Kate Sedley - The Saint John's fern

While I hesitated, wary of intruding, the goodwife emerged from her cottage carrying a knife, and began to cut the now flowerless plants, stripping them of their fleshy leaves which she packed, layer upon layer, into a basket. She glanced up briefly as I approached, then, finding me of no great interest, stooped once more to her task.

I coughed in order to attract her attention, and when she again looked up, I asked politely, ‘Do you need anything today, Mistress? Needles, thread? Silks, laces? Knives or spoons?’ I slid my pack from my back and shook it enticingly.

It was her turn to hesitate while she considered. Then, reaching a decision, she jerked her head towards the cottage door and said, ‘Come inside.’

After the brightness of the afternoon sun, the interior of the little house was very gloomy, and all I could see for several moments was a galaxy of stars and whirling orange circles. When my sight cleared, however, the first thing I noticed was a table ranged against one wall, and a man sitting at it, having a meal and, at the same time, counting a pile of coins. The latter he quickly whisked out of sight, into his pocket, as soon as he saw me.

‘A pedlar, Jacob,’ the woman said, ‘come to show us his wares. Clear the table, now, so he can spread them out.’ And, with a single movement of her arm, she swept aside the tin plate and mug from which her husband was eating and drinking. The man seemed used to this sort of treatment and made no demur, except to grimace at me when he thought his wife wasn’t looking. I smiled at him sympathetically.

‘I haven’t all day,’ the woman admonished me sharply. ‘I’ve more harvesting to do before sundown, so just let me see what you’re selling.’

I unbuckled the straps of my pack and laid out its contents for her inspection. Whilst I did so, I cudgelled my brains for the most natural way in which to introduce the subject of Oliver Capstick’s murder and their sighting of Beric Gifford. In the end, though, I need not have worried. It was the man, Jacob, who mentioned the subject without any prompting from me.

‘You’ve been hawking your goods around Plymouth, have you? Not much joy to be had there, I’ll be bound. Tight-fisted lot! Never want to pay a fair price for anything. Which way have you come? By Martyn’s Gate and Bilbury Bridge?’ I grunted assent and he went on, ‘Did you happen to notice a house just inside the gate, painted red and gold? There was a very nasty murder there, five months back. At the very beginning of May it was. The owner, Oliver Capstick by name, was bludgeoned to death by one of his own kinfolk; by his own great-nephew, Beric Gifford.’

‘I did hear something of the story,’ I said, keeping a close eye upon the goodwife who, I felt, was not above slipping one or two of the smaller items into her apron pocket while my attention was engaged elsewhere. ‘There seems to be no doubt in anyone’s mind that the killer was this young man you’ve mentioned. And yet surely it would be too foolhardy for anyone to commit such a crime so openly. Perhaps people are mistaken as to his identity.’

‘There’s no mistake,’ the goodwife said tartly, picking up and putting down a length of cream silk ribbon on which she left earthy fingermarks. ‘Jacob and I both saw him that very morning, the first time on his way to do the deed, and the second time on his way back.’

‘And you’re certain that it was Master Capstick’s great-nephew? You know him well enough, do you, to recognize him? You weren’t persuaded into thinking it was him, after others has named him as the culprit?’

The goodwife swelled up like a frog and almost burst with indignation.

‘How dare you question my judgement?’ she cried. ‘Why, I’ve known Beric Gifford since he was in his cradle, even if my husband hasn’t. Before I wed Jacob, I was laundress to Mistress Gifford, who died, poor thing, when Beric was born. And since my marriage, many and many’s the time I’ve seen him and his sister pass by on their way to visit Master Capstick. They both knew us by sight as well as we knew them, and Beric would always wave to us if we were outside the cottage. Not recognize him, indeed! What would you know about it?’

‘And did you ever think him capable of murder?’

The goodwife took a sudden, deep breath and looked unhappy. ‘Of course I didn’t! You can’t imagine someone you know — ’ she did not add the words ‘and like’ although I could tell that they were on the tip of her tongue — ‘doing something as … as horrible as that.’

‘So why do think he did it?’

She shrugged. ‘There’s talk in the town of a family quarrel. Something to do with his great-uncle wanting him to marry money and Beric wanting to marry his sister’s maid.’

‘Money’s really at the bottom of it, you can be certain of that,’ the man, Jacob, said, patting his pocket and making the coins in it jingle. ‘There are more murders committed for money than love.’

His wife snorted. ‘And what would you know about love, pray? Answer me that!’

I decided it was time I left before a family dispute erupted and entangled me in its coils. ‘Have you found anything you wish to buy?’ I asked the goodwife.

She shrugged. ‘No. Put your stuff away. There’s nothing there that tempts me.’

In normal circumstances, I should have been irritated by this contemptuous dismissal of my wares, especially after so much careless handling of them. But I had not come to sell and had learnt what I wanted to know. The goodwife and her husband were both as sure that they had seen Beric Gifford on the day of Master Capstick’s murder as were Mistress Trenowth and Joanna Cobbold.

As I gathered my goods together and restored them to my pack, I asked, ‘You say that this young man always waved to you as he passed your cottage. Did he do so on the morning of the murder?’

The couple looked at me in some surprise, and then at one another.

‘Yes, I fancy that he did, now that you remind me of it,’ the woman said at last. She laughed. ‘Odd, when you come to think of it, considering what he must have had on his mind.’ She turned to her husband. ‘Can you remember, Jacob? You were with me in the garden when he rode by. Did Master Gifford wave to us? Your memory’s better than mine.’

Jacob thoughtfully scratched one side of his nose. ‘I believe you’re right,’ he finally agreed. ‘He did wave, the first time, same as he always does. Force of habit, I suppose. But not on the way back.’ He slewed round on his stool, repeating Joanna Cobbold’s observation almost word for word. ‘You seem very interested in this murder, chapman.’

I fastened the straps on my pack. ‘It’s an intriguing case,’ I said. ‘From what I learnt in Bilbury Street, the young man has never been brought to justice, although everyone believes him to be responsible for the crime. He has, it seems, disappeared without trace, in spite of the posse being after him before his great-uncle’s body was cold. Some people reckon that he’s eaten Saint John’s fern.’

The goodwife gave another of her raucous laughs. ‘Gone abroad more like. France, perhaps. Or Brittany, to join that troublemaker, Henry Tudor.’

Her husband said nothing, but crossed himself.

‘I’m sorry there was nothing here to your liking, Mistress,’ I said as I shouldered my pack. ‘Another day you could be luckier. If I’m ever this way again, I’ll knock on your door.’ But privately, I vowed never to go near them if I could help it. They had not even offered me a cup of water, let alone a stoup of ale. They might be down on their luck, but most poor people observed the laws of hospitality.

‘We shall be pleased to have your company,’ the goodwife said with a small, secretive smile of satisfaction. And I guessed then that she had managed to pocket some item from amongst my stock while I wasn’t looking. I should discover later what was missing.