The Burgundian’s Tale

I rubbed my nose nervously. ‘Well, to begin with, may I ask where you were on the night of May Day or the early hours of the following morning, when the young man was killed?’

‘That’s simple. I was home here, in bed with my husband. He’ll vouch for the fact.’

Of course he would, just as she would vouch for him. A wasted question but, all the same, one that had had to be asked.

‘Did you like Fulk?’

She shrugged. ‘I neither liked nor disliked him. He was Judith’s nephew. A pleasant enough lad, prettily behaved, respectful to his elders. He had more to do with my son than with me. You must ask Brandon about him. Fulk was young enough to have been my son.’

Her last remark was more revealing than she had intended, containing as it did an undertone of bitterness.

‘Did he find you attractive?’

Lydia glanced up sharply, then laughed again, but this time it was a high-pitched, artificial tinkle.

‘Dear saints, of course not! I told you: I was old enough to be his mother.’

There it was again – that insistence on the difference in their ages. I ignored it. ‘Was your husband jealous?’

She tossed her embroidery frame angrily to one side, missing the table and letting it fall among the rushes. ‘Don’t you listen to anything I say? He was my son’s friend, not mine.’

‘Even so,’ I urged, ‘you must have formed some opinion of his character other than that his manners and general address were good. What was he really like, underneath, do you think?’

I could see her struggling with herself for several seconds – women, whatever she maintained, are just as easy to read as men on occasions – but whatever it was she had in mind to tell me, prudence eventually won. She managed to smile.

‘Fulk naturally had his own interests at heart; what young man of eighteen does not? One could hardly blame him for taking advantage of Judith’s infatuation.’

‘Did you and Master Jolliffe approve of Mistress St Clair’s decision to make him her sole heir?’

Lydia picked up the discarded embroidery frame and continued with her stitching. ‘Roland and I neither disapproved nor approved. It was not our business.’

Very commendable, but not what Judith St Clair had told me. I wondered what the Jolliffes had really said to one another in the privacy of the marital bed, and to their neighbours.

‘But you must have had some feelings about Fulk’s stealing Mistress Alcina’s affection away from your son.’

Once again there was that hesitation while she decided what to say; and once again she decided to lie. ‘Whatever you may have been told, Master Chapman, there was never anything settled in the way of a betrothal between Brandon and Alcina. If anything, he was less fond of her than she of him. They were friends. Something might have come of that friendship eventually, who can tell? But somehow, I doubt it. Brandon is a very good-looking boy. He can have his pick of any girl in London.’

I accepted this. Who was I to argue with a mother’s fond delusion? Instead, I asked abruptly, ‘Do you happen to know where your son was on the night Fulk Quantrell was murdered?’

She gave me a quelling stare. ‘My son is twenty years old: I am not his keeper. However, I imagine he was drinking in some tavern or other, probably the Bull in Fish Street, which seemes to be his usual haunt. And most likely with Jocelyn St Clair. But you must ask him.’

‘Can you or your husband confirm the time he came home?’

‘No, of course not! Did your mother know what time you got in at night when you were that age?’

When I had been twenty, my mother had not been long dead, and I had just abandoned my novitiate at Glastonbury Abbey and was busy making my way in the world in my new trade of peddling. But I naturally did not burden Mistress Jolliffe with this personal history. Instead, I enquired, ‘Did you know that Fulk Quantrell and your son had come to blows during the morning’s maying expedition? According to young Master St Clair it was about Alcina. Master Jolliffe accused Fulk of stealing her away from him.’

I saw anger and something else – something akin to fear – flash in and out of Lydia’s eyes. But she replied with creditable calm, ‘That’s the first I’ve heard of it. Mind you, you shouldn’t believe everything Jocelyn tells you. He was hoping – maybe he still is now that Fulk is dead – to fix his interest with Alcina himself. It would certainly please his father if he did.’