[Roger the Chapman 03] - The Hanged Man (8 page)

Burl scratched his head thoughtfully. 'They might be at home with their mother this time o' day, but mostly they're out getting into mischief. A pair o' rascals, and always have been. But the elder, Jack, 'll soon be starting his apprenticeship, praise be to St Katherine, for he's to be a weaver, unlike me. This job's not fit for a dog in winter. He's to go to Master Adelard in Redcliffe Hill.

As to this other business of William Woodward, speak to them by all means, though I doubt either Jack or Dick'll be able to tell you more'n they've told already. All the same, I'd be glad to have the mystery cleared if it were possible. It's been hard on those two women.' 'Where do you live?' I asked, as he turned away to grasp his end of the wet cloth which the second man was pulling from the basket.

'Hard by Temple Church, near the rope-walk. Knock on any door. Anyone'll tell you where me and my Jenny live.' I left him and his partner struggling with the weight of the red-dyed cloth, fixing it between the two sets of tenterhooks, and retraced my footsteps back through the Redcliffe Gate. I followed the line of the city walls to my right and came eventually to the rope-walk, where two men, one at either end of the stretch of gravel, were twisting strands of hempen fibre into an inch-thick rope.

Temple Church stood on the corner of Temple Street and Water Lane, and I was quickly directed to Burl Hodge's cottage, where the door was answered by a young, fresh-faced woman in a brown homespun woollen gown. In spite of being flushed from the exertions of cooking, for she was obviously preparing the midday meal, she gave me a smile as wide as her husband's and invited me inside.

For the second time that morning I repeated my story, while Jenny Hodge brought me a cup of small ale and two of her oatcakes to sample. When I had finished, she said: 'You're in luck. The boys have gone to fetch my bread from the baker's oven, and they should be back any minute. Thursday,' she added, 'is Water Lane's day for baking.'

Even as she spoke, the door opened and two young lads came in, carrying a large, covered basket. The scent of newly baked bread filled the room, and it was hardly surprising that, ignoring my presence, Jack and Dick Hodge immediately clamoured for a slice off one of the loaves.

'In a minute,' their mother replied sternly, 'when you've spoken to this gentleman. Listen to what he has to say and answer him nicely.'

Two round, freckled faces, small counterparts of their father's, were turned towards me with an inquiring air, and the boys flopped down on the bench beside me. I repeated my request for a third time.

Jack explored his nose with a probing finger while considering his answer. 'It was just a hat,' he said at last, 'wasn't it, Dick? Except there were bloodstains on it.' 'Bloodstains,' his brother echoed with ghoulish satisfaction.

Jack continued, 'We don't usually fish the Frome.

Mother doesn't like us going across the city, so we stay beside the Avon. But that day, well, we thought we'd like a change, didn't we, Dick?'

'Like a change,' Dick assured me dutifully.

'Did you catch anything?' I asked, diverted. 'Apart from the hat, I mean.'

Two heads nodded in unison. 'A cod, that long.' Jack held up his hands to indicate a length of well over two feet, while his brother went one better and spread wide his arms. 'And then we found the hat. It caught on the end of my line.'

'End of his line,' Dick said, smiling.

'What sort of hat?' I returned Dick's smile.

Jack shrugged, a gesture at once copied by his brother.

I wondered how the younger boy would fare when the elder went to live with Master Adelard, the weaver.

'Just a plain hat,' Jack said, 'with a wide brim. All soggy it was, but you could see darker patches on it. We didn't know it was dried blood then,' he admitted reluctantly.

'But you knew who it belonged to?'

'We guessed. We'd all heard about Master Woodward being missing.'

'So what did you do with it?'

'We meant to take it to Mistress Walker, but Master Herepath just happened along at that moment, so we gave it to him.'

'Master Edward Herepath?'

Jack opened his eyes wide at my stupidity. 'Of course.

His brother was in the Newgate prison.'

'Newgate prison,' came the expected echo.

I interrogated them for a few moments longer, but it soon became apparent that they had no more to tell. They could recall nothing other than what they told the sheriff's officers at the time; and even those few details were fading from their minds. Each new day presented them with ever-expanding horizons, and the events of almost a twelve-month since held no interest for them. I thanked them both with solemn courtesy and rose to take my leave. Released from the need to be polite, the boys whooped around their mother, clamouring for a slice of bread, preferably one of the golden-baked crusts.

