[Roger the Chapman 03] - The Hanged Man (16 page)

I eased my long limbs, uncomfortable in the narrow bed, conscious of a stiffening in the joints, legacy of my evening's encounter. With a sigh, I resigned myself to the knowledge that I should have to visit both the livery stables and Gaunts' Hospital again in the morning, and wondered how someone, somewhere, would react to the realization that I was not after all dead, but still intent on ferreting out the truth. In future, I must take my cudgel with me at all times when I walked abroad, and must also watch my back, as the Irish slavers had advised me.

I was beginning to doze once more when I recollected the cloaked and hooded figure, the man I had seen once and heard twice, and who had figured so silently in my dream. Who was he, and what, if anything, was his part in the mystery of William's abduction? And why, in that dream, did I get the impression that both William Woodward and Edward Herepath knew him? For a moment I was wide awake again, but fatigue and weakness exacted their toll, and the next thing I knew, daylight was filtering through the shutters.

The farrier was genuinely pleased to see me, and having expressed the hope that I had reached my lodgings in safety the preceding evening - a hope I did nothing to dispel - he invited me into his room for a stoup of warmed ale. 'For it's a bitter cold morning, as I told you it would be.'

He rubbed his hands together and blew on his knuckles in an attempt to warm them. 'I said we should have frost and I was right. I generally am.'

I acknowledged this boast with what I trusted was an admiring smile, and indeed his prophecy had proved correct. The dank, cheerless streets of the past few weeks had been transformed by the heavy frost into a fairy world, all white and gold. Gossamer-thin clouds trailed each other across a pale blue sky; ice-bound streets glittered in needle-sharp sunlight; a thin coating of rime sparkled from every cave and post and wooden gallery. My spirits had lifted as I stepped out of doors, and every undertaking seemed less of a trial in the better weather.

I accepted the farrier's invitation and followed him into a small, single-storey building set in a corner of the stables. A row of six stalls housed, at present, only three horses, and a sleepy youth was just beginning his morning task of cleaning them out. He quickened his pace reluctantly at a command from the farrier, but, I suspected, dawdled again immediately we had disappeared from view.

'This is cosy,' I said, warming my hands at the brazier and noting with gratitude the jug of ale warming amongst its coals.

Wrapping a piece of cloth around one hand, my host lifted the jug and poured its contents into two clay cups which stood on a side-table, one of which he handed to me. 'Now,' he asked shrewdly, 'how can I help you? For I don't flatter myself you've sought me out again after such short acquaintance just for the pleasure of my company.'

I was forced to admit that this was so. 'You mentioned that Edward Herepath's bay was stolen the night William Woodward was attacked and abducted. I am right, am I not, in believing that it was not the horse ridden by Master Herepath to Gloucester?'

The farrier put down his half-empty cup and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. 'How could it have been?' he demanded irritably. 'Master Herepath set out in the morning. He asked me to have Cresside, his roan mare, saddled and ready for him as soon as possible after early mass.'

'So it was Thursday he travelled, not Friday? You're sure of that?'

My companion snorted angrily. 'Of course I'm sure. It was Lady Day and William Woodward came round later to collect the rent. This place,' he added by way of explanation, 'belongs to Master Herepath. He owns a lot of property in this city.'

'So I've been told.' I sipped my ale thoughtfully, wondering where this new fact fitted in among the rest. 'It was fortunate, at least, that it was one of his horses which was stolen. He didn't have to recompense another owner for its loss. How did the thief get in? The place is securely locked at nights from what I saw yesterday evening.'

'That it is!' the farrier replied with a fervour which made me suspect he might, at some time, have fallen under suspicion. 'Whoever it was, obtained a key to the wicket gate and unbolted the big double doors from within. Fortunately, I was able to call upon the witness of my neighbour to testify that I was at home all right. His wife was taken with labour pains shortly after Compline, and the midwife shooed him out of his cottage because he was getting under her feet. It was a long labour, being as how it was a first child, and he was so anxious, he and I sat up talking most of the night. It was dawn before the babe was born and I was finally able to join my wife in bed.' He added spitefully: 'She wouldn't do a good turn for anyone.'

