The Holy Innocents

The clatter and hubbub of the ale-room was growing less as the dockers gradually returned to work, leaving only the sailors to while away the rest of the afternoon with drink and sleep before going aboard their now cargoless vessels to spend the night. Tomorrow, the empty holds would be loaded with fresh merchandise, and the following morning, the vessels would weigh anchor for Brittany or Spain or Ireland or wherever else they happened to be bound.

At Jack Carter’s instigation, the landlord refilled our cups, before going to the assistance of his pot-boy who was having difficulty fixing a tap to a new cask of ale. I watched absentmindedly for a moment or two, then turned my head towards my companion.

‘What was she singing?’

‘What was who singing?’ Jack’s attention had plainly strayed during the last few minutes.

‘Mary Skelton. You said you heard her singing while you were bringing Mistress Harbourne’s box downstairs.’

‘Oh, you’re back at that, are you? Yes, I heard the girl, but what she was singing, I couldn’t tell you. A pretty, clear, high-pitched voice she had, but I’ve no ear for music, chapman, and can’t tell one tune from another.’

I murmured sympathetically, being afflicted with the same lack myself, as my fellow novices at Glastonbury used to complain whenever I chanted too loudly during a service.

Nevertheless, I urged, ‘Can’t you recall even a snatch of the words?’

The carter rubbed his chin, already faintly shadowed with black stubble.

‘You’re asking too much of me,’ he complained. ‘I tell you, I’ve difficulty holding a song in my head for three minutes, let alone three months! Oh well, if it’s important to you,’ he added good-naturedly, ‘I’ll see if I can remember something.’ He placed his elbows on the table and cupped his chin in his hands, frowning in fierce concentration. After perhaps a minute, he uttered, ‘I think… Yes, I’m almost sure it was a lullaby.’ He nodded his head vigorously. ‘It was. I recollect a refrain of lollay, lollay, lullow.’

He hummed a few tuneless notes which I could not identify, nor was I any more successful when he whistled them. And there were too many lullabies to soothe sleepless babes for me to be able to guess. Furthermore, did it really matter what Mary Skelton had been singing that January morning? The strange thing was that the child had been capable of singing at all after being at the centre of such a terrible quarrel between her stepfather, herself and her brother, and then between her stepfather and her nurse. Yet Grizelda had told me that both children were playing calmly by the time she left, as though the affair no longer concerned them. Why? What was in their minds? Had they already decided on some desperate course of action before the angry exchange with Eudo Colet took place? Had they deliberately provoked him to a fight for reasons of their own?

There were too many as yet insoluble questions, but Bridget Praule and Agatha Tenter might be able to supply some of the answers. I should be on my way. I finished my ale and rose to my feet.

‘You’re not going?’ Jack Carter demanded, aggrieved. ‘There’s time for another shout before I need collect my next load from the sawmill.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘but the afternoon is already advanced. Which did you say was Dame Praule’s cottage?’ That made him laugh, dispersing his ill-humour.

‘Never tell me you’re going to beard Granny Praule in her den?’ he guffawed. ‘She’ll eat a good-looking young fellow like you alive. You’d never think it to see her now, but she was the prettiest girl in these parts, and for miles around, when she was in her prime. I can remember my father saying that when he was a lad, she was the toast of every tavern between here and Plymouth. She finds it hard to forget those days, and to accept that time hasn’t dealt favourably with her. But if you’re set on going, you’ll find her in the last cottage as you go up the hill towards the Lazar House.’ I thanked him, and we parted with mutual goodwill and the promise of seeing one another again before I left Totnes.