Kate Sedley - The Three Kings of Cologne

My companion sighed. ‘I think he knows that now. I think it’s that knowledge that has made him ill in recent days.’

‘I’m sorry to have been the cause of his sickness. Perhaps, after all, the past is better left alone.’

‘It’s not really your fault.’ She put up a hand and lightly brushed my cheek. ‘Your Mayor, I think you told me, is the searcher after truth.’

I caught the errant hand in mine and held it fast to prevent any further assaults on my strength of purpose.

‘What was this other thing your uncle noticed about Isabella? This something that suddenly made him doubt her intentions towards him? Something so trivial, you said, that he later dismissed it as absurd.’

‘Oh, that.’ Juliette made no attempt to free her hand. ‘Now, what was it? What did Uncle Robert say?’ She considered for a moment, her fingers clinging to mine, prolonging the moment, her thoughts plainly not on what she was saying. Then she seemed to make an effort to pull herself together. ‘Yes, I remember. It seems that while my uncle was watching, the wind — it was, apparently, a very wet and windy day — the wind tore at Isabella’s cloak and he caught a glimpse of the dress she was wearing underneath. He recognized it as an old one, he said, somewhat patched and darned, which she wore simply for riding. It occurred to him that she would have been decked out in her finery if she was going to run away with him. There! He said it was a trivial reason to doubt her, and of course it was. For my own part, I feel sure his suspicions arose more from the way in which she and the man were talking together. He recognized an intimacy that he didn’t wish to believe in.’

‘Why are you telling me this?’ I asked abruptly. ‘You didn’t have to, and you must see that your uncle having lied to me makes him more of a suspect than he was.’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t really know. But by your own admission there are two other men who have incurred your suspicion. It seems only fair to you and to them that you should know the exact truth.’ She added, suddenly anxious, ‘You don’t really believe Uncle Robert could have murdered this woman, do you?’

I sighed, looking down into the troubled brown eyes. ‘I don’t know what to believe,’ I admitted. Foolishly, and almost without being aware of my action, I stooped and kissed her gently between the eyes. Next moment, she had raised herself on tiptoe, both arms clasped about my neck, and returned my kiss full on the lips.

Badly shaken, I released myself and stepped back a pace. She grimaced and echoed my sigh.

‘Still the married man, Roger?’ she asked.

I nodded. ‘I … I think we’d better go in.’

She made no demur, merely giving me a saucy grin that, nevertheless, struck me as a little lopsided. But she behaved herself impeccably throughout supper and afterwards, when, in order to while away the time until the hour for bed, we played some games of chance and hazard; although with Lady Claypole presiding over the boards and counters, there was small opportunity for even the slightest dalliance on Juliette’s part. Or on mine.

Richard and I took our leave of both ladies before we retired for the night, saying that we should rise betimes and be gone from Hambrook Manor no doubt before they were up and about. Our hostess bore the news well and said that she would give instructions to her Steward to see that we were fed before we left. Juliette blew me a kiss when she thought no one else was looking and, aloud, begged me to visit her if I ever again found myself in Gloucester. I promised to do so, secretly vowing to give the town a wide berth in future. Whether or not my resolution would hold good, only time would tell.

Richard and I had been allotted a handsome chamber at the front of the house with a wide, comfortable bed for our slumbers. We were both dog-tired and wasted no time in idle chatter, simply stripping off our clothes and tumbling between the sheets with no other conversation than the mutually expressed hope that the other didn’t snore. But we were both asleep within minutes. At least, I know I was.

My rest, however, was disturbed by dreams. Most had no shape or sequence, being merely a muddle of things that had happened to me over the past few weeks. But then, suddenly, the general confusion resolved itself into a scene where I was standing above the great gorge, on the very edge of Saint Vincent’s rocks, teetering on the brink and striving to keep my balance. I could see no one, hear nothing — all around me was an eerie silence, devoid even of birdsong — but uneasily aware that I was not alone. Then, with a clarity that made me start, the hermit’s voice said in my ear, ‘Red stockings! I ask you! With that gown!’

I plunged forward, but not into the treacherous water of the River Avon far below me. As is the fashion with dreams, the scene had changed abruptly to the ruined Linkinhorne house, and I was falling from the smoke-blackened stairs into the riot of vegetation forcing its way up towards the expanse of sky visible through the long-since vanished roof. The iron, copper-banded chest lay on its side on the ground, the contents already spilling out without any help from me or my cudgel. Hercules appeared and I could see that he was barking frantically, except that he was making no sound …

I was sitting up in bed, sweat pouring from my body, every nerve jangling, peering through the darkness of an unfamiliar room. Beside me, Richard Manifold slept peacefully, his steady breathing punctuated every now and then with a sort of gurgling snore. I took a few deep breaths to calm myself and still the ragged beating of my heart before lying down again, staring up at the embroidered underside of the bed canopy, with its dimly seen pattern of fabulous beasts prowling through an exotic wilderness of flowers.

Of course! Of course, I thought. I was sure now who had murdered Isabella Linkinhorne. Well, almost. There might still be a doubt.

All the same, ‘Thank You, Lord,’ I whispered into the darkness.

With the early start we had promised ourselves, and with refreshed and reinvigorated steeds, Richard and I reached Bristol in time for dinner the following morning. I left my companion to return our horses to the livery stables and to seek out Mayor Foster to report the success of our mission, and went home to find Adela.

She was, as she always seemed to be, in the kitchen, struggling with a recalcitrant fire that appeared reluctant to burn to heat the pot of stew hanging from the hook of the trivet. (Being Friday, there was more than a whiff of fish in the air.) The hornbooks and styli of the two elder children lay abandoned at one end of the scrubbed wooden table, where my wife had been teaching them their lessons, while Adam had obviously worn himself out because he was curled up on Hercules’s flea-infested straw bed fast asleep. Women, I reflected, not for the first time, were the losers in the game of life; the thankless drudges who smoothed the paths of their men. With a sudden access of guilt, I swung her round and kissed her soundly.

‘Roger! You startled me! I didn’t hear you come in.’ Adela took my face between her hands and studied it closely. ‘Something’s happened. You’re looking cheerful,’ she commented shrewdly.

I squeezed her waist until she could hardly breathe and kissed her again.

‘I believe I know who murdered Isabella Linkinhorne,’ I said.

Her eyes widened. ‘Who?’ she demanded eagerly. Then a worried frown creased her brow. ‘Not … not Richard?’ she stammered.

I slackened my hold. ‘Would that matter to you?’

Her gaze didn’t waver. ‘Of course it would. It would matter to me if it were anyone I knew.’

I renewed my grip on her, smiling apologetically.