All around was bustle and activity, but we were a still centre. Now we were able to tell our story in a more ordered style, up to the moment of the ambush.
I was glad to discover that the Shaws were actual kinsmen to Tom Cloke. I think part of me hadn’t quite believed the claim he’d made as we gazed down on Combe House. For their part, the women accepted us for who we were, members of the King’s Men and travelling companions to Tom, by chance more than by design. Abel described how Tom had attached himself to us when he found we were journeying to the Midlands in our profession as players. He added that I was visiting a dying uncle. Mary Shaw made some commiserating remark to me about this and I simply nodded, too embarrassed to say that I had been unaware of my uncle’s existence until a few days before.
I noticed that neither Elizabeth nor Mary showed much grief about Cloke’s death. Perhaps they were still too shocked by the suddenness of it all to respond or perhaps he had been a distant kinsman whom they’d scarcely known. Towards the end of our recital, however, Mrs Shaw abruptly said: ‘Did our cousin Thomas have anything with him?’
‘What sort of thing?’ said Abel.
The lady of the house, tall and good-looking like her daughter, appeared slightly uncomfortable at her own question.
‘I mean, did you notice whether he was carrying anything . . . unusual? Large enough to be in his bag or cap case?’
‘If he was, then it will be in the hands of our attackers,’ I said. ‘They made off with Tom and his horse. All his possessions were in the saddlebag.’
‘That is so, Mother,’ said Mary Shaw. ‘We saw one of the thieves snatch at the horse’s bridle and lead the beast and the body of our kinsman into the woods.’
Mother and daughter exchanged quick glances. And when the father and son reappeared – they had gone out at the head of the party searching for our attackers – I thought I saw an odd exchange between William Shaw, the owner of Combe House, and his wife. Mr Shaw came striding through the door of the hall, his son Robert close behind him and a gaggle of armed servants in their wake. Abel and I were still seated at the great dining table with Elizabeth and Mary. William Shaw announced to all of us what was already apparent from the expression on his face: ‘They are nowhere to be found, I fear.’ Then he gave a slight and separate shake of his head to his wife as if in confirmation of his words. But I sensed he was sending a different message to her. I cast a glance at Abel. He too had noticed.
This was a further small mystery for Abel and me to puzzle over after we’d been ushered upstairs to our chamber. We were to stay at Combe at least for the rest of the day and the night to come. The attack on us and the murder of Thomas Cloke would be reported to the justices in Banbury (the nearest town of any size), although this would have to wait since no one was going to venture far from the house that day. Realistically, any chance of tracking down and apprehending the culprits lay with the occupants of Combe, and that seemed to have failed.
‘Ah, well,’ said Abel, lifting his head from his hands. ‘Poor Tom.’ He sighed and lay back on the bed. I was sitting in a chair by the open casement window. Below was a sheer wall, at the base of which stirred the waters of the moat. This was not as wide or deep as a castle’s, but it was enough to make access to the house almost impossible except via the bridge in front of the gatehouse. At that moment I was glad of the security. I gazed over the water at the sunlit trees fringing the cleared area around Combe. On our ride up here this morning the countryside had looked peaceful, innocent. Now the shadows under the trees might conceal a band of murderers.
I was vaguely aware of Abel rising from the bed and going to the corner of the chamber where our bags had been stowed, brought to us from the stables by a boy servant. I travelled light, as did Abel. The costumes and everything else we required for our work were being conveyed direct to Warwick in the company wagons.
Now I heard Abel give a grunt of surprise.
‘What is it?’
He didn’t answer but swung his bag on to the bed. It was a battered old thing, going back to the time when Abel had made his living in an even more disreputable way than as a player. My friend was a reformed character these days, but he’d once tricked money and alms out of travellers by pretending to suffer from distressing ailments like the falling sickness. He used the cloth bag to carry the various items he needed (mostly cosmetic, like a player’s). But as he looked inside the cap case now it was evident that he wasn’t finding what he expected. He lifted out a square-shaped item that was wrapped in drab cloth and secured with cord.
‘I thought my bag was heavier than it should be,’ he said.
‘What is it?’
‘I don’t know. I didn’t put it in here.’
Abel placed the item on the bed. He ran his fingers along its edges. ‘Feels like wood. Or a book of some sort.’
The same thought crossed our minds at the same moment. Abel looked at me.
‘It must be Tom’s,’ he said.
I recalled that very morning in the stableyard of the Green Dragon at Woodstock. How Tom Cloke had been in the yard before us, chatting to the ostler. How he appeared startled or guilty when he saw us approaching. Had he slipped this . . . this item . . . into Abel’s bag beforehand? He’d taken the bag down to the yard early, as if he was doing Abel a favour. He had offered to take mine too, but I refused.
‘Put in here by accident?’ said Abel, then, seeing my expression, added: ‘No, I don’t think so either.’
‘He placed that – whatever it is – inside your bag when he was carrying it to the stableyard. He did it because he feared what might happen. Feared he might be attacked and his goods stolen.’
‘Not just him. We were attacked, remember.’
