Kate Sedley: The Midsummer Rose

‘You think I’m making this up!’ I exclaimed wrathfully. I rounded on Adela. ‘Is that your opinion, too?’

She looked uncomfortable. ‘I think you’ve had a nasty knock on the head, Roger. Before you fell into the river, you were near the house where this murder took place and the story was probably in your mind. When you’re more rested, you’ll remember what really happened. Maybe somebody tried to rob you.’

‘And left me my money and my pack?’

‘Whoever it was must have been disturbed,’ Margaret answered tartly. ‘And there’s no need to speak to Adela in that tone of voice. She’s a saint, the way she’s looked after you. Washing you. Shaving you. And other things.’ She grimaced.

I closed my eyes, trying hard to subdue my ill humour. When women start conferring sainthood on one another, a man has to be in serious trouble.

‘That’ll do, Margaret,’ my wife said gently. ‘Roger’s not himself. He needs rest.’ She stooped and gave me another kiss. ‘Try to sleep, sweetheart. I’ll come and see you again when I’ve set the dough to rise. I’ll bring you some wine and warm water. Are you hungry?’

‘No!’ It was a lie: I was ravenous. But at that moment I was so angry, I felt food would stick in my craw and choke me.

I refused to open my eyes when the two women tiptoed away, latching the bedchamber door behind them. There was the murmur of anxious whispering on the stairs before I was left to the cries of the street traders and my own uneasy thoughts.

I hadn’t imagined it all, had I? It wasn’t just a figment of my imagination? It really had happened? Of course it had, and there was a lump on the back of my head to prove it. My former mother-in-law had an explanation for that, as well, but it wasn’t the true one. The two women, the foreign-sounding man and the Irishman really had existed. No one had attacked me for my money.

I tried to envisage what might have been the sequence of events after ‘brown sarcenet’ and her companion had rolled me into the water. Perhaps the unseen man had followed them down to the river’s edge with my pack and cudgel. ‘We can’t leave these lying about,’ he could have said. ‘Throw them in with him.’ But maybe one of the women decided it would appear more natural if they were found on the bank, where I might possibly have dropped them …

A dreadful lethargy was beginning to possess me. All I wanted was to sleep. I let myself drift, ignoring the various aches and pains of my body and the dull throbbing at the back of my head. Hercules must have escaped from somewhere, because I felt him jump on the bed and snuggle up against my side with a contented sigh. The fleas would love it.

The next time I opened my eyes, it was early morning.

I could tell it was morning by the soft aureole of light rimming the shutters. And I knew it must be early because Adela was still in bed, curled into my back, one of her arms, free of the bedclothes, flung protectively across me. The rest of the house was quiet. No one else was stirring.

Both feet had gone to sleep and I tried to shift them without disturbing Adela. But she was wide awake at the first movement, raising herself slightly on one elbow to smile down at me.

‘That’s better,’ she said approvingly. ‘You’ve some colour in your cheeks at last. I think you’ve almost recovered.’

I yawned and stretched my arms above my head until the bones cracked. Then, without warning, I lowered them, trapping her in a warm and meaningful embrace.

She laughed, then reluctantly surrendered. ‘You’ve definitely recovered.’ She pillowed her head on my chest. ‘These last two days have made all the difference.’

I groaned. ‘Oh, no! I haven’t been asleep for another two days, surely?’

She raised her face to mine, looking guilty.

‘I kept giving you infusions of poppy seed and lettuce juice each time you woke. The apothecary in Bell Lane advised it. He said sleep would drive away all the brain’s ill humours.’

I relaxed my grip on her. ‘You still don’t believe my story.’

She kissed my cheek and looked even guiltier. I wondered what was coming.

‘Don’t be cross. I know that part of it, at least, is true.’

‘Which part?’ My suspicions were now fully aroused.

‘I know you didn’t go to the alehouse, so you couldn’t have been drunk.’

I turned on to my left side, so that we were face to face. ‘And how do you know that?’ I demanded.

There was a confession coming that I definitely wasn’t going to like. I knew Adela so well, I could sense it.

She ran a forefinger down my bare chest and avoided my eyes.

‘I asked Richard to visit Rownham Passage yesterday and speak to the ferryman.’

Sergeant Richard Manifold, Sheriff’s Officer! There was little love lost between him and me. In the past, before Adela married her first husband, Owen Juett, and left Bristol for Hereford, Richard had been among her admirers. And when, two years ago, she had returned, widowed, to her native town, he had aspired to her hand yet again. I know he found it hard to understand why she had chosen me instead of him. I found it fairly hard to understand myself, although, of course, I would never admit it. He and I had never overtly been enemies and once he had even recruited me — albeit reluctantly — to help him solve a crime. But we weren’t friends, either. We each rejoiced in the other’s little discomfitures and disappointments, and were quite happy to serve one another a backhanded turn if we could.

To give him his due, however, Richard Manifold had not been amongst the many who begrudged us our stroke of good fortune in inheriting the Small Street house; something Adela was never tired of pointing out to me. Mind you, I had my own theory to account for the sergeant’s lack of ill will. He had never married, and was happy to accept my wife’s hospitality whenever it was offered. Moreover, a house boasting a hall, parlour and kitchen was infinitely preferable to the overcrowded, one-roomed cottage we had previously rented from Saint James’s Priory in Lewin’s Mead. And I found his frequent presence at my table less irksome, being able to avoid his company once the meal was done. All the same, a state of armed truce was the best that could be said for the relationship existing between us, and the idea of Adela inviting him to poke his nose into my affairs made me so furious I could barely speak.

‘You … You asked Richard Manifold …’ I was unable to continue.

Adela’s face had drained of colour. She hated it when I was really angry. She wasn’t afraid of me — she had no reason to be — but she hated us not to be friends. Not that that ever stopped her saying or doing anything she thought was right. She had more spirit than any other woman I had ever met, even Lillis, whose bravery had once saved my life.

She retorted now, a slight edge to her voice, ‘You mentioned a murder. It was my duty, as a good citizen, to find out if this were true or no. I reported the fact to Richard. He promised to investigate and rode out to Rownham Passage yesterday morning to make enquiries.’

‘And what did our bloodhound discover?’ I asked nastily.

‘Don’t be childish, Roger.’ My wife reproved me in the tone she normally reserved for scolding the children. ‘Richard spoke to the ferryman — whose name, by the way, is Jason Tyrrwhit — and he confirmed that you hadn’t sought shelter in the alehouse during the storm, but set off along the St Brendan’s track. He was utterly astonished to find you floating in the river half an hour later, and was completely at a loss as to how you came to fall in.’

‘I did not fall in!’ I shouted. ‘I’ve told you what happened! You just won’t believe me!’