The Burgundian’s Tale
- Автор: Sedley Kate
- Серия: Roger the Chapman #14
- Год: 2013
- Язык: английский
- Год: Severn House Publishers Ltd.
- ISBN: 978-1-4483-0102-7
- Жанр: Исторические детективы
Электронная книга - «The Burgundian’s Tale». Краткое содержание книги:
Things aren’t going too well at home for Roger the Chapman and his wife, Adela.
Their fourth child has died only days after being born and Roger fails to conceal his feelings of relief at having one less mouth to feed. Adela naturally resents his attitude and their bitter arguments become increasingly commonplace. Roger decides that to maintain harmony at home the best thing he can do is take up his pack and cudgel and once again leave Bristol to trade his goods in the surrounding countryside.
Almost as soon as he makes this decision, he receives a message from King Edward IV’s brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, summoning him to London to assist in the investigation into the murder of Fulk Quantrell, the son of one of the ladies-in-waiting to Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy, who is on a triumphant return visit to London. It seems Roger has no choice but to return to the dirty, crowded streets of London, where he soon meets a surprising number of people – royalty, servants and workers alike – who all have a motive for murder.
I was still considering the idea while I stripped and rolled between the blankets, nestling into Reynold Makepeace’s goose-feather mattress. (I had gone straight to my chamber, avoiding the ale room, where a crowd of indefatigable merrymakers continued to drink the Dowager Duchess of Burgundy’s health.) I tried to recall the voice which had whispered in my ear and to match it with Lionel’s, but the difference seemed too great for probability. And yet … And yet I couldn’t have sworn that they weren’t one and the same. Welsh tones are usually soft and soothing. This voice had been neither of those things, just low and sibilant.
I repeated the words over to myself: ‘Mind your own business, chapman, if you know what’s good for you. This is just the first warning. So go back to Bristol, there’s a good boy!’ Boy. Boyo. A Welsh term of address as I well knew from hearing it so often along the Bristol Backs.
I could feel sleep beginning to engulf me, and decided that the problem would have to wait until the morning. I groped for the reassuring feel of my knife beneath my pillow and felt for my cudgel, which I had placed alongside me on the bed. Only then did I close my eyes and allow my mind to drift.
After nine years I had at last trained myself to sleep through the night and not wake in the small hours for the service of matins and lauds, as I had had to do when a novice at Glastonbury. (It had been a habit greatly deplored by Adela.) And that particular night, worn out by the previous day’s events, I had slept even more soundly than usual – with the result that, when I eventually awoke, the sun was filtering through the shutters and people were clattering busily about the inn. For my part, I was feeling fighting fit again.
I was just wondering if I could escape from the Voyager before young Bertram came to find me, when he bounced into the ale room where I was eating my breakfast.
‘There you are!’ he exclaimed unnecessarily, before ordering a mazer of small beer.
‘Not wanted by the Duke or Master Plummer today?’ I asked hopefully.
He shook his head. ‘I’m entirely at your disposal.’ That’s what I’d been afraid of. ‘However, tomorrow I might be needed for other duties. If so, you’ll have to manage without me.’
‘Heaven forfend!’ I exclaimed, but the sarcasm was lost on my companion. I swallowed the rest of my oatcake and honey.
While Bertram finished his beer, I debated whether or not to tell him of last night’s incident. I didn’t want to. It would admit my fallibility and make me seem a bit of a fool. In the end, I decided it would be unfair not to warn him to be on his guard, and to carry a knife or a cudgel at all times.
But the story seemed to excite rather than frighten him, nor did it move him to laughter at my expense.
‘I wish I’d been there,’ he said eagerly. ‘I could probably have caught up with whoever it was. My legs are younger than yours.’
‘Whoever it was wouldn’t have risked attacking me if there’d been two of us,’ I pointed out snappishly. ‘And I’m not yet in my dotage. I’ll thank you to remember that.’
