I walked up the hill, Hercules trotting at my heels, both of us a little somnolent in spite of the cold. I paused some distance from the Rawbone holding in order to survey it, ignoring the dog’s impatient bark (he wanted to go rabbiting). The farmhouse was a substantial two-storey building of grey Cotswold stone, slate-roofed, much bigger than it appeared from further down the slope. A number of sheep were grazing the winter pasture, and I saw that each animal’s fleece was marked with a red saltire cross, evidently the mark of the Rawbone family, and giving strangers notice that the sheep belonged to them. (I later learned that the pigment used was red raddle, the same as is employed for murals in our churches.) I recognized the shepherd boy who was keeping a watchful eye on the flock, his stick in his hand, his dog circling round him, as Billy Tyrrell, the lad who had been in the alehouse the previous evening. I called to him and he came to greet me, glad of anything to relieve his boredom.
‘Hello, chapman! What are you doing here?’
‘Dame Jacquetta wants to buy some of my goods. Where shall I find her?’
‘Follow me,’ he said importantly, and, instructing his dog to keep watch over the sheep, and requesting me to keep Hercules under control, he led the way towards the farm.
At the back of the house I could see the sheds where they rolled the fleeces and weighed the wool after the summer shearing. The pigsty and cow-byre were both much smaller, suggesting to me that these animals were kept solely for domestic purposes. Sheep, and sheep alone, were the Rawbones’ source of wealth, as they were of most farmers in the Cotswolds. Billy Tyrrell led me to the rear of the house, where he opened a door, then bade me a cheery goodbye before returning to his charges.
The fierce, strong-smelling heat of the kitchen almost overpowered me as I entered. The stone floor beneath my feet sweated with damp and the lime-washed walls, darkened by age and smoke, were here and there encrusted with lichen. There was one small window with its shutters half closed and, peering through the dreary half-light, I could just make out the bins of corn and meal, and the pendulous shapes of hams and other joints of meat hanging heavily from the ceiling. When my eyes had grown accustomed to the gloom, I could see that there was a young girl busily making pastry at a central table.
Without glancing up from her work, she demanded, ‘And what do you want?’
‘Mistress Rawbone asked me to call,’ I answered mildly. ‘I’m a chapman.’ I indicated the pack on my back. ‘She’s in need of buttons.’
The girl did look up at that, her thin, plain face sharpening with interest. But all she said was, ‘Which Mistress Rawbone? The older or the younger? Jacquetta or Petronelle?’
‘The older. Dame Jacquetta.’
‘Right. Come with me.’ She wiped her floury hands down the sides of her skirt, but hesitated before leading the way to the inner door. She nodded at Hercules, tucked under my arm. ‘You’d better leave that thing here. I’ll look after him for you. She ain’t keen on strange animals.’
Much as I resented Hercules being called a thing, I took the girl’s advice and put him on the floor near the kitchen fire with instructions to stay there until I returned. He gave me a malevolent stare, but he was getting used to my disappearances and settled down, head on paws, with nothing more than a disgruntled sigh. I nodded to my guide and followed her through the door into the passageway beyond where there were still more doors, presumably opening into still room and larder, buttery and pantry. One was half-open and as I passed, I caught the glitter of polished surfaces and a glimpse of milk jugs and great, curving bowls for the making of cream. The Rawbones lived well, off the fat of the land.
The passage ran at right angles to another, but the kitchen maid stepped straight across this second one and knocked on a door immediately opposite the opening to the first. While she was waiting for an answer, I took a swift glance around. To my left, a flight of stairs rose steeply upwards to the second floor; to my right, the second passage, shorter than the one behind me, was faintly illumined by a window of oiled parchment at the further end. There was sufficient light, however, to show me where one of the flagstones had been raised by means of a large iron ring, and as I watched, a plump woman came panting up from the cellar, holding in her arms two very dusty leather bottles which she set down on the floor before heaving herself up after them.
‘That’s the last time I’m doing that,’ she announced breathlessly to no one in particular. ‘If he wants wine in future, he’ll just have to wait until one of the men can go down to fetch it.’ She saw me and her eyebrows shot up. ‘Who are you? Ruth! Who is this stranger?’
Before I could reply, Ruth had knocked on the door for a second time and a voice had called, ‘Come in.’ My guide pushed it wide and said, ‘The chapman, Mistress,’ jerking her head to indicate that I should enter and flattening herself against the door jamb. I smiled my thanks and went in.
I was in the main hall of the house, a room that the family used for eating, judging by the long oaken table in the centre and by the benches shoved back against the walls on either side. Three large bronze candlesticks, supporting three fat candles, stood in the middle of the board – they had already been lit because of the overcast morning. A fire blazed in the vast fireplace set in one wall, an armchair drawn up beside it. There were a couple of wooden chests, whose flat tops meant that they could be used as extra seats as well as for storage, and some scarlet cushions scattered on the broad ledge of a window that, by my reckoning, looked out over the approach to the farmhouse. I was unable to verify this as the shutters were half closed, diminishing the daylight still further. Finally, there was a second door in the wall to the left of me which I guessed led into a smaller, snugger parlour.
Jacquetta Rawbone heaved herself out of the chair, seized her stick, which had been resting against one of its arms, and limped towards me.
‘You’re late,’ she snapped. ‘I was expecting you half an hour ago at least. I suppose those Lilywhite women detained you with their chatter.’
‘No,’ I said, unstrapping my pack and beginning to spread the contents over the table. ‘In fact, I find the younger Mistress Lilywhite rather quiet.’
Jacquetta snorted, but didn’t contradict me. ‘Not so her mother-in-law, though, I’ll be bound. As nosy as they’re made, that creature. A trouble-maker!’ She started to examine my store of buttons, picking them up and putting them down again with her elegant, bony fingers.
‘I wouldn’t know about that,’ I answered. ‘I haven’t known her long enough to form an opinion.’
My companion shot me a shrewd look from her deep-set eyes.
‘Do you seriously mean to tell me that you’ve spent a whole evening and morning in Theresa’s company and not heard all about the unhappy connection between our two families? Don’t bother denying it. I’m not that gullible, chapman.’
‘I wasn’t going to deny it,’ I retorted, directing her attention to a set of very pretty ivory buttons that I had bought from a ship moored at the Gloucester wharves, whose captain and crew had just returned from a long voyage to the east. ‘And a very interesting story I found it. To be honest, I was going to mention it if you hadn’t done so first. I’d be interested to know your version of events.’
Jacquetta pushed the buttons to one side, signifying that she would buy them, and turned to the pile of laces, testing their strength by jerking them hard between her hands and carefully inspecting their metal tags.
‘Those boys, the twins,’ she grumbled, ‘they’re always breaking their laces, with the result that their breeches are either falling down round their ankles or their shirts are riding halfway up their backs. And their mother does nothing about it.’ The old lady spat into the rushes that covered the stone-flagged floor. ‘Well, if Petronelle doesn’t mind them going about the countryside looking like a couple of scarecrows, I do! I’ll take all the laces you’ve got left. And two dozen pins. That’s all then. What do I owe you?’ And she loosened the strings of a velvet purse attached to her girdle.