Fending them off with practised hands, Jenny Hodge escorted me to the door just as someone knocked. A man stood outside, muffled in his cloak against the cold, its hood pulled well forward to conceal his face. Nevertheless, Jenny had no difficulty in identifying her visitor and gave a nervous start.

'Oh!' she said, 'it's you.' She glanced sideways at me, then held the door wide. 'Burl's from home at present, but he'll be back soon for his dinner. You'd... You'd best come in and wait.'

'Thank you, Mistress.' The man stepped across the threshold without sparing me a look, keeping his head lowered so that the hood fell even further forward about his face. He said nothing else before Jenny Hodge ushered me out and closed the door behind me, yet somehow I felt as though I had heard that voice before, and recently.

I racked my brains, repeating the unknown's words over and over inside my head, but gradually I lost the intonation and gave up trying to remember. I told myself that I was probably mistaken.

I returned to Alderman Weaver's counting-house, to find him pacing up and down. The aulnager had been gone a little while, all the alderman's cloth being of the required width, with no thin patches from the use of inferior wool. Each roll now bore the aulnager's seal, and awaited collection by the carter.

'Ah, there you are at last,' was the impatient greeting. 'Here's the letter you wanted for Master Herepath.' The alderman held out a thin sheet of parchment, then snatched it back again. 'He has suffered greatly. You must promise me not to hound him should he refuse to see you.'

I gave my word willingly, for if God did not mean me to solve this mystery, then I could be on the road once more. And without the assistance of the hanged man's brother, I doubted that I should learn very much. I said my farewells and thanked the alderman for his help. My stomach was telling me that it was time for dinner, a sure sign I was getting better, and I turned my feet in the direction of Margaret Walker's cottage.

It was as I made my way along St Thomas's Street that I recalled where, and in what circumstances, I had heard the voice of Jenny Hedge's visitor before. Until that moment, I would have deemed it impossible that it was one and the same, for the voice of Margaret Walker's nocturnal caller during my illness had been muted; nothing more, I would have sworn, than an indistinguishable murmur to my straining ears. Now, however, I realized it must have sounded plainer than I thought, for I knew beyond doubt that on both occasions, the speaker had been the same man.

Chapter Seven

There was leek pottage for dinner, heavily laced with garlic to disguise the lack of other flavours at this dead time of the year; but, eaten with thick slabs of oatmeal bread, it warmed and filled the belly. In addition, there was ale for me and verjuice for the women, made from last autumn's harvest of crab-apples. While we ate, I recounted the history of my morning, but said nothing of the Hodges' visitor, nor of my suspicions concerning him.

Instinct told me that I should learn no more if I did. I should be treated to vacant stares and a fiat denial of any such caller at the cottage. And I had been ill enough at the time for the incident to be attributed to my delirious fancy.

I did, however, ask Margaret Walker about her father's return, and to all my questions she answered with apparent frankness.

'His boots were thick with dust,' she said, 'as though he had been walking for days on tile road. But as for getting any sense out of him as to where he had been, I told you before, that was well-nigh impossible. All he would say, when he was able to say anything, was that he had been captured by slavers and taken to Ireland.

Never a word would he vouchsafe about what part of Ireland, how he had escaped from bondage, what ship had brought him home.' She shrugged and gave a sad, wry smile. 'But of course he couldn't. He was never in Ireland.

For that's the conclusion we were all forced to in the end.' I nodded. 'So Alderman Weaver believes, and confirmed your opinion that no one would have wanted to buy an old and injured man. Slavers, he maintained, would not have beaten a captive about the head in such a brutal fashion as to cause him to lose his wits.'

Lillis, who had eaten very little, being too busy watching me with her slanting eyes, asked softly, 'Then where was he? And why should he believe he had been taken to Ireland?'

Margaret put in swiftly, to save me the embarrassment of doubting her father's word, 'Perhaps he didn't. Perhaps he knew where he had been and why, but for reasons of his own did not wish anyone else to know. Although,' she added, encountering her daughter's derisive smile, 'I am inclined to the view that he really remembered very little of anything that had happened to him. Even events prior to his disappearance were hazy in his mind, and it was necessary to go back many years before he was able to recall things with any clarity. He knew that he had lived with Lllis and me, in this cottage, which was why he returned here and not to his home in Bell Lane, but that was four years and more ago.'

