Kate Sedley - The Weaver's inheritance

The opposing group consisted of Alderman Weaver, dressed in one of his old-fashioned velvet gowns and looking more ill and fatigued than he had done at any time since Irwin Peto’s arrival, six months earlier; Ned Stoner and Rob Short, together with a horrified Dame Pernelle, who had followed their master outside to ensure, if necessary, his safety; and, lurking in the doorway, the impostor himself, his face wearing a strange expression compounded in almost equal measure of defiance and guilt, or so, at least, it seemed to me.

It was obvious that Mistress Burnett, incensed beyond reason by what I had told her concerning Irwin Peto, had been unable to contain her fury, and, sometime after my departure, had marched round from Small Street to Broad Street to vent her fury upon her father. Whether she had refused to step across his polluted threshold, or whether the Alderman had forbidden her contaminating presence in his house, I had no means of knowing, but for whatever reason, the bitter confrontation, rapidly deteriorating into a brawl, was taking place in the middle of the street. Faces, some eager, some shocked, were appearing at neighbouring windows, and one or two people had already ventured out of doors to stand and gape. Such a display of paternal foolishness and filial condemnation was a rare enough sight, and one not to be missed. But it would not be long, I hoped, before someone notified the Sheriff and his Officers at the castle, and a patrol arrived to deal with this flagrant breach of the peace, before physical harm was done.

‘So now you know,’ Alison was screaming at the top of her voice, her finger pointing accusingly at Irwin Peto, ‘that that creature, that thing, is not your son! I demand that you hand him over to the law immediately!’

While she paused to draw breath and ease her aching throat, the Alderman was able to storm into battle. ‘How dare you come here,’ he demanded furiously, ‘with some trumped-up story, concocted between you and that paid lackey of a chapman, trying to pretend that this isn’t Clement! Can you really believe that I don’t know my own son?’ He glared fiercely at William. ‘Get her away from here, now, at once! Haven’t you more authority over your wife than this? Although, on second thoughts, perhaps you haven’t. I’ve thought for years that you’re a weak, inept sort of being, whose only talent is for empty boasting.’

‘Be quiet, you stupid old goat!’ Alison had got her second wind. ‘Don’t you ever speak to William like that again!’ She looked round and saw me, falling upon me with claw-like hands, urging me to tell her father all I had learned from Morwenna Peto.

I hesitated, not from any reluctance to blacken Irwin Peto’s name, but because I was wondering just how I was going to disclose my suspicions concerning her husband. I hadn’t bargained on such a public venue or an audience of anyone but the people most closely concerned in the matter. But the crowd of neighbours venturing into the street was growing by the minute.

‘Go on!’ screamed Alison, shaking my arm. ‘Tell him! Shout it from the rooftops so that everyone can hear! That man is not my brother!’

I cleared my throat. ‘Can’t we all go somewhere more private?’ I begged.

But before anyone could answer my question or comply with my wishes, Irwin Peto suddenly started out of the shelter of his doorway, crying, ‘No, Jude, no!’ There was an urgency in his voice that, because of the previous attempt on my life, alerted me to present danger. Moreover, his eyes were fixed on something, or somebody, immediately behind me. And in that split second, I recollected the shadowy figure I had seen skulking around Adela’s cottage, and which, mistakenly no doubt, I had later assumed to have been Timothy Plummer. Resisting the very natural impulse to glance over my shoulder, I dropped to the ground and rolled sideways.

There was a gasp from the onlookers, a shriek from Mistress Burnett and a terrible groan of protest and despair from her father. Seconds later, Irwin Peto pitched down beside me, measuring his length on the cobbles, the knife that had been intended for my back embedded in his chest up to the hilt. The person he had addressed as Jude, and whom I recognized at once as the man who had tried to drown me in the Fleet, fled up the street towards the High Cross, running straight into the arms of Richard Manifold as he rounded the corner, four other Sheriff’s Officers hard on his heels.

* * *

Irwin Peto was still conscious, although breathing stertorously, when Ned Stoner and Rob Short carried him into the Alderman’s house; but death was not far off, and I could see the knowledge in his eyes. His unintentional murderer, arrested and pinioned by Richard Manifold and his fellow officers of the law, had been hustled in after him, and I had followed with William and Alison Burnett, a horrified Dame Pernelle and a distraught Alfred Weaver bringing up the rear. The street door being firmly shut against prying eyes, Ned and Rob laid their burden down on the floor of the hall, propping up Irwin’s head with a cushion. The rushes beneath him were soon soaked with his blood.

‘Ned, run for the physician as fast as you can!’ the Alderman quavered. And when Ned hesitated, realizing that such an errand was futile, his master shouted, ‘Go, man! Go! Hurry, for God’s sake!’ He knelt down beside Irwin, holding one of his hands. ‘Clement,’ he moaned. ‘Clement! Don’t die. I can’t bear to lose you again.’

At these words, the dying man opened his eyes and seemed to summon up all his remaining strength. ‘I’m … not … your son,’ he breathed. ‘I’m not … Clement.’

I glanced at William Burnett and saw him start, then stand as though turned to stone, a sudden desperate, hunted look on his face. And I knew that all my suspicions of him had been correct, at least where Irwin Peto was concerned. A moment later, in a sudden torrent of words, Irwin himself confirmed William’s complicity in the affair; a confession gasped out with an urgency that made it obvious time was running out for him, and that he wished to make amends before he died. How much Alison and the Alderman were able to understand immediately, while that fading voice rasped and rattled in their ears, I cannot be certain; but in the long silence that succeeded his final words and his soul’s departure from this world, I saw the gradual dawn of comprehension in their eyes.

William Burnett saw it, too, and made a sudden rush for the street door; but one of the Sheriff’s men was before him, standing with his back to it, arms outspread and a drawn sword in his hand. He wasn’t yet sure exactly what was happening, but he recognized someone trying to escape and acted accordingly. He glanced for instructions at Richard Manifold, who, in his turn, looked at me.

‘You seem to be embroiled in this affair up to your neck, Roger Chapman,’ he said, ‘so I’ll hear from you next.’ He then demanded testily that the wildly protesting William Burnett should be silent, at the same time indicating that another of his men should guard the hall entrance that led into the kitchen. ‘We don’t want anyone getting out through the back of the house,’ he warned. ‘Right, I’m waiting.’ He stared down at the dead body at his feet. ‘Perhaps, for the sake of the women, it would be better if we went elsewhere.’

So, except for the two officers keeping watch on the doors, we all crowded into the parlour, where I told my story; a story which was corroborated in part by Irwin Peto’s dying testimony. But my theory that William Burnett was the murderer of Imelda Bracegirdle was more difficult to sustain, for I had no real evidence.

Alderman Weaver, however, seemed to need no proof. Fixing his eyes on his son-in-law, his breathing rapid and shallow, he panted, ‘You! You’ve played this dastardly trick on me! You’ve given me false hope that Clement was still alive! I wouldn’t put murder past you! I wouldn’t put any sort of villainy past you!’ And suddenly he launched himself at William, the force of his weight, and the unexpectedness of the attack, bearing the younger man to the ground.