11 - The Lammas Feast (15 page)

‘Roger! What is this?’ Adela demanded ominously.

‘A dog,’ was the feeble answer. ‘He probably saved my life.’

Adela was in no mood for handing out rewards, especially in such a cause. At least, not just at that moment. ‘Put the animal down,’ she ordered. ‘It’s filthy. I can see the fleas hopping about in its fur. I will not have fleas in our cottage.’

‘Everyone has fleas,’ I argued, suddenly unwilling to part with my saviour.

‘I don’t!’

I didn’t like to disillusion her, so I lowered Hercules to the ground and scratched myself surreptitiously.

‘We can’t afford a dog,’ she pleaded, and I had to admit that it was true. Hadn’t I been using the same argument to the children for the past few months? But I owed this particular cur a debt of gratitude.

‘Go away,’ I said to Hercules, but made no attempt to discourage him as he trotted at our heels under the archway and across the open ground. I hoped Adela wouldn’t notice. When we reached the cottage and she lifted the latch, I squeezed in after her as fast as I could, leaving the dog on the other side of the swiftly closed door.

‘You’re home early,’ said Margaret, looking up from a low stool beside one of the mattresses, where she had been telling Nicholas and Elizabeth a story.

‘Roger will give you the details,’ said my wife, and went across to embrace the children.

So, to the accompaniment of the curfew bell and various snufflings, thumpings and occasional protesting barks from outside, I sat down on our other stool and repeated my tale yet again.

‘Well, trust you to be in the thick of any trouble that’s going,’ Margaret remarked, but sounding quite cheerful, not only because she loved to be the first with the latest gossip, but also because she was distracted by the various strange noises without.

Before either Adela or I could prevent her, she had risen and opened the cottage door. A small, smelly brown ball of matted fur hurled itself excitedly across the room and on to my lap, balancing its hind legs on my thighs and placing its front paws on my shoulders. My face was thoroughly licked for the second time that evening.

‘A dog! You’ve brought us a dog!’ screeched Nicholas and Elizabeth, propelling themselves up from their mattress and flinging their arms around both me and Hercules. Their yells woke Adam, who naturally felt it necessary to vie for attention. Of course, he won! He could make more noise than his half-brother and sister put together.

Adela sank wearily into our one good chair, loosened the lacing of her bodice and lifted her younger son to her breast.

‘I give in,’ she sighed. ‘Now they’ve clapped eyes on the wretched animal, they’ll never let him go without a fuss. And I’m too tired to stand up to them.’

My former mother-in-law fixed me with a look that plainly said I should do battle with our offspring on my wife’s behalf, but I had grown attached to the dog. I knew how short and brutal his life would be as a stray, and I was indebted to him for saving mine.

‘All right,’ I told the children. ‘He can stay, as long as you promise me you won’t make his life a misery, and save some scraps from your own meals to help feed him.’ They nodded eagerly, although I didn’t trust them an inch. They would have promised to be on their best behaviour from then until next Christmas if they had thought the dog’s survival depended on it. I went on, ‘I’ve named him Hercules, because he isn’t, but he thinks he is.’ I saw my daughter’s mouth open and hurriedly laid a finger on her lips. ‘I’ll explain another time, Bess, but just now, you and Nick are going back to bed, while Hercules and I go for a bathe in the river. We could both do with sluicing down.’

Margaret and Adela agreed with such wholehearted enthusiasm that I knew they were dying to talk about me behind my back. My general fecklessness and lack of backbone would provide fertile ground for the next hour, at least. So I tucked Hercules under one arm, took my cudgel in my free hand and departed as quickly as possible.

‘One of the first lessons you have to learn in this life,’ I told my new friend, as his tongue explored the nap of my jerkin, ‘is that when your womenfolk turn hostile, it’s as well to beat a swift retreat.’

I walked through the Broad Meads and turned down by the Dominican friary to the banks of the Frome, opposite the weir and the castle mill. Behind the mill, the castle walls towered up like cliffs, and I could see members of the garrison patrolling the battlements, small and far away. I set Hercules on his feet, and he followed me as I scrambled down the bank to a secluded spot I knew of; a kind of little foreshore, fringed with willows, tall spears of loosestrife, cuckoo plants and marsh marigolds.