He grinned and was about to make a further rejoinder when I rose from the table and said it was time we were going. The ale room was filling up with my fellow guests, all looking for their breakfasts, and I was in no mood for idle conversation. I wanted to get this case over and done with so that I could be on my way back to Bristol. (Incidentally, I had no intention of riding or of being escorted home. Someone in Duke Richard’s household could arrange for the horse to be returned to the Bell Lane livery stables. I urgently needed the freedom and solitude.)
‘Where are we going?’ Bertram asked as we left the Voyager.
‘Where do you think? To visit Judith and Godfrey St Clair, of course. They are, after all, at the centre of this mystery. Then, if we’re lucky, perhaps we can question their next-door neighbours, the Jolliffes, as well. And if we’re very lucky, we might get a word with their other neighbour, Martin Threadgold, Mistress St Clair’s former brother-in-law.’
The fitful May day had lost its early sunshine and turned cold and wet. As we crossed the River Fleet, a sudden squall of rain whipped spray from the water, and the houses on either side of the thoroughfare were shrouded in mist. This would undoubtedly clear as the day progressed, but for the moment, it made everything appear grey and insubstantial.
Secure in the knowledge that my arrival must be at least half-expected, I knocked boldly on the street door of Judith St Clair’s house in the Strand and waited confidently to have my summons answered. I wasn’t disappointed, and within a very few minutes the door was opened by the housekeeper, Paulina Graygoss.
She eyed me with a certain hostility. ‘The mistress said as how you’d likely be paying us a visit,’ she remarked acidly. ‘But we weren’t expecting you this early in the morning.’ She jerked her head. ‘Still, I suppose you’d better come in now you’re here; but you’ll have to wait. The master and mistress are still at breakfast.’
She left us to kick our heels in the main hall of the house while she disappeared through a door to the left of a fine, carved oaken fireplace. I looked around me. Everything – from the glazed windows opening on to the Strand, to the rich tapestries decorating the walls, to the corner cupboard with its sparkling display of silverware (interspersed with the occasional dull gleam of gold), to the Eastern rugs adorning the flagstones – spoke of money and plenty of it. Judith St Clair’s wealth had not been exaggerated.
The housekeeper reappeared and, with a very bad grace, asked us to follow her, plainly disapproving of her mistress’s decision to receive us without first finishing her meal. She led us through several more rooms, all as well furnished as the hall, to a small parlour at the back of the house, overlooking the garden and the river. The full force of a spring storm was suddenly upon us. Rain lashed down outside and candles had been lit, ribbing the room with shadows. The distant cries of boatmen echoed eerily through the horn-paned windows from the Thames.
I immediately recognized the couple seated at the table as the pair I had seen at Westminster the previous day. They were still in mourning, but the finery of the previous occasion had been replaced by more homely attire: a long, loose velvet robe, rubbed thin in patches, for him, and a plain woollen gown and linen hood for her. The man looked thinner than ever, hunched over his plate, his grey hair gilded by the candlelight. He didn’t glance up as Bertram and I entered the room, focusing all his attention on the apple he was dissecting with a pearl-handled knife. Judith St Clair, however, raised her handsome head and gave me an appraising look.
‘You must be this chapman Her Highness was telling me about.’ Her eyes raked me from head to foot in a manner which, in someone else, could have been considered insulting, but which, in her, seemed merely curious. ‘It appears that His Grace of Gloucester sets great store by your ability to solve mysteries. An odd occupation for a pedlar.’
‘A gift from God, madam.’
At my slightly caustic tone, her gaze sharpened and she smiled grimly.
‘Maybe … Well, no one will be happier than myself to see the villain of this particular crime laid by the heels.’ I thought for a moment she was on the verge of tears, but she straightened her back and gestured impatiently, as though ashamed to display any such weakness. ‘So? What do you want from my husband and me?’
‘Just to talk to you both; to ask you about Master Quantrell and to learn anything you can tell me about the night he was murdered. I’d also like to question Mistress Threadgold and your son, sir, if they’ve no objection.’ I turned towards the silent figure at the other end of the table.