The Tintern Treasure (28 page)

‘My friend? Ah, yes! He's . . . He's left here now.'

‘He has business in Cornwall, I understand.' I hadn't seen the stranger ride away, but I drew a bow at a venture. ‘A very fine horse he was riding. Rather like the one you described Walter Gurney as having stolen.'

I saw his eyelids flicker for a second, no doubt silently cursing himself for having described the animal in such detail. He said curtly, ‘Something like,' and rapidly changed the subject. ‘So you're here to sell your wares, eh? I fear you won't find much of a market in Keynsham. A stingy lot, the inhabitants – tight with their money.' He indicated that I should hand the slippers to Fulk and went on, ‘I see you have your pack with you. Come inside. You may have something my housekeeper is in crying need of.'

‘In that case, I'll go round to the kitchens.'

‘No, no! Come into the hall and display your goods in comfort. Robin, tell Dame Joliphant I need her and then take those slippers to my bedchamber.'

He nodded dismissal to both men and turned towards the door, but I hung on my heel. The chapel was to our right and the graveyard, behind its white paling, alongside it.

‘This is where your dog – Caesar, did you say he was called? – is buried, I think you told me.' I pointed to a mound where the grass and tangle of bindweed, with its white, trumpet-like flowers, had not yet taken hold. ‘Is that it?'

Once again, Sir Lionel appeared to be slightly taken aback before making a recovery.

‘Er . . . Yes.'

‘A big dog by the size of his grave.'

‘A mastiff,' he answered shortly. ‘Now, shall we go in?'

Indoors, he led me to the dais at the far end of the hall and bade me set out the contents of my pack on the table. The housekeeper arrived, somewhat flustered by this peremptory summons, and was told to see if there was anything she needed. But I was more interested in the actions of my host who stayed glued to my side, closely scrutinizing every article I produced and laid out for inspection. And, finally, when the pack was emptied and he judged that my attention had been firmly claimed by Dame Joliphant, I saw him, out of the corner of one eye, lift the pack and shake it in order to satisfy himself that nothing remained inside.

Nothing did, and as soon as I had finished supplying the housekeeper's modest requirements, I found myself being shown the door with a most impolite speed. Whatever Sir Lionel had hoped he might find in my pack, he had been disappointed and now had no further use for my company. Indeed, I had probably become an embarrassment to him with my unfortunate recollections of things he had said to me on the previous occasion; lies which he had concocted on the spur of the moment and by now half-forgotten.

I spent the rest of the short autumnal day hawking my wares around the Keynsham cottages, and little reward I had for my efforts. This, however, was not altogether due to the parsimony of the good folk of the village. To say that my heart was not in my work would be no more than the truth. I felt sure that those goodwives who did inspect my wares found me absent-minded and my conversation less than scintillating. After all, much of the pleasure of inviting a chapman, or indeed any itinerant member of society, into their homes was to hear the latest gossip and news of the outside world, and my vague, terse and occasionally downright impatient answers to their questions must have been a great disincentive to part with their money. But my mind was elsewhere.

I was trying to come to terms first and foremost with the idea that Walter Gurney was the occupant of that new grave in Sir Lionel's chapel graveyard. It was obvious that the story of the dog had been a lie told me at the time in order to put me off the scent in case I noticed the freshly turned earth and grew suspicious. (In the event, the untruth had proved unnecessary and had only served to arouse my suspicions at a later date. The knight must again be rueing his too-ready tongue.) But that begged the question as to why he had thought I might suspect him of doing away with his groom.

I recollected his sceptical expression when I had revealed my reason for wishing to speak to Walter. He had plainly not believed me, which could only mean that he thought my business to be of a secret nature. That I was working under instructions from the crown? Yes, probably. If he and Gilbert Foliot were truly hand in glove with one of Henry Tudor's agents, they would be wary of everyone who had known associations with King Richard. But what information had Walter Gurney possessed that might be of value to me as a spy?

