Kate Sedley - The Plymouth Cloak

'He would only have given you a false one, which he will change when he gets to Plymouth, so that any inquiries you might make will meet with no success. Forget it. We shall lie at the Turk's Head, where the landlord is a good friend of mine and will see that no one comes near us. He will bring us word, too, the moment the Falcon drops anchor.' With this I had to be content, and in any case conversation was necessarily limited. I was forced to concentrate on guiding my mount along the rutted Dartmoor tracks, if I were not to fall off and hinder our progress by injury. It was a beautiful day, as clear and transparent as a bubble, the October sun rimming the tots and distant uplands with fire.

Occasionally we passed an isolated farm or tiny hamlet, whose turf-thatched dwellings threw black wedges of shadow across the sunlit grass. The plaintive call of a solitary bird could now and then be heard high above us. We met very few fellow travellers, and then only those coming in the opposite direction. No one overtook us; and although I kept glancing back over my shoulder, the moor remained empty of pursuers.

Of necessity, we stopped at midday to answer calls of nature and to buy bread and cheese and ale from the goodwife of a nearby cottage. While we ate and drank, sitting in the sun, our backs propped against the rough grey stone wall which surrounded the enclosure, I showed Philip Underdown the stem of knotgrass and asked him what it meant. He stared at it for a moment, then spat.

'How do I know? The man's mad and should be locked up. He tried to give it to me before I took my hand to him. And that's what you should have done, not meekly accepted such rubbish.'

His vehemence, bordering almost on fury, told me that the knotgrass did mean something to him, something he would rather not be reminded of; but as I had little hope of discovering what that was, it was better to hold my tongue. I stared down curiously at the weed I was holding and tried to remember what, if anything, I knew of its properties. The only memory which came to mind was that of my mother seizing a stalk from my mouth when, boy-like, I had started to chew it. 'Don't,' she had said, 'it's poisonous.' But my mother had not always been correct in her knowledge. Like many country women, she had been extremely wise in some things, but also a prey to all kinds of old wives' tales, passed on from generation to generation, accruing a little more misinformation with each retelling. And I had never, either before or since, heard knotgrass spoken of as poisonous.

Suddenly, the plant was snatched from my hand as Philip tossed it away.

'I told you,' he reiterated fiercely, 'Silas Bywater's mad! Forget him. He won't trouble us again. I'll be gone from Plymouth before he can catch up with us. He's on foot. It'll take him all of today and much of tomorrow to get home.'

'Was what he said true?" I asked. 'Had you promised him and the Speedwell's crew more money?'

I expected him to turn on me again, but he only shrugged and laughed.

'You'd promise the Devil your soul when you're battling up the Channel with a leaky ship in a storm. Only a fool would take you seriously.' He added, cutting the conversation short: 'Come on. If we go now, we can be in Plymouth in time for supper. The food at the Turk's Head is plain, but plentiful, and I'm hungry. Return the beakers to the goodwife and let's be going.'

I resented his tendency to treat me as a servant, but suppressed my anger. The Duke trusted me to see that his letter got safely to Brittany and that was all that mattered.

We reached Plymouth just in time for supper. The fourth hour of the afternoon was being cried as we entered at one of the gates. The town has no walls, its only danger coming from sea-borne invasion, of which there has been much in the past hundred years. But the four main roads converging on the place all lead to gateways with short stockades on either side, so that people entering and leaving can be noted by the porters, and undesirable elements turned away. This of course is the theory, but in practice there are a dozen paths in and out of the town, and all sorts of rogues and vagabonds come and go at will. Most of the buildings lie along the edge and to the west of Sutton Pool, and the Turk's Head stands in one of the maze of narrow alleys close to the harbour. Its landlord in those days was a Comishman from across the Tamar, John Penryn; a black-haired, taciturn man, who made it his business to give good service, but never to inquire into the concerns of his guests. He knew nothing, saw nothing and heard nothing. As long as he was paid in full, that was all that mattered. Even if murder was committed beneath his roof, the Sheriff and county officers would receive no help from him.

Philip Underdown greeted him as an old friend, and I gathered that their association went back a long way, to the years when Philip and his brother were trading in and out of the town and had used the inn as their headquarters. There was a great deal of noise coming from the ale-room as we passed, but we were shown upstairs to a decent-sized chamber whose only door immediately faced the stairhead.

'You'll be comfortable enough here,' the landlord said, and I fancied there was a hidden meaning to his words.

Philip Underdown nodded. 'We'll take supper and breakfast in our room, if it's all the same to you. I don't wish to be seen more than necessary below stairs.'

John Penryn inclined his head. 'Moll can look after your meals. She's a good girl and doesn't complain at extra work.' He paused with his hand on the latch.' Is there anyone you want me to watch out for?'

'Anyone who's a stranger. Particularly someone who's well-dressed, thin of face, dark-haired. Oh, and keep a weather eye cocked for Silas Bywater, though I doubt he'll be back in Plymouth before I leave tomorrow, unless he gets a lift from a passing carter. He's been to Buckfast for the St Michael's fair and our paths unfortunately crossed.' The landlord curled his lip. 'So that's where he was. I thought I hadn't seen him around for the past week. He's a born trouble-maker. He'll overstep the mark one of these days. I'll watch out for him, don't worry.'

He disappeared and I heard him whistling as he went downstairs. I glanced about me and decided that the room was probably the best the inn afforded. There were two beds, I was happy to note, as I had no wish to share a mattress with my travelling companion, a large carved chest for clothes in one comer, and the rushes on the floor looked fairly clean with no sign of fleas hopping among them. The supper, too, when it came, was plentiful and wholesome, although mainly fish, it being a Friday. Philip grumbled, having had fish broth the previous evening; but, like me, he was too tired from the long day's ride to be very interested in what he was eating. And when the obliging girl called Moll had removed our dirty dishes and brought us our 'all-night' of bread and ale, we both, of one accord, pulled off our boots, removed our outer clothing and fell into bed, sinking thankfully into the comfort of the feather-filled mattresses.

Nothing happened that night to disturb our rest, and the morning sunlight was rimming the shutters before I was even conscious of closing my eyes. As I sat on the edge of the bed, yawning and stretching, I reflected contentedly that today would see me rid of my charge and free to return to Exeter to pick up my pack and resume my normal life, secure in the knowledge that I had successfully carried out the Duke's commission. Philip Underdown would be equally glad to see the back of me as he embarked for Brittany on board the Falcon .

John Penryn had promised to let us know the minute the Falcon was sighted as she made sail into the Cattewater beyond the Sutton Pool barrier. It was a fine day with the sea like a millpond, and there seemed to be no reason why the Master should not bring her in on time. But the morning passed, its brightness fading slowly into a more overcast afternoon, and still there was no sign of the ship. As four o'clock and supper-time approached once more, and as Philip Underdown and I grew yet more frustrated and edgy, we threw caution to the wind and went down to the harbour to ascertain for ourselves that the Falcon had indeed failed to arrive..