'But your virtue was rewarded. You could not be accused of the crime.'

The farrier pursed his lips. 'Not of the crime itself, no. But Master Herepath and I are the only two people who are known to have keys to the wicket gate. I think the sergeant was inclined to think me guilty of complicity.

However, Master Edward, God bless him, would have none of it, saying he would trust me with his life, let alone his horses, and sent the sergeant away with a flea in his ear. He's a good man, a just man, very different from his wastrel of a brother.'

'Was the bay ever found?' I finished my ale and returned the cup to the table.

'No. The animal completely vanished. After it was shut safely in its stall on the Thursday evening, it was never seen again to my knowledge.'

But it had been seen again, I thought to myself; on the Friday morning, according to Henry Dando, unless, of course, he had mixed up the days. It suddenly became imperative that I see him without further delay. All my curiosity was aroused. I thanked the farrier for his hospitality and said I had urgent business to attend to. I wrapped myself in my cloak, pulled the hood well forward about my face, seized my cudgel, and set out for the Gaunts' Hospital for the second time in three days.

Henry Dando was delighted to receive a visitor, and inclined to crow over Miles Huckbody once it was established that he was the one I wished to see.

'Why him'?' Miles asked, aggrieved. 'Last time it was me you wanted to speak to. What have I done to displease you?'

'Nothing,' I assured him, 'and I'm delighted to renew our acquaintance. But something Master Dando said needs further explanation.'

Henry was none too certain that he liked the sound of this. 'Everythink I told you was true!' he said fiercely.

We were beginning to attract the attention of others in the hall, so I sat down on a bench near the fire, with him and Miles Huckbody on either side of me.

I turned to Henry. 'When we were discussing William Woodward's disappearance, you mentioned having seen Edward Herepath on his way to Gloucester on the Friday morning, riding his bay.'

'An' so I did. Me an' a couple of others 'ad bin given permission by the master to hear mass at St Michael's. Gives us a bit of a walk, you see, an' we goes by the back roads, along Frog and Trencher Lane.' 'Which mass was this?' I asked. 'What time?' Henry Dando pursed his wrinkled lips. 'Very early. Before breakfast.'

'Prime,' I suggested, and he nodded.

'That would be it. Well, after we'd left the church, we were coming down the 'ill, and we'd reached the corner of Magdalen Lane, when we sees Master 'Erepath on 'is bay a bit further along, turnin' up Stony Hill to'ards the windmill.'

'You're sure it was him? Did you see his face?'
 

''E were a bit too far off fer that, and the light weren't too good that time of a March morning, but I'd know that bay o' his anywhere. An' it looked like 'im.' 'But was it Friday?' I urged.
 

'Could you not be mistaken? Maybe it was Thursday you went to St Michael's?' He gave me a pitying look. 'Thursday were Lady Day, weren't it'? We're expected to worship 'ere, altogether at St Mark's on any festival of the Virgin. Master Chaplain would never 'ave given us permission to go to St Michael's on the Thursday.'

Miles Huckbody concurred, adding, 'It was the Friday right enough. Henry and the others asked me to go with 'em, but I didn't feel like a walk. And 'twas the following day, Saturday, that rumours started flying about William’s disappearance.'

'Well then,' I said to Henry, 'I'm afraid you were mistaken. It wasn't Edward Herepath you saw. He went to Gloucester on the Thursday and he was riding his roan mare. I have it on the authority of the farrier who runs his stable in Tower Lane. Furthermore, also according to the farrier, Master Herepath's bay was stolen sometime Thursday night or early Friday morning.'

Miles Huckbody broke into an unseemly cackle of mirth. 'I always said your eyesight's bad, Henry Dando, but you won't have it. Now p'raps you'll believe me.'
 

'Nothink wrong with my eyes!' Henry was belligerent. 'I could rec'nize that bay when I see 'un, don't you worry. An' 'twere 'im. As to it bein' Master 'Erepath - well, it looked like 'im, that's all I can say. If you don' believe me, ask the others.'

