Thirteen
Someone was ahead of us, on the path that led to the outer palisade and gate, barring our passage. I gripped my cudgel and prepared to do battle, but Hercules was ahead of me. He launched himself forward, barking like all the fiends of hell, seized the man’s right arm between his jaws and hung on for dear life, swinging several feet above the ground. He had performed this trick on at least two previous occasions when he and I had been in a tight situation, and it never failed to work. The person attacked tried vainly to shake him loose, but without avail. Hercules had jaws of iron.
As I closed with the man myself, I recognized the shadowy features of the herdsman. He looked just as ugly a customer in the dark as he did in daylight, and I had no compunction in hitting him a hefty thwack about his ears with the weighted end of my cudgel. He fell like a stone. Having, very briefly, assured myself that he wasn’t dead and would probably suffer no more than a nasty buzzing in the head all day tomorrow, I ran for the gate, Hercules racing along beside me, his tail erect with all the pride of a dog who had done his duty. Which, of course, he had, and there would be no living with him for the next few days.
The gate, as I had expected, was locked and there seemed to be nothing for it but to climb the palisade. I didn’t much care for the look of those nasty, pointed palings and realized that I could do serious damage to an essential part of my anatomy if I wasn’t extremely careful. Suddenly, however, I came to my senses, of which panic had temporarily bereft me, rummaged in my satchel for my shaving knife — a long thin blade, keenly honed — and proceeded to pick the gate lock with the greatest of ease. This was a skill I had been taught in my youth, while a novice at Glastonbury Abbey, by a fellow postulant, and one that had stood me in good stead on more than one occasion in the past. The gate creaked open, Hercules bounded ahead of me and I followed without any further delay.
We put as much distance between ourselves and Hambrook Manor as was possible in the darkness, and spent the rest of the night in a sheltered ditch which had retained a fair amount of last year’s dead leaves. These kept us warm and, to some extent, dry; but while Hercules snuffled and snored, none the worse for his adventure, I found it almost impossible to sleep for any length of time. I kept waking with a start, then spent the next half hour or so wondering what I ought to do. This pattern repeated itself throughout the night, but when dawn rimmed the distant hills, I still had not made up my mind.
I knew that as a good citizen I should report Lady Claypole’s possession of the tilting bed, but at the same time I knew very well that I should not be believed. Put the word of a low-born pedlar against that of a gentlewoman — and a defenceless widow with a title, to boot — and there was no doubt whose word would be accepted and who excoriated as a liar. I supposed I might go to Mayor Foster, but I had a feeling that he, too, would not wish to know. He was a busy man, both privately and publicly at present, and would hesitate to interfere, however obliquely, in the affairs of a lady of quality. Besides which, I had no idea how these beds worked, where or how the mechanism was hidden, whether or not it could successfully be concealed from prying eyes. And in this particular case, Lady Claypole’s outraged protestations of innocence would most likely be sufficient to reassure any official sent to investigate my claim. So, after much heart-searching, I decided to let the matter go.
I salved my conscience with the conviction that the rustiness of the clanking and whirring sounds I had heard indicated that the bed was rarely used for any purpose other than sleeping — and perhaps not often for that. I doubted if Hambrook Manor had many visitors, and the important ones would certainly be missed, and enquiries made, if they were to disappear. As for itinerant beggars and pedlars like myself, in general they would not be worth the robbing — as I wouldn’t have been if I had just kept my mouth shut about John Foster paying me for my services and probably giving an exaggerated impression of how much money I carried in my scrip. I had never, in the past, thought of myself as a braggart, but this wasn’t the first time I had landed myself in trouble because I was too free with my tongue. I made a solemn vow to be more modest in the future.
‘Your master’s a coward,’ I told Hercules when he finally emerged from his leafy covering, shook himself and looked around to see what there was to eat.
And I was going to be an even bigger coward when we finally reached home and I had to look Adela in the eye. It was just as well then, I decided, as the dog and I strode out, keeping an eye open for a cottage where we could beg some breakfast, that I should have to set off again almost immediately for Bath to look for ‘Caspar’, the second of Isabella’s three swains. And he would not be so easy to locate. This time, I had no occupation by which to recognize my ‘king’, and I had already identified the R.M. whose initials Isabella had carved into the tree. It would be a game of blindman’s bluff, stumbling around in the dark.
We arrived in Small Street before dusk and for once I was greeted with rapture by all my family. Well, rapture may be an overstatement, but Adela threw her arms about my neck and kissed me soundly, Adam embraced my knees (nearly bringing me down, but his intentions were good) while even Nicholas and Elizabeth forgot to ransack my person for whatever goodies I had brought them before standing on tiptoe to give me a hug. My burden of guilt increased.
‘Sit down,’ my wife urged me, pulling forward a stool and placing it by the kitchen table. ‘We’ve had our supper, but it was only lentil stew and there’s plenty left.’ She ladled spoonfuls of the savoury-smelling broth into a bowl as she spoke. ‘And then, when you’ve finished, you can tell me what happened. Oh, Roger, I am glad to see you again. It feels as if you’ve been absent for a month instead of a week.’
‘That’s right, God,’ I thought to myself. ‘Punish me! Make me feel the weight of my sin.’ Aloud, I said, ‘And I’m glad to be back. But I haven’t found poor Isabella’s murderer, so I’m afraid I’ll have to be off to Bath in a day or so.’
‘At least that’s not so far,’ Adela said, sitting down beside me. ‘It won’t take you so long.’
When I had eaten my fill, I swallowed a beakerful of ale, pushed my stool back from the table and recounted my story with one serious omission. I wasn’t aware of any change in either my countenance or my voice when I mentioned Juliette Gerrish, and it was probably nothing more than my guilty conscience that made me think Adela looked at me a little more keenly at that point in my narrative. So, in order to distract her attention, I told of my adventure at Hambrook Manor with the tilting bed.
Nicholas and Elizabeth were thrilled, and immediately wanted to know where such a contraption could be obtained — no doubt with plans to use it on Adam — but my wife was appalled.
‘You must report it, Roger,’ she urged me, horrified.
But when I had discussed with her all the likely pitfalls attendant upon such a course, she did finally agree that it might be better to say nothing and, for now at least, keep my own counsel. It was some little while, however, before she could stop shaking.
‘You could have been dead and buried,’ she kept saying, ‘and I would never have known what had happened to you.’
‘Not buried, I fancy. I suspect I would have been fed to the swine.’
She gasped in dismay, but the two elder children’s eyes lit up once again.
‘Couldn’t we keep pigs?’ my daughter asked. ‘There’s room for them in the yard, and Nick and I would look after them.’
Her stepbrother nodded agreement, but I was tired and had had enough of their aggravating company, so I drove them off to bed, ignoring their howls of protest. Adela, sensing my irritation, seized Adam and bore him off as well, and by the time the city churches rang their bells for Compline, peace reigned throughout the house, Hercules was snoring under the kitchen table and my wife and I were able to relax in each other’s company, seated together in the parlour. Except that neither of us was really at ease.