I could see Abel was angry and upset because Tom Cloke’s actions had placed all three of us in danger. I felt angry too, but Cloke had been Abel’s friend more than mine.
‘I am going to see what’s inside this piece of cloth,’ said Abel defiantly. ‘It may be a dead man’s property, but he has forfeited the right to it by his behaviour.’
Nevertheless, Abel Glaze continued to stare at the item in its drab covering where it lay on the bed. His reluctance to open it seemed to be based on more than some simple scruple about tampering with Tom’s possessions. But after a few moments he took a small knife from out of his cap case and, slitting the knotted cord that was bound about the parcel, unfolded the cloth. By this time I was standing beside him, looking down.
I don’t know what I expected to see. Something valuable for sure, valuable enough to cause four mysterious men to tail us over several days before launching an attack and murdering Tom. Something valuable, but not this. Abel had been right when he said that the object felt like a piece of wood or a book. It was both of those, an old volume with primitive wooden covers to which shreds of leather still clung. Crude stitching bound the covers together.
Abel lifted the book up without opening it. He handled it warily, as if it might bite. The back cover was pierced by several holes, suggesting it had once been nailed down somewhere. Altogether, the nail holes did not add to the attraction of the volume. Perhaps it had been used to stop up a hole in a wall. It was definitely ancient. The surprise was that it had survived at all and not been put to kindle a fire.
Only now did Abel open the book. I was peering over his shoulder. The leaves were of parchment and crackled to the touch. One of them was discoloured, as if a careless reader had spilled wine on it. Abel drew in his breath sharply, for the contents were in complete contrast to the unpromising exterior: a series of short handwritten texts positioned in the centre of each page, and with the lettering immaculately formed. The scribe, whoever he was, had taken pains to produce something imposing. Which argued that the contents must have been important – at least to him. Unfortunately, they didn’t make any sense.
‘It’s rubbish,’ said Abel. There was a mixture of regret and relief in his voice.
‘Let me see.’
I c
radled the volume in my hands. I was conscious of the stillness inside the chamber, of a fly buzzing at the casement window, of the sunlight outside.
‘It’s in Latin, I think,’ I said.
‘Of course, Nick. I forget you are an educated man.’
‘My father saw to that – with his rod if he had to.’
I was only half-aware of my own words, too absorbed in the writings of someone from centuries ago. For the volume seemed to stretch further into the past even as I was holding it. I went back to the seat by the window, where the light was better.
‘I can spell out some of it. Here’s a phrase about the house of a king and broken bones, and another one about the sacred face of a traitor. Set out like the lines of a poem.’
‘Rubbish, like I said.’
‘I’m not so sure. Have you got anything to write with? Anything to write on?’
Abel sighed and fumbled in his case. He produced a thin stick of charcoal. I don’t know why he had it but guessed it was part of the gear from his counterfeit crank days, when he’d conned money out of people. He hung on to the stuff for sentimental reasons. He gave me a roll of paper as well, saying it was the lines of some part he’d played recently and forgotten to return to the book-keeper at the end of the performance.
But I wasn’t interested in Abel’s part. I was too caught up by now in attempting to puzzle out a block of lines which occurred near the end of this slim volume. I tore off a fragment of the paper. Resting the book on my knees and using the smudgy charcoal, I copied the words on to the back of the paper scrap. It didn’t take long. Then I attempted to turn them into English. That took a lot longer. And then I sat staring at the whole thing until Abel grew exasperated and said: ‘Well?’
‘It’s not rubbish,’ I said, ‘even if the lines don’t appear to make much sense. It seems to rhyme in the Latin so it would go like this in English.’ I paused in the way that I would have done in delivering an important speech on stage.
‘“Ruler of two kingdoms, parleyment not humble,
Against great Rome do faithless spark.
He guides the means whereby their house does fall,
And fires the date henceforth will mark.”
‘But if I change “fall” to “crumble” I can get a rhyme with “humble”.’
I made the alteration in what I’d written and sat back, rather pleased with myself.
Abel was staring at me, though not in admiration. ‘I think you’d better leave the poetry to Master Shakespeare, Nicholas.’
‘You must admit it has some meaning even if it’s obscure.’
‘Possibly. It could be a prophecy or a prediction. I remember a fortune-teller near Paul’s Wharf who used to go in for that sort of thing. Rhyming lines and all.’
‘This must have been what they were after, those men,’ I said. ‘It’s the only thing that Tom transferred to your bag.’
‘If so, they were ready to murder for it.’
I closed the book. It suddenly weighed heavily in my lap. I felt slightly dizzy, the effect of the drink we’d taken downstairs, perhaps. We were silent for a moment. When Abel next spoke it was to echo my own thoughts.
‘Nick, when those men search inside Tom’s saddlebag—’
‘—which they will have done already—’
‘—they’ll see straight away that the book isn’t there—’
‘—they’ll assume we have it—’
‘—we do—’
‘—and come in search of it here—’
‘—come in search of us.’
As Abel concluded with this alarming prediction, I glanced out of the open window once more. The shadows under the distant trees grew darker.
