‘But watch out,’ I warned her, ‘for other dogs, sheep and, above all, his pet hatred, geese. If you don’t hold on to him tightly, he’ll be off the cart, chasing them and barking like a fiend.’
‘Yes, and I’ll be having summat to say about that,’ Jack said crossly as he climbed up beside us, plainly not in the best of tempers and obviously regretting that he had agreed to let us travel with him.
He had just given his horse the office to start when he had to pull the animal up short as Goody Nym — as slatternly a woman as you could hope to find in a month of Sundays — erupted from the cottage and handed him an evil-smelling parcel wrapped in wilting, brown-edged dock leaves and tied around with a bit of twine so filthy it might just have been fished out of the central drain. (As indeed it was more than likely it had.)
‘You forgot yer dinner,’ she said, tossing the parcel into her husband’s lap. And without acknowledging either Elizabeth or me, she bounced back indoors, shutting the door with unnecessary force behind her.
Jack handed me the parcel. I sniffed it cautiously and then recoiled. ‘Hell’s teeth, Jack! What’s in it?’
He shook his head vigorously. ‘Dunno. An’ I don’t want to know, either. Don’t waste your time opening it. Just throw it overboard and leave it to poison some poor stray or other.’ He turned his head to look me fully in the face for the first time since our arrival. ‘I take it you’ve got money in your purse, chapman?’
‘I. . I’ve had quite a successful trip these past few weeks,’ I admitted cagily.
‘Right, then,’ he said, flicking the reins. ‘No need for us to stint ourselves on the journey. There’s plenty o’ decent inns and taverns along the London road.’ He grinned, his good humour suddenly restored. ‘We can sample ’em all.’
Fortunately for me, he was only joking. Well, half-joking. We did indeed stay at a couple of small alehouses during our journey in order that Elizabeth might have a good night’s rest. But, the April weather having suddenly turned warm in the way that it does at that time of year, more often than not we all bedded down in the cart, the bales of red cloth with their protective covering of sacking proving a comfortable enough mattress. Elizabeth, of course, thought this much more fun than a conventional bed, even though our slumbers were frequently broken by Hercules’s barking as he took exception to the cries of the nocturnal creatures all around us, and by his constant excursions into the surrounding countryside to relieve himself.
‘Damn dog,’ Jack grumbled, but without rancour.
The fact was, as we soon discovered, that even had we wished to pass each night in some hostelry or another, we should have been hard put to it to find enough empty beds to accommodate us. There were so many people on the move that most inns seemed to be full. Not only were the roads clogged with the customary itinerant friars, pedlars, farmers driving livestock, or smallholders carrying vegetables, to market in the nearest town, lawyers riding to the spring assizes, west country pilgrims on their way to Canterbury, but also with parties of minstrels and mummers leaving their winter quarters for the summer round of manor house and castle. And over and above all these, we met far more royal messengers than usual, either heading back to London after delivering their news, or outward bound for those distant parts of the kingdom that might not yet have received word of the late King Edward’s death.
With so much traffic, our progress was necessarily slow, and it was not until the following Wednesday, a week and a day after leaving Bristol, that we finally reached the capital.
We had spent the previous Monday night at Reading Abbey, in the common dormitory, where we had taken shelter from a nasty storm that had sprung up unexpectedly. This Benedictine monastery was a foundation of King Henry I and famous for the number and variety of its holy relics: two pieces of the True Cross, a bone of St Edmund the Martyr’s arm, St James’s hand, St Philip’s stole, another bone belonging to St Mary Magdalene and a host of smaller items such as laces, girdles, combs, hairpins and a sandal that was dubiously attributed to St Matthew. (It sometimes seemed to me that the saints had been extremely casual with their personal belongings.)
The storm had abated somewhat by the time we had eaten our supper of soup and black bread in the lay refectory and then bedded down in the dormitory on two of the straw palliasses that were laid side by side along three of the four walls. The place was packed with other travellers as well as ourselves and Elizabeth was forced to share my mattress. She was so weary that she had nodded off over her supper, but nevertheless, she was restless, tossing and turning in her sleep and upsetting Hercules, who had curled up at my feet. In addition to this, the groaning, moaning and farting of thirty or so other souls, not to mention the smell, kept me awake for some considerable time, and when I finally did drop into an uneasy slumber, it was to dream that I was back in Margaret Walker’s cottage while she tried to explain to me the ramifications of the Godslove family.
‘“Eight children”,’ she was saying. ‘That’s what my father said, “Eight children! Thank the good lord I’ve only got one!”’
‘How could there be eight children?’ I was objecting. ‘Four by the first wife and two by the second. That’s six.’
‘There were two stepbrothers,’ was the answer. ‘Alicia’s sons. Her first husband’s children. That makes eight. .’
It was at this point that I awoke with a start, staring into the blackness of the dormitory, the words ‘that makes eight’ still ringing in my head.
Elizabeth was lying on her back, one arm flung across my chest. As I have already intimated, she was a robust child — and has grown into an even more well-built woman — and her arm was heavy, restricting my breathing. Hercules, too, was like a dead weight on my feet, but I felt certain that my discomfort was not what had awakened me. For a moment or two, nothing was to be heard except the cacophony created by my fellow sleepers, but then, over and above this, I was able to make out the noise of raised voices and the jingle of horses’ harnesses. Someone — and someone of importance by the sound of it — had arrived at the abbey. Curious to discover who would be travelling so late at night, I gently rolled Elizabeth on to her side, eased my legs from beneath the rough woollen blanket that covered them, pulled on my boots and stood up, all as quietly as possible so as not to disturb my neighbours.
‘Stay there!’ I whispered to Hercules as I tiptoed towards the door at the far end of the dormitory.
Of course he came too, snuffling with delight at the prospect of a midnight excursion. There was nothing to be gained by arguing with him.
I made my way to the abbey’s west gatehouse, with its adjoining chapel, where I judged most of the noise was coming from. And, indeed, I was not mistaken, the courtyard being overpoweringly full of horses and riders, the former breathing gustily through distended nostrils, their flanks heaving and sweating. Torches flared as monks ran from the abbey, calling to the grooms to rouse themselves and come at once to tend my lord bishop’s cavalcade. Light flickered on the azure and silver threads of the saltire cross of St Andrew, emblazoned on saddles and cloaks, and I realized with a jolt of surprise that I recognized the central figure of the party as Robert Stillington, Bishop of Bath and Wells. My lord was not dressed so magnificently as usual, the splendid silks and velvets that he normally wore being replaced by the coarse black frieze of mourning. Members of his entourage, too, were all similarly attired.