Кейт Седли - The Goldsmith’s Daughter

‘Time to get undressed and ready for bed.’

She made a feeble attempt to resume our conversation, but it was very half-hearted and by the time I had carried our supper tray back to the kitchen – explaining to the cook why my bowlful of broth was untouched – and returned to our bedchamber, my wife was between the sheets and sound asleep. I stripped off my boots and outer clothing and thankfully rolled in beside her.

I was dreaming.

As always, I knew that I was dreaming, but, at the same time, everything that happened seemed very vivid and very real.

I was in the Babcary house, walking upstairs from the shop, Toby Maybury hard on my heels.

‘He was just going into his room,’ Toby kept saying. ‘He was just going into his room.’

As we reached the top of the first flight of stairs and emerged on to the landing, Isolda came out of the parlour, and although she looked straight at us, she appeared to see neither myself nor the apprentice. She simply turned to her right and mounted the second flight of stairs to her bedchamber. I glanced over my shoulder to speak to Toby, but he had disappeared and when I pushed open the parlour door and went inside, he was already there, standing beside the table.

‘We mustn’t let Meg be blamed,’ he said – then was abruptly transformed into Mistress Perle’s maid.

The girl had on a clean nightgown and was holding a hard-boiled egg, one half in each hand. The yolk had been scooped out and replaced with salt and, as she began to walk backwards, away from me, I noticed that she was wearing Eleanor Babcary’s pendant around her neck.

I moved towards the table, which was ready laid for a meal, stretching out my hand for one of the gold-rimmed goblets that stood beside each place.

‘Don’t!’ a voice exclaimed behind me. ‘I’ve just poisoned the wine in that cup.’

I spun round with a great cry – only to find myself sitting up in bed, sweating profusely, and Adela shaking my arm.

‘Roger! What is it? Have you been having one of your dreams?’ She smoothed back the damp hair from my forehead.

I nodded mutely, then became aware that someone was tapping gently on our bedchamber door.

‘Master Chapman, is everything all right?’ whispered Reynold Makepeace. ‘Is Mistress Chapman well?’

I got out of bed and opened the door a crack. ‘I was riding the nightmare, that’s all, I’m sorry if I disturbed you.’

Reassured, the landlord crept away and I went back to Adela, slithering down beside her and, by now, shivering with cold. She held me in her arms and soothed me, but I had no sooner fallen asleep again than I was back in the Babcarys’ house, and this time Isolda was standing beside me, outside the closed parlour door.

‘Have you seen Gideon?’ she asked me, adding with a frown, ‘He wanders about the house at nights, you know. He says he’s unable to sleep.’

She vanished, and now I was inside the room, gripped by fear, convinced that someone who wished me dead was waiting outside on the landing; someone who would kill me, given half a chance. In a sudden access of bravado, I wrenched the door open, only to find myself face to face with Ginèvre Napier, who was convulsed with merriment.

‘There’s no one here except me,’ she laughed. ‘No one wants to harm you.’

‘But someone ought to want to harm me,’ I argued. ‘Someone should be trying to prevent me asking any more questions.’

She looked both knowing and amused and to the sound of her throaty chuckling, I woke to find the first grey shreds of daylight rimming the shutters of our room.

Adela was asleep beside me, her face, framed by the pillow, calm and peaceful in its repose. I sat up in bed and looked down at her, thanking God, as I did each morning, for sending her to me, and for bringing me to my senses before I let her slip through my fingers and marry another man. After a while, as though suddenly becoming conscious of my gaze, she opened her eyes and smiled.

‘You had a restless night,’ she said, wriggling into a sitting position and kissing my unshaven cheek. ‘Did your dreams bring you any enlightenment?’

‘Not yet,’ I admitted, returning her kiss, ‘But give them time and they might become clearer. What will you do today?’

‘I’ve promised to visit the Lampreys. It will be my last chance, because tomorrow, we are going to watch the tournament at Westminster, and the day after that, I, at least, must start for home.’ She tilted her head to one side and looked sidelong at me. ‘What are your plans?’

I sighed. ‘I must go back to West Cheap and talk to the Babcarys yet again. To Eleanor especially. There’s something that I haven’t yet discovered concerning her relationship with Gideon, but which I feel in my bones holds a vital key to this mystery. And tomorrow,’ I added defiantly, ‘I shall accompany you to the tourney ground. The King is hardly likely to decide Clarence’s fate on such a day, and I refuse to be parted from you during your final hours in London.’ I was suddenly racked with guilt, and took her in my arms. ‘Sweetheart, I’m afraid this visit, which you looked forward to so keenly, has been spoilt by this business of Gideon Bonifant’s death.’

‘It’s not your fault,’ she murmured consolingly. ‘As you said, if your Duke could only bring himself, like a sensible man, to appeal directly to Mistress Shore for her intervention on behalf of his brother, you need never have been involved in this murder. You mustn’t blame yourself.’

But that was just what I was determined to do. ‘I should have refused,’ I said.

‘No, no!’ On that point, Adela was adamant. ‘It never does to offend those in authority, particularly anyone so highly placed as the Duke of Gloucester. We’re poor people, Roger, of no account except unto God. And one day in the future, who knows but that we may be glad of Duke Richard’s protection? It was certainly fortunate for Isolda Bonifant that her kinswoman is leman to the King.’

But still my sense of guilt would not be assuaged.

‘I haven’t even bought you a keepsake to remind you of your visit to London,’ I moaned.

Adela clapped a hand to her mouth, the childish gesture making her look, all at once, absurdly young.

‘What is it?’ I asked, bewildered.

For answer, she freed herself from my embrace, got out of bed, shivering with the sudden cold, and padded over to our travelling chest, where it stood in a corner of the room. She opened the lid and took something from inside.

‘I forgot to tell you. I bought this from a stall in the Leadenhall market, on Monday. Jeanne Lamprey and I went there before she took me to see the animals in the Tower.’

Adela climbed back into bed and snuggled up to me, warming her now icy feet on mine and ignoring my yelp of protest. She was holding a small leather bag which, having released its drawstring, she upended on to the white linen quilt. Some sort of necklace fell out which, when my wife held it up, resolved itself into a chain and pendant.

‘The man I bought them from swore they were silver,’ Adela laughed, ‘but I don’t think they can be. They were much too cheap.’

I took them from her and was about to examine the metal from which they were made more closely, when I paused, my attention arrested by the design of the pendant: a true lover’s knot enclosed within a circle.

‘What’s the matter?’ asked my wife, studying my face. ‘Are you angry with me for buying them? As I said, they didn’t cost a lot.’

‘No, of course not,’ I answered. ‘It’s just that this is a replica of Eleanor Babcary’s pendant, only hers is fashioned in gold and studded with tiny sapphires.’

Adela was intrigued. ‘The man who sold it to me said that it’s a very old design, and one that’s imbued with magical powers. If a woman wears it in bed, she’ll see the man she’s going to marry.’