‘And nobody thought of one havin’ anything to do with the other?’
I shook my head. ‘Jonathan Linkinhorne and his wife were so sure that Isabella had run away with one of her lovers.’
‘And one o’ these men you think lives in Gloucester?’
‘He did, according to Goody Purefoy. Whether he does now is another matter and something I have to find out. If he’s still there, he’s a goldsmith and his names may begin with the letters R and M.’
Jack considered this, his head a little to one side. The horse plodded along at a steady pace, while Hercules whimpered and grunted and shifted around in the back of the cart, letting me know that he was not enjoying the ride. Sacks of soap made uncomfortable bedding.
‘Not an impossible task,’ my companion eventually decided. ‘Not, that is, if the man’s still livin’ in Gloucester, not if ’e’s still a goldsmith and not if his names do begin with the letters R and M. But take away one o’ those three and it ain’t goin’ to be so easy. Take away two and you’re in trouble.’
‘I know it,’ I answered glumly.
We stopped and ate our dinner — bread and cheese with raw onion and a flagon of cheap wine, provided for the two of us by Adela — in the shadow of a little copse, where the ground was damp and slippery with recent rain. But the sun overhead was now growing so warm that we were glad of the shade. Hercules ran around, barking and upsetting the horse, who was munching in his nosebag, found a small stream to lap from, scared a water rat back into its hole, and finally finished any food that Jack and I had been foolish enough to leave.
We spent a night on the road, in a flea-bitten inn huddled in the lee of Berkeley Castle, and arrived at our destination late in the evening of the second day just before Gloucester city gates were shut against us.
After some discussion, and after I had made it plain that I would pay Jack’s shot as well as my own, we made our way to the New Inn, not far from the abbey. Although still called the New Inn, the hostelry had been built some thirty years previously to house the ever growing number of pilgrims who wished to visit the tomb of the second Edward (his murdered body having been buried in a splendid marble sarcophagus in the abbey’s north ambulatory).
The inn was, as usual, uncomfortably full, but Jack and I were allotted a small but perfectly clean chamber opening off the gallery that ran round the main courtyard. For a generous extra payment the horse was stabled and fed, and the landlord undertook to see that the cart and its contents were safely bestowed in a neighbouring barn. Hercules was provided with a large ham bone and some clean water to drink and allowed to share our room, and Jack and I enjoyed a supper of baked carp (it being Friday) followed by apple fritters and a jug of good ale. Jack smacked his lips and had second helpings of everything, on the principle that as he was not paying, he might as well make a pig of himself — although that didn’t stop him grumbling indignantly when he discovered that Hercules insisted on sharing the bed with us.
‘Can’t you make this pesky animal sleep on the floor?’ he demanded irritably after the dog had wormed his way between us and laid his head on the pillow. (His breath was atrocious.)
‘No,’ I answered shortly, remembering the amount of money, on top of what I had already paid, that mine host had pocketed for our supper. ‘Lie still and he won’t bother us.’
There was silence for perhaps ten minutes or so while I drifted towards sleep; my face turned well away from Hercules. I thought vaguely of ‘Melchior’ and how, when I had parted company from Jack in the morning, I must start making enquiries for a city goldsmith. Melchior, Caspar and Balthazar; the names swam around aimlessly in my head like three fish in an abbot’s fish pond …
‘Chapman! I say, Chapman! Are you awake?’ Jack’s voice cut across my slumbers.
‘I am now,’ I answered crossly. ‘What d’you want? If you’re going to complain about Hercules again …’
‘No, no, it ain’t that.’ With a muttered oath, Jack heaved himself into a sitting position to avoid the animal’s stinking breath. ‘You remember I told you that I’d once seen that Issybelly what’s-’er-name with a man in All Saints’ porch?’
‘What of it?’ I was fully awake and listening now.
‘I said I didn’t see ’is face.’
‘That’s right. He was in shadow, you said.’ There was a silence while I could almost hear Jack’s brain working. ‘Go on!’ I exclaimed impatiently.
‘We-ell,’ he continued after a second or two, ‘I s’pose I must’ve seen more’n I thought I did, because …’
‘Because what? For the sweet Virgin’s sake, spit it out, man!’
‘Because — well — I’ve seen a face recently that makes me think it might’ve been ’im.’
‘Whose face?’
‘Dunno. That’s the trouble. Can’t remember.’
Ten
I, too, sat up in bed with a furious jerk that disturbed the bedclothes.
‘What do you mean?’ I demanded, incensed. ‘First, you tell me you never saw the man’s face. Then you say you’ve seen him lately, but you can’t remember who he is! You might as well be speaking Portuguese for all the sense you’re making.’
Hercules, recognizing that I was angry, but not with him, quietly farted in support and thumped his tail. Jack and I, as one man, covered our noses.
‘Hell’s teeth!’ Jack exclaimed. ‘What’s ’e been eating?’
‘Never mind that,’ I retorted. ‘Just explain what it is you’re trying to say.’
Although my eyes had by now grown accustomed to the darkness of the shuttered room, my companion’s face was still more or less invisible, but he sounded unhappy.
‘I wish I could explain …’
‘Try!’ I commanded. ‘Because you won’t get to sleep until you do.’
Jack called me by a name I prefer not to repeat before stigmatizing me as a tyrant. But finally, after much head scratching, he did his best to make things plain.
‘S’far as I know, I didn’t see the man with Issybelly what’s-’er-name in All Saints’ porch that day. His face were in shadow. I saw ’is hands, mind. They were all over ’er. But the point is, I must’ve seen something, ’cause on Wednesday, walkin’ across the bridge, going home to Redcliffe, minding me own business and thinking about nothin’ in particler except what my good woman had managed to burn for dinner — ’ Jack’s wife was a notoriously bad cook — ‘I suddenly found meself thinking ’bout Issybelly, jus’ like she was there beside me.’
‘We had been talking about her the day before,’ I reminded him.
‘Everyone’s been talkin’ about ’er for best part of a fortnight,’ Jack pointed out, ‘ever since they discovered ’er body at the beginning o’ the month, but I ain’t felt like that afore.’
‘Like what, exactly?’
‘I told you! Don’ you listen? Like she was there, with me. Or like I was back in the porch of All Saints’ with ’er, all those years agone. So, bein’ an intelligent sort o’ fellow, I ask meself why’m I feelin’ this way.’
‘And what answer did your mighty intellect come up with?’ I asked spitefully, but sarcasm was always wasted on Jack.
‘I decided summat must’ve jogged me memory, recent-like. But then I recollected seein’ a face sometime earlier in the morning, and yet not seein’ it. If you know what I mean.’
‘A familiar face?’
My bedfellow considered this while Hercules scratched for fleas, a few of which, no doubt annoyed at being disturbed, hopped into the bed in search of fresh company. Clad only in our shirts, Jack and I had also been scratching ever since we lay down.
‘Must’ve been,’ Jack said at last, in answer to my question. ‘I’d’ve taken notice of a stranger, wouldn’t I?’
Probably. Bristolians were used to foreign sailors in their midst and tolerated them as a necessary evil. But landlubbers were a different matter, and unknowns were immediately remarked upon and treated with suspicion until they had either established their credentials or were vouched for by an inhabitant. Mind you, most cities I had ever visited were the same, a wariness of outsiders being always prevalent.