‘Mm, I imagine you’ve got it about right.’ Josse mastered his dislike and leaned companionably against the neighbouring piece of wall. ‘I suppose King Richard’s clemency isn’t going down very well hereabouts, then? Not now this brutal murder has happened?’
‘I don’t know nothing about no King Richard,’ the man said. ‘King Henry, now, he did all right, and his Queen’s a lovely woman. Pity it’s not still the pair of them holding the reins, that’s what I say.’
‘They speak highly of King Richard.’
‘Who does?’ the man responded. ‘Nobody knows aught about him. Not round here, anyway. You ask anybody’ — he made a wide gesture, as if to embrace the entire population of the tap room — ‘he’s an unknown quantity, that’s what he is!’
‘Matthew’s right,’ said a newcomer waiting to be served. There were several nods and grunts of agreement from nearby drinkers. ‘It’s all very well for Queen Eleanor to set off round the country telling us what a fine king he’s going to be, and I don’t blame her for that, him being her son and all.’
‘God bless Queen Eleanor,’ someone said, and there were several equally loyal and laudable echoes.
‘But seems to me this here hasn’t really been thought through.’ The newcomer put his head closer to Josse, as if afraid unfriendly ears would overhear. ‘Now there’s no proof, and I’m not one to condemn a man before he’s even been tried, but-’
‘Before he’s even been arrested,’ put in another voice, greeted by a few brief eruptions of laughter.
‘- but it’s suspicious, like, isn’t it? Nice peaceful community up there in Hawkenlye, no trouble, no violence, for more years than you could count, then all of a sudden the doors of every jail in the land get flung open, and some nun minding her own business, no threat to nobody, gets raped and murdered, throat cut from ear to ear like a slaughtered pig!’ He folded his arms as if his conclusion were inarguable. ‘I mean, who else would want to kill a nun?’
Who indeed, Josse thought. ‘Surely it’s not a bad thing for a new king, and, as you imply, one who’s rather an unknown quantity, to begin his reign with a gesture of clemency?’ he suggested, testing the water. ‘A very Christian gesture, at that. Didn’t Our Lord, after all, condemn those who didn’t visit those who were sick and in prison?’
One or two of the more pious among the company crossed themselves, and someone muttered, ‘Amen’.
‘Visiting’s one thing,’ a new voice said darkly. ‘Ain’t sensible, even for a Christian, to go letting ’em all out.’
‘And it’s hardly fair on us,’ said the plump woman who had let Josse his room, appearing behind the counter and beginning to fill a vast jug with ale. ‘Us women, I mean. We won’t lie safe in our beds at night knowing this villain’s abroad! Who’s going to be next?’ She stared round the room with wide eyes, as if afraid some murdering rapist was about to leap out at her. ‘That’s what I say!’
‘He’d have to be desperate,’ someone behind Josse muttered, too quietly for the woman to pick up. Several men standing close heard, however, and there were a few sniggers.
‘He’d have to find it first,’ came a hoarse whisper. ‘Be a case of fart and give me a clue, I reckon.’
‘Be a well-travelled path when he did get there,’ someone else added. ‘Dear old Goody Anne, she didn’t earn herself the money for this place by sewing fine seams or peddling her wares in Tonbridge Market.’
‘She peddled them behind Tonbridge Market,’ the original speaker said. ‘On her back in the bushes!’
Josse joined in with the general laughter. Anne couldn’t have been totally unaware of the ribaldry, and she didn’t seem to mind. Maybe the respectable trade of innkeeper which she now practised hadn’t entirely ousted the odd foray into her former profession. He glanced at her. She was still comely, even if she was a little on the large side. Good luck to her, either way.
He drew back from the counter and found a place on the bench that ran around three walls of the tap room. The evening’s company was quite well away now — it had, after all, been a hot and dusty day, and there was nothing like a draught of ale to soothe a rasping throat — and he listened to several conversations going on around him.
You would have thought, he reflected some time later, that there had never been a murder around here before. Surely it couldn’t be that rare an occurrence? Tonbridge was a busy place, always had been. The market attracted all sorts, and there was the river, and the main London road, going plumb through the town. And only a few miles away was the Wealden Forest, and, as everyone knew, there were all manner of odd goings on in there. Even Josse, whose youthful spells in England had been spent a score or so miles away, knew of the forest’s dark reputation. It was like all old places — its many former inhabitants had filled it with their own mysteries and legends, and nobody was prepared even to try to sort out fact from fiction.
Hawkenlye Abbey was on the fringes of the Wealden Forest. Were these men right, and was this murder simply a matter of a released criminal leaping on the first woman he came across, then fleeing into the sanctuary of the great tract of woodland?
Perhaps it was.
But passing judgement on that, Josse thought, is not what I’m here for. My job is to stop this whole sorry business tainting the start of King Richard’s reign.
And how I’m going to manage that, the good Lord alone knows.
* * *
He sat on for another hour, sipping at his ale, not wanting to fuddle his wits by ordering a refill. Tempting though it was — Goody Anne, whatever she did when the lamps were out and nobody was looking, knew how to keep her beer.
Eventually, the company began to disperse. Few were thoroughly drunk, but most had consumed enough to make them garrulous. And, depressingly from Josse’s point of view, few had a good word to say about the prospect of their new king.
How accurate an indicator was tap room gossip? Did it reflect what the population at large thought, or were more educated and thoughtful men reserving their judgement?
The thought provided a glimmer of hope, but, almost as soon as he’d come up with it, Josse dismissed it. There might very well be such wise and cautious men, yes, but they would undoubtedly be few in number. The great mass of the English people — the ones whom this whole exercise of Eleanor’s and Richard’s had been designed to impress — were represented by the men who had been there in the tap room tonight.
Josse turned from that depressing conclusion to a plan of action for the next day. Stay on here in Tonbridge, and ask around some more? But that might bring his presence and his interest to the notice of the Clares. Did he want that?
No. If he were to fulfil King Richard’s hopes, he ought to keep his head down. Work behind the scenes. Had Richard wanted a public investigation, he wouldn’t have given the task to an outsider like Josse, he’d have sent word to the Clares to sort it out.
Josse put down his empty mug and got to his feet, nodding a goodnight to the few remaining drinkers. Climbing up to his room, he was relieved to find that the two other cots remained empty. He pulled off his boots and stripped off his clothes, slipping naked into bed and pulling up the light cover.