Death and the Chapman (16 page)

I smiled at him. Or at least I tried to smile, but my lips refused to obey me. The heat of the kitchen, the enormous meal, but above all, the wine to which I was unaccustomed, had all combined to make me stupid and sleepy. I gave a prodigious yawn and stretched my arms until the bones cracked. I should have liked to go to bed, but it was not yet dark and curfew had still not sounded.

‘Come and sit by the fire,’ Thomas Prynne suggested, indicating what I presumed to be his own chair, as it had arms. ‘You can sleep off the effects of your supper while we prepare for Master Farmer from Northampton. He must be here soon if he wants to avoid putting up for the night outside the city. The gates will shut within the hour. Abel, be a good fellow and look outside to see if he’s coming.’

I watched Abel leave the kitchen through a sleep-drugged haze, sinking into the chair and stretching my legs out before me. My eyelids were already closing. In half an hour or so, I promised myself, I would go into the yard to get some air. But for the present, replete, I was content to let food and wine and the heat of the fire do their work. I drifted over the borderline of sleep.

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.’

‘Oh, that!‘ He shrugged and shivered a little as the wind blew in through the open casement. ‘A waste of time, if you want my opinion. Shut that window, there’s a good lad.’ He frowned. ‘What’s it doing open?’

‘I needed some air,’ I explained. ‘I wasn’t feeling so well.’

Comprehension dawned in his eyes and he chuckled quietly. ‘Well, I can’t say I’m surprised. Better get back to your bed now.’

As he turned away, I said: ‘I had to go downstairs, to the yard. You’d left the back door unlocked and unbolted.’

He shook his head. ‘Nonsense! You must be mistaken. I locked and bolted it myself. I always see to it personally before I come upstairs at night. With so many thieves about, I won’t risk leaving it to Abel. Young men are inclined to be careless.’

‘The door was open,’ I insisted. ‘I went into the yard to relieve myself, and it was unbolted.’

Thomas frowned again. ‘You’re absolutely certain? You didn’t imagine it? Wine fumes can be extremely potent and sometimes confuse the brain.’

‘No, I’m sure,’ I answered. ‘I’d been awake some while and was perfectly sober. But just now, through that window, I saw someone walking up the street to the Crossed Hands inn.’

‘At this hour?’ He sounded incredulous and, pushing past me, threw wide the casement again.

‘ Whoever it was has gone now, ‘ I told him. ‘He - or she - went into the inn.’

Thomas withdrew his head, once more closing and fastening the window. ‘Why do you say “she”? Did you think that it might have been a woman?’

‘It was impossible to tell. The person was wearing a long cloak with a hood.’

He gestured dismissively. ‘A late reveller, perhaps. A lot of respectable citizens break curfew and manage to avoid the Watch. It’s not difficult. I’ve done it myself.’ ‘I’m sure this wasn’t a reveller. There’s something suspicious about that place.’

Thomas smiled indulgently. ‘So you said before, but you haven’t really convinced me yet.’ He shivered again. ‘We’ll talk about this in the morning, if you want to, but for now, let’s get back to bed. I have to be up before cockcrow. I need my sleep.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said again. ‘Forgive me. I shouldn’t have kept you.’

‘Do you feel all right now?’

I nodded. ‘I gather Master Farmer arrived safely. I heard his horse in the stable, when I was outside in the yard.’ Thomas took a deep breath, looking puzzled. ‘I don’t know what’s been going on here tonight, or if it’s all in your head, but there’s no horse but Master Parson’s in the stable. Master Farmer failed to arrive before curfew. He must be putting up for the night outside the city walls. We shan’t be seeing him now until tomorrow.’

I went back to bed but could not sleep, lying wide awake in the darkness. The throbbing in my head was now a dull ache, but I was no longer feeling sick. My stomach at last seemed able to cope with its burden.

Had I been wrong in thinking that I had heard a second horse? At the time I was sure that there were two in the stable, but I might have been mistaken. I had been shut inside the privy and had certainly not been at my brightest. Yet I could have sworn that one whinny had answered another. I got up and went over to the window, opening the shutters...

‘... horse. He says he heard it.’ It was Thomas Prynne’s voice, floating up to me from the yard below. I could just make out the faint glimmer of his candle.

‘I thought he was out cold until morning.’ It was Abel Sampson speaking this time. ‘Perhaps we’d better look round and make sure all’s well.’

Obviously, Thomas had been more disturbed by what I had told him than he let on, and had roused his partner to accompany him on a search of the inn and its premises. I closed the shutters softly and lay down again, first divesting myself of my shoes and tunic. The back door had definitely been open: I had not dreamed it. So, if Thomas was right and he had locked it, who could have drawn back the bolts, and why? And who was the person I had seen from the landing window, hurrying so furtively up the street and entering the Crossed Hands inn? Martin Trollope? The mysterious cook-maid? Matilda Ford? And who had he, or she, come to see at the Baptist’s Head? What, after all, did I know of Gilbert Parsons...?

My head was swimming, but pleasantly this time. I was by the Stour once more, making love to Bess. When I looked up, Alison Weaver and William Burnett were standing further along the bank, watching us. Alison said: ‘Leave Marjorie Dyer alone,’ and I saw that Bess had turned into the housekeeper. Alison smiled at the young man by her side, who was no longer her husband. She slid an arm about his neck. ‘This is my brother, Clement...’

I woke to find the shutters of my room now rimmed with a faded, rain-washed light. When I opened them, a chill wind hit me as it raced across the sky, blowing the clouds into an ever-changing vista of shapes. A spatter of rain drops touched my face, and the daylight which filtered between the neighbouring rooftops was murky and unwholesome. The weather had worsened during the latter part of the night. I shook myself free of the rags of sleep and the last, lingering echoes of my dream, put on my shoes and tunic, and made my way downstairs. The smell of frying bacon greeted me from the kitchen, and the fact that it made my mouth water and set my stomach rumbling proved that I was completely cured. The indisposition of the night had left me.

When I looked round the kitchen door I saw Thomas Prynne holding a skillet over the kitchen fire, in which he was cooking thick slabs of fat, salt bacon. On the table were a number of wooden bowls filled with oatmeal, liberally sprinkled with saffron, two big jugs of ale and a loaf of bread, half of it cut into slices. He turned his head at the sound of my footsteps and smiled.