I noted a predatory gleam in his eye. If such things could turn out so for one family, why not for another? If his lady really were a widow, there might be hope for him yet.
I got reluctantly to my feet. The warmth of the fire was pleasant and I had no wish to leave it, but I had to be on my way. Roused from the contemplation of a rosy future, the steward turned his head, becoming once again aware of my existence.
‘You’re going? You’ll be sleeping in a ditch tonight,’ he added, not without a certain satisfaction. ‘Curfew’s past. The city gates will be shut.’
I smiled maliciously. ‘Oh, there are ways and means of getting into a town after dark, if you know them. Then one only has to avoid the Watch…‘ I winked conspiratorially.
His thin face assumed a prim expression. Plainly he felt that one who had so nearly embraced the religious life should be above breaking the law. He asked: ‘What have you decided with my lady?’
‘I’ve promised her that I’ll try to discover what has happened to her husband, and send her word if I do.’
‘And what do you think are your chances?’
‘Of finding out the truth?’ I considered the question. ‘More, perhaps, than I thought when I made a similar promise to Alderman Weaver to try to find out what happened to his son. Now, at least, I feel that the Crossed Hands inn may be central to the mystery. It’s the place to begin my inquiries, at any rate.’
The steward nodded. ‘And what do you think are the chances that Sir Richard might still be alive?’
There was the sharp smell of a candle as it guttered and died. The shutters were still open to the warm night air, and I could see a thin, ragged slip of moon hanging low over the distant trees. ‘If you want my honest opinion, none,’ I answered, trying to ignore the sudden flicker of relief in the pale blue eyes. ‘I think he and Jacob Pender and Clement Weaver are all dead, but how, and by whose hand, I have as yet no idea.’
‘And motive?’ Robert asked. ‘What do you say to that?’
I hesitated, unwilling to commit myself, but with so little doubt in my own mind, I was forced to admit: ‘Robbery. Sir Richard was a wealthy man and Clement Weaver was carrying a large sum of money about his person.’
The steward frowned. ‘But surely you told me earlier that no one was aware of that fact, except his father. Not even his sister.’
I was suddenly very tired and my mind felt dull and stupid. I needed to forget this problem for a while and sleep. In any case, there was nothing further I could do now until I got to London. I determined to set out as early as I could the following morning, but before that, I wanted my bed and the spiritual refreshment of solitude. I lifted my stout ash stick from the floor where I had laid it.
‘I really must be on my way,’ I said. ‘I don’t know the answer to this puzzle yet, and I may never do so. Maybe your mistress would do better to place her reliance in the officers of the King, as would Alderman Weaver. Nevertheless, I shall do what I can and perhaps God will crown my endeavours with success.’
I held out my hand in farewell, but could see at once that I had affronted Robert’s dignity. He was a steward and did not shake the hand of a lowly chapman. It dawned on him, too, that for the last half-hour he had been talking to me as though I were his equal, and he shrank back in his chair as though contaminated. I let my arm sink slowly to my side again, not bothering to disguise my contempt. He did at least get to his feet and summoned the boy to show me out, but that was to ensure that the house was properly locked and barred after my departure.
I made my way along the track, dimly discernible in the darkness, swinging my cudgel vigorously to discourage attacks from lurking footpads or other prowlers. I was glad to shake the dust of Tuffnel Manor from my feet. Apart from Bess, I had formed no favourable opinion of its inmates and thought it an unhappy household. That did not mean, however, that I would do less than my best to discover what had happened to Sir Richard and Jacob Pender.
I learned much later that had I waited another twenty-four hours in Canterbury, I should have seen King Edward and Queen Elizabeth, together with many of their courtiers, on yet another visit to St Thomas’s shrine. (With hindsight, I should guess that the King’s conscience was troubling him over the necessary death of his cousin and enemy, the late King Henry.) Even so, there was much talk of the royal family among a group of pilgrims returning to London, with whom I travelled the last part of the way. And once again I heard the name of Lady Anne Neville.
The pilgrims were poor and on foot, like myself, and I had fallen in with them some six or seven miles outside the capital. I had spent a congenial morning discussing with a priest from Southwark William of Ockham’s theory that faith and logic could never be reconciled, and that therefore ecclesiastical authority was the sole basis for religious belief.
‘If faith and reason have nothing in common,’ I argued, ‘then God can literally move mountains. Reason tells me that it cannot be done, but William of Ockham insisted that belief is not rational. Yet that means that religion is beyond logic and not subject to the laws which govern nature. I find that difficult to accept.’
‘But, my son, you must believe in the miracles of Christ,’ my companion protested, shocked, ‘and in the absolute authority of Mother Church.’
I grinned. ‘So I have often been told, Father, but somehow or other, there are always too many questions to which I can find no satisfactory answers.’
A silence succeeded my words while the priest marshalled his forces to deal with this Doubting Thomas. And in the quiet, I caught snatches of a conversation in progress behind me between two women, who, I had decided in my own mind, were mother and daughter. They looked sufficiently like one another to give credence to this theory.
‘… Lady Anne Neville,’ the younger woman was saying, and immediately the name attracted my attention. Once more, I was back in Bristol, watching that unhappy child ride along Corn Street. ‘It’s common gossip that the Duke of Clarence doesn’t want his brother to marry her because it will mean the division of the late Earl’s estates. As husband to the elder daughter, he hopes to get them all. Or as many of them as he legally can.’
‘A downright wicked shame,’ her mother answered warmly. ‘It wasn’t my lord of Gloucester who deserted King Edward in his hour of need.’
‘Oh, the King intends Duke Richard to have Lady Anne, you may be sure of that. But amicably, if possible, with my lord of Clarence’s and Duchess Isabel’s full consent.’
The girl spoke with that assurance I have frequently noticed among the very poor when talking of royal affairs.
And indeed, more often than not, time and events prove them correct. I have pondered the reason for this, and have come to the conclusion that it is because their own existences are so uninteresting and drab that they live vicariously through others more glamorous than themselves. They look and watch and listen, hoarding scraps of information as some of their fellows hoard money, assessing, interpreting and making valid judgements.
‘It would be a good match,’ the older woman agreed, ‘and please the people. Please themselves as well, no doubt, for they’ve been friends since childhood, and that’s a fact. Brought up together in the North, and always intended for one another by her father…’
I could overhear no more. The priest was speaking again, invoking the teachings of St Augustine in his argument and desperately trying to convince me that obedience was all. I answered randomly, letting him think that he had won our battle of words, too excited now to think of anything but that I was at last within a mile or so of London, that city whose streets were reputedly paved with gold, and which had seen the making and the breaking of so many better men than I. According to my informants who had been there, it was so much bigger, dirtier, noisier, wickeder, more beautiful, more exciting, more interesting than anywhere else in England — some people said than anywhere else in Europe — that my heart was beating almost suffocatingly in anticipation. And towards evening, with the sky trailing great ragged banners of blood-red, amethyst and flame, when the distant trees netted the final rays of the sun and seemed to catch fire from within, I saw London for the very first time, lying like a smudged thumb- mark on the horizon. Somewhere inside those walls lay the answer to the riddle of Clement Weaver’s and Sir Richard Mallory’s disappearance. Whether or not it would ever be solved was now up to me.