I finished my stew and laid down my spoon, resisting Margaret's attempts to ladle me out a second helping. I drank my ale, conscious of a sudden thirst, before asking, 'And there's nothing else you can tell me which might shed any light on where Master Woodward had been?' I knew by her expression that something had puzzled her. She sucked her teeth thoughtfully, clearing them of bits of food, staring straight ahead but seeing nothing. I waited patiently, content to let her take her time.

'It was his clothes,' she said at last. Her eyes swivelled round to meet mine. 'They weren't his. They weren't any that I'd ever seen before.'

'Someone had robbed him of his, perhaps,' I suggested, when she paused. 'Or his had been torn and bloodied so badly when he was captured that he had to be found new ones to wear. There are probably half a dozen reasons.' She nodded slowly. 'Maybe, but these were good clothes. Rich clothes. The hose were pure wool, the doublet velvet, the shirt and drawers of fine, bleached linen.

Gentleman's garments, every one. The boots, although well-worn and rubbed, were made of Spanish leather, and there was also a hooded cape, lined with silk and scalloped round the edges.'

'Don't forget the cloak,' Lillis reminded her mother.

'Oh yes, the cloak.' Abstractedly, Margaret Walker stirred the remains of her soup around the bottom of her wooden bowl. 'It's true it was made of frieze, but it was fur-lined, and none of your sheepskin or badger or cat! It was squirrel, a delicate grey colour and beautifully soft.'

I was intrigued. 'What happened to them when your father died?'

'I still have them. They were too good to part with and I folded them in lavender and put them away in the chest.' She nodded towards the stout oaken coffer ranged against one wall. 'I'll show you them if you'd like.' She rose, selecting one of the keys from the bunch which hung at her belt, inserted it in the chest's iron lock, and lifted the lid. The room was immediately filled with the sweet intermingled scents of musk and violet and lavender. Having removed her own and Lillis's best gowns from the top, she stooped and brought out, almost reverently, the pile of clothes beneath.

I went to stand beside her. We once more closed the lid of the chest and placed them on top. Gently I picked up each garment, shook it out, and held it up to the light filtering through the parchment of the window. The velvet doublet was a dull amber colour, very rich, but lacking the tightly nipped waist which had become so fashionable among the wealthy in recent years. The drawers and shirt, as Margaret had said, were of fine, bleached linen, the hood and cape lined with scarlet cendal. And the frieze cloak was indeed lined with the soft grey fur of squirrel.

The apparel of a gentleman, and one more reason, if another was needed, to doubt that William Woodward had come by them as a slave in Ireland. But there was nothing else, alas, to suggest where they might have come from, or how William had obtained them. I did notice one thing, however, on closer examination. The seams of the garments were strained and in some places beginning to part.

The boots, also, showed the imprint of feet slightly too large for them. The soiled Spanish leather had been pushed out of shape at the base of each big toe, and the toes themselves had bulged in protest against their too rigid confinement. A well-built man had owned these boots and clothes, but not so well-built as William Woodward.

Beyond that, however, they told me nothing, and I helped Margaret return them to the chest, covering them again with the two women's gowns. There were other things in the chest; I noticed sheets, neatly folded, and a woollen blanket such as the one I used at nights, a pair of old shoes, some spare hose and a cloak of that thick, coarse material we used to call burel. There was also the edge of what looked like a book: I had a fleeting glimpse of rubbed velvet binding and the protruding edges of vellum. But before I could be sure of what I had seen, Margaret had replaced the clothes, slammed the lid of the chest and locked it. Had I been mistaken? I asked, and Margaret Walker laughed, but to my ears there was something forced about the sound. 'What would poor people, who can neither read nor write, be doing with books?' she mocked. 'Why would they spend good money on something that would be of no use to them?' Lillis, who was heating water over the fire in order to wash the dishes, said nothing. A small, contemptuous smile tilted the comers of her mouth, but whether the object of her disdain was myself or her mother, I had no means of knowing. And the more I thought about what I had seen, the less able I was to picture it clearly. As Margaret had pointed out, a book or folio would be an unlikely item to find in such a dwelling. I noted, however, that she did not offer to unlock the chest and solve the mystery. So my suspicions remained, but I had no means of verifying either their truth or falsity,