Was it possible then that Amphillis suffered from such trouble? Was that why she came here, to pray to the saint for a cure? And yet I found it hard to believe. The little seamstress was surely too full of life to be suffering from any kind of illness. But why else would she come so far? For what purpose?
Perhaps she just favoured the saint. Perhaps Amphillis herself was no friend to matrimony. And if so, was she naturally celibate by nature or did she prefer her own sex? That there are such women — and of course men — we know from the ancient Greeks, although the law and the Church forbid such love on pain of death.
I wandered around the church, scuffing up more dust, turning the matter over in my mind and finally reaching the conclusion that it was not my concern. I felt reasonably certain that it was St Etheldreda’s that Amphillis had been visiting, and not one of the neighbouring houses, although why this conviction was so strong I couldn’t really say. It was just my instinct guiding me again.
I suspected that my morning had been wasted on a wild goose chase, and that this place, that Amphillis herself, had nothing to do with either the murder of the tutor or the disappearance of young Gideon Fitzalan. I cursed silently before recollecting that I was in God’s house and, with a sigh, turned back for one last look at the altar.
It was then I noticed for the first time that someone had put a garland of meadow flowers around the statue’s neck, and remembered suddenly that her feast day was June the twenty-third, Midsummer Eve. And Midsummer Eve was fast approaching. It was exactly a week away. Someone had thought it worthwhile to deck the saint for her coming festival.
Amphillis? But the flowers looked too faded to have been placed there this morning. Judging by appearances, they had been there several days, but I stepped closer to make certain.
‘What you doing here then, my young master?’ queried a voice behind me.
I whirled about to find myself confronting an old woman in a rusty black gown and none too clean apron and coif, with a few wisps of grey hair escaping from beneath the latter. Several of her front teeth were missing, so that when she spoke, she made a kind of whistling sound, but her blue eyes were still as bright and sharp as a young girl’s. She was carrying a garland of wild flowers, similar to the one already gracing the saint’s slender neck
‘I. . er. . I was paying my respects to the saint,’ I answered, feeling like a schoolboy who had been caught in some suspicious act.
‘Know who she is, do you?’
‘Yes. Saint Etheldreda.’
The woman gave a cackle of laughter that turned into a whistle as it died away. ‘Any fool could tell that. It says so underneath.’
‘Also known as Saint Audrey,’ I retorted, and went on to give the saint’s history.
My interlocutor looked impressed. ‘You don’t look like an educated man. Not in them clothes,’ she added frankly.
‘I was once a novice at Glastonbury Abbey.’ I bowed. ‘May I have the honour of knowing to whom I’m speaking?’
That made her cackle even louder. ‘My, my! Quite the gen’leman. My name’s Etheldreda, too. Etheldreda Simpkins. She’s my name saint.’ The woman nodded towards the altar. ‘That’s why I keeps her decked with flowers. “Ethel” means “good” in the old language, you know. And what are you called, my fine young cockalorum?’
‘Roger.’
My new acquaintance eyed me up and down. ‘That’s a Norman name for a Saxon boy like you.’
I laughed. ‘Surely after four hundred years we’re pretty much one and the same.’
My companion snorted contemptuously and whistled even louder. ‘If you believe that, young man, you’re a bigger fool than you look. How many of our lords and masters do you know called Smith or Wright or Carter?’ She answered her own question. ‘None, I’ll be bound. They all have danged Frenchified names — Neville or Beauchamp or de Vere.’ She spat the words out like a mouthful of cherry stones.
‘Very true,’ I answered with a grin. ‘You’re an astute woman, Goody Simpkins.’
‘Dunno about that.’ She regarded me cautiously. ‘But I know what I know,’ she added fiercely.
‘This church doesn’t look as if it’s much used,’ I said, indicating the dust. ‘But I don’t suppose many people outside this alley know that it’s here. I nearly missed it myself, it’s so narrow and so hemmed in by the houses on either side. Does it have many worshippers?’
‘More’n you’d think. But mostly women, those that aren’t happy with their menfolk or their marriages, I reck’n. There’ve been a few strangers around here lately.’
‘There was a young girl in here awhile ago,’ I said. ‘Short, plump.’ Although as a description it didn’t really do Amphillis Hill justice. ‘It was because she came out of the church that I noticed it, and came inside myself to have a look around. And offer up a prayer, of course,’ I added hastily.
I received a deservedly sceptical look, but the old dame made no comment. ‘I don’t recall seeing her today,’ she said. ‘But I know who you’m talking about. I’ve seed her once or twice lately. Don’t know who she is, mind. Ain’t from this part o’ the city. I was born here and I knows most folk from Candlewick Street and the hill. Dowgate, that is.’
I nodded, but absently. I had been vaguely aware for some minutes of a sound, faint and far off, that I couldn’t quite identify. Finally, as Goody Simpkins was speaking, I recognized what it was.
‘I can hear running water somewhere,’ I said. ‘At least, I think that’s what it is. It’s hard to tell.’
My companion once again gave her ear-splitting cackle. Her paroxysms of mirth were doing serious damage to my ears.
‘You got sharp hearing, young master. I can’t make it out nowadays, although I could once, plain as plain. But now I’m nigh on sixty. My time’ll soon be up and my ears ain’t what they used t’ be. It’s only natural. What you c’n hear is the Wallbrook gurgling away deep underground. Centuries ago it were built over. They do say as it flows out of a pipe somewhere along the banks o’ the Thames.’ She reverted to our previous topic of conversation. ‘Mind you, I did glance in here earlier this morning, and there weren’t nobody here then. O’ course, it don’t mean that girl weren’t here. She could’ve been down in the crypt.’
‘The crypt?’ I questioned sharply, staring around. ‘I don’t see any entrance to a crypt.’
‘Not from where you’re standing, you wouldn’t.’ The old woman advanced and, reaching up, removed the garland of dead flowers from about the saint’s neck, replacing it with the fresh one. ‘It’s behind the altar. Here, I’ll show you.’
Between the back of the altar and the inner wall of the apse was a narrow space just wide enough to allow one person at a time to squeeze into the gap, and set in the floor was a heavy slab of stone which plainly could be lifted by a length of rope tied at one end to an iron ring.