[Roger the Chapman 04] - The Holy Innocents (9 page)

'Chapman! What brings you back this way again?'
 

'I need to talk to you. But first tell me, where are the animals?'

'Safe with my friends on their holding near Ashprington. I went there last night, as you advised me to do, taking Betsy and Snouter with me to be locked in their barn - a good, stout building which would make any robber think twice before trying to break in. And there they will stay, for a day or two at least, until I get weary of trudging to and fro carrying milk pails.'

'And nothing was disturbed when you returned this morning?'

'Everything was exactly as I left it. And I came back very early, before sunrise, in order to avoid the hockers.' She smiled impudently. 'I thought you might have been out with your fellow men, getting your revenge for yesterday.'
 

I shook my head and reverted to the original subject.

'I'd leave the beasts where they are for as long as your friends are willing to house them. The town's full of rumours this morning that the outlaws were abroad again last night, across the fiver, towards Berry Pomeroy. They could return here yet. The Mayor's sent word again to Exeter, I understand, to the Sheriff, and there should be a posse riding south by tomorrow. But these men, as well as being dangerous, are cunning. I doubt they'll be caught without a stroke of luck, but they may well tire and move on to different ground that offers them fresh pickings. They've been in these parts a long time now. Be patient a while, and they may just vanish.'

Grizelda smiled and invited me into the cottage. 'Have you eaten?' she asked, as I followed her indoors.

'Yes, and heartily,' I answered. 'Boiled bacon, a mess of eggs, oatcakes and honey, provided for me by my friend, the innkeeper of the ale-house near the castle.'

'Jacinta! I know her. Well-meaning enough, but inclined to push her nose into everybody's business.' Grizelda looked surprised. 'You stayed the night in Totnes, then? Somehow, I thought you would be out of there and on the open road before yesterevening.' She frowned suddenly. 'You aren't carrying your pack! What's happened?'

I sat down on one of the benches, my back resting against the wall, while she poured me a beaker of her excellent ale, brewed to a rich, dark colour, and given its sharp and tangy taste by the germander I had noticed growing in her garden.

'I spent the night in Eudo Colet's house,' I said, reaching out to take the beaker from her.

She jumped, spilling some of the ale, and the brown eyes widened in horror.

'What were you doing there?' she demanded.

I told her; of my meeting with Mistress Cozin and her daughters; of my visit to the house; of the offer made to me by Oliver Cozin to play caretaker for the night; of his subsequent suggestion that I might like to remain there longer; and of my conversation with the landlady of the ale-house near the castle. 'Named by you as Jacinta,' I added, 'though she never told me how she was called.'

'And so you have come to hear the full story,' Grizelda said, sitting down beside me, on the bench. She was quick on the uptake: there was no need to explain the reasons for my actions.

'If you are willing to tell it,' I answered.

She thought for a moment, her face serious, brooding almost, and I wondered what was going through her mind.

Then she shrugged.

'Yes, I'm willing, if you're interested enough to listen. But I warn you that I can shed no light on the central mystery; what happened to Andrew and Mary after I left the house that dreadful morning" Her lips set in a thin, hard line and her face grew dark with sorrow. 'But of the events leading up to their disappearance, I can tell you as much as you wish to know, for my life had been intertwined with Rosamund's since we were children.'

Chapter Six

'My father,' she said, 'was a distant kinsman of Sir Jasper Crouchback's wife, Lucy, and there was a sufficient bond of blood between them to merit the title of "cousin". Sir Jasper acknowledged it, and did what he could to aid my parents when times were bad, and used his influence with the manor lord to get us this holding. He was also influential in having it written into the lease that it should remain in our possession for two generations, regardless of whether the heir were male or female.

