Kate Sedley: The Prodigal Son

‘What’s this Irishman to you, anyway,’ Margaret demanded angrily, ‘that you should go to his assistance?’

‘I told you. I met him in the Green Lattis and had a talk with him. And he’s not Irish by birth. He and his brother are originally from Wedmore, his father’s village. And his mother is from Wells.’

Margaret shot up straight on her stool. ‘Ha!’ she cried.

‘What do you mean, “Ha!”?’

‘You say he’s from around these parts. From Wedmore. Maybe Dame Bellknapp is right about him, after all. Maybe he is this page. And his name is John, as well.’

‘That’s nothing,’ I snapped back. ‘You’d find half a dozen Johns even in a place as small as Wedmore.’

I couldn’t help wondering why I felt so protective of this young man on the strength of a brief conversation which had taken place a few days ago. Perhaps it was because of that sense of having known him at some time in the past.

‘Please, Roger,’ Adela insisted, ‘don’t get involved in this.’

‘You need to be out on the road with your pack,’ Margaret scolded. ‘Your family can’t live on fresh air.’

It was a consideration, certainly, but I knew it wasn’t Adela’s. She was only afraid that I might put myself in danger again.

‘All right,’ I conceded grudgingly. Adela smiled. It was reward enough. ‘As you say, this affair has nothing to do with me.’

I should have known better than to tempt fate in that way. The words were barely out of my mouth when there was a loud, officious knocking on our street door.

Ianswered the door, Adela still having Adam on her lap, asleep. It was Richard Manifold.

I groaned. ‘What do you want?’

Not the most welcoming of remarks, but what he had grown to expect from me. There was an armed truce between us, but we would never be the best of friends.

‘I need to talk to you,’ he said. ‘Can I come in?’

I stood aside reluctantly. ‘If you must. We’re in the kitchen.’ I saw no good reason to open up the parlour. The number of free meals he ate in our house, he was practically one of the family.

He followed me along the stone-flagged passageway to the door at the foot of the stairs, pulling up short on the threshold, momentarily disconcerted by Margaret Walker’s presence.

‘Ah, Sergeant, have you come to arrest him again?’ that dame asked with her usual acerbity, then laughed so uproariously at her own joke that she woke Adam, who began to snivel. Adela gave her a reproachful glance.

Without being asked, Richard Manifold seated himself on the stool I had previously been occupying and smiled warmly at my wife. I wished he wouldn’t do that. To add insult to injury, Adela, who was busy trying to soothe our son, instructed me to bring him a cup of ale.

‘You look so hot, Dick. It will cool you down.’

Controlling the meaner side of my nature with a commendable effort, I went to the ale barrel in a corner of the kitchen and returned with one of the children’s horn beakers, placing it on the table with exaggerated care, so that its contents didn’t slop. Adela eyed me warily. She knew that when I was at my most courteous, I was most annoyed. It was my turn to smile, which did nothing to reassure her.

‘So,’ I said, propping myself against the wall and glaring at our guest, ‘what do you want with me, Richard?’

‘I’m hoping you’ll come back to the bridewell with me. We’ve a fellow in custody there who insists on speaking to you.’

‘I don’t know anyone in the bridewell just at present,’ I protested. ‘And why would anyone wish to speak to me? I’m not a lawyer.’

‘No.’ Richard sniggered offensively, then attempted unsuccessfully to disguise it as a cough. ‘It’s the Irishman who’s been taken into custody.’ He glanced at Margaret Walker. ‘I’m certain you’ve heard about it. The fellow’s been in the bridewell for nearly twenty-four hours. Enough time, I’m sure, for the good dames of Redcliffe to have winkled out all there is to know about the affair.’

Margaret tried to look affronted, but succeeded only in looking smug. ‘Why would he want to speak to Roger?’ she demanded.

The sergeant shrugged, equally perplexed. ‘Perhaps he’s deranged.’ It was his turn to enjoy a joke at my expense. ‘He does, however, and as, strictly speaking, he’s not been charged with anything as yet, I couldn’t see it would hurt to do as he asked.’ Richard turned back to me. ‘Will you come?’

I agreed with alacrity. I was already wearing my boots, but didn’t mention that, but for Adela’s dissuasion, I had been about to go and see him. I was in a hurry now to get our uninvited guest out of the way before Margaret divulged the information concerning John Wedmore that I had so recently given her.

Fortunately Adela, as she so often did, discerned my purpose, and rising from her stool, dumped Adam unceremoniously on her cousin’s knees. Our son immediately expressed his outrage by lashing out with his fists and roaring at the top of his voice. (He has always had powerful lungs.) While Margaret was making efforts to calm him, I ushered Richard Manifold out of the house.

The bridewell is a gloomy place, tucked into a curve of the city wall close by the Needless Gate; and even though the August day was bright with sunshine, the air inside struck chill against my flesh and made me shiver. I had rescued a friend from there only the previous year, and wouldn’t have wished my worst enemy to be confined within its damp and dripping walls.

John Wedmore had a room — if so cramped a space could be dignified by such a description — to himself, just to the right of the entrance and separated from the common cell by a thin partition that might afford him privacy, but did nothing to muffle the cries and groans of his fellow prisoners. A stone ledge, running the length of the outer wall and piled with straw, served as both bed and seat. A tiny, barred window gave insufficient light to do anything without a constantly burning taper; a rush candle whose fragile radiance did nothing at all to alleviate the gloom.

The Irishman — for so I continued to think of him, even though it was not strictly true — was sitting with his head in his hands, but he glanced up quickly as I entered. I heard the key rattle in the lock behind me, and Richard Manifold said, ‘Yell when you’re ready, Roger. One of the turnkeys will be somewhere about.’ On which not-so-reassuring note — the turnkeys being notorious for sloping off to the nearest alehouse whenever the fancy took them — I found myself a prisoner in this depressing little cell.

John Wedmore sprang to his feet and stood staring at me, almost as if I were a ghost.

‘You came,’ he said, offering a trembling hand. ‘I didn’t think you would.’

I realized that he was shaking all over and pushed him back on the bench. ‘Sit down, lad. You can barely stand.’ I seated myself beside him. ‘Yes, of course I came. Did you think I was the sort to leave a fellow human being in distress without seeing what I could do about it?’

He drew a gasping breath. ‘No, not really. But as far as you knew, I’ve no particular claim on you, and you might have been busy.’

‘As far as I knew?’ I queried suspiciously. ‘Why do you say that?’

There was a moment’s pregnant silence. Then he muttered in a kind of strangled whisper, ‘Because I’m your brother.’

The silence stretched, seemingly endless, before I managed to croak, ‘My brother?’

But I knew it was the truth. I knew at last who it was he reminded me of. From the dregs of memory, there floated to the surface a face almost identical to my companion’s. My father’s.

My father, Roger Stonecarver, had died a month after my fourth birthday, following a fall from scaffolding while repairing the ceiling of Wells Cathedral nave. If anyone had asked me before that moment, I would have said I didn’t remember him. But suddenly, I could see him as clearly in my mind’s eye as I could see the young man sitting next to me; the same small face, the same needle-sharp blue eyes, same dark hair and thin, wiry body. Oh yes! John Wedmore was my father’s son, all right.