The Weaver's Inheritance (24 page)

Morwenna Peto was not at all as I had imagined her, being large and fair, with a clear, unwrinkled skin despite the fact that she must have been well into her forties. I had been expecting someone more like Bertha Mendip, who, I suspected, was much of an age, but on whom hardship and deprivation had left their mark in no uncertain fashion. The Cornishwoman, on the other hand, appeared to have weathered the storms of life with little outward show of suffering, whatever her inward turmoil might have been.

Bertha had insisted that her son should accompany Philip and myself to Gibbet Lane and introduce us to Morwenna. This turned out to have been a wise precaution, for no sooner had we crossed the threshold of her house, than two of the most evil-looking men I have ever seen emerged from a door on the left-hand side of the narrow passageway to bar our progress. The fact that they uttered no word, merely standing there in stony silence, only served to make their presence the more menacing. I could feel the hairs rising on the nape of my neck, and Philip shuffled a step closer to me for protection. Matt was the only one of the three of us unaffected.

‘It’s me, you great zanies!’ he apostrophized them crossly. ‘Matt Mendip! Bertha Mendip’s son! These men are her friends. They just want a word or two with Morwenna.’

I was aware that a second door, a little further along the passage, had opened slightly, and that someone was on the other side of it, listening intently. ‘It’s about her adopted son, Irwin,’ I said loudly.

The door was pushed wide and this buxom, smooth-skinned woman emerged to stand, arms akimbo, looking at me with interest.

‘I’m Morwenna Peto,’ she announced. ‘What do you mean, my
adopted
son? What do you know about Irwin?’

‘I can tell you where he is and what he’s doing,’ I said, ‘if, that is, you don’t know already.’

She glanced towards Matt. ‘Can you vouch for these two?’

‘My mother can. Knows ’em of old.’ He turned to go. ‘I must be off. I’ve done my duty. Got things of my own need seeing to.’

Morwenna nodded and waved away the two bravos standing guard behind us. ‘Off about your business, and make sure there’s no fighting in the ale-room this dinner-time. One dead and three wounded already this week,’ she went on, addressing Philip and myself, and indicating that we should follow her into what appeared to be her private lair at the back of the house. ‘Now then,’ she said, when the door was fast shut, ‘what’s this about Irwin? Ungrateful bastard that he is! After all I’ve done for him, he just ups and leaves one day without so much as a word.’

There was a bench beneath a horn-paned window, which looked out over a noisome courtyard, and Morwenna waved a hand in its direction. She herself sat regally on a backless stool with two rolled, carved arms and a padded velvet seat, now torn and faded, once the property, I guessed, of some noble household. When she was ready, she nodded at me to speak.

When I had finished my story, she pursed her lips. ‘So that’s what it was all about,’ she muttered, more to herself than to us.

I waited for several seconds in mounting impatience before urging her to explain further. ‘Irwin hadn’t confided in you, then, about the sudden recovery of his memory?’

Morwenna shook her head. ‘There wouldn’t be any point,’ she spat viciously. ‘You say he’s claiming to be my adopted son? The ungrateful whelp! After all I’ve done for him! How dare he repudiate his own mother! He’s my own flesh and blood, fathered on me when I was working in one of the local stews. Oh, he wasn’t the first I’d fallen pregnant with, nor he wouldn’t be the last, but there are ways of ridding a woman of bastard children. But for some reason or another, I decided I wanted this one. God knows why, the thieving little toad! Maybe I was lonely. Maybe I needed someone to call my own. How can I tell, after all these years, why I made such a feckless decision? I was young, far from home, unhappy…’ She lapsed into silence, looking back over the years to the green girl she had once been long ago.

I leaned forward eagerly. ‘So you never had a son who died on the gallows? And Irwin wasn’t washed up on the Southwark strand, unable to remember who he was or where he came from? And you didn’t take him in out of pity?’

‘No is the answer to all those questions,’ Morwenna replied grimly. ‘Although I suppose I might yet end up with a son who’s hanged for a felon. Indeed, it seems to be more than likely, from what you tell me.’ She sucked thoughtfully at the end of one of her little fingers. ‘That man must have put him up to this,’ she said, almost to herself. ‘Irwin couldn’t have dreamed up such a scheme on his own.’

‘What man?’ I asked, my voice trembling with excitement. ‘Do you mean that you saw your son talking to someone?’

Morwenna nodded abstractedly. ‘On several occasions.’

‘When? What did he look like?’ I demanded.

