I tugged on Hercules’s lead, and we set off back the way we had come.
Bishop’s Gate Street was just as busy, still blocked by wagons unloading furniture and hangings for Crosby’s Place. The workmen were sweating and cursing, the sun having made an appearance in the way that an English April sun tends to do, with sudden and unseasonal warmth. You know very well that it won’t last; even as you discard cap and tunic and shoulder cape, you’re aware that in half an hour’s time you’ll be putting them all on again.
As Hercules and I edged our way past the various obstructions, I heard one of the workmen call out to another, ‘There’s a rumour now ’e won’t be stayin’ ’ere after all. Leastways, not until the duchess joins ’im from up north.’
‘You mean all this bloody rush and bother t’ get this fuckin’ place ready on time’s fer nothing?’ demanded the second man. ‘Where’s ’e goin’ then?’
‘Baynard’s Castle, so I was told. ’Is mother, the old duchess, is arrivin’ shortly. So fat Magnus says, anyway. An’ ’e keeps ’is ear pretty well t’ the ground.’
I passed out of earshot. So it seemed, if fat Magnus could really be relied upon, that the Dowager Duchess of York, the little king’s redoubtable grandmother, would be arriving in the capital some day soon. And Richard of Gloucester, as he had done so often in the past, would be taking up residence at his mother’s house until Duchess Anne joined him from Yorkshire.
The same bunch of men were still working around the Bishop’s Gate, but we pointedly ignored one another; I because I wanted no more trouble with them, they because an officer from the Steelyard — at least I presumed that was who it was — stood alongside the wall, watching them. The gatekeeper nodded to me as I passed under the arch.
By now, it was mid-afternoon, that dead time of day before all those people who have brought their goods to market begin to make their way home again, clogging up a city’s every exit with their empty (if it has been a successful day) carts and baskets. It was good to be out in the open countryside once more, the smell of the grass fresh in my nostrils and the sound of birdsong in my ears. Although I was a mere hundred yards or so from the walls, everything here seemed somehow different, removed by miles from that unreasonable sensation of foreboding which hung over London like a pall.
Alongside St Botolph’s Church was a two-storey cottage which, from its generally rundown appearance, I easily identified as the priest’s house. It was a typical daub-and-wattle building with a thatched roof somewhat in need of repair. Bits of straw floated about in the faint spring breeze like stray wisps of hair escaping from under a woman’s coif, and I could hear a pig grunting away somewhere close at hand. There was also a whiff of goat in the air; while a small, badly cultivated patch of earth showed the sallow green of vegetables struggling for survival in poor soil.
I knocked on the door and waited, knuckles poised to rap again, but this proved not to be necessary. A small, extraordinarily thin woman — the sort my mother would have described as a ‘rasher of wind’ — answered my summons with surprising promptness and a look of annoyance creasing her narrow face.
‘Yes?’ she said, her tone sharp and unwelcoming.
‘I should like to speak to Sir Berowne,’ I requested, polite but firm.
The woman half-glanced over her shoulder, so I guessed that the priest was at home. ‘What do you want?’ she demanded.
I raised my eyebrows and stared down my nose (a not unimposing feature in my case). ‘That is between me and the father.’
She hesitated, obviously aware that she was outstripping her authority, but reluctant, nonetheless, to give ground. Fortunately for my growing irritation, a man’s voice sounded behind her.
‘Who is it, Ellen?’
She turned her head quickly, a smile softening her stern expression. ‘A stranger, Father. Leastways, I don’t recall seeing him hereabouts before.’
‘Now you know that all are welcome at my door, my child. Strangers in particular. Stand aside and let the poor man in.’
‘He’s a nasty, flea-bitten little cur with him,’ Ellen objected, eyeing up Hercules with dislike. ‘And you’ve enough of the creatures in this house without adding to their number.’
‘Everything is God’s creation, my dear, including fleas,’ insisted the same pleasant voice, and the housekeeper — for I presumed she was that — was gently put aside as the priest himself finally appeared in the doorway.
He was not much taller than the woman and stood a good head and shoulders lower than myself, a fact he acknowledged with a comical grimace as he looked up into my face. He was certainly not a young man, and in spite of his slight build and the vaguely youthful air which clung about him, I decided he was nearer forty than thirty years of age. He had a pair of very blue eyes which held a lurking twinkle in their depths, and a wide, thin-lipped, mobile mouth, tending more to laughter than sadness. I liked him on sight, and when he stooped and patted Hercules, our friendship was assured.
‘Come in, my dear sir,’ he invited, holding open the door and ignoring his housekeeper’s protests concerning ‘that animal’. ‘Ellen, my dear,’ he added gently, smiling at her, ‘run along now. You’ve done more than enough for one day and your own family need you. They’ll be missing you. And I can smell the delicious stew you’ve left for my supper bubbling on the fire. I’m more than grateful, believe me. I always am. Let me help you on with your cloak, then you can be off.’ He suited the action to his words and, with one arm about her shoulders, led her inexorably towards the door. ‘God be with you, my child, and bless you.’
‘I’ll see you tomorrow morning, Father,’ she said, accepting her dismissal with as good a grace as possible. ‘And watch that dog. I know his sort. He’ll steal your supper given half a chance.’
Hercules growled, recognizing an ill-wisher when he met one, and bared his teeth. The housekeeper departed while the going was good.
The priest closed the door behind her and gave me a lopsided smile. ‘A saintly woman,’ he said. ‘The salt of the earth, but sometimes a little trying.’ He came towards me, holding out his hand. ‘And now, my son, what can I do for you?’
EIGHT
The ground-floor room of the cottage was much as I had expected it to be: a beaten earth floor covered by a sprinkling of rushes, a table, several stools, a bench on which stood various cooking utensils, a corner cupboard and a couple of shelves supporting a candle in its holder, a tinder box, a pen and inkwell and some sheets of that thin cheap paper made from rags. (These latter items surprised me a little: not all parish priests are able to write and a few cannot even read, learning long passages of Holy Scripture by rote.) In one corner, a ladder rose to the second storey and a single window at the front of the house, at present unshuttered, let in a shaft of pale spring sunlight. An open fire in the centre of the room was straddled by a meat-stand from which hung a pot of the saintly Ellen’s stew.
The priest invited me to sit down by pulling one of the stools from beneath the table and waving a somewhat grimy hand towards it. As though suddenly conscious of the condition of his nails, he said apologetically, ‘I’ve been digging in the vegetable plot this morning. My housekeeper likes a few onions with the rabbit. And now, sir, in what way can I help you?’
I explained as briefly as I could the fears of the Godsloves, my involvement in their story (omitting, of course, the real reason for my coming to London) and my hope that he might be able to shed some light on the subject. But I could tell it was a lost cause by the expression of bewilderment on his face; and when he requested me to repeat the tale again, I guessed he could tell me nothing I did not already know.
When I had finished my account for the second time, he passed a hand across his brow, leaving a streak of mud behind, then ruffled the thick fringe of brown curly hair around his tonsure.