Kate Sedley - The Burgundian's tale

Martha Broderer was still at home and still at table. A dirty bowl and beaker opposite her place suggested that my hopes had been realized and that Lionel had at least left the room, if not the house.

‘If you’re looking for Lal, he’s already gone,’ his mother confirmed. ‘But stay and have a cup of ale with me, chapman, before you seek him out.’

‘It’s you I want to see, not your son,’ I said, pulling up a stool and accepting her offer of ale. When she raised her eyebrows, I went on, ‘I’ve just come from talking to Lydia Jolliffe.’ I added significantly, ‘About Brandon.’

Martha, filling a clean beaker from a jug of small beer, shot me a suddenly apprehensive glance from beneath frowning brows. ‘What about Brandon?’

I took the beaker and swallowed several mouthfuls before replying. But at last, I said, ‘Mistress Jolliffe has admitted to me that Edmund Broderer was Brandon’s father. And Brandon looks extraordinarily like Lionel. My guess is that your son, too, was fathered by Edmund.’

Martha looked at me, her lips compressed, her hands gripped together in front of her, on the table. I was afraid she was about to order me from the house, but, finally, she heaved a great sigh, almost of relief.

‘Edmund and I were once very much in love. He was nineteen, I was fifteen — old enough to know better, perhaps, but not old enough to be wise. At least, I wasn’t. I was already betrothed to Edmund’s cousin, you see. And when I discovered I was pregnant with Edmund’s child, I was too frightened to admit the truth — frightened of the shame and the recriminations. In spite of Edmund’s pleas, I went ahead and married my husband and passed Lionel off as his.

‘Edmund found it hard to forgive me, and who can blame him? But he stayed single for the next eleven years. I don’t mean there weren’t women; there were — a number of them. He was a very virile man. And I must admit that I have often wondered about Brandon Jolliffe’s paternity. The boy bears little resemblance to either of his parents, and the likeness to Lal that you’ve mentioned is really quite marked … Then, quite suddenly, at the age of thirty, Edmund met and married Judith Fennyman, a seamstress in Margaret of York’s household. It must have been the same year as the battles of Mortimer’s Cross and St Alban’s. The same year that King Henry was deposed and the present king crowned. Margaret of York was suddenly of great importance, a member of the reigning dynasty. Edmund told me later that he was never in love with Judith: his mother had died and he didn’t care for the idea of living alone, and Judith had a certain attraction for him, being as she was in the employ of the new princess. Besides, he wanted a child whom he could acknowledge openly as his own.’

‘He was disappointed, then,’ I put in as Martha paused to draw breath.

She nodded. ‘Yes. Judith proved to be barren. But more than that, the year after Edmund and Judith’s marriage, her brother-in-law, James Quantrell, was killed when he was thrown from his horse, and Veronica and Fulk, who was just a baby, went to live at the house in the Strand. Edmund and his sister-in-law didn’t get on. The two women were as thick as thieves, and Edmund felt himself to be an outsider in his own home.

‘This went on for six years and, more and more, he began to turn to me for comfort — I was a widow by this time — and, gradually, all our old love was rekindled. He gave me a gold ring as token of his love, and I gave him a gold-and-agate thumb ring, which he told me he would wear until he died. He promised to tell Judith that he was leaving her for me. He could obtain a divorce, he said, on the grounds of her inability to have children …’

Martha broke off, her voice suspended by tears, so I finished for her. ‘But before that could happen, Edmund Broderer disappeared and no one knew what had happened to him until some time later, when his body was fished out of the Thames, almost unrecognizable.’ I paused, then asked, ‘Didn’t it ever occur to you, Mistress Broderer, how very convenient for Judith his death was?’

Martha gave me another sharp look. ‘Yes, of course it did. But not only Veronica Quantrell, but William Morgan also, swore they were all at home together and didn’t leave the house the night he vanished.’

I made no comment, but finished my beer. ‘Were you surprised,’ I then asked, ‘when Judith married a violent man like Justin Threadgold?’

‘Yes, I must admit I was. But she’s always had this passion for children and young people. I thought she must have married him for Alcina’s sake.’

‘And her passion for Fulk Quantrell?’

Martha laughed, gesturing with one hand. ‘Oh, that’s easy enough to explain! A nephew, her twin sister’s son, whom she hadn’t clapped eyes on for the past twelve years! Handsome and with a tongue dripping with honey! Poor Judith stood no chance. She was lost from the first moment of setting eyes on him.’

‘Yes … I rather fancy that she was,’ I answered slowly. I got to my feet. ‘Well, thank you, Mistress Broderer. I won’t take up any more of your time. You’ve told me what I wanted to know.’

‘Where are you going now?’ she enquired curiously. ‘Do you know yet who killed Fulk Quantrell?’

‘Yes, I think so,’ I said. ‘It’s just a question of whether or not I can get that person to confess.’

Martha looked both excited and a little alarmed. ‘It’s not Lionel, is it?’ she demanded, trembling slightly.

I moved towards the door. ‘Is he aware that Edmund was his father?’ I enquired.

She shook her head. ‘No. I’ve never told him; I’ve never seen the need. Whether or not I would have done, had Edmund and I ever married, I can’t say.’ She sighed again. ‘Maybe I’ll tell him the truth one day, if the moment seems right.’

I thanked her for her time and patience, and left quickly before she realized that I hadn’t answered her question.

‘I’ll let myself out,’ I said. ‘Don’t trouble your maid.’

I made my way back to the Strand, more than ever convinced that I knew the identity of Fulk Quantrell’s murderer.

This time I did see Bertram, although he failed to spot me. With a face like thunder, hot and sweating, he was returning through the Lud Gate and about to climb the hill. I didn’t call out, but carried on along Fleet Street to the bridge, and across the Fleet into the Strand.

Paulina Graygoss answered my knock, but pulled down the corners of her mouth when I asked to see her mistress. ‘You’ll have to come back later,’ she informed me tersely. ‘The mistress is doing her domestic rounds. And there are still details of Master Threadgold’s funeral to arrange. She and Mistress Alcina will be visiting St Dunstan’s later, after dinner. You can wait till then, if you like,’ she added grudgingly.

But I wasn’t prepared to wait. ‘Tell Mistress St Clair I would like to speak to her now ,’ I said, drawing a gasp of protest from the housekeeper.

‘I’ll do no such thing,’ she declared roundly. ‘I’ve never heard the like. What impudence! A common chapman to issue his orders to the lady of the house! How dare you!’

One of the doors into the great hall opened and Godfrey St Clair shuffled in, a silk-covered folio (presumably the sayings of Marcus Aurelius) clutched in one hand.

‘What’s the trouble, Paulina?’ he asked, giving me an odd, calculating look that he tried, unsuccessfully, to turn into a welcoming smile. Then, without waiting for her reply, he advanced on me, one hand outheld. ‘Master Chapman! I saw your approach from a window. I’m sorry to tell you that my wife is but just this moment taken with one of her very bad headaches, and is laid down upon her bed.’