Death and the Chapman (2 page)

‘Yes.’

‘Where have you come from? I’d say you’re local, by the sound of you.’

‘I was born in Wells.’ I saw no need, at that point, to enlarge any further. ‘Thank you for your directions. I’ll try Abyingdon’s as it’s nearest.’

‘Hold on.’ The woman laid a plump hand on my arm and I recall thinking that her grip was surprisingly tenacious. ‘It must be nearly midday. You’re late for dinner. Ours was over nearly an hour ago. But if you like to accompany me while I run my errand, you can come home with me afterwards and I’ll make sure you’re fed. We keep a good table in Broad Street. Nothing’s too good for an Alderman of Bristol.’

I hesitated, suddenly unsure of my ground. She spoke with sufficient authority to make me wonder if perhaps I had been mistaken in assuming her lowly status.

‘The Alderman is your husband?’ I ventured.

She gave a deep-throated chuckle. ‘Get away with you! Do I look like the wife of an Alderman? No, of course not! He’s my master. I keep house for him and his wife and... and his children.’ There was a slight hesitation, as though she were about to amend what she had said; then, evidently thinking better of it, she took my arm again, this time tucking one plump hand into the crook of my elbow. ‘If you’ll give me your support as far as Marsh Street, we’ll get on all the faster. I’m not as young as I was.’

We set off along Corn Street, dodging the piles of filth in front of the houses and the mounds of offal outside a butcher’s shop. There were plenty of pigs and goats, too, to impede our progress; they had no business, legally, to be kept within city limits; but the good citizens of Bristol ignored this regulation in the same way that people of other towns up and down the country ignored it. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my life it’s that the English see every law as a challenge, either to be circumvented or broken. I think the thing I remember most about that walk is the clamour of the bells. We’d heard them at Glastonbury, of course, sounding for the different offices of the day, but this was my first time in a city, and I’d never heard so many ringing all together; tolling the hours of the day, summoning citizens to meetings, warning of the opening of the municipal courts or simply calling the faithful to prayer at one of Bristol’s many churches.

Marsh Street itself was full of sailors who had either just come ashore, intent on finding the nearest brothel, or were about to embark on one of the many ships at present riding at anchor along the Backs, laden with wine or soap or some other cargo destined for foreign shores. In front of one of the warehouses which lined the busy wharves was a carrier, loading his cart with bales of cloth which I learned later was woven by the weavers who lived and worked in the suburb of Redcliffe, on the opposite side of the Avon.

The carrier raised his head and, when he saw us approaching, lifted his hand in greeting.

‘You’re late, Marjorie,’ he said accusingly. ‘I’m almost ready to leave. What are my orders this time?’

‘The same as usual. When you get to London, you’re to go straight to the Steelyard. Deliver to the Hanse merchants and to nobody else.’ She turned to me, adding by way of explanation: ‘ The Easterlings pay cash, which the Alderman insists on. Londoners want credit, he says, and then try to settle bad debts with all kinds of nonsense, such as tennis balls or packs of cards or bales of tassels.’ She chuckled again, drily. ‘They may get away with that in other parts of the country, but not in their dealings with Bristol.‘ She put her hand into the pocket of her skirt and produced a piece of paper sealed with red wax, which she handed to the carrier. ‘And if you’d deliver this for me, I’d be obliged.’ A coin passed between them.

The man nodded cheerfully and tucked the letter inside his greasy, food-stained jacket. ‘Your cousin, is it? Never fear! I’ll see it gets there. What about His High and Mightiness? Payment as usual, I suppose, after the job is done.’

Marjorie smiled. ‘What else did you expect? You know the way the Alderman works as well as I do.’

‘It was worth asking, just in case, one day, a miracle happens. I’ll be off, then. Tell Alderman Weaver I’ll see him in a week’s time, when I get back.’ He nodded briefly at me and disappeared once more inside the warehouse. Further along the wharf, some sailors were acting the fool, lurching perilously close to the edge and singing a drunken shanty.
‘Hail and howe, let the wind blow! The Prior of Prickingham has a big--’

My companion gave an unconvincing shriek and clapped both hands over her ears.

‘It’s all right,’ I assured her gravely. ‘Has a big toe is what they’re singing.’

