Kate Sedley - Death and the Chapman

Suddenly I was wide awake Jerked into awareness by the sound of my own snoring. For a moment or two I was completely lost, unable to make out where I was or remember the earlier events of the evening. Then memory came crowding back, and I realized that I was no longer seated in the chair before the kitchen fire, but stretched full length on a bed, where, presumably, Thomas and Abel had carried me. I must have slept deeply and dreamlessly for several hours, the landlord and his partner finding it impossible to rouse me when it was finally time to retire for the night, so they had been forced to hump me upstairs between them. I sat up cautiously and peered around, my eyes slowly growing accustomed to the dark.

I felt dreadful. My head thumped and pounded as though my brain were trying to burst through my skull. The inside of my mouth was dry as tinder and tasted appalling. My limbs were as limp and as useless as those of a sawdust-stuffed doll, while my head swam every time I tried to focus my eyes. Hurriedly I closed them again and slumped back on the bed.

I swallowed the bile which rose in my throat and waited patiently for the nausea to subside. I had at least learned a valuable lesson: I had no head for wine. After what seemed like an hour but was probably no more than a quarter, I began to feel a little better; enough, at any rate, to sit up again and ease my feet to the floor. Moonlight rimmed the shutters, inlaying them with a faint mother-of-pearl radiance, and I made myself stand up, tottering slightly, then go across and set them wide. The storm clouds of early evening had vanished, torn to rags by a rising wind. They slid by, unveiling the stars, and somewhere close at hand the breeze took hold of a loose shutter, rattling it on its hinges. I peered out into the darkness, but could see nothing. I was staring-down at the yard at the back of the inn, and all was still and silent. Even Gilbert Parson’s horse was sleeping.

I closed the shutters and turned back once more into the room, my eyes now able to see quite plainly. Apart from the narrow bed on which I had been lying, there was nothing except an oak chest supporting a tallow candle in its holder and a tinder-box. This, obviously, was the chamber kept for passing strangers when the other two rooms were full, or for people without much money, who, like me, were simply glad of bed for the night and not too fussy. The rushes on the floor smelled musty, as though they had not been changed for a couple of days.

I was suddenly conscious that my bladder was overfull, a result of all the wine I had drunk at supper. Many people, then as now, would not have hesitated to urinate in a corner, but I have always had a fastidious streak, inherited from my mother, which others are inclined to jeer at. I know my fellow novices at Glastonbury thought it hilarious when I insisted on going outside to piss, even in the depths of winter. They used to pass all sorts of obscene remarks, but I never minded, because I was big enough to accept that kind of teasing with good humour. I suppose physical height and strength do tend to make one placid.

I struck the steel against the flint and lit the candle from the burning tinder. Then, shutting the box and replacing it on the chest, I quietly opened the door of my room and stepped into the darkened corridor. As silently as I could, so as not to disturb the other inmates, I crept down the stairs and made my way along the passage to the door at the back of the inn. I reached up to the great iron bolt at the top, only to discover that it was already withdrawn from its socket. Glancing down, I saw that the one at the bottom had not been shot home either. And when I tried the key, I found that that, too, was unturned. Surely Thomas Prynne and Abel Sampson were not the kind of men to be so careless. I felt a sudden frisson of fear, as though something evil was lurking on the other side of the door, waiting to grab me.

I noticed my hand was shaking, the wavering candleflame sending shadows flickering drunkenly over the walls, and I pulled myself together. Everyone was careless now and again, I told myself severely; even the best of us had moments of forgetfulness and did stupid things. Resolutely I lifted the latch and stepped outside, into the moon- washed courtyard. In the distance I could hear the tolling of a bell and realized what had really roused me from my drunken stupor. Not my snoring, but the old habit of waking at two hours past midnight for the office of Matins and Lauds. It was too strong even for the potency of Thomas Prynne’s good wine:

The wind immediately snuffed out my candle, so I put the holder down on the floor inside the door, and tiptoed across the courtyard to the privy, which cast a thick black wedge of shadow in the moonlight. As I relieved myself, I heard the gentle snicker of a horse as it blew softly down its nostrils. Then there came an answering whinny from the stall at the end of the stable. Two horses? Of course! While I had been dead to the world, Master Farmer, the other guest, had arrived. I smiled ruefully to myself. What must my hosts think of me, so green and so unable to hold my liquor?

The chill night air had cleared my head wonderfully, and my limbs had ceased their palsied trembling. My stomach, too, had decided to behave, after one or two squeamish moments. I returned to the inn, carefully locking and bolting the back door after me. As I passed the ale- room, I could see where the last embers of the fire winked and glowed on the now almost empty hearth. I mounted the stairs to the landing, and my ears were at once assailed by the stertorous snoring of another guest, who had also drunk too deeply. I felt a little cheered to know that I was not the only drunkard. But there was no sound from behind the third guest-chamber door, the one furthest from mine. There all was silent as the grave.

An unexpected wave of nausea made my stomach heave, and left me once again urgently in need of fresh air. There was a window at the end of the landing and I hurriedly pushed it open, inhaling the smells of the nearby Thames. This window was at the front of the inn, and by turning my head to the left I could see the river as it flowed past the wharf at the end of the street, its surface washed first silver and then gold by the moonlight. Slowly the sickness receded and I began to feel better. I looked to my right, in the direction of the Crossed Hands inn, expecting Crooked Lane to be empty at this hour of the morning. And at first glance it appeared to be so. Then, suddenly, I was aware of a figure enveloped in a thick hooded cloak moving swiftly and silently up the street, hugging the shadows cast by the houses opposite. Whether it was a man or a woman was hard to tell at that distance because the cloak reached to the ankles and the hood was up, drawn tightly about the head. As I watched, my whole body rigid with anticipation, my fingers stiffly clutching the sill, the figure drew level with the Crossed Hands inn and vanished through the archway. At almost the same moment Thomas Prynne’s voice said behind me: ‘By Christ, Roger Chapman, you gave me a fright! What are you doing up and about at this time of night?’

He was wearing a voluminous white night-shift, which made him look like a friendly ghost, and a nightcap pulled well down over his ears. In one hand he held a lighted candle.

‘I’m s-sorry,’ I stammered. ‘I didn’t mean to wake you.‘ He looked me up and down, smiling quizzically.

‘It’s something, I suppose, that you can stand on your feet. The state you were in, I didn’t expect you to come round until morning. You must have extraordinary powers of recovery.’

‘I’m not used to wine,’ I apologized. ‘I had no idea it would affect me so badly.‘ I remembered something. ‘And we didn’t have our talk about Clement Weaver.’