The Tintern Treasure (14 page)

I could have argued with that, but it was neither the time nor place. Besides, honesty compelled me to admit that I was biased against the man. Instead, I changed the subject. ‘How did Master Roper take the news of his nephew's death?' I asked.

‘As one would have expected,' was the tart rejoinder, and I could tell that the goldsmith's goodwill was at last running out. One of the senior apprentices had been standing patiently by for some little while, waiting to attract his attention. It was high time that I took my leave. I had only been tolerated this long because Gilbert Foliot was possessed of this mistaken belief that I was somehow hand in glove with the king.

‘I hope Mistress Ursula is well,' I said, turning towards the door.

‘As well as can be expected.' Another curt response. Then he relented, adding, ‘She's taken the news of young Noakes's death badly, I'm sorry to say.' A snort of derision. ‘Far worse than the lad's uncle.'

‘Who's this you're talking of? Your daughter?' demanded a deep voice as the door behind me opened, admitting a tall, well set-up man with very blue eyes and a shock of thick, wavy brown hair beneath an emerald-green velvet hat. I recognized him as Gilbert Foliot's friend, Sir Lionel Despenser and, as luck would have it, the very man I wanted to see.

‘Who else?' the goldsmith shrugged.

‘Well, you know I've offered to take her off your hands at any time,' the knight said, smiling. ‘As her father, she'd have to obey you. And –' he gave a falsely modest smile – ‘although I say it myself, I'm quite a catch. You'd be surprised – or then again perhaps you wouldn't – at the caps that have been set at me.'

The goldsmith laughed. ‘I'll say this for you, Lal, you never try to hide your light under a bushel . . . One day, maybe, we'll arrange it. But not just at this present. So what brings you in from Keynsham?'

‘Originally, to find out how you got on during your journey into Wales. But as I had some business with Henry Callowhill first – a couple of butts of malmsey he's been keeping for me – you may assume I know all there is to know about it already. What a gossip the fellow is! All the same, I thought I'd like to hear your version of events.' Sir Lionel, suddenly becoming aware of my presence, gave an irritated frown and raised his strongly-marked eyebrows as much as to say, ‘Who is this fellow?'

Gilbert Foliot looked a little surprised himself to find me still present, but made the necessary introduction. ‘This is Master Chapman. Roger Chapman. I feel certain you must be acquainted with the name.'

Was there a note of caution in his voice, or had I imagined it?

‘Oh, that man.' The knight laughed.

I bowed subserviently. ‘Sir Lionel.'

‘I needn't detain you further, Roger,' the goldsmith said pointedly, turning at long last to his patiently waiting apprentice.

‘No,' I agreed, but made no move to leave, instead continuing to look at Sir Lionel.

‘I was wondering, sir, if I might ask you a favour.'

‘Me?' He stared down his patrician nose. ‘And what would that be?'

‘I believe you have a groom in your employ. A Gloucester man, Walter Gurney.'

‘My head groom. Yes. What of it?'

Gilbert Foliot, ignoring the poor apprentice yet again, was staring at me as though I'd taken leave of my senses.

‘I'd like your permission, Sir Lionel, to walk out to Keynsham some day soon and have a word with him.'

‘In God's name, why? What's the man to you? What do you know of him?'

‘I'm afraid I'm not at liberty to say. It's a private matter, sir.'

The two men glanced at one another. I felt that they were both disturbed by the request, but I could see no reason for their unease. Then I thought that Gilbert Foliot gave a very slight nod, although I couldn't be sure.

‘Well, if you must, you must,' the knight finally conceded. I thanked him and was turning once again to go, when he asked casually, ‘And when will that be?'

‘Not for a day or two. I only reached home this morning. Thursday or Friday perhaps, with your agreement.'

‘Of course! Of course!' Sir Lionel waved a dismissive hand. ‘I'll see that Walter is apprised of your visit and is ready to receive you.'

‘Thank you,' I said and bowed low to each man in turn before stepping out once more into the shadows of St Mary le Port Street.

