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But when they returned a few minutes later, it was to report that Dorcas was sleeping so soundly they hadn’t wanted to wake her.

‘Quite right,’ said Adela. ‘You must all stay and have supper with us. I’m sure you’ll all be more comfortable here than in that draughty castle.’

I saw the old couple hesitate and glance at one another, refusal in both their faces. But then Tabitha shrugged. ‘That’s very kind of you, mistress. I won’t deny that the accommodation there leaves a lot to be desired. And it’s a cold day. A very cold day.’ She looked at her grandson. ‘Toby ought to take a walk, though, and make sure our gear is safely locked away. We didn’t bargain on being absent for longer than the Mass at Saint Giles and we took no extra precautions.’

‘I’ll go at once,’ the young man said, pulling on the thick frieze coat he had dropped carelessly on the floor on entering the house.

‘Good lad.’ Tabitha nodded her approval. ‘No need to hurry. Dorcas won’t wake for a while yet, I reckon. Sleeping like a babe, she is.’

‘So you three just be quiet and don’t go waking the lady up,’ I charged my children when he had gone, while Adela took Luke on her lap and began feeding him some frumenty.

Adam regarded me beneath lowering brows. ‘It’s Childermass,’ he reminded me. ‘That means we can do as we please.’ Trust him to get the wrong idea!

I was about to remonstrate with him when Ned Chorley seized him by the wrist and, with the other two in tow, bore them all off to the parlour again, promising a whole lot of new tricks they hadn’t yet seen. I saw Adela frown, so, indicating that Arthur Monkton should go with us, I followed them out of the kitchen before she could voice any misgivings.

In spite of the mummer’s sleight of hand, I must at some point have fallen asleep, for I came to with a start as the parlour door opened and Tobias Warrener slipped into the room. I realized that it must be well past noon by the quality of the light filtering through the unshuttered window. Elizabeth, Nicholas and Adam were still sitting in a spellbound semicircle at Ned Chorley’s feet, so I went in search of the women, only to bump — literally — into Tabitha Warrener as I stepped out into the hall. She smiled at me before putting her head around the door.

‘Everything all right, Toby?’ she asked.

‘All’s well, Grandmother,’ was the answer. ‘The truth is I don‘t think anyone thinks we have anything worth stealing.’

Tabitha laughed. ‘More’n likely,’ she agreed.

The short afternoon wore away and, after supper, the two women went upstairs again to see how the invalid was faring. Their report was not as encouraging as it might have been.

‘Mistress Warrener is feeling well rested,’ my wife told Tobias, ‘but a little sick and dizzy when she moves her head. I’ll take her up some broth and a sup of ale which should revive her, but I think she should remain here tonight. I can lend her a night-shift and she can sleep with me. Roger, you’ll either have to bed down with the boys or sleep in the parlour in a chair.’

‘Don’t make the poor man do that,’ Ned Chorley protested. ‘He can come back to the castle with us. The bedding’s clean and there’s enough beds to go round. I think they must’ve been expecting a bigger troupe than ours.’

There was no way I could gainsay these arrangements without appearing churlish. Nevertheless, I gave Adela a very speaking look as she passed me on her way upstairs to collect my nightshirt, and I promised myself that I should have something to say when I returned home the following morning on the subject of my wishes being consulted in future before plans were made on my behalf. I fancy Tabitha felt much the same, for on the short walk to the castle she was apologetic.

‘Not what you’re used to, Master Chapman,’ she said more than once.

I assured her, truthfully, that I had slept in many worse places in the course of my travels. And, indeed, I was pleasantly surprised by the room in which I eventually found myself. I had never, so far as I could recall, been in the castle’s inner ward before and was surprised to find it in as great a state of disrepair as the outer ward with crumbling walls and the door into the orchard hanging drunkenly on one hinge. I reflected that there was little point in locking the gates at night, as Dick Manifold had once told me they did, when anyone could simply walk in and out at will through the gaping holes in the masonry.

But, as I say, the building in which the mummers were housed was rain- and windproof with a roof of solid lead tiles, and was afforded additional protection by standing in the lee of the orchard wall. The beds, too, had good straw palliasses and clean, if coarse, linen sheets as well as blankets, and I had to admit to myself that I had not expected such consideration from the city fathers for a group of travelling players. There was, of course, no privacy, but as Tabitha and Ned fell into bed more or less fully clothed, and the two younger men did the same, I followed suit, merely removing my outer garments, tunic and boots. I did think longingly for a moment or two of my own goose feather mattress and Adela’s comforting presence and wonder if I was going to be kept awake by the others’ snores. But within five minutes I was soundlessly and dreamlessly asleep.

EIGHT

For a few moments after waking, I was at a loss to know where I was.

A cock was crowing somewhere in the distance and through a hole in one corner of the roof, where a tile had broken away, I could see a single star shining high and far off in a patch of sky lightening towards dawn. The room stank of bad breath, stale sweat and unwashed bodies, while to my right someone was snoring loud enough to waken the dead. I forced my eyes wide open, staring at the rafters overhead and trying to remember where I was. Slowly, memories of the previous day’s events came crowding back to me, and I knew that I was in an outbuilding of the inner ward of Bristol Castle while young Dorcas Warrener slept in my bed at home. As for what day it was, I gradually and painfully worked out that it must be the twenty-ninth of December, the Feast of the Martyrdom of St Thomas Becket, the day on which, all those centuries ago, the ‘holy, blissful martyr’ was hacked to death in his own cathedral of Canterbury by four knights come from Normandy to carry out what they thought to be the wishes of King Henry II; that same Henry who had spent part of his boyhood in this very castle where I was now lying.

There was the sudden scrape of a flint and, seconds later, a candle flared into brightness. I rolled on to my left side to find Tabitha Warrener, fully clothed and seated on the edge of her bed, regarding me with some amusement.

‘You slept well,’ she said.

I grunted. ‘I don’t think I stirred all night.’ I pushed back the bedclothes and swung my feet to the floor, thankful that I had removed only my outer garments the night before. (I felt sure that Tabitha would have appreciated my manly charms, but there was a cynical gleam in her eyes that made me uncomfortable.) ‘My mouth is so dry I can barely speak. Is there anything in this barn of a place to drink?’

She laughed. ‘You don’t think they supply us with “all-night”, do you? We take our meals in the common refectory with the reeve and other castle officials, and I can tell you, Chapman, that they are meagre and generally undercooked. That’s why it was such a pleasure to eat with you and your dame and family yesterday. She keeps a plentiful table.’

‘Adela’s a good housekeeper,’ I agreed, swallowing hard to moisten my mouth. ‘Where do you go after Christmas, when you leave here?’

‘Back into winter quarters.’ Tabitha fished in the pocket of her ancient skirt and produced a small bottle from which she removed the stopper before handing it to me. ‘Try this. It’s strong but it’s wet.’

I sipped cautiously, recognizing the liquid as mead, a drink I generally found too sweet for my taste. But it eased the dryness of my throat. ‘Where are these winter quarters of yours?’ I asked, handing back the bottle.