Alison Weaver sipped her ale and fingered the coral rosary around her wrist. ‘I don’t know where to begin,’ she said.
‘Begin with your journey to London. There’s nothing much to tell before that.’
Marjorie, I thought, spoke with unnecessary sharpness, but looking at her, I could see that she was upset. Clement Weaver had probably been her favourite; less imperious, perhaps, than his acid-tongued sister. I had a mental picture of a sweet, soft-spoken boy, deeply affected by his mother’s death.
Alison nodded, sipped more ale, then resumed her former position, elbows on the table, chin propped between her hands. ‘It was before Christmas, last year,’ she began, ‘around All Hallowstide …’
She had recently become betrothed to William Burnett, the son of another of Bristol’s Aldermen and a fellow member of the Weavers’ Guild. The Burnetts, I gathered, were even more well-to-do than the Weavers themselves, owning up to a hundred looms in the suburb of Redcliffe and claiming kinship with a nobleman who lived in the village of Burnett, some miles outside the city. It was an alliance, therefore, to gratify the one family more than the other, and Alderman Weaver was determined that no expense should be spared on arrangements for the wedding. In particular, his daughter’s bride-clothes should be the best that money could buy and Bristol merchants were deemed unworthy of providing the necessary materials. Alison was despatched to London, in the company of Clement, to stay with her uncle and aunt, the Alderman’s brother and his wife. John Weaver, also employed in the cloth trade, had elected many years previously, on the occasion of his marriage, to try his fortune in the capital and was now, it seemed, nearly as rich — although, gratifyingly, not quite as rich-as his elder brother. He and his wife lived in the ward of Farringdon Without, which, so Alison informed me, taking pity of my self-confessed ignorance of London and its byways, included Smithfield cattle-market, the Priory of St Bartholomew and the Temple and its gardens, which ran down to the River Fleet. It was, moreover, within easy reach of the Portsoken ward, where the weavers had their dwellings.
‘You were both to stay with your uncle and aunt?’ I queried, when Alison paused for a moment. ‘Both you and your brother?’
But this, apparently, was not the case. John Weaver and his wife, Dame Alice, had two grown sons, one of whom was married and had not yet left home to set up on his own.
Although a truckle bed could therefore be offered to Alison, there was no room for Clement. He was to lodge, as the Alderman himself did when in the capital, at the sign of the Baptist’s Head in Crooked Lane, off Thames Street; an inn owned and run by his old friend from Bristol, Thomas Prynne.
‘You remember, I told you,’ Marjorie said with a nudge, ‘he was landlord of the Running Man before he decided to try his luck in London.’
I recollected and nodded. ‘You were reluctant to recommend the inn now that Thomas Prynne is no longer there.’
‘A good man,’ Marjorie confirmed. ‘Greatly liked and very much missed in Bristol. He and the Alderman were close friends. They grew up together in Bedminster village. ‘
Alderman Weaver had plainly outstripped his boyhood companion and, by the same token, was a self-made man, not the heir of inherited wealth as his children were. Children? Or child? I glanced again at Alison, which prompted her to continue.
‘As I was saying-’ here she darted a look at the housekeeper as though resentful of being interrupted — ‘ Clement was to stay at the Baptist’s Head.‘ She conceded: ‘Marjorie’s right about Thomas Prynne. My father has known him all his life. When we were little, Clement and I used to call him Uncle Thomas, although my mother objected. She was a de Courcy, you see.’ She spoke as if this explained everything, as in some ways it did. The name indicated descent from the old Norman aristocracy, and the Alderman, on his way up, had no doubt considered such a marriage advantageous. I wondered idly how much dowry the lady had brought him. I suspected little. My guess was an impoverished family with pretensions, but fallen on hard times, forced to ally itself with ‘new’ money. I speculated on the probable happiness of such a union. Alison continued, recapturing my wandering attention: ‘Father would never let Clement stay anywhere else in London. And especially not on that occasion. It was absolutely necessary that my brother should lodge with someone he could trust.’
I took another gulp of ale. ‘Why?’ I asked, although I could already guess the answer.
Alison Weaver twisted the black and gold cramp ring on her finger. ‘He was carrying a great deal of money on him, money for me to buy my bride-clothes with.’
‘How much?’ I asked, forgetting in my eagerness for details that I was a lowly chapman and she the daughter of an Alderman. I felt Marjorie kick me under the table.
Alison, however, was too wrapped up in her story to notice my impertinence, or to make anything of it if she did. She must, during the past months, have gone over and over the events in her mind.
‘A hundred pounds,’ she said in an awed voice. ‘One hundred and fifty marks. Some of it, mind you, was for payment to the Easterlings at the Steelyard. My father told me afterwards that he had unintentionally overcharged them for a consignment of cloth and had instructed Clement to reimburse them while he was in London.’
‘A great sum of money for a young man to be carrying.‘ Marjorie interrupted. ‘It was asking for trouble if you want my opinion.’
‘Nobody does!‘ her mistress replied tartly. ‘And in any case, no one knew how much he was carrying, not even me. There was no reason for anyone to suspect that he had such an amount about his person.’
‘Footpads and thieves,’ I pointed out gently, ‘take their chances. Anything and everything is grist to their mill. Two marks are as much worth stealing as twenty. And if the haul turns out to be a large one, that’s simply their good fortune.’
‘Precisely what I said!’ Marjorie nodded sagely. ‘I only wish I’d known how much money the Alderman had entrusted to Master Clement. I should have tried to talk him out of it, or persuaded him to go himself. A young man on his own, carrying a purseful of gold, is asking for trouble! And in an evil city like London!’
Alison jumped to her feet, the hazel eyes blazing. The green flecks seemed to disappear, swamped by her anger.
‘Shut up, Marjorie! Shutup! It’s easy enough to be wise after the event.’
I felt this to be a little unfair. Marjorie, had she been in possession of all the facts, would, according to her own account, have been wise before the event, and whatever had happened to Clement Weaver might have been prevented. I agreed silently with her that the Alderman had been foolish, and in consequence felt obliged to take her part.
‘I have heard,’ I offered tentatively, ‘that London is a very dangerous place.’ I noticed that since we had begun talking, the light had changed. Through the open kitchen door, the trees and distant rooftops, visible above the garden wall, were painted with sudden sharp brilliance against a sky which had faded from blue to pearl-grey. The day which had been so fine, would end in rain, and as though to confirm this impression, from far off came a faint rumble of thunder. I made to rise again. ‘I should be on my way. I have my living to make and lodgings to find before the storm breaks.’
Alison turned her small, neat head in my direction. ‘Sit down,’ she ordered. ‘You haven’t heard the end of the story.’ She added on a suddenly fretful note: ‘Don’t you want to?’
‘Very much.’ And that was the truth. ‘It’s just that I’ve sold nothing today beyond the ribbon you bought off me. I need money if I’m to sleep dry and safe tonight and not under a hedge.’