The Medieval Murderers - Hill of Bones

I walked fast up Cheap Street towards Vicarage Lane, looking behind me occasionally to see if the lumbering man was on my tail. I was going to return the commonplace book to Katherine Hawkins and I was going to do it now. My thoughts of inviting her to a play performance, and then to something rather more personal after the play, had faded. Instead I felt aggrieved, angry. No one else in Bath knew that I was Nicholas of the King’s Men. No one else was aware I possessed the wretched notebook apart from Katherine, since she had seen me take it from her sick uncle. She had encouraged me to take it! Therefore it must have been she who had set that blockish individual on me. Why hadn’t she simply asked me to return the notebook? I was meaning to do that anyway. Why were threats necessary? Yes, I felt angry and aggrieved.

The one question I did not ask myself was why a book containing second-hand quotations and bits of bad verse should be so important.

I strode up Vicarage Lane, reached the merchant’s house and knocked loudly on the door. It was Katherine herself who opened it. Her eyes were red, her hair was disordered, her dress careless. I was glad to see she was in a state of distress. So distressed, it seemed, that she didn’t even recognise me at first. When she did realise who it was, she said only three words.

‘He is dead.’

No need to ask the identity of the dead man.

‘I’m sorry to hear it,’ I said, almost without thought.

‘You had better come in, Nicholas.’

‘No, you had better come outside first.’

I took her by the shoulders and gently but firmly drew her through the front door. Before she could object, I explained that I had just been accosted by a man in the baths who’d roughly demanded the return of the black-bound book that Uncle Christopher had given me the previous evening, and that it could only have been she – Katherine – who put him on my tail.

I had scarcely got to the end of my speech when I registered growing confusion on her face.

‘My uncle’s black notebook?’ she said. ‘Oh, what does that matter? I don’t know of any man in the baths, Nicholas.’

The figure of Hannah passed through the lobby. Katherine glanced over her shoulder through the still open door of the house while the old retainer peered curiously in our direction. I realised two things at once: that Katherine Hawkins had nothing to do with the stranger in the King’s Bath and that it must be Hannah who had described me to him. The servant was the only other person to know my name and the acting company I belonged to, as well as the fact that I’d visited this house last night. How she deduced that I had the book, I don’t know.

Now it was my turn to feel confused. And guilty for having spoken bluntly to Katherine while her grief for her uncle was so raw. I took her more tenderly by the shoulders and ushered her back into the lobby of her own home. Hannah had vanished. If she appeared again, and if I had the chance, I’d have a word with her.

‘I am very sorry to hear of your uncle’s death,’ I said, this time with feeling.

‘It was early this morning,’ she said. ‘So long expected yet so surprising when it happens. Thank God the parson got here in time.’

Uncle Christopher’s demise must have occurred after I crept out of the house, otherwise I would have been alerted by the fuss and alarm of a death, the summoning of the parson and so on. Selfishly, I was glad to have made my exit in time.

We’d been slowly pacing towards the back of the house and by now we were standing outside the door to what was the dining room. A window gave a view of some apple trees, sun-lit. Inside the panelled chamber it was stuffy and gloomy. A long table stood in the centre of the room, with chairs at each end and benches set on either side. Huddled towards one end were three men, two sitting next to each other, the other on the bench opposite. Wooden boxes and sheafs of paper and documents were arrayed on the table between them, together with a clutch of lighted candles. The men were so absorbed in leafing through the papers that our presence went unnoticed.

Eventually one of them looked up. He was a very plump individual with a large face. He seemed to start and coughed to draw the attention of the one beside him. This second man was wearing spectacles. He must have been long-sighted for he now removed them in order to scrutinise us – more precisely, to scrutinise me – as we stood in the doorway. This gentleman did not start in surprise but his brow furrowed as if was I presenting him with a puzzle, and not a very welcome one either. By now the third man, who’d been sitting with his back to us, was aware of us too. He twisted his head round. His eyes narrowed.

‘This is Nicholas Revill,’ said Katherine Hawkins, as the four of us gave the smallest dip of the head in acknowledgement. ‘He is a friend of my cousin William. They knew each other in London. He is here as a member of the King’s Men. They are playing in the yard of the Bear.’

I wasn’t very happy that the fiction about my knowing her cousin was being maintained but it was becoming such a frequent story that it might shortly turn out to be true. It transpired that the three men were notable Bath citizens. The one with the spectacles was Edward Downey, a lawyer. Uncle Christopher was both client and friend to him. The plump one was John Maltravers and, like the late Christopher Hawkins, he was a cloth merchant and a member of the city corporation. The third was Dr Price. I remembered that Katherine had mentioned him by name when we first met. On hearing of their friend’s death they had immediately come round to the Vicarage Lane house. I was surprised that the doctor of physic was not upstairs with the body. I thought that if this trio were here to offer comfort and condolence, they were going about it in an odd way, fencing themselves in behind a mass of documents on the dining table.

I sensed hostility emanating from them, slight but unmistakable. Particularly from Mr Maltravers. Perhaps it was because I was a player, for he had grunted and humphed when Katherine described what I did. I tried to be civil, remembering that Bath corporation was supplementing our takings in the city – even if these important people were doing so not out of love for the drama but because they didn’t want to offend our royal sponsor, King James.

‘I hope that you gentlemen will attend a performance,’ I said. ‘We have two nights remaining at the Bear.’

‘Two too many,’ said Maltravers.

‘Now, now, John,’ said Downey the lawyer. ‘It may not be to your taste but the players provide a diversion for our citizenry. And remember that they are not your run-of-the-mill fellows but the King’s Men.’

‘A little diversion does no great harm,’ said Dr Price with a judicious air as though he were measuring out a dose of medicine.

‘Plays are not a diversion but a corruption,’ said Maltravers. He rose from the table and waddled towards where we were standing in the doorway. He stuck out a stubby, accusatory forefinger. ‘The days of plays and players in this city would be numbered if I had my way. We should go back to the times when players were treated as vagrants, when they were stripped naked from the middle upward and whipped when found anywhere they were not wanted.’

He seemed to grow excited as he said this. This sort of hostile talk is familiar enough if you’re a player, at least from those who incline towards the puritan view. It was disturbing to be talked of as a vagrant but I tried to maintain the civil tone.

‘If you had heard and seen our audience last night, sir, you would have known that we were very much wanted.’

‘John, John,’ said Downey, making downward motions with his hand in a placating way, ‘this Mr… Mr… er…?’