[Roger the Chapman 04] - The Holy Innocents (7 page)

Yet another door at the other end, when unlocked, gave access to the bedchambers and upstairs parlour of the main dwelling.

The room in which I found myself was obviously the chief of the bedchambers, judging by the four-poster bed, hung all around with blue silk draperies. A rich green damask coverlet was draped over what proved, on examination, to be a goose-feather mattress, and the walls were painted with an intricate pattern in red and white which could only have been done at considerable cost and by a skilled craftsman. There were two beautifully carved clothes chests, one supporting a six-branched pewter candelabra, bearing the stumps of pure wax candles, while the floor was still scattered with rushes and dried herbs, now brittle and brown with age. A curtain, drawn across one corner of the room, concealed two chamber-pots and a bathtub.

This room opened on to a short, narrow passage, dark and airless, which offered me the choice of two doors. I opened the one leading to the front of the house, and found myself in the upstairs parlour from one corner of which the stairs twisted down to the lower floor. Three walls were hung with tapestries, now rubbed and faded with age, but once bright with brilliant, jewel-like colours. Their fabric, however, was still intact and I guessed, from knowledge gathered on my journeyings, that they came originally from France. One depicted Tobias being greeted by the angel, Azarias; another showed Judith holding up the bleeding, severed head of Holofernes; the third told the story of Gideon overcoming the Midianites. The roof beams were painted scarlet, blue and green, their ends fashioned into the figures of saints.

The wide stone hearth and chimney stood directly above that of the lower parlour, and the overmantel was even more elaborately carved and coloured than the one downstairs, Indeed, table, chairs, stools and cupboards all displayed superior craftsmanship to the furnishings below. Two rugs on the floor, and glass in the upper half of the windows, were yet further intimations of wealth and luxury.

Having looked my fill, I stepped back into the passage where, with a mere stretch of my arm, I was able to open the second door and enter the other bedchamber. This was furnished in similar fashion to its fellow, but the bed curtains and covering were of unbleached linen, and the mattress I found upon investigation to be stuffed with flock. A ewer and basin stood on top of a clothes chest, and the candleholder contained only a rushlight. A truckle-bed, supporting a palliasse, a rough linen sheet and a couple of coarse woollen blankets, stood alongside the four-poster, evidence that a second or third person had shared the room, most obviously a servant. The window panes were of oiled parchment nailed do the wooden frame, and one of the shutters, folded back against the wall, was in danger of coming loose from its hinges. Not a room on which care or time had been lavished.

As I turned to go, a floorboard creaked beneath my feet and the noise made me jump. I realized for the fast time how deserted the house felt, how eerily silent. Fear pricked along my spine and I began to sweat, aware of the presence of evil.

It was here, in this room, all around me. The hair rose on the nape of my neck and my skin took on the appearance of goose-flesh. I was icily cold and searingly hot at one and the same moment. My legs were giving way beneath me, I felt unable to breathe and I was perilously close to losing my senses ...

The terror passed. Propped against the door, my hands clammy with sweat, I was nevertheless breathing naturally and my surroundings appeared perfectly normal. There was nothing and no one here, except myself; and I felt deeply ashamed of my sudden burst of panic. I needed food: it was some hours now since I had eaten my pies down by St Peter's Quay, and my stomach was crying out for more sustenance.

Pulling myself together, I went back to the parlour and descended the stairs to the lower floor. I had seen everything there was to see of my temporary lodgings, and apart from the highly improbable threat of attack from the outlaws, there was nothing to be afraid of. I told myself firmly that what I had experienced in the second bedchamber was nothing more than bodily weakness engendered by hunger.

Yet I was still left with the unresolved problem of why no one could be found to remain here. There was a general aversion to the house, and, so far, I had not discovered what caused it. Perhaps if I took myself to the local inn, I might obtain some information. So I closed all the shutters and locked all the doors, before letting myself out into the street and directing my feet towards the nearest hostelry.

