Similarly, I always hated the bleeding of horses that took place on that day. I know it was said to be good for the poor beasts in order to ensure their health and vitality throughout the coming year, but some owners rode their mounts almost to death before bleeding them, so that they would be too weak to resist. Burl Hodge, I knew, had always scorned this sensitivity in me and had once taunted me about being too ‘womanish’ for my own good. Indeed, I deplored my own squeamishness, but could do nothing about it.
There were, however, some enjoyable customs on the Feast of Stephen. As I have said, the lighting of the Yule log, making sure it burned steadily until Twelfth Night, was one, and sword dancing in the streets as well as the start of the mummers’ plays were others. All three older children were up and downstairs early to assist at the former ritual, and although none of them was allowed to put flame to the bed of straw and twigs, they nevertheless crowded close enough about the pair of us to make both Adela and myself apprehensive. But no one did anything foolish and eventually the Yule log itself caught alight, ready to be tended and cosseted for the next twelve days.
We heard Mass at St Stephen’s Church so that the children could gaze upon the statue of the martyred saint in all his glory, but I was very much afraid that their minds were more upon the coming afternoon’s entertainment than the service. As for the adult members of the congregation, there was little doubt where their interest lay. If I heard the whispered words ‘Alderman Trefusis’ and ‘Robert Trefusis’ once, I heard them a hundred times. At that point no word seemed to have got about concerning my connection to the crime, but by the afternoon, when we entered the outer ward of the castle for the mummers’ opening performance, everyone appeared to know.
Jack Nym, who had obviously been lying in wait for me at the end of the drawbridge, seized my arm the moment I was fairly under the portcullis.
‘What’s this story I hear about you finding Robert Trefusis’s body last night?’ he demanded. ‘Is it true?’
‘Yes,’ I answered wearily. ‘But it was purely accidental, I do assure you. I know no more about his death than you do.’
‘This man Dee they’re all talking about,’ he whispered confidentially, while gripping my arm in a painful squeeze. ‘There’s no one of that name in Redcliffe or anywhere else in the city that I know of. Mind you,’ he added on a dissatisfied note, ‘at this season of the year there are always a lot of strangers around visiting friends and kinfolk.’
We were joined by Burl Hodge, his cherubic countenance alight with a mixture of eagerness and envy. ‘Roger, I’ve just been told it was you who found the alderman’s body last night. Why is it,’ he demanded, echoing Adela’s words, ‘that this sort of thing always happens to you? You must be perpetually snooping.’ I ignored the jibe, so, having failed to draw blood, he continued, ‘This rumour that the dying man mentioned a name — Dee, was it? — is apparently false. I have it on good authority that Sir George utterly denies it.’
Jack looked disappointed but unsurprised. ‘Pity,’ he said gloomily. ‘But as I was just saying to Roger, there ain’t no one called that what I know of in the city.’
As the word had spread coupling my name with that of the dead man, a little crowd had gathered around me and my friends and I was now being pelted with questions from every butcher, baker and candlestick-maker demanding his curiosity be satisfied. After all, it was not every day that a city alderman was done to death in circumstances of such gruesome barbarity. And my involvement was enough to convince some people that another treasonable plot against our new king had been uncovered. I was quick to disabuse their minds of this notion, but whether or not I managed to convince them was another matter.
Fortunately, at this moment there was a fanfare of trumpets — well, one trumpet blown slightly off-key — the gates to the inner ward of the castle were thrown open and the mummers’ carts appeared. And a brave show they made, decked with coloured ribbons, holly and other evergreens, the banner of St George fluttering in the cold, wintry breeze.
There was a ragged cheer.
The first cart, the one which served as a stage, came to a halt in the middle of the crowd and there was a pause while the elderly couple, assisted by the man who I had guessed to be the brother of the pregnant woman, unfurled a canvas backdrop of badly painted meadows, trees and a distant castle. This they fixed between two poles at the back of the ‘stage’, and then the youngest man, dressed as the saint, came forward to introduce the cast of characters.
‘Friends! Good people of Bristol!’ Loud and prolonged cheering. ‘My name is Tobias Warrener and I take the part of Saint George. My wife, Dorcas’ — the young girl was helped up on to the cart — ‘is the Fair Maiden I must rescue from the terrible, fierce Dragon, played by my wife’s brother, Master Arthur Monkton.’ The man who had helped with the scenery came forward and bowed to a chorus of good-natured booing. ‘My grandmother, Mistress Tabitha Warrener, will take the part of the Turkish Knight’ — he indicated the elderly woman who wore a turban and flowing eastern robes — ‘while the Doctor’ — screams of delighted laughter from the crowd — ‘is brought to life by our very good friend, Ned Chorley.’
The man with the missing fingers and scarred eye made his bow with a flourish, then stepped back into the semicircle formed by his fellow players and the performance finally started. I wondered if I was the only person who had noted how the old man’s eyes had raked the crowd as though searching for someone in particular. Or had that just been my fancy?
The play proceeded. St George killed the Dragon, who died writhing in agony to ecstatic cheering, but was then challenged by the Turkish Knight, who killed him in his turn and ran off with the Fair Maiden. This, of course, was the cue for the entrance of the Doctor, whose appearance was greeted with gales of laughter in anticipation of his comic monologue and antics. Adam found the character so funny that, at one point, he was in danger of choking, but after a hearty backslapping from every member of his family — so hearty on the part of Nicholas and Elizabeth that he became belligerent and threatened to retaliate in kind — he recovered sufficiently to enjoy the rest of the performance. The Doctor produced his miracle cure, St George sprang back to life and rescued the Fair Maiden, slaying the wicked Turkish Knight in the process, and then everyone, ‘dead’ and living alike, went into the final dance. This, despite its lack of musical accompaniment, was so successful, and so rapturously received, that a second and third reel was called for, while the undoubted comic talents of the maimed old man playing the Doctor were applauded to the echo. The crowd was loth to let them go even then, and it was not until the two younger men had performed a sword dance and a jig that people began looking anxiously at the sky, muttering reluctantly that it was time to be moving.
The performance, with all its encores, had taken longer than anyone had bargained for and, while we had been watching, the sky had darkened towards evening and there was a sudden hint of sleet in the air. It had been Margaret Walker’s intention to return with us to Small Street for supper, but in view of the advanced hour, the deteriorating weather and the events of the previous evening — events which had taken place almost on her own doorstep — she announced her intention to return home at once. We couldn’t blame her and so, when I had seen Adela and the children safely indoors, she and I set off, as we had done the night before, for Redcliffe.
Yet again I saw her into her cottage, repeated my instructions of yesterday and left to the sound of bolts being driven into their sockets. There was to be no detour tonight: I was determined to go straight back to Small Street and the comfort and safety of my own four walls. I took a firm grip on my cudgel and made for the bridge which gave the city its name. Bricgstowe, our Saxon forebears had called it, the Bridge Place, and so it had more or less remained. Some people still call it Bristowe today.