[Roger the Chapman 04] - The Holy Innocents (15 page)

'He had not approached you before that day? Not at any other time since Mistress Colet's death?'

The grey eyes, inherited by his youngest daughter, were suddenly bright and shrewd.

'You are suggesting that it might have been a trumped-up excuse to come and see me?'

I shrugged. 'I find it... suspicious, shall I say, that it was that morning out of all the others that he was absent from home and in such reputable company.' Thomas Cozin graciously inclined his head. I continued, 'And that it was while he was here, talking to you, that the children vanished.' My host thought about this, rubbing his nose with a bony forefinger. After due consideration, however, he pursed his lips doubtfully.

'It alters nothing, chapman. Facts are facts. The children were there when he left the house, not there when he got back. If you doubt me, question Bridget Praule and Agatha Tenter; if you can shake their witness, you'll do more than the Sheriff or any of his sergeants were able to do.' I had every intention of speaking to both women, and would have asked him for their directions had not Oliver Cozin called peremptorily down the stairs, 'Tom, what's keeping you? Has the chapman gone yet?'

I put a finger to my lips, mouthed my thanks, tiptoed to the door and let myself out into the passage. As I quietly lowered the latch, I heard Thomas reply, 'Oh yes, he's gone, Now! What is it you wanted?'

I opened the street door, but was not allowed to escape so easily. There was a sudden scurry of feet on the flagstones behind me, and Ursula Cozin seized my arm.

'It's men's turn to hock today, chapman. Aren't you going to ask me for a forfeit?'

I tried to look severe. 'Go back to your school books,' I said. 'You're too young for such matters.'

'I have nine summers,' was the indignant answer. She smiled pertly. 'Well, if I'm not old enough for your taste, would you like me to summon one or both of my sisters? I should choose Elizabeth, if I were you. She is younger and less of a tease. Joan's very high and mighty at present, ever since she had her first proposal of marriage. Of course, Father refused the offer. The young man had no money and his way to make in the world, being nought but the Benjamin out of six brothers.'

I suppressed a smile at this ingenuous confidence. 'If you wish to do something for me,' I said, 'tell me where I may find Bridget Praule and Agatha Tenter.'

Ursula pouted. 'Oh, very well, but you won't find either of them as pretty as me. Or as Elizabeth or Joan, if it comes to that. Yet am I, in my sisters' case, being over-generous?' She doubled up with mirth at her own wit, revealing herself as the child she truly was. Recovering her poise a little, and conscious of self-betrayal, she told me, with as much dignity as she could muster, that Bridget lodged at her grandmother's cottage, between St Peter's Quay and the Magdalen Lazar House. Agatha Tenter, now living once again with her mother, Dame Winifred, was to be discovered on the other side of the bridge, within the Pomeroy parish bounds.

'And for that, I think I deserve a kiss.' Ursula leaned forward, brushing my cheek with soft, petal-like lips. 'God be with you, chapman. Oh, here are my sisters returning from the kitchen. I should escape while you can.' She gave me a friendly push towards the open door.

I needed no second bidding and was out in the street almost before I knew it.

I left the town this time by the East Gate, pausing for a brief while to put the same questions to the gatekeeper as I had posed to his fellow on the West Gate. But I got no more joy than before. Yes, he remembered the day in January when the Skelton children had disappeared - who could forget it? - but he had seen nothing of them. All the gatekeepers had been interrogated by the Sheriff and all had told the same story. And yes, he supposed it possible that Andrew Skelton and his sister might have concealed themselves among the contents of a wagon, although he himself obviously inclined towards the idea of witchcraft. However, as he made it plain that he had no liking for Eudo Colet, I took this with a grain of salt and considered it more wishful thinking, rather than outright conviction on his part. I thanked him and passed through into the Foregate.

The street ran downhill to the town mill and the bridge across the Dart at the bottom. To the left spread the Priory fields and orchards, while to the right, another stockade enclosed an area known as the Pickle Moor and a straggle of shops and houses. It had been my intention to visit first Dame Winifred's cottage, on the other side of the river, but a sudden thirst and gnawing hunger reminded me that it was several hours since I had eaten dinner with Grizelda. I could pay a visit to Jacinta at the castle tavern, but did not wish to retrace my steps. There must be ale-houses outside the walls; I had only to ask directions.