This I found in the lee of the castle wall - a narrow-fronted, inhospitable-looking dwelling, but whose bunch of green leaves, hoisted on a pole over the entrance, indicated that its occupant sold ale and food. I made my way inside, and when my eyes had grown accustomed to the dimness, I could see a long table down the middle of the room, benches ranged around the walls and a high-backed settle drawn up close to a central hearth, on which a few logs were burning. There were only one or two other customers beside myself, it being, by now, close to the hour of curfew; and doubtless the townsfolk were already making themselves comfortable by their firesides, barricading doors and windows against imaginary attack from the outlaws. I drew a stool up to the table, and shouted for the landlord.

As is often the ease in country districts, the inn was run by a woman. She came into the ale-room from somewhere at the back; by the smell of her, most probably the brewhouse.

At first sight, she appeared to be a large, motherly-looking woman, an impression immediately dispelled on closer acquaintance. Small dark eyes, set in folds of pallid flesh, shrewdly summed me up as someone likely to spend money freely, being in need of copious refreshment. She was therefore all affability; but a pair of brawny arms and a fist, the size and appearance, when bunched, of a ham, were warnings that she would stand no nonsense.

'Ale,' I said, 'and bread and cheese. And plenty of it.' She nodded, eyeing me appreciatively.

'A hulking fellow like you could do with some cold, boiled bacon, as well, I daresay. And some buckram, nice and juicy, the first of the season?'

'Why not?' I grinned. 'In my lonely bed, there will be no one to object to the smell of my breath.'

The landlady raised an eyebrow and snorted. 'Lonely bed, is it? Then it's of your own choosing. There are girls in plenty around these parts who'd jump at the chance of keeping you warm, if you so much as crooked a finger. I'd do so myself if I were twenty years younger.' She added a foul-mouthed sally and went away, chortling.

By the time she returned, I was the only customer left. The ale-house was too small to be a hostelry, and there seemed to be no inmates except herself and a long-faced tapster, who came to draw my ale, then vanished, silently.

'My son,' she shrugged, nodding in the general direction of his disappearance. 'A miserable dog, if ever there was one. But I need him. I can't manage the barrels on my own. Now, eat up.' She placed a laden platter before me and drew another stool close to the table. 'And while you're eating, you can tell me who you are and where you come from. It's always a pleasure to meet a stranger.'

So, between mouthfuls of bread and ham, cheese and garlic, all washed down with a good strong ale, I gave her a brief history of my life so far; a narration at which I had become adept over the years, because I always seemed to arouse people's curiosity. I also related, for the third or fourth time that day, news of King Edward's proposed invasion of France; at which she spat in the sawdust covering the floor, and remarked that men were born fools who, unhappily, never grew any wiser.

'Always fighting one another, like children. Killing each other for no good reason. Women need more say in the governing of things, Master Chapman, and then we might see common sense prevailing.' When she saw that I was not to be drawn, she gave a gap-toothed smile and changed the
 
subject. 'Where are you sleeping tonight? At the Priory?'
     
I cleared my mouth. 'Better than that. I've been given a house to myself.' And I explained the circumstances.

I glanced up from scraping the last morsel of food from my plate to find her regarding me oddly.

'So! Master Eudo Colet won't be coming back, eh? Not even to protect his property.' Once again, she spat contemptuously, this time finding her target on one of the smouldering logs on the hearth. The spittle hissed and sizzled. 'Not to be wondered at, I suppose. Murder's an evil thing to be touched by at the best of times. But the death of children is particularly heinous. And when there's also the suspicion of witchcraft….' She broke off; lifting her ample shoulders.

I stared at her, horrified.

'No one told me... I have heard of two children being murdered by the outlaws, but these, I presume, are not the ones you speak of?'

'Aye, the same pair. Brother and sister. Rosamund Crouchback's children by her first husband. Never saw him. Came from northern parts, and after she married him, they lived in London. But when he died, she came back home to her father, bringing her little ones with her. A wild, wilful girl she was, always; and when Sir Jasper himself died, leaving her everything, she said she'd married to oblige him the first time, and now she was going to marry to please herself. And so she did! Going off to London again - Bartholomewtide, it would have been, three years since - and staying away for a month or more, and leaving those pretty ones in the care of the servants. And when she came home, she was wed again, to Master Eudo Colet! An adventurer with an eye for an easy fortune if ever I saw one. And I wasn't the only one who thought so. Everyone disliked him and thought him up a no good. But the one who hated and mistrusted him most of all was Rosamund's cousin, the children's nurse, Grizelda Harbourne!'

