The Herring in the Library (3 page)

‘I am a poor poet, Your Ladyship, and no courtier. I am just a humble customs officer, as Your Ladyship knows. And words that would acknowledge the name of flattery are clearly no
flattery at all. So if I confess to being a flatterer, I am none.’

‘But you are more than a humble customs officer if the King entrusts you with important messages for my husband.’

Thomas looked up from his contemplation of the fire and his calculation as to what it would cost to install a modest chimneypiece in his own small house at Blackfriars.

‘Your husband thinks not. He wondered that the King had troubled me with a message of such insignificance.’

‘I am sure that the King would not waste his servants’ time.’

‘That shows how little you know of kings, Your Ladyship, if you would pardon me for pointing out your good fortune. But your husband raised the same point. He thought that
there
must be more to it. He enquired whether the message might perhaps be in code.’

‘And was it?’

‘I can tell Your Ladyship no more than I could tell Sir Edmund. Messages in code are to be understood by the sender and the receiver. I am neither. I am merely a—’

‘—humble clerk. Yes, I think you’ve said that already.’

‘Humble customs officer, was what I was planning to say. Formerly apprentice to an apothecary. But “clerk” if you will. It is as Your Ladyship wishes.’

‘And what did the message say?’

‘I gave it to your husband sealed, just as it left the King.’

‘The King had sealed it himself?’

‘It bore the King’s personal seal. The Signet.’

‘And how does my husband intend to reply?’

‘Sir Edmund will inform me when he returns from hunting,’ said Thomas. ‘I am to wait. I must confess that I had hoped he would return much earlier. I fear that the light is
now fading. These January days are short.’

‘You will stay the night, Master Thomas, and set out for London in the morning. A place can be found for you to sleep. You will be more comfortable here than in some miserable inn on
the London road. However soon my husband returns, there is no question of your going anywhere this evening. I must in any case think of a suitable response to your other missive.’

‘The poem from my master?’

‘Indeed. Master Geoffrey Chaucer’s poem.’

‘I believe no reply is expected.’

‘But of course a poem must be replied to! You know little of chivalry, Master Thomas.’

‘That is true, my lady. Though I read romances avidly when I was young.’

‘Arthur and Guinevere?’

‘Roland and Charlemagne. Whatever I could get my hands on.’

‘And did you dream of being a knight? Did you dream of carrying a sword?’

‘My dagger is sword enough,’ said Thomas, patting the ballock knife that hung from his belt. ‘I am not entirely certain that I would know how to use it in a fight, but it
would be unwise to travel the roads with no visible means of defence. A fly may be swatted with impunity, but the smallest wasp is accorded some respect. In any case, the dagger is useful for
cutting up sausages.’

‘You would use your Excalibur for cutting up sausages? Fie! I think those romances were wasted on you,’ smiled the
lady.

‘I tell the stories to my children at bedtime,’ said Thomas. ‘Sometimes I do make Arthur cut up sausages with Excalibur. It is a fault with all my stories that I will
sacrifice both character and plot to amuse my audience.’

The lady frowned. ‘You have children? And a wife? But then . . .’

‘I have a wife to whom I am devoted and three children, to whom we are both devoted in equal measure – Richard, Geoffrey and little Blanche. Blanche is the youngest – she is
just walking. You appear perplexed, my lady. It is entirely natural that a man of my age would have a family.’

‘No, of course. It was just . . . they must miss you when you are away.’ The lady gave a tight-lipped smile. Thomas instinctively looked over his shoulder towards the door, then
wondered why he had done it. The lady seemed ill at ease for no apparent reason. Perhaps she did not like children? There were no children in the house. If she were unable to bear children herself,
it might be distasteful to her to discuss the children of others? But surely she herself had raised the subject?

‘I am often away on the King’s business,’ said Thomas, breaking the silence. ‘The children are used to it. I have promised them a new story when I return. As I ride, I
make up stories. It passes the time. It was a long journey down to Sussex, so I have thought of two so far.’

‘Indeed,’ said the lady, ‘you must tell them to your children if . . . when you return.’

‘I shall do so,’ said Thomas.

The conversation lapsed inexplicably. The lady twisted the bunch of keys tied to her kirtle.

