Kate Sedley - The Three Kings of Cologne

‘You’ve been in demand,’ I said as she closed the cottage door and divested herself of her cloak.

‘Never mind that,’ she retorted. ‘That nurse — Mistress Virgoe, or whatever she’s called — was in the right of it. Jane Honeychurch was a Bristol maid. Furthermore, you’re in luck. She still lives here. She’s married to one of the scullions who works in the castle kitchens. Jane Purefoy, her name is now. Her husband’s known to Maria’s nephew, although, apparently, Nick doesn’t care much for the man. Still, your business won’t be with him.’

‘True,’ I agreed. ‘Where does Goody Purefoy live?’

But here Margaret’s information was deficient. ‘Maria didn’t know for certain, but it’ll either be in one of those hovels just outside the castle walls or in the domestic quarters of the castle itself. Knock on a few doors. Someone will know where to find her. But watch your purse, if you’ve one on you. There are some rogues and villains living in that part of the town.’

‘There are rogues and villains everywhere,’ I said, bringing a hot defence of Redcliffe springing to her lips. I forestalled this diatribe by pointing out the new basket of wool, the loaves of baked bread and telling her about her neighbour’s enquiry concerning alkanet for colouring cheese. Then I took a hurried leave of her, before being forced to admit that I had failed to ask the neighbour’s name, and made my way back across Bristol Bridge, through a network of narrow side streets and alleys that eventually brought me to the towering bulk of the castle walls and the huddle of little cottages which surrounded them.

It needed no more than a couple of enquiries to elicit the information that Goody Purefoy lived in a cottage close to the great barbican gate, and a toothless crone with only one eye (a gaping, raw socket suggested that the accident had been of recent date) led me to a mean little hovel so closely crammed against the wall that it seemed part of the very stones themselves.

The woman who answered my knock looked far older than I had expected — more like someone of sixty than forty — but otherwise corresponding to Emilia Virgoe’s description of an ‘ugly, mousy little thing’. I imagined that the intervening years had not dealt kindly with her. Her hair, straggling from beneath a dirty linen coif, was now grey and very thin, her pale eyes almost colourless beneath non-existent brows, her complexion muddy and her skin wrinkled. She reminded me of a plant that had withered through want of light and air.

‘Goody Purefoy?’ I asked. ‘Jane Honeychurch that used to be?’

Reluctantly, she edged the door a little wider.

‘You’re the law,’ she said resignedly. ‘Ranald warned me to expect ’ee soon as we heard that that there body they’ve found is the mistress’s. Mistress Isabella’s. My man said you’d be round sometime or other, asking questions.’

‘I am enquiring about Mistress Linkinhorne,’ I replied with what I trusted was a reassuring smile. ‘But I’m not the law.’

‘Oo are you then?’ The door inched shut again and I quickly put a foot in the narrowing gap.

I explained as best I could to the small, suspicious face staring at me through the aperture, at the same time trying to ignore the chorus of sniggers, shuffling and insulting remarks from a gaggle of urchins who had left their play to come and harass this stranger who had been foolhardy enough to stray into their midst. A pebble from a homemade catapult struck me painfully between the shoulderblades. I swung round menacingly and the little army retreated a step or two, but as soon as my back was turned once more, I was hit again. I knew that I probably could, by sheer strength and size, send them packing, but guessed that I should then be confronted by the urchins’ mothers — a far more terrifying prospect.

‘I promise you, Goody Purefoy, I’m not the law,’ I repeated. And just at that moment, with a grating of wood against stone that set every tooth in my head on edge, the hovel door was opened wide enough to admit me. I slipped inside, enduring a repetition of the screech as the door was closed. ‘Thank you,’ I uttered gratefully.

‘Little varmints!’ my saviour muttered, jerking her head in the direction of the street, where, to howls and yells of disappointment, my small persecutors were trying to hammer their way in.

‘They’ll get tired of it in a minute,’ I said, ‘and go away.’

Jane Purefoy gave me a scathing look. ‘I know that, don’ I? I lives here.’

Reproved, I humbly bowed my head. A brief glance around the single room had told me there was very little to see. The floor was simply beaten mud with no covering of any sort, while the basics of table, two stools and a shelf holding a couple of pots and pans took up what space there was. A rolled-up mattress in one corner suggested that sleeping arrangements were equally primitive, and a meagre fire on a raised hearthstone belched more smoke than flame. Over all hung a pervasive smell of urine, and such light as there was came from an unshuttered window at one side of the room, opening on to the wall of the next hovel, only a foot or so away. The knowledge that this was the lot of so many of my fellow citizens suddenly made me ashamed of the comparative comfort I and my family enjoyed, and engendered in me a (short-lived) resolve never to complain about anything again.

‘Well?’ my hostess demanded. ‘What is it you want? You’re working on behalf of Mayor Foster you say.’

I started to repeat what I had already told her, but Jane Purefoy stopped me with an impatient wave of her hand.

‘I’m not daft, young man, nor am I deaf. I don’t need telling everything twice. I know I looks stupid, but I ain’t.’

‘No, no!’ I agreed eagerly. ‘Of course you’re not. I never thought so for a minute. It’s just that … What I mean is, I’d be grateful for anything you can tell me about Isabella Linkinhorne. You were her maid, Mistress Virgoe informs me.’

Jane Purefoy sniffed. ‘You been to see her, have you, as well as the old master? She was never a friend to the young mistress. Hand in glove with the old folks, she was.’

I nodded. ‘Mistress Virgoe did admit that her sympathies lay with the parents rather than the daughter.’

A faint smile lifted the corners of her thin lips. ‘My, my! You do talk fancy! A funny sort of chapman you be, if that’s your real calling, like what you say it is.’ She paused, waiting for my affirmation, but I merely nodded again, saying nothing. I had no intention to delve into my life history: I had done it too many times in the past and the constant repetition had long since begun to pall. When she realized that she was not about to get an answer, Goody Purefoy shrugged and waved me to one of the stools, perching herself on the other. ‘Well, what do ’ee want to ask, then?’

‘These three swains of hers — at least everyone seems to think that there were three — did she ever talk to you about them? Or was she as secretive with you as she was with everyone else?’

My companion grimaced. ‘Oh, she were secretive all right. Didn’t trust no one. Not even me. And I dessay I was as near to a friend as she ever had. She didn’t like women as a general rule. But then, she didn’t like no one, really. Hated her parents. I told her once she was lucky to have a mother and father who were so fond of her and gave her everything she asked for.’ Jane scratched her head through her hood. ‘I’ve never forgotten her answer, nor the look on her face when she made it. “Having everything you want’s no good,” she said, “if you’ve got to give your soul in return.” I told her I didn’t know what she was talking about, and that I’d never known my ma and pa. I was an orphan, brought up on charity and sold on to anyone ’oo’d have me. That’s how I went to live with the Linkinhornes.’