She stroked her chin. ‘As to when, it would have been sometime last autumn; before Christmas, certainly. But I couldn’t tell you what the man looked like. Irwin and he were never close enough for me to catch a proper glimpse of his face. When I questioned Irwin about him, he told me that the stranger was a potential client, and that he, Irwin, was pimping for some of the Winchester geese.’ This I knew to be a local nickname for the prostitutes of the area, and inclined my head to show that I understood. Morwenna continued, ‘So, naturally, I thought nothing of it. Irwin was often employed on such work. It was a job he did well.’ She added hastily, ‘Not that I mean to decry his pickpocketing skills. He was good at most things he turned his hand to.’ She spoke with a simple pride, and I could see that Philip, for all his new-found respectability, sympathized with her.

‘But this stranger,’ I persisted, ‘how old would you say he was?’

Morwenna Peto grimaced. ‘I don’t know. I didn’t take much notice of him, not after Irwin’s explanation. There are lots of men who return to the Southwark stews whenever they’re in London. Irwin’s father was such a one. He was from your part of the country, that I do remember.’

‘Surely,’ I pressed, ‘you must have formed some idea as to whether this man was young or old, rich or poor, tall or short. Can you recollect nothing about him?’

She darted me a look of irritation. ‘Neither young nor old, rich nor poor, tall nor short. And with that you’ll have to be satisfied,’ she finished waspishly, ‘for it’s the truth. I was at a distance on each occasion that I saw him and Irwin together, and there was nothing to distinguish him from anybody else.’

‘Can’t you recall any item of clothing that he was wearing?’ I was growing desperate. ‘A hat, a cloak, a tunic?’

Morwenna frowned. At length, she said, ‘I think he may have had a scarlet lining to his cloak. Now you force me to it, I think I can remember a flash of colour as he turned.’ Her face took on a grimmer expression. ‘Why didn’t Irwin tell me what he was up to?’ She answered her own question. ‘I suppose because he knew I’d advise him against it. He’ll be out of his depth.’

‘On the contrary,’ I said, ‘he managed to persuade Alderman Weaver that he is indeed his son, right from the start.’

An angry flush tinged Morwenna’s cheeks and she compressed her lips tightly.

I had been aware for several minutes that Philip was growing restive, but I had attributed it to boredom, now that our quest was at an end. But suddenly he jumped to his feet, handed me my cudgel, at the same time ostentatiously fingering the haft of the knife tucked into his belt. ‘Time we were going,’ he said. There was an edge to his voice and the eyes which met and held mine were bright with urgency, willing me to agree.

I got to my feet with the utmost reluctance, for I felt sure that if I were to press Morwenna Peto further, she might recall something about the stranger which she had temporarily forgotten. But Philip had already opened the door and was halfway through it, and by the time I had taken a hasty farewell of our hostess, he was out in the street. As I joined him, he grabbed my arm and hissed, ‘Walk normally to the corner, and then run as fast as you can back to the water stairs.’

‘What’s all this about?’ I asked indignantly as we made our way out of Gibbet Lane, Philip’s obvious desire to break into a trot showing plainly in the peculiar nature of his gait. ‘For goodness’ sake, why didn’t you let me question her further?’

‘I wonder about you sometimes,’ my companion said, his grip tightening on my arm, ‘I really do! Morwenna is this fellow’s mother! Not his adopted mother, but his own flesh and blood; and she’s got more cutthroats at her command than you and I have had hot dinners! And there are you, making it plain to her that you’re going to put a noose around her son’s neck, and you don’t expect any reprisals? I was trembling in my shoes. I thought that at any moment she was going to shout for assistance and have us both carved up there and then. I think it’s only because she’s so angry at her precious son’s betrayal, because she can’t accept that he didn’t confide in her, that what you’re up to hasn’t quite sunk in … Here’s the corner. Now, run as if old Scratch himself is after you!’

He dropped my arm as he spoke and was off, weaving his way through the network of narrow alleyways, every now and again doubling back on his tracks, never pausing for breath until we came out on to the quay close by the Southwark gate of London Bridge. The strip of sand was now covered with water, but a boat was, fortunately, moored alongside the water stairs, waiting for custom. We sank, panting, into its stern, with hardly enough breath left to issue our instructions.