‘They should not have sent you,’ she exclaimed with a sudden determination. ‘Not you. It was wrong of them. Perhaps indeed you should go now. I think that would be
best.’

‘I fear,’ said Thomas with a shrug, ‘that it is already too late. I am, as it were, here. I shall have to accept your kind hospitality. I hope, my lady, that you would not
throw me out into the snow merely because I have three children and place mirth before gallantry. But I must in any case wait for Sir Edmund. Those are my instructions.’ He gave a slight bow.
She did not smile in response.

‘Yes, too late . . .’ she repeated, though not to Master Thomas.

There was another pause, during which the fire crackled and spat. A dog sleeping close to the hearth opened one eye, rolled over and stretched out its legs. Then the thing that they seemed to
have been waiting for happened.

The outer door to the great hall was flung open and three men strode into the room bringing winter with them. Thomas felt the bitter rush of cold air and noticed white specks on their cloaks
– specks that were fading one by one as he watched, leaving small damp patches. It must be snowing again outside, he thought. Perhaps they were three of Sir Edmund’s men who had ridden
on ahead to announce his arrival. They certainly seemed to think they belonged here. He turned to the lady as if hoping for some sort of introduction, but she stood mute and staring in their
direction. She wanted desperately to say something, but seemed to be waiting for a cue.

The tallest of the three, a man with grizzled hair and a short beard, advanced until he was just a yard or so away from the lady. He carried a quiet authority – not one of Sir
Edmund’s men, then, but a knight himself, perhaps, with his own retainers.

‘Lady Catherine . . .’ he began.

‘You bear bad news?’ she gasped.

‘I bear . . . yes, the news is bad. It is the worst. Please prepare yourself . . .’

‘My husband . . .’

‘Sir Edmund is dead,’ said the man very quickly. ‘He was . . .’

‘By whom?’ gasped Lady Catherine. Then, seeing the expression on the man’s face, she suddenly fell silent.

‘He was stabbed with a dagger,’ the man continued very slowly and precisely. ‘By an unknown assailant.’

‘Who escaped . . .’

‘Indeed . . . as you say . . . who escaped. But we have a description. A short man, with the appearance of a clerk, carrying a dagger and speaking in the manner of one from
London.’

The three men and the lady turned as one to look at Thomas. The dog (who clearly knew whose side he was on) growled softly.

‘I’m afraid,’ said Thomas, ‘that I haven’t seen any other clerks from London near here.’

‘Nor have I,’ said the man. He turned to his two companions. ‘Arrest this clerk,’ he said.

Thomas blinked a couple of times. No, they were all still there. This was still happening. ‘To what end?’ he asked, as well as his dry mouth would allow.

‘We think you may be able to help us with our inquiries.’

‘About the stabbing? I met Sir Edmund only briefly. He was alive when I last saw him.’

‘So you say.’

‘I assure you that there’s nothing I can remember that would be of any assistance to you gentlemen . . .’

‘Perhaps we can jog your memory then,’ said the man.

‘I can’t quite see how you would be able to do that.’

‘Ever been tortured before?’ asked the man.

‘No,’ said Thomas.

‘Well, now’s your chance.’

I reread what I had just written. I rarely begin a novel at chapter one and work methodically through a manuscript. Often I will write the ending quite early on and progress
steadily towards it. Here I had obviously begun halfway through. I was not yet sure why Master Thomas had been dispatched to Sussex. Clearly he had been sent by his master, Geoffrey Chaucer, and
clearly he had been dumped right in it. But why? And why had I chosen to set it at Muntham Court? Lady Catherine knew a great deal more than she had let on. Was she complicit in her husband’s
murder? If so, was she the instigator or somebody else’s pawn . . .?

‘Come on, Tressider, I said five hundred words, not half a novel,’ said Elsie, looking round the door.

‘It’s only one thousand, seven hundred and fifty-one words – hardly half a novel even by my standards.’

‘Whatever. Just save it and close the lid. The sooner we go to your snooty friends, the sooner we can piss off back home. I like the neck wear, by the way – I’ve never seen a
bow tie at that angle before. Original.’

