Kate Sedley: The Tintern Treasure

‘Never,’ Oliver panted, picking himself up from the pile of hay where I had flung him and addressing the cowering tailor, ‘say that to a Yorkshireman again! You may not be so fortunate next time to have someone to defend you. You’ll be cut down like the lying bastard you are.’

‘Well, it stands to reason — ’ the tailor was beginning hotly, but I signalled to him not to push his luck, so he subsided, muttering defiantly to himself, and took himself off as soon as the rain had eased.

‘And good riddance to bad rubbish,’ Oliver growled as we, too, made preparations to resume our journey. He eyed me severely as I humped my pack on to my back and took hold of my cudgel. ‘You haven’t passed an opinion, chapman. So what do you make of that idiot’s slanderous theory?’

I grinned at him. ‘If I said I thought there might be some truth in it, would you try to murder me, as well?’

He returned grin for grin. ‘No, because I shouldn’t believe you.’ He followed me out into the rain and sleet, carefully closing the barn door behind him. ‘Would I be right?’

I staggered a little as a heavy gust of wind buffeted me and almost swept me off my feet.

‘I think I’ve always distrusted Buckingham,’ I said, raising my voice slightly to make myself heard above the storm. ‘I saw him back in the summer, riding along the Strand in King Richard’s coronation procession, and he looked. .’ How had he looked? I struggled to recall the expression that had worried me. ‘He looked,’ I continued after a moment, ‘sullen. Resentful. Not like a man triumphing in the elevation of his kinsman and friend, knowing that he will be his right-hand man. I don’t believe he ever envisaged Richard taking the crown. I think. . I think he thought of the two of them, equal in importance, governing the young king. You see, he, too, is an uncle of young Edward, although only by marriage. Buckingham’s wife is a Woodville, sister of. .’ I hesitated. How did one refer now to the former queen? ‘. . the Lady Elizabeth.’ I finished, before continuing. ‘I think, too, that the ease with which parliament and the nobility, both laymen and churchmen, accepted Duke Richard as king might have made him wonder if he couldn’t have made a successful bid for the throne himself. As a direct descendant of one of Edward III’s sons, he has a claim of sorts. Perhaps someone persuaded him. .’ I broke off as some words of the tinker’s surfaced. ‘Of course!’

My companion grimaced as another gust of wind hit us in the face and tightened the strings of his hood. ‘Of course what?’

‘The king had placed the Bishop of Ely in Buckingham’s charge, under house arrest. The tinker I told you about saw them at Gloucester and said that the duke was riding off to his Brecon estates, taking John Morton with him.’

‘And this bishop? He’s no friend of the king’s?’

‘A sworn enemy. Hates him. Richard is too straightforward for a man with such a tortuous mind.’

Oliver Tockney shrugged as well as he could with a pack on his back and a wet cloak clinging to his shoulders. ‘That would seem to explain matters, then.’

‘It’s possible,’ I admitted cautiously. ‘It’s possible.’

After that, we let the subject drop, battling against the elements and each occupied with his own thoughts. I was growing increasingly worried at my failure to recognize any markers along the track we were following. No familiar wayside shrines, dwellings, churches, or ale-houses emerged from the veil of rain and mist to reassure me that we were on the road to Gloucester. And when Oliver and I finally stopped at a slate-roofed cottage — the first habitation we had encountered for some miles — to beg food and shelter for the night, and when the cottager addressed us in a strange language which I guessed to be Welsh, my heart sank. I knew without doubt that I had missed my way and instead of approaching Gloucester, we were travelling south on the Welsh side of the River Severn.

This fact was confirmed by the wife of our host who, providentially, turned out to be an Englishwoman.

‘Then where, in the name of the Blessed Virgin, are we?’ I demanded, struggling to rid myself of my sodden cloak and boots.

‘About four miles north of Monmouth,’ the goodwife answered, throwing more wood on the fire in an effort to heat up the pot of stew that hung above it. ‘On foot, you should reach there by midday tomorrow. Perhaps sooner if you make an early start. Mind you,’ she added, as the whole cottage was shaken by the wind, ‘that depends on the weather. Never known anything like it in all the years we’ve lived here, have we, Huw?’

Her husband looked at her vaguely and she repeated the question in Welsh. Immediately, he broke into a spate of words, none of which Oliver and I could understand, accompanied by a wealth of gesticulation. The goodwife continued to stir the pot, not paying him a great deal of attention except to nod occasionally and grunt. When he eventually fell silent, she said, ‘He blames it all on the English. Says we’re a godless lot and that all the sins of the world are on our heads.’ She laughed, a deep-throated, guttural sound. ‘Daresay he’s right. What d’you think, gentlemen?’

We both joined in her laughter and agreed. As a race, we’ve never much cared what other people think of us: we imbibe the consciousness of our superiority with our mothers’ milk. Foreigners down the centuries have upbraided us for our laziness, lack of personal cleanliness, inedible food and the unattractiveness of our habits in general, but we just raise two fingers and carry on our merry way. If anything, we rather relish the opprobrium.

A short time later, Oliver and I were warm, if not completely dry, and fed. In exchange for her hospitality, we regaled the goodwife with information about the outside world, although news of rebellion breaking out in other parts of Wales disturbed her. She said she wouldn’t tell her husband as it was more than likely he’d want to go off and fight for Henry Tudor, something of which, as a loyal supporter of the House of York, she couldn’t approve.

She herself was a Gloucester girl and I asked her if she knew a Juliette Gerrish.

A shake of the head preceded the fact that she hadn’t lived in the city for many years. ‘And yet. .’ The goodwife paused, frowning. ‘Now you mention it, someone did pass this way a while back — a long while back — who mentioned her name. At least, I think that’s what it was. I seem to have heard it before. Whoever it was said she’d had a child, but the talk was that it wasn’t her husband’s.’

‘She’s no longer a widow, then?’ I asked sharply.

Our hostess shook her head. ‘I wouldn’t know. If she was once, she must have married again.’ She regarded me curiously. ‘What’s the lady to you?’

‘Nothing. Nothing at all,’ I said, with just a little too much emphasis. ‘I met her a year or so back when I was working the Gloucester streets.’ No need to say more than that. ‘A chance encounter, that’s all. I just happened to remember her when you said you came from the city, but I didn’t realize you’d been away from it so long.’ I changed the subject abruptly and nodded at Oliver Tockney. ‘We’ll be off at first light, mistress. We’ll retrace our steps to Gloucester and cross the Severn there. I hope we don’t keep you and your goodman awake with our snoring.’

‘It won’t bother us,’ she answered, beginning to douse the fire. ‘We sleep like logs. You’ll find some old blankets and sacks and things in that chest over by the wall. You can see where our bed is. You’re welcome to the other half of the room. And if you’ll both look away while I take off my gown and shift, we shall get on tolerably well. We’ve no chamber pot, I’m afraid, so you’ll just have to piss in the corner where the pile of straw is, or out of the door.’