‘You must have some refreshment before you go,’ the older woman insisted, and led the way to the kitchen. ‘Bridget, my dear, fetch the chapman some ale.’
But when it came, it was sallop, a ‘poor man’s ale’, made from wild arum. Bridget Weaver was not such a fool as to waste the real thing on a pedlar. The two women drank an infusion of calamint, which my mother had been fond of, swearing by it as a cure for coughs and the ague. They did not offer me a seat, and I stood towering above them, as they sat at the kitchen table. Neither of them offered to buy anything from me.
I was still drinking my sallop when a swarthy, thickset young man entered the kitchen. He bore more than a passing resemblance to Alderman Weaver, so I had no difficulty in placing him as one of the nephews. And as he stooped and gave Bridget a smacking kiss, I guessed him to be her husband. My presence, of course, entailed further explanations, which to my relief were given by Dame Alice. I felt that if I had had to repeat my story again, I should have gone mad.
When she had finished, the young man, whose name I had learned was George, grunted and pulled down the corners of his mouth.
‘Uncle Alfred’s a fool,’ he said, not mincing matters. ‘Clement’s dead. If he wasn’t, we should have heard by now.’ He turned to his mother. ‘Father and Edmund sent me to tell you that they won’t be home for their dinner. There’s trouble among the weavers over at Portsoken. They want more money. They say the cost of bread is rising. They’re talking of sending a deputation to the King, to remind him that he promised to control the price of food this coming winter.’
I remembered what the Canon of Bridlington had written in the previous century: it had been a favourite quotation of our Novice Master at Glastonbury. ‘Any attempt to control prices is contrary to reason. Fecundity and dearth are in the power of God alone, so it follows that the fruitfulness of the soil, and not the ordinances of men, will determine the cost of our goods’ I had always felt that this was a little unfair, making God responsible for our problems.
Bridget said: ‘They’re always making trouble. They want a good whipping. Is there any news from the city?’ George shrugged his big shoulders. ‘Only the same gossip that’s been rife for the past few weeks. The Duke of Gloucester wants to marry Anne Neville and the Duke of Clarence says he shan’t. And the King tries to keep the peace between them.’
‘Heaven alone knows why.‘ Mistress Weaver threw up her hands. ‘He owes the Duke of Clarence nothing.’ These were much the same sentiments as I had heard expressed by my pilgrim friends two days earlier. Interest in the King and his family seemed a popular pastime here in London.
I put my empty mazer down on the table and said quietly: ‘Thank you. I must take my leave now.’
Mistress Weaver and the other two, who had been momentarily diverted, suddenly recollected my presence. Bridget said: ‘I’m sorry we were not of more help.’
I smiled regretfully, but I had not really expected to gain any further information from them. The truth of the matter lay where it had always lain, at the Crossed Hands inn. I was still convinced that that was where I should discover the truth about Clement Weaver. And about Sir Richard Mallory and his servant, Jacob Pender.
By dinner-time my pack was almost empty and I retraced my steps to the city and East Cheap, where the butchers and cookshops plied their trade. There were also fishmongers selling baked as well as fresh cod and mackerel, salmon and trout, and I wandered happily among all this abundance of fare, wondering what to buy first. In some of the shops the owners stood in the entrance, darting out to pluck me and other passers-by by the sleeve, urging us to sample what was on offer. On one occasion I saw a small man lifted bodily off his feet and carried forcefully across to a pie-stall. His little legs, in their parti-coloured hose and long leather boots, kicked unavailingly against his captor.
I strolled across and tapped the pieman on the shoulder. ‘Release him,‘ I said quietly, but at the same time clenching one of my hands into a fist.
The pieman hesitated while he looked me up and down. My size, however, evidently decided him. Reluctantly, and with a muttered oath, he set the man on his feet again and moved away, casting around him for his next victim.
The little man smoothed down his tunic, trying to appear dignified, but only succeeding in looking extremely ruffled.
‘Thank you, my good man,‘ he said. ‘I am much obliged to you.’
‘My pleasure,’ I answered. I noticed for the first time that his tunic was embroidered with the crest of the White Boar and the motto ‘Loyauté me lie-Loyalty binds me.’ Memory stirred. Those, surely, were the crest and motto of the Duke of Gloucester.
‘May I offer you a cup of ale at the Greyhound?‘ he went on, indicating one of East Cheap’s many hostelries.
‘If you’ll allow me to buy some pasties to go with it.’ My stomach was rumbling so hard I was sure he must have heard it.
He gave no indication of having done so, however, merely inclining his head with a kingly gesture and waiting patiently until I had made my purchase. I had always heard that the nobles’ servants were often grander than their masters, which accounted for so many of them being nicknamed ‘King’ or ‘Prince’ or ‘Bishop’. I followed him into the ale-room of the Greyhound, and was amused to notice that, once the ale was ordered, he tucked me away in a corner, where we should be unnoticed. He had no wish to be seen by his cronies and fellow servants in the company of a chapman. Only gratitude had prompted his gesture.
I ate my pasties, one of which he fastidiously declined, unperturbed by his obvious embarrassment. Conversation was difficult at first, but after a while the ale began to loosen his tongue. By the time we had both drunk our second cup he was becoming, if not garrulous, then very confidential. And when we had downed a third cup he was telling me things which I was certain he shouldn’t.
‘Such a to-do this morning,’ he confided, tapping the side of his nose with a delicate forefinger. ‘My lord — my lord of Gloucester, that is, ‘ he added, in case I was ignorant of the significance of the badge on his tunic, ‘ arrives at his brother the Duke of Clarence’s house with a demand to see Lady Anne. Lady Anne Neville, the late Earl of Warwick’s daughter.’
‘I know,’ I said, unable to resist airing my knowledge. ‘I saw her last spring in Bristol, riding down Corn Street with Queen Margaret.’
My acquaintance looked scandalized. ‘The Lady Margaret of Anjou,‘ he corrected me in admonitory accents. ‘You must never refer to her nowadays as the Queen.’ He put his head on one side, consideringly. ‘That must have been before the battle of Tewkesbury.’
‘A few days before,’ I agreed.
‘Well,’ he continued, lowering his voice to an even more confidential whisper, ‘since then she’s been staying with my lord of Clarence and his wife. The Duchess Isobel is her sister.‘ Again I nodded, and again he appeared a little crestfallen by the extent of this country bumpkin’s knowledge. ‘My lord of Gloucester wants to many her. Naturally. They were childhood sweethearts years ago when my lord was an apprentice knight in Warwick’s household at Middleham. But the Duke of Clarence, who‘s inherited all his late father-in-law’s estates in right of his wife, can’t bear the thought of parting with half of them.’ ‘Understandably,’ I interrupted.
The little man snorted disparagingly. ‘He shouldn’t have got anything at all, if you want my opinion, not after betraying his brothers like he did and supporting King Henry.’ I wondered idly why it was all right to refer to ‘King’ Henry but not ‘Queen’ Margaret, but I held my peace. The politics of those days were extremely complicated. My acquaintance continued: ‘Anyway, my lord appealed to the King, and the King told brother George that he was not to interfere with brother Richard’s courtship, especially as Lady Anne herself seemed anxious for the marriage. So-’ the little man leaned towards me across the table, his pale eyes gleaming with suppressed excitement, his breath stinking with ale, fanning my cheek- ‘this morning as ever was, we ride out to call on Lady Anne. But when we get to my lord of Clarence’s house, what do you think has happened?’