Outside, I leaned against the nearest wall for a moment or two while a horse and cart rumbled past, its driver loudly cursing the narrowness of the road and giving it as his considered opinion that someone would get stuck there one of these fine days. I think he was fishing for a little sympathy, but I failed him. I was busy with reflections of my own.

I wondered if Walter Gurney had confided in his new master the reason for his flight from Gloucestershire and if that explained Sir Lionel's obvious reluctance to allow me access to his groom. I didn't know that I blamed him if that were the case. (Maybe Walter had never intended to marry Jane Spicer, with or without Juliette's child.) And yet I couldn't help feeling that there had been something more; some undercurrent of suspicion that had communicated itself to, and been understood by, Gilbert Foliot. But what the goldsmith's interest in Walter Gurney could be, I was unable to fathom. His knowledge of the man would be solely what his friend had told him, and somehow I couldn't see the knight concerning himself with his servants' problems. In the end, I gave it up, decided I had been imagining things and walked on in the direction of St Peter's Church and the castle.

There was the usual bustle around the church porch as a steady stream of locals and pilgrims went in and out. The shrine of Our Lady of the Bellhouse, known generally as St Mary Bellhouse and situated next to the belfry tower, was the chief jewel in St Peter's crown. A church already rich in history when the body of King Edmund, murdered in the King's Wood, rested there while on its journey to Glastonbury for burial, it had inevitably been rebuilt by the Normans, but its Saxon foundations remained.

I went inside to offer up a prayer and pay my respects.

In a setting glowing with colourful wall paintings and tapestries, the shrine nevertheless managed to hold all eyes. The statue of the Virgin Herself, the deep azure blue of her robes glittering with precious and semi-precious gems, the golden canopy over her head, the scented candles on either side, the wealth of offerings, both large and small, laid at her feet, made everything else pale into insignificance. The shrine's fame was widespread, drawing pilgrims from all over the west and from even further afield. Its maintenance was in the hands of the Fraternity of St Mary Bellhouse, a band of local men dedicated to its upkeep and of whom, I guessed, Gilbert Foliot was probably one. He was a man of substance, an important citizen who would naturally be associated with such a project. Moreover, his house was right next door to the church.

As I came out again into the pale November sunshine, I accidentally brushed shoulders with a young woman just entering. I would have recognized her immediately as Ursula Foliot even had my attention not been caught by her red and swollen eyes and her general air of tragedy. This was so pronounced, her mourning so ostentatious, that I was induced to hope that matters had not gone very deep with her; that it was more show than suffering. I waited for her to emerge once more, enjoying as always the traffic of a busy street, then put myself in her way, possessing myself of one of her hands and bowing obsequiously.

‘Mistress Foliot, would you be kind enough to vouchsafe me a word? My name is Roger Chapman' – I was growing used by now to not having to explain who I was – ‘and, as your father may have told you, I was at Tintern Abbey when Master Noakes's body was discovered.'

‘Yes.' She hesitated before continuing in a low, dramatic voice, ‘Whatever it is you want to know, I can't speak to you now. I'm too upset.' She pulled forward the black veil wound around her head so that it partially obscured her face. ‘Peter,' she continued in trembling accents, ‘was the Abelard to my Eloise. We were going to be married, you know, in defiance of everyone. His uncle! My father! Peter had vowed it. I had vowed it. The only thing that was stopping us,' she added in a much more prosaic, whining tone, ‘was money. Neither Master Roper – who, I might tell you, is a skinflint of no mean order – nor Father, who isn't any better, would take us seriously and kept us both on the most meagre of allowances.'

I clucked sympathetically and she glanced around her, suddenly changing her mind and longing only to unburden herself of her sense of ill-usage.

‘Very well, come to the house now,' she whispered. ‘Father's busy in the shop and there are only Mistress Dawes and the servants there at the moment.'

She spoke as one who had little, if no, regard for the lesser orders. She probably, I reflected, looked upon them as so many additions to the furniture.

The goldsmith's house was a recent addition to St Peter's Street, being at that time certainly not more than twenty years old. Gilbert Foliot's acquisition of it when the original owner died ten years before, had been, so my former mother-in-law and her cronies informed me, the talk of Bristol. I had been too much of a newcomer, and too often absent from the city, to have taken notice of the gossip myself, but I could believe it to be true.

