‘She’s married twice since my cousin died. Although, as far as I know, neither husband had, or has, much money.’
I paused to watch one of the girls do what, in the trade, is known as ‘pricking and pouncing’, (again, a term I got to know later). She laid a long, thin strip of parchment, on which was drawn a pattern of oak leaves and acorns, along the length of a silken girdle. Then, with her needle, she pricked the outline of the pattern on to the silk.
I looked up to see the dawning of suspicion in Lionel Broderer’s eyes.
‘Who are you?’ he asked for a second time. ‘You’re not from these parts.’
‘Somerset born and bred,’ I declared proudly. ‘Wells is my home town, but nowadays I live in Bristol.’
‘Married?’
‘A wife and three children.’
The embroiderer nodded. ‘Yes. You look leg-shackled.’ (I wished people would stop saying that!) ‘Now me – I’ve had the wit to remain single.’ But his tone held that hint of wistfulness I’ve often noticed in the unmarried when they boast of their untrammelled state. ‘Anyway,’ he continued more briskly, ‘you still haven’t replied to my question.’
‘I’ve told you who I am,’ I parried. ‘A chapman up from Somerset, peddling my wares around your glorious city. You can take a look in my pack if that will help to convince you.’
‘Oh, I’m not doubting your word. I just don’t think you’re telling me all the truth.’ He was quick on the uptake, this one, and a lot sharper than he looked.
‘Why would you think I’m hiding something?’
‘Because of the murder of my cousin’s nephew?’
He didn’t bother to lower his voice and I was aware of tension throughout the workshop. Nobody stopped working, but there was a deafening silence as though everyone had suddenly sprouted ten-foot-high ears.
Lionel Broderer went on, ‘You don’t look at all surprised by this information, Master Chapman, so can I assume that you knew it already?’
I stalled for time. ‘Why should I be surprised? People get murdered every day, especially in large towns and cities.’
‘So they do,’ he agreed affably. ‘But they don’t all have royal connections.’
I raised my eyebrows with what I hoped was an incredulous smile, but he wasn’t fooled for a minute.
‘My cousin’s nephew came here from Burgundy and was a great favourite of the Dowager Duchess – a lady due within London’s walls by this time tomorrow afternoon on a visit to her brother, King Edward. But I hardly think I’m telling you anything that you didn’t know before.’
‘A country pedlar? What should I know?’ I was still hedging.
Lionel Broderer sighed wearily. Then he produced a small key from his pouch, unlocked the metal box, dipped in his hand and let a shower of needle-thin gold discs cascade through his fingers. I recognized those discs. Each was pierced with a tiny hole near the rim, and they were used for sewing on clothes so that the garments shimmered as their wearers moved. Two years earlier I had seen ones just like them being made.
Something of my thoughts must have shown in my face because the embroiderer laughed and nodded. ‘That’s right! I bought these only yesterday from Miles Babcary’s shop in West Cheap. He naturally asked me about the murder, having an interest in it beyond the ordinary … Do I need to go on?’ I didn’t answer, so he continued with growing impatience, ‘Miles Babcary’s late wife was a cousin of Jane Shore, the King’s favourite mistress. Therefore, when Miles’s daughter was accused of murdering her husband, it could have proved embarrassing for everyone concerned. But the mystery was eventually resolved by a West Country pedlar working for His Grace, the Duke of Gloucester … You acknowledge the similarities, chapman? More than a coincidence that you’ve turned up here this afternoon, wouldn’t you say?’
I knew when I was beaten. As soon as Lionel mentioned the goldsmith, Miles Babcary, I accepted that further prevarication would be useless.
‘All right. I admit it. I am working on behalf of Duke Richard. He feels that his sister will want the killer of your cousin’s nephew found.’
‘And he’s brought you up from Bristol to discover him. Or her.’ The embroiderer locked the box again, returned the key to his pouch and regarded me without rancour or even dismay. ‘Why didn’t you say so from the first? Did you think I wouldn’t want this murderer caught? Until he is, I move, eat and sleep under a cloud of suspicion, along with all the rest of us who had good reason to wish Fulk Quantrell dead and buried.’
‘That’s honest.’
‘Why shouldn’t I be? I didn’t do it. I need to clear my name. It worried me when the Sheriff’s men made no further enquiries. Now I understand why. His Grace of Gloucester wanted someone he could trust to make them. Someone who would discover the truth.’
‘You flatter me,’ I said, but absently. I was watching him carefully, unable to decide if Lionel Broderer were an innocent or an exceedingly disingenuous man.
He shook his head. ‘Not if all Miles Babcary told me is true.’ He glanced about him, suddenly seeming aware of all his interested listeners. ‘We can’t talk here,’ he protested. ‘I live nearby, just opposite the workshop, with my mother. But she’s out at present. It’s only a step if you’d care to accompany me.’
I experienced a pang of conscience when I thought of Bertram, patiently awaiting me in the ale room of the Voyager, but came to the conclusion that it would do him no harm to learn his place. And he had, in some respect, been foisted on me.
The house Lionel Broderer shared with his widowed mother was a neat two-storeyed dwelling, between a draper’s on one side and an ironmonger’s on the other. What had once been a ground-floor shop had now been converted to an entrance hall and a kitchen. This allowed more room on the upper floor for a reasonably spacious parlour and two bedchambers, while a small yard at the back contained a lean-to privy and a flower border or two, surprisingly well maintained. A plot of earth planted with a wide variety of herbs suggested that Dame Broderer was fond of cooking, a fact to which the well-nourished body of her son could testify. Everywhere and everything indoors was swept and dusted, indicative of a tidy nature. Lionel might not be married, but in one respect he had no need to be; and as for the other, I had already, in a few hours, seen more whores touting for business on the streets of London than I saw in a week at home.
‘All that a bachelor could desire,’ I said, taking a proffered seat in the parlour after I had proudly been shown the rest of the house and garden. I reflected that my host had some womanish traits, probably the result of being the pampered only child of a doting mother. Or was that simply a blind, masking a more violent and passionate nature?
I refused his offer of wine. Some of the church bells were already beginning to toll for vespers, and there would be nothing much else to do after curfew except sample Reynold Makepeace’s ale. I might as well keep a clear head while I could.
‘What do you want to know?’ Lionel Broderer asked, settling himself in the parlour’s second armchair, opposite mine. (Good furniture, I noted admiringly, comparing it with my own somewhat ramshackle possessions. Whatever faults Judith St Clair might have, she had not stinted on her foreman’s wages.)
I recited as briefly as I could what I had learned from Timothy Plummer: the circumstances that had shaped the present household in the Strand, and also those which had brought Fulk Quantrell from Burgundy some months ahead of his royal mistress. ‘I was told that Mistress St Clair grew very fond of him.’
Lionel’s mouth had thinned to an almost invisible line. His face was bleak. ‘I’ve never seen anyone become so completely enslaved in so short a time. Oh, he was a handsome devil, all right. And it wasn’t just Judith who was a victim of his charm. All the women seemed to go down before him like ninepins. Alcina – that’s Alcina Threadgold, Judith’s stepdaughter from her second marriage – was as good as betrothed to Brandon Jolliffe, but once she’d clapped eyes on Fulk, poor old Brandon thought himself lucky if she so much as gave him the time of day.’ Lionel spoke with a bitterness that made me eye him suspiciously. Did he harbour secret feelings for Alcina?