‘I dare say. It’s what they mean that matters.‘ She added with mock severity: ‘The fools will be in the water in a moment and then they’ll find themselves up before the Watch. However, that’s their lookout, not ours. So, if you’ll give me your arm again, we’ll be off to Broad Street and that meal I promised you. By the way, what’s your name?’

‘Roger.’

‘And mine is Marjorie Dyer. That was my father’s trade. He’s dead now, God rest him!’ She squeezed my arm and shuffled along beside me. ‘I’m sorry to be so slow, but this warm weather affects my legs. Cheer up! Not much farther to go now.’

‘Good,’ I said. ‘It’s been hours since my last meal. I’m starving.’

I realize that, as yet, I’ve offered no explanation for the political events which were unfolding in Bristol on that warm May morning. Well... politics are boring. As are dates and facts. But in so far as those happenings and their sequel of some months later impinged, however slightly, upon my own story and the unravelling of my first mystery, I feel obliged to paint in the larger background. Briefly. I promise. And I can hardly expect the young tyros of the present generation, in their feverish preoccupation with New Worlds and New Learning, to try to unravel the tangled skein of events which was England in the last century. I knew precious little about it, myself, at their age. What I know now is the result of age, of reading, of piecing together fragments of conversation and knowledge gleaned over many years.

In the year 1399, King Richard the Second was deposed, and eventually murdered, by his cousin Henry of Bolingbroke, who usurped the crown as King Henry the Fourth.

The childless Richard’s acknowledged heir was his cousin, Roger Mortimer, grandson of Edward the Third’s third son, Lionel. Henry was the son of John of Gaunt, a younger son of that same monarch, and from this situation there arose, half a century later, a bloody dynastic struggle. Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York, direct descendant of Roger Mortimer, claimed the crown from his cousin, King Henry the Sixth, Bolingbroke’s grandson. York was driven to it by the unrelenting enmity of Henry’s Queen, Margaret of Anjou, and was supported by his brother-in-law, the Earl of Salisbury, and Salisbury’s eldest son, the Earl of Warwick.

The first blow was struck on May 22nd, 1455, and, five years later both York and Salisbury lost their lives at the battle of Wakefield. Six months after his father’s death, York’s eldest son was crowned King Edward the Fourth in Westminster Abbey.

At first, all went well, and this apparently easy-going young man of eighteen showed proper gratitude and respect for the architects of his victory, his mother’s family of Neville, chief of whom was her nephew, the mighty Earl of Warwick.

In the year 1464, however, while Warwick worked tirelessly to bring about a French alliance through Edward’s marriage to Bona of Savoy, Edward secretly married Elizabeth Woodville, the widow of the Lancastrian Lord Grey; a woman five years his senior and already the mother of two sons.

The marriage estranged not only the Earl of Warwick, but also Edward’s brother, George, Duke of Clarence. The King’s youngest brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, remained loyal, in spite of his hatred of the Woodville family.

Eventually, in 1469, the Nevilles kidnapped the King and attempted to rule the country through their prisoner. When this failed, Warwick tried to adduce Edward’s bastardy and put the Duke of Clarence, who had married the Earl’s elder daughter, Isabel, on the throne instead.

When this plan also foundered, Warwick, Clarence and their wives, together with Warwick’s younger daughter, Anne, fled to France. Here, the Earl, completely changing his tactics, made peace with the exiled Margaret of Anjou and agreed to restore the imprisoned Henry the Sixth to the throne. Anne Neville was married to Edward of Lancaster, Henry and Margaret’s son.

In the autumn of 1470, the year before my story opened, three months before my mother died, eight months before I walked from Wells to Bristol, Warwick and Clarence returned to England with men and money supplied by King Louis of France. Partly through King Edward’s own folly, he was out-generalled and caught in a trap. With the Duke of Gloucester and a handful of loyal friends, he fled to Burgundy, throwing himself on the mercy of Duke Charles, his sister Margaret’s husband.

Elizabeth Woodville and her three little daughters, together with the Duke of Gloucester’s two young children, sought sanctuary in Westminster Abbey, where the erstwhile Queen gave birth to a boy, named after his father.

Then, in March of the following year, Edward of York returned to reclaim his throne. Landing at Ravenspur, he and his youngest brother marched south almost without opposition. At Banbury, the Duke of Clarence joined them, deserting his father-in-law, and by early April Edward was in London.

