13 - The Midsummer Rose (27 page)

‘There are rotten apples in every barrel, chapman. You may not like what we do for a living, but we do have a code of conduct. We abide by certain rules. And the first and foremost of those is,
never
take people’s money and then betray them to their enemies for yet more gold. A man who does that deserves everything he gets.’

‘And this is what Eamonn Malahide did?’

‘In this particular instance, I cannot say, but certainly on several occasions in the past. It was only a matter of time before he himself was betrayed and he ended up as you’ve described, with a knife through his heart.’

‘Who was he deceiving this time?’ I asked eagerly, but the Irishman shook his head.

‘I’ve told you, I don’t know. I had as little to do with the man as possible.’ He glanced at the faces around him. ‘Does anyone here present know?’

But no one did. And enquiries in the further corners of the room, among those who had not listened to my tale, or not heard it properly, produced no additional information. Eamonn Malahide seemed to have been given a wide berth by his fellow slavers. But at least I now understood a little better the reason for his death. Someone had warned Elizabeth Alefounder and Rowena Hollyns that Eamonn Malahide was about to play them false. What about was still a mystery, but I hoped to find that out in due course. It explained their treatment of myself when they had mistaken me for him, and his subsequent speedy despatch at Rowena’s hands.

But the women had obviously not known of his perfidy for any length of time before my arrival, or they would have left Rownham Passage and the ‘murder’ house without waiting to encounter their betrayer. So who had warned them?

I suddenly remembered Edgar Capgrave telling me that Robin Avenel had left on the morning in question by the Frome Gate some two hours after his sister, and had returned an hour or so before her.
He
must have carried the news. But why had the two women not come back with him? It had to be that something or someone had delayed their departure …

Briant of Dungarvon dug me sharply in the ribs.

‘Have you finished asking questions then, chapman? Because if so, we’d like you to be on your way.’ There was a vigorous nodding of heads. ‘We’ll pass your message on to the crew of the
Clontarf
whenever we come across them.’ He added in a lower tone, ‘And if I should learn anything more from them, I’ll send a message to Humility Dyson. He’ll call on you at home. Don’t come here again. You might bring the Law trailing in your wake.’

I shook my head. ‘The Law knows better than to interfere with the “Irish trade”.’

‘There’s always one mad, zealous fool with his eye on promotion,’ Briant retorted, adding with a face-splitting grin, ‘And for your information, my friend, across the water we refer to it as the “Bristol trade”.’

On which half-friendly, half-admonitory note, we parted. Briant called for more whisky and resumed his interrupted conversation with his companions in the lilting and, to me, totally incomprehensible Irish tongue, while I slipped quietly from the alehouse, breathing a sigh of relief that I was still alive and unharmed, and headed for the public latrine.

Having rid myself of the effects of fright and too much ale, I went back to Broad Street and, for the second time in two days, knocked on the kitchen door.

It was too much to hope that I should again be able to avoid Dame Dorothy, the dragon-like housekeeper, but my luck was in. It was the intelligent, if dour-faced Jess who answered my summons.

‘Oh, not you again,’ she groaned, starting to shut the door, a move which might have succeeded had I not swiftly shoved my foot into the gap. ‘Go away! I nearly lost my place here yesterday after spending all that time with you in the garden.’

‘Just one more question, that’s all,’ I pleaded. ‘It won’t take long, I promise.’

A face appeared over her shoulder. The freckle-faced girl hissed delightedly to her fellow kitchen maids, ‘It’s Jess’s admirer!’

There was a chorus of giggles and several more faces joined the first, eager and bird-like, twittering with anticipation.

‘Anything in your pack, chapman?’ asked one with a significance of tone that caused an immediate snigger. I felt myself blushing and cursed silently.

Jess rounded on them furiously, giving the nearest girl a vicious prod in the chest and sending her and the others staggering back into the kitchen.

‘Oh, get on with your work, do!’ she cried. ‘And if the dragon returns, tell her I’m in the jakes. Again!’ She pulled me round to the back of the privy and addressed me, hands on hips. ‘What is it this time? It had better be something important. And be quick about it!’

‘Can you remember as far back as the beginning of the month?’ I asked. ‘Saint Elmo’s Day, I think it was. Mistress Alefounder went out very early in the morning, just after dawn. A couple of hours later, Master Avenel went out as well. Do you have any recollection?’