A cart, empty of any burden, lumbered through the gate behind me, a thin whippet of a man perched up behind the horse, the reins slack in his hand. A pair of brilliant blue eyes considered me dispassionately from a weather-beaten face beneath a thatch of dark hair, salted with grey. I hailed him with a friendly 'Good-day!' and he drew to a halt alongside me.

'Can I help you, friend? You have a lost air about you.' 'I'm looking for an ale-house,' I confessed, 'where I can quench my thirst. I thought you seemed like a fellow who might know of one.'

He roared with laughter at that, revealing a flash of surprisingly sound white teeth in the wrinkled, sunburned features.

'Your instinct was right, chapman. I know every ale-house and tavern within a ten-mile distance of this town. But you need search no further than the one I'm off to, now, close by St Peter's Quay. I note you were heading for the bridge, but it's not so very much out of your way, and you can ride with me, if you've a mind to. I've just delivered a load of flour from the mill to the baker's, and I've an hour to spare before my next journey. I'd be glad of your company.' I thanked him and heaved myself up into the empty cart, where a fine dusting of flour still whitened the boards.

'St Peter's Quay will suit me very well. I have a visit to pay near there, in any case.' My newfound friend twitched the reins and the horse plodded along a path to our right, between some cottages, and so to a gate in the stockade. 'I think you must be Jack Carter,' I hazarded.

'The same.' He grinned, glancing over his shoulder. 'Who's been speaking of me?'

'I'll tell you when we're settled with our ale,' I promised. 'It might prove a longish story.'

We made our steady way around a tidal marsh whose land had been drained by a broad, stone-built dam, which kept back the encroaching river.

'Is that the Weirland Dam?' I asked my companion.

'Aye, that's it. Built more'n two hundred years ago, if accounts can be believed. 'Tis sure it's been there all my lifetime and the lifetime of my father and his father afore him.'

A heron swooped low over the marshy reaches, where clusters of kingcups raised great, golden heads to the sky.

Clumps of reeds stood sentinel between tall, spiked grasses and purple loosestrife, not yet in flower, but with leaves showing a tender young green. Some of the land had been reclaimed and built over.

Matt's tavern was a low, thatched building flanked on one side by a scattering of cottages rising uphill towards the Leper Hospital, one of which, from Ursula Cozin's direction, must belong to Granny Pranle. Inside, the ale-house was full of men who all knew one another and were on terms of friendly familiarity. Their elliptical speech argued the case for most of them following either the same trade, or for their being employed in similar callings.

'Dockers and sailors, mostly,' Jack Carter confirmed, when I asked him. 'Put your money away, chapman, I'll stand the first shout. You can pay later. Matt! Two stoups of ale and be quick about it, or you'll have a couple of corpses, dead of thirst, on your hands.'

The leather-aproned landlord grinned good-naturedly, and there was a deal of chaff from the rest of the drinkers.

'Who's your companion, Jack?' demanded one wag with a ginger beard. 'Looks big enough to drain the whole of Devon.'

I answered in kind, and it was some time after Matt had brought the ale to our bench near the door that Jack and I were able to resume any private conversation. But, gradually, the rest of the company lost interest in us, and I nudged the talk in my chosen direction by inquiring of Jack Carter if he knew which was Granny Praule's cottage.

'Last before the Lazar House at the top of the rise,' was the prompt reply. He took a gulp of ale and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. 'What's your business with that old crone?'

I told him, and saw him furtively make a sign to ward off evil.

'You were sent for, I believe, that morning the Skelton children disappeared, to fetch away Mistress Grizelda Harbourne?'

