Kate Sedley - The Weaver's inheritance

‘Master Chapman, I’ve been hoping to meet you.’ The voice had an unmistakable West Country burr to it, with the hard ‘r’s and the diphthonged vowels of our Saxon forebears, but anyone could be taught to speak in such a fashion. ‘My father’s told me how you went to London, searching for me, and laid those villains by the heels.’

‘The credit was not all mine by any means,’ I disclaimed hastily. ‘Indeed, I was nearly a victim myself. I owe my life to the good sense and watchfulness of another.’ I resumed my seat in obedience to a peremptory gesture from the Alderman and the young man sat opposite me, on a joint stool. ‘Tell me of your own experience,’ I begged him. ‘How did you manage to escape with your life?’

Once again came that disarming smile. ‘That’s the trouble. I’ve no idea. I remember being given some wine to drink — and I’ve only been able to recall that in recent months — but otherwise, all’s a blank until I came to, lying stark naked on the banks of the Thames, on the Southwark side of the river. I couldn’t even remember my name. I didn’t know who I was or where I was or how I got there. There was blood oozing from a wound over my left eye — you can still see the scar if you look closely — and my head felt like it was home to a swarm of bees.’

‘The wine, of course, was drugged,’ I said.

The young man nodded. ‘I realize that now, but at the time, I remembered nothing, and assumed it was because of the blow to my head. I’d been struck violently on the left temple, and reasoned that I’d got it from whoever it was that had stolen my clothes. My tunic was of good camlet trimmed with squirrel fur and must have earned the thief a pretty penny. Not, of course, that I knew this at the time, or had any knowledge of ever having owned such a garment. This is one of the things that has come back to me, you understand, over the past few months, as my memory has gradually returned.’

I frowned. ‘So can you recall now how you managed to escape from the Thames?’

‘Not really.’ He glanced at the Alderman, who gave him an encouraging nod, and then went on, ‘I can only think that the drug must have begun to wear off sooner than had been intended, so instead of drowning, I recovered consciousness and managed to strike out for the shore. My father tells me that even as a small boy, I was a prodigious swimmer.’

‘And you’re sure it was the thief who wounded you? You didn’t hit your head on something?’

‘I can’t be certain, but I don’t think so. Nor do I think that I was stripped before being thrown into the river.’ The hazel eyes met mine with a puzzled stare. ‘I have a … a sensation, no more than that, of still being fully clothed while I was in the water. So it’s my opinion that the thief discovered me lying there and hit me with something. Perhaps I stirred or groaned, and he was afraid that I was about to recover my senses. In his anxiety, he dealt me a blow which not only rendered me unconscious again, but also robbed me of my memory for six long years.’

On the face of it, it was a plausible enough explanation and one with which I could find no immediate quarrel. Everything could have happened exactly as he said it did. ‘So where have you been all these years?’ I asked curiously. ‘Where did you live? What name have you been using?’

‘I lived among the beggars and felons of Southwark,’ he answered simply. ‘I was befriended by a woman called Morwenna Peto, a Cornishwoman by birth who had run away from home when she was young and journeyed to London, where she found work in the Southwark stews. But her whoring days are long past, and nowadays she runs a thieves’ kitchen, where those down on their luck or seeking shelter from the law are always welcome. She found me and took me in. She’d had a son once, who’d ended his life on the gallows, and she said that I reminded her of him. So, when she found I had no knowledge of who I was or where I’d come from, she called me Irwin in his memory.’ The young man smiled, but there was, I fancied, a hint of defiance in his expression. ‘And that’s who I’ve been for the past six years; Irwin Peto, thief, pimp, pickpocket … My father knows the whole story.’

‘I do indeed,’ the Alderman confirmed, ‘and I don’t condemn the boy. Nor will anyone else in my hearing.’ He thrust out an aggressive lower lip.

‘And how, finally, did you recover your memory?’ I asked this young man who might or might not be Clement Weaver, and who, for the time being at least, I decided to think of as Irwin Peto.

‘Strangely enough, by another blow to the head. Several months ago now, one day last October, when it had been raining and freezing both together and the cobbles were very treacherous, I was trying to escape from a man whose pocket I’d just picked, when I slipped and fell heavily, cracking my skull. I was half-stunned, but managed to haul myself to my feet and make off again. I eluded my would-be captor and reached home, where Morwenna bound me up and told me to get some sleep.’ Irwin drew a deep breath. ‘I did, and it was after I woke up that, very slowly, memories of my past life, my real life, began to come back to me; a little piece here, a brief glimpse there until, at last, by the beginning of December, I knew who I was, where I came from and some of the circumstances which had led me to be cast up, robbed and left for dead on the Southwark strand.’

He sounded like a child, reciting something he had been taught, his intonation unemotional and flat because he was intent only on speaking the words in their proper order and making no mistake.

‘So you decided to come home,’ I prompted.

‘Yes. I had to let my father know that I was still alive. A week or so before Christmas, I said goodbye to Morwenna and set out for Bristol.’

‘You walked all the way?’

‘I got a lift now and then from a passing carter.’

‘You didn’t consider going to your uncle in Farringdon Without and asking for his assistance?’

Irwin shoot his head. ‘It seemed only right to confront my father first with my story. Until he believed me, and accepted me for who I am, I felt I had no claim on other people’s understanding.’

Once more, there was nothing to quarrel with in this answer, and if it again sounded like something carefully rehearsed, perhaps the fault was with me and my unspoken wish — for my own sake as well as Mistress Burnett’s — that he should be lying.

‘Well, Chapman!’ Alderman Weaver leant across from his chair to mine and clasped my shoulder. ‘Are you satisfied with my son’s account? Is there anything which couldn’t have happened as he says it did? Tell me honestly if you think he’s lying.’ But his glowing countenance testified to his conviction that I could have nothing detrimental to say.

I glanced towards Irwin Peto and detected a look of apprehension in the hazel eyes. Or did I? The expression was so fleeting that it was gone before I could be certain, and the confidence of innocence was all that remained. ‘No,’ I said, ‘it could have happened exactly as Master Pet- as Master Weaver has explained.’

The Alderman clapped his hands to his thighs in a gesture of satisfaction, his face beaming, the years of misery and ill-health seeming to slip away before my eyes. And I realized that if there had been a doubt that this really was his son lurking in any corner of Alfred Weaver’s mind, then my admission had laid it to rest. He seemed not to have noticed my slight slip of the tongue, or if he had, he regarded it as being of so little importance that it was already forgotten.

Not so with the younger man. The expression on his face indicated that he was fully alive to its significance, and his manner was suddenly more reserved, hostile even, as though he recognized me now for an enemy rather than a friend. I decided therefore that it was time for me to leave while my stock remained high with the father at least, and I rose to my feet. My host did likewise and wrung my hand at parting as though I had been his equal rather than a common pedlar of small account. I wished that I could urge something on Alison’s behalf, but there was nothing I could say which would not be construed as an unwarrantable intrusion into his family affairs. Besides, I had no desire at this stage to upset Irwin Peto any further.