Jess puckered her brows. ‘That’s three weeks and more ago,’ she reproached me. But then, just as I would have spoken again, she held up an imperious hand and nodded. ‘Wait a moment! Yes, I
do
recall the day you mean. The mistress had had belly gripe all night and I remember telling her it was sure to get better as it was Saint Elmo’s Day, him being the patron saint of belly and gut disorders. But she just went on whining, especially about being disturbed by her sister-in-law, who’d gone out at the crack of dawn. “No consideration for anyone else,” I remember her saying. “She knows what a light sleeper I am.” Then she wanted the master. Mistress Marianne, that is. He knew she was unwell. Why hadn’t he come to see her? And so on. She sent me to look for him, but he wasn’t in his chamber, so I went downstairs to get the mistress a bowl of thin gruel that she fancied. That was when Dame Dorothy told me that Master Robin had also gone out. I asked why, because the mistress was sure to want an explanation. She said she didn’t know why, except that someone, a man she thought, had called about half an hour previous, asking for the master most urgent, and as soon as Master Robin had spoken to him, he didn’t wait even for his dinner, which was almost ready, but yelled that he had to leave right away. Which he did.’

Going, I guessed, first to the stables in Bell Lane and then on to Rownham Passage. It all fitted.

‘Did Dame Dorothy happen to see the man who called?’ I asked.

Jess shrugged. ‘She didn’t say. I know the mistress took on something awful when I told her. Called Master Robin an unfeeling brute and lots of other things far worse. After a while, I stopped listening. Then Mistress Hollyns knocked on the bedchamber door. Said she was going out and asked if she could fetch anything for the mistress at the apothecary’s. Mistress got all petulant and threw a pillow at her.’ Jess giggled. ‘So that was that. Mistress Hollyns went off in a huff and left me to it. Course, Mistress Avenel should have an attendant of her own, but like I said, the master was a tight-fisted man in some respects. We four girls, we’re maids of all work.’

I was listening with only half an ear by now. What Jess had told me confirmed Edgar Capgrave’s information. Rowena had not left with Elizabeth Alefounder in the morning, but had been with her when she returned later in the afternoon. She had quit the house not long after Robin. So, before leaving, had he instructed her to follow him as soon as she could? Had he confided in her the reason for his hasty departure? I suspected that he must have. She was certainly privy to whatever had been going on and as deeply involved in it as Master Avenel and his sister. She, too, must have gone to the Bell Lane stable for a mount and then made her way to Rownham Passage. But how had she managed to evade Edgar Capgrave’s vigilant eye at the Frome Gate? If she had left by the Redcliffe Gate, at journey’s end she would have found herself on the wrong side of the Avon, in the manor of Ashton-Leigh and been forced to take the ferry across the river. Too much time would have been wasted. And I could vouch for the fact that she was in the ‘murder’ house when I made my ill-fated appearance at midday. So somehow or another she must have left the city using the Frome Gate without being spotted by the gatekeeper. I must have another word with Edgar Capgrave.

I was suddenly aware that Jess had finished speaking and was regarding me indignantly as the realization dawned that I had not been listening – at least, not for the last few minutes.

‘Have you heard a word I’ve said?’ she demanded angrily.

I leaned forward and kissed her gently on the cheek. ‘Of course,’ I protested. ‘The important part. And that’s all that matters.’

I delved into my pack and brought out a fine ivory comb that I had been saving as a Midsummer present for Adela, but had somehow forgotten to give her. Guiltily, I handed it to Jess, whose glow of pleasure in some measure compensated for the fact that I was becoming a neglectful husband. But then, I always had been. I thanked God that Adela was an understanding wife.

‘I must go,’ Jess said as we heard the kitchen door open and an urgent voice call softly, ‘Jess! She’s coming!’

Jess swung hurriedly on her heel, but as she did so, I grabbed her arm.

‘Does Mistress Hollyns have a blue brocade gown and a pair of red leather shoes?’ I asked.

Jess freed herself with an impatient gesture and reached the kitchen door in three long strides. But with her hand on the latch, she turned.

‘No, not her. Mistress had a blue brocade gown but it got mislaid. No one seems to know what happened to it. She blames us, of course. But she’s never had a pair of red leather shoes. They belonged to the master.’