The second thing that exercised my mind was the nagging conviction that Fulk and Robin were the two men responsible not just for Oliver Tockney's murder, but also for that of the old beggar who lived in Pit Hay Lane and for the break-ins. But in that case, they had to be acting at the instigation of their master and possibly of the goldsmith, too, which, if true, bolstered my belief that the robbers were after only one thing. And that surely had to be whatever it was Peter Noakes had found – or they thought he had found – at Tintern Abbey.

Timothy had told me that Henry Tudor's coffers were reported as being almost empty, and that money to pay the mercenary troops necessary to help him invade England was his most pressing need. So the obvious conclusion to draw was that the treasure was either cash or something that could be converted into cash. And whatever it was had been left at the abbey a century and more ago by men fleeing from the law; men for whom the monks themselves had felt the utmost revulsion but whom the abbot was willing to assist. Reluctantly, perhaps, and denying them more than two nights' shelter from their pursuers, but nevertheless afraid to withhold his aid.

But if these surmises were correct, where was the treasure? It was not still in the secret hiding place of the abbot's old lodgings because I had myself reached in as far as my arm would go, until my nails had scrabbled against cold earth. And yet if, as seemed most likely, Peter Noakes had hidden whatever he had found in the baggage of one or other of the rest of us, then where was it? It had plainly not been in Oliver Tockney's pack or the search would have ended with his murder. Again, nothing could have been discovered either at the lawyer's house or in Henry Callowhill's. The attempted robbery at my house had been thwarted, but I knew only too well that my pack was innocent of anything unusual or valuable; and if the testimony of my own eyes was not enough, then I had just seen Sir Lionel prove it for himself. That left the goldsmith, but I discounted him. I guessed that the attempt to break into the house in St Peter's Street had been nothing but a blind.

With all this churning around inside my head, it was small wonder that my efforts at selling my goods were met with poor success, and by the time I eventually returned to the cobbler's shop I was bone-weary and dispirited.

‘Eh, lad, you've worn yourself out,' Mistress Shoesmith upbraided me, pushing me, unresisting, into the room's one armchair and bustling about to fetch me a beaker of ale and some of her honey cakes, baked, so she assure me, only that afternoon. ‘Now, sit still and Betsy'll pull off your boots.'

I made a feeble remonstrance, but was too tired to resist and extended my feet to the obliging Betsy without more ado. She glanced up and gave a broad wink which I returned, but half-heartedly. I was glad when the cobbler himself entered the room and supper was served.

‘He's worn himself out,' my hostess informed her husband, who grunted.

‘It's hard work getting money out of them skinflints,' he grumbled. ‘Don't I know it?'

‘You can have a rest tomorrow,' Mistress Shoesmith said. ‘It's Sunday.'

Fortunately, my hosts were not ones for sitting up late, nor was their conversation of such a nature as to keep them awake much past mid-evening. The cobbler did ask me if I fancied a visit to the local ale-house, but as the pair of us were already yawning our heads off, I declined – greatly, I thought, to his relief. Mistress Shoesmith, having imparted such gossip as there was concerning her visit to her sister, had fallen asleep at the table, her chin propped between her hands. The only one of us who seemed unaffected by the stuffy atmosphere of the little room behind the shop, its shutters closed and barred against the dark November evening outside, was Betsy. She sat on a three-legged stool in one corner, humming softly to herself, her large eyes fixed on each of us in turn, but mainly, I noticed uneasily, turned in my direction. I could only hope that her expectations of me were not too high. I wasn't sure that I could live up to them.

It was after my hostess had awakened with a snort from her slumbers that she announced it was time to retire.

‘For there's no point in us sitting here snoring when we might as well be comfortable in our beds. Betsy, my girl, bustle about and light the candles and lantern while I douse the fire. And then fetch a spare blanket and pillow from the chest in our bedchamber and make yourself a nest in that corner by the hearth. You'll do very well there for a night or two.'

Once more, I was moved to protest, insisting that I should be the one to sleep downstairs, but I was again overruled, most loudly by Betsy herself. So I allowed myself to be persuaded.