He nodded solemnly. 'Near hysterical, she was. White as a shroud and shaking so much she had difficulty in speaking. Agatha Tenter had warned me, before I went upstairs, that there'd been a terrible falling out between them. Mistress Harbourne and Eudo Colet I'm talking of. And some falling out it must have been to make her look like that, I'm telling you! I didn't see him. He was keeping out of the way, I reckon. Putting no rub in the path of her leaving. They'd never got on, it was common knowledge. I didn't say nothing. Just dragged her box downstairs and called for their stableman to help carry it out to the cart and heave it aboard. By that time she'd joined me, still looking like she'd died and gone to Hell, and told me to take her home, to her father's holding.'

'Did you hear the children at all, while you were in the house?' I asked him.

Jack swallowed more ale. 'Oh, yes,' he said, 'I heard 'em all right. Or, leastwise, the girl. She was singing.'

Chapter Ten

The clatter and hubbub of the ale-room was growing less as the dockers gradually returned to work, leaving only the sailors to while away the rest of the afternoon with drink and sleep before going aboard their now cargoless vessels to spend the night. Tomorrow, the empty holds would be loaded with fresh merchandise, and the following morning, the vessels would weigh anchor for Brittany or Spain or Ireland or wherever else they happened to be bound.

At Jack Carter's instigation, the landlord refilled our cups, before going to the assistance of his pot-boy who was having difficulty fixing a tap to a new cask of ale. I watched absentmindedly for a moment or two, then turned my head towards my companion.

'What was she singing?'

'What was who singing?' Jack's attention had plainly strayed during the last few minutes.

'Mary Skelton. You said you heard her singing while you were bringing Mistress Harbourne's box downstairs.'
 

'Oh, you're back at that, are you? Yes, I heard the girl, but what she was singing, I couldn't tell you. A pretty, clear, high-pitched voice she had, but I've no ear for music, chapman, and can't tell one tune from another.'

I murmured sympathetically, being afflicted with the same lack myself, as my fellow novices at Glastonbury used to complain whenever I chanted too loudly during a service.

Nevertheless, I urged, 'Can't you recall even a snatch of the words?'

The carter rubbed his chin, already faintly shadowed with black stubble.

'You're asking too much of me,' he complained. 'I tell you, I've difficulty holding a song in my head for three minutes, let alone three months! Oh well, if it's important to you,' he added good-naturedly, 'I'll see if I can remember something.' He placed his elbows on the table and cupped his chin in his hands, frowning in fierce concentration. After perhaps a minute, he uttered, 'I think... Yes, I'm almost sure it was a lullaby.' He nodded his head vigorously. 'It was. I recollect a refrain of lollay, lollay, lullow.'

He hummed a few tuneless notes which I could not identify; nor was I any more successful when he whistled them. And there were too many lullabies to soothe sleepless babes for me to be able to guess. Furthermore, did it really matter what Mary Skelton had been singing that January morning? The strange thing was that the child had been capable of singing at all after being at the centre of such a terrible quarrel between her stepfather, herself and her brother, and then between her stepfather and her nurse. Yet Grizelda had told me that both children were playing calmly by the time she left, as though the affair no longer concerned them. Why? What was in their minds? Had they already decided on some desperate course of action before the angry exchange with Eudo Colet took place? Had they deliberately provoked him to a fight for reasons of their own?

There were too many as yet insoluble questions, but Bridget Praule and Agatha Tenter might be able to supply some of the answers. I should be on my way. I finished my ale and rose to my feet.

'You're not going?' Jack Carter demanded, aggrieved. 'There's time for another shout before I need collect my next load from the sawmill.'

'I'm sorry,' I said, 'but the afternoon is already advanced.

Which did you say was Dame Praule's cottage?' That made him laugh, dispersing his ill-humour.

'Never tell me you're going to beard Granny Praule in her den?' he guffawed. 'She'll eat a good-looking young fellow like you alive. You'd never think it to see her now, but she was the prettiest girl in these parts, and for miles around, when she was in her prime. I can remember my father saying that when he was a lad, she was the toast of every tavern between here and Plymouth. She finds it hard to forget those days, and to accept that time hasn't dealt favourably with her. But if you're set on going, you'll find her in the last cottage as you go up the hill towards the Lazar House.' I thanked him, and we parted with mutual goodwill and the promise of seeing one another again before I left Totnes.