'Lucy Crouchback died when Rosamund was born. She was their first child, and Lucy was not much above nineteen summers. It was a bitter blow to Sir Jasper, who had come to marriage late, being some fifteen, perhaps sixteen, years older than his wife. Everyone naturally expected him to marry again and get himself a son, but he didn't. He remained a widower for the rest of his fife and lavished all his love and money on Rosamund. The result, as you might suppose, was a wilful, spoilt child, used to getting her own way in everything, and one who could wind her father around her little finger.'

'You speak without malice,' I interrupted. 'In spite of her faults, you were fond of her?'

Grizelda smiled. 'I was, and she of me, I like to think.

Oh, there were times when we quarrelled, and on occasions bitterly. I should be a liar if I denied it. But it's no more than you'd expect when two girls grow up together in the same house, sharing the same toys and the same bed. But I get ahead of myself. When I was nine years old, my mother died.

Rosamund was then about five, with only the old family nurse for female companionship. Sir Jasper offered to relieve my father of my care by taking me to live with him in the town, as a playmate for Rosamund. I think my father was thankful to let me go, even though I, too, was an only child. He knew nothing about the upbringing of girls.' She laughed. 'Truth to tell, I think women were always something of a mystery to him, poor man.'

'And were you willing?'

'Not at first. I remember crying and begging my father not to send me. But he told me it was for my own good, and in the end, I knew he had been right. Living with Sir Jasper and Rosamund gave me the friendship of my own sex and the kind of life of which, hitherto, I had only had glimpses.'
 

'Sir Jasper was a very rich man,' I said, not questioning, but stating. 'How did he make his money?'

Grizelda put her head on side, regarding me thoughtfully.

'Do you know anything about the cloth trade?' she asked.

I finished my ale and put the empty beaker down on the bench beside me.

'My mother-in-law is a spinner, and dwells in the midst of Bristol's weaving community. Her father was a weaver for most of his life. So, yes, you could say I know a little about the cloth trade.'

My companion nodded. 'Then do you know what straights are?'

'I've heard them spoken of, and always with contempt. They are the poor, coarse lengths of cloth woven from the wool of inferior sheep, whose fleece is not considered good enough for English broadcloth.'

Grizelda laughed. 'You've obviously learned your lesson well enough to recite it by heart. But straights are not universally despised, you know, and they sell fast enough abroad, especially to the Bretons. Many a Totnes fortune has been made in Little Britain, Sir Jasper Crouchback's being but one of them. His and Thomas Cozin's boats plied from the harbour here across the Narrow Sea and back again for many years, and still do, though now the enterprise is managed solely by Master Cozin. And he, like the honourable man he is, saw to it that Sir Jasper's investment in the business continued to benefit his heirs. When Rosamund died in childbirth, last Martinmas, bearing Eudo Colet's stillborn son, she was even wealthier than her father had been.'

'And her husband is now in sole possession of this fortune? Well, it's the law. But go back a little. Tell me about your cousin's first marriage.'

'To Sir Henry Skelton. Very well. He was a gentleman of the bedchamber to King Edward. He had lands in Yorkshire, but as he was a widower with a grown-up son it was upon that son the estate devolved when Sir Henry was killed. He and Rosamund were only wed a little over two years. They met when Sir Jasper took the pair of us to London some... oh... nine years ago, would it be? Rosamund had just turned eighteen years of age, and I was four years older.' Her eyes twinkled. 'I can see you struggling with your numbers, chapman, so I will take pity and tell you that I was born the same year that the late King Henry married the Frenchwoman, Margaret of Anjou. Which, by my reckoning gives me thirty sumlners.'

I tried to look astonished at this information, but she was too shrewd to be taken in by my feigned amazement.

'Admit it,' she laughed. 'You had already judged me to be as much. No, no! Don't bother to deny it. I have no wish to be thought any younger.'

'And why should you,' I asked gallantly, 'when you are such a very handsome woman?'

That made her laugh even more, but she flushed with pleasure, nevertheless. And I only spoke the truth. She was very good-looking.

'Where was I?' she murmured.