‘She's a good deal younger than you are,' the cobbler grunted, while his wife nodded agreement. ‘'Sides, you be a guest.'

The second reason appealed to me far more than the first, and I went to bed somewhat deflated by the thought of my advancing years.

Mistress Shoesmith's reference to lighting a lantern, which I had found a little strange, was soon explained when I discovered that although the main bedchamber was reached by a narrow flight of stairs from the living room, the second could only be entered from outside the cottage by an equally narrow flight of stone steps. As I mounted cautiously, lantern in hand, a few heavy drops of rain fell on my face and I could hear the moan of a rising wind. We were, I guessed, in for one of those storms that so often herald the coldest part of the year.

To call Betsy's room a bedchamber was to give it a dignity it in no way deserved. I doubt if it were much more than six-feet wide by perhaps ten-feet long, while the ceiling was so low that I could barely stand upright. It contained nothing except a bed and, beside it, a small chest which held such spare clothing as she possessed and whose lid acted as a table on which reposed a broken comb, a tinderbox and flints and an earthenware jug full of stale water. There was no window and when the door was shut, no light except from the lantern I was carrying. This I placed carefully alongside the jug while I stripped down to my shirt and eased myself between the sheets.

These, though ripped in several places, I discovered, somewhat to my surprise, to be clean and smelling faintly of lavender. They had obviously been newly put on the bed, probably while I was out earlier in the day, and I was touched by such thoughtfulness. I fished around in my pack for my piece of willow bark and cleaned my teeth, at the same time wishing that Mistress Shoesmith had offered me a basin of water in which to wash away the grime of what had been a long day. But my nose had told me that cleanliness was not of great importance to either the cobbler or his wife.

I sat up in bed and regarded the door. In spite of the lack of a window, there was no dearth of air in the room, the door being extremely badly fitting, with at least two inches of space between the bottom of it and the threshold. It did, however, boast a strong iron bolt near the top, and for a moment or two I debated whether or not to use it. But the memory of Betsy's parting smile as she wished me goodnight made me hesitate. There had been more than a hint of promise in those softly curling lips and although, at the time, I had felt too tired to respond, the fresh air had revived me. There was little chance of her appearing, however, before the Shoesmiths were safely asleep, and as I could still hear them moving about on the other side of the thin wall which separated us, I decided I might as well settle down. I opened the door of the lantern and blew out the candle, then pulled the sheet and the rough woollen blanket up around my ears and closed my eyes.

When I opened them again, how much later I wasn't sure, I could hear that the storm had well and truly broken. The wind had risen to shrieking pitch, gibbering around the cottage as though it were trying to blow it down, and soughing through the branches of some nearby trees, rattling their near leafless branches. The draught beneath the door was lifting the rushes on the floor with such ferocity that several small pieces were floating about the room, one of which had settled on my upper lip, just below my nose, making me sneeze. It was this that had woken me.

I had just brushed it away and was settling myself to sleep again as best I could, when I heard a noise outside. It was a miracle that I could hear anything above the howling of the wind, and precisely what I heard I could not afterwards determine.

‘Betsy,' I thought, and marvelled that any girl could be so eager for my company that she was willing to brave the cold, the darkness and the rain to be with me. It was flattering of course, but I wasn't feeling my best and was doubtful of my power to entertain her. Nevertheless, I could hardly turn her away when she showed herself so keen. Besides, honour was at stake. Here was a chance to prove that my advancing years sat lightly on me; that thirty-one was not the end of existence.

I hauled myself up in bed, at the same time groping for the tinderbox and flint and fumbling to open the lantern door in order to light the candle inside. Then I paused. The bedchamber door was opening on a gust of wind and rain, but with a caution that puzzled me. I would not have expected Betsy to be so tentative. I put down the tinderbox and flint as gently as I could and silently swung my legs to the floor. As I stood upright, the wind wrestled the door from the intruder's grasp, flinging it back against the wall with a clatter. The next moment, someone launched himself at me with a grunt, knocking me over and forcing me back against the pillow.