Warwick, who had been in Coventry, suddenly moved against them, but on Easter Sunday was defeated and killed at Barnet. The next day, Margaret of Anjou, her son and daughter-in-law, landed at Weymouth to be met by the terrible news. Instead of attacking London, the Queen and her army marched north-west in an attempt to link up with King Henry’s half-brother, Jasper Tudor, in Wales, entering Bristol at the end of April. A few days later she learned that King Edward was already at Malmesbury, racing across country to intercept her, and on May 2nd, that warm, sunny Thursday when I first heard the name of Clement Weaver, she and her troops left the city in a hurry; in a frantic bid to outpace King Edward.

We approached Alderman Weaver’s house in Broad Street from the back and the narrow confines of Tower Lane. There was a little walled garden, as I remember, with a pear and apple tree, both thick with blossom, a bed of herbs and simples, a border of flowers along one wall and a lean-to privy. Marjorie Dyer produced a key from the heavy bunch attached to her belt and unlocked the door which led into the kitchen.

This was stone-flagged and strewn with rushes. An iron pot suspended over the fire was obviously full of a stew intended for the family’s supper. An iron frying-pan, a mortar-and-pestle, various ladles and spoons, basins and ewers were grouped together on the wooden table. Sides of salted beef and mutton hung from hooks in the ceiling. It reminded me of my mother’s kitchen, except that it was much bigger. Well, let me be honest. We only had one living-room in my mother’s house. I had never known the luxury of a parlour.

This house, which was several storeys high, no doubt had a buttery and a hall as well as a parlour. And certainly more than one bedchamber. But there again, I knew nothing of bedchambers any more than I did of parlours. At home, I had slept on a truckle bed in one corner of the kitchen, and at the Abbey, in a dormitory with the other novices. This was the first gentleman’s dwelling I had ever been in.

‘Sit yourself down.’ Marjorie Dyer nodded towards a stool near the hearth, covered with a red and green cloth. ‘Leave your pack by the door and I’ll look at it later. I’m short of needles and thread, if you have any.’

I assured her that I had and thankfully slipped the heavy bundle from my back. I had been on my feet almost since sunrise and was beginning to feel tired. I slumped on to the stool she had indicated, keeping well away from the fire. Its heat was intense and the smoke was making my eyes water. As my companion bustled around, she appraised me with her shrewd brown eyes.

‘You’re a big lad. Nearly as tall as King Edward, I’d guess. And they say he stands over six feet.’

‘Have you ever seen him, then?’ I asked her, but with less curiosity than I might have displayed if the warmth hadn’t begun to make me so drowsy. Marjorie handed me a mazer of ale, and the taste of the cold, bitter liquid went some way towards reviving me.

‘A glimpse. Ten years ago when he visited Bristol. Very tall and very handsome, fair-haired, like you, and eyes the same shade of blue. The women all went wild about him.’ She grinned. ‘I reckon there were a few cuckolded husbands during that visit. They say he’s a great womanizer.’

Her tone of voice seemed to imply a question and I glanced up, shaking my head. ‘I’m still a virgin,’ I said. ‘There wasn’t much chance to be anything else at the Abbey.‘ I had given her a brief history of my life while we were walking from Marsh Street.

She gave a chuckle which slid into a full-throated laugh. ‘That’s not what I’ve heard.’

I shrugged. ‘Oh, I know there are stories about religious houses, and I’ve no doubt there’s a certain amount of laxity in some of them. But we had a particularly strict Master of Novices.’

It was her turn to shrug plump shoulders. ‘You’re young. There’s no hurry.’ Her face shadowed again momentarily, as she cleared a space for me at the table. ‘Although, I shouldn’t say that, I suppose. Youth alone is no guarantee of longevity.’ She motioned me to bring my stool over and went to spoon some of the stew on to a plate.

I got up and, carrying my now half-empty mazer in one hand and the stool in the other, I crossed the room and settled myself at the table. ‘I expect the plague will be rife again this summer.’

Marjorie put the plate of steaming meat and vegetables in front of me. There was also some black bread, a piece of goat’s milk cheese wrapped in a dock leaf, and a dish of those little green and white leeks which can be eaten raw.

‘I wasn‘t necessarily thinking of illness,‘ she said. ‘There‘s ... there’s also accident... and ... and murder.’ In the sudden silence which succeeded her words, all I could hear was the crackling of the fire.