Chapter Five

'Grizelda Harbourne?' I jerked my head up sharply at the name. 'Who has a holding near the river?'

'The very same. The holding was her father's, and when he died, not long after Sir Jasper, it passed to Grizelda.' The landlady puckered her brows. 'How do you come to know her? I thought you were a stranger hereabouts.'
 

'She and her friends were up early this morning, hocking, and I fell into their clutches.' I added, reddening slightly, 'Mistress Harbourne took pity on me and made them settle for less than they demanded. A kiss apiece. Then she took me home with her and gave me breakfast.'

This story seemed to afford my hostess great amusement.

'Been hocked, have you, my lad? Well, well! It's a wonder you were allowed to get away so lightly. Had I been there, you wouldn't have been as lucky.' She gave me a lascivious glance and licked her lips. My blush deepened, and she chortled loudly. 'Count yourself fortunate that Grizelda took pity on you. But she's a good woman with a soft heart. She's always protected those weaker than herself. Children and small, furry animals.' She shot me a second glance, this time tinged with malice. 'And big, dumb, ox-like creatures.' The coarse features sobered. 'Which is why she can't forgive herself for abandoning those two young innocents that terrible morning.'
 

'What terrible morning?' I asked. 'And why should Grizelda shoulder the blame? Where was the children's mother?'

'Dead, in childbirth, last November, around Martinmas. ~.

The child died, too. His child. Eudo Colet's. So he was left with the little ones and Grizelda and the two servants: the cook, Agatha Tenter, and Bridget Praule, the maid. Grizelda stayed with him as long as she could, for the children's sake, but she had always disliked him, and after her cousin's death, it turned to something deeper. They quarrelled and fought incessantly, so Bridget Prattle told me. And finally, that winter morning, three months since, when Mary and Andrew... disappeared' - the landlady's voice sank to a whisper and she crossed herself hurriedly, signing to me to do the same - 'she could take no more, not even to protect her little darlings. She packed her box and summoned Jack Carter to take her home to Bow Creek.

'She left the children playing upstairs, but within two hours of her departure, they had vanished, in spite of the fact of that both Bridget Praule and Agatha Tenter swore it was impossible for them to have quit the house unseen. Their bodies were discovered, horribly mutilated, six weeks later, caught in some branches on the banks of the Harbourne;
   
downstream, a mile or so from where it flows into the Dart.' The innkeeper swallowed some of my ale, her hand shaking so much that a few drops spilled from the cup on to the table, her face sallow and glistening with sweat. 'They had been murdered by the outlaws.' She gripped my wrist. 'But how had they wandered so far without anyone noticing them? How had they got out of the house when every door was within view of one or other of the servants? It could only have been by witchcraft, practised by that devil, Eudo Colet!'
 

'But it seems he's not been arrested on any such charge,' I pointed out. 'And the authorities would most surely have acted, had there been any proof of malpractice against him. Where was he when the children vanished? How old were they? There's so much I still don't understand.'

She answered my last question first. 'The boy, Andrew, was the elder. Six summers he'd seen, and looking forward to his seventh when he was so wickedly cut down. His sister, Mary, was a twelvemonth younger, and as pretty a little soul as you could wish to see this side of heaven. Eyes as blue as periwinkles and hair the colour of ripened corn. She took after her mother in looks, but was without the waywardness. A little angel, and her brother not much short of one; the children of Rosamund Crouchback's first husband, Sir Henry Skelton.' I made no comment. In my experience, children, however good or placid, were rarely angelic. Recalling myself at that age, I knew I must have been a sore trial to my long-suffering mother; falling out of trees, tearing my clothes, stealing apples and playing rowdy games of football in the street.