Kate Sedley - The Lammas Feast

‘Oh! Well, in that case. .’

She looked at me curiously, but when we reached the bakery door and I made it plain that I wanted to go in alone, she left me to it, good soul that she was. Jenny was never one to poke her nose in where it wasn’t wanted.

John Overbecks was there as usual, his back towards me. He was contemplating a long trestle table, recently set up against one wall, on which stood all his bread and pastry sculptures for Saturday’s feast. They were truly marvellous creations: crenellated castles, ships in full sail, Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, the coats of arms of the Bristol guilds, Saint George slaying the dragon, alongside trays of buns, some thick with raisins, others sticky with honey. The centrepiece was the Lord Mayor flanked by all his aldermen, their civic robes glazed red, their chains of office painted gold. There was no doubt about it, John Overbecks was a master craftsman and his works of art would not have disgraced the royal table; indeed, they would probably have exceeded anything that the King’s bakers could have produced. But I was in no mood for offering praise.

He glanced round as I closed the street door and stood with my back to the neighbouring wall. We looked steadily at one another for several seconds before I turned my head and showed him my bruised and swollen face.

‘Your work, I fancy,’ I said mildly. But he wasn’t deceived.

‘I’ve been expecting you,’ he answered. ‘Yes, my handiwork. It was meant to kill you. I realized that you were getting too dangerous. You were seen yesterday in the company of Richard Manifold. You have the luck of the devil, Chapman.’

‘Perhaps.’ I smiled. ‘But yours has just run out. I’m on to you. You and Marion. You, too, have been fortunate. You’ve had an equally ruthless partner in crime in your sister-in-law.’

It was his turn to smile. ‘Would you care to explain what you’re talking about?’

‘Oh, come! Don’t let’s play games, John. Four deaths. Two, I think, to be laid at your door. Two at Sister Jerome’s.’

He dropped the bluster. ‘Shall we go upstairs and discuss the matter?’ he asked. ‘The bakehouse is too close to the shop.’

I shook my head. I didn’t trust him an inch. He knew that at last I had his measure and was as dangerous as a cornered rat. I settled my back more firmly against the bakery wall.

‘I’m going to talk,’ I told him, ‘and you are going to listen. When I’ve finished, you can tell me if I’m right or not.’

He inclined his head mockingly and leaned against the edge of the trestle table. ‘Get on with it, then,’ he sneered.

‘Very well. Let’s go back ten days, to Monday of last week. .’ I hesitated, then continued. ‘No. Let’s go back to the very beginning. Let’s go back nearly thirty years to Brittany, to the sack of Fougères, where, let us suppose, a young English soldier was so sickened by the horrors of warfare and the atrocities being carried out all around him, that he followed the example of many of his fellow recruits and deserted. (Of course, in later life, he would deny this, making out that he had stayed at his post.) Now, having deserted, what would he do? Where would he go? Well, in our particular soldier’s case, I should guess — and it is only a guess — that some young Breton girl took a fancy to him and gave him shelter. Or her family gave him shelter and she fell in love with him. Later on, he married her and settled down to become a good Breton citizen, husband and father. Am I correct so far?’

John Overbecks laughed, but made no comment.

I went on. ‘The years passed, the English lost more and more of their French possessions, until their presence was no longer a threat to the many deserters they’d left behind. Some of them, including the hero of our story, became homesick and wanted to return to their native land. But it wouldn’t do to return with a foreign wife and children: people might ask awkward questions and guess what had really happened. So, one day, our Englishman just disappeared. He made his way to the coast and found a ship to take him across the Channel and then went home to Bristol, with the story that he’d been soldiering all this while in France. His father was a prosperous baker with a thriving business to pass on to his son. Also, during the young man’s absence, he had bought up various properties in the city. .’

John Overbecks interrupted me. ‘Why didn’t our hero’s wife follow her errant husband, eh? Answer me that.’

‘I imagine because she couldn’t afford to. She was left in poverty to bring up her child or children. She most certainly had at least one son, who, I guess, grew up to hate the father who’d deserted him. Incidentally, this son looked very like his father: stocky, similar colouring of hair and eyes. Later on, he saw a way of getting back at the parent he so despised. He entered the service of Henry Tudor, willing to do anything that might disrupt the security and stability of England.

‘Meanwhile, the older man had carved out a new life for himself in his native town. On his father’s death, he had inherited the business and the properties, the latter all let out at very good rents. Of course, he’d never married, in spite of the snares laid for him by the scheming Bristol women. He couldn’t: it would have been bigamous. And, besides, he was quite happy as he was. He’d probably had enough of domestic responsibilities. Until, one day, a young woman and her even younger sister turned up in the city, seeking refuge from the vengeance of their Exmoor community. Our hero gave the older sister employment as a huckster — and fell headlong in love with the younger, something he hadn’t foreseen.’

John Overbecks straightened his back. ‘All right, Chapman,’ he said, ‘ you can stop playing games now. All that you’ve said so far is fairly close to the mark. Yes, I deserted. Yes, I married a Breton girl — although, in my own defence, I have to say that she tricked me into marriage by pretending to be pregnant when she wasn’t. The birth of our son, Jean, came later. Much later. He was our only child. Her father was a pig farmer and I was expected to run the holding and do all the heavy, dirty work as the price of their silence for sheltering me. But I soon grew tired of poverty and heavy labouring, especially when I knew what sort of life I could be living in Bristol. As soon as it was safe for me to do so, I did just as you said. I left them, knowing they couldn’t possibly follow me, and came home. I had no intention of ever marrying again. As you pointed out, I couldn’t without committing bigamy. But then Jane came into my life and I knew from the very first moment I saw her that I wanted her more desperately than anything I’d ever wanted in my whole existence. I loved her — I still love her — with a passion even I find it hard to understand. And when, eventually, Marion told me that she wished to enter the house of the Magdalen nuns and asked me if I would be willing to marry Jane, I couldn’t bring myself to refuse. However, I told Marion the truth. Her answer was that if no one knew of my previous marriage, and was never likely to know, what did it matter? In the world’s eyes, Jane would be my wife. That was when I began to realize just how ruthless a woman Marion was when it came to pursuing her own ends. What attracted her to the holy life, I’ve no idea, except that she likes power and probably plans to become Mother Superior at some time in the future. She didn’t want to remain a huckster and a nobody for the rest of her days.’

‘And all would have been well,’ I continued as his voice ebbed into silence, ‘if your son hadn’t turned up in Bristol?’

John Overbecks nodded. ‘I didn’t recognize him, when he was staring at us across the street. I thought, as you did, that he was looking at you. But, later in the afternoon, Walter Godsmark came across to say that Jasper wanted to see me’ — that, then, was where Walter had been going when I saw him, not home, as I had fondly imagined — ‘and would I pay him a visit that evening. I guessed it to be something to do with the fact that I was proposing to put up his rent, and agreed quite cheerfully. I’d prepared all my arguments and he didn’t frighten me. Never had.’