The Medieval Murderers - Hill of Bones

‘Are you sure there is nothing in that book?’ I said. ‘Other people certainly seem to think so.’

‘See for yourself,’ said Katherine, passing the volume back across the table. The very casualness of the gesture told me she thought the book held no secrets and I did not even bother to pick it up again. I was glad to see the back of it, to be honest. Let others attend to the tangled affairs of the Hawkins family.

From outside the Raven tavern I heard the bellman pass, ringing his bell, telling us all that it was ten o’clock. Time for honest citizens and players to be in bed. I drained the last of my drink.

‘I wish you well,’ I said. ‘I am returning to Mother Treadwell’s.’

We said goodbye rather formally. Perhaps Katherine would have embraced me had it not been for the presence of William as well as of a dozen other individuals in the tavern. Before leaving the Raven I stopped to relieve myself – being a modern place it had its own house of office in the back yard – and then I went out into the street via an alley. The moon was up and near the full, as last night, but it was veiled by thin clouds and cast only a faint light.

Perhaps a couple of minutes had elapsed since I’d parted from the Hawkinses. I could just about make out two individuals walking close together ahead of me. The cousins, presumably. Were they arm in arm? Hard to tell in the gloom. Anyway, what business was it of mine?

Even as I looked the two figures increased to three. For a moment I thought they had been joined by a friend, but no friend would be moving so fast or raising his arms in such a threatening way. The sounds that came from up the street, grunts and cries, then a woman’s scream, sent me running towards them. But the cobbles were slippery with muck and I slid in something and fell with a thump. By the time I’d got to my feet again, the noise had stopped and I could see no one at all up the street.

Although moving less rapidly now, I almost stumbled over the figure of William Hawkins. He was crouching above Katherine, who lay stretched on the ground. Hawkins stood up, panting hard, expecting a fresh attack and ready to lash out.

I said, ‘It’s all right, it’s me, Nick Revill. What happened?’

‘I don’t know. Some man… Kate… oh, Kate…’

He sank to his knees next to her. For an instant, I feared the worst, but she groaned and tried to sit up. William sighed in relief and supported her as she rose shakily to her feet. I stepped back. In the distance I saw a dancing speck of light, a firefly, then two of them. I thought the attacker was returning with reinforcements before realising that they would hardly be carrying lanterns. The fireflies converged, then drew nearer. There were footsteps on the cobbles, the bark of a dog, the ting of a bell.

Too late, of course. This was typical of the bellman and the watch in any town. Where were they when you really needed them?

William Hawkins and I were sitting in the dining room of the Vicarage Lane house. It was nearing midnight. The cousins had returned home after giving what little information they had to the watch – an unidentified man springing out of the dark from the porch where he’d been lying in wait, followed by a quick theft. The theft of the black book, which Katherine had been still holding as she walked along. Naturally, I recalled the rogue who’d accosted me in the King’s Bath. The same man? It seemed likely.

Since the real malefactor had escaped, the bellman and his watch did their duty and detained me instead, imagining that I had a hand in the attack. This, despite the assurances of the Hawkinses as they limped off to dress their wounds that the opposite was true: I had actually come to their rescue.

It took me a quarter of an hour before my protestations of innocence were accepted. In the end, I was allowed to go only after stressing my elevated position in the company of the King ’s Men and insinuating that King James himself would be displeased if he heard that one of his principal players had been thrown into the local lock-up. Quite casually I said that I had an appointment in Whitehall to see him – King James, that is – when I returned to London, and that I would assure His Majesty of the loyal and intelligent servants he possessed among the Bath watch. If they detained me for a moment longer, however, I would have a very different tale to tell.

They believed me. I might have said they were men of limited understanding but I nearly believed myself by the time I was done speaking. In fact, we parted on such good terms that I urged them to attend our performance on the next evening. They could easily do this before they went on duty at ten o’clock.

I could have returned to Mother Treadwell’s but my blood was up after all this activity and I decided to call on the Hawkins household and see how things stood there. I would almost have welcomed an attacker in the few hundred yards it took to reach the house, so ready was I for a fight, but I arrived unassailed.

William Hawkins welcomed me in and now we sat in the dining room. The house was hushed. It was late. The body of his father was laid out upstairs. The funeral would take place in a couple of days. We were recovering with a dose of his father’s aqua vitae. I did not find the fiery liquid soothing.

Cousin Kate was in bed recovering from her ordeal in the street. She was not badly hurt but she was bruised and shaken. William was angry, not so much for himself but on her behalf. He was angry too with Hannah, the old servant, who had been – unwittingly, perhaps – the indirect cause of what had happened. I had described to William my morning encounter with the rogue in the King’s Bath, and how he tried to take the black notebook from me. I said the only person who could have deduced it was in my possession was Hannah. She must have spoken to one of the men in the house that morning. Hawkins strode from the room and went upstairs to where the old retainer was attending on Katherine. He was back within minutes, looking a whit less angry, and confirming what I’d thought. Hannah had referred to my presence in the house the previous night as well as to my position in the King’s Men. She said I’d been taken to see the dying man. She couldn’t remember whether she’d said all this to John Maltravers or to the lawyer Downey. Or was it Dr Price? She was very distressed at the state of her mistress. She hoped she had not done any wrong.

Anyway, one or more of the trio must have deduced I had the book and set the rogue on my trail – this was the conclusion William and I came to. The same rogue must have been watching us in the smoky, dim interior of the Raven tavern or else he had an accomplice there; had seen the book being passed back to Kate Hawkins; had lurked to waylay her and William on the way home.

‘He shall not get away with this,’ said William. ‘Whoever’s responsible will not get away with it either.’

‘Who is behind it?’

‘I do not know. One of the three men here this morning, surely. The doctor, the lawyer or the merchant. They are all respectable citizens but one of them is evidently prepared to resort to force… to attack my cousin…’

‘So there is something valuable in your father’s personal book after all?’

‘My father was an odd mixture of businessman and dreamer, Nick. What he wrote down in his little volume showed both sides. His plans for better machinery were the practical part, while the dreams were the verses about King Arthur.’

‘And drawings of Solsbury Hill with signs and markings…’

‘Yes, with markings that could cause someone to believe there was buried treasure there,’ conceded William.

‘But there is no treasure?’

‘I am not about to go off and dig up a hillside in pursuit of my father’s dreams.’