I closed the lid of my laptop as instructed and furtively straightened my tie.

‘I’ll get the car keys,’ I said.

Three

Elsie had insisted that we drive.

‘It’s scarcely a ten-minute walk,’ I’d pointed out, ‘and it’s a lovely summer evening.’

‘I’m not walking up some muddy lane in high heels, thank you very much. You’ve been away from London too long, Tressider. You think mud is fine if it doesn’t reach to the
tops of your Hunters. We have something called pavements in London. Once you have them fitted in Sussex we’ll walk as much as you like. Until then you get to drive me.’

Elsie discovered she had in fact left in my flat (to which she is a frequent visitor) something in black silk that would pass as an evening dress and that she imagined suited her short but
well-rounded figure. She had also at some point in the past left a pair of black high-heeled shoes in my care. The heels increased her height by many inches, but not by enough of them to quite
carry off the black silk item, which had been abandoned with me for good reason. I wondered whether to suggest she went as a Transylvanian fishwife after all, but decided not. Long experience had
taught me just to tell Elsie that she looked great and to keep my fingers crossed for next time.

So, the wheels of my Mini crunched up the gravel drive, now in deep shadow from the two rows of ancient trees that flanked it, and performed a spacious arc in front of Muntham Court. I applied
the brake and went round to open Elsie’s door.

Findon has a number of large houses. The undoubtedly quaint Findon Manor, the oldest of them, has long been a hotel. Findon Place is an impressive small Georgian mansion, carefully positioned to
suggest that it owns the church. Findon Park is set in large grounds just outside the village. But Muntham Court eclipses them all. When it was rebuilt in the mid-nineteenth century, its owner had
made concessions neither to economy nor to good taste. The house was vast and designed in equal measure for comfort and for putting visitors in their place. Nominally it was in the Jacobean style
but the architect had been paid cash to lift features from any and every period. There were pilasters in profusion and ogees in abundance. Balustrades flowed and anything that could be ornamented
was ornamented. Contemporaries might have claimed to despise it, but time had mellowed and softened everything. Few people ascended the drive and caught their first glimpse of the house between its
neatly cut hedges without experiencing the intended sense of envy.

‘I was expecting something bigger,’ said Elsie non-committally as she stepped from the car.

‘It’s stunning,’ I said, still holding the door. ‘It’s like some fairy-tale castle out of the
Morte d’Arthur.
You would expect Sir Bedivere to come
riding out of the shrubbery on his palfrey and greet a pale damsel on the lawn with a courtly bow.’

‘Whatever you say, pet,’ said Elsie. ‘Anyway, it’s good we’ve got here before too many people try parking their palfreys.’

‘Why?’

‘So we are well positioned to make a quick getaway if your friends turn out to be really boring.’

We were in fact one of two cars parked in front of the house – the other was a large green Jaguar. It looked familiar, but I didn’t have a chance to comment on this to Elsie. As I
locked the Mini, the front door of Muntham Court was thrown open and Lady Muntham walked towards us. She appeared every inch the gracious hostess in a midnight-blue dress that shimmered in the rays
of a waning sun. Her blonde hair was tied back in a bun. The pearls that she wore round her neck were large but (in my view) very tasteful. She had perhaps applied a little too much make-up, but
she had once been a model. Her smile lit up the garden.

‘Ethelred,’ said Lady Muntham, placing her hand on my arm. ‘It’s so sweet of you to come. And this must be Elise?’

‘Elsie,’ said Elsie.

‘Elsie, of course. And you must call me Annabelle.’

‘Yes, that’s what I’d been planning to do,’ said Elsie.

Annabelle led us through a hallway, paved with black and white tiles and containing an oak staircase that swept upwards into the mock-Tudor gloom. From there we proceeded, past a billiard room,
into a conservatory that was, in its way, scarcely smaller or less grand than the hall. Its Victorian architect, having perhaps recently visited the Crystal Palace, had put together a vaulted
structure of steel and glass. In its humid microclimate, stunted palms had clung on gamely through decades of neglect. Rattan-framed sofas added to the illusion that we had temporarily been
transported to some distant and rather downmarket part of the Empire. Beyond the dusty glass panes a blood-red sun was beginning to set.