Kate Sedley - The Lammas Feast

Richard let rip with a few choice words which it was just as well that the reverend dame couldn’t hear.

‘She’s bound to complain to the sheriff,’ he grumbled. ‘He’s a particular friend of hers, and she’s one of the busiest old bodies in the city.’

‘If his lordship reprimands you, tell him the truth,’ I advised. ‘I’ll always vouch for your sobriety. And my own.’

The sergeant was scornful. ‘That won’t do any good. He won’t believe you. And, anyway, you’re not in his good books at the moment. You’ve deprived him of his chief suspect and a quick solution to Mistress Ford’s murder.’

Suddenly I recalled what John Overbecks had said to me; that Sister Jerome’s description of the man she had seen on the night Cicely was killed tallied with that of either of the two King’s men. As we made our way down the lane and climbed over the stile into the priory grounds, I offered it to Richard as a possible solution.

‘Could one of them have been left behind for some reason?’ I suggested.

Richard shook his head decisively.

‘I saw them and Master Plummer off myself, and Jack Gload rode with them as far as the King’s Wood. His impression was the same as mine. Your friend, the spymaster, was in such a paddy over their stupidity, that he wasn’t in the mood to trust either of them with so much as doing up their own tunic laces. It’s a good theory, but it won’t hold water, I’m afraid.’

I said nothing, but I wasn’t so sure. The King’s Wood lay only a mile or so outside the city; close enough for someone to sneak back if need be. As for Timothy’s anger, it was the nature of his calling to deceive.

Richard and I parted company in Lewin’s Mead, neither of us having gained much from our interchange of ideas except to clarify and harden our own opinions; which, I suppose, is as much as all such discussions generally achieve. Adela was only just setting off for the Tolzey as I entered the cottage, having been delayed by Adam’s being sick all down his clean robe — the natural consequence, in my view, of the disgustingly greedy way in which he had gulped his breakfast milk. I gave him the benefit of my thoughts, at the same time tickling the top of his dark, curly head as he lay in his little cart, sleeping off the result of his debauch. Adela handed me the rope tied around Hercules’s neck.

‘As you’re here now, you can look after the hound. He doesn’t like the market and he gets under people’s feet.’

I groaned, but felt I had no option but to take him with me. He didn’t care for being left alone in the cottage, and I was determined to show myself virtuous, spending the rest of the morning doing some work. In the event, I got carried away with a sense of my own rectitude, and occupied the remainder of the day walking as far as Keynsham and back, doing good business not just amongst the villagers, but also with the people I met on the road. For dinner, Hercules and I shared a pie, bought from an itinerant pieman who joined us for a while, and who was so amused by the dog’s antics chasing rabbits, that he gave us another pie free of charge.

The long walk was what I needed to clear my mind of my grief for Cicely Ford, and to come to terms with the fact that I had always been a little in love with her, ever since our first meeting almost five years ago; knowledge that I had buried deep inside me until last week, when I had kissed her. This love had nothing to do with my love for Adela, which was built on the enduring rocks of mutual trust and affection and intense physical desire. My feelings for Cicely had been more akin to the courtly love that had flourished a century and more ago at the courts first of Aquitaine and then of England, achieving its full flowering in the resurrection of the Arthurian myths under the third Edward. It was an insubstantial love, light as thistledown, but none the less real for all that.

It was past suppertime before Hercules and I finally reached home again, with a much depleted pack and pockets weighed down with coins from what we both considered to be a splendid day’s work. After a long drink from his bowl of water, Hercules prostrated himself on his bed, making it plain that it was he who had done the lion’s share of the work and that I had been a mere hanger-on, an estimate of the situation Adela was happy to go along with, feeding him first and making much of him. I endeavoured to enlist Adam’s support, picking him up and snuggling his crumpled little face close to mine. Unfortunately, I needed a shave and he expressed his disapproval of this bristly apparition in his customary fashion — with an earsplitting roar.

‘Now look what you’ve done!’ exclaimed my wife, laughing and seizing our son to soothe him. ‘Sit down and I’ll have supper on the table in just a minute.’ She regarded my boots, which were thick with dust. ‘You must have walked a long way.’

‘Keynsham and back,’ I said virtuously. ‘It was hot, but not as hot as it has been. I think the worst of the heat is over.’

‘But we want it fine for Saturday,’ she protested, returning Adam to his crib. ‘Please God the weather won’t break until after the Lammas Feast. Don’t forget you’re going to fetch the children from Margaret’s on Friday.’

‘I haven’t forgotten.’ My mouth was watering at the sight and smell of the two bowls of mutton stew she had just placed on the table.

Adam had dropped off to sleep again, Hercules was snoring, lost no doubt in dreams of rabbiting and chasing sheep, and I was looking forward to an evening dozing out of doors in the sun and, later, when it grew too dark to do anything else, cuddling up to Adela in bed. .

My plans were rudely shattered by a knock on the door. I opened it to find a small, unknown and unsavoury urchin standing on my doorstep.

‘You Roger Chapman?’ he asked. When I nodded, he continued, ‘Sergeant Manifold wants to see you. Says it’s very urgent.’

‘Where?’ I yelled as he was turning away, apparently satisfied that his mission was accomplished.

‘Oh! Yeah!’ He consulted his memory, screwing up his narrow, weatherbeaten face with the effort. He picked a pustule on his chin. ‘Got it! Saint Nicholas Backs, corner of Ballance Street.’ I gave him a coin from my pouch, which he clenched in a dirt-encrusted fist, adding cockily, ‘My name’s Wilfred. Of Bristol.’ He delivered the title with a regal air.

That made me laugh so much that I let him go without further questioning and went back indoors. I told Adela of Richard’s message, and only then began to find it a little odd and unsatisfactory. The corner of Ballance Street on Saint Nicholas Backs seemed a strange place to ask for a meeting. Nevertheless, I could not afford to ignore the summons. It occurred to me that the Breton ship might have returned to the city on the afternoon tide. If so, it was an event I had been waiting and hoping for myself. The master might be able to enlighten us as to the stranger’s identity.

‘Take care,’ Adela said anxiously, as she handed me my cudgel.

‘There’s nothing to worry about,’ I assured her, returning the kiss she gave me with interest.

But as I passed through the Frome Gate and strode up Broad Street, I knew the stirrings of uneasiness. I should have demanded more details of Master Cock-up-spotty. I looked to see if I could find him, but in vain: he had already vanished into the warren of sordid alleyways which was his natural home. I continued on my way to the bottom of High Street and turned right on to Saint Nicholas Backs. There were still a lot of people about, a ship was unloading at the quayside — although not the one I had hoped to see — and there was a strong smell of fish on the air. I should have felt reassured, but, for some inexplicable reason, my uneasiness increased.