'You and Rosamund were taken to London by Sir Jasper.'
 

'Ah, yes. He had a house in Paternoster Row, in the lee of Saint Paul's, and we lived there for several months of each year. Sir Jasper had made up his mind, you see, that Rosamund should marry well, and there was no one in Totnes whom he could even begin to consider as a possible husband for her. She was to wed a man with a place at court and of some influence with the King.'

'Sir Jasper was for the House of York, then?'
 

'Most certainly. King Edward had all his allegiance.'
 

'And this Sir Henry Skelton, presumably, was just such a man as he had in mind for your cousin. But what were her feelings in the matter?'

Grizelda shrugged. 'I never heard her oppose his wishes. You might think that was only natural in a dutiful daughter, but Rosamund, as I have said, could be spoilt and self-willed on occasions. But in this ease, she was perfectly biddable. Why do you ask?'

'Something your friend, Jacinta, told me; that your cousin said she had married to oblige her father the first time, but would marry a second time to please herself'

Grizelda frowned, annoyed. 'That woman gossips too much. Not but what she may be right, although I never heard Rosamund express any such sentiment myself. She certainly offered no opposition to Sir Jasper's plans for her when the marriage was arranged, although...' She hesitated, looking faintly embarrassed.

'Although?' I prompted.

Grizelda picked up my empty beaker and got up to refill it, busying herself so that, for the moment, she had her back towards me.

'I think the marriage, brief as it was, may have been a disappointment to my cousin. Rosamund was.., of a passionate nature, and once those.., those sort of feelings had been aroused in her, she needed a passionate man to assuage them.' Grizelda mopped up the drips of ale on the table, wiped around the bottom of the cup and returned to her seat, still avoiding my eyes. 'Sir Henry Skelton, as I have indicated, was some years older than she. A widower and, as far as I could observe, not a very uxorious man. Which might well be the reason why, when Rosamund came to marry again, and with no one then to check her or approve of her choice, she allowed her ... her appetites to overrule her better judgement.'

'I understand,' I said gently, taking the beaker from her and cupping it between my hands.

'Yes.' She drew a deep breath. 'So, to continue. Fortunately perhaps, for Rosamund, the marriage did not last long. My little Andrew was born the year following the wedding, at the beginning of May, and Mary thirteen months later, but by then Sir Henry was already dead.'

'How did he die?'

'He was killed, defending his lands in the north, two months or so before Mary was born. I can't recall all the details now, but it was the beginning of greater trouble in the autumn, when the Earl of Warwick captured the King and held him prisoner in Pontefract Castle. There had been rumours during the Christmas feast that all was not well between King Edward and the Earl, but no one could quite believe it. They were close kinsmen and had been like blood brothers for so long.'

I nodded. 'I remember.' At the time, I had recently entered upon my novitiate, and the news of such stirring events, penetrating even the abbey's hallowed walls, had relieved my boredom, and distracted me from my growing conviction that, whatever my mother's wishes, I could never tolerate the religious life. 'It was the beginning of the road which eventually led Warwick into the Lancastrian camp and his death, less that two years later, on Barnet Field.'

'Your grasp of events is better than mine. But I do know that in the spring, before the King's captivity, there were insurrections in Yorkshire, because Sir Henry was summoned by his elder son to return and protect his property. It was during a skirmish with the rebels that he was killed.'

 
'You had remained in London with your cousin throughout her marriage?'

Grizelda replied with dignity, 'I looked after little Andrew. I was his nurse.'

I made no comment, but it was apparent to me that the relationship between the two women had inevitably altered on Rosamund's marriage. They could no longer continue on an equal footing, and the impoverished and dowerless Grizelda had been relegated to a subordinate role.

My thoughts must have shown in my face, for she said quietly, 'It meant much to me that I was still needed. I could so easily have been sent packing back to my father, but Rosamund wanted me to stay. And in private, nothing had changed between us. We continued to be friends and confidantes.'