‘I tell you, Mistress Hollyns, or whatever she’s called, did
not
leave by the Frome Gate that morning.’ Edgar Capgrave was adamant. ‘I know which morning you’re talking about, chapman, and I didn’t see her, I tell you.’

My luck was still in and I had found Edgar at his post when I had gone looking for him on leaving the Avenel house in Broad Street.

‘Try to remember,’ I pleaded, ignoring the fact that I was holding up four increasingly irate carters and a shepherd with a flock of sheep who, most unusually, seemed to have wills of their own and were wandering all over the street, fouling the cobbles. ‘Mistress Alefounder went out very early …’

‘Just after curfew was lifted,’ Edgar agreed, ‘like I’ve already told you.’

‘And then about two hours later – ten o’clock, would that have been? – Robin Avenel left.’ Edgar nodded. ‘And very soon afterwards, Mistress Hollyns.’

The gatekeeper shook his head.

‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘I keep telling you, no! I would remember. She came back with Mistress Alefounder about an hour after Robin returned. But I’ve already told you that, as well. Now, will you please get out of the way, chapman? You’re holding up the traffic.’

B
y this time, it was getting towards mid-afternoon and the heat was brazen. It had returned with renewed vigour after the rain of the previous day and I was sweating profusely. I needed somewhere cool to sit down and think things out where I would not be distracted by the aimless chatter of my fellow men (and women). That ruled out the Green Lattis, or any other of Bristol’s numerous hostelries. Moreover, I had drunk more than enough, for a while at least: a potent brew at the Wayfarer’s Return and a mazer of elderflower wine with my dinner. My head was swimming and its cause was not just the warmth of the city streets.

My conscience, too, was beginning to trouble me. I hadn’t earned as much as a groat for nearly two days, having spent the time in searching for clues to prove Burl Hodge’s innocence. Adela would soon be complaining of a lack of money and I should have nothing to offer her. It would mean breaking into my secret hoard – and I was saving that for an altogether different purpose. All the same, pounding the hot cobbles or even walking out into the countryside at present held no allure. My mind was focused on winkling out the real murderer of Robin Avenel.

I was conscious of a feeling I had so often experienced in the past; an awareness of being in possession of some fact, some knowledge, that I had either overlooked or was unable to extricate from the deeper recesses of my mind. I cursed myself roundly, as I always did, for one of these lapses. Carelessness and inattention to what was being said or done by the people around me undid all God’s efforts to set me on the short and easy path to the truth.

I was by now finding the heat – and my thoughts – so oppressive that I decided to stroll down to the banks of the Frome near the Dominican friary in the Broad Meads, where the river curved around the base of the castle and formed a part of its moat. I therefore left the city by the Pithay Gate and bridge and walked across the parched fields to my favourite spot, opposite the castle mill and weir, where I pulled off my boots and jerkin and lay supine among the sweet-smelling grasses and flowers that bordered the water’s edge. But when sleep threatened to overwhelm me, which it very soon did, I forced myself to sit upright and plunged my feet, hose and all, into the river. The shock of the cold water did the trick. It was time to take stock and sort out what I knew. And what I didn’t.

To begin with, I felt certain that Elizabeth Alefounder’s appearance and continued sojourn in Broad Street was no mere family visit to her brother, but had had, from the outset, a much more sinister purpose. Robin Avenel had been under suspicion of being a supporter of the Lancastrian, and therefore of Henry Tudor’s, cause since the previous summer. But in my estimation he had never been decisive enough to hold any opinions of his own without having them formed for him by someone of far more positive views. His father, Peter Avenel, was a straightforward man who, I suspected from the little I knew of him, would always support the ruling faction in the interests of a quiet and prosperous life. He would change his political coat as often as he changed his everyday apparel and shy away in horror from any hint of treason. But somebody had persuaded Robin to dabble his toes in the murky waters of sedition, and that person, I felt sure, was his strong-minded sister.

So, I had established to my own satisfaction that Elizabeth Alefounder had arrived in Bristol with some nefarious purpose in mind; some purpose which involved Robin Avenel renting the old Witherspoon house at Rownham Passage for a night at the beginning of June. He had told the apothecary that the accommodation was needed for two men, although when, the following day, I had made my own ill-fated entrance upon the scene, I had only been aware of the presence of one man – a man I now thought, from his speech, might have been a Scot.