Kate Sedley: The Brothers of Glastonbury

As she spoke, both house and hut disappeared from view as we descended into another fold of ground, then reappeared as we mounted the opposite slope. Once more we descended to where the grey stone shelter, with its roof of moss and twigs, stood in the lee of a mound topped by a small, wind-blasted copse, before continuing down the stony track and skirting my home town of Wells.

We had only some five miles to go now, and every step of the route was as familiar to me as my own name: the receding line of the hills, the raised causeway which carried travellers dryshod across the stretches of waterlogged moorland, and the horizon perpetually dominated by the great, brooding hump of of the Tor. There, throughout the ages, contending religions had struggled for predominance. Our Celtic ancestors had thought it to be the home of Gwyn ap Nudd, King of the Underworld, Lord of the Wild Hunt. Even today some people still believed it to be hollow, the haunt of fairies and hobgoblins. But with the coming of Joseph of Arimathea and, later, Saint Augustine, the Church had claimed it for its own and built the chapel of Saint Michael the Archangel on its summit. Yet who was to say for certain that Christianity had triumphed?

Hastily suppressing these heretical thoughts, I urged Barnabas to one last effort As we plodded down through Bove Town, past the chapel of Saint James, I asked Cicely the whereabouts of her aunt’s house and shop.

‘What?’ She had been strangely silent for the last half-mile or so, her former high spirits quenched. ‘Oh! It’s in the High Street, between Saint John’s Church and the pilgrims’ hostelry. The shop and work rooms are on ground level, with the living quarters over. You can’t miss it; it’s opposite the north gatehouse of the abbey.’

Indeed, as soon as I saw it, I remembered the place from six years earlier, when I had been a novice at Glastonbury (although I had not known then that it was a parchment maker’s nor anything of its inhabitants). I drew rein, thankful to be at my journey’s end, and slid from the rouncy’s back, reaching up to lift Cicely from the saddle. Hardly had I done so than the street door flew open and a small, birdlike woman emerged, hands fluttering in agitation and violet eyes, a paler version of her niece’s, brimming with tears. I could see at once which member of her family Cicely favoured, and reflected yet again on the amazing diversity of features and stature between siblings.

‘Oh my child! My dear child! You managed to get here!’ Dame Gildersleeve flung her arms around her niece’s neck and burst out crying. ‘I didn’t know what to do for the best. I thought about sending Mark or one of the men to Farleigh, but they’re all out looking, and Mark flatly refused to give up the search to fetch you.’ All this was punctuated by sobs which made her utterances difficult to understand, but both Cicely and I somehow managed to catch the gist of it.

The girl patted the older woman’s shoulder and made soothing noises. A little colour had crept back into her cheeks and the sparkle to her eyes.

‘Aunt Joan,’ she urged, ‘tell me exactly what has happened!’

Mistress Gildersleeve took a deep breath and attempted to speak more calmly. ‘It’s Peter,’ she sobbed. ‘He’s vanished.’

I could not immediately satisfy my curiosity by following Cicely and her aunt into the house, because the rouncy’s welfare had to come before mine. I knew enough of horsemanship to understand that this was one of the cardinal rules; and I also knew it to be the reason why, as long as I had youth and strength, I should always go about my business on two legs instead of four. Not only did I hear and see more travelling on foot, but neither was I forced to place an animal’s well-being before my own.

I was advised by a passing pot-boy from the George hostelry that there was a good livery stable in Northload Street, just off the market place, where Barnabas would be well looked after for a reasonable daily charge. I made my way there, and after satisfying myself that the stalls were clean and capacious and the straw fresh, I handed him over with a sigh of relief and returned to the Gildersleeves’ home as fast as I could.

Cicely must have been watching out for me. As I approached, she appeared at the street door to greet and guide me upstairs to the living quarters, where, in an airy chamber directly above the workshop at the back of the house, overlooking the kitchens and a small, walled garden, sat a tearful Dame Joan. A bottle of what I discovered to be primrose wine and four mazers had been placed on the table, together with a dish of cinnamon biscuits and another of medlars, squashy and brown and bursting from their skins. A glance through the open casement showed me the tree below, in the centre of some neatly laid out flower and herb beds, with a narrow bench surrounding its trunk. There was money enough for comfort here, I decided, stealing a furtive and hasty look around the room.

Cicely urged me to sit down at the table with them, and poured me some wine.

‘Aunt, this is the Duke of Clarence’s messenger I’ve been telling you about. His name is Roger.’ I noticed that she carefully avoided any reference to my true occupation.

Mistress Gildersleeve nodded, dabbing at her eyes, apparently too overcome with emotion to question my lack of livery as one of His Grace’s men.

‘What has happened?’ I asked, sipping my wine and looking across at my erstwhile charge.

But it was Mistress Gildersleeve who answered. A great shudder convulsed her thin frame. ‘Witchcraft!’ she uttered, barely above a whisper.

‘Aunt, please! Don’t say that! We know nothing for certain.’ Cicely got up from her stool and, stooping, put her arms around the older woman’s shoulders. ‘When Mark returns, or Rob or John, we might have better news. One of them may have discovered Peter’s whereabouts or what has happened to him. No one can just vanish into thin air.’

Dame Joan’s violet eyes widened in horror. ‘He can if the Devil takes him!’

It was Cicely’s turn to shiver, but she protested gamely, ‘And what would Old Scratch want with a good, upright citizen like Peter? A man who says his prayers and goes to Mass as regularly as anyone in the parish.’

Dame Joan pressed her hands to her flushed cheeks. ‘All those books that he keeps in that chest at the back of the workshop — how do we know what’s in them? They might contain incantations, spells, black magic. I can’t read and neither can you. We wouldn’t be any the wiser even if we studied them.’

‘But Mark can read,’ Cicely said impatiently, releasing her aunt and returning to her place on the opposite side of the table. ‘He would know if there was anything blasphemous or … or wrong in them.’

‘Mark may be able to read, but he only does so for business purposes,’ Dame Joan reproved ‘He doesn’t waste his time filling up his head with nonsense.’

‘Mistress Gildersleeve,’ I interrupted, ‘I should be pleased to know exactly what has taken place, all the circumstances of your son’s disappearance…’

But, ‘One of the maids has left already,’ was the only response I got. ‘Maud has gone back to her father’s cottage in Bove Town. By now the whole of Glastonbury must be buzzing with the news.’

I looked appealingly at Cicely, who leant across and touched Dame Joan on the arm.

‘Aunt, will you permit me to tell Roger the facts?’

The afflicted lady gave a little moan. ‘Do what you like,’ she said tearfully.

‘Very well. Thank you.’ Cicely clasped her hands together on the table. ‘Perhaps Roger might be able to suggest a solution, you never know.’

She smiled at me, that tantalising, impish smile of hers, and it occurred to me that she was very calm for one confronted with the news that her betrothed had vanished. She also seemed suddenly more grown up. I made no remark, however, but poured myself another cup of wine and settled down to listen to her explanation.