Of the two possibilities, the former seemed most likely, but there was no way I could be certain until I had paid a visit to Sir Peter and Lady Claypole at Hambrook Manor, and even then I might be none the wiser. They could both be dead by now and someone else in possession of the manor. Or their memories might not stretch back twenty years, at least not with any clarity. Recollections became muddled after a shorter period than that. But I should have to visit Hambrook to satisfy my own curiosity and find out what, if anything, there was to be discovered.
I could tell that Juliette was disappointed by my decision to return to the New Inn, and when she bade me farewell, she hissed the word ‘Coward!’ in my ear. But she blew me a secret kiss behind her uncle’s back She’d soon forget me when the next opportunity to seduce a man offered itself, but I wasn’t so sure that I’d as easily forget her.
Conscience told me that I should go to confess my sins, but I was bad at acknowledging my transgressions. (I always have been and always will be, I daresay, until the day I die; a day not too far off now, perhaps.) But, for the good of my soul, I did go to Mass later on, just one of the crowd of stinking humanity breathing down one another’s necks in the abbey nave in the glory of that great and wonderful building. And I regret to say that my reflections were not on my own shortcomings, but on the fact that much of the glory was due to the burial there of the second Edward, a man condemned in his lifetime for his lack of martial qualities and his preference for male lovers, but whose murder had transformed him from reprobate into martyr, and made his tomb a place of pilgrimage. His hideous death in Berkeley Castle a century and a half previously had made Gloucester Abbey rich.
I returned to the New Inn in time for supper. Hercules, who had been left in the charge of the landlord, demonstrated his excitement at seeing me again by peeing down my leg, a feat which other drinkers found highly amusing, and I had to endure ribald comments for the rest of the evening until I eventually slunk off to bed.
It took me the better part of three days’ steady walking before Hambrook Manor eventually came into sight in the late afternoon of the third day; three days during which the increasingly warmer weather made it possible for the dog and myself to spend the second of two nights in the empty outhouse of a shuttered farmhouse, bedding down on a pile of hay. This was from choice rather than necessity: I have always enjoyed sleeping under the sky and the stars, watching the trees fade and disappear with the encroaching darkness until they are nothing but a faint lacy blackness against an even deeper black. And sunsets — when there are any worth looking at in this grey and murky island of ours — always fill me with a sense of well-being; the distant hills turning gradually to fire, saffron ribbons of light threading the western sky.
We ate well, too, for I still had plenty of money in my purse, thanks to John Foster’s generosity. Where there was no wayside alehouse to satisfy our wants, there was usually a cottage or a landholding where the goodwife was pleased to meet our needs with bread and bacon and small beer. And Hercules never failed to ingratiate himself simply by being the obnoxiously thrusting, cocky little beast that he naturally was. He took his own importance so much for granted that everyone else took it for granted as well.
‘It’ll be a different story at Hambrook Manor,’ I warned him. ‘Sir Peter and Lady Claypole don’t sound to me the sort of couple to extend a hearty welcome to a pair of scruffy travellers like ourselves.’ Hercules wagged his tail confidently and barked. ‘That’s all very well,’ I reproached him. ‘However, we shall see.’
And see we did when we finally marched boldly up to the door of the manor house and knocked peremptorily on the oak.
It was a pleasant enough building, surrounded by fertile meadowland and, at the rear, sheltered by a spread of trees that gradually thickened as it merged with the general woodland beyond. There were the customary outhouses and barns, pig and sheep pens, a flower and herb garden for the lady of the manor, and it should have presented a prosperous face to the world. And yet there was a faint air of neglect about the place, a broken down wall that need mending here, a hole in a roof there, and some very scrawny chickens scrabbling for food in the dirt alongside the well where a maid servant was hoisting up the bucket.
‘What do you want, stranger?’ she demanded as I drew abreast.
‘I have business with Sir Peter Claypole,’ I told her.
She laughed. ‘Oh yes?’
‘Yes,’ I answered firmly.
‘Well, you won’t see him,’ she announced with satisfaction. ‘He’s been dead these ten years and more.’
‘Oh!’ But it had always been a possibility. ‘I must talk with Lady Claypole then.’
The girl lowered her bucket of water to the ground and put her hands on her hips. ‘You must, must you? I doubt she’ll want to talk to you.’ She eyed me up and down, her top lip curling slightly.
‘Appearances can be deceptive,’ I retorted briefly, and continued up the path to knock on the door.
It was answered by a young page who, when I repeated my request, seemed inclined to argue the point.
‘My lady don’t see no one, at least not the likes of you. Kitchen door’s round the side if you’re selling summat. Although,’ he added with a sniff, ‘I don’t see no pack.’
‘Fetch the Steward,’ I commanded, drawing myself up to my full height, expanding my chest until it hurt and trying to look as authoritative and menacing as I could.
The boy hesitated a moment longer, then shrugged his shoulders and disappeared.
It was several dragging minutes before a tall, lean man, carrying the Steward’s wand of office and wearing a long robe made of either burel or brocella (both very coarse woollen materials and no longer made today, as far as I know) arrived to order me off the premises. His intention was writ large on his face, so I spoke quickly before he had time to open his mouth.
‘I wish to speak to Lady Claypole. I’m here on the business of His Worship the Mayor of Bristol.’
‘Indeed?’ The thin arched eyebrows conveyed a world of scepticism. ‘And what about the dog?’
‘He’s my assistant,’ I replied tartly.
The man facing me was the last person I would have suspected of harbouring a sense of humour, but at this he threw back his head and laughed.
‘I’ll find out if my lady can see you,’ he said. ‘Wait there.’
It was a full five minutes by my reckoning before he returned, during which time Hercules and I had watched a ragged flock of sheep being penned for the night, and a couple of large, evil-looking boars being driven in from the forest to join the sow in the sty. One herdsman appeared to take care of all the animals; a broken-nosed, wall-eyed man who regarded me malevolently from a distance. I returned his stare with interest, but Hercules growled warningly.
‘My lady will see you, Master,’ said a voice in my ear, making me jump, and I turned to find that the Steward had returned. ‘Follow me, but leave your assistant tied to that bench outside the door if you please.’
I grinned and looped Hercules’s belt around the seat of the bench indicated.