It was an imposing edifice, three storeys high and, I was told, with deep cellars that had belonged to a much older Saxon building, once occupying the site. Mistress Ursula led me across a hall with painted beams and carved figureheads at either end, and into which my entire house would possibly have fitted, to a parlour of equally generous proportions. There was little, however, in the way of furniture, and what there was looked most uncomfortable except for a wooden rocking chair laden with cushions. This was set on a raised platform at the far end of the room with a window overlooking a small garden and velvet curtains that pulled across the front of the dais, thus turning it into a cosy retreat, a room within a room.

My hostess offered me neither refreshment nor a seat, merely asking abruptly, once she had closed the door, ‘Well? What did you want to ask me?'

There was nothing for it but to abandon the normal courtesies and be equally abrupt. ‘Do you know what Master Noakes was doing at Tintern Abbey?'

Ursula unwound her veil and dropped it on the floor for someone else to pick up. My sympathy for her bereaved state was fast evaporating. ‘Not exactly.' I maintained a questioning silence and after a short pause, she went on: ‘Peter said there might something there which would make us rich.'

‘What sort of thing?'

She made an impatient gesture. ‘I don't know. He wouldn't tell me. He said it might prove to be a mare's nest and then I'd be disappointed.' She snorted disgustedly. ‘He'd have done better to have told me what he knew. At least I could have advised him whether it was a wild goose chase or not.' Recollecting herself, Ursula gave a tragic moan and momentarily closed her eyes. ‘Poor sweetheart! Peter wasn't always very practical, I'm afraid.'

‘Did he ever mention how he came by his information?' I asked eagerly, praying for a miracle.

But none was forthcoming. ‘He wouldn't say.'

‘Was it from your father, do you think?'

She considered this idea, wrinkling her nose. ‘My father was at Tintern himself, wasn't he?' Her tone was thoughtful. ‘A coincidence, do you think?'

I sighed. ‘I have to admit it isn't likely. We were all taking refuge from the weather and the rebels. On the other hand . . .'

‘Yes?'

‘It was at Master Foliot's suggestion that we took shelter in the abbey.'

‘There you are, then!' Her face fell. ‘No, that's no good. Father would never have confided in Peter about anything.'

I made no comment, but glanced covertly at the alcove at the far end of the chamber. If someone were sitting there with the curtain drawn, his presence unsuspected, it would be quite easy for him to overhear any conversation in the main part of the room. Was that what had happened? For there was no getting away from the fact that Gilbert Foliot had been making enquiries of the abbot concerning the secret hiding place at the very moment that Peter Noakes was breaking into it.

Unfortunately, neither was there any doubt that the would-be thief appeared to have found nothing. For if he had, where was it?

And what was it?

‘I haven't been much help, have I?' Ursula's voice recalled me to my surroundings.

She was looking pathetic again, and I saw to my shame that there were genuine tears standing in her eyes. Contrite, I raised her hand briefly to my lips. She seemed shocked, and probably was. Common pedlars didn't make that sort of gesture.

‘You've been very helpful,' I assured her. ‘I may need to talk to you again. Meantime, mention nothing to Master Foliot about our conversation or my being here.'

‘Of course not. I'm not speaking to him, anyway,' was the taut reply.

I trembled inwardly. In ten years or so, I could foresee Elizabeth saying the self same words.

‘I must go,' I said. ‘I only arrived home this morning and so far I've devoted very little time to my family.'

‘I expect you're a lovely father,' she said yearningly, gazing soulfully into my eyes.

I beat a hasty retreat. All the same, I was shaken and more than a little dashed. When young girls started seeing me, not as a lover, but as a surrogate father, it was high time to be thinking of leading a more settled life.

A most depressing thought!

I
went home, but not before first paying a visit to Pit Hay Lane, a noisome little alleyway in the crowded neighbourhood of the castle. It was a fruitless errand of course, there being nothing to see; no patch of dried and discoloured blood to indicate whereabouts the murder of Oliver Tockney had taken place. I walked its length, glancing at the mean houses and shops on either side, then turned and walked back again.