‘We’re safe as long as we stay here,’ said Abel. ‘This is a well-defended house.’
‘We can’t stay here for ever. Some of us have got a living to make. I’ve got a dying uncle to see. Besides, we may be in as much danger within Combe House as outside it. I reckon that the Shaws were waiting for cousin Cloke to arrive. Mrs Shaw asked us whether Tom was carrying anything unusual on the journey. And you saw the look that passed between husband and wife when he returned from his hunt for the attackers. It wasn’t about not finding those men; it was about not finding . . . something else.’
‘So why don’t we just give them the book? Explain how Tom must have put it in my bag by chance?’
‘What’s to stop them kicking us out of here if we do? Kicking us out or something worse . . .?’
‘This is a respectable family, Nick. The danger lies outside.’
‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘But we should keep hold of this book for the time being. Let’s sleep on it. Tomorrow we can hand it over as we leave.’
‘All right,’ said my friend. ‘But in the meantime we’d better find a place in which to conceal it. I don’t want to put it back with my own things.’
In the end we tucked the book under a mattress on the bed. One of several mattresses on the bed, for this was a wealthy house. We had carpets on the floor too. We hid the book only just in time, for there was a knock at the door. It was Mary Shaw, the daughter of the house.
‘Gentlemen,’ she said, ‘I fear that we are not treating you as guests deserve to be treated. Please come with me.’
IV
It seemed that Mary had summoned us for no other purpose than to show off something of the house, or rather its immediate surroundings, before the evening meal. As we went downstairs into the hall, we saw the children again, a boy and a girl. They were attended by a clean-shaven, jowly man who inclined his head slightly to our guide. Mary Shaw explained that the children were also her cousins. Her mother’s sister, whom we hadn’t yet met, was a widow and a permanent resident in Combe. The clean-shaven individual acted as the children’s tutor.
We walked over the bridge across which we’d galloped on our arrival. We were not alone. A couple of the household servants, strapping fellows in livery and armed with staves, kept a discreet distance behind us. Their presence should have made me feel easier, but it did not. Also trailing behind us were the spaniels that had been in the hall. They were the particular pets of Mary Shaw. She called them Finder and Keeper.
Abel and I couldn’t help glancing towards the place under the fringe of trees where we’d last seen Tom Cloke, dead or dying, draped across his horse.
‘You knew your cousin Tom Cloke well?’ I said.
‘Not really, Master Revill,’ she said, ‘although the Clokes and the Shaws have long been linked through marriage.’
‘Have you any idea why he should have been attacked?’ said Abel.
‘It was an attempted robbery, was it not?’ she said as casually as she could manage. ‘Besides, I thought that all of you were attacked, not only Tom.’
She was a good liar but not good enough. I wondered why her mother Elizabeth wasn’t showing us around and answering our inevitable questions. The older lady might have been more convincing.
Combe House and its environs were delightful. Or they would have been under normal circumstances. The late-afternoon sun glittered off the dark moat. Ducks paddled in the water or preened themselves on the banks. Wagtails darted around. Mary pointed out the stews, or fish ponds, that were fed by the overflow from the moat, and the way in which the water was eventually channelled into a stream that ran at the lower end of a meadow beside the house. There was a certain pride in her voice, but Abel and I were uneasy and looked around as if our ambushers might at any moment emerge from the surrounding woodland. The two servants loitered just out of earshot, while Finder and Keeper went about their own affairs.
After half an hour or so we returned to the house and the hall, where the table had been prepared for supper. Abel made himself absent for a moment while Mary made small talk with me. Had I visited this part of the country before? Did I enjoy the player’s life? Usually, I would have welcomed her attention. She was a good-looking young woman, if somewhat serious, but her interest was for form’s sake only, and when her m
other entered the chamber she at once turned away and began a private conversation with her.
Mary’s place was taken by the steward of Combe House, a man called Gully. He was as sober as stewards tend to be, but he fitted well into this household of grave individuals.
‘This is a sad business, Master Revill,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘The death of a kinsman and all.’
‘He has brought trouble to Combe,’ said Gully, echoing Mary Shaw, although at least he did not blame Abel and me. ‘This is a peaceful spot, out of the world. Some of us do our best to ensure it remains that way.’
‘Sometimes the world comes to you, willy-nilly,’ I said.
‘You look as though you might enjoy the world coming to you, Master Revill.’
‘You can’t be otherwise and be a player. The world is our business, you might say.’
Before I could embark on any more high-sounding guff, Gully was summoned by his mistress.
Now Abel returned and tugged at my sleeve. He whispered in my ear: ‘Our room’s been searched.’
‘What!’
‘It’s been done quite carefully, but my things aren’t exactly as I left them.’
‘Is the book still there?’
‘Under the mattress, yes.’
‘Maybe we should have put it somewhere more obvious so they could find it.’
I was starting to regret hanging on to the damned thing. Our enemies seemed to be inside Combe House as well as beyond the place. I believed that Mary Shaw had been instructed to lure us out of our room so that our luggage could be examined.
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