I stripped off and entered the water, which, after a day of hot sunshine, was still faintly warm. It caressed my skin like silk. Hercules remained hesitating on the bank, looking suspicious. I found a floating stick and hurled it as far as I could upstream. He dashed in after it, gave one or two outraged barks, then, overcoming his fear of this unknown element, began to swim strongly. Before long, he was enjoying himself as we got rid of our fleas and the day’s grime together.

I rolled on to my back and began floating. Hercules paddled after me, then decided that he had had enough and swam back to keep guard over my clothes. He shook himself vigorously, showering them with drops of water. I shouted at him, so, to pay me out for my ingratitude, he abandoned watch and disappeared into the long grasses and abundant vegetation that bordered the river. I wasn’t worried. He had more sense than to abandon me, now he’d found me. I closed my eyes against the still bright rays of the setting sun.

I must have dozed off for a second, because I suddenly became aware of Hercules barking furiously. I forced myself upright and started treading water, scanning the bank as I did so. There was no sign of him, but I could see a violent agitation of the reeds and grasses some three or four yards from the little foreshore where I had left my clothes. I began swimming towards the disturbance, incurring on my way the wrath of two brothers from the friary, who had come down to the river for some after-supper fishing, hoping, no doubt, to augment the brothers’ meagre breakfast with a couple of carp.

‘If that’s your dog, my son,’ one of them called piously, ‘strangle the little bugger! He’s frightening the fucking fish.’

I had long ceased to be shocked by the holy fraternity’s knowledge, and use, of uncouth language, so merely waved in acknowledgement. Hercules was not difficult to locate, but in case I was in any doubt of his whereabouts, his indignant face suddenly appeared framed by a clump of meadow sweet and crowned by a trailing stalk of bindweed. I hauled myself out of the water and on to the bank, shivering a little as the rapidly cooling air caressed my bare skin.

‘What’s this all about?’ I asked severely. ‘What’s up, eh? These two brothers from the friary would like to mince you into fish bait.’

Hercules was unimpressed and started growling, nosing among the profusion of rushes, starred with yellow iris, that grew at the water’s edge. Using both hands, I ruthlessly flattened them – and saw what it was that had so upset the dog.

A man’s body was floating face down in the river, moving gently with the current that had carried it this far. But it was unable to make further progress because of something that had entangled its legs below the surface of the water. A clump of weed, growing close to the bank, its coiling tendrils just visible, appeared to have trapped it, holding it down. I crossed myself, but didn’t flinch. A drowned person was not an unusual sight in these parts. Bristol’s two rivers, the Avon and the Frome, claimed their fair share of victims during most months of any year; mainly drunks who slipped and missed their footing after a convivial evening’s drinking at one of the city’s many taverns.

I hushed the dog, who now seemed content to let me take charge. He lay down, nose on paws, watching with interest while I reached out and hauled the body as close as possible to dry ground. Then, balancing on my haunches, I grabbed the body under both armpits and heaved with all my might, at the same time throwing myself backwards among the grasses, so that the entangling weed was suddenly uprooted, and the dead man thrown forward, almost on top of me. Cursing, I struggled out from underneath his weight and turned him face uppermost.

Even before I did so, I knew that there was something familiar about him. The shape of the head, the way the hair was cut in a straight line across the back of the neck, the rough homespun jerkin, cinched by an extra-wide, important-looking leather belt, the fingernails bitten down to the quick, the big, powerful hands – all these, together and separately, were nudging my memory and prompting me to recognition.

It was Walter Godsmark.

Even so, in spite of my expectation, it still gave me a jolt to see him lying there, so obviously dead, a young man who had been so brimming with life and energy when I had spoken to him only yesterday. There were no marks of violence on the body: Walter had simply fallen in the river and drowned. Simply? Coming so soon after the murder of his master, how could I be sure of that? I shivered and Hercules, catching something of my mood, whimpered, inching foward on his belly and nudging me with his cold, wet nose. I smoothed his head reassuringly.

‘Good dog!’ I pointed to the corpse. ‘Guard,’ I ordered. ‘I won’t be long.’

