Kate Sedley - Death and the Chapman

The girl sat down beside me and took off her shoes and stockings, dipping her toes into the water. ‘Oh, that’s nice,’ she breathed after a moment, turning to smile provocatively in my direction. ‘My feet are so hot and tired.’

‘It’s a warm day,’ I said feebly, not knowing what other answer to make. I was not used to girls taking off their clothes in front of me, and found to my dismay that I was blushing.

She saw it too, and gave a little crow of delight. ‘I do believe you’re embarrassed, a great, well-set-up lad like you! Haven’t you ever had a sweetheart?’ She put her head on one side, consideringly. ‘No, I don’t believe you have.’ She added, with a frankness which took my breath away: ‘You don’t like boys, do you? Instead of girls, I mean.’

‘N-no, of course not! ‘ I stammered hotly. I knew that such practices existed: they had existed among the monks, at Glastonbury, even though they were anathema to the Church and the punishment for sodomy was death. (A great deal was overlooked by the Superiors of enclosed orders; whether wisely or not, who can tell? I am certainly not fit to sit in judgement.) No, it was not this which shocked me, but the revelation that a woman — and so young a woman — knew about these things and was, moreover, prepared to discuss them openly.

‘That’s all right, then,’ she said, wriggling backwards until she was right beside me, her little feet clear of the water and sparkling with a myriad drops. ‘Kiss me,’ she commanded, laughing again at my horrified expression. ‘Go on! I dare you!’

How was I to resist such an invitation? I bent my head to hers and did as she instructed. Her lips were soft and yielding and tasted faintly of salt. Immediately, she wound her arms around my neck and returned my kiss with passion. I fell back on the grass in sheer surprise, her thin, lithe body pressed urgently on top of me, and it was some time later that I sat up, dishevelled and panting.

Which was how I came to lose my virginity at the advanced age of nineteen, when many of my sex could boast at least one, maybe two, bastard children. As for my companion, although I did not realize it at the time, she had nothing to lose.

As I adjusted my clothes, I said, appalled: ‘I don’t even know your name.’

She giggled. ‘It’s Elizabeth, but most people call me Bess.’

And for the second time that day I found myself remembering the Weavers. Clement Weaver’s horse had been named Bess; the beast who had cast a shoe at Paddington. Once again, my conscience smote me.

‘What’s yours?’ the girl asked. Then seeing my blank stare, repeated the question impatiently. ‘What’s yours? Your name, you stupid!’

‘Oh! Yes … It’s Roger.’

‘Roger the chapman, eh?’ She leaned back on her elbows, quite at ease, as though what had just taken place was, for her, an everyday occurrence. And I think it probably was. No, not everyday, of course; that, perhaps, is an exaggeration. But I’ve met women like her on many occasions since, with the same sort of expression in their eyes; hungry and languorous both at once, dissatisfied, always searching for fulfilment. A few of them have been rather sad creatures, but Bess wasn’t: she was vital and eager and, above all, inquisitive.

She began plying me with questions about how old I was, my family, where I came from; and before I knew it, I was again recounting my brief life’s history. When it was finished, I said: ‘And what of you? Or are you a woman of mystery?’

She shook her head regretfully, the black curls dancing. ‘I wish I were. I should like to be very beautiful and very rich and live in London. And then the King would notice me and take me for his mistress.’

‘You’d be one of many, if all accounts are true,’ I put in drily — and was back in the Weaver’s kitchen, listening to Marjorie Dyer. ‘The women all went wild about him. I reckon there were a few cuckolded husbands during that visit.’

Bess tossed her head. ‘One night with me and he’d forget the others.’ She had all the arrogant assurance of youth. ‘Anyway-’ she shrugged-‘it’s not going to happen.’ Her chin jutted. ‘At least, not yet awhile. For now, I’ll have to make do with the local lads and-’ she gave me a glinting, sideways glance beneath lowered lashes — ‘the odd, handsome, passing stranger.’ She sighed. ‘No, for now I’ll just have to go on serving my lady and pretend to be devoted to her interests.’

‘Who is your lady?’ I asked. ‘And why is she in mourning?’

Bess answered the second question first. ‘She’s in mourning for her father, who died last month. He was Sir Gregory Bullivant, a distant kinsman of Archbishop Bourchier. That’s why the family are so prominent in Canterbury. I was lucky to get a place in my lady’s household — or so my mother tells me.’

‘And her husband? Or is your lady not married?’

For the first time in our short acquaintance, Bess hesitated, looking around her at the golden haze of autumn which lay upon the sloping banks and trees; at the first shimmer of bronze and red touching the summer’s green. After a moment’s silence, her gaze shifted back to me.

‘Oh, she’s married. At least…’ Again there was that hesitation before she continued: ‘My lady’s husband is Sir Richard Mallory, a Knight of the Shire. They’ve been wed four years come Christmas, and very happily as far as anyone could see. Which made it all the more surprising, I suppose.’

‘Made what all the more surprising?’ I asked, when she showed signs of sinking into some reverie of her own.

‘What? Oh…‘ Bess sat forward suddenly, hugging her knees. ‘It was all the more surprising when he disappeared. ‘

The silence was so profound that a moorhen thought it safe to leave her nest in the bank below us and take to the water. She was so close I could see the blue-green sheen of her breast and the rhythmic jerking of her head as she swam serenely onwards.

‘What do you mean?’ I asked Bess at last. ‘Has your lady’s husband left her?’

Bess had closed her eyes against the sun, but now she lifted her heavy, almond-shaped lids to look at me. ‘In a manner of speaking, I suppose. He went to London two months since and never returned. My lady and my lady’s father — Sir Gregory was still alive then — sent men to inquire after him, but no trace of Sir Richard was ever found. He left the Crossed Hands inn, where he had been lodging, for the journey home, and that was the last anyone saw or heard of him.‘ She tilted her head inquiringly to one side. ‘Is anything the matter? You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.’

Which, in a way, I suppose I had; the ghost of Clement Weaver.

Some people might call it coincidence, others the working of Divine Providence, that of all the girls I could have met in Canterbury I had fallen in with Bess. The reminders I had already had throughout the previous day and this inclined me to the second point of view, however reluctant I might be to admit it, and however hard I fought against the notion. Bess had been sent to me for a purpose other than that of proving my manhood.

If I had followed my own inclinations, I should have asked no more questions, made love to Bess again and gone on my way. But lying there among the sweet-smelling grasses, I felt that God was demanding something of me in return for His forgiveness for my having abandoned the religious life. I was to channel my natural curiosity into combating evil. There was no escape.

‘Why did Sir Richard go to London?’ I asked.

Bess edged forward and once more paddled her bare feet in the river. The thick, springing curls tumbled down her back and across her shoulders. ‘To pay his respects to King Edward and congratulate him on the victory at Tewkesbury. He had been ill of a fever when the King and his brothers came here earlier in the summer.’