
 

'I'm on my own,' I said. 'There's no one following me.' Humility Dyson preceded me back inside. He waited a moment while my eyes grew accustomed once more to the darkness, then nodded towards a table in the furthest comer from the door, unlit even by a rushlight. I could just discern its outline and the shapes of two men sitting at it. No one looked up as I made my way between the intervening tables, but I felt as though dozens of eyes were boring into my back the moment I had passed.

Both Irishmen were completely in shadow, and it was impossible to see either of their faces properly. Afterwards, two pairs of glittering eyes and the brogue common to the area of southern Ireland, round about Waterford was all that stayed with me.

'Well?' one of them murmured as I remained silent.

Now that the moment had come to speak, the folly of what I was doing swept over me: to ask two desperados if they had been paid to kill a man was the act of a brainless idiot. But I have done that all my life, rushed in where angels will not tread, only to find the Devil at my heels.

This time, fortunately for me, I was spared the necessity of putting the question into words.

'Humility says that Alderman Weaver sent you,' said the second man, 'therefore I think you must be asking about someone who disappeared and was thought to be murdered, but came back home as large as life. What was his name now, Padraic?'

'William Woodward,' I answered before the other Irishman could open his mouth.

'So it was. Well, Master–?'

'Roger. Roger the Chapman.'

'Well, Master Chapman, Alderman Weaver did right to send you to us, for although Padraic and I are not the only slavers working out of Bristol - there are plenty of Bristol men themselves playing the game - we being Irish know more of what goes on once the cargoes are delivered, and have many contacts among both the men who run the markets and their buyers.' Briant of Dungarvon - for who else could he be, having addressed his friend as Padraic? - folded his arms together on the table and turned his head to face me more directly. 'So I say to you what we have already told the alderman, there is no trace to be found anywhere of anyone resembling this William Woodward. People would remember an elderly man with a broken head. No slaver could be rid of him.' There was a soft chuckle from the other side of the table. 'I think our friend here,' said Padraic, 'might be entertaining the fancy that perhaps we were offered money to take the unfortunate man to Ireland and there dispose of him. Isn't that so, Master Chapman?' 'It... It had crossed my m-mind,' I stuttered.

'In that case,' Briant continued in the same gentle tone, but with such a hint of menace that my blood ran cold, 'you have the wrong men. We have our principles, don't we, Padraic?'

The other man nodded. 'We do that, and murdering someone in cold blood is not one of them. Of course, we can't speak for your fellow citizens, if it's a Bristol man you are, for in general they're a band of cut-throats. But think on this.' Padraic leaned towards me across the table.

'If the job was botched, as it must have been, someone somewhere along the coast surely had to see or hear something of a man wandering loose in such a state. And we tell you - ' he rapped the table to emphasize his words ' - at Alderman Weaver's request, and because he paid us well, Briant and I spent weeks, even months making inquiries for any sighting of this man, but no one, anywhere, recalled seeing hide or hair of him. Not so much as a smell.' He raised his finger. 'So! We say again to you what we said to His Honour. This man, William Woodward, wherever else he was, was never in Ireland.'

Chapter Twelve

I believed them. Now, Ireland is a wild country, and how many miles have to be travelled, east to west, north to south, beset by how many dangers, I have no idea, but I was sure in my own mind that had William Woodward been taken there, he would not have wandered beyond the eastern seaboard or the confines of the English Pale. And it was these areas which had been scoured by Padraic Kinsale and Briant of Dungarvon, all to no avail. I considered the possibility that they were lying, but dismissed it: they had, as far as I could see, no reason to do so.

They had no interest in the affair except a desire to oblige Alderman Weaver, to whom, no doubt, they owed some kind of debt. William Woodward must 'have needed succor and, furthermore, as he had managed to change his clothes, someone had to have knowledge of him; and if that someone lived in Ireland, surely Padraic and Briant would have flushed him out.

I decided there was no point in lingering. My informants had told me all they could and I had much thinking to do. I rose to my feet and bowed briefly to the two shadows in front of me. 'Gentlemen, thank you. You have told me all I wanted to know, and I shall not trouble you again.'

I was about to move away when one of them, Padraic I think, laid a friendly hand on my arm. 'A word of advice, chapman! Guard your back. Someone may resent you asking questions.'

The other man nodded. 'Disinterring old bones is a dangerous pastime. Take care.'

I repeated my thanks, this time for their solicitude, assured them I could look after myself, and took my leave, my passage to the door unmarked by silence or hostile glances. I had been accepted as harmless by the ale-house inmates. But once outside, in the gathering dusk of a late January afternoon, I leaned against the wall to catch my breath. I had been more nervous than I had realized.