But the other three men who had accompanied Henry Dando to St Michael's Church on that March morning ten months ago had, when questioned, only hazy recollections of the horseman they had seen turning into Stony Hill from Magdalen Lane. Nevertheless, they were all agreed that it had been the Friday, and that Henry Dando had immediately identified the man and his mount as Edward Herepath and his bay.

'Which only goes to show that it takes fools to believe a fool,' was Miles Huckbody's disgruntled comment as he walked with me through the fields, back to the porter's lodge. His nose had been put out of joint by not being the chief object of my visit. I grumbled sometimes to myself that my life was too full of incident, but perhaps, after all, I was lucky: perhaps a full life was better than one which was too quiet.

'I think you do Henry an injustice,' I said. 'As I told you, the bay was stolen. Maybe the man riding him that Friday morning was the thief.'

Miles was sceptical. 'In broad daylight?'
 

'But it wasn't,' I argued. 'Mass was over, it's true, but it still wouldn't have been much after seven o'clock. Henry himself said the light wasn't good.'

'All the more reason not to believe the old fool.' Miles was determined to give his friend no credence. 'You'd do best to discount every word he says.'

We had stopped by the pigeon loft and I could hear the soft cooing of the birds within. The noise was soothing to my senses; I was still inclined to be jumpy after my encounter of the previous evening. I laid my hand on Miles Huckbody's sleeve. 'You and Henry have both been of great assistance,' I assured him.

'Not me. I've done nothing.' He was not to be mollified so easily and went on mockingly, 'The first time you came here, you thought I might have had something to do with William Woodward's disappearance, now didn't you?'
 

I smiled shamefacedly. 'Maybe. But not for long.'
 

'I wish I had,' Miles said viciously. 'The old bastard! In league with the Devil, he was.'

'Yet his daughter says he was a very pious man.'
 

Miles Huckbody looked at me, then grinned slyly. 'Oh, ay! Daresay 'e might've been according to his lights. The weavers are a pious lot.' He chuckled throatily, but would say nothing more. Unsure of his meaning, I put it down to spite. Life had not been kind to Miles Huckbody; he was entitled to a little bitterness.

I took my leave, said my farewells to the porter at the gate, and made my way back across the Frome Bridge into Broad Street, and so home through all the bustle of midday to Redcliffe and nay dinner. Until I had eaten and given sustenance to my great frame, I was unable to think clearly or reassemble my thoughts about what had happened to William Woodward. I had many pieces of the picture in nay grasp, but not all of them. The truth was to be found somewhere, but there were parts of it I had not yet been able to discover. It only needed patience and time.

As I rounded the comer by St Thomas's Church, I paused, then stepped back hastily into the shadows.

Emerging stealthily from the cottage opposite Mistress Walker's was the cloaked and hooded figure who had visited Jenny Hodge. As the door closed quietly behind him, he set off at a brisk pace in the direction of Temp!e Street.

Chapter Fourteen

I followed the cloaked figure as quickly as I could, but by the time I had crossed St Thomas's Street into Long Row, the man had vanished. There was only one conclusion to be drawn, that he had entered one of the houses.

I glanced up and down the narrow alleyway, but there was no sign of life except for a thin dog scavenging among the rubbish, and two small girls bowling a hoop, crowing with laughter. It was dinner-time and most people were within doors. I approached the girls and asked if they had seen a man in a brown frieze cloak.

They both shook their heads mutely, but I had an idea that the younger of the two had been about to say something when the elder nudged her. There was that wary look in their eyes which one sees in children when their parents have demanded silence by threatening them with all the tortures of Satan if they disobey. I thanked them and turned back towards Mistress Walker's cottage in the shadow of St Thomas's Church. When I looked over my shoulder, the girls were still watching me, the hoop lying temporarily forgotten in the gutter.

I found my hostess in some distress with a bruised arm and wrist, because she had been jostled that morning in the market. Two young men, whom she identified as former friends of Robert Herepath, had deliberately bumped into her, sending her sprawling and spilling the contents of her basket. What she had found even more disturbing was how reluctant many of the onlookers had been to come to her aid.