‘You gentlemen seem to be in an almighty hurry,’ the boatman observed. He nodded in the direction of the receding Southwark shore. ‘Couple more there, by the looks of it, in as great a haste as you two, shouting and shaking their fists. Well,’ he added comfortably, ‘there’ll be another boat along in a minute. Ah … Seems they can’t wait. They’re setting off across the bridge.’

Chapter Seventeen

By offering him an extra penny above the price of our fare, we persuaded the boatman to row a little way downriver and put us ashore at Saint Botolph’s Wharf, instead of at Fish Wharf, which was adjacent to London Bridge. From there, we returned to Cornhill via Roper Lane, Hubbard Lane and Lime Street, glancing anxiously over our shoulders all the way. Fortunately, we seemed to have shaken off our pursuers, but we took a circuitous route, nonetheless, to the Old Clothes Market and the daub and wattle hut behind Philip’s stall.

I could see, while we ate the dinner prepared for us by Jeanne, that my companion’s enthusiasm of the morning was already on the wane. Philip’s taste for adventure had faltered at the first hint of possible danger, and who could blame him? He had his wife and business to consider; and in any case, he knew as well as I did that he could be of no further use to me. He had helped me find both Bertha Mendip and Morwenna Peto: my visits to the Weaver family I must pay alone. As for himself, he would lie low for a week or two, and trust that after such a lapse of time the details of his appearance would fade from Morwenna’s mind. (My height was against me, as always, when seeking anonymity, but, with luck, I should be gone from the capital within a very few days.)

‘What I can’t understand,’ Jeanne said, serving me with a second helping of dried, salted fish fried in oatmeal, ‘is why this Irwin Peto should hang on to any of his past life at all. Surely he might have expected Alderman Weaver to make enquiries of his own, and so discover the truth. He couldn’t have known, as you say, Roger, how unquestioning would be his acceptance.’

‘I’ve been thinking about that,’ I said, wiping my mouth on the back of my hand. ‘First of all, without Bertha Mendip’s assistance, and Matt Mendip to guide us, we might never have traced Morwenna Peto. And without your husband, I should never have discovered Bertha again. In that part of Southwark, they’re as close as oysters, and won’t betray the whereabouts of any of their kind to outsiders; so unless the Alderman’s envoys knew someone like Philip to begin with, it’s more than probable that they would never have found her.

‘Secondly, we have now established that Irwin Peto is indeed an impostor, and therefore there must be more than enough for him to remember, more than enough pitfalls strewn in his path, without having to make up a story about his life for the past six years, as well. And on those six years, he must be accurate; there must be no discrepancy between one account and another; no risk of being told “but last time you said so-and-so, although the time before that you said the other”. There is a good excuse, you see, for his lapses of memory concerning his early life as Clement Weaver, but none at all for forgetting what happened to him as Irwin Peto. So it’s much simpler for him to tell the truth whenever he can. The only thing he has to remember is to refer to Morwenna as his adoptive, and not his real, mother.’

Philip nodded his approval of this reasoning, agreeing that it was simpler and safer to tell the truth where possible; and even Jeanne, always harder to convince of anything than her husband, finally agreed that it might be so. ‘What will you do now?’ she asked me.

I swallowed my last morsel of fish and took a swig of ale. ‘I must visit the rest of Alderman Weaver’s family, and also the cousin of a certain Baldwin Lightfoot who lives near Saint Paul’s.’

‘You won’t be needing my company, then?’ Philip suggested anxiously, exchanging a somewhat shamefaced glance with his wife.

I shook my head and laughed. ‘You’ve been more than helpful, Philip, and I couldn’t have got this far without you. But henceforward what I have to do, I must do alone. I shall say my goodbyes after dinner, and you won’t be troubled with me any further. I shall return to Bristol as soon as possible.’

They both looked relieved, and neither enquired what I should do for a bed for the next few nights, although I could see that the question was on the tip of Jeanne’s tongue. Indeed, she had her mouth open to speak, when I saw Philip give an almost imperceptible shake of his head. What they did not know, they could not reveal, should anyone come knocking on the door for information.

*   *   *

I decided, upon reflection, to visit Baldwin Lightfoot’s cousin first, as Saint Paul’s was on my way to the Ward of Farringdon Without; but it was only as I approached the churchyard and the towering bulk of the church itself, topped by its great, gilt weathercock, that I realized I did not know the cousin’s name. Throughout my life, I have, from time to time, been guilty of this kind of oversight, and although I am always ready to curse myself for my stupidity, I am perfectly well aware that it will happen again and again. As my mother used to say, periodic inattention to detail is one of my many failings.