Phrases chased one another around inside my head; 'stirring up a hornet's nest', 'raking over dead ashes', 'disinterring old bones'. Maybe the Irishmen were right: perhaps I should look over my shoulder a little more often.

The thought, however, was ousted almost immediately by the need to reform my ideas concerning the possible whereabouts of William Woodward for those five months he was missing the previous year. If he had not been in Ireland, where had he been? Who had abducted him, and for what reason? Where had he been left for dead and who had come to his aid? My head was beginning to ache. A squall of icy rain blew in off the quay, making me shiver.

The sudden whiff of rotting fish turned my stomach and a cold sweat broke out on my forehead, reminding me yet again that I was still not as well as I should be.

My inclination was to go home and let Mistress Walker fuss over and feed me, but I balked at the thought of coming face to face with Lillis, who must by this time have returned from the Brimbles'. So, in spite of the increasing darkness and cold' I persuaded myself that another look at the cottage in Bell Lane, where William Woodward had lived, was not only necessary but also could not wait until morning. I wrapped my cloak more securely about me and, mindful of the recent warning given to me by the Irish slavers, grasped my 'Plymouth cloak' even more tightly in my hand.

Stalls and shops were beginning to close for the night as goods were removed from display and taken inside. Candles were lit in lamps and wall-sconces, and cressets hissed at their reflections in puddles underfoot. A few traders had already put up their boards and the streets were wearing a deserted air. Lights flared suddenly in windows, behind horned panes, and cobbles grew ever more treacherous as daylight waned. Twice I nearly slipped as my foot encountered some piece of slime which had missed the sewer in the middle of the street, and both times I just avoided falling. Common sense urged me to turn back towards the bridge, but once more, the thought of Lillis made me press stubbornly forward.

As I passed along Small Street, I saw the glow of light from Master Herepath's house, and the idea of Cicely Ford, snugly within, made me breathless. My heart beat faster at the remembrance of her gentle face and quiet, dignified way of talking. It was with difficulty that I overcame my inclination to linger, like some love-sick youth, in the forlorn hope of seeing what might be her shadow outlined against the lighted panes. I forced myself to walk on, around the comer, into Bell Lane. Candles were lit in all the houses but one, which stood shuttered and empty, and which I guessed to have been William Woodward's cottage; or, to be more exact, Edward Herepath's cottage, which he had not yet rented out again.

Glancing round to make sure that I was unobserved, I tried the latch; but although it lifted, the door would not yield. I noticed a keyhole and realized that it was securely locked, but what else had I expected if the house was unoccupied? And why, indeed, had I come looking for the cottage at all? Hadn't it simply been an excuse for walking down Small Street so that, just for a moment, I could feel close to Cicely Ford? I was suddenly filled with contempt for my callow behaviour and hastened on along the lane.

I was so absorbed in my self-disgust that I walked straight past the entrance to Broad Street and suddenly found myself beyond St John's on the Arch, in Tower Lane. As, with a muttered curse, I pulled up short, I became aware of the muffled shifting of hooves and the snuffling of horses, accompanied every now and then by a soft whinny of pleasure. Glancing to my left, I saw the open gates and courtyard of a livery stable. At the same moment a man appeared, carrying two pails which he dropped with a clatter on the cobbles. They were plainly both empty, and I judged him to have been feeding and watering his charges before locking them up safely for the night.

I gave him 'good-evening' and he grimaced.

'It's going to be a cold night, friend.' He sniffed. 'It's drying fast, and I smell frost in the air. We've seen the last of the rain for a day or two, I reckon. Can't say I'm sorry. The dampness doesn't suit me. But I don't like the cold, neither. I'm away home as soon as I've locked up here, and if you've any sense, you'll do the same. I live in Wine Street. Stay a moment and I'll walk along with you.'
 

I shook my bead. 'I missed my turning. I'm retracing my steps to Broad Street. I've lodgings in the Redcliffe Ward.'

‘I'll still come with you. It's not very much out of my way.'

So I waited while he locked and bolted the big gates from inside before emerging from a wicket, which he also locked, going back twice to make sure he had done so.

'You're very careful,' I remarked as we turned into Broad Street.

He dragged the hood of his cloak over his head. 'You need to be nowadays, so many thieves as there are about. I don't know what the country's coming to,' he continued in a grumbling voice. 'It wasn't like it when I was a lad.' It was on the tip of my tongue to suggest that his father had probably made just the same complaint, but I stopped myself in time. Why waste breath in argument with a stranger, and one, moreover, I should utterly fail to convince? For judging by the thinning of his lips and the sour lines of his face, he was a man obsessed by the little unfairnesses of life, embittered by its petty irritations.