To his credit, he did as he was told. I slithered into the water again and swam back to where I had left my clothes, making certain on the way that the friars were still at their fishing, in spite of the breeze that had sprung up with the waning light. I dried myself roughly with my shirt, then scrambled, not without difficulty, into it and my remaining clothes, before mounting the bank and running to intercept the brothers, who, having caught nothing, were preparing to pack up and return to the friary. I seized the older man’s arm.

‘Dead body,’ I panted. ‘Over there, by the water’s edge. I know him. Young fellow called Godsmark. Drowned.’

The two Dominicans, glad of a little excitement at the end of an uneventful day, followed me almost eagerly. Hercules growled at them and, mindful of my instructions, would have prevented their intervention if he could. I had to clap them both on the back and introduce them as friends before he would allow either of them near poor Walter’s corpse. He was proving to be an excellent watchdog.

‘He’s dead all right,’ pronounced the younger brother, having carried out a cursory examination of the body. He crossed himself and began muttering the office for the departed souls of this life, but the older man interrupted.

‘You say you know this man?’ he asked me, and when I nodded, continued, ‘Does he–– Did he live within the walls, or without?’

‘Within. With his widowed mother, near the castle.’

The brother pursed his thin mouth and thought for a moment. ‘Well,’ he said at last, ‘as the curfew’s sounded, we’d better give the body a decent lodging at the friary for the night. Tomorrow morning, the sheriff or his sergeant will have to be informed and the body returned to his mother.’

I did not volunteer the information that Sergeant Manifold was himself without the walls, in a cottage halfway up Saint Michael’s Hill, guarding a prisoner who may, or may not, have recovered consciousness by now. I concluded that if I said anything, I would probably be dispatched to find Richard there and then, and I was too tired, after my day’s exertions, for another walk. I just wanted to get home to my bed.

But when I did, finally, return to the cottage, having assisted the brothers to carry Walter’s body to the friary, I found Elizabeth had been moved into my bed, which she would occupy with Margaret and Adela, while I shared a mattress with Nicholas. (I had momentarily forgotten that my former mother-in-law was staying the night.) Moreover, a bed of sorts had to be made for Hercules, and by the time Adela and I had arranged a pile of straw and old rags for him in the corner nearest the door, it was dark, and rushlights had to be lit. After that, the fire needed to be doused and kindling chopped for a new one in the morning. And, of course, Adam wanted changing and feeding yet again.

I had intended to say nothing about my gruesome find, knowing that it would only further delay preparations for the night and part me from my bed for even longer. But my taciturnity did not pass unremarked by the two women, who, when all the chores were done, joined me at the table as I drank my bedtime cup of ale. They were in their most dangerous mood, calm but determined. I knew I didn’t stand a chance against them.

Foolishly, however, I tried to prevaricate, suggesting that, as we were all likely to suffer a disturbed night, we turned in immediately.

‘When you’ve told us what’s troubling you,’ my wife said, smiling with the sweet reasonableness that I dreaded.

‘We’re not tired,’ Margaret added. ‘We can sit here until morning, if necessary.’

‘Something upset you while you were out,’ Adela added. ‘It’s no use denying it. I know you too well, Roger. That dog’s very subdued, too. You might as well tell us what it is.’

In the end, of course, I gave in and recounted the story. ‘But if either of you expects me to climb Saint Michael’s Hill and inform Richard Manifold tonight, you can think again,’ I finished.

‘Why should we expect you to do any such thing?’ demanded Margaret. ‘It’s not urgent. It’s just a drowning. Walter Godsmark got drunk and fell in the river. It happens all the time.’

Adela, however, was not so positive. She saw my quick frown and laid a hand on my arm. ‘Sweetheart, what is it? Do you think that this death may have some connection with Jasper’s?’

I put one of my hands over hers and squeezed it. ‘You must admit,’ I said uneasily, ‘that one comes suspiciously close on the heels of the other. I have to say I can’t see any connection, but––’

‘I’ve never heard such nonsense!’ Margaret exclaimed scornfully. ‘Why shouldn’t it be an accident? People are always having them. If they didn’t spend so much time and money in the taverns, the majority could be avoided. It would be a good idea, too, if a lot more people learned to swim. In a town almost entirely surrounded by water, it’s disgraceful how many